Author: Fangjie

Press the phone to my ear after dialling a number I memorise by heart—I memorise many numbers by heart, but this one calls for a bit more exclusivity. The dial tone rings, indicating that the number I have called is being rung as I wait. One, two, three, four, click. They have hung up on me.

Receive a text message shortly after, that they’re busy and can’t attend to my call. Oh, okay. It’s just part and parcel of life. Ride with the waves and overcome the vicissitudes of life, I can do that.

But what is this thing eating away at me?

Even though I know I’m going to be hung up on again, I dial the same number again. I’m so familiar with this number that my fingers glide across the dial pad without hesitation because it has long become muscle memory. I count the dial tone mindlessly because it’s in my habit to do that, just like how I have a habit to count my footsteps while running a long distance run. One, two, three, click.

I almost want to give up, then again I had no expectations of being answered the second time I called. My emotions are tied up in knots and waves of frustration and desperation rush through my body and mind. I know I am wrong, and I know I am better than this, but right now my mentality has stooped to an all time low and it is difficult—very difficult, to keep myself in check.

Maybe I need professional emotional help. Maybe the first step to self-healing is to acknowledge your weaknesses. Many people in the working industry depend on the weaknesses of others for a livelihood. In this world, we complement one another by covering each other’s inadequacies in exchange for a wage or salary.

Over the past two days I have dialled this number many times, like as though the act of dialling this very number in itself is a therapy regardless if the call actually follows through. I count the dial tones, and wonder what my potential interlocutor is doing on every dial. Sometimes, the call never gets picked up, or an automated voicemail message cuts me off.

Just like life, I never know what follows through next even if I do the same actions. Just like life, not every fall is salvageable. And similarly, not everything said is final.

I send my prayers into the distant sky up and hope for them to land upon your shoulders, wherever you are. I send my love even though I am sad, desperate, or hurt, up into the night sky and hope that somewhere, sometime, you can feel it.

Imperfect, sinful, inconspicuous as I am, my anger and hurt fades into a wisp together with my prayers as I send all of them up into the sky, where an immortal being will cure the anger and pain, while transferring my prayers to you.

And then, perhaps you will pick up my call.

For the first time in 20 years, I bought a public transport concession pass for tertiary students for $45.

The urgency of financial planning is becoming increasingly imminent; making conscious daily budgets, choosing cheaper alternatives, searching high and low for discounts or promotions, and putting aside a fixed amount for savings every month even if it means clutching onto my expenses tighter than ever before. Sometimes I would ride my bike instead of take a bus just because riding a bike is free, but taking the bus isn’t.

Step into town and see all these busy people in formal wear tapping their access cards into beautiful high-rise buildings, clocking 10 hours a day in a small cubicle. Facing an animate screen, drumming on a keyboard like their lives (and lives whom they’re responsible for) depended on these. Regardless of status here, everyone is trying to live, or at the bare minimum, survive. These black suits, polished boots, classy high heels and beautiful dresses are not just symbols of dignity—they also represent the never ending process of people providing for themselves and the ones they love. At the end of the day, that man in the smart suit is going to drive home in his Hyundai to an ordinary looking apartment on the outside, but stepping home to an extraordinary feeling of warmth. His wife will greet him before his lazy but blissful dog, then he changes into baggy home clothes where bliss and comfort are truly found: at home, in front of the TV, on the couch with the people you love and need telling you that they love and need you too. His daughter comes home late because she is taking on her first job, also in the city and requires formal attire from her but she is taking home more experience and insight into the working industry than she is taking home money. Stripped of these smart attires and professional demeanours, it’s all about love, warmth, and intimacy.

Tertiary concession is not just a nostalgic reminder for myself of the past; gone are the $0.58 train rides from the westernmost area of Singapore to the extreme east. Now it costs $0.77 to take one stop from my house to the nearby shopping mall. Pangs of nostalgia when I see my juniors from my alma mater doing certain things at the shopping mall that I once did, but now things are so much different for me. Tertiary concession is also a smart attempt to salvage the bank account that I once never had to worry about. But above all, tertiary concession pricks and pokes at my heart, urgently questioning the needs and desires that I must bear—what would I be willing to do for those I love, and how heavy of a weight on my shoulders must I be mentally prepared to carry in the near future? Once stripped of my right of a tertiary concession ownership, how will I sustain myself, sustain those who need me, and those whom I willingly want to sustain?

