Two Decades Too Old (pardon the pun) [and the alliteration!]

It has been quite a wonderful birthday. And it has also been a relatively good year, considering all the bad ones I've had thus far. The past year has been rather pensive, reflective, simmered, grilled, nicely cooked. I have liked and enjoyed it.

(I am trying very hard not to write this with a reading audience in mind. I would like, as much as possible, to capture my original reflections because this is important, it being a birthday and all. Even as I type this sentence I am only doing so for my remembrance in the future.)

As I was thinking back on my 19th year, I just thank God that at this stage of my life, I am still not a wreckage of a human being, as my weaknesses and stupidity have very much pre-disposed me to become. I thank God that I am on the path to relative success not just economically, but also as a person - that I have not entirely destroyed myself and my future and that there is hope for me yet. I am utterly grateful that I have been restrained from doing things that would impair my future and that I am where I am now. I think I must have proved to be quite a worrisome child in my angsty teens.

I was also thinking of how fortunate I am to be blessed with so many good relationships in my life. I am grateful for my family - my brother, my dad and my mom, individually, and I love all of them dearly with my life. I am very fortunate to have a family that is intact, mature and that has taught me much along the way. I am also very fortunate to have a continuing friendship with each of my family members and that, I should not take for granted. I am doubly blessed to have friends like val and andrea and fart and nu and ly and of course sheng, with whom I have been friends with for years and years. I don't have very many friends but the ones I do have, I really love. I also realized how fortunate I am to be loved by the people around me. It's not something to be assumed upon.

At 20 I would like to relish whatever is left of my youth. I would like to revel in being young and Looking young and Feeling young and reponsibility-free and released to do, learn, experience anything I want. I know I won't stay young and carefree forever but while I do I must tap on it to the max. (: I only have about 3-4 more years before I plunge into the working world and have to start thinking of big things like marriage and kids and growing fat and saggy. But at this age, I do feel it important to -cherish my youth- as the old foggies love to say (at 20 you do realize the truth in this adage though). I feel like I'm clinging on to my young self by the edge of a cliff. But like wine matures and acquires greater taste over the years (so I'm told), so I hope my person does the same.

So this next year, I am quite determined to learn and glean everything I can from people and experiences. I would also like to hone the art of understanding and living in nuances. I think nuances bring the greatest balance because they're always there without being over-assertive, in a quiet, knowing kind of way. And I am a great advocate for balance.

Less highs, less lows, more balance.

I hope to look back at my youth (at being 20) and be able to remember it, and remember the kind of person I was then and the kind of thoughts I harboured, the opinions I held and the things I felt. I really don't want to forget. Which is why I am writing all this down despite it being very contrary to my nature. I know how memory works, how it changes to become inaccurate or blurry and faded and just a general mesh of things. I don't wish to remember my life like that.

SO, Happy Birthday Thea and have a great year ahead.

(Thank you, everyone who's wished me.)

(It is really very difficult not to write here without an audience in mind. I can't say I have succeeded entirely but some things really just aren't meant for the masses to read. Perhaps it is an affront to my introspection, articulating it so publicly. But I have to keep some record of things.)