Writing From The Heart

Writing From The Heart

It had been almost a year that I had made that conscious choice to stop writing for a while.  All these years, every word written for my blog was done out of my hope to share a point of view that I felt strongly about.

Increasingly, I found this difficult to do as I tried very hard to juggle writing about what was truly authentic to me, with managing the sensitivities of others.  “Was that post about me?”, seemed to be the  frequent text message I woke up to in the morning.

I even had my husband once told me to “take down that blog post because while you don’t have to deal with them, I do.”  That became the cause of our regular rows where he maintained that I needed to have more tact while I insisted that the world needed to be aware of the difference between what was true and the pre-engineered fizzy koolaid that they had been sold.  My father had always taught me to be true to myself under any circumstance, and he brought me up in an environment where he encouraged me to fully express myself.  I found it hard to come to terms with having my voice stifled because I had to be mindful of what others thought.

When I had to start thinking about being sensitive to the feelings of others, taking into account the ramifications my writing might potentially cause with every word I wrote in my blog, and every post I published across my social media platforms, I decided that I could no longer pen another word in my blog.  I also decided to veer towards neutral topics across my social media platforms, sticking to the regular fitness and food posts.  But I became more disillusioned as months and days passed by, simply because I lost my sense of self.  I was no longer writing or speaking from my heart.

When I cut out the writing out of my life for a while, and made myself devoid of that only channel for self-expression that I was most familiar with, I was forced to deal with my emotions on my own by internalizing them.  I  withdrew into myself and walked through an introspective journey for a year.

The past year had been a year of deep learning for me about myself.  I learnt to accept my vulnerability – it was okay to feel that deep sense of hurt and disappointment, nurse it, then move on.  I learnt the importance of drawing the line between interpersonal relationships – friends, colleagues, staff, clients, family, and acquaintances, each of them had a role to play in my life and I should not be setting almost equal expectations on them.  I learnt that no matter how much I could do to pull family members, a team, a situation, a crisis, together and lead from the front, the honest truth, was that I had to stop being the school principal all the time, trying to get everyone to play on equal footing at the playground.  I learnt that when someone has a problem, it was not my problem.  I could not keep taking on that responsibility to try to solve it for him or her.   I learnt to make peace with my inner child – a traumatic past in my childhood need no longer bind me in fear, anger and hatred.  I learnt the value of forgiveness – more than anything else, letting go of hurt and anger was not about acknowledging that a dishonest, hurtful situation did not take place.  It was just my way of giving myself peace of mind.

So if I had to fill the pages of my blog with every incident that described this path of learning, I would not have enough pages left.   I was determined not to let my hurt and disappointment experienced, cast a shadow of doubt on the people I had invested time and energy over the years as  I tried to lift and inspire them with positivity. 

I felt that if I could no longer fill the pages of my blog with authenticity, then I could no longer write that blog. 

This point of view also took a toll on my passion for freelance writing for sports events.    I was disillusioned when I was delivered key messages about athletes during interviews, that had been “massaged” by their PR teams, painting them to be “inspirers of community with a personality governed by humility and a great work ethic..” then see a couple of them behave like depraved thugs.  How could I bring myself to share an article with the public with the objective of convincing them about how wonderful an athlete might be when he clearly was not?  Strangely enough, the current environment was one where many took a dig at fake news.   I was not going to be a perpetrator of fake news.

The start of my recuperation from all of last year’s “bullshit” came in the form of a family trip back to the UK.  I stopped writing.  I just took lots of photos.  Writing could hide my disillusionment. Photos could not. When I had to be present to my family for 3 weeks in the UK, I spent less time on emails as well as reading through all the social media news.  I just made time for self and I had meaningful conversations with my family.  I had no contact with drama, toxicity, inauthenticity and anything that drained me.  And most importantly, I came out of that trip making a pact with myself, that I would always choose to walk away from any form of drama and never allow anyone or anything to invade my peace. I would never allow anyone to feed me with untruths and expect me to sell otherwise.  I would never allow anyone to tell me to stop writing or saying something, just because it would “open a can of worms” and not aligned to what was written on that label pasted on that pre-engineered fizzy koolaid. If I was forced to do anything, or say anything  outside of my values, I would rather not have anything to do with it. 

I am starting to write again.  Slowly just getting back into it. I remain adamant about walking in the light of what is true, never writing or saying something unless it came from the heart.

