Growing up, I was always faced with questions of self-doubt, that I would never be good enough for anything. My parents certainly seemed to find fault with me at every juncture. "You never make your bed in the mornings! Why are your grades going down again! Why are you always losing your temper!" And being young, I would resent all these judgments being passed on me, feeling indignant and yet helpless to fight the inevitable doubt that would set in after the initial rush of anger dissipated.
I tried to arrest the doubts, but they slipped me with a fleeting evasiveness, so much that I never knew who or what was the reason behind that feeling of inadequacy I always felt. I just knew that no matter what I did, it would never be enough. It would never be enough to erase the doubts of those around me. Because those around me doubted themselves, and in doubting themselves, they also doubted me. And that was what I lived with.
I came from a family where both parents worked, and no one would be around to do the housework. Eventually, it became implicit that I would do it, because no one else would or had the time to. And I found that I enjoyed it, because it was something I knew I could do well. I could see if I was doing well. The floor was cleaner, the sheets neater, and I had an element of control over it that I never had over anything else in my life. The battered sense of self-esteem that I had also made me very good at it, because I actually became obsessed over it. It was a principle that would guide everything work-related in my life - if I had any element of control over the outcome, I would do it right, and to the best of my abilities, to the extent that it might seem a little OCD to those not accustomed to it.
But when one is navigating the perliously thick and foggy swamp that is social life, I often found that this principle constricted me as much as it helped me. I would try my very best to relate to the people around me, but sometimes, people don't respond the way they should, and it took me a long time to understand that it's not your fault, that it's out of your control, because ten million things are happening at once, and sometimes, people don't treat other people right because they are still trying so hard to figure out how to treat themselves right.
I've never had the easiest of relationships with my parents. I felt they never understood me, but now that I'm older, I realise that many times, they couldn't have. They grew up in a Singapore that transformed within their lifetimes, from a sleepy rural village into the urban metropolis it is today. They could never have experienced what it was like to be a student with the privileges and trappings that came with it, not in the context that I had today. They've never had the opportunities I've had, because in their time, they didn't exist.
And I felt many times that their ignorance came at a cost to my own ambitions, but now that I'm older, I see that although they were ignorant, they always tried their best to support me and help me in any way they could. They worked their lives off, to provide money for my education, although it also meant that as a result, they were mostly emotionally absent, because being away at work so much, the only real emotional investment they had in their children's lives came once a year on "Meet the parents" day, and we all know how teachers always try their best to make you the angel you're not in front of your parents.
It may not have been the best way, but to quote a line from Grey's anatomy, "people are better than no people." The fact that they've never left, and unquestioningly given me their support so that I may now stand on my own two feet in exchange, and seek a life I can finally call my own, I owe this to them.
As I reflect on myself, I realise that the best and worst in me, I got from them. I learnt how to lose my temper because I saw my parents lose theirs sometimes, and that was precisely what I did when I felt angry, because I didn't know any other way to deal with it. And my temper was to cost me much more than I'd ever think, so much that I told myself that I would never lose it again. I haven't lost it in over a year, so much that some people actually think I don't have one, and only the ones who've known me longer know how bad it used to be.
I also learnt how to forgive people for all the wrongs I've had done to me, because that was what my parents always did, like when my grandmother was paralysed as a result of a botched operation which had an 80% rate of success, which saddled my family with immense debt and stress.
I learnt love and sacrifice, because that was what we all did when we put our lives on hold, so that we could be there for her. For 6 long years, our lives stopped. No more family holidays, picnics and barbeques, because someone had to care for her. When she finally left us at the close of 2007, I was devastated and disorientated. My first university exams were in 2 weeks, and I had just suffered a huge emotional loss.
But that very same principle I have for work, it served me very well during that time. Throughout those 2 weeks I juggled the roles of student and grandson, studying overnight in a void deck as I took my shift to watch over the wake, because the adults were exhausted from the day's proceedings. I told myself that I had to get over the exams first, before I could allow myself to sit back, to grieve, to take stock of the scale of what had just happened in my family.
It was then that I realised that everything that has happened to me, it's not a weakness, its a strength. It is a strength and resilience borne out of great tragedy, the one good thing that has come out of all this, that allows me to become stronger even as the world around me crashes, I know where I'm going, what I have to do next, and I do it.
Sometimes, shit happens in your life. But the only thing you can do is live the best way you know how. The world is not all about you. The world doesn't revolve around you. You can make a difference to it, but the world will not stop for you just because your world is a mess, and much of the time, the mess is of your own making. Your fears, your insecurities, you let them take over you, like a pair of glasses that tints everything you see and experience, and after a while, you become so used to having those glasses on you forget what it's like to take them off.
Take them off, if only for a moment. And just sit there, thinking, feeling, living. And if you do that long enough, you might realise that maybe, there's a better way to live.
Everyday, I wake up, and I do as much right as I can in my life. And I fight away the inevitable neuroses that come once in awhile. I don't always win, but nothing is ever worse after a good sleep. And after that, I am ready to live again.
Happy Mother's Day Mom. I'm sorry this is late, but it wasn't easy to write. I do appreciate all that you've done for me, and although it hasn't been easy, I know how much you've given so that I might live. I hope that the person your son has become makes you proud.