One fine day at 5am

I don't know why I have this strange ability to remember things. It's like I have an elephant memory or something. I can still remember things from the time I was four. I'm not saying I remember EVERYTHING but I remember I had a little ugly blue frock mum forced me to wear and I ripped it apart with a pair of scissors then. At four yes. I had a huge one from my mother. She caned me pretty bad for that one. I also remember her long flowing yellow dress. She looked beautiful whenever she wore that. I remember watching old movies with my mother, and old soaps. People grew up watching cartoons and cute stuff but I grew up watching soaps and dramas with mum. For the longest time I remember why to this day I am magnetically drawn towards the cheesiest soaps.

I also remember hating certain foods when I was a kid. Particularly fish porridge. I thought fish was the smelliest thing in the world especially with the skin intact. I would rip fish skins out and dad would force me to eat them back up. I used to tell myself it wasn't happening and that I was eating candy or something. I was 6 then. I also remember my aunt when she was young. She was such a pretty thing my aunt. I used to wish that I could grow up to be like her, to sound smart and be proficient in languages. She had done well in college and everyone considered her an intelligent and capable beautiful woman of her time.

I was always very tan when I was young. I used to run about all the time. I loved being an active kid. I fought with my brother and never considered myself a girl. I was very very tomboyish then and whatever he wanted, I decided I too wanted. Hence it was very strange that I found myself surrounded with transformer toys, with little trains, toy cars and leggos.

Sometimes I wish I didn't remember so much because I remember the bad stuff as well. :) I guess this is part and parcel of the memory bank. You enjoy the great memories and also sort of have this static flashbacks of the bad. Not because you cannot let go but just, those cells won't leave you alone.

I woke up at 5am just now. I don't know if I started becoming a little emotional because of the tragic death of A. But I wondered to myself what I had ever done for mum and dad. Whenever I'm back in my Singapore home, my mum would start making delicious foods for me. I said it wasn't necessary but she insisted it made her very happy. When she said that she smiled.

"Because you're my only daughter."

The other time my brother said during mum's cancer and operation we had bonded stronger as a family. He said, sometimes  it wasn't that bad and out the bad good could be felt.

" Flowers grow out of dark moments" -- Corita Kent.

I saw mum as she was wheeled inside the operating theatre. I said a prayer, held her hand and then told her I would be right there when she came out. At that moment it was as if I understood what our roles were; what my role in life was. I was this woman's daughter. This woman had shed tears, laughed, tired herself out and lit up when I told her jokes. Mum liked it when I tell her funny things. She used to be the traditional Asian woman who would be classically less expressive and held back in her displays of affection. It was really tough for her when I fell into depression. She would not believe that her jumpy, robust daughter had been reduced to a sheet of paper. She could not understand why the little girl that had talked back to her defiantly had lost every inkling of speech. In those days mum cast sad glances at me and sometimes yelled in Mandarin that she was so unfortunate she had a daughter who didn't care anymore. But in that morose state all I could do was blankly throw her an empty stare. I truly felt like a withered rose. Somewhere there, I had a part of me buried with the shadows that had followed me throughout the years. When they were unearthed it was as if I could not pretend to be two halves anymore.

When I did finally break down it was as if someone had used a magic wand to tap me on the shoulder and the dam broke loose. Mum said she was sorry she had been a bad mother. She never knew I had those skeletons in the closet. At that moment we truly bonded. I saw and I felt a mother's tears. Those 9 months she carried me had not been for nothing.

Depression is a scary scary condition. Most people do not know what depression is. They assume it is merely a state when someone has a bad day, but probably worse than bad. It isn't like that. It is a state where there are no flowers, no colours, nothing matters and it did not matter even if there were plenty of things in life because those were only visible to others not to the sufferer. It isn't something you "snap" out of because you feel better the next day. Depression is like a shadow that follows you. It creeps up on you and whispers pain and trauma into you, convincing you that truly nothing can ever fix you. Those are lies. And to live with such sadness and negativity was horrible. I had days when all I saw in the mirror were ugliness and unworthiness. No matter how many times I muttered I'd be alright, I never truly believed it.

I know I gave the people who loved/love me a hard time. My cousin said she had always looked up to me since the day she was born. She adored whatever I adored and when I was lost, she felt an indescribable sorrow overtake her. If I was lost, what would happen to her? She had followed gingerly behind me calling me "jie!"

Why couldn't I trust that God would take me out of that misery? Why did I think that it was the end of the world when everything in my peripheral line of vision disintegrated into one lumpy mess? Why was I so convinced that my young life had been for nothing?

Then I saw myself again today. It was because I did not want to lose. I did not want to think I had lost. The most jaded and cynical people will tell you they don't believe in good things but in their hearts, all they ever want was that good feeling everyone was chasing after. It could be compliments, wealth and success and an overall sense of achievement and ectstacy ect. What was it that I had wanted then to make me truly happy? And why was it such a difficult goal back then in the gloom and doom? Why did Sylvia Plath and Virginnia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilmann feel that they were not good enough? They had been respected through the ages and celebrated over and over. What they had were resounding successes in terms of their artistic achievements.  What was it that I wanted? Someone to love me? It wasn't like I had absolutely no options nor that I couldn't fall in love either. But even in relationships I found that there was still that quality of absolute emptiness. It was a void the other person wasn't able to fill. And I found myself being difficult to please, difficult to communicate to. It was as if the halves were glaring opposites-- and they were. As much as I wanted to be strong and be an independent girl, when I cracked I became this fragile piece of a specimen. I was like a tap. The tears flowed like they were free. Mum warned me (and still does) that my great grandma had gone blind because she had cried too much. I wanted to be the determined person I was but something in me was also afraid and uncertain. These two halves fought so bad that sometimes it was difficult assimilating the two into one.

But when you really extract yourself out of the equation and shift the central focal point of your life elsewhere the spell would be lifted. I found God and I realized why that emptiness was no longer there. I had been accepted for all the nonsense I had been and even the terrific part of me. Then I noticed I really liked doing things for someone, other than myself. It thrills me to see somebody's face light up. That central focus became God and out of that sprouted a whole new set of objectives. When you help others, you feel "helped" and then you realize the good you have or are. It was also no longer an issue with loss or losing.