 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  She is a passionate observer of life bent on inspiring others to live life positively through her writing by combing through moments worth celebrating every day.   Due to her ardent love for sports especially boxing and MMA, she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing articles to several sports media when time permits.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She enjoys Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Coming Home To Family

 

In 2016, I made a conscious effort to stick to my resolution of putting more time aside for family.  That meant that I learnt to prioritize my time, cut down on the number of social engagements and dedicated my weekends and spare time to the family.  It was a year where I spent hours deliberating over conflicting appointments, cancelling and filling entries in my diary just so I could be there for the family

 

Time For Mom

 

I spent a lot of time with Mom, and this was so because Dad had passed on only barely a year ago then.  I shared the pain of her bereavement and wanted to help her create an independent and active life particularly when all she had ever known was a life dedicated to taking care of Dad, my brother and I.  Every phone call we had, and time spent with her at our weekly visit to Mom’s were precious moments worth celebrating.  This culminated in a vacation with her in November when we went for a week-long cruise together, followed by a trip to Hanoi where we spent our time gallivanting along the small alleys looking for good bargains and street food.  We both had fun. 

 

Mom, throughout the year, had made an effort to keep herself busy and moved on with her life without Dad.   I enjoyed watching Mom as she kept herself busy with the things she loved to do.  She loved cooking.  So whenever we went out for a meal, she would come home to experiment in the kitchen, then whip up her own version of it.  My brother, sister-in-law, David, Joel and I became unwitting guinea pigs of her version of the Korean Army Pot, and Vietnamese Banh Mi and Vietnamese Pho.  I made a mental note to not take her to anywhere exotic for the year end vacation in case she whipped up Fish Balls Stewed In Yak’s Milk or something similar. 

 

I also noticed that she made it a point to not revolve her life around my brother and I.  Often, I found myself calling her at home, only to discover that she had been traipsing across town with friends, transporting containers of food that she had cooked to Granny’s, working her magic hands across the mahjong table and generally making friends and influencing people across Singapore.  I was glad because I realized that quality time, and being present had very little to do with being physically there beside her.  She certainly could hold her own.  What was most important was that she knew that I always had her in my heart and mind and would do anything to make her happy.  Even a 2 minute phone call to ask if she had eaten her lunch was enough to fill her with joy.  

 

I only see Mom for lunch every Sunday afternoon and I used to feel guilty about that very little time we had together.  However, coming home, for me, was remembering that the both of us as mother and daughter, had ridden the good times and bad enough to know that we had each other’s back no matter what happened.

 

Time For Joel

 

I also spent a lot of time with Joel, trying to rebuild a mother-son relationship that had been lost to 3 years of misunderstandings, miscommunication, my initial non-acceptance of his girlfriend and all the rough patches that came with a generational divide. In our separate ways, we both grew up together, learning to accept our differences and converging when and where we could to bring back peace and harmony into our home.  At this time, we have never been closer than we are now.

 

In the past year, Joel has been enjoying his national service stint.  I enjoyed listening to the stories he brandished about his time spent outfield and often annoyed him with the question, “So how many plasters and panadols have you dished out this week, medic?” He took his duties in the army very seriously and would get really annoyed when I poked fun at his efforts.  Just barely a year before, we would not even have a proper conversation because Joel would spend his time out of the house just to avoid having a conversation with me.  In the past, any mention of his girlfriend would have erupted into a huge quarrel. In the last 6 months, we even had meaningful discussions about his relationship.  This opened the doors to more opened communication between us.  And whether or not he was home, out on dates, or back in his army camp, it did not matter to me because I knew I was always in his heart. Our whatsapp messages which were once peppered with caustic remarks were now filled with messages from him like, “Have you had dinner?”, “Where is Pops, is he with you?”, and “What are you doing this weekend?”

 

I only see Joel for a few hours over the weekends and I used to feel guilty about using those few hours to nag him about his army fatigues left on the floor around the laundry basket, the unequal amount of time spent between our home and his girlfriend’s home, and his awful diet of biscuits and crisps.  However, coming home, for me, was the knowledge that Joel knew what family values meant, his proactive attempts to bring laughter and harmony into our home, and his awareness that this bond between mother and son was unbreakable.

