Recently in Relationships Category

It’s odd that two separate parts of my past would converge in Monterey last week.

===

There was a young boy once who would show up every now and then at the basketball court. He was chubby, and being a few years younger than the rest of the guys, considerably shorter. Not one of the regulars of this particular court, he didn’t get to play very much and would just shoot the ball around on his own.

He kept doing that until one day he wasn’t so short anymore (still a little chubby though), and we asked him to join us. The time and effort he had put in shooting the ball all that time paid off - he certainly had more game than many of us.

I never knew his name, until many years later when Cheryl brought him to church.

His name is Leon, and I remembered the relentless work ethic he brought to the courts so many years before.

I also noticed that he was now taller than me.

===

20 years ago I was entrusted with taking care of a young girl over the course of a 4 day church camp. I was supposed to write letters of encouragement to her, pin it up on a huge notice board without revealing who I was. I don’t remember what we wrote each other, but I do remember it being deep and heartfelt.

Over the years I have seen her transform from a little girl who wore frilly victorian-styled dresses to the amazing woman before us. Though the years and geographic proximity would render us more distant, I have always felt entrusted with her well-being, albeit through thought or prayer.

It was until she brought Leon to church when I realised that this imaginary role now belonged to him. I remember my initial reaction being one of relief. This boy would definitely try his darndest.

I’ve been creating the website for Teachers’ Day for the last few years. It’s a site to celebrate Teachers’ Day in Singapore, which falls on the 1st of September. We’d normally invite the public to write short notes to the teachers who have touched their lives in one way or another.

As part of system testing, I’d always write to Mr. Ng, who taught me English Literature in secondary school. I’ve not been able to find Mr. Ng, not on Google or Facebook, not on MOE’s internal staff directory. I hoped that he’d eventually read my short messages and get back to me.

Because he was a really special teacher to me.

When all other teachers were exasperated beyond belief at my disinclination (to put it mildly) towards the doing of assigned homework, Mr. Ng took time to converse with me, person to person. I loved literature, but always found writing down answers on a piece of paper the most inefficient way to expand the mind. It was during my many conversations with Mr. Ng that I found a fellow journeyman who hadn’t lost the awe and wonder that came with reading wonderfully written lines. We spoke about Shakespeare and about life; and he never did ask me to hand in his homework.

It is an intimate relationship when you know someone by the pieces of text they hold dearest in their hearts. Mr. Ng’s favourite poem was “Convergence of the twain” by Thomas Hardy. Its cadence and the build up towards the impending collision between the Titanic and the iceberg appealed to him, he said.

It strikes me deeply that I’ll never have the chance to tell him how wonderful he was to me.

This year, like the other years, I built the Teachers’ Day website and launched my first dedication message via Twitter. I received an email hours later from a friend, who also happened to be many years my junior in secondary school, asking whether or not I had known that Mr. Ng had passed on a few years back.

The finality of it all sunk in. I was at a wedding dinner when I read the email, and everything went about in a blur. The one thought that kept coming back was: “I missed it.” I should have said thanks earlier. I should have spent more time with the people that matter. I shouldn’t have procrastinated.

Like the poem, we all see this coming, for all our relationships. It’s what you do between the first line and the last line that matters.

Faith and I have been married 5 years. Half a decade, two amazing kids and a pretty messy home. What a ride.

I had meant for it to be special. I did. I wanted a short vacation away, and it was only at the last minute before booking I realised Caleb didn’t have a passport. Thoughts of flowers, spas and romantic dinners crossed my mind, but the bustle of everyday life washed it clean away.

So I was there, stroke of midnight, receiving a present from Faith, empty-handed. The day of the anniversary passed with Faith going back to work and I looking after baby Caleb. She came home that evening and I was still empty-handed. She was naturally a little upset that I had not made the effort to make the day special, but reassured me constantly that it wasn’t a big deal. Her present was nothing short of wow, by the way.

