For the past three weeks, no matter if my Fitbit tells me that I've had more than seven hours of sleep (yes, I am en route to becoming a Person With a Sleep Disorder Because My Fitbit Says So), I've woken up feeling like I'm hungover. I know, I talk a lot on social media about needing a drink, but most of the time I don't actually end up having one - unless you count the swigs which I took on Friday the 13th of April from the bottle of sake in the fridge I keep for when I'm feeling fancy about cooking (sake sake as distinct from cooking sake, which I also have a large bottle of and which costs a fraction of the price of the former and which I do not drink for fun. I have not sunk so far. Yet.). I haven't even baulked at spending S$3.10 on ice lemon tea siu dai from Fun Toast at Star Vista almost every day of those past three weeks because it's the nearest place to the office that sells decent, proper gao gao ice lemon tea; on one memorable day I even drank it twice*.
I put it down to the fact that despite having my mum around some days of the week to help out - she doesn't stay over, though - and letting Them watch Paw Patrol, Max and Ruby and Dora the Explorer on Nick Jr from 7.35pm to 8.50pm most nights (I should do a review of cartoons soon; Ruby from Max and Ruby is, in millennial speak, I cannot) while I get the 1001 other things I have to do done, this #soloparenting business really does take a lot out of you.
*It also costs only S$2.20 at the Fun Toasts in the CBD. Why is this so? Also there is one particular uncle at the Star Vista branch who, out of all the staff there, is the best at mixing the ice lemon tea siu dai. I always feel like I have struck the lottery when he's on the morning shift. Some days, if I can hold out, I'll wait till he's around in the afternoon to get my fix.
***
There's a poem called The Last Time which kept popping up on my Facebook feed a while back. I won't reproduce it here, but it's easy enough to find using Google (it's the one with the unknown author, and it's also likely to pop up on your Facebook feed again at some point in time). I identify with the sentiments expressed - briefly, you don't know when will be the last time your child will "need" you, e.g. to comb his hair, give him a bath, hug him to sleep, etc., so treasure each time they ask you to do so as if it's the last - but it has on occasion made me feel like rolling my eyes a little, and I have always wondered why there haven't been similar tributes to the last time parents, and mothers in particular, got to do certain things; things they can't do after they become mothers or fathers, whether by choice or circumstance. I'm sure there are, but they don't seem to be as widely shared as this poem and other articles of its ilk. Or are there? Have our own needs and desires become so inconsequential in light of our children's? Is it selfish of me to think this way? Has my Fitbit started controlling my subconscious? (A "lol" would be appropriate at this juncture, so, LOL.)
Last Friday, which was also the fourth consecutive day that Husband was out of Singapore and the fifth consecutive day that we hadn't had dinner together, I failed to find anyone to have dinner with, and so ended up at Roadhouse at Dempsey with Them because I felt like They deserved fries for dinner for having been fairly well-behaved throughout the week, and I couldn't bear the thought of eating McDonald's. I was driving to childcare after work and feeling a bit lonely and missing Husband and feeling some weariness at having to deal with Them alone again, and as I was waiting for a traffic light to turn green, I idly got to thinking about what I would have planned to do if I didn't have Them. The answer to that was easy, of course - it would have involved going to the gym and reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History, uninterrupted, thereafter**. Which got me thinking about how I didn't know, when it was the last time, that it was the last time I would go for K's 6.45pm RPM class at Paragon on Fridays. By the time I have the bandwith and time to go again, will the class still be on? Will it still be taught by him? I don't even remember when that last time was, or what songs were played. I do remember, though, that G used Laserlight for Track 3 at my request, at my second-to-last Tuesday lunchtime RPM class before I had Daniel, because that was supposed to be my last class before I popped. I remember the very last spin class by R that I ever took, on New Year's Eve 2013, and that he told us that he'd chosen all his favourite tracks, and the one he liked the most was Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love.
**I know I was supposed to say that I couldn't imagine life any other way, and while that is somewhat true, to say that I actually fully felt that way would be a big fat lie. Also, I'm very slow, but what an excellent book.
Small, inconsequential things, but nonetheless important and fondly remembered as part of my life Before Them. I do think it is important to remember who you once were, don't you? But that being said -
I didn't know when it was probably my last ever court appearance as counsel, in black and white, because I fully expected to have a few more court appearances before I was suddenly given medical leave during the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Daniel. I didn't get to sit in our Picanto one last time before it was traded in, or take a photo with it; that dear, obiang, orange little car, our first car, which served us so well despite it having less-than-stellar reviews. It took me a while to realise just how much I wore black and white for the first four years or so of my working life and that not needing to go to court meant I could buy more clothes!; I didn't dare to drive our current Avante until about 3 months after we'd gotten it. Too big. To this day, I still cannot parallel park it with the ease with which I parallel parked the Picanto - and all too soon, it will be time to say goodbye to it as well.
Before I confirmed my pregnancy with Andrew, I made sure to take note of every run I went for - what I was wearing, the weather, where I ran to - and every time I ate sashimi or drank alcohol, just in case it was my last. I remember the last run before I peed on a stick was in the morning, I ran one side of the Ulu Pandan Park Connector and crossed over the other to the office, and I was wearing a blue Adidas singlet. The last time I ate sashimi was with S at Sushi Goshin at Vivocity.
It just wasn't the same, though.
