\/Death^kimono\/

I hardly say this, because it hardly happens. But today was special. Not just because Hougang surpassed all our expectations ( holy shit, I think this is the first time I mentioned politics in this emo blog.) but because its positivity is something that I need to record for my future self to remember on those frequent grim days. And most rare of all, it was not experienced by me alone. it was shared, among kids whom I felt instantly connected with.

I went to the Culture Night booth rather unprepared. The days before that were an incessant blur. I suppose I cooped myself up in the house for too long, feeling somewhat trapped by the work at hand, when all I can think about is time slipping through my fingers. An image of me at 65, voice too raspy to sing and regretting the time lost kept playing in my head. I am mortally afraid of death. I suspect it is a family disease.

Last week was exceptionally hard, getting up was a stupendous chore. I was sure that if I had nothing to do and nowhere to be, I’d have slept the entire week away.

I just felt drained.

Where was I? Oh yeah, headed down to the booth set aside for me thinking I’ll just doodle some decent enough caricatures, collect my cheque and be on my way. But barely 15 minutes passed before the event began, when two kids, encouraged by their loving dads came running up at the sight of the colourful stationary I had laid out. Instinctively, as a carnival vendor should, I smiled and asked if they would like to draw. And then things just kept happening on it’s own. All these kids kept running up one after the other, having fun with the crayons I brought along, after which I’d hang their art work on the panel behind me.

Then a teenage girl by the name of N came by, sat down and asked for a piece of paper to draw on. She started drawing the cosplayers who were at the next secretly. ” I really want to be a cosplayer.” She revealed as she drew. She did such a good job that when she was finished, I dragged her to the cosplayers’ booth and showed them the drawing. They were so excited over it, and they started taking photographs and uploading it on their facebook accounts. N looked so happy, as only a young heart could muster. Through her I managed to relive my own wondrous moments in youth, and really appreciate it. The day was really beginning to shape up.

Next came D. Another talented girl. She sat quietly and seemed unwilling, almost too pissed off to engage in conversation. She later abruptly left after a fun 2 hour session with her new friends, just ” goodbye” and flew off. In jest I remarked that she must be Cinderella, but inside I was thinking, “lol, this little girl is just like me. Only with better dress sense.”

But I know D had a memorable time with us. Halfway through the drawing session, where the girls were introduced and began hitting it off, D suddenly blurted out that it was her birthday. Cynical bastard that I was, I refused to believe it, till she whipped out her student card and proved it.

It was her birthday.

Imagine that.

I wonder why she was at an RC event alone on her birthday. Again, so much like me. Birthdays alone, or among people who don’t know, I do that alot.

And there we were, a makeshift party of sorts. N and her friends added D to their facebook, they finished up 3 of my drawing blocks, and my booth was buzzing with activity till the very end. A genuine activity, with everyone, even the PRC families who were made to share a booth with me at the last minute joined in the fun. I could tell that their initial plan was just to have a chance to meet the MPs, but they got into it, and their kids even more. I even scored a free meal from them, and you all know how I feel about free food ( uh I think they’re just THE BEST!)

On the way home, thinking about what had happened, how the kids started helping me man the booth by their own initiative and even take orders for drawing ( they were actually more well versed in manga drawing than I am, SHIT GIRL, BETTER START DRAWING MORE.) I kept thinking back to what N said to me throughout the day. The booth must have been a dream for her, because she kept saying that she did not want to leave. But I think it was more than just the booth, or me. There was some magic in the air about the whole thing.

” Let me lighten your load.” She offered each time she took a new piece of art paper from me for a new drawing. She said it again when she helped me take an order for a caricature. And she said it again, when I was packing up and the remaining 3 kids stayed back to help. I was really tired by then, so I was genuinely grateful.

To her, it meant just those few things. But it meant alot to someone like me, never known to ask for help, always fantasizing about serendipitous salvation. Because it is only through such incidence, that hope can come alive again.

I went to the booth alone, as usual, thinking the best case scenario would be me and a bunch of kids drawing and laughing. But I did not expect so many wonderful things all in one day. A memorable birthday, N having her picture appreciated by cosplayers whom she’d only dare observe from afar till then. And me, receiving help at the end of the day by kids who simply know what it means to be decent.

To come home from that and see that Hougang barely budged in their convictions. I feel almost invincible right now.

And that is what I hope to leave for my future self to read.

I know you are reading, mind full of incoherent thoughts, voices of people whispering in the shadows. But everything passes, you just have to push through. And it does not always have to be you alone who provides the solutions, the world through it’s infinite possibilities sometimes sends angels, and all it takes is a single spark to bring light to your life again. And the spirit which you thought may have been lost forever, will come back.

Nothing’s been the same since, instead of being happy that I’ve been continuing your broken dream, I saw you take up singing again defiantly, tell me local music will never be successful, compliment all the musicians around me, but not give me any feedback on my own singing. You’ve never come to a single show in 12 years.