Typing this out now I realise how big a numbskull I am for not doing anything special. She has put up with me for 5 whole years, for crying out out. It may sound like a cop out, but I love her tremendously every single day I’ve been with her, and it becomes hard to “step it up” for the special occasions.

I didn’t have to play it big. A simple card would have made her day, and I didn’t even do that.

:(

I’ve been on course the last 2 weeks, and it’s sad that friends made over this time will be out of sight as the routine of real life is set in.

The time spent there has revealed quite a bit and raised a number of questions as to my role in the civil service, which for the most part has been on the technical aspect. There is a need for me to pray - to know the direction God intends and for the courage to pursue it.

Faith sent me a bunch of flowers to cheer me up at work. I love this girl.

Life’s been a little crazy around here lately. The new Ministry of Education site is due for launch very soon, so moving those huge cogs to fall into place is a full-time job and then some. On the home front, we’re busy preparing for the arrival of baby Caleb.

He’s called Caleb because Caleb was the first name to go on our list, and Anne refuses any other suggestion. So there Caleb, your sister’s stubborness named you.

All these million-and-one things to do makes me a little irritable as my brain constantly sorts out the next few moves. What to do, who to talk to, shelving aside good ideas that aren’t so urgent but mentally bookmarking them so I remember to revisit them. As the to-do list grows longer, I get snappier as I don’t have the luxury of sitting back and strategising. The never ending tirade of doing buffets me, wave after wave after wave.

Just realised that I typed “wave after wave after wave” with only my left hand. Do you do the same?

I digress.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Didn’t realise it until a colleague gave our flowers to everyone in the department - an extremely sweet gesture.

Tribolum turned 8 yesterday. So much has changed since. Finished college, married Faith, begot Anne, awaiting Caleb / Ezra, moved out, became a civil servant (I still shudder at the thought).

To me the major theme of this portion of my life has been that of goodbyes. Maybe I was a fool to ever have held on to the notion that I’d never have to let go; that somehow the world would remain small enough to always be part of my life. The small village life does not exist in the city.

I haven’t spoken to my childhood best friend in years. Many people I grew up with have moved to all corners of the earth. Though just a phone call or an email away, the distance seems unbridgeable. It is not a physical distance or a chasm created only by time, but one forged by life. Life may not bring us to the same place.

People who read my blog 8 years ago have gone on to do other things. Most were young people interested to read about my long-distance relationship with Faith. Now that we’re married, that chapter is closed, and those readers too have moved on.

I guess I’m learning to enjoy the ride, and not worry whether the party I started out with rides the same sled. We’ll probably bump and meet some point down the slope. I can’t help wondering how everyone is though.

So I turn 30 in a few minutes and tonight was the usual family fanfare. Food, food and more food. I don’t have the metabolism of a 20-year old anymore, so this’ll probably take me a while to burn off in the gym.

This year is that I brought along extra help to blow the flame off the candles. Help would come, whether I wanted it or not.

What a difference 3 decades makes.

It is odd having just left New York only to see her again on the inflight entertainment on the outbound flight. The usual touristy reaction “I was just there” silently escapes my lips, and I finish up the viewing of “The Devil Wears Prada”.

I then realise that the while I traversed her streets as an observer and outsider, my sister lives and works there. I had introduced her to Tucson years ago as you would a teenager to the Queen. and while I now leave the shores of the United States, the teenager I brought has become a woman, a New Yorker.

It feels odd to be on the opposite end of reciprocity. Min showed me around - the eating places, the subway system, the sights, the physical locations of places I had only known from the silver screen. It was as if what I now stood where I had only seen through a window, and my sister lived on the other side.

It isn’t easy letting go of the fact that not everything lies contained with the island confines of Singapore. To think that a few generations ago, before the advent of human flight, the idea of the global village would be ludicrous, and many, many lives were closely knit within a small physical space manageable by one’s conscious mind. Where everything was in view and all activities within earshot. Not a million miles away with poor substitutes like email and IM.

