I quote Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates” and I get to eat what I choose.
Life – a big question to me and one that I have been tackling for the last 6 weeks.
Piglet is on a spiral and was cross when DB did not wish to prescribe “Uppers” that allows her to be on “plateau high” so that she can be engaged in a job to sustain the family income. Piglet is one person I care about as she is married to H who had just lost his job but saw no urgency to find another till next year 2023.
Piglet being the responsible one was worried about what morrow comes – no income and she is frightened. So much so, she forced self to get a job. Her troubles began as she is already suffering from spinal pain and to stand and serve in a retail job was not helping her. The vicious cycle began and her depression got the better of her.
I could not do much for her except send her text messages.
Each life is precious but with life, comes it myriad of challenges. Some have it good, others struggle and the unfortunate perish, a life too short as they say.
What is life?
Birth, like what Shakespeare defines it as the 7 stages of life in Twelfth Night?
I have come to contemplate on life given my own physical challenges.
I have had no time in my life to grieve over my illnesses. I have always taken whatever comes and deal with it. Some call it strength, I call it “solving a management issue” and move on. There is nothing that can be done, so why bother having self pity as wallowing in it, does more damage to me than helping me.
I take shit as it comes and hopefully purify it such that it is upcycled to dung or compost to help the living things grow. Gave up on making lemonade out of lemons as I need something more potent to settle the shit in my life.
The only question I will always ask self on how do I describe my life thus far.
I have done my utmost best not to put salt into any underling of mine’s rice bowl. A job is in itself a challenge in today’s dog eat dog world. There is no job security nor iron rice bowl. Yet I have 2 morons on my team that is slacking and having brainless episodes such that I need to follow their behinds to nag and pick up their pieces lest they get the boot. One is a divorcee with no connectivity from brain to what she emails out responses and the other has an autistic child and refuses to keep notes of outstanding works. I genuinely believe that both have learning disabilities that managed to survive thus far in the working world as they have been left on auto pilot till I inherited them both.
In life, I have been cheated by MR EX of my emotions and time investment thinking he was someone that genuinely cared for me when I realised instead I was his rain maker and that he was using me relentlessly for business contacts and business deals. Each year I spent with him was taking a toll on me as I tried to see merits in his actions. He claims he was doing me good and that I was the ungrateful one.
He says, she says. I call it time to leave him. He accuses me of not taking a good look at myself in the mirror. I did and I saw his lack of care to be with me when I am ill or if I needed his help to run me to the hospital and he was never around nor made the effort to be with me. He is now HISTORY!
But I learnt from him how not to treat or befriend people for financial or any form of gain. The only gain should be mutual trust, care and love (platonic or romance it depends on the situation)
I wonder how will I be remembered when dead? Likelihood of no one remembering me as I am not a super star nor a glamorous gal. I am always in the shadows. Sure, I get recognised by the Dukes and Duchesses of Yore but that is not what I demanded, it was just given.
I prefered to be remembered as a good person, a friend and one who cared. One who struggled through life’s hardships, fought health battles and persevered to make self economically viable, paid taxes with head held high and lived debt free and die debt free.
I do not want to be mourned as other than my inanimate furball and my army of doctors, no one really cares about me. I have never imposed my need for others to care. If some care, I am blessed. If not, then so be it, so long as I can care and be happy with it, it is enough for me.
I realise that in giving a listening ear to others needing it, I get their care and love. This is why Neighbor continues to cook for me as she too has her fair share of woes and worries that she needs to unload. That time spent to help her relieve her burden helps and she rewards me with her lovely home cooked dishes. It is also her innate generosity to care about me. This is what I have come to realize in reciprocity and why MR EX and I fell through. MR EX felt it was expected of me to give and his pittance odd purchases of a bowl of noodles was his reciprocity to me – quid pro quo. So, mathematically SGD1 million in a business deal equates to SGD5 bowl of noodles. This is MR EX but he uses the proceeds to fund his exotic life style and bling blings for his bimbo. I admire his loyalty to his brood that he often complains to me about and that I did not know of his suffering.
I have advised him, if he feels trapped in a loveless marriage then exit. If he is suffocated, exit and live his own life on his own terms!
I guess it was not on his wish list as he needed to look good as pristine family to the press room and his outlandish approach as benefactor and rich donor.
We each have our own approach to life and how we see it versus how others see it, matters to most.
Except for me, I am admittedly shameless as I do not care how the public sees me. I am comfortable in my own skin and can wear my tatty shorts and oldest Garfield T shirt and go to a diner or walk the streets for shopping. I can tote Garfield along too, so long as I have pocket change in my pocket to pay for what I need.
Confidence or fed up? Fed up actually as when I see my sis decked up in Salvatore Ferragamo or Prada outfits, it does not make her a better person as she is selfish and will never give time of day to the man on the street needing help or buy a bowl of noodles to help the poor. I was shamed by her to her friends because I do not embrace designer togs. I am practical, I save my pennies for a rainy day. So long as I am not naked or wearing torn clothes, who cares!
I hope to be remembered as a celebrant of life. Garfield and I always together.
But in truth, heck care…when I am dead, I am simply dead. My eyes are shut, ears are closed and who cares what goes round around me as I am no longer a party to the living.
Truth right?