 

Time For David

 

I spent a lot of time with David too, traveling with him whenever I could when he had a photography assignment overseas.  When we were not traveling, we took to spending our weekends on activities we found a lot of enjoyment doing together, instead of leading our separate lives like we had done before.

 

This was our version of separate lives – he would crash out on the sofa on weekends with the TV blasting and remote control gripped tightly in his hand, while he snored, and I would be playing with my Tarot cards in the room.   Recently, we found a lot of fun in painting together. They called it art-jamming, but the only jamming we were familiar with was either Robertson’s Lemon Curd or plucking the life out of his old guitar with his ex-band mates. This version of jamming did not involve calories, or noise, and was filled with so much more fun and laughter between us.  It was hilarious when I thought about how I used to fail at Art during my school days.  One of my paintings now sit proudly at Mom’s home while David prepares to make a case for a potential lawsuit against him from Kellogg’s for  stealing their brand image of a white chicken.

 

Making time for each other was a huge effort, given his travels, and my multiple commitments.  However, coming home, for me, was knowing that every now and then, when we had time to connect, David and I could always find fun and passion between us, no matter how busy we were and how different our interests could be.  We really need not be in each other’s faces every day.

 

Coming Home To Scotland

 

My 2016 resolution propelled my decision to make a trip back to the UK to visit with David’s family last November too.   We had not been back for almost 10 years, often citing the lack of time.  How could we have let 10 years pass by without setting foot in David’s hometown?  How could we have not found time to connect with his family?  Our conversations were reduced to Facebook comments, an annual phone call and a Christmas card. 

 

So, together with the family, we set out to create memorable moments with each other within the very short time we had together.

 

One of his sisters put together a collage of old family photos during dinner and it drew much laughter and banter as stories of days past were exchanged.  Time seemed to have stood still then. That collage of photos closed the gap of 10 years and that geographical barrier between Singapore and Scotland because the entire family had so much to share about the good old days.   These were memorable moments that David and I cherished.  They were more important than attempting to squeeze time for a quick phone call and a trip to visit the family.

 

On a Sunday morning, I took a walk with his sister around her estate in Dundee before having brunch with the family. We attempted to look for squirrels, and slid across the frosty pathways to much laughter between us.  About 17 years ago, before David and I got married, this was the sister I had a fight with over something silly and unimportant.  Over the years, I have not had time to talk to her apart from the day we got married, and during the couple of  times when David and I visited Scotland after.   That Sunday morning, I felt that my sister-in-law and I had closed that gap once and for all.  We had so much to chat about, and we had fun in each other’s company. It was special for me because we made an effort to make that morning a memorable moment for us as a family.

 

Also, David had the opportunity to rekindle childhood memories as we walked through the town park and attempted to climb Falkland Hill in -2 degrees temperature.  While I felt the wintry cold, my heart was warmed by the many stories that David had shared about his Mom and Dad, his school days, and his sisters. 

 

Another thing that made this trip to Scotland so special was because David secretly arranged for a Minister to preside over the renewal of our marriage vows at the Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh.  When the effort came from someone who could not even match his socks each morning, it was truly special.  Coming home for me, was the realization that my husband made efforts throughout our marriage to create memorable moments with me.  The much talked about “together time” which most people insisted, made a solid marriage, was really overrated. 

 

Throughout our 2-weeks spent in UK, we did not want to just play tourist and create photographs.  We wanted to create special moments that would be etched in our memories for a very long time, and we did.

 

Home Is Where The Heart Is

 

So yes, in 2016, I did make time for my family. I learnt to prioritize and was adept at juggling my commitments, feverishly filling in or cancelling appointments in my calendar so that I could “be present” to my loved ones.

 

As the year 2017 crept by furiously, and a month had already come and gone, I was reminded that coming home, was not about my physical presence at home with the family.  It was the commitment of knowing who and what mattered most. When I know who and what mattered most, my relationship with them would not be defined by my time or physical presence. 

 

My relationship with those who mattered most to me would be defined by :

 

·      My conscious effort to be kind to them instead of brushing their grief, anger, sadness, angst or frustrations off as their “having one of those moments”.

 

·      My needing to listen more with empathy, instead of with the intent to respond.

 

·      The energy I put into having meaningful conversations with them, instead of scrolling my Facebook feeds whilst chatting with them.

 

·      My attempts to strike a compromise and have opened discussions when we have conflicting opinions.

