An Affinity With Eights: 821 / 809A / Unit 8

So today I moved out of one of the very few places that I've managed to call home here in Melbourne. 

4 hours. 

That's all it took to pack up and get out. I was angry at first, dashing for everything that I could claim as mine, reluctant to leave it behind despite having more than one rice cooker back at our new place. I simply could not let them have it. I didn't want to lose. For every pot, every utensil that I decided to keep and rip out from the cabinets they have lived in for the last year, it felt like I was collecting small bits of my dignity and pride, as if this were to tell them, look at how empty you are now that I am gone. You needed me. 

It's been an exhausting day for everyone, especially mum, Josh and myself. Before heading to bed tonight, I gently scooted over to Josh's side and thanked him for helping me pack and move. He nudged my stomach lightly and grunted. That was his way of saying you're welcome. 

When mum and I were laying in the dark, I thanked her for powering through the afternoon on barely any rest from our flight back to Melbourne, and she nagged on about things to get from the supermarket tomorrow and how I should be acting around my new housemate, girl ah, next time be a bit cleaner, he's a nice boy, you must learn how to accommodate and understand...That was her way of saying you're welcome.

Truth be told, I've been working and packing the whole day without even thinking. Finally at 3:08 am, I am finally having some time to collect all my emotions and letting reality settle in that these white walls I am staring at are no longer the ones at uropa. My view isn't the skyline of the city and the balcony can no longer see beautiful sunrises and sunsets. 

I miss every bit of that place. Not only because of its physicalities, but also because of the absurd amount of memories created in there. I can't even begin listing them. I am afraid I might start crying and my heart will feel heavier than it already is. I know it's terrible placing sentimental value in something so vast, so fleeting and so concrete. 809A will never budge, but I will move one day, thus depositing so many memories in there will eventually come back and haunt me if I were to ever step in that unit again. 

This new place is ... familiar, but it doesn't feel like home. It's still unsettling. I still feel uneasy and unable to fall asleep on this weird bed that is now mine, and this view that isn't the city skyline. Perhaps this is what first nights feel like. I've forgotten. 

The only reason why I'm up writing this is because my heart is heavy and unsettled and there's that weird sick feeling in my stomach. Maybe it was having dinner at 12:30 am that's causing all this discomfort. It's that feeling as though this space isn't mine to occupy and I'm just borrowing a few square metres of this area to hold in all my shit I've accumulated the past 4 years here. To also hold all the contents of myself in this space, denoted by square metres, and the rental of this space to be paid on the 25th of every month. 

Perhaps it's the overwhelming feeling when recalling today's moving situation: 4 of my girlfriends and my new housemate frantically moving boxes and just things up and down from my apartment to the car and from the car to my new apartment. Some of them lugging empty luggages over to my apartment just to help fit more of my shit and all walking over to my new apartment with all of my shit because the car was too full of shit that it couldn't fit any of us anymore. Seeing Jodie rush over to meet me after school, helping to basically unpack and organise my whole room, was a sight which reminded myself that these friends are true gems in my life. I don't deserve any of this kindness, I am so full of shit most of the time it was hard to digest everyone's selflessness and willingness to help me out today. 

Perhaps it was also the moment when I saw my mother falling asleep on the couch, lightly snoring. It is then I realised that she had barely enough sleep on the plane ride to Melbourne earlier on, but was quick to help pack up my whole house in the afternoon with no breakfast, no lunch and no coffee. A mother's love is deeply moving and so, so selfless. It should never be underestimated. I recall that night that I fell into her arms and sobbed my eyes out, heaving into her wet shirt, because I was so bummed out about this moving situation, losing a close friend and was overwhelmed by guilt that she had to come over, but she hugged me and stroked my head, as if I was 9 again, and told me that it was going to be okay. She will help me. 

So tonight, I am going to head to bed telling myself that it is going to be okay. Mum and josh and all these wonderful friends are here to help me. This place will soon feel a little more like home soon. 

I would like to say I'm homeisck but I'm not sure where is home anymore. 

Seventeen And You've Grown.

five & one.

you were pulling and tugging

my hair like my temper

was short 

you were always cutting it close 

with your carelessness 

with my impatience 

you are still my little brother. 

eighteen & fourteen.

your voice changed

I was away from home and had my heart broken

you would think now that you could swing your arms around me- 

I'd treat you like your age

I was barely there and now when I try to recall 

it's almost like trying to rewind an old cassette video tape recording 

staring hard at the tv screen 

with occasional fuzzy black and white lines in between snippets of our bickering,

our laughter muffled by scratchy sounds from 

everything falling apart,

"you were never there" 

"you were never home"

you are still my little brother. 

twenty one & seventeen. 

we have slaved ourselves to vices 

sticking to the sibling code of conduct:

diss but never tattle

last night like a deer caught in headlights,

she found out.

we had this conversation that I never thought I would have with someone 

only seventeen

someone that is in the same plight. 

I didn't shower and you didn't fall asleep,

even though I smelled like steamboat and cigarettes and you had work the next day. 

I remember looking at you,

finding it hard recognising sadness in your eyes-

they were always either emotionless or excited. 

It was never emotional with you 

restrictive, bounded and built like a man.

last night felt like we were tearing at the seams

I told you with nothing but conviction,

"you have such capacity to say these words that you said at 

only seventeen, 

that I could never have done when I was seventeen." 

I could have never done the same.

Have you ever felt respect for your younger sibling? 

It's a bit weird because they were always

bratty, childish and sometimes almost stupid. 

Last night's conversation was something that kept playing at the back of my head when I was trying to fall asleep 

while trying to be an older sister

I have come to realise

you are still my little brother, 

but

boy, have you grown up. 

Like The Breeze, The Thoughts Of You Come To Me

Today, while crossing the road, I noticed a young girl probably in her first year of secondary school, dressed in a skirt way below knee length and socks perfectly above her ankles. She was walking towards the train station with her grandfather, who had the typical friendly ah gong face and was holding her violin while she carried a stack of folders in her arms. He probably went to pick her up from school, I thought to myself.  And just for a moment, my thoughts went back to my grandfather.

Many times, when popo and I talk about gong gong, it was always about the way he used to spoil me when I was a kid by buying me ice cream before dinner. His bad temper. His sickness. His failure as a father. 

Sometimes, if I try to think hard enough, I'll recall the letter I wrote him with tear stains smudging the ink off the lines on my foolscap paper, begging him to come visit me in my dreams. That letter I wrote to him and left it on his coffin when everyone else left him flowers. The angels will translate my English into hokkien right? I was fourteen years old. 

I will also vividly remember the hot afternoons he used to come down to my place and visit me with a whole box of paus, and longans - if I was lucky enough. And that one sweltering afternoon I wanted to pump air into my bike tyres but we couldn't find a nearby bicycle shop so we he pushed my bike around the whole Joo Chiat area, under the hot sun and never once did he complain that he was too tired. 

From time to time, I'll miss you. And at that split second when I was crossing the road, watching granddaughter and grandfather, I remembered you. The rings on your fingers. Your strong scent. Your pack of cigarettes. Sometimes, a soft whisper of your voice would resound in my head. 

It's been 6 years and death works in a funny way, we talk about the dead as a weak attempt to try to keep them alive. Your stories were never great; they were always about the mistakes you made or how the richer siblings took advantage of your kindness. But they were stories of you after all. 

Popo once told me, "your gong gong never knew the right ways to show his love for his family. But somehow with you, he did it right. He loved you the most, you should know that."

Some days more than the others, I wonder how it would be like if you could see me now. Would you still love me the same? I would still have your weekly visits and hot steaming paus to look forward to, and probably better conversations with you.