But like every good older brother, our younger sisters can only soar when you let them have free rein of the air. To have spent the week flying under her wing, rather than her under mine, was a humbling experience whose taste I imagine myself having to get accustomed to. The arrows of the young will fly further and straighter than mine. I need only to show them how to flex the bow.

A post following Mis_nomer’s comment on the dilemma Chinese New Year reunion dinners bring to newly married couples. The almost-painful helplessness of not being able to be in multiple places at the same time has become a silent but ever-present companion the older I grow. I fall in love with people and places far too easily and the realities of time and space, not to mention the general inertia I seem endowed with sometimes makes me come across as callous and uncaring.

To the many wonderful people who’ve lived in my life once upon a time - childhood friends who have since drifted, strangers who have offered me help when I least expected it, mere acquaintances whose one smile made the day that much better - to everyone with whom I’ve shared an instance of realness, of intimacy, even if it were just a fraction of a moment:

I love you; and am indebted to you all.

Relationship tip: Make housework fun.

Saturday afternoons are great for naps. While Faith was sleeping, I snuck out of bed and mopped the floor. When she wakes up in a while, she’ll probably throw a mini-fit because it was something she said she’d do.

There’s something oddly motivating about doing things, even housework, when you’re not supposed to.

When asked what they look for in a potential partner, most, if not all singles reply, “a sense of humour”.

What so important about this humour thing anyway? If you said you wanted your potential mate to be stinking rich, at least you’re set for life as far as material goods are concerned. But humour? It doesn’t even cure the common cold, despite what a zillion copies of Readers’ Digest claims. What makes all of us value it so much? Are we genetically predisposed to choose someone who’s funny?

If we’re to believe in Darwin’s theory of natural selection and what-not, here’s my take on it: humour is the truest test of intelligence. University degrees, PhDs, IQ tests are all nonsense. I’m sure many of you can write up a list of names of highly educated people who turned out to be idiots. Can’t think of one? Let me help you out here: what was the name of your ex-boss again?

It’s not easy being funny. And just being funny isn’t enough. The level of humour is important too. Slapstick is good for a laugh but it gets old fast. Then you have those guys who are witty. They are always great fun at parties. But seriously though, if you can find a guy who does Deuce Bigalow slapstick while quoting Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, you have yourself a keeper.

That said, most girls eventually settle for witty. Because he seemed nice to be with at the party. He was such a hoot.

Ten years later, you kick yourself in the behind for marrying such a sarcastic s.o.b. who hasn’t stopped making fun of your dress sense since you wore the wedding gown.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

BP says it best in her entry “ A piece of my mind for peace of mind”. Everything changes when you have kids to mind, a house to clean and work to be done. Maybe I haven’t exactly been the best father, husband, son, friend or colleague I could be.

There are times at night I’m just surprised I made it through the day.

On the day of my 28th birthday, my mother said to me (this is starting to sound like a country song),

You have always been a rebel. You always feel a need to go in and shake things up. It makes you feel alive.

After more than half a century of fighting it, Mum finally got it. When she put it as succinctly as she did, it came across as a revelation to me. It’s something I’ve always known, but never heard it said out loud.

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicèan barks of yore
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

- “To Helen”, by Edgar Allan Poe

There’s a certain magic to found only in college campuses. Maybe it’s the abundance of grass, or the expanse of sky unhindered by towering office blocks. Or maybe it is how the vibrance of youth, found so concentrated there, makes everything seem more alive. Idealism thrives, untainted by reality.

I went to NUS after work today in hopes of finding a Mecca of basketball to pay homage to. There was the most beautiful golden sunset. It made me miss my days at the University of Arizona.

But a greater longing pulled at me the entire evening. There I was, on the other side of the island while Faith and Anne were at home. It just felt so wrong. Not wrong as in the guilty sense of the word, but wrong - like something didn’t fit. I took the first cab I saw home.

