Q

loss // hope in another universe

As a child i could not fathom loss. Everyone – everything – was fixed so decidedly in their respective orbits around my singular world, that i could not imagine them as their own universes.

My first was a bluebottle, proudly captured beneath a plastic container as it wandered on our kitchen sink. Its coat was a gleaming swirl of green-purple-blue, a whole galaxy alive between those tiny wings. For a day it was mine. Mine in a way no other possession was.

But by morning, i was told to let it go or it would die: tiny holes punctured on the plastic lid were simply not enough. Despite (or because) of my fierce and determined love, it was suffocating. That morning i sobbed by the window sill as i watched the bluebottle stretched to its full span and take off into sun.

I sobbed and decided my little heart could not possibly hold a loss greater than this. Years later, i would again choose to lose someone i loved to watch has wings open against the morning light, and realize that was the easiest pain to bear.

The loss that broke the world as i knew it; where everyone is as they should be, but with everything changed. When i understood that death can be willed.

The loss not of a person but of a place, of dislocation and homesickness.

The loss of one vulnerable and fully dependent, in my arms, gone from warm to limp. A loss i had the power to stop but did not.

The loss of one alive but away – a physical loss, a speechless loss, a loss of utter absence. Of something always there – so much always there that i’ve never turned around to check, and now it’s gone.

But through it all i remember that glint of indigo against sunlight. The moment when my tear-streaked seven year old self vaguely understood: this meant hope in a universe that wasn’t mine. Hope that was beyond me, but no less meant for me.

April 19, 2017
a lifetime of memories with you

before i forget

– hosting st nick’s national day ceremony with you. singing badly in front of 10 cohorts of girls.

– the days i went down my block every morning, waiting for you to come by – that blur morning face. that few minutes we have together before our ride pulled up.

– the days of maran, us mugging math together, giving each other side glances at maran’s unintended innuendos.

– the days in primary school we were collectively punished by chan ah moy. (taking turns to sit on the bin.)

– the days you had brownie after school and we’d prank you while you were flag-raising.

– when we had table tennis together, and we would think up games to play. making up ridiculous stories about sumos being so fat they collected sweat in pools of fats. your story about the indian man who went for a tan and became fair. our one line each poems together.

– math. teaching each other how to draw models.

– calling each other to ask about homework, but ending up chatting.

– our communication book. upgrading from passing notes in class we passed a book around to record our conversations.

– writing and illustrating stories together. our first one was about a man. with a heart which spilled out. tumbling down a hill. in a single-lined exercise book. we never finished that one. our second, a love story, written on foolscap and neatly filed.

– R U Chicken board game. when we invented a game of truth and dare translated to a board game and won that award. when we screamed and cheered when we won.

…

April 9, 2017
resolutions 2.0
It is our 1st anniversary today and i don’t think you remember.

christmas, new year’s eve, my birthday, it has so far been disappointing. so i have prepared myself in advance, pep-talked myself into believing that i don’t mind if you forgot – that i want you to forget. So that my gift of labor to you is all the more precious in its guilt-inducing asymmetry, because i’m messed up like that. i hold guilt like power.

all the preparation, but last night i woke up at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep. i cried because i knew you’ve forgotten, before the day’s begun. i cried because i couldn’t make myself not care.

but this is self-destructive, i’ve decided that year 2 with you will be defined by these resolutions:

I won’t put you as the center of my life anymore, the disparity is too huge. You obviously care for me, but the positioning of you and me in each other’s universes is too disparate.
1. I won’t plan to spend every spare moment i have (off-days, free nights) with you. In fact, i will stop asking you whether we can study together (unless i really need/want to).
2. I will choose to spend time with friends/family if given the choice, over you. I will.
3. I won’t agree to every thing you propose, if i don’t feel like it. If i’m sleepy, tired, busy, have other things to do – i will say no
QING, please. Come back to these rules you’ve set yourself, alright?
March 21, 2017
Solitude is bliss

The feelings i love and hate most are curiously intertwined, a fact i only realized today.

On one hand, i love feeling like i’m the only one in the world. On the other, there is a deep fear of being the only one left in the world.

From the time i started making my way to school every morning, i’ve come to savor those moments alone – before anyone in the house is awake, when i have the place and air and time all to myself. Everything is quiet, liberating, my own.

Solitary walks are another one of my indulgences. I’ve done two, three hour walks around neighborhoods just to be by myself for awhile. Sometimes i sing my lungs out at the roaring traffic.

One of the closest times i’ve gotten to complete solitude was recently, in Taiwan. While trekking Yang Ming Shan, there were stretches where i could see neither what was ahead nor behind me. As if my world consisted of the immediate steps i was on and my furiously beating heart. All else was fog. I’ve never felt so alive.

I knew i found my special someone when i wanted to – and could – share this solitude with him. Rather than feeling the urge to catch a breath somewhere alone, i feel a peace that never suffocates. I knew that when the feeling of delicate solitude extended and encompassed HS, whenever we stayed out late into the night, the streets a ghost town, the air crisp from un-use.

