was a meeting overdue... ever since kaisiong left for perth... we haven meet up.. the tt means not seeing yanjie for a year plus... huaijie for shorter than that and i talk to him occasionally on msn.. of the 4, im turned out to be closest to huazai... tonite was suppose to be catching up with kaisiong since he is back, joanna was invited as well cos she haven seen him for a long time. it was a very good catch up session as conversation flows... joanna haven seen yanjie for like 5 years??? tts awfully long...
dinner was at crystal jade having la mian... before we proceeded to Gobi for dessert... the desserts were rich and good... the molten lava, chocolate meringue and all.. but they are not the highlights... it was fun just talking, nonsense and non-nonsense... joanna suddenly asked.. have u all actually sat down and ponder what went on well in 2009 and what was bad in that year and what are u actually looking forward to in 2010?
have you thought of it? in all honesty, there are things which i know, its somewhere in my subconscious mind, hidden, unspoken...
huazai: he's just changed job, he is happy that his old boss told him that he can go back anytime if he wants, nothing bad particularly happened to him so he is happy about the year and he is looking forward to the world cup in 2010.
huaijie: good thing: he changed job. bad thing: his old job. looking forward to maybe new jobs? i think he is kidding here
yanjie: good thing: his relationship with his dad improved after his dad retired and he took over as the sole breadwinner of the family, finally he understood wat his dad was going thru and his dad made the effort to repair the r/s that was severely lacking.. and im sure he is very glad he accepted Christ, thru a twist of events which touched him. bad thing: his closest working mate left for another job...
kaisiong: it was a good year for him basically in almost everything, he is glad he completed his perth training. looking forward to his proposal this year...wooo.. cant wait...
joanna: good thing: travels, she travelled a lot this year, went on solo trip too... bad thing: broke up with exbf, wasnt a good breakup... looking forward to...
myself: good things: i come to appreciate my job cos it gives me opportunities to travel which i dun have the ability to and i make it a point to explore new places. and the 2 holidays i took this year to japan and shanghai but i missed 1 shanghai trip cos of family issues. bad thing: family issues... the forever money problem...
looking forward to getting a new job this year...
actually it didnt come easy to come up with all these... i really searched hard for the past year what did i do, but in my mundane and monotonous life, i realised that i come to appreciate simple things in life. if joanna didnt asked, these answers would have been in my subconscious mind and left there without giving much significance to it.
it also made me realise that it could have really been my fault too in all these cos although i know and i appreciate that dad has been going out of his way to make things possible for me, but it irks me that we have no conversation and the only things that we talk about is money, im forever wary of him asking money from me. tts how bad our r/s has been. what yanjie said that he finally understood how his dad felt when he finally took over the mantle of being the family breadwinner... i realised that maybe it wud be true for me too... i made a rough estimate of my dad's income and expenses... it seems tight... but not to the stage of not manageable... cos i have been pretty frugal... able to get by with minimum spending if i am not buying things, but i dont understand why he cannot... maybe each one is different and he is really trying... and i always try to distant myself from him when it comes to money issue cos to me it seems like he is an endless pit, from all the stories previously. maybe hes really changed... he is really trying..
on the train, joanna further probed, i actually told her that dad's bday was yesterday, cos he asked about money and bonuses again. i was so put off that i dint wished him happy birthday in the face... i merely smsed him. he called me back and ask why cant i say it to him and i must sms instead, but the fact is i was struggling in me to tell him ornot till i reach the airport, and i couldnt bring myself to say it before i got off the car. i cant bring myself to tell him that i couldnt say it. instead i got irritated that why he had to call over something so trivial. Joanna said something which struck me... maybe it really bothers him cos he cares, all he wants is that simple Happy Birthday... i immediately felt guilty... i know he cares but i just hate to admit it... and i find it very hard to talk to him cos he is very mcp, no matter wat or how logical u can tell him things are.. he will always turn things right his way... so there is simply no point in talking to him, and i will immediately give up and leave things be just to avoid an argument. she suggested that maybe one day i shud really sit down and talk to him nicely, i think its needed too, but the fact that he is forever right really turns me off... but i guess it has to be done sooner or later when the time is right and situation permits.
Jo asked... do u wanna reach a stage that you regret even though you knew earlier but chose not to do something about it... and yet when the time comes, u regret not doing something about when you had the chance...
(you caught me nicely there, joanna... seriously) maybe its my stubbornness and my bad temper too...
walking home... as fate wud have it, i saw dad having dinner at 11plus alone at the coffee shop... i had the option of sneaking past him and go home straight without having to talk to him... I think i would have gladly done that... but i find myself walking towards him and sat down with him for his dinner, just to accompany him... suddenly i saw how old and tired he has become.. how stubborn and judgemental i have been towards him and sometimes rude and irritated by mummy who has been so caring and doting... how hurting that must have been... i will wonder you know, why others' family so loving and fun together, and my family is this way, i had grown to accept the fact that my family is broken... ever since young, primary 6 to be exact when i heard the major quarrel which almost got my parents divorced on the eve of my PSLE... my life changed ever since then, i think i became very selfish... protective... and i dun like to talk to my family about my life... when i shud have been trying to repair the family, but with my weird temper i derided it even more...
maybe its really time to do something about it now...
thanks a lot yanjie and joanna... for making me see things which i had been blind towards, although its staring at me in my face...
im so looking forward to meeting u all on 30th...
