I never count my chickens before they hatch. I’m quite religious about this. I don’t change my age until the clock strikes twelve. I don’t believe I will make it into a new year simply because I witnessed 23:59.
I do not think of myself as a lucky person, which is funny because some research suggests I should if I want more good outcomes in life. Fortunately, I do not think of myself as an unlucky person either.
It’s been an interesting year, a sharp contrast from what I had imagined it would be. The year before the last, I had decided I wanted something different for myself, and I set out to do the work. And so I did the work. At the time, you could even say I completed the work.
I was so optimistic that I even took a peek at my chicks before they hatched. That was how single-minded and close to certainty I was. Then, on a whim, someone decided they were going to slap it out of my hands. And they did. That was pretty interesting.
If there’s anything I’ve been reminded of this year, it’s that it’s important to never be the pawn on life’s chessboard. Sadly, the journey to the edge of the board may be completed in a few swift dashes or take a bit of time. I wonder how long it will take me.
It’s no matter.
•⋅⋅•
The anniversary of my birth is in the offing, and like all the years before now, I am blasé about it. This is probably the first time I’m writing about the affair before the fact or even at all. I’ve always found it a weird, uncomfortable time.
It’s why I like some ambiguity around it. It helps me sleep better at night. I’m not sure I understand why myself, but my preference is that people forget or don’t know at all.
Recently, at work, there was a proposal that colleagues do more for celebrants on their birthdays (we already procure cakes and shopping vouchers): pictures, videos, singing—the whole shebang. When the motion was being passed, my nay in the sea of yays seemed like a joke. It kind of was: I don’t believe people should be deprived of the spotlight because of my preferences, but I think such spotlights should be optional.
During the pandemic, I was serving at my uncle’s when they happened to find out it was my birthday. Being nice people, they got a cake, put me in the centre of a song, and took some pictures/videos. I feigned a smile, because it was polite. And while I sincerely appreciated the thought, I hated the action. This was hard to articulate, because they clearly did a nice thing. It just wasn’t a nice thing for me.
For a long time in my life, I did not realise that birthdays were important to people. I didn’t care about mine, so I assumed it was a trifling affair for others too. Over the course of four to six years, my friend Peace finally drummed it into my consciousness because I used to forget hers every other year. So now I remember people’s birthdays, and I add it to my calendar just in case my memory fails me.
The mental block that made me oblivious to the fact that some people genuinely enjoy being celebrated on their birthdays is the same block others seem to have when they meet people who don’t.
People assume that because they and most people like a thing, others must too. They misinterpret your “Please, don’t do that; I won’t appreciate it” as “I’m just being modest or shy (and may not have realised it yet), but I’ll absolutely love it.” Because who doesn’t love being celebrated?
I’m not entirely averse to the idea of being celebrated, just certain aspects of it: noise, pictures, videos, noise, attention, announcements, filmed surprises. The fewer the people who know, the better for me. Calls are fine, but I’d rather you don’t unless we’re close like that. By all means, write a single line or epistle if you will, but don’t post a picture of me along with it.
I joke to myself sometimes that the reason I don’t take pictures or let people take pictures of me is that I don’t want them to have anything to use for my birthdays (or obituary in the event that my time is briefer than expected). That’s not entirely false.
The complications surrounding my preferences and dispreferences are the reason I prefer birthdays to be the quietest affair. But I can’t explain myself to each person without attracting unwarranted scrutiny.
Sadly, as I know more people and my circumference grows, the less likely my chances are of maintaining the status quo. That disturbs me.
•⋅⋅•
One of the features of aging is that each year you are confronted with the ways in which you are becoming, and some of the ways in which you are unbecoming. Each year chisels into you a new slant, a new way of being. Something gives.
Over the years, a lot has given. Sometimes I don’t notice until I take stock.
I can be quite punitive with myself. There are a number of things I should be grateful for, but I am unable to clearly see them, unable to sit with them long enough for them to matter. I can only think of the ways in which I have to go.
I’ve never been able to comfortably sit in the present. This is why I admire the carefree.
I remember 2015 like it was two years ago. What did I imagine life would be ten years from then?
If the present bears no resemblance to the multitude of futures that once flitted across my mind, what can I be certain of about the next ten years? Will I remember this year like I remember 2015? What shall the context of that remembrance be? I don’t know, though I can try to make it great.
One proposes, God disposes, man disposes, but one has to keep proposing. Life is funny like that. Sometimes the disposal is better than the proposal; other times, it is worse. Sometimes it is unclear, and you worry that by the time you find out which it is, the paint is dry and the brush has calcified.
Life is funny like that.
Each year heaves a contrast over the former, however slight. Last year, I was more people-oriented and bullish. This year, I know much more than I did last year.
Sometimes I think about all of the difference it would have made if I knew the things I know now two or three years earlier. I don’t believe in fate, but it helps to think that the meanders are not without meaning. Still I wonder if the things I have gained are worth the things I have lost.
This year, I am also more disenchanted. I have been wrestling a complete urge to disconnect. I have no real desire to talk, to interact. Everything has a certain blandness to it.
A colleague at work mentioned that he admired how I knew how to hold conversations with people about a wide range of topics, and I thought it was funny, because those are the only conversations I’m having. Once I get off work, I don’t want to talk to anyone.
I do not remember what I used to say to people on calls and texts. It’s one of the ways I am unbecoming. I can see myself atrophy on this front, and I cannot muster the desire to repair it.
I find that, though I care for my friends, I am increasingly too exhausted to be emotionally present. I like you, and I empathise, but I’m also busy keeping my head above water. Ask me for money instead.
I don’t have it. But it flies out of my hands easily when asked because it’s the only thing I can afford to give.
•⋅⋅•
Back to earth.
Films are one of my favourite tools for tracking the passage of time.
I believe Ingmar Bergman (Scenes from a Marriage, 1974), Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story, 1953), Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love, 2000), and Edward Yang (Yi Yi, 2000) are some of the best filmmakers this world has ever seen.
When I watch their older films, I Google the actors to see how they’re living, or decaying. It’s fascinating to contrast how people were with what they are, or what they turned out to be. It reminds me of the impermanence of life.
When I am not logging pretentiously deep films on Letterboxd, I watch K-Dramas.
I’ve been watching K-Dramas for well over a decade, and I’ve been friends with Peace for well over a decade. Last week, our conversation shifted between K-Dramas and aging, among other things. I Googled Lee Min Ho while we were talking, and I couldn’t hold my laughter in (for context: I laugh at everything).
We were fans of this guy when he was my age, and now he’s thirty-eight, crossing into middle age. What is this life?
You blink, and a life has passed.
I only know to make the best of it.
When I’m feeling nostalgic, I listen to 인순이's Heavens Please to feel like I’m twelve again, freshly hit by the Hallyu wave, with present but less existential concerns about the future.
Peace and I were talking about how hard it is to find K-Dramas as good as the ones we knew as children. It’s funny. We will never know what it is like to watch everything that came out of South Korea and feel like it was the best thing after sliced bread again.
Time has passed, and the people we were are gone.
"Time has passed, and the people we were are gone."
I love being your first reader.
Happy birthday, my friend!❤️