twenty-two | #20
a vulnerable attempt to spill it all for myself.
It has been a week since my 22nd birthday and I’ve found the time and headspace to truly reflect on the past year of my life. It has been a rollercoaster ride, completing National Service, going through (yet another) incision for an abscess, applying for university, getting my first tattoo, finding my partner, and everything in between.
It's funny how life seems to feel so short in hindsight, how we’re able to recall our many milestones and significant events the past year in a few minutes when it certainly didn’t feel that way while I was trudging through it. If anyone were to ask me, I would have easily shared my experience bashing the wild forests of Lim Chu Kang feet sore from blisters and body drenched in mud and sweat all while carrying back-breaking weight walking for hours on end through the rainy night with a smile. Well, it definitely didn’t feel like that when I was going through it. If anything, it felt more like I was going to just faint and give up and that the end was nowhere in sight.
Next came an abscess on my tailbone. I dislike hospitals in general, especially when I’m a patient. However, as my luck would have it, I had to undergo another incision for an abscess. Now I have 2 abscess-induced incision scars — both along my waistline. Over the years I have accumulated more than my fair share of scars, mostly located on my legs. I have scars on both knees from classic ‘fall from chasing after my bus’ incidents, a scar on each shin from my water polo days, a huge scar on my left outer thigh from crashing after speeding down a luge in Queenstown, NZ as well as an especially painful one on my right inner thigh from a crashing incident while dirt-biking in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It has brought with it a host of fun conversation starters for strangers who pick up on these scars, but I’d rather not add to the already extensive collection in the years to come.
University was a big topic for me, especially this past year. I was approaching the end of my National Service and it was inevitable that I had to do something — work or study afterward. I already had a place at a local university for a program for which I wasn’t very sure I fit the bill for nor did I believe that I had the passion for it. So I decided to look overseas. It was all just a ‘try my luck’ kind of situation for me, but I managed to get several replies back. I jumped from NZ to Canada before briefly accepting that I’ll be staying put in Singapore before I decided to go with China. As it stands, I am continuing my education there, and I do not have any regrets. I am definitely excited for my upcoming journey which I feel will be a great step for me to open my eyes to a world I have barely seen.
Well, this was the most recent major personal event this past year. I have been looking to get a tattoo done for close to 2 years and I have finally done it in early May. It’s funny, how I am so meticulous in deciding my tattoo design and placement but yet so half-assed and quick when it came to the size when it came down to the actual appointment. I got a line portrait of my family and I couldn’t be happier. I believe this will be the first of many in the coming years, a decision I have made to express myself.
Finally, I have also met my partner. Made possible by technology, we met online and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It hasn’t been long, but this has been really good. She is beautiful in her own ways and I appreciate her traits and everything in between. We have spent quite a lot of time together in this short time span, and I have enjoyed and cherished each and every moment of it. I have spent nearly my entire life building walls around me that I find it terribly difficult for me to be vulnerable with others, although I am tearing them down with her, albeit rather slowly.
I remember the small details too. The times where I would stare out of my window the entire night just reflecting on my day or week; the times where I would go to bookstores or cafés to read; the times where I would take days off the grid and just disappear to free myself from everyone and everything. I still remember the times where I would resort to unhealthy and sometimes dangerous coping mechanisms as a means for me to get through it or end it all. And believe me, I have come really close on some days.
This past year has been of growth. Growth in my personal experiences, growth in my personal goals, and growth in my personal relationships. No longer am I the boy who was cold, the boy who didn’t want to be hurt so bad that he rejected everyone, including himself. 22 years and I’ve seen myself go through some serious shifts in myself. I have gained maturity in making decisions that will impact my life, understood the phases I have gone through, and have developed the confidence to take the right steps in the right direction to put myself in the position to achieve my goals and grow.
I am still far from where I want to be, and I have plenty of journeys and adventures I want to embark on, but maybe I will have to be okay with not being able to do it all at the end of the day. After all, it is about the journey and not the end result, right? (I really want to believe this, but somewhere at the back of my mind I find myself unable to accept this) I have developed faith that it will all work out in due time and until then I will enjoy the process of it all, my life that is.
#20 — n’oublie pas de vivre.
