The Close Of The Year

The fantastic thing about a journal is the opportunity it offers to go back in time. This was meant to be written on 31st December 2005 (since I was working at work that day), but as usual, I was too lazy and it was less effort to do Italy-research.

A click here, a clack there on the keyboard…voila!

Wooo….your eyes are feeling woozy…you are believing that this post was written at the close of the year 2005…wooo…

*puts magic wand away*

It appears to be traditional to indulge in vaseline-smeared-lense-like reminiscence when standing at the threshold of January.

Ah, but that’s what this blog was partly started for…to serve as a record for the things that would otherwise have taken up residence in the prime real estate of my ever-shrinking brain.

Why work up a sweat trying to recall (and thus tempting nostalgia-induced, you-wish-lah embellishment) what happened, when there are archives in a nifty drop-down menu?

Blogger, I love you long time!

Overall, 2005 didn’t stand out as a particularly trying year. It must therefore have been good. So much so that I’ve begun to think that it may not be such a bad idea after all to be stuck here, given that I’ve been fortunate to have:

1) hardly worked all year, earn a pretty decent salary and still get an appraisal result of “Exceeds Requirements”;

2) the tenancy of my other apartment renewed for 2006. Boys and girls, again, I must reiterate. DO NOT buy jointly with someone you haven’t yet committed both your heart AND mind to;

3) a home that I’ve custom-built to my selfish needs;

4) enough savings at this moment to cover Italy 2006 in May;

5) if fortune holds, enough disposable income to save as a buffer for rainy days and for the day that we really can pack up for the place that continues to beckon despite the quiet of contentment; and

6) grown up sufficiently to commit as a meaningful witness to someone else’s life.


I don’t believe in living life by checklist. Time and Chance/Fate can easily blow that checklist away in a blink - then whatcha gonna do about it?

That’s why I never bother with resolutions, five-year plans or ambitions.

Instead, whenever I find myself adrift, I tell myself this -

The best you can do in life is to be flexible. To bend without breaking each time a spanner hits your wheel, or each time the road curves so sharply as to spin you off-course. And never allow yourself to be unhappy for long.

Never be afraid to laugh at the times you find yourself having taken an almighty belly flop onto the floor all by your very own doing. Always have the humour to admit that it looked absolutely silly.


That being said, 2005 closed with a shadow of grey for my family. My aunt’s short struggle with cancer is nearing its end and these past weeks have seen her calmly making gifts for remembrance, clearing her liabilities and sorting out her will.

I tend to be clinical about these things, wholly approving of putting practicality above emotions. So it was with some detached shock that I noted an overwhelming urge to bawl a few days ago when my possible appointment as one of her trustees was being discussed.

How fragile we are.

And so I proceed into 2006 with the practical widsom of Emily Saliers as my guide.

So we must love, while these moments are still called today
Take part in the pain of this passion play
Stretching our youth as we must
Until we are ashes to dust
Until time makes history of us.


Here's to endings as well as beginnings.

Happy New Year to all.

May we weather whatever storms that come our way with dignity and grace and celebrate each cause for smiling with due merriment.