Ode to my first superhero

I had not been actively thinking of grandmother recently. I mean she is always there subconsciously, just that I did not proactively seek to think about her. I took it as a sign of strength, that I am no longer pining after her, craving for her to be around as a beacon of strength, a source of wisdom, et al. And I guess I am partially right in this sense.

So when my father actually told me to visit her urn at the columbarium to do some reflecting since I had to run an errand nearby that area, I definitely did not take it positively. In fact I was quite offended, thinking to myself, all this talk you and mum have non-stop about hoping me to become independent and stand my own two feet, and now all of a sudden there is this huge about-turn, and I’ve become some fickle ingrate?! I’m unsure about exactly where and how I’ve matured over the years, but one definite thing is that night I indeed had the wisdom to hold my tongue from lashing out anything, while still having the courage to visibly display my displeasure, so a potential family disaster was avoided.

Fast forward through the past 10 days. It has been seemingly uneventful though yet peppered with undercurrents abound, be it of my own emotions and thoughts, or those triggered by events and conversations with others around me. Frankly I was not feeling good at all, and in fact I noticed the risk of it worsening and did not know how to combat it. I had even started questioning some very basic stuff that I had believed in. Then today I stumbled upon “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten, and my spirits kind of lifted. It reminded me of what really mattered to me in life. It was not so much of what happens eventually in life, but more of be it whatever happens eventually, did I still hold onto what I had believed right in the beginning.

And this is the most basic superhero lesson I had learnt from my grandmother. She was never perfect, and no saint. She was as obnoxious, dictatorial, rude, and downright selfish as you could get. However for the important beautiful stuff she believed, she clung on to it till her very last breath. That what she had been doing was for the good of everyone. Not that there was no errors, no misjudgement, no biasedness, no prejudice.  However she never doubted her intention. It was with this belief that she entrusted my family and me to the Lord before she departed.

My father has recently highly recommend the book “Anti-fragility” by famous sociologist Nassim Taleb. Despite not havingstarted on it yet, I may already have some slight inkling of its theme. Being strong does not equate being hard. Being hard is being stubborn, being unwilling to grow and better yourself. And my grandmother already had set a great example for me at bettering herself even till the very last moment of her life. She admitted to God that though she had the best intentions, she was not perfect and needed to leave the rest to the Perfect One instead.

I miss her. Every single moment of my life. However I no longer need or even want her back. I want her to enjoy herself wherever she is now. And I have faith I will join her somehow eventually. Meanwhile I have a lot of important and beautiful stuff to do. People have observed that I have this tendency to want to win, and they are not wrong. However, the opponent has changed over the years. The adversaries had been others previously, now my current foe is myself, my flaws that I need to continually refine, my doubts which conspire to deflect me off my original path.

Along the way, I will blunder, I will misjudge, I will be unfair, I will still cry, I will still blow my top. However I will also learn to love and respect others, I will learn to identify opportunities and moments, I will learn how to verify and apply the appropriate method to use depending on what situations arises for whatever areas of my life. I will grow and at the end of the journey I will still believe. I’ll end off adjusting some parts of the song, while also quoting a relevant bible verse.

This is my fight song, do well my life song, don’t even need to prove I’m alright song. My power is already on, I am strong. I don’t really care if nobody else believes, because I have still got a lot of fight left in me.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8 (NIV)

Mighty Morphing Happy Ending

Today’s piece is a kind of assorted rambling, no grand theme behind it per se. If I were to really classify it, it’d be an apology to a friend of mine. I’d known that friend very early on in my university years, though we were more of the “hi, how are you doing” polite talk kind then. In fact it was not till some random chance during 2011 when both she and I were very bored and had a random chat on current affairs (the Singapore General Elections and Presidential Elections had been looming then) through Facebook. And from there on it was as if some spark ignited of sorts and we were chatting with each other fast and furious. It is indeed timely that with the Singapore elections coming again, that I scrutinise what has happened over these years.

Maybe it was because both of us were at a similar stage in life for many common areas, thus we were able to relate to each other’s frustration easily. I myself then was struggling to cope with how my close childhood friends had moved on rapidly in life, and I felt very dejected and left behind. Also there was the pride issue. Which leads me to the next thing that’s occurred to me recently.

