Mournday, Tearsday, Wailsday and it never will end
Part of growing up is probably coming to terms with death. People protect you from it when you’re still a child, but when you’re older, the general expectation is that you know what dying means – or at least, since dying means something different for everybody, you have a personal idea of what it’s like. And I think sometimes people assume that you’re okay conversing about it, that it shouldn’t disturb you to know about a death because you’re old enough.
But no matter how many times I hear about someone who passes away, or takes his own life, I can’t get used to it. I honestly doubt I ever can. There’s some sort of emptiness left behind. A walking, living, feeling person is reduced to a doll-like figure in a wooden box. It is buried, like his memories, his emotions, his air, his conversations, his thoughts, his touch. You have his things, you can touch them and smell them, and it will seem like a dream; like – you know, maybe he’s just away for a while, he will come back. Look, he left his comb here, he left his closet door ajar, he’s got a bag of half-finished crisps he’s saving for later. He’s just out running errands, not gone forever. He will come back and sleep in his bed tonight, he will come back and have dinner with you just like everyday before. He will come back and finish what he started, he will close his closet door, he will finish the crisps and fall asleep beside you. Then you spend the night thinking, and waiting and hoping, and waking up the next morning hoping it was all a lie and a dream – only it wasn’t.
You will go about your daily errands, drop something on the floor, complain that you are clumsy and then expect to hear him comforting you, but there isn’t a single sound, not even a moving shadow to respond to you. Or you will hear sounds like that sound like him, and then absent-mindedly call out to him, but realise that you were hearing things. Or a neighbour.
And how do people cope with that? And worse, if they regret something they did or didn’t say or do for the person when he was there? Compensating for something will never be as good as doing the thing itself when you could.
I wonder what people think before they die. Doo their lives flash before their eyes? Do they think of people they love? Do they think forward, and wonder what they’ll see? Literature loves giving us ideas like these, and take our imaginations away with it…maybe it’s really so much simpler?
Or before they take their own life. Do they regret it the instant they go pass the point of no return? The moment their body sags into the rope under the weight of gravity?
Someone whose face I know just took his own life some time back. I can’t help but wonder.
Is it courage or is it cowardice?
Or is it just an inevitable chain of events that makes you feel powerless to stop what’s about to come, that you’ve lost control over things?
It’s always hard to justify or to condemn things like this, isn’t it.
It scares me.
Watch the Fireworks
And of course, being the lazy bugger I am, I have not been blogging when I should – that is when I’m not doing essays/homework/reading intellectual stuff to feed my pink fluff of a brain.
I’m blogging right now at 3.24 am when I have a lecture tomorrow (At least, I started this post at 3.24am and I don’t know when I will/actually finished). It’s the start of term again! Second term at Warwick and I still feel frozen with uncertainty and this horrible niggling feeling that I’m not doing things right. That is despite resolving earlier to cope better this term, diligently do all my assigned reading, faithfully log into the Economist every couple of days…
I honestly cannot count the number of times I have resolved to manage my time better. I’m a bit disturbed about how procrastination keeps condemning me to regular last-minute remorseful rushing of soon-to-be-due work but I still don’t learn.
I think I feel a little panicky. I feel more excited about planning trips to Tesco than trips to the library.
But it’s alright. I will calm down, I will, and calmly re-prioritise. And cheesy as cheesy gets, I will turn into a new leaf!
Of course, only after I finish what I’m doing- blogging at a reasonably inappropriate time. My boyfriend has fallen asleep on my floor, I am supposed to go take a shower, and I am supposed to get some research done for a group project which looks to be rather tough.
But I am blogging.
Because my holidays had a bit of excitement and I can’t not tell you about it, can I? Can’t shirk my bit of social duty there.
I was bridesmaid for my cousin’s wedding on the 27th! I had so much makeup plastered all over my face for the entire day that I broke out into mild rashes the next day. But it was a really nice experience and I wore the funkiest hairdo I’ve ever worn…since I was conceived, I suspect. And even that is not saying much!
