Tonight is a night of many meaningful conversations.
With my wave, a random taxi driver & my own dad.
Amazing how you can get so much out of 1 night, together with some fear and sadness with those realizations.
It's been some time since people in my wave took the time out to really sit down, talk and connect to each other, especially when most of us are busy with the different roles that we have taken on and diversified after LP ended. And i guess what i'm really grateful for is the instant connection that just happens, how easily the ice just breaks to moment we come together - and it has been 5 months since wave 6 finished LP.
As much as we were cliquish and stuck together in saying no or yes to those outside of our wave, which led many to think that we were united in not being aligned to the organization as a whole, but i guess it was a strength to be able to stand by each other and stand up for what we believed and trusted in each other as a wave. It is that kind of belief that allowed us to stand up for the wave or for each other when we were attacked in some way or another. This is something i felt most waves were not able to do, especially the current resident wave where leaders would preferred to be in the positions of other waves instead.
But it is also this strength in unity we had that allowed us to integrate well with the organization in sticking out in the beliefs of its future and doing our utmost to make Galt Valley materialize. Whether it was the cambodia trip or the processor training, it never fails to amaze me that half of the people in there came from wave 6 - how the essential bonds that we built in the past became mainstayers even now in the future.
Suddenly a food for thought of how we could pull stronger together just came to my mind.
On my way back home, it was kinda amazing how the mention that we were coaches could just cause the driver to pour out his entire life story out to me in just half an hour after i reached my place - the meaninglessness of his life and the pain of what he had been through just struck me and what my dad's life could possibly mean. That struck some fear in me, especially after what i heard my aunts and grandma say to me during CNY.
Never have i, in my entire life, heard of my aunts and grandma's love and concern for my dad. Everything was about practicality: the family was loud, rancous and was never about being lovey-dovey. But this CNY was different, perhaps because i have graduated and in their eyes, i have grown up.
My aunt voiced her concern out to me about the unhealthy lifestyle my dad led - the night shift driving that destroys ur biological clock, the excessive amount of smoking (given that my aunt smokes as well) that he is prone to these days, the amount of coffee and sweets he takes, and the non-existents meals that he ingests (Which i do see him eat at all). She sort of pleaded with me to take care of my dad and if possible, give him money so that he does not need to work.
It was really then i started to take a good look at my dad, and realized how i have not really been seeing him recently, the amount of weight he had lost, how bony he is looking - a shadow of his former self. It forced me to sharpen my clarity, of how he has been losing the meaning to his life and indulging in a habit of smoking that is his only avenue for escape. For a moment there was alot of fear, that he might end up leaving this world before my grandma.
There was this sudden urgency in me to worry about his life, and how do i ensure there are no regrets between him and my mum, given that my mum has a stubborn streak as i do and that doesn't help to reconcile things. Perhaps i'm imposing myself on him, but i think not.
A short conversation - one that makes one confronted - forced out what was really lying beneath--> his desire to reconcile with my mum, except the amount of resistance that is put up. I guess that was a meaning that he was looking for. It was such a confronting admission that he switched from gaming to watching tv in the short span of time.
What do i do next? To resolve a problem as age old as i am. To cause them to take the step of willingness to resolve this and patch up. That is a societal problem that our parents are trapped in, thinking that it is for the good of the children when we were young and not realizing that it is the children who are most aware of what is going on. Not knowing that it was causing pain not just to the two adults, but to the children and well. And that the decision to stay together for the children is not of something that is "no choice" but it was a choice of taking a non-choice, of choosing not to have a choice in the first place. The lack of this first realization that traps you in the first place.
Parents always think that they are doing it for the sake of their children, not seeing that the real truth is of their display of cowardice in not wanting to face the pain of negating what they have created, of destroying that want to see a beautiful picture painted out of this instead.
How ironic, and noble. Children are really just excuses that adults make use of in their maneuvers to get to where they want. And it is sad because that detracts you from the whole meaning of life, which just spiral downwards as all these becomes pointless is your pursuit of doing things for the good of everyone when that obviously brings the whole ship down together with you.
This is becoming a long rant. But ultimately it is something me and my brothers have to take responsibility in working this out: putting ourselves out of the equation so that it is really just between the 2 of them. As much as we could say we have not regrets, but to our parents who brought us to this world, that is something important to us as well, to see them being fulfilled before they pass on. And i definitely know that time is running short. If i don't run faster, it's not going to just be their regrets but mine as well.
Filial Piety. Sigh.
OrAnGeL was fuming at
4:55 AM
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I know what it meant to hold on to the people you bring into the work, but it is only right here right now that i understood what it meant to see someone once important in your life revert back to the place where there is no light, a place where life is petty, about the superfluous things that is not called life.
It is a kind of pain numbed over time, that lingers around even as everything moves on, as time waits for no one. The hurt and pain of being so alive when you know others around you are not, the anger at the stupidity of the world, of how they are blinded to the essence, the marrow and source of what makes one feel alive and live life to the fullest.
But hell. Life goes on, whatever decisions that each of us make.
Just another rant.
I guess i kind of know what the fuck am i doing here.
OrAnGeL was fuming at
1:45 AM
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