 

·      My effort to not just be present but to create memorable moments with my loved ones

 

This would be a great example to illustrate my point.  This Lunar New Year, my Uncle and Aunt as well as my cousin returned from Canada and Australia respectively to spend some time with Granny.  It was really not about the sacrifice of time and money made to make this trip home happen.  They did not inform anyone of their impending visit.  Instead, they delighted the entire family when they turned up at the annual reunion dinner at Mom’s, and took us by surprise.  Mom was literally in tears and Granny was extremely happy. 

 

Now, that was a memorable moment and definitely, the best way to Come Home.

 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

Cruising To A New Sunrise

A Vacation With The Extended Family

 
When Mom broached the subject of an extended family vacation on the Royal Caribbean – Mariner of the Seas for 5 days, I spent 2 weeks mulling about spending my precious leave days from work stuck in a cruise ship.  My thoughts on the first week was focused on the possibility and ease at which I could jump overboard and swim back to shore should the need arise.  The second week was dedicated to research about the facilities and activities on the ship which could allow me to have adequate me time away from the claustrophobia I might feel from being restricted to the space within the ship as well as  the disdain I felt about being immersed in a crowd of tourists queuing at the dining room entrance an hour before meal times, reserving deck chairs with their towels at 5am in the morning,  and stacking their plates with dessert, appetizer and main course all at once.

 
It did not help Mom’s case about this vacation when she sold it in this manner, “I booked you and I on a cruise with the family because if you come along, I get 50% discount on the price as I am a ‘senior citizen’.  So you must come ah!”
 

Obediently, I applied for leave from work and assured my men at home that the only reason I was leaving them behind was that they were not senior citizens.

 

Determined To Enjoy The Cruise

 
I was determined to enjoy my first experience on the cruise.  The friendly crew from the State Room attendant right through to the waiting staff at the restaurants went above and beyond to delight the guests, so it was not difficult to relax into a daily routine of enjoying the copious amount of food served 24 hours a day, and the professionally produced staged shows each night.  Several bars were dotted conveniently at each deck of the ship, in case I was driven to drink while managing conversations as civilly as possible with an uncle who had an EQ of 0. 

 
I was also cognizant of the fact that with an 86 year old grandmother in tow, I had the responsibility of ensuring that she enjoyed every minute of that vacation time with the family.  Mom often whispered to me as she kept me in check when I felt annoyed enough to want to hit that 0-EQ Uncle on the head with my shoe, “How much more time does Granny have with us? Please think twice before you say anything stupid.”

  

Family Time

 As we sailed across the Malacca Straits into the Andaman Sea, I woke up each morning at 5am to capture the Sunrise, and left our dinner table abruptly each evening at 6pm to capture the Sunset. I spent most of the mornings perfecting a selfie against the backdrop of the emerald-green waters of the ocean.  I wheeled Granny into the Casino to watch her operate the jackpot machine like a rabid Pilot on the computer dashboard of the Starship Enterprise.  I strolled with Mom along the jogging path on the deck whilst listening to a lengthy lecture on sun-damaged skin and ageing. I shared jokes with my other 2 favorite uncles who were gifted with higher EQ than the eldest one.
 

I did not have a chance to embark on my daily gym routine although the ship had a huge gym filled with state-of-the-art equipment because I did not fancy spending an hour working out, only to spend another 3 hours trying to hunt down the rest of the family throughout the ship after. I was all kitted up and ready for my sunset rock-wall-climbing experience but Mom was more interested in lining up for a chicken roll and a slice of pizza at the 24-hour café.  So I decided that spending time with Mom having a good chat over a cup of tea while she polished several chicken rolls and slices of pizza was more important.   I registered for yoga classes early in the morning but decided  that sitting out on our balcony with Mom to discuss the important topic of what shapes the clouds made, was more fun.  I was prepared to spend my day enjoying a half-empty ship as the rest of the guests disembark for their shore excursion in Phuket one day. As my son aptly put it across Facebook one day, “For Mom, a HAPPY CRUISE IS AN EMPTY CRUISE.”  However, I decided to disembark the ship in the afternoon to take my Mom out for a little shopping trip in Patong Beach, Phuket, and we enjoyed the ubiquitous Thai fare of Pad Thai and Boat Noodles before returning to the ship.

