the threads in her head

Existence Angst-

I believe this is something I am entitled to.

I am a youth, or rather, a teenager. I am 16 going on 17. I am currently studying in a prestigious institution.

Sometimes, I feel like that is all I know.

No wait, actually, I know more than that.

I have a father, and a mother. I cannot remember their ages. I have a sister, in Secondary 1, and a brother, in Primary 5. I am the eldest of 3. Together, they form my family.

But, this is not the point of this piece.

I am not certain why I’m writing this piece in the first place.

I think I started this piece in an attempt to record the facts of my life, the bare facts of my life, objectively. As clearly as I can remember them, without any taint of subjectivity, without my rose-coloured lenses that allows me to see things with a thousand prismatic rainbow hues.

Usually, I love my rose-coloured lenses. Is that vanity? They are beautiful lenses, not light and airily-fragile, not cheap-going-to-break-any-moment, but crafted, with love and attention, substantial in weight and size that it seems almost to have an heirloom aura to it. It can feel heavy. But, everything comes with a weight, and it is about how much burden you think it compared to what it brings to your life. This is a weight I can put up with. They are one of the dear things I treasure, the closest to being a tangible link I have with my childhood, along with my self-supposed sensitivity and innocence.

Yes, I said self-supposed. What else could you call a sometimes fully conscious... effort to try to note and understand the tone? Perhaps it is not that wrong – that all of us have the basic foundation for being sensitive, but it takes conscious constant efforts for it to become a habit, a part of one’s character. Yet, what if it is not? And I too have learnt since that word innocence is sometimes (often in the adult world) a euphuism for naivety. Still, I’m holding on.

Reading back, would it be perhaps wiser for me to abandon my notions of objectivity here? It is hard to remain objective when certain things need judgement, and the judgement that we have are influenced by our past memories and impressions.

Then again, where am I going with this piece?

A walk clears the mind, though the conclusions are not as friendly as I wish they would be. I am writing a safeguard from my fear. I am scared of becoming as tepid as tap water. Lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, neither here, nor there, neither greatly adored nor hated with a passion, just, just acceptable.

There are the extremely friendly social butterflies, and the accomplished quiet introverts. There are people with a distinct aura, a distinct ambition, a distinct love, but it drama or music or science. There are some who charms everyone with a sentence, some who do it with a word, some who have a talent for accents and use it to great effect. There are some superbly talented, who are definitely going overseas, who are bucking against the system and culture they feel they’re trapped in. There are some people who are so positively happy and satisfied, some people who are so warm and steady, some people who really glow with vibrancy or radiance or grace in their face.

They are all something. They have personality. I feel normal – which could be ok actually. Even normal people can have an aura - a distinct air of contentment, satisfaction, warmth, maturity, ambitions and dreams. I feel mundane. Undistinguished. Holding on to self-supposed sensitivity and rose lenses. It comes naturally enough, but is it really me? Besides, so, so many people who can do all that I’m even moderately good at better than me.

What makes me “me’?

Just in church, a few weeks ago, I had the luck to get forfeited. “Do something that no one else here can”. What could I do, what special talent did I have? None.

I got off by reciting the books of the Chinese Bible. The New Testament of the Chinese Bible. But that’s nothing. I recited it wrong even, and there are people familiar with both the Old and New Testament.

What now, what then?