New Year Again

So Chinese New Year is finally here. Everyone seems to be happier this year, for some reason. Much more than last year. Yet this year ironically, CNY didn’t really mean that much to me. And I’m not sure why also. It was just another date marked out on the calendar. Its not that I’m depressed, its not that things aren’t going well… It just wasn’t something that terribly excited me. Mebbe its cos I was down with a really bad flu and sore throat, and was still feverish.

Nevertheless, my family had our traditional reunion dinner where I gorged myself silly on the steamboat. It used to be that I would eat with all my kid cousins while my sis ate with the adults. Something abt how I’m always just a kid, and all my cousins absolutely adored me. But this yr things have changed. My sis was at Joe’s family, and my kid cousins have more or less all grown up. The oldest is studying medicine, the youngest just entered RJC. And I realized I started eating at that table when I was abt 14, when the tradition started of eating at my uncle’s place. I’m now 27, and I’m still eating with the kids. I guess I marked the transition between the generations in my family. Hehz… At least, that sounds better than saying that I haven’t grown up.

After that, out of sheer boredom, I touched a PS2 game controller for the first time in my life. Hehz… not since Nintendo almost 15 yrs ago, had I touched a game controller. And yes, they’ve really advanced so much. With a little less self-control, I can totally see why I’ll be immersed in it 15 hrs a day, like my fren was. But he’s still 19, serving his country, and has his whole life ahead of him to waste. I, on the other hand, do not.

Been seeing an awful lot of babies this new year. So much so that I start liking babies. A lot. On my father’s side of the family, I’m seeing some of the babies I used to hold 6 yrs ago, now prancing around the living room and making an absolute nuisance of themselves. Yet somehow there’s a kind of innocence abt them that makes it impossible for you to blame them for wanting to make every moment abt them, for wanting to draw all attention to themselves.

Yes, there will be a day when I want to be a dad. To go through all the heartache that I caused my own parents, to suffer the frustrations that the teenage years causes every parent, to go through the pain of letting go when my kids finally mature and grow up into their own man or woman. Its such a journey to look back and see how my friends and I have grown up over the years… imagine that joy multiplied a hundredfold when what you witness is your own son and daughter coming of age!

But it leaves me wondering what kindda dad I’d make. I am so out of touch with the current generation of kids, I think I’m never gonna be a cool dad. I’m actually really boring as a person, so I have a feeling my kids won’t exactly want to ask me along when he goes out with his friends. I’m not the most athletic guy around, so I guess unless my son turns out to be a wuss like me, I don’t have too much to offer him when it comes to giving advice on the whole Neanderthal practice of using brute strength and physical prowess to establish his status amongst his peers. In short, dammit, I’m turning out to be exactly like my own dad.

Depressing thoughts for a festive occasion indeed. Hehz…

But what I would like to do for my kids… that’s a totally different matter. I guess I’d love to be a dad who gives my children the space to make their mistakes. Whose first instinct is not to scold and correct, but to love and accept. The scolding always will come later on, but I guess I’d want my kids to know first and foremost that before the scolding comes, that he/she knows I love him/her. I’d love to be a dad whose kids hides everything from like all kids do, but whom they’ll know to turn to when something serious comes up, because they know they won’t feel like they’re on trial, but that the family is always there for them.

I say that because every visitation always reminds me why I sometimes hate the way we raise kids in Singapore. Spill something on the sofa, and the kids get screamed at, like the sofa’s worth a lot more than the kid’s sensitivities. Throw a tantrum and the kid gets scolded like the parents aren’t interested in what’s wrong with the kid, but is only interested in preserving ‘face’ in front of relatives and guests. I’ve had a family who’s willing to put up with some of my greatest failures and offered me nothing but their support. Yet on some of the more simple incidences in life, they’ve also been the first to put me down and make me feel like my opinion carries no weight because I can’t be trusted to do anything right.

But looking at all my other relatives, I’d say I have abt the best family culture there is. The whole understanding that no matter what disagreements we have amongst ourselves, we are always a family, and always will be. My sis and mom have ingrained that into me since I was a child. Meals together, trips overseas together, the compromising of ourselves for the welfare and consideration of each other… I guess more than anything else, that’s one thing I’d want for my family next time. I still have my silly run-ins with my sis, but I’ll always remember her falling out with Joseph for my sake because of something he did. I guess since then he kindda got the message that whoever else he might disregard, he’d better take my family seriously cos my sis places it first, and above anything else. Which works out great for me, since he’s always tried to be nice to me since then. Grins.

I guess its tradition around New Year time, to make resolutions. And one way of learning to eventually graduate to be head of the household, is by taking responsibility for the household I’m now in. Responsibilities that used to be my dad’s will have to slowly become mine, such as groceries shopping, starting to learn more abt the management of the assets of my family, doing my part in turn to keep in touch with my sis and keep the family together even tho we live under different roofs. I guess it can be a real chore. Cos it means less time for friends, for hanging out, for myself. But I slowly understand why my parents don’t really have a lot of friends like I do. Its because they had to give them up in order to have time for the family. And I learn a little more everyday about the sacrifices that they make, and the sacrifices I’d have to make now that I’m contributing to the family.

Growing up sucks sometimes. Don’t understand why so many kids are so eager to grow up. I’d love to stay the little pipsqueak that I have been for 25 yrs.

Grown ups are too complicated already. Between what they want, what they don’t want, and what they think they want, nobody really knows what’s really going on anymore. And these are the very people who run the world, and tell kids what they shd want!!

Hahahaha… This sucks.

I’ve been enchanted by this soundtrack from Finding Neverland. Absolutely magical. And I’m absolutely smitten. So much so that I’m putting out one of my fav numbers from that OST here on my blog.

Enjoy…

May we always find our Neverlands in our own hearts, and let it be a place we guard jealously, a place we can retreat to when things get too confusing and we don’t know what to do or where to go… we can go to Neverland.

=)