Find me that sense of Home, that sense of calling, that sense of commitment and duty. The moment I retire my tertiary concession.

Dearest,

By the time you are reading this we would have graduated, and I would be out of your life. We will not meet up again, and I should hope that we never see each other again.

I have had the time of my life with you, in this short period of time. You have given me many reasons to smile, and equally as many to cry. You have given me strength, and a weakness I never expected to have. You have taught me kindness, self-control, and the painful art of letting go what is not yours; the rule “if you love someone, let them go; if they return to you then they are yours to keep forever”.

At this point in time I am not even sure if I want this letter to be read by you. I may end up stuffing this letter under my bed and forgetting about it until one day a long time later when I stumble across this while cleaning my room. But I felt a strong need to pen down these emotions I am currently experiencing that are flowing like water, and so I will write this nonetheless regardless if it gets read by you. And I don’t think you would want to read this letter.

The days fly by rapidly and I know one day I will pack my heart up and let it go. I intend to go quietly, like a silent night breeze; without trace, disturbance, nor guilt. But I guess that I will fail, because something is telling me that you will find out about this secret burden I am holding deep within. But if that is the case, I am ready to be honest and to be brave, and I hope that of you just the same.

This is but a passing phase in life—a torrent of strong emotions that closely follow a devastating fall. I know this will be one of the last times I will ever see you again, and will you believe me but I am ready to go; I am ready to say yet another goodbye.

I hope you will find happiness in every corner of your life, and strength to overcome your difficulties. I hope you will stay true to yourself, find the things and hopefully the person that you truly love. And above all, I hope you find the courage to face your fears, and to find the words you have never dared to say. When you have accomplished all of these, I will not be there to congratulate you, but I have already sent my blessings way ahead into the future for you—and I hope they will reach you then.

Goodbye.

Love,

F

(And indeed, this letter was never sent to the intended recipient—I had ended up shoving it under my bed. I found this letter while cleaning my room more than a year later from the date of writing it.)

If it’s because I didn’t stick to the very end, then perhaps you have taught me that I never should have.

I have given everything I could, everything I should have given. I have tried my best, I have tried harder than most, but in the end I didn’t belong anywhere.

And if you talk merit, then above so many others I deserved to stay. But because this is not how society works, I excused myself because I sensed not many wanted me anyway.

And even after I left, some people have told me to return, but I spoke to the one I felt the closest to, and even she said she wouldn’t know how to react if I returned. We are no longer close, and I never returned.

That very same year, they were so close to winning. And I know with me, they’d have a higher chance. I was casually blamed for not being there, but deep down I know I didn’t have a choice unless I was willing to let go of all my pride, which I wasn’t.

The two who took me in initially, has explicitly stated that they don’t want me to return. 4 years after I left. I had to learn this through an outsider while I was driving her on the highway, and it took a lot of mental strength to push that thought aside and concentrate on the road.

At the end of the day, I blame no one as an individual. I don’t even blame the one who left me so suddenly.

After all, I chose to leave myself. But to know that after so much that I have done, I am not even welcomed to join in casual meetings, not even welcomed to return for a visit.

I probably made the right choice to leave.

Run my fingers through your hair; it is soft, smooth, and lovely. They spill onto my skin, like rays of sunshine on a clear morning, like a vast ocean of gentle waves.

You smile slightly and close your eyes, because you like it. I like it too, if you do. I catch whiffs of clean shampoo accompanied with your natural scent; like a soothing lullaby, like the tempting call of the night. But outside, it is bright daylight.