 
Throughout the cruise, I hardly had any Me Time as I tried to “stick with the program” to spend more quality time with my extended family. So when I returned from the cruise, a friend said in surprise, “What? You packed for a vacation with the intention to spend more time in the gym each day to get fitter, do your sprints around the track, attend yoga and pilates classes and get in some massage time but you did none of these! What exactly were you doing for 5 days?”

 

Chasing A New Sunrise

 
I reflected on my experience during the cruise and realized that the reason I had initial doubts and skepticism about this vacation was because I had been chasing my sunrise and sunsets in a wrong way. 

 
I was focused on the superficial aspects of special moments that I was expecting to enjoy, like waking up at 5am to wait for the sunrise. However, I forgot about the miracle behind a sunrise and the fact that the sunrise each day, actually looked very different from each other, beckoning me to see each day as a gift and an opportunity to start anew.
 

This vacation was not about spending more time with an 86 year old Granny who might have so little time left with us.  It was about reconnecting with the grand dame of the family who had planted the roots of piety, familial love, and resilience in the ground for my mother’s generation, my generation and the generation after.  That was an invaluable lesson in committing to celebrate our family’s past, present and future.

 
It was not about having to manage verbal altercations with my eldest Uncle who had very little social aptitude.  It was about the fun and jokes my other uncles and I shared across the dinner table, having a hearty laugh at my eldest uncle’s callous retorts that he had often dished out irrationally.  That was an invaluable lesson in diffusing tension and managing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.
 

It was not about how much time I spent with Mom throughout the vacation.  It was all about the quality time spent having meaningful conversations with her during the cruise, sharing our thoughts, fears and memories.  This was an invaluable lesson in the need for me to make the effort to continue having more meaningful conversations with her even after the vacation.  Acknowledging that I spent little time with her every week, I was committed to ensure that each moment I spent with her would be one where I was fully present.

 

Coming Home To New Perspectives

 
On the last day of the cruise, as my ship pulled into Singapore waters and the skyline of the central business district came into full view, adorned with a spectacular sunrise, I began to see this wonderfully quirky extended family in a new light. We all came together, whatever differences we had as a family, and whatever expectations we had about the cruise.  What pulled us together was the fact that we celebrated a priceless moment together as a family.  We might sometimes fight, and we might sometimes not speak to each other, or we might each hold stubbornly strong to our respective opinions.  However, nothing could change the fact that we were a closely-knitted family. 

 
How could I ask for anyone within the family to change, including my uncle with 0 EQ? I will always love them for who they are.  Every day, I celebrate a new sunrise, and like a new sunrise, I am grateful for the opportunity to feel the warmth and love within this family.

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

Perfect Imperfection

 

I have not been blogging for a while.  I made the conscious choice to stay away from anything that involved investing too much time and energy analyzing the what and wherefore of every sordid detail of everything that I had observed about life to create some meaningless content on my blog.  Instead of playing spectator to a stage of external events, situations, and issues before me, I started to walk introspectively to play spectator to myself.

 

I spent the last few months wading through an emotional and mental transformation that involved my letting go of aspects of myself that I had come to dislike. Every effort that I had used to make towards being better than what I was yesterday, at work, at home, in my personal life, and at the gym were deemed as an incomprehensible display of inane vanity that served to support my ego.  Every expectation that I had placed on others to be better than they were yesterday, at work, at home, in their personal lives and at the gym were deemed as an intolerance to anything or anyone that could not compete with my ego and I.

 

I woke up one day to the fact that if I could not be everything to everyone, then I should not be expecting that of myself. Nothing needs to be that perfect.  Life is not a checklist of “things - I –need- to- do”.  I did not need to push for an achievement in every aspect of my life to feel complete.  And if I was not expecting that of myself, why should I be expecting that of others? 

 

The Perfect Marriage

 

David and I founded our marriage on the principle that we were Best Friends First.  There was zero romance, very little time spent together, and we might have possibly violated some acceptable norms of a traditional marriage. We did not feel compelled to be the perfect spouse, having to message each other ever so often to say something inane like “I love you babes.” Didn’t we already know that?   We did not feel compelled to set aside a specific time for date night.  For goodness sakes, when we sparred at the gym and I spent half that time dodging his jabs, that was a date night.  We did not feel compelled to plan an annual vacation together.  When he had a photography assignment overseas, he would ask if I would like to come along and extend a few days after his work to enjoy some “we time” exploring the sights and doing street photography.  

