these are the last few minutes of being a twenty-something and my friend J just suggested i blog.

that's a wonderful idea, so here i am again, after two years.

it's been a great run, a great past decade.
i've gotten married, and my husband is the man who has pushed me to my boundaries and beyond - to experience, to just live life. and nary a day passes that forget that life is a gift bestowed by a higher being, God. there needs to be order above my chaos.

i know that my walk with God has suffered in my pursuit of living, of being. but i am always aware that He is there. is that good enough? it is for me now. maybe when it comes to my turn to be a mother, which will be in the near years to come, i will be closer to Him because i want my future children to be.

oh! it's midnight here now. time is subjective; it isn't midnight in another continent/dimension. anyway.

i know what fear is. it is swimming against a real current, and having images of plunging over a waterfall running through your mind as you gasp for air. it is dangling by your ankles and trusting a stranger to hold on. hovering over the edge of Victoria Falls is something i'd never thought i would ever do. skydiving over the Namibian desert alters your perspective, you are insignificant compared to the vast dunes, compared to the creation that is Earth. as you plunge toward the ground, completely trusting in a few lengths of cloth, you realise that there is no point in petty squabbles, or in material pursuit. now taking rollercoasters is meh. that said, i am so deeply touched by my friends who surprised me a few days ago by spending the WHOLE DAY with me at USS, by planning and participating in my surprise party, by contributing video clips of your birthday wishes. your love and your time is worth far more to me than any present (though i never say no to presents). G is right, i am well and truly loved. i am so happy and content with that. i must have done something right in this life to deserve you all. i love you all back. i hope that i can be a true and good enough friend that you will want to confide in me if you need someone to talk to.

i know what loss is. it is knowing that i will never go back to the good old years in normanton park - mom and dad in one bedroom, my brothers in another, me wandering the house at night listening to the creaks and groans. it is exchanging one life for another. of leaving friends behind, of choosing a path knowing that you cannot return to find out the answers to the what ifs. i know that the good, the great, can only exist if we have the bad, the miserable, to compare it with. and that we live with our choices and learn to make the best of them. our happiness must first be found within, we cannot find it in others. there are people around me who are bitter and full of passive aggressive statements :) i must not let them bog me down. i must not let work bog me down. in ten years i shall look back on this post and see if this has happened. i still feel that i know how to separate my work from me, and that is important. work does not define me. however, i feel (and have felt for many years) that i do not want this current work to be all that i do for the rest of my life. change needs to be coming, and i am very very sure that i can adapt and bring about that change. the two years spent under my secondment has shown me that i can.

i know what love is. it is my dad taking leave to pick my mom up from hospital, and bringing her to the cinema although that is where she takes her nap (since at home she would be too stressed with the held up housework during her time in the ward). it is collective laughter over Chinese exam foibles and fart jokes over a great dinner, and feeling satisfied and pleased because the waiter has paid so much attention to my mother's needs. it is of knowing that money is not as important as family, so we spend on one another freely and give thanks that we can.

love is agreeing to disagree, of ironing late at night while the other half sleeps, of holding hands tightly while walking home from the train station and sharing the day's woes and surprises. it is singing little made-up ditties to each other and completing the next verse on the fly. it is to be found in the way you look at me. i don't want you to look at anyone else that way. :)

i am happy to be where i am, and i am so blessed to be able to go to sleep with a full belly and with someone warm beside me. and i think, that is more than many can hope for. bye bye 29 and all the years before. i remember feeling light as a seven year old, running the hallways of my primary school, feeling so invincible and fast. i have gained so much weight in the years in between :P, yet i still feel so young, there must be many more adventures to come. :D