Report From a Friend (actually dad's friend's daughter, meh gambled with her during one CNY when i was 11 or so) who has migrated to London :
http://areshaonline.com/the-downside-of-being-a-migratory-bird/
Today I had an interesting whatsapp conversation with Boggy. Boggy and I have been brothers from other mothers since we met in secondary school at the useless age of 13.
We went to the same kindergarten together but only really became friends when we met as teenagers. I guess this brings some truth to the theory of meeting the right person at the right time/juncture in your life for it all to make sense.
And then it led me to think about how, despite the fact that we’ve been buddies for the last 15 years, we’ve communicated for a long time on Whatsapp and Facebook. Something I find extremely limiting because there’s nothing better than just meeting up in person and talking a whole load of comforting, familiar psychobabble.
99% of my friendships and family relationships exists via the help of the internet because:
I haven’t spent more than 3 years in a single country in the last 9 years of my life.
It’s a pretty scary thing to be so far away from the few who love you back. Not to mention how incredibly frustrating it is to make new friends the older you get. You often feel like a square peg in a room of happy round holes, or like a misunderstood retard ‘ad break’ -interjecting in the comforting, familiar psychobabble that others are having happily without you in it.
The weird thing is that I’ve learnt to exist in perpetual transit while struggling to keep the emotional ties I’ve made with people dotted all around the world. Most of which are ties which aren’t strong enough to make much worthwhile sense of an ‘online’ friendship.
I sometimes feel I exist somewhere between yesterday and today, neither here nor there.
And like a submarine I vanish hiding in the psychological and physical distance of the deep blue sea. Resurfacing sporadically only to realize that a lot has changed while you were off exploring marine life… a choice you made because the cards you got dealt weren’t royal flush and you’re not exactly great at holding a poker face.
I’ve also been feeling the strain of not being able to communicate with my brother (with autism) at the drop of a hat via mobile or the internet since he got relocated to a care home in 2011. It was the best thing to happen to him, but it’s driven an emotional wedge that I have to work extra hard at breaking down with an ice axe every time I make a pit stop back in Singapore.
It’s a real mindpuzzle trying to make sense of all of this…not really knowing the beginning or the end of this journey to ‘be’ the best you can at playing the poker game of life.
I have found such a good place to be at work-wise, London is such a creatively inspiring and challenging place, I have two lovely pet cats and the best pet boy ever.
But there’s this other half of the picture that doesn’t exist in ‘transit’ that I have yet to fully comprehend.
Do you?
-Aresha
Long stories of a singaporean quitter attempting to become foreign talent... in London.
