Thinking The Right Thoughts; Asking The Right Questions

I don’t consider myself an exceptionally deep thinker. Sure, I think a lot about a lot of things. But only in the way that many thoughts cross my mind often about many things – some trivial, some mindless, some pointless, some not.

What day is it today?

Have I washed the kids’ uniforms?

What should I cook for lunch?

When will my Tesco order arrive?

Do the kids have any glue stick left?

Why does my left wrist hurt?

When is my next doctor’s appointment? 

But that’s about it most days. Just random thoughts that ebb and flow from one to another without great consequence in the grand scheme of things. Neither fun nor depressive; only mundane. 

Most days, I am kept busy with the house and the kids. Freelance work has also been taking up quite a bit of mind-space of late so that’s been a welcomed escape from the humdrum of SAHM life. Usually, this is enough to take me from Wake to Sleep without break or rest. 

But there are days when

this one evil thought rears it ugly head.

When the dishes are piled high in the sink, when the laundry is yet to be done, when the trash hasn’t been taken out, when I can’t see my dining table under all the home-learning mess, when the kids misbehave, when relationships sour, when Me Time is scarce… it’s there.

“What is the point?”

What is the point of it all? What is the point of being alive? What is the point of surviving cancer only to be faced with an overflowing kitchen sink every single day? What is the point of living if all there is in store for me is to be a slave to everyone else around me? What is the point of persisting if all there is to look forward to is punishment? 

And just as I think it, I chastise myself for it.

How could I even think such a thing?? How dare I!

After all that has been done to keep me from death.

All the money spent – hundreds of thousands in surgery, treatment and follow-up costs. All the people inconvenienced – to cook and clean and help with the kids during my downtime. All that time lost – especially with my growing-up children whose childhoods feel nearly over. All the prayers prayed – so many of them whispered, yet answered all the same. 

It stabs me with such guilt that it tears me up inside and stops me in my tracks, rendering me unable to move forward without attempting (sometimes in vain) to silence the thought and beg the Lord for forgiveness.

It instantly makes me feel like I’m the most ungrateful person on the planet – ungrateful for the life that I’ve been so fortunate to have. For the extension of Life itself that I am so blessed to be given in spite of the tribulations I’ve been through, and the challenges I still endure, and the trials I have yet to face.

Unfortunately, if I'm being honest,

it isn't just once that I've thought it. 😔

When life gets hard and everything seems to be going wrong, it comes knocking at the corners of my mind. More frequently than I’d like these days, no thanks to the lack of pleasantly distracting activities and socially rewarding outlets due to the return of MCO 3.0.

Perhaps all this negativity will stop when lockdown eases and normalcy resumes. Maybe I'll stop thinking this way when my world goes back to being bigger than the confines of my home. I guess a visit to the mall for some window-shopping will help, too. Oh, and I know good food and easy chit-chat in the company of friends definitely will. 

But deep in my heart, I know, I know, I know that at the end of the day, the problem boils down to this: I'm asking the wrong question. So, the only way to stop this crippling guilt and depressing spiral is to change the question altogether. And if I get the question right, it'll all be alright.

Stop asking, "What is the point?"

Start asking, "What is my purpose?"

Then & Now

Now that a year has passed and old wounds have healed, my perception of my chemo downtime has also changed. Instead of remembering 5 months of IVs, swollen veins, bruising, nausea, indigestion, tiredness, loneliness and involuntary isolation, I now look back on those days quite fondly. 

I remember keeping to myself for the most part of every day. Just waking, lazing, eating, sleeping, showering, listening to music, watching mukbang videos, reading the Bible and even just staring into space and zoning out until I fall asleep in my room. Rinse and repeat; day in and day out. 

I’d spend hours picking up and sorting out the hair I’d lost, too. It was surreal and cathartic to feel the loose strands in my hands, attached to nothing. I remember thinking about how slippery hair actually is. The smoothness of every fibre. But only from one direction; coarse from the other. 

I did this every night. Patiently. Painstakingly. Diligently. I’d align every strand, tie them together with a rubber band and put them away in a box – storing them for goodness knows what. Just me clinging on to some semblance of my past before Life did a 180º and landed me where I was – sick and sitting in a room all alone, sorting fallen hair. It was mind-numbing work. But very therapeutic all the same. 

I miss that monotony now.

The quiet. The solitude.

The peace in my heart.

Finding peace has been difficult lately;

this weekend, especially.

I feel frustrated. Easily irritated. Fed up with everything. I’m angry. I’m also angry that I’m angry. At what, I do not know. I’m sad. Depressed. I feel this great unhappiness hanging over my head and weighing down my heart. Unhappiness over what? Everything and nothing. 

A super long, extra steaming hot shower helps relax me somewhat. Watching Korean dramas on Netflix offer some relief, too. Blogging, even more so. But then... it’s always fleeting. Because one cannot shower, Netflix and blog forever. 

So. Very. Tired.

I've always said this:

"I don't want to survive cancer,

only to be killed by Covid."

Unfortunately, the journey from being "unvaccinated" to becoming "vaccinated" in Malaysia is a long and exhausting one. Even if you're being treated with a whole bunch of meds and have got a history of critical illness. 😞

Dermatology Wing, Penang General Hospital.

It feels like I've been everywhere today but have gotten nowhere at the same time. Stuck in some kind of sadistic limbo with clear goals in mind but none of them reached. Much like how it feels like the entire nation has been in a seemingly perpetual state of some form of lockdown or another for over a year now, but has far from contained the spread of COVID-19. 🦠 

It's taking forever for the