The sight of Anne smiling upon seeing me made the earth spin under my feet. I run the risk of coming across as clichéd, but the smile of a child makes everything right as rain. I felt so blessed to come home to Faith and Anne; an undeserving recipient of the most beautiful gift. And at that moment I knew that my home is right here in the present and not in a picturesque rose-tinted memory of the past. It is here beside Faith, whose eyes sparkle when she smiles, and Anne, who periodically chokes on her saliva when she laughs too hard.

God, thanks. Help me be faithful in loving them as you’d want me to.

Watched the first episode of Joey yesterday, the Tribiani spin-off from Friends. The humour isn’t as sharp, but it’s always nice to see a familiar face. I think nostalgia is one factor this sitcom has on its side. I doubt the funnies can go very far. I could be wrong, but from the first episode, more characters need to be brought in fast. Then Joey (of all people) says something profound:

(again, heavily paraphrased)

You think I like change? I was happy in New York. But people move on. They get married. They have children. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it is that change is hard.

Min’s job in Arizona is starting to get exciting, with trips to various cities in the United States.

Change is hard.

Over the course of Tribolum’s existence, I’ve been asked numerous times about love, and how it makes the world go round. What should one do to keep the flame burning brightly? Should I go on loving when she doesn’t like me?

There are times when I see couples interacting and I get the gut feel that something’s not quite right. Or sometimes I wonder how couples will be able to address some large differences they have and seemed to ignore before they got married. Even though I don’t consciously believe it, I have enthroned myself as a relationship expert.

And then there are times when I feel utterly humbled. When I see couples so different individually expressing love for one another. Somehow, somewhere, the great divide is melted away, and for the moment the twain hold nothing in their hearts but the love God gave them for each other.

It is amazing to know that love comes in so many forms. That my relationship is unique and one-of-a-kind, as will yours. Tonight I lay for a moment, watching Faith sleep, thanking God that I am married to the most wonderful girl in the world.

So Cinderella married Prince Charming and they lived happily ever after.

Twenty minutes into her marriage, she got miffed that P.C. seemed more interested doing Matrix moves in Max Payne. Bullet time took on a whole new meaning when he fired up World of Warcraft after Max Payne.

She wasn’t about to go back to stepsister lifestyle. She hadn’t come so far to be ignored and left to do the housework. She wanted P.C. to give her a pedicure and then follow her to shoe-shop at Takashimaya Shopping Center.

P.C. had no clue. He thought he had proven his worth in the shoe-shopping department when he brought Cinderella’s glass slipper all around his kingdom. He thought that he was now upgraded to bachelorlife+. He didn’t know that:

Relationships, like women’s shoe-shopping habits, require continuous work. There is no one shoe that satisfies every shoe craving. You think Frodo’s life was the bomb after he destroyed the One Ring? He still had to fight off amorous Gamgee, although Peter Jackson tried hard portray Sam as the faithful married hobbit.

Fairy tales end. You need to work hard to chain-link them like a fireball-uppercut combo.

It was a nice long weekend for most of us. Faith and I took the opportunity to head out to Pulau Ubin on Good Friday. I was anxious to give the new camera some visual food to feast on.

The nearby island doesn’t seem as backward as I remember it to be. The last time I went there I saw 12 year olds riding motorcycles with an 8 year old brother sitting behind. No such luck this time. It has become a tourist hangout. Some old houses are now used as cafés for the thirsty sightseers while others rent out bicycles.

We came to ride. The last time we came Faith and I rode a tandem bicycle together. Back then we were the only ones who made it up a very steep hill without getting off and pushing the bike. I just wanted to see if we still maintained that quality within us.

Faith felt confident enough to ride separate bikes this time. While I love her adventurous spirit, I missed having her sitting right behind me.

We came to some very steep uphills. As I was leading the way I stopped to see if she needed help pushing her bike up. Instead of getting off, she zoomed past me, putting her mind into the climb.

I watched in wonder, so very proud of being the husband of such an amazing woman. She took on the challenge and didn’t back down.

So you see, love isn’t always about staying exactly the same as we used to be. It’s about developing together and continually being amazed.

