Lunar

Playlist

sleep by SID

Its Lunar New Year. or Spring Festival as its known in Mandarin. To celebrate the coming of spring, which I think is kinda silly since its still snowing in most parts of China, but hey, who am I to comment on what my ancestors decided upon? Anyway, Lunar New Year is a time of the year where the whole family gets together to celebrate, eating home-cooked meals, gambling, socialising, talking... Just having fun and celebrating the fact that there are ties that bind. 

At least, that is what its suppose to be about.

I'm not sure about most other people, but I think I can safetly say that Lunar New Year gets increasingly irritating as you get older. Every year that I grow older, I see the elders get frail and wrinkly. I see the elders shrinking, losing their essence. The more I see them, the more I want to spend time with my grandparents. I know that they don't have much time left, and I want to hold on to them with everything that I have. I've always been like this. Very emotional about the people that I love, and utterly oblivious to strangers. I'm not sure if I'm compassionate; I'm definitely not caring though.

I watch my younger cousins and family friends grow up like bean sprouts, and even my younger brother, whom I see everyday, is growing up so fast. I want to be there for every moment that matters, but that is as likely to be possible as me making the Dean's list. HAHA. I see them all growing up, so full of hope and innocence, and I want them to keep their precious untainted soul. I don't want them to become jaded like us...

It is so obvious that my parents and aunts/uncles are aging. They are losing physical ability, and in a bid to hold on to their youth, I often see them do and say all sorts of silly things. I see a loneliness that is inpenetratable, because in their quest for something or another, these adults have given up things that are coming back to bite them. They are different from the elders. The senior citizens have come to terms with their losses, because they know they do not have time to mope. It is often the adults, and their unconscious belief that things can still the way they were in the past that is frightening. I hear the delusion, the utter faith in their ability, the determination to keep things the way they are. If there was a god that they prayed to, it would be themselves. Some of them are more aware, but there are those who are stumbling into the very traps that they claim to abhor. Maybe I lack faith in myself. Maybe I ought to be more determined. Maybe I'm the one who is really and truly flawed. I can't really know. But its not everyone, and it is my conviction that it is only a few of them that is slightly comforting to me as evidence that I've not lost my full bag of marbles, at the very least.

I think growing up hurts. Its a weight that bears down on you. Life often seems to be a really cruel experience that we are all put through, as if we are suppose to gain a secret prize for hitting the pinata blind. I'm not sure, but I think its not fun if everytime you missed, you get an electric shock? But in many ways, this is the way we live.We complain, but nothing really changes. We try to change things here and there, but its like reducing the strength of the current rather than removing the current. The shock remains. All we need now is a hide that is thick enough.

"Since when did the two of us become only one?"