I thought you’d be callous, unknowingly so, but now I know. The more successful I am, the more unhappy you are. I thought I was making you proud. But instead all you thought of me was that I was “boastful”, that I’m not like Stefanie Sun, Joi Chua on TV.

I did this because I always looked out for you. I used to be happy when I saw you happy. I stayed awake, I stayed strong. I cried alone. And now…

Now I don’t know why I did all this. Was it my dream to start with?

People say, do it for myself.

I will. But the transitioning is hard. Sometimes it’s a terrible, gut wrenching road.

But I will.

The hardest part is taking you out of the equation. Out of all the consequences of success, your proud smiling face was always there in my dreams. But now that scene contains only me, happy and truly content.

I’ll get there.

” Sometimes I wonder if you look down on me, because u live in Semi D and I live in a HDB flat.”

It’s not just one person who has said this to me, its been one “close friend” after another way back when I gave a shit about friendships and people to bother with kind words and reassurances, when in fact I’m wondering when the fuck I gave off the vibe that I look down on anyone.

Maybe it was the cold sweat and stammering when I spoke to people, my doughy slightly overweight physique, the fact that I worked for the money in Pre-U to support my mum who was cut off from allowances by my dad. And after she found work I continued the tuition and could afford shit outside of the $5 per day allowance I got. Yes I was a rolly polly wad of confidence, reeking of elitism, by the single fact that I lived in a semi D and that my dad, a self made millionaire, drove a flashy car, because he was proud of his accomplishments, and why shouldn’t he? I’m proud of my dad, I don’t think I could have achieved what he achieved. But did I ever pull my weight about it? No. My friends whom I still talk to know it.

By sheer appearances, I was pigeonholed, most of the time without me knowing I was. I could not crack a joke, or even be happy about doing something well ( which wasn’t often) without being called “proud” and hurting someone’s tender un-elitist hearts.

For the longest time, I thought I was insensitive, I apologised because I know it’s not easy to be struggling and maybe I really don’t understand. I reassured and reassured that classism is wrong, elitism is wrong, that we are all people and what is important is our friendship. I defended and defended these people’s parents when they spat out the fact that they are ” labourers” or as one ex boyfriend tearfully told me ” a taxi driver uncle”, that they are earning an honest living, putting them through school, that it’s a beautiful thing and I envy them for the things I don’t have in my family.

But all they saw, boyfriends, best friends, were that I lived in a semi D and that I probably look down on them because of it. Putting up false fronts, assuming that my money is free to spend because my daddy’s rich ( That rendered me penniless in much of my 20s, because I refuse to ask my dad for money and I’m glad I have not. Not even when I was hospitalised.), the things I have that I bought with my hard earned money, are assumed to be gifts. Do you know how it feels to be seen as a freeloader when every fucking thing and every accomplishment I have was an uphill battle with family who thinks I’m unemployed when I’m not and friends who think I have it easy? It feels like shit. I’m not the worst of cases for sure, but to be misunderstood like that pisses me off, and I can’t even defend myself, because I love my work, and I’m not gonna start moaning about it because people don’t know.

Fact is, I am living it up, but not because I live in a semi d, or that my dad’s rich. Is cause I soldiered on and I managed to eke out a living without compromising and I’m proud now because whatever small accomplishments I have are mine, and I’m not living a lie, I did not cave and I am on the way to becoming the person I want to be.

So am I an elitist? No. A resounding no. I am in fact lower in this blasted social scale than the average HDB kid when I was still a farm girl. I was filthy, wild and uncouth. I bathed using water from a well, and the toilet was an outhouse with a hole dug into the ground where snakes would hide. HDB kids SCOFFED AT ME in Primary school with their Nintendos and functioning toilet bowls in the house. But suddenly, because I moved from the farm to a Semi D, I look down on people?

NO. I’m not the elitist one.

THE ACCUSERS ARE. They want to be elitist, but they are not there yet. And so they look for someone to blame and I became an easy target because I was stupid enough to think they were friends and deserved my compassion.

Is there a point beyond this easily misunderstood rant?

Yes. It’s that elitism cannot be defeated if we do not have pride in who we are in the first place. If all we do is complain that we are victimised and gloss over people by judging them purely on the superficial things. That we cannot compete, that we are not worthy. That if this person is rich the only choices I have is to be subservient or defensive.

But there is another option, and that is to hold your own, see the value of who you are as a person beyond the material comparisons. Because not everyone who lives in a landed property, or is successful, or earns millions is elitist. They may be a little removed from certain regularities in your life, but until they actually show it, maybe we can all benefit from removing this class separation in the way we assess each new encounter.Don’t blight a perfectly innocent friendship with an inferiority complex that only perpetuates the divide, a part of me that cares and spent copious hours trying to set things straight is gone, because if having a person u deem “elitist” kowtow to you so you can feel better is what you want, sorry, look for another poor sap who is misguidedly guilty for no reason.

Thanks alot you dickheads who ruined my teenage years and early adulthood.