“Don’t you feel like we’re in a video game where everyone else are NPCs and only we’re real?”

Sometimes it’s really just us. The city streets turned upside down with every last human shaken off its tarmac. Only Lana Del Ray’s deep, reverberating beats in our side of the one earphone we were sharing. My nose was cool with midnight condensation and my brain fuzzy with near sleep, but i didn’t want this shared solitude to end.

On the other end of the spectrum –

but also what i suspect to be just the flip side of a mobius strip –

is that utter loneliness i feel in my insomniac nights. When every single person, one by one, drops off into a peaceful sleep. When I’m the only one left awake, my mind buzzing like a singular lost radio-wave shuttling in space without receptors. I scroll through Telegram and count the last seens move further away from my current time. Facebook green dots flitting into gray. “I am so lonely.” I always think then.

February 16, 2017
Valentine’s Eve

Are our relationships defined by shared experiences, or by our objective liking for the significant other? Is it possible to tease the two apart?

Here’s a thought experiment:

One day i have an extreme, highly specific case of amnesia. All the memories i have of my S/O are wiped clean, as if he never existed in my life. If we spend some time together, will i fall in love all over again?

Or was the first time i fell in love because of a set of circumstances, happenings, coincidences, that predisposed it?

I want to believe that it’s the former. That i can have amnesia once, twice, more – but in every instance i would fall in love as i did the first time.

Even if we didn’t hit all the highs or weathered shit together, i would love him because he is kind, strong, funny, respectable. I would love him because he’s the one i want to go through the highs and the shit lows with.

Ohey, it’s an hour into Valentine’s Day. An appropriate post for the occasion, for once. Today (yesterday?) caught me in terrible menstrual pain. The late half of the afternoon had me completely incapacitated, curled up fetal-like in bed. I could not stand for more than a minute without feeling bile rising.

Less than an hour later i had menstruheat (it works!), panadol, and a cup of warm water delivered right up to my bed. Thanks HS, although you just spoiled your own market for Vday because no other gesture could be as touching as running several pharmacies to find me pink Panadol.

On this note, sleep i shall. First day of many many that i’ve willingly stayed up this late. My dedication to blog these days is astounding.

February 14, 2017
Skincare

Every morning and night, i slather my face in skincare. It has such a therapeutic effect on me.

I’ve always been a moisturizing maniac, but recently got my act together and sketched out a proper skincare plan. Toner, advancer, essence, lotion/night cream. There is something about the consistency, the structure, that appeals to my primal need for order and routine. That and also, good skin.

I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that i look forward to my twice daily slather-session. You’re also speaking to the person who does lymphatic face massages on public transport all the time, so i may be more prone to face-touching than the average human.

At this point, i’d say that the process of skincare matters more to me than the absolute results.

This reminds me of what i told H just yesterday about my nails.

“I don’t actually care how my nails look. I just enjoy painting them. It’s so therapeutic.”

Is it a coincidence that i find peace in activities of feminine beautification? Is this the part where i discover my psychological well-being is dependent on patriarchal determinants of worth?

I don’t mind it that so much though.

Zen and beautiful are great things to be.

February 12, 2017
A bientot

This MAY be the longest i’ve gone without a post. It’s a curious situation. I never thought i’d stop writing on this platform. Through the years it has taken all shapes and forms: a platform for unfiltered rants, updates. Later a place for exposition and lengthy opinion pieces, and more recently still a curation of updates and abstractions. Far from being less valuable to me – this blog has become too much so. When I open up the new post page, it becomes something of a grand undertaking. Frivolity, on-the-go scribbles have taken residence in alternate channels. Sometimes I lament the lack of incentive for me to structure my thoughts more coherently and reflectively, which this place offers me. Other times I’m grateful for the relative privacy and convenience this blog doesn’t offer.

I’d hate to leave things hanging, so this is somewhat of a ‘just in case I don’t come back for a long time, here is why’ post. I may do a round-up on Taiwan, when the time permits. Because hey, working adult and all now!

Till then~!

January 25, 2017
Always summer

I woke up in summer to a world thrown in stark relief. A consuming nightmare disguised as a dream. So deep and lulling, it is the only peace I know.

Summer was alive, was of everything bright and real. At times it made me drowsy and in need of the slumber i once knew. Mostly i don’t want it to end. I look down at sunkissed palm and don’t know who i am.

–

Summer is me, vaporizing. Over here summer is eternal.

January 15, 2017
Letters to C #2

We were 7 when we first met, our beginning uncomfortably reminiscent of those cheesy playground romances. It feels like centuries ago, in another life, but everything remains vivid – the exact location you sat (front row, third column from the far end, the smooth concrete speckled with chalk dust and whirling debris, the diffuse duskiness that always permeated our classrooms before we moved into the new campus.

