2016 has taught me | Question Time

[Quick context: I share a blog with my best friend, S, and it’s filled with random posts about our lives/friendship- may it be inside jokes, differences in opinions, perspective on life, weird things that it seems like only the two of us do… and more recently, we’ve been leaving each other questions for the other to answer. In this particular instance, I left her a relatively difficult question – one that I was going to blog about on here. Here it goes…]

Q: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learnt about yourself in 2016 and why has it made such an impact?

I’d like to start off with the fact that I love solitude. I thrive in my ‘alone time’. I’m one of those people that would rather be out and about by myself than go out with a ‘squad’.

This year, has been significantly different to my previous years. My love for solitude remained but it has made me realise that I am a lot more reliant on my sisters than I’d ever care to admit; and I guess this could be attributed to a series of significant changes or events in 2016.

New Apartment

So with my rent going up at my previous apartment, and P&N wanting to move closer to the city, we collectively decided to move into a 3bdr apartment in the same area as my previous place. This move saves us all a lot of money but still provides us with a brand new apartment, great onsite facilities and close proximity to everything – the city, the station, the beaches, and not too far from mum’s and dad’s.

I didn’t know how bad or how good of a decision this would be in the long run, but it was a decision I didn’t take lightly because of my history with my sister (yeah there were phases in our lives where I wanted to punch her in the face).

I was prepared for the worst case scenarios, but I was not prepared to grow closer or even clingy-er to P. I found myself waiting for her to come home from work, sad whenever our work timings don’t line up (i.e when she leaves early and comes home early but I get home much later so we end up not seeing each other), we coordinated our train times on our way to work, etc. We basically bonded a lot more than I expected.

The sad part hits me when I want to do something with her but she can’t because she’s already made plans with her husband. She tries to include me but sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re all hanging out, it’s like them and then me?

Touring around the Philippines

So my one and only vacation this year was in the Philippines, with K & C, prior to their wedding. It was an absolute blast and boy am I lucky to have had C with us – he was such an older brother for me and I don’t think I can express my gratitude enough.

My time with them has been amazing, but spending 4 weeks with just the three of us has only made me realise (again, like above) that it was the two of them, plus me.

Whenever we’d do an activity that required two people, it would always be the two of them, and I’d have to do it on my own; which is a stark contrast to how K & I used to be. And like I said, I love doing things by myself – but I guess it’s the feeling it leaves me with that really gets me down.

Wedding

The J wedding was also held in the Philippines so most of what I said in the previous section hold true. The key thing I wanted to say was that the wedding was like the ‘nail to the coffin’ in terms of realising that K, someone whom I was inseparable with at some point in my life, was again, someone I had to let go.

My Maid of Honour speech was pretty truthful and transparent about how I felt.

“After some time, I finally adjusted and acknowledged the fact that I had to share K with someone else – someone who i was willing to share my sister with.”

It signified the end of an era – the end of K & A, but the start of K & C.

Since the wedding, everything has been K & C and very rarely been K & A. And ever since then, I’ve realised how much it’s actually hurt me. I guess I never really realised how much the wedding/marriage would actually impact me and my relationship with her.

…

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my sisters to death. My love for them has not diminished at all this year. I know they love me and (hopefully) that’ll never change. All I’m saying is that the dynamic between our relationships have changed.

I guess ever since they met their partners, I kind of knew that I no longer played as big of a role in their lives as I used to. But having gone through these things with them this year has re-iterated the fact that I’m only truly realising now, the I’m no longer a priority in their lives – and that I’m only starting to learn to be okay with that now.

I guess as I head into the new year, I’ll be learning more and more about how to come to terms with this? I’ll just go back to my usual solitude ways – without relying on my sisters for my happiness.

[God, I started this draft over 4 weeks ago… only managed to finish it today, on the last day of the year. Actually, to be completely honest, I had to force myself to finish it today. I have no excuses, but I really had to rush the rest of this post. I’m sorry!]

