On Love.

I just turned 27 years old not long ago, and until that point, I'd never imagined I'd lived until I died inside. In the weeks leading to it, heartbreak and several life-changers came in continuous waves I expected like the Spanish Inquisition. It hadn't been a particularly fabulous time. So I went away.

For the better part of three weeks, I called the kitchen and guest room of my uncle's place in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia... home.

The air was not clean, but it smelled.. nice. It had a sense of familiarity, probably because I was born in the country where this air resides. Some things you just can't fool.

The people. The sights. The sounds. The disparity between the millionaires still humbly selling vegetables in the old kampung wet market and the truly humbled begging just enough for a meal. There are no iPhones or Samsung Galaxies to flaunt here with just a little success like in big cities, just humility and a sense of kinship for each other mostly.

And there was the dinner. The roasted suckling pig. The Buddha that for some reason jumps over a wall. The exquisite dishes. Amongst amicable friends, not business partners or people of very considerable wealth and status, just... friends. I meet too many people in Singapore who speak to me with their noses pointed up just because they've got a managerial position, a car, two maids and two generations of debt. This is different. This is what home feels like.

If you've somehow made it through this far, you'll have realised none of this goes in any order at all. That is correct. Because nobody has sexy photo shoots at temples either but it's a brave new world apparently.

This woman is the biggest reason why I had to go back to Malaysia to nurse my being. My grandmother is one of those people in this world who inspires simply by doing. She's upwards of eighty this year and have suffered at least three attacks last year, surviving them all. Heck, she had one while I was there and got through it in one night. I had never known I could go from sleep mode to fully awake and putting on my clothes and shoes while rushing out the door with someone in hand - someone whose life was in immediate danger and needed to get to the hospital HALF AN HOUR AGO - in the span of minutes less than five, at 1am in the morning. You don't learn this in school. You don't get taught these things by shit-talking with your buddies. Nothing prepares you for shit like this.

And what did she do? She got strong. Again. And she got strong enough to see the auspicious lot I prayed for at the temple. Because she is my grandmother. Because she is my only grandparent left and the only one I've ever known. Because my grandmother, uneducated and all, single-handedly brought up a family of four children for forty over years ever since my grandfather passed on early, And she learnt to cook. And she learnt to sew. And she learnt to drive. And she learnt to read. She is strength defined. She did all this for love of family. She loved.

My grandmother with one of her millions of friends from working around the world, Mrs Chong, if ever a more gracious lady who lived. She spends half a year in Australia and the other six months in an apartment with her family just a few floors away from my grandmother.

You see that sewing machine with the intricate carvings and hyper manual mode of use? That's 130+ years old and passed down from my great-grandmother. It works better than your iPhone and spins more buttery than the latest Android Jelly Bean software. I spent two hours just listening, captivated by her stories of my great-grandparents and family history while she, with slight difficulty in threading, continued altering and sewing an extremely heavy piece of curtain she made sure to get right for the Lunar New Year.

Did I mention that she also cooks and MAKES ACTUAL LUPCHEONGS FOR SALE in between her rests? We're practically useless. I know I am.

Oh I'm sorry, my interruptions got interruped. But you unknowingly went on a journey from the house and out.

The rest of the family making it back for Lunar New Year.

Arguably the best reason I went back for was for the authentic food that Singapore tries to claim as its own but can never come close to. Please, just stop already you guys. You can't even come close to half this quality because you don't cook with love - only layers upon layers of pepper and seasoning.

The last few photos.. these last few photos.... they're the best of what I needed to see, to feel, and to experience in my last three months. Sure one of them showed me ironing my clothes while watching reruns of Community after I've washed my clothes because I wanted to show my mother what her 27-year-old elder son could do without a soul left in his bones, the point I want to make is....

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, Yu Wen.

I’m sorry for sharing in the delusion that we were different that somehow we would go on the same way for the rest of our lives as if we could live off of my wit and your patience and I’m sorry for the nights I stayed in instead of spending time with you and I’m sorry for all the ways that I disappointed you but this isn’t what this is about because we shouldn’t worry so much about the things that we did or the things that we said because we should be celebrating or rejoicing or something like that, right, we should be hugging and wishing each other the best but fuck if I don’t want your best to be my best and for us to share in a best where we are together and smiling and not saying goodbye to one another and you should know by now that I’m crazy about you in the most platonic and fierce of ways and and and I’m sorry I’m still crying and I’m sorry that I will cry that I will fill nights of crying when I think of you and all of us and saying goodbye to everyone and missing it so fucking much, so fucking much.
I hope that even in old age or in darkness you’ll speak well of me, that’s what I practiced saying to you please speak well of me even when you think about the time that I [karaoke'd] without you or the time that I didn’t pay you back fully for that [chicken rice] that tasted like shit in the first place or for the time when I made fun of your hair even though you kind of liked it the time I made fun of you the time I didn’t laugh at your jokes the time I didn’t say you were funny even though you wanted me to, I hope that in spite of all this you’ll speak well of me and I hope it’s with a smile, the kind of smile that hides a little something at the corners, the kind of smile that people will ask you what are you smiling at? and you won’t be able to tell them. A memory. A beautiful memory. And I know it’s cheesy but it’s the best I’ve got and I find it easier to hide behind metaphor than to tell you how I really feel so I’m sorry about that too and I’m sorry about the inappropriate penis joke I’ll make right before you leave because I can’t imagine handling this, can’t imagine doing anything else but screaming penis at the top of my lungs in a crowded airport terminal just so everyone will look at us and see what it looks like for two best friends to say goodbye and I hope they can appreciate the gravity of it all. Because I can’t and I’m afraid I won’t and I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.

This Valentine's Day is the first of probably a string of endless more I'll be spending alone after almost a decade with you, and as I continue growing up and the world spins on, when I pass by your house I will feel nostalgia, and memories will come back, and tears will fly like they are right this moment because you didn't actually ruin my life and neither did we have a psychotic break down to our amicable, mutual, and somewhat even.. dare I say it.. sweet break up.
I am but human. Being.
I want to be happy again, but you can, so please be. Happy Valentine's Day, my best friend. Bwoop.