2020 - One Hell of a Year

2020 has been one hell of a year.

9th May 2020, I encountered sleeping difficulty while I was extremely tired. While I finally fall asleep, some unease feeling woke me up at 4.55 AM. It just didn't feel right.

I could barely open my eyes but it just feel like the wrong time to sleep. 

6:07 AM, a text rang, "I may be hospitalised". Instantly, I knew this is what kept my body awake.

With the pandemic on the rise, I thought it was Coronavirus. It turns out that my sister had a sudden pain at 3:00 AM, was rushed to the hospital by her friend. She ready herself with everything packed for hospitalization.

With extreme pain, she waited at the medical field for screening of coronavirus, blood test, x-ray, etc, from 4:30 AM to 4:30 PM, alone. My eldest sister, a community coordinator that focuses on neighbourhood well-being and how we can grow to help the community. In order to best deliver her job, she regularly travel and serve different communities across South East Asia. This happen while she away in a city, 9 hours drive from my city and 11 hours drive from home.

Medical Field she waited for 12 hours

Today, she fell sick in her city, alone. The pain was suspected to be appendicitis, she have to wait for 2 more patients before her with the same condition before she can go into a minor surgery to remove the inflamed appendix. After waiting for 12 hours, they told her, she will need to wait till 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM.

Even from afar, I can feel the pain. I don't know what she is encountering but I could feel that it might not end up a minor surgery.

4:50 PM, she informed us that her surgery was expedited by a family friend whom happen to be one of the doctors that rushed the paperwork for my sister and she was going into surgery soon.

6:04 PM, the doctors that palpated my sister's abdomen after she was anesthetized, found a mass on the right side of her abdomen. They decided to cut a bigger incision at her mid-line lower abdomen and will extend it higher if the mass is bigger. My mother whom informed us this, must be really upset because this happened on Mother's day and a day before mother's birthday. Neither one of us dare to tell her the hospitalization news in the morning nor wish her Happy Mother's day on this not so news on a "should be" happy day.

6:59 PM, after inflamed appendix was cut, the specialist team gone in and found my sister to have the important organ enlarged and twisted. The appendix was cut and the important organ were partially cut and sent for histopathology examination. 

7:30 PM, mother was informed that sister's important organ has been partially removed and surgeons are covering her wound up.

8:26 PM, surgery is over. From a 1 hour minor surgery to 3.5 hours of surgery on Mother's day, I didn't dare to ask what happen.

From 4:55 AM to 11:09 PM, her being awake from anesthetic, I couldn't breathe well. I just miss her so much for being a strict sister that have groomed me to be a better person.

I am grateful to have her as my sister to lead the way in life, being selfless to contribute to many different community's growth and to consistently achieve personal excellence in everything she does.

I love you my sister and I hope you have speedy recovery.

Congratulations?

A day ago, my ex boyfriend posted on his new born baby.

Other than being an ex boyfriend, he is also my debtor. When he needed money, I stupidly (love is blind, they say) took few loans for him and he used me as a source of income for couple years while we were together. I took the loan for a car, paid half of the car and never seen the car or the money again. I never knew what happened to the car or the money.

1 year after we broke up, he was still staying in my house, cooking all the food i bought. Soon I wanted to be dating again, I warned him to leave in a week and never to return to my life again. He left.

It has been 7 years we broke up and I have been keeping up with the debts that he always said he will pay or shall pay but never did. Always with excuses.

I am unhappy he got a baby first while I asked for the break up. Why did we break up in the first place? He was consuming me, physically, mentally and spiritually.

He was an abuser. I used to be imprisoned in the house for 2 years, hidden from the world. My family don't see me unless we ran out of food and ran out of money. He made me go home to "steal" some food.

I was regularly beaten up so badly, I was not able to work. I struggled mentally and attempted suicide for several times. It is true, when you are so badly injured, you won't feel the pain in the cut on the wrist.

Gratefully, I survived those suicidal incidences and made myself a promise that I will leave him, strong as me again.

When I met him, I was only 19. Being in network marketing at that moment, I was earning a happy 5 figures and after being with him, I lost everything. He personally gave his best friend ALL of my savings and capital fund while they spent it on alcohol, clubbing, prostitution and eventually when the money ran out, his friend left.