Happy new year, WPers!

xo

A

Old friends, new stories

[Originally posted on April 17, 2016 on my website. Copying it over onto this one for archiving.]

We meet all sorts of people at different times of our lives. There are those we meet at school, university, work or randomly (maybe through friends of friends?); whom we never speak to again after graduation or moving onto a new role/job.

But then there are those couple of people who manage to stick it out through years, maybe even decades of friendship. These guys are the ones we share endless amounts of inside jokes, memories and experiences with. They’re probably the same people you’ve had fights and disagreements with, but managed to come out on the other side with an even stronger friendship.

I am lucky.

I am fortunate enough to have a couple of ‘these guys’ in my life.

. . .

I am a firm believer that the depth of friendship cannot be quantified or validated by the number of years you’ve known someone, but through the journey and experiences you’ve shared with someone.

Childhood

The period of time wherein playtime was as good as it gets.

The bond you had which urged you to pick your best friend when ‘picking teams/sides’.

The time where you’d go over each other’s houses to play some more – because playing at school was insufficient.

The phase in our lives where our fights were so petty that it happened so often, that we can’t even remember what any of them were about; and somehow we were all best friends again the following day.

It’s the level of friendship likely to end the minute one of you moves schools.

. . .

Teenage years

The formative, adolescent years. The friends we make are often those whom we share some commonality with in terms of schooling – classes, sport, bus/train rides. And maybe, if you’re lucky, some from your childhood make it to this part of your life.

These are the years where play time turned into ‘going out’ – that is, being courageous enough to ask permission from our parents to go to our local shopping centre. If you’re really brave, you might even be allowed to go to the movies with your friends or even go to the city (without parental supervision, of course)!

The high school years wherein drama and crushes/puppy love consumed our energies. These are the years we spent moping, venting and reading into every single situation with our friends.

The phase in our lives where our fights could be so ‘big’ that it would drive a wedge between us – it almost seems like the phase that could make or break a friendship really.

For those lucky enough to have a childhood friend ‘level up’ to this part of their life, these are the years where ‘best friends’ tend to mean a lot more. It meant making the extra effort to see each other because you didn’t go to the same school – if it meant catching the same train or meeting up in the library, that was how you stayed in touch.

The stories and experiences we take from this phase in our lives are the inside jokes, the ‘heartaches’, the memories from school, and for those friends we make in high school, it’s at least 6 years’ (in Australia) worth of happy moments, conflicts and random ‘crap’ we take with us as we move on.

Graduating from high school – the day tears are shed, with the fear of never seeing our (best) friends again. How does one live without them?

. . .

‘Adulting’ – Transition to the adult world

We go from seeing our best and closest friends everyday at school or have regular catchups, to the years of our lives where your university timetables don’t align with theirs and full time work kicks in. The years wherein you either make an extra effort to see your friends or sever all ties from them – may it be for reasons like you never liked them in the first place, or perhaps you guys just grew apart.

This is the phase in our life wherein ‘our’ stories become your stories and my stories. From creating memories and sharing experiences with each other, we move to being the 3rd party to these memories and experiences. It is by no means a reason to drift apart, but definitely a shift in our lives, something we learn to adjust to. The stories go from ‘remember when we…’ to ‘do you know what happened to me and…’.

The transition into the adult world’s an interesting one because everyone moves through life at different speeds. The way we act, our priorities, and our level of maturity are not dictated upon by our age. Yes, there are social norms we all strive to abide by or even live up to, but we can’t. The pace at which we move at is different to our friends’, no matter how close or similar you guys are. Conflict, disagreements and disappointments arise because we end up finding ourselves in others. We expect our friends to act a certain way. We find fault in them when they don’t align their goals and priorities with yours.

It’s a bittersweet feeling really. We may no longer get to do everything together but we do have the pleasure of witnessing growth and maturity amongst our childhood and high school friends, as we move through the different phases of our lives. We go from sulking about how much we miss ‘the good old days’, to finding absolute joy in listening to our friends’ new adventures and find pride in their accomplishments.