.____.

this is me now, in my mid-thirties, reading things I've written in my mid twenties

it's amazing how I still find some feelings quite relatable, at the same time disgusted by all those cheesy confessions I've made. 

yet I'm grateful that the me in my twenties made an effort to jot them down so that I can have this moment now to laugh at that childish me who once a hopeless romantic

-

Occasions in your thirties have a different weight now.

Once upon a time, the ritual of getting dress up meant feeling celebrated, carefree - a birthday, a graduation

In your thirties, occasions mark the passing of your own time or a checklist - there is ALWAYS something needed to be done - buy this, clean that, attend a wedding

In your thirties (also), there are only three moods:

•  Doing everything at once - read above
•  Doing nothing at all
•  Googling remote villas in the other end of the globe like you're about to start over with a new name and no emotional history

***

let's see

so what changed over the past 8 years?

some things changed, some things stayed the same

that iPhone 6S that my dad gifted in the past few post - is now obsolete

but the iPhone 15 PM that I'm currently using, is still a gift from my dad

Pandemic that turned the world upside down happened,

I've changed jobs, yet I'm still away from home

and still refusing to call anywhere not KL "home"

I'm in my mid thirties, still here babbling away when what I really need to do is to start studying for my upcoming exam

and yes, there are still never ending studying and exams in my life -.-

Life really is an ironic tragedy

we live it forward, yet it only makes sense in reverse

We’re so obsessed with knowing. Knowing who we are. Knowing where we’re going. Knowing how the future will play out, or who we will fall in love with. Knowing what we’re meant to do or where we’re supposed to end up. Knowing the person we should be, the person we are, the person we will become.

We want to know everything.

And so much of my life has been lived that way – searching, looking, wanting.

I’ve been on a constant loop – a record on repeat – scratching the vinyl, droning on and on in seamless static. I keep thinking that if I try hard enough, if I push myself a little more, I’ll figure this whole thing out. I’ll understand what path I’m supposed to be walking on, what steps I’m supposed to take.

I’ve always been one to plan, to lay out the map before me and plot out a route. When it comes to the unknown, I’ve struggled.

I want to know.
I want to understand.
I want to choose.

But what I’ve realized is I don’t have any control.

***

Doctors spend a lot of time focused on the future, planning it, working towards it. But at some point you start to realize your life is happening now. Not after med school, not after housemanship, right now. 

This is it.

It's here.

Blink and you'll miss it.

We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future. As if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and our wildest hopes.

But one thing is certain: When it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.

.


Here's a confession:

On my first labour room call duty as a medical student, I fainted after observing the very first childbirth in my life. 

It was a typical Thursday evening, only it wasn't typical at all (in my context). We were following a case which was supposed to be a normal delivery, but after close to 10 hours of labour pain, momma was too exhausted to push! Long story short, it ended up as an assisted delivery where a forcep and vacuum were involved, along with A LOT of shouting/crying, and inevitably, many (MANY) blood-soaked surgical towels.

A baby boy was delivered 10 mins later. I caught a glimpse of the baby at the hallway as the nurses wheeled him in a incubator to the NICU, and it was an image I could never possibly forget - he was tiny and greyish-blue, the use of vacuum caused the shape of his head turned conical. 

The rest of the night happened in blur (read above) and after that night, everyone in the labour room knew about me.

That night I went home with nothing but embarrassment.

That night I decided that maybe, maybe I am not a surgeon-material.

It wasn't the blood that I was afraid of. 

It was the thought of "what if it was me?"

***

There's this thing that happens when people find out you're a doctor. They stop seeing you as a person and begin to see you something bigger than you are. They have to see us that way, as gods, otherwise we're just like everyone else, unsure, flawed, normal. So we act strong, we remain stoic. We hide the fact that we're all too human.

Patients see us as gods or they see us as monsters. But the fact is, we're just people. We screw up, we lose our way. Even the best of us, have our off days. Still we move forward. We don't rest on all the rules or celebrate the lives we've saved in the past. Because there's always some other patient that needs our help. So we force ourselves to keep trying, to keep learning. In the hope that, maybe someday we'll just come a little bit closer to the gods our patients need us to be.

There are two types of love.

There's the kind that you find in good morning texts and shy smiles; 

the kind that comes with butterflies and stolen glances;

the kind where you laugh for no reason, and a smile is forever glued to your face

sweet, simple, honest, pure.

And then there's the kind that finds you in 2am phone calls and the tears on your pillow;

the kind that comes with a war between your brain and your heart;

the kind where nothing makes you happier;

and nothing makes you sadder;

passionate, overwhelming, intense, daring

and when it all comes crashing down

so do you.

home;

My rented room has been in a state of disarray for a grand total of 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago I was 90% done with packing, now I am 91% done with packing. The remaining 9% is probably all the packing I need to do in my heart.

Today I lay in bed, knowing quite well that I have to say good-bye to it. But its luxury compelled me to stay on. It’s as if it’s being intentionally exceptionally comfortable this morning. Such a tease.

I need not cry throwing away most of my stuff (okay la got tear up a little, due to allergies!) because in your 20s, stuff are just…stuff. I no longer hold on to the sentiments that come along with memorabilia, souvenirs and knick-knacks. Afterall, everything is replaceable except people and memories. And none of those things can be packed into a suitcase.