My cousin is really the most beautiful bride among all the weddings I’ve attended, and she carried her dresses off really extremely well. Also she has one of the biggest most sincere smiles I know, and I think that lends a lot more weight than a beautiful face of stone.
The bride and her escorts
Family
It was lovely seeing my cousin that happy. I haven’t seen her in ages! And it’s a blast of a reunion, I must say.
I suppose I’ll be seeing her in Edinburgh over Easter again. Sometimes I think married women just look different…they have a different vibe about them. I’ll test that theory out in March then (:
My cousin’s wedding was quite a cool fusion of east and west – we walked down the aisle in the ballroom where the reception was held, so technically we did walk down the aisle with the bride (she didn’t get married in church because she’s not Christian). There was champagne at the reception, there was chinese tea at the ceremony, she wore a glamorous wedding dress from the US, then changed into a cheongsam, etc. The world is getting scarily similar at all ends, don’t you think?
However, I am still kind of taken aback by the sheer number of customary procedures to be observed at Chinese weddings – and the lengths to which some people go to follow them. Every last detail is backed by some belief or custom or other. I don’t quite like it to be honest- I don’t exactly see the relevance and I don’t particularly like doing something according to tradition just for the heck of it. Of course, unless it is to please all my older (and elderly) relatives – which I suspect is what may very well happen.
I suppose a wedding symbolised a very different thing back then and now – weddings in the past were more of a practical matter. Probably a union of wealth, rather than love, which is how it is now (Only thing that hasn’t changed is that the Chinese are still so damn practical in everything we do). So I don’t really fancy the idea of following customs which aren’t reflective of what weddings today should be about – love, and not money and prosperity and fertility and having many sons. Plus if you’re buried in such a long list of very detailed errands to run, like making special traditional dessert to symbolise something significant, doesn’t it become such a hassle?? How are you supposed to be completely blissful on your big day?
Also I suppose I have been heavily influenced by Western literature. I think I am far more enamoured with the idea of walking doen the aisle (: I’m not sure if that’s really a good thing.
Plus when I look at this piglet I think of Charlotte’s Web.
Piglet at the Altar
This is apparently a wedding custom which I never really understood. Except that pigs are significant to the Chinese in some way (something to do with prosperity, I presume) and red symbolises good luck (and basically everything good).
Also there are other cuter customs such as a baby boy jumping on the newlywed couple’s bed in hopes of fertility and having a son for the firstborn. That was adorable, actually, hehe. My nephew was so excited!!
Fun parts are stringing a list of little ‘tasks’ for the groom and his faithful entourage to perform before they get the bride to make an appearance.
A bit of fun with the boys
The most stark of all is a very major tea ceremony where the bride and groom has to serve Chinese tea to elder relatives, and likewise, younger relatives have to do the same for the bride and bridegroom. That I think is fine because “respect for your elders” is a very deeply-rooted Chinese principle, and I don’t see any harm in keeping that bit alive, because it’s a nice thing that everyone in the family can do together.
But whatever it is, I’m happy for my cousin! She’s finally married after 6 years with her previously not-husband.
Yes and that is a -short- writeup of 2 days’ worth of events, haha.
The rest of my holidays were pretty good too – made a trip down to Singapore to visit very very dearly missed friends. Galpals are <3.
Frolicking Around on Singapore's Beach
WHAT a contrast to UK’s crazy freezing weather!
Camwhoring...As Usual
And met Nikki! <3 (two Nikkis come to think of it…) and the Chorale people and Fried and the NTU gang.
Over Christmas I didn’t do much, but invested a bit of time with my brother’s girlfriend in a special little baking project:
Cookie Christmas House
Santa Basking in the Glory of His Garden!
How’s this for an unconventional Christmas!!
Yup, that pretty much wraps up my holidays. Spent a good amount of family time too.
I left for London on the 30th. Alex and I wanted to watch the fireworks but decided against squeezing shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, so we watched it on bbc.co.uk. HAHA!
Apparently we had mixed reviews from people who went. One said it was amazing and (!) spacious, one got threatened about getting his glasses broken, one got her rear end groped.
Hmm. Not exactly what I hoped to hear.
But still. I wish I went!
Right, time to go and do some work.