At that time, you were known as 木头人, ingeniously knighted by our Chinese teacher. Already, that signature helmet of unruly hair nestled disobediently on your head, obscuring the view of everyone sitting behind you. Already, you were prone to rubbing your nose – a gesture we would use over and over in our impressions of you in years to come. Already, all that characterizes you were so salient: your sloth-like, stoic stillness; your complete inability to speak mandarin; your refusal to adhere to the norm and sit on the floor when others did (forever 木头人 on that chair). Already, you were so startlingly special.

I guess what makes me so fundamentally Qing was also burgeoning underneath. I’ve always felt drawn to strange people. They are a breed that fascinated and attracted me. But I was a child, and special meant different than unique. So before I could comprehend my fascination, I labelled it as ‘vague annoyance’. This isn’t an excuse for my rather mean-spirited interactions with you – not that I’ve ever tried finding an excuse for them, HAHAHAHA. The point is: I was rather mean.

I just flatly refused to acknowledge that you captured my attention so frequently because I wanted to understand your mind that you so meticulously kept under that cloud of hair. No, you just obstinately highlighted yourself in my periphery ’cause of how annoyingly obtuse you were. We always came back to this anecdote when describing our earlier years of hostility:

You were an avid sketcher back then, doodling a bunch of manga-esque characters on your desk. Admittedly, I was impressed. A little envious, even. A part of me wanted to express this admiration, because good art should always be validated (even 7 year old me was aware of that, yes); the other, overwhelmingly prideful part told me NO! I can’t bow down and defer to the Wood Head Human.

So in this struggle between admiration and pride, I wrangled out a flippant “Wow, your drawings very nice hor.” It came out much more sarcastic than I intended to, but “Hey! I got the message across!” I thought smugly.

I was a snotty little gnat and I’m sure you thought of me as no less than that. Snottiness and wooden-ness aside, we somehow ended up as desk partners in Primary 2. This was where our friendship truly began.

And like a painful 100-episode Taiwanese drama, to be continued >

October 26, 2016
Letters to C #1

Dear Cel,

It’s been a week since you’ve entered the convent, less than 2 months since you told me you might become a nun in Spain, a decade of being BFFs, and 16 years since we first met in class.

I hope you understand my inconsistent and sometimes distant responses to your decision. On one hand, i’m so happy for you. To see your friend discover – with such certainty – what they truly want in life, is an absolute joy. It’s easy to be infected by the peace and contentment so evident in your being when we do meet – it’s easy to express the parts of me that’s rejoicing with you about your upcoming nun-hood.

On the other hand. I’m still waiting for the realization to sink in. Qing’s stages of grief can be simplified to four phases: awkward coping with humor > i am gonna become a robot and distance myself all my feelings > the world comes crashing down > i am completely chill now. At this point we’re somewhere smack in the middle of awkward humor: our group chats are awash with nun jibes, we deliberately miss the point and poke at the most irrelevant points to avoid the huge elephant that is your eventual departure.

At this point, i’m coming to terms with the fact that i can (and will always) have conflicting emotions about this. Firstly, you’re in love! For years i’ve dreamed of you finding The One – me interrogating him and intimidating him and all of us having family BBQs and playing boardgames together or whatever. You have found The One, but in typical Mugs style, we just refuse to lead a life in the normative route. He just has to be a spiritual messiah. Trust you to ruin my plans of BBQs and boardgames like that.

I’m just kidding. That was the awkward humor surfacing. What really mattered, although i’ve not had a reason to think this previously, is that you are truly in love and are truly loved; that you’ll be happy and complete in your marriage. You are, and i would rather this than you settling for anyone who’s not your true love, just to complete my BBQ plans in the physical plane.

Yet you’ll also be gone. There won’t be Whatsapp, emails, Skype. All my projections of the future – you a weepy mess at my wedding; being an annoyingly enthusiastic auntie at my first childbirth; playing D&D as 80 year old grandmas together – have to be readjusted. Those are the toughest moments for me. A friendship i’ve taken for granted so simply plucked out of my life.

(Just so you know i’ve devised alternate plans for that. I’ll be printing a cardboard cut-out of you as a stand-in bridesmaid at my wedding.)

That this is your choice makes it both harder and a relief. At times i feel betrayed. That you’ve gone all hoes over bros and decided to leave all of us behind to pursue your true love. I’m not gonna pangseh the mugs for any dude, and i know this because i’ve gone head-to-head with a love who continuously threatened our friendships. But i have to accept that your love is transcendent, your partner is admittedly above everything else in your life. It’s all pretty difficult to swallow but i’m trying.

Despite that, it’s a relief to know that you’re alive, you’re in great joy, and that we’ll part still as BFFs and hold each other in our hearts all that cheesy crap, you know.

I’m here because writing is how i cope best.

This will be a log of me coming to terms with your leaving. And to immortalize the years and years of memories i have of you, with you. From when you were a 木头人 to (all my credit) the beautiful human being you are today underneath that immovable block of wood.

Cel, you still have a few months left with internet. Or simply contact with us in your previous life. So i’m gonna lay it all our here while i still have the chance.

Love,
Qing

October 21, 2016