I am proudly now a Once Upon a Time drama fan. Think anyone who has been following this would have seen how apparent it is. And one very common theme that comes up continuously in the show would be the concept of “happy ending”. There would be discussion about who deserves it (the age old good versus evil debate, through examining the “heroes” and “villains” which is not a static identity in the show, reflecting the complexity of human beings), and what a "happy ending" is it exactly (e.g. squandering or contaminating one’s happy ending out of greed or fear versus making the most out of a seemingly terrible situation by changing one’s viewpoint and focusing on the “big joys” instead). I won’t go into exact details, but yes this show has influenced me greatly in these recent months, to do reflecting on my past 5-6 years.

That friend and I had bonded very much till a point in time when my relationship towards her took a drastic U-turn. I could not figure it out then. Everything she said and brought up irked me. I practically could not bear the thought of seeing or listening to her, let alone even reply her messages. However I continued to put up my pretense, till a point in time between 2014 and 2015, and I severed all contact with her as a New Year’s resolution.

Now that almost half of 2015 is over, I finally have the courage to face my own villain and admit the stuff for myself at least. I was jealous and prideful, that it seemed as if she was approaching her “happy ending” soon, whereas I was still wandering out there lost in the woods. Of course this is a highly simplified summary of things that had gone between us, and I trust that she has done her own reflecting on her thoughts and emotions with regard to our dynamics and past. However, I’ll just focus solely on "what I had done and what I had failed to do", as stated during Catholic mass which I attend (yes, in fact she was the very one who convinced me to eventually convert over to the Catholic faith, which I am eternally grateful). I simply could not bear my own hypocrisy anymore, and neither could I bear the thought of continuously witnessing her reaching her happy ending soon.

I remember during one of our coffee chats around in the Bishan café areas, she had actually said “I believe God XXX us for a reason.” (I’ll keep the XXX confidential out of respect to her and myself). When I had heard hear say that then, I was actually hopping mad furious. The thought running through my mind then was, fine she had had her happy ending figured out and was progressing steadily towards it so be it, but how dare she play prophet, and define my happy ending too!  Now as I re-examine my emotions then, yes it is reasonable to appeal to others not to define our lives. However it was mostly pride and jealousy that was fueling the intense fury.

With my recent dabbling in OUAT related activities (role-playing on Facebook with fellow fans), it has led me to hold a mirror up to myself and have a good look at my past, present and future, be it of situations, experience, emotions, etc. As one older wise fellow rp-er mentioned in one of our OOC chats (OOC meaning “out of character”, like a backstage area of sorts where we are back to our real life selves and befriend and get to know each other), what we think we want in life constantly morphs. She had never envisioned what brought her happiness now, as what she had desired back when she was much younger.

In Season 1's very beginning, the Evil Queen (Regina) in the show had threatened Snow White and her husband (the Charmings family) that she’d destroy their happiness if it was the last thing that she does in her life. As of where the show last concluded in Season 4, Regina and the Charmings family have eventually bonded into a semi-family cum friends kind of support network, though still full of sarcastic jibes and stuff. In fact during one very trying catastrophe where Regina faces a very tough choice whether to revert to her old ways (which she doesn’t), she calmly and proudly declares that for too long she had been standing in the way of her own happiness, and her happy ending was to “feel at home with the world”, with the part of her life under major crisis being merely a factor of that happy ending and not the entire thing.

I still do not intend to look up that friend, coward as I am, not knowing whether I have the capacity to handle the pride and jealousy demons again, though I apologise for what I had done and what I have failed to do, wishing her all the best in her journey towards her happy ending, that part of my ending remaining as it is for now. However, I’d look at some components of my “happy ending”. In the past, watching movies, concerts and theater performances unaccompanied would have seemed incomprehensible to me. Now doing this occurs without much thought, and in fact I have to mentally check that some of my friends may also be interested in those performances, alert them to it, instead of just booking ahead without verifying. I dreaded running when I was in primary school and the annual 2.4km run for the Physical Fitness Test was sheer agony. Now I have at least 4 runs, lengths varying between 5 to 10km, lined up for the rest of 2015. I shunned spicy food when I was young, but curry chicken is a staple order of mine whenever I pack my dinner at the mixed vegetable stalls now. I have loved reading since young and still do. However when in my younger days I had looked upon classics like Macbeth, Jane Eyre and Dream of Red Mansions as pieces of dreary writing, now I’ve come to appreciate the complex human themes behind them. Reading the Bible and Greek and Norse legends was no different to me during childhood. Now the Bible is The Word of God.

Since this “happy ending” is so prone to change and continuously transforming, it has led me to the cliché notion about how it is the journey and not the destination that matters, that the “happy ending” is actually just about being given the opportunity to come to this world and journey through it. I really do not know. I’m still lost in the woods though I am starting to appreciate some scenery now. Amen!