I think they call this hagod. It’s not an English word, but it can be split into two English words. Ha, God. Good Friday is tomorrow, it is the day where Jesus dies to save our sins. Maybe, Jesus should just instead eat a cookie. Because we are all going to sin again, so he might as well just eat a cookie. I’ll bake Jesus a cookie. A chocolate chip cookie with crunchy sides and moist insides, and not too salty like how I messed my last cookie up.

Your eyes close, and I am reminded that there are some things about you that I will never understand. Like how you are always kicking your legs. Like how you use your phone too much in bed. I’ll bake you a cookie too, so you’ll hopefully sit still and stop always using your phone.

Ha, God. I run my fingers through your hair again, this time your face displays expressionless contentment. I wonder if God thinks about chocolate chip cookies. Why am I so obsessed with cookies. I wonder if God laughs at me. I wonder if God bites into cookies.

[she bites God in the wrist]

I think we have all been told at some point in our lives, that we shouldn’t judge others based on their appearance; that beauty is only skin-deep. That what truly matters reside deep within the heart, centred in the soul.

But it doesn’t usually work that way. Not even with those you’d consider yourself the closest to. Not even with those who have walked with you for so long.

Sometimes, I look myself in the mirror and wonder if there are things about me which scream that I am different from the “normal”, and I require the benefit of doubt from others to believe that I am just the same as everyone else. Maybe quirkier in certain aspects; my appearance deviates from the usual social expectations by quite a little, but internally I am just the same. I want the same fundamental things in life, I want to live my life as authentically truthful to myself as I can, I want to be cared for when I need care, and I want to be left alone from the prying eyes of the public when I need privacy.

But some people just need to jeopardise my sense of security and belonging, when I have done nothing to jeopardise theirs. Some people just need to take extra precaution of me when I have done nothing wrong, because I don’t give them “safe vibes”. And maybe in the eyes of others, I can see why they’re doing it. Because I fit perfectly into the throne of many negative stereotypes, because I am effortlessly judged solely based on my physical appearance, because mouths flap freely without a second doubt.

And that is so. ridiculously. tiring. And sometimes it feels like I have to actively make a compromise with myself and the rest of the world; whether to stay true to myself, or stay true to what society expects me to be. Maybe this is just selfish barb, because I’m talking all me and none of you, and I know I have definitely caused my share of negativity on others too. But just let me for tonight be slightly more egotistical, let me vent my unhappiness because today I found it so incredibly difficult to fit in.

First impressions are supposed to be nailed, but for me more often than not I find my future encounters trying to do damage control instead for my first impressions made by others, because I’m just so naturally horrible at giving good first impressions.

But enough with this selfishness. I am equally guilty of whatever I have just rambled about.

Perhaps it is now when I have come to a dead end that I realize I should have been more careful with my words and promises. I should have been firmer with myself, firmer with the decisions I make, firmer with the words I let escape me.

If life has taught me anything, it is that change is constant and inevitable. No promise is ever truly a promise, no vow is truly a vow. And I have broken so many promises within such a short period, over and over again, because of new factors which continuously pop up unexpectedly that take me by surprise.

While a part of me knows that this is not entirely my fault, the majority of myself is regretful, remorseful that I should have been more prudent, should have been more meticulous, more responsible.

Now that what has happened has already happened, there is nothing I can do to change the outcome of whatever that follows. I have driven myself into this dead end, alongside disappointing the people around me that I treasure the most. Maybe I have also driven you into a dead end together with me, maybe that’s why you always ask me to “stop it” because you are more insightful than me, and you see before I do that my actions lack proper contemplation and will more likely than not lead to disaster.

I have gradually come to accept constructive criticism from friends closest to me, when I realize I start to appreciate it when my good friend tells me that I am being annoying when I genuinely am. At the end of the day there is no point in running away from my mistakes and brushing responsibilities aside, so I might as well brace them with open arms. Come what may.

I don’t want to go down this path of mistakes anymore, at least not knowingly.

Let me be more forward-thinking, more responsible, and more careful. Let me stop treading on thin ice, always in fear of receiving less than welcoming looks from the people I was once on good terms with.

Let me let go of myself, let go of this guilt. And let me never repeat the same mistakes again.