 

We are indeed Best Friends First.  So that would mean that even in the absence of romance, hair, obliques and one’s own teeth, everything about this marriage was perfect to us.  I chose to let go of societal norms of what a perfect marriage should be.  I refused to be defined by other people’s definitions of what romance was.  I disliked reading women’s magazines which spewed advice about what good communication, togetherness and romance in marriage should look like.    This would be an example of a romantic conversation that we might have. 

 

David, “I would like to nuzzle my beard in your neck.”

Me, “No need. Thanks.  By the way, where are my yellow handwraps?”

 
We do have the most perfectly imperfect marriage.

 

The Perfect Mother

 

Joel and I have the most unusual parent-child relationship founded on the fact that I had very little maternal instincts and plenty of respect for Joel as an individual.  When Joel was little, my friends would be carefully planning their children’s meals to provide them with balanced nutrition.  However, Joel and I would sometimes share a Snickers bar for breakfast, against the advice of friends who felt I was callous about nutrition for his growth. I remembered trekking hills and climbing mountains with a 1 year old strapped to my back, against the advice of friends who were worried that an accident might happen to the boy or he might catch dengue fever or malaria.  As he grew older, and went into national service, our idea of fun back home was challenging each other with diamond push-ups or chin-ups. I was not a traditional mother the way my Mom was to me.  Mom made sure I had hot food on the table every time I got home.  I just made sure Joel knew how to create his own meals every time he got home.  Mom made sure my clothes were always nicely washed and ironed. I just made sure Joel knew how to do his own laundry.  I did not feel compelled to turn up at every concert Joel was performing at when he was in school. However I was there every time he went through a hard time at school, or through a break up with some unimportant cow. 

 

He was never academically inclined and often did not do brilliantly in his exams.  While other parents would panic and throw tutors and enrichment classes at their children, I ignored the pressure and just walked with him through the several parent-teacher meetings, praying that one day, he would look back at this stressful academic system when he grew up and laugh because he had brilliantly created his own opportunities for success in a world that did not give a damn if you had won the egg and spoon race in secondary school. I chose to let go of any preconceptions of what a perfect mother should be.  When I was younger, I was often left out of mother-baby groups where the women got along very well because they followed the rules of what good mothering was all about, whatever they were. I sometimes felt guilty that I was not the mother to Joel the way Mom was to me.  However when I watched Joel grow up to be a strapping young man with values far older than he actually was, I thought I might have done a bloody good job, with no regrets.

 

I did not define my relationship with Joel with hugs, kisses and terms of endearment.  There was no need to.  This would be a typical conversation Joel and I might have.

 

Me, “Joel, you’re my favorite son.”

Joel, “But Mom, I am your only son.”

Me,  “Oh yes.”

 

In our world, Joel and I has the most perfectly imperfect mother-son relationship.

 

The Perfect Marketing Department

 

I used to push myself at work, with my brain switched on almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week, thinking through marketing plans, poking holes into every proposal that landed at my desk and dreaming up of marketing content and ideas at every chance I got. Everything that came out of my department had to be perfect.  With 20 years of Marketing experience amassed at some of the most prestigious blue chip companies, how can anything that I touched be less than perfect?  The reality is, those years back then meant nothing if I refused to grow alongside a world that had evolved with opportunities for others who might not have had the relevant experience, skills nor qualifications, yet had the balls to create brilliant marketing ideas that added value to the community.  They might not have been the most perfect plans but they worked to our business and marketing objectives.   

 

When I lifted this myopic veil of egoistic perceptions of what could be the perfect marketing plan, then I was able to uncover the passion, tenacity, and authenticity of creative souls who merely wanted a chance at making a difference through scope of work that I had initially claimed as my own out of sheer arrogance.  When I accepted that there was no such thing as the most perfect marketing plan, I was able to open my heart and mind to learn from others who did not have the same skills and experience as I did.

 

This made for a perfectly imperfect working environment at which I got excited about every day when I showed up for work.

 

The Perfect Home

 

My housekeeper Evelyn had been away for the past 3 weeks on vacation back to her hometown in the Philippines. Knowing that I was not exactly a Domestic Diva and would not have been able to tell the difference between the washing machine and the microwave oven, she set aside some time before she left, to teach me how to use the appliances at home, and pointed out where all the equipment and the washing liquids were kept.  Secretly, I was furious.  This was my home.  How could I not know how to upkeep my home, right?  My pride caused my nose to get dented out of bent when she wrote a timetable out for me to dictate when I should have my bed linen changed, when the dogs needed their bath and which capsule in the washing machine was for the laundry detergent and which one was for the fabric softener. 

