create a font

So lately, people have been asking me: How are you? Are you coping well? Is everything still OK? And trust me, hearing these is a comfort enough for me and I am sincerely thankful for the concern.

However, I feel worse when I discover that I don't feel as troubled or deeply distressed as others seem to assume I am. True, I am definitely aware that this is a grave situation that I am in right now, but c'mon guys, it's not the end of the world. Life on earth is just a passage to encounter God and experience his tremendous love for us, and illnesses, no matter whether they sentence you to disaster and misery, enable us to realise how fragile we are and how the hubris of a comfortable existence has removed our zeal for Life as it is, devoid of ambition and the complications of modern society.

Anyway, in the past weeks, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer in its latest stage, my mum started losing hair after chemotherapy and my grandfather had to be hospitalized after coughing blood. I say this without shame, because this really is Life As It Is, and I have accepted this reality that God has allowed to happen that is beyond my locus of control. I have no idea what to expect in the future – will I still be able to tell my mum about my day while we wash dishes after dinner? Will I still be able to wake up to breakfast that I cannot stomach? Will I become increasingly familiar with the route to the hospital? - but I still can find joy in uncertainty because it's God's will taking place before my eyes. The thought of absence, departures and loss can still invoke sadness, but there is no such thing as an invalid emotion, only inappropriate expressions of that emotion.

If emotion can be inappropriately expressed, then I'm getting tired of dramatic people and their irksome absorption with The Self and how everyone else is merely peripheral to The Self. I want to remind them to be socially responsible when venting online, but suppressing these outlets for catharsis can open up possibly more harmful ways of manifesting emotion into action. Therein lies a grey area that I also have to stoically live with.

Speaking of inappropriate expressions of emotion, I am marveling, with ironic distance, at how my life is starting to read like a bad telenovela. In a week's time, my extended family will gather to celebrate my grandmother's birthday at a far-away chalet by the beach. With three members down with debilitating illnesses, no one can say for sure that we will see each other again during Chinese New Year. Amidst the rolling waves (a metaphor for the ebb and flow of time and other Woolfian ideas yadda yadda) and the setting sun (an image suggesting an end, yet withholding any certain finality), will the family continue to hold on together throughout this arduous journey? (To be frank, however, my sister and I are preparing to bring along materials for revision and self-study.)

But you know what? I'm happy. It's not a happiness stemming from a resignation to what is real, but joy that is active and without irony or sneering cynicism. Yesterday's duathlon (in which Andrea and I came in 20th - yay us!) and today's ice-cream pig-out session with CTITW made me see God's grace in my life. Still, I'm a marginally materialistic individual with a tendency to judge on impulse, but ya gotta have some flaws anyway. (Kidding)

So, thanks for reading this. You may not feel it, but I sure am glad to share this with you.