***
I don't know why I felt that I had to to write about all these things tonight, except that I did - a long overdue tribute to my lost Last Times, if you will. I feel something I can't quite define in words - regret, perhaps, at my not-knowing; futility, because those times will never come again. Is there a point remembering these things in such detail, and despite what I've said, a point in remembering who we once were? Not clinging on, you understand, because I am quite sure I am not, not anymore.
And yet.
Whispers of tomorrow echo in my mind
Just one last time
I put it down to the fact that despite having my mum around some days of the week to help out - she doesn't stay over, though - and letting Them watch Paw Patrol, Max and Ruby and Dora the Explorer on Nick Jr from 7.35pm to 8.50pm most nights (I should do a review of cartoons soon; Ruby from Max and Ruby is, in millennial speak, I cannot) while I get the 1001 other things I have to do done, this #soloparenting business really does take a lot out of you.
*It also costs only S$2.20 at the Fun Toasts in the CBD. Why is this so? Also there is one particular uncle at the Star Vista branch who, out of all the staff there, is the best at mixing the ice lemon tea siu dai. I always feel like I have struck the lottery when he's on the morning shift. Some days, if I can hold out, I'll wait till he's around in the afternoon to get my fix.
***
There's a poem called The Last Time which kept popping up on my Facebook feed a while back. I won't reproduce it here, but it's easy enough to find using Google (it's the one with the unknown author, and it's also likely to pop up on your Facebook feed again at some point in time). I identify with the sentiments expressed - briefly, you don't know when will be the last time your child will "need" you, e.g. to comb his hair, give him a bath, hug him to sleep, etc., so treasure each time they ask you to do so as if it's the last - but it has on occasion made me feel like rolling my eyes a little, and I have always wondered why there haven't been similar tributes to the last time parents, and mothers in particular, got to do certain things; things they can't do after they become mothers or fathers, whether by choice or circumstance. I'm sure there are, but they don't seem to be as widely shared as this poem and other articles of its ilk. Or are there? Have our own needs and desires become so inconsequential in light of our children's? Is it selfish of me to think this way? Has my Fitbit started controlling my subconscious? (A "lol" would be appropriate at this juncture, so, LOL.)
Last Friday, which was also the fourth consecutive day that Husband was out of Singapore and the fifth consecutive day that we hadn't had dinner together, I failed to find anyone to have dinner with, and so ended up at Roadhouse at Dempsey with Them because I felt like They deserved fries for dinner for having been fairly well-behaved throughout the week, and I couldn't bear the thought of eating McDonald's. I was driving to childcare after work and feeling a bit lonely and missing Husband and feeling some weariness at having to deal with Them alone again, and as I was waiting for a traffic light to turn green, I idly got to thinking about what I would have planned to do if I didn't have Them. The answer to that was easy, of course - it would have involved going to the gym and reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History, uninterrupted, thereafter**. Which got me thinking about how I didn't know, when it was the last time, that it was the last time I would go for K's 6.45pm RPM class at Paragon on Fridays. By the time I have the bandwith and time to go again, will the class still be on? Will it still be taught by him? I don't even remember when that last time was, or what songs were played. I do remember, though, that G used Laserlight for Track 3 at my request, at my second-to-last Tuesday lunchtime RPM class before I had Daniel, because that was supposed to be my last class before I popped. I remember the very last spin class by R that I ever took, on New Year's Eve 2013, and that he told us that he'd chosen all his favourite tracks, and the one he liked the most was Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love.
**I know I was supposed to say that I couldn't imagine life any other way, and while that is somewhat true, to say that I actually fully felt that way would be a big fat lie. Also, I'm very slow, but what an excellent book.
Small, inconsequential things, but nonetheless important and fondly remembered as part of my life Before Them. I do think it is important to remember who you once were, don't you? But that being said -
I didn't know when it was probably my last ever court appearance as counsel, in black and white, because I fully expected to have a few more court appearances before I was suddenly given medical leave during the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Daniel. I didn't get to sit in our Picanto one last time before it was traded in, or take a photo with it; that dear, obiang, orange little car, our first car, which served us so well despite it having less-than-stellar reviews. It took me a while to realise just how much I wore black and white for the first four years or so of my working life and that not needing to go to court meant I could buy more clothes!; I didn't dare to drive our current Avante until about 3 months after we'd gotten it. Too big. To this day, I still cannot parallel park it with the ease with which I parallel parked the Picanto - and all too soon, it will be time to say goodbye to it as well.
Before I confirmed my pregnancy with Andrew, I made sure to take note of every run I went for - what I was wearing, the weather, where I ran to - and every time I ate sashimi or drank alcohol, just in case it was my last. I remember the last run before I peed on a stick was in the morning, I ran one side of the Ulu Pandan Park Connector and crossed over the other to the office, and I was wearing a blue Adidas singlet. The last time I ate sashimi was with S at Sushi Goshin at Vivocity.
It just wasn't the same, though.
***
I don't know why I felt that I had to to write about all these things tonight, except that I did - a long overdue tribute to my lost Last Times, if you will. I feel something I can't quite define in words - regret, perhaps, at my not-knowing; futility, because those times will never come again. Is there a point remembering these things in such detail, and despite what I've said, a point in remembering who we once were? Not clinging on, you understand, because I am quite sure I am not, not anymore.
And yet.
Whispers of tomorrow echo in my mind
Just one last time
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