 

When I recovered enough to tell my ego to go to hell, I sat down with David and Joel to map out a plan to divide and conquer the chores.  As the days went by without Evelyn at home, I became more comfortable with the routine of juggling all my priorities with the help of David and Joel. And I realized that over time, I accepted that it was okay to not have a home that was perfectly neat and tidy.  I valued quality time with the family over a sparkling clean kitchen. The pile of clean laundry that needed ironing kept growing.  However I was not pedantic about getting them all ironed and put away at a specific time.  It could wait.  I have better things to do, like spending some good quality time with the family.    I did, in the end, come back to a perfect home. It was a perfect home with a family that was not stressed about a little speck of dust on the shelf, or a white sock that had turned purple in the wash.

 

As I wrote this post, I began to love the imperfections within me and around me a lot more.    The best thing I did for myself in these few months, was to wake up celebrating just being the imperfect me, appreciating the imperfect people in this most imperfect world.


 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Combat Sports, she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

 

 

A Tale Of 2 Cities And 2 Families

A Tale Of 2 Cities

 

Although I have been back from my vacation in Sarawak for 2 weeks now, my heart is still there, buried somewhere in the depths of the forests at Rancan Waterfall.

 

I came home with a truck load of indigenously- grown spices and produce like pepper, Kuching Laksa paste and Olives from Sibu which Mom insisted on lugging across seas back to Singapore.  I am not sure, what is it about travelling, that compels people to do strange things, like carrying 20 boxes of pineapple tarts back to Singapore, only to watch 19 boxes disappear into the hands of relatives and friends before our eyes.  

 

I amassed some wonderful memories of the wildlife reserves and other places of interests that I still talk fondly about, and am planning a wildlife photography trek through the forests some time with David.    

 

Most importantly, I came home also with new familial connections formed as I was introduced to my extended family in Sarawak and was reconnected to familiar ones that I had not seen in more than 40 years. This was the tipping point in my trip because, it played an important role in helping me connect the familial dots between Singapore, Sarawak and Sibu.  In the past, whatever stories told by Granny about Sarawak and Sibu did not make sense to me.  They seemed to be lifted out of 2 separate story books written by several authors all at once. Now, I know better, and it made it more difficult for me to write this blog post but I did promise myself that in 2016, I would CELEBRATE.  So, this post was a way I would celebrate family.  I celebrate being part of a new extended family, with new-found uncles, aunts and cousins. I celebrate being part of a rich familial history that dated back to an enterprising young man who came from China to Borneo many years ago to eke a living and build a new home and family.  This man’s blood courses through me enough to tell the story that I had picked up from the discussions with my Grandmother, Mom and my Aunts.

 

Great Grandfather

 

The story began with my Great Grandfather, Kho Eng Khng, who like many immigrants in his time, came to “Nanyang” or South East Asia by boat to build a life leveraging the abundant opportunities and natural resources it offered.

 

Great Grandfather met and married my Great Grandmother in Kuching.  She was the only daughter in the family and was gifted 2 bangles by her father at the wedding. She gave Great Grandfather one of the bangles as a gift which he had very cleverly used to invest in his business.  He started a textile business under the brand Nan Chi which when translated, means Southern City. The brandname Nan Chi was a meaningful one because it reflected Great Grandfather’s commitment to the city of Kuching. He grew his business on the bedrock of economic growth and development in Kuching then, at the South of the river in Sarawak, and this city had been adopted as his home, where he raised his family.   Nan Chi operated out of a 3-storey shop house and that business became highly successful and expanded beyond his wildest dreams.  Because of his love for nature, he started a landscaping business operating out of Nan Chi Garden which had also become very successful.

 

Great Grandmother

 

By this time, Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother had 4 children, 3 daughters and a son.  One of these daughters, the youngest was my Granny.

 

Great Grandmother with Mom 

When the kids were in school one day and my Great Grandmother was at home, a man from the local immigration office dropped by the house and told my Great Grandmother that she had to sign some immigration papers to allow for the passage of my Great Grandfather’s relative from China to Sarawak.  My Great Grandmother could not read, speak or write English yet she surrendered to the concept of spousal duty by affixing her thumbprint on the dotted line, and unwittingly agreed for my Great Grandfather’s first wife from China to relocate to Sarawak.