Besides, if we hang on to old things, how are we to make room for the new?



All in all, I suppose I’ve never been happier to be heading home. To a place where we can only did order in chaos. To the place that never sleeps.

And back to the people who love me most.

From a very young age, people around you give you some form of expectation. Whether or not by age 2, you can read Peter and Jane book 5 independently. Are you able to ride a bike without training wheels? Do you cry while taking vaccination shots?

As you age, you start giving yourselves the same expectations, just in different context. You seem to think that happiness is a destination.. And like a board game, you map out your strategies, plan your ambushes; say the Hail Mary and roll the dice.

You think that you will be happier if you lost a good 10 pounds, or clerk an interesting case in the ward without any interruptions within the time limitation you set for yourself, or finally get that Tiffany & Co. that you've been longing for. We equate our sense of satisfaction from things that we can see or hold or touch or document.

I read an interesting short story by Neil Gaiman some time ago,

‘You can take your gold, but afterwards, things are,’ he paused, ‘things are flat. There is less beauty in a rainbow, less meaning in a sermon, less joy in a kiss…’ He looked at the cave mouth and I thought I saw fear in his eyes. ‘Less’

I said, ‘ There are many for whom the lure of gold outweighs the beauty of a rainbow.’

At one point, when we’ve achieved all that we’ve set out to achieve. We’ll find that we’re still stuck in a perpetual hangover. Wondering where all the meaning has gone; and no matter how much horse shit you put on your lawn, why the hell is the grass still greener on the other side.

Being human, we cling too dearly to things that we should let go of. Whether they are unrealistic expectations of the future, the past that we cannot change, or the present that we are unwilling to accept.


And in the end, that is what drives us mad.

July;

It is of popular belief that you should at least achieve one of the following three things in your time in university:

a) Have a life changing experience

b) Meet the love of your life

c) Change the world

You’d think that for a person who spent 6 years living away from home for the sake of tertiary education, I’d be able to walk away with at least one of the three things. Well first and foremost, I suck in maintaining friendship. I'm a high maintenance friend and I will not explain to you what that means but suffice to conclude, other than the usual few favourite person(s), I don't have much of a social circle here. I'm not okay with it but neither do I want to fix it because I don't intend to stay here for a very long time. Secondly, way up here in good ol’ Sungai Petani/Alor Setar, nothing life changing ever happens. In fact, I’d dare say nothing ever happens. You could go home to the city for 3 days, and when you return, this town is exactly the way it was last week. 

Or maybe I have went through all three things. Just in subtle ways that may take a further 6 years to ponder and digest. 

I think I’ve learnt by now that it’s not the things you achieve that you appreciate most; it’s the things you’ve built. Once you’ve ran a marathon, you don’t remember the moment they hand out your finisher’s medal. When you’re old and senile and just had your 2nd stroke, you’d cherish the time running 10k every day, and you'd proudly tell everyone you ran a total of 500km in 3 months even when you can't remember your grandchildren's name.

I feel like I’ve been up to so much in the past couple of months that I’ve been missing from the blogsphere. One day when I’m 50 and I’m still thick-skinned enough to be keeping this little corner in the world wide web, I wouldn’t even remember that little window of time in final year where I was so stressed out I cried because I had breakouts and mysterious eczemas/backache and feel ultimately ugly and then went on random food strike, only to binge on extremely high caloried food later. Yeah that's how messed up I am right now .___.

But nevertheless. We’re almost there, just one final, FINAL push. 

180616, 0318;

when you're little, night time is scary because there are monsters hiding right under the bed.

when you get older the monsters are different - self doubt, loneliness, regret.

and though you may be older and wiser, you still find yourself scared of the dark.

There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone.

It wasn't because I thought I'd be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. 

It's easier to be alone, because what if you learn that you need love and you don't have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain?

Losing love is like organ damage.
It's like dying. 

The only difference is, death ends. 

This? 

It could go on forever.

dear me,

You deserve all those sleepless nights and that second cup of coffee. You deserve to be having a hard time, to be struggling your way through every single day, because there’s no other way to make you realize how much you want your dreams to come true.

There are moments where you question yourself, ask why you didn’t just go the easier path. Sometimes you even blame other people for the hardships that you are encountering, pointing fingers, forgetting that you wouldn’t be where you are without them.

Sometimes it gets to a point where you just want to give everything up. But even with all those challenges, you have to remind yourself that you deserve to be struggling because it reminds you to want it more.

Our greatest fear is if our dream isn’t for us. It is hard. But you also have to realize that it is okay to complain from time to time, to cry and breakdown.

You have to remember to be human.

Although it is easier to let your emotions eat you up, always remember that you have to do it; you have to get up and finish that case so you can manage it the right way the next time you encounter it, or to continue to study that last page of your anatomy book so you can correctly diagnose patients and save lives, or maybe, you have to stay up not only for yourself, but for everyone else so that the future will be brighter.

You have to keep in mind that you are where you are not only because of a dream or the desire to change the world, but also because of the struggle of other people to help you reach your goal. You are not alone in your journey to finishing your degree, so remember to thank everyone else who continuously pushes you to fight and believe.

Remember that you are struggling because you have to, that nothing good comes easy, and as cliché as it may be, 

remember that the fire that melts butter is the same fire that hardens steel.