A few months ago, I wrote this post, not knowing where I’d be next year. Well I still don’t know which bed I’ll be sleeping in, but I do know the country. After a year of trying to be in Southeast Asia, I just about gave up hope and graduated about a month and a half ago without any prospect of a job or relocation. However, an unforeseen job opportunity arose a few weeks ago and, in possibly the most rash decision of my life, I decided to take it. So here I am, preparing to move to Singapore tomorrow and start work next week. I wobble between extreme excitement and nervousness every ten minutes.
I have a lot of goals for myself for the coming months, one
of which is to write. To write on this blog, to write creatively, to write
privately and to write to friends and family. I’m hoping to visit all these
coffee shops, sit down with kopi and write everything I’m seeing and learning.
Singapore has been a country I’ve visited countless times
but never lived in. It has been one of my deepest regrets, having gone almost
every summer growing up but too young and naïve to care. I always complained
about leaving my dad for too long, about the heat, about the lack of spaghetti
and burgers, about Singlish. I’m so happy to have a second chance, to see the
same country through different eyes -- older and hopefully slightly wiser eyes.
While I am not a fan of Ted Hughes (because of his moral
choices not his writing), I can’t help but love his encouragement to his son, “As
Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as
though all your ancestors were living again through you.”
Illustration by my sister, Lauren Monaco.