 

While my Grandmother’s story veered towards the perception that Great Grandmother was just ignorant, I on the other hand believed that Great Grandmother loved my Great Grandfather so much that she just wanted to do what she thought was right for him.

 

The Other Great Grandmother

 

 

So with the new situation created by that thumbprint, 2 families headed by 1 man with 2 wives co-existed in that 3 storey shophouse at Nan Chi.  Those were the days, when practicality took over and any negative emotions about the awkward situation were just cast aside out of spousal duty from both women to keep my Great Grandfather happy. 

 

The household now consisted of my Great Grandmother with her 4 children, my step Great Grandmother with her 8 children and my Great Grandfather who was perhaps the happiest man within this complex scenario.

 

When step Great Grandmother moved in, my Great Grandmother and the 4 children had to pack up and move to the 3^rd floor of the shophouse while my step Great Grandmother and the 8 children moved to the 2^nd floor of the shop house with my Great Grandfather.  In an Asian family, the first wife of course took precedence in importance and rank, hence Great Grandmother had no choice but to comply with the social rules.

 

The Relocation To Sibu

 

I must have got my rebellious streak from Great Grandmother who not long after, decided that these social rules were bullshit and there just could not be 2 queens in a household.  Ok, Grandmother did not quite say that but I thought that was the best way to describe it in my words. The truth however, was that Great Grandmother's eldest daughter got married and moved to the neighboring city of Sibu. Her son had also moved to Sibu due to work. What else had she then in Kuching? So Great Grandmother bundled the remaining 2 kids and moved to  Sibu too. 

 

To my Great Grandfather’s credit, he did divide his time between both homes in Sibu and Kuching.  Accounts about their lives in Sibu related by my Grandmother also convinced me that my Great Grandmother’s life in Sibu was a better one, surrounded by the kids who grew up to be highly successful people in their own right.  Her 3 daughters, my 2 Grand Aunts and my Grandmother relocated to Singapore eventually.

 

Luckily Grandmother had settled in Singapore when she married my Grandfather and these are the reasons why.  I am truly convinced that the food in Sarawak is much better than that in Singapore.  My diet failed in epic proportions when I was holidaying in Sarawak.  Secondly, Mom told me that her uncle, Great Grandmother’s only son, had the fondness of knocking her head with his knuckles to punish her for running around the estate “like a ruffian” when she was very young.  Well, I would have a huge dent in my head if I had grown up there too.  My Granduncle would be sending a search party through the forests and up trees to look for me.

 

Finally, Grandmother is now the only daughter left to tell me the tale of my Great Grandfather, my Great Grandmother and my step Great Grandmother.  There were many positive stories as well as negative stories that she had related to my mother and I.  I cannot begin to imagine what must have coursed through my Great Grandmother’s mind when she realized that her beloved husband actually had another wife before her.  It must have been difficult to explain to the kids, why they had to move up a dark set of stairs into the 3^rd storey of the shophouse to make way for a “stranger” in the home.  It must have been a difficult decision that my Great Grandmother made to leave the marital home, pack up 2 kids lock, stock and barrel and move to another city to join her 2 other kids.  She must have known it would alter the lives of everyone involved in that move.

 

 However, these did not matter now.  My Great Grandfather and his complex life of 2 wives, 2 families and 2 cities eventually was just a story.  Its complexity was not remotely far from the complexity of what modern families go through in their daily lives of managing home, career, and family life.

 

What was more important though, was that I honor this family and this legacy that my Great Grandfather had built. 

 

Underlying all that, I celebrate the strength and courage of the womenfolk in this family.  When I think about my Great Grandmother, my Grandmother and Mom, I only see strength from the difficult decisions they had to make, the rocky paths they had to walk, the painful stories as well as the happy stories they lived to tell.

 

For this and more, I am truly grateful to be his Great Granddaughter.

Acknowledgement:  The old photographs of my Great Grandfather and his family that accompanied this article was provided with much thanks from my Aunties Sharon and Judy Kho.  The details within this article were woven from stories related to me by my Grandmother, Mom, my uncles and my aunts from Sarawak.

 

 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.