I planned and I worked diligently according to plan to leave him when he took my last RM50.00 and left me starving, it was 7 days to payout. I almost fainted in the office, my former colleagues gave me milk, bread and some money to survive. I cried terribly and knew I had to change it.

I worked nonstop for 18 hours a day continuously for 3 years and when I began to pick myself up financially and at work, he told me to thank him for making me a better person.

Nothing was uttered, I just smiled. Despite being a leader at work, I was being bullied by a large group of people, some of which I didn't even know until years later. I was being bullied at home, mentally, physically and I know spiritually my soul was dying. I prayed really really hard.

My prayers was answered at the most awful moment of my life. I was given an opportunity to leave the project for a better, bigger project. The opportunist side of me became the dominant and left.

I worked even harder (20 hours a day perhaps?), got into a better relationship, started to have savings, never starved myself for another day.

Chasing the debt for 7 years, listening to him telling me how bad his situation is for the many years and how his wife got pregnant and he is in tension. I frankly don't care because he cannot even afford to pay me back RM1 and he got the balls to tell me, today (yes today) that the money was spent with me.

When we were together, I used to earn 4 times of what his parents send him, monthly. He actually had the balls to tell me he spent on me too.

Instead of congratulating him, I told him that I wish his daughter will know what kind of person he was. How a liar he was about owing a person and lied for wanting to pay; when help was needed, it was given but when money has to be returned, it had to be begged.

He said I cursed him while I should congratulate him.

Everyone in the world can congratulate him but never me because only i went through the hell of being beaten, tortured mentally and walked out of that safely. I forgave him so I forgive myself but I will never forget the scar he left in my life.

Congratulate yourself if you feel you deserve it but I feel nothing other than pitiful to the baby girl born to your care.

How I remind myself to "Live while alive"

你饿了吗？

你今天饿了吗？

马来西亚2008年的金融风暴，我当时还是个念书的屁孩，根本不知道什么是金融风暴；如今我即将身在其中。

我有点紧张甚至有点兴奋，这感觉就是个成人礼。原来这就是大人要经历的，原来这就是当时候的大人要面对的。

不一样的是，政府改变了，格局改变了，科技改变了，模式改变了。

这些天的行动管制令，提供了我们反思的时间。多久没有沉淀的心情，多久没有放松的情绪，多久没有平静的日子，开始都有改变了。

这是个自我人生改变的危机时刻。有些人在担心自己的事业，有些人在担心自己的人生，有些人在担心自己的公司，有些人在担心公司如果没了员工何去何从？

这是个大规模的人生转折点，每个人都会经历的异常洗礼。

你饿了吗？你准备好过短暂不开心的日子然后有更好的未来吗？

你饿了吗？你准备好和艰难的日子肩并肩合手迎接更好的未来吗？

你饿了吗？你准备好决定以后是吃草还是吃鱼子酱的日子吗？

你对于你的未来有多饿？

都反思过了还是只是在烦死阶段？

Live while breathing

I am always intrigued by how others live their lives because I want to know how to make my life matters. My whole life, I have been searching for a meaning, the meaning.

Unsure if this is only me but everyone seems to be doing great in their lives.

I have tried to work up the corporate level, taste of sense of achievement yet I start to feel the emptiness of life, the lack of livelihood and passion driven aggressiveness. I can’t stop to wonder if this is something that happens to everyone.

Life became more and more bulky when it is going into the unknown then one tends to do more and more to get it more meaningful. This leads to living someone else’s dream, someone else’s goal and someone else’s life.

Life is too short to live for someone else.

I took a leap of faith and took 20 days off to Netherlands to meet up with the sister that I didn’t have the best relationship with, together with my mother whom I didn’t have a great relationship. 2 months ago, my sister gave birth to her 3^rd child, a baby girl.

Baby was born in a water bath and when I arrived, she was already 2 months old. She only knew how to poo, pee, sleep and cry for milk. Then on the day I left, she can already understand if a person is talking to her, she can recognize me, and she can even suck her thumb to soothe herself.

Once upon a time, that was me. I was so focused and indulged to find the next thing in life to make a tat better. One thing at the time was a thing and a big happiness for my family when they see me doing the next thing they have been longing, there were pure happiness and encouragement.

This will be my focus in life hereon, to live while breathing.