i was sitting in the kitchen and i couldn't stop thinking about the past and the future.
i couldn't stop thinking about my candied dreams, the mistakes i'd made, half crafting imagined futures for myself and wondering why did things happen the way they did.
it's a little like writing your future so the present becomes more bearable or reconstructing your future based on past failures, so at least whatever you did or did not do before seems to have changed from a mistake to a stepping stone for a good life.
and as we reach this crossroad in our lives, this little dreaming becomes a little more real - because it goes either way, either fulfilled or dashed or plain senseless rubbish.
as i study for the prelims, i keep telling myself that it's essential because i want to go overseas.
and going overseas is somewhat a candied dream; half built from stories of friends, the OC and the impeccable anticipation and sweetness of a complete new life.
and somewhat staying here does not seem all that bad; my family around, security, familiarity, the things that i'd have to forsake if i went abroad.
it was easy to put off these two choices before, but now it's drawing nearer and nearer.
and my candied dream is becoming less and less of a sugary treat.
indecision has become real.
this indecision invariably brings back the past.
because whatever your decision is, with the future life you live, you'll look back at this particular moment which has become your past.
and you've made these decisions and choices because of who you've become.
the you of that moment, the you with those current expectations, hopes, dreams, ambitions, regrets and failures.
and it brings along fear.
fear that your decision will string along trouble you didn't foresee.
just like the past, those decisions brough along trouble i never knew would come.
just like in secondary4, when i made the choice to come to JC, i had these ideals and visions as to what my JC life would be like.
a chance to start anew: be a high flying student who secured good grades consistently, be a school leader, win awards, make new friendships, get a boyfriend, new independance and in a nutshell, live the exciting JC life that everyone said would be the best time of your teenage life.
but then it didn't turn out that way at all.
right from the start i could only take 3 subjects which meant jeopardizing my chances of taking an S paper and win a scholarship.
i didn't do extremely well, anyway.
and sure, i became squash captain, but i never became the squash captain that i
wanted to be.
i wasn't the inspirational leader who led my team to victory.
i wasn't that leader where i could look back and pat myself on the back and say i'd done a good job.
and i did make new wonderful friendships, did get a boyfriend but not from JC but broke up, lived a slightly newer life somewhat, but it wasn't what i envisioned it to be.
and then you look back and you regret.
not regretting the decision on the whole, but regretting the minute details that make up your whole experience.
like, you know, what if you had concentrated on your studies and done well, then you'd have a whole range of opportunities waiting for you.
and what if you had trained harder, motivated the team better, would you have gotten that gold?
what if i hadn't said this or said that, would i have broken up?
or what if i hadn't made that decision at all? maybe things would have been different.
so you look back and you regret what your life
could have been, because things now don't seem bad, but you always wish it could have been better.
and from these little experiences, you look back and see part of your old self die.
in JC, i watched my old self die several times and it never did resurrect itself fully.
i saw the passionate squash player die.
i saw the determined, motivated leader in me die.
i saw the more bubbly shumin die.
i saw the shumin with a secure constant die.
and with these losses, you never really stop crying for your old self.
because it was a throwback to happier times.
but then with the death of part of yourself, new ones emerge.
i saw a better Christian emerge.
i saw a stronger, more mature shumin emerge.
i saw a better friend emerge.
i saw a better daughter emerge.
and you look at these new traits and you smile to yourself, because you've grown, matured and become better.
and you don't stop mourning and smiling all at the same time.
and you don't stop wishing either; wishing that you could somehow meld the old and the new, wishing for a reconstruction, wishing for a new life.
and you know, now i keep thinking about who i've become and what i want in the future, because i haven't stopped wishing.
and i haven't stopped wishing and thinking, because i haven't stopped reconstructing.
and i haven't stopped reconstructing because i haven't stopped regretting.
i don't see a point in
not regretting, because each regret pushes you toward what the newer, more mature you would want.
it pushes to you to never commit the same mistake again.
and also, with each reconstruction, you dream again.
it somehow makes life more worthwhile.
the present always seems like a foiled plan, a no man's land between the old dying self and the struggling new you.
and with each different avenue of reconstruction and dreams, the present becomes not a destruction but a block for something new.
a newer, better life that fits with the newer, better you.
okay, that was long and rambly and with not much of a focus, but you get what i'm trying to say.
all that just needed to come out.
