growing up

it wasn't too long ago that i was like my brother, indulging in the joys of primary school without a care or worry in the world, bar the next chinese test or whether my friends liked me or not. those care-free days at kang's place, playing all sorts of ridiculous games as we skived what lessons we could. the little spats that smife and i would get into and out of within 10 minutes. my first experience of what a crush was with kim! haha...

then life drags time by the second hand and thrusts us age first-hand.

whenever i meet up with kimkangsmife, it always amazes me how we have forged such a deep friendship from those days in primary school, frolicking in the...HPPS corridors? lol. it's funny how we never stop and ponder how we've really moved on from those days into our current lives. which of us would have imagined the A levels in P5? yet here we are, and there's no turning back the clock to repent for past sins or make right the wrongs.

i wonder what life would be like if mark william were still in Singapore. he, along with kang, formed my first ever triumvirate and unwittingly set the precedent for my relationships to come. sometimes, God plays an unexpected card, but the game has to go on. it's been almost 6 years since Jus Nenes [ask no questions and i'll tell no lies. haha... long story] left for NZ and i don't 'miss him' in the typical way but i wonder. he was a great friend and i'm sure my happy quartet would resoundingly agree.

perhaps, in so many ways, i've hardly grown up. yes, i'm tons more cynical and a lot more streetwise than i was during those innocent primary school days [or even secondary school, for that matter], but there's something i've learnt from mr sayers: "It is when things are changing the most on the surface that things are hardly changing at all." for the now-familiar pimples, weary eyebags and sleep eyes that have masked my youth that is soon to pass, there remains something inherently...kiddish about me.

i carry that childish innocence in my heart. behind the sarcasm and cynicism, i realised that i'm no less trusting than when i first began. it must be true, considering that, after so many broken relationships and being torn apart by the rumour mill, i still instinctively believe that romance can still blossom from the pain. i don't know. sometimes it slips, that i take everything so willingly at face-value, forgetting that the world can be a tricky, cunning place. it hits me hard at times, but i think i'd like to live the rest of my life in child-like trust and get hurt rather than become a wily fox but live a scheming, unhappy existence. maybe even this thinking is inherently kiddish. let God decide.

i can't deny that i've changed though. what i did when i was young, i did so out of obedience to my parents and for the blurry moral known as 'good'. now, i know Jesus Christ personally and i am living out my faith for Him in love rather than for mere concepts and beliefs, that i know will whittle away in time. also, where i used to laze about before the PSLE, i've learnt those crucial lessons during secondary school and i find an unfamiliar diligence possessing me. i've also moved out of my reclusive shell which swallowed me up after the disappointments of 2000. i've found life and love in God, in my relationships with others, in what i do. i look at the reflection in the mirror, look at my Sunday school picture and i can't help but laugh :)

i think the process of maturity has this dangerous beauty about it. through those turbulent years of puberty, anything can happen and affect one's life to swerve in the wildest directions. despite the basic mould that parents try to establish over their child, puberty tends to fling that out the window and turn the child into a grown adult, into his or her own person. in a way, that is frighteningly disconcerting. but it's also wonderfully fascinating, even more so than the magical metamorphosis that occurs when a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. i know it's overstated, but lest it's meaning be lost, stop and ponder at that amazing transformation. then look at your own life and smile, weep, laugh, shudder at the multitude of events that have imploded to forge this very own you. perhaps i'm being child-like again, but it's lovely.

why am i being so philosophical this fine, sunny day? in typical fashion, mike's roundabout explanation. well, i've finally got my own bank account, which is quite a step. to be honest, my parents give me a lot of freedom but they also baby me a lot, which is a good-bad thing. so anyway, the account that was tied to my mum's has finally ceased to exist. on the way to lunch at Cheong Chin Nam Road, i noticed that Liquid Kitchen was opening a joint here, and i started thinking about me and alcohol, and how the 'forbidden fruit' of my younger days was now acceptable to my parents and to me. then i finally get home, sit down and feel philosophical. which is pretty much an old man's sport, but nvm. lol.

so, yeah, i'm growing out of my parents' arms and into God's alone. legally, i'm going to be responsible for my own actions, but, more importantly, i'm learning to become spiritually responsible for the way my life goes as well. it's as if stewardship was being steadily eased into my hands while faith is blossoming and singing a little song in my heart, a song that i pray will one day erupt into crescendo. but those days are still not yet here. right now, i'm on that in-between precipice that finely divides my youth and my adulthood.

maybe, in good time, i'll be singing those songs that you always hear, reminisicing about one's youth. unlike many of those sorry tunes though, i will look back on my now-fading youth with great fondness, because God was leading me through it all. "Remember your Creator in the days of youth...", and i pray that i've done just that, to the glory of God :)