Distance is always a hard thing to deal with in relationships. I’m not just talking about geographical distances, even though it poses a very real problem for those of us who’ve studied abroad and left our beloveds behind. There’s emotional distance, physical distance (due to physical attractiveness) and even spiritual distances we have to be aware of in a relationship.

I’ve seen many struggle with relationship distance in its many forms. “We’re not what we used to be” or “things have changed” are often signs that we’ve allowed distance to get too far.

We need to come to grips with the fact that people change and circumstances change.

The sooner we realise that we cannot stop the clock on change, the better. I used to be like that - highly resistant to change. In my point of view a person who changed little was a person who had a sense of security in who he was.

I’m telling you: it starts with the small things.

I was folding clothes that had just been washed when I realised that all of Faith’s clothes were turned inside out. She does this to prevent unnecessary wear and tear. Being the lazy bugger I am, I just folded them that way. She’d just have to turn them over when she wants to wear them, right? That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, considering she only wears one at a time, whereas I had a whole bunch on my hands.

Funny thing is, I came to one of my T-shirts which was inside-out and instinctively turned it right-way-out before folding it. I stood there rather stunned for a moment, and the words came to me. “I have to love her as much as I love myself. I have to love her like Christ loves His church.”

I folded them properly. It’s the tiniest of details, but it reveals so much of our own selfishness.

One of the most common questions I get here on Tribolum is: How did you know she was the one?

I hesitated replying this question because it opens a can of worms. Is there only one “the one”? What if you already blew your chances with “the one”? Will another “the one” be provided for you?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. I’ve ventured through the philosophical possibilities thoroughly enough to know that no one, not even “the one” has the answers to how many “the one”s one gets in his or her lifetime.

Another reason why I had originally refrained from writing in response to those questions was that my personal experience is not a secular experience. It was a time when I wanted to be as politically correct, but now I know that sharing my life with you means sharing my spiritual experiences as well as my intellectual adventures.

So back to the question, “how do you know if he / she is the one?” As human beings we fall in love a lot. A lot of us get hurt, some feel used, while even more hold on to pieces of unrequited love, hoping to piece them together into some semblance of a relationship. Even an imaginary relationship seems better that what real life offers us at times. The months become years and we give up looking for “the one” and conclude that his or her existence is an adolescent fable. A Santa Clause for young adults.

So instead of looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, some of you settle for Mr. or Ms. Right-here. Others pack their hearts in little styrofoam-padded boxes and keep them in their storerooms, never to risk being broken again. Once in a while someone intriguing comes by and the question arises once more.

Is he / she the one?

You reckon you’re too old to fall for this anymore. You’re too jaded to ask. You don’t need to ask, you tell yourself.

I’m telling you that you need to know.

Cinderella danced away with her prince charming. He made everything seem so surreal and perfect. Now, held in his arms, she experienced the sort of euphoria that seemed strong enough to last a lifetime, if not forever.

While she waltzed her way through the enchanted forest, she came upon Snow White, who was still lying in the enclosure of glass, still asleep.

You see, fairy tales are told far and wide, but no one remembers how they correlate with each other anymore. Chronologically, Cinderella found her happy ending before Snow White found hers. Frankly, at that point in time, no one knew if Snow White would ever find a happy ending, or if sleeping was already the end.

Cinderella paused. How could she feel such happiness in the face of so much sadness? Was it selfish to celebrate the closure of her suffering while so many were still in the midst of theirs, with no end in sight? Goldilocks was still being held captive by three rather ferocious bears and a rescue grew improbable as “Baby Bear” had grown to a gargantuan size. Her joy was now mixed with a forlorn sorrow. She made a silent wish in her heart; that if it were at all possible, that her joy be foregone if the rest of the world could experience but a shared fraction of it.

Was it fair that she should be in such bliss? Was her waltzing around, public displays of affections with P.C., blogging about her honeymoon rubbing salt in the wounds of others? Or did it give them hope that a happy ending was possible?

She planted a kiss on Snow White’s glass canopy. She wished with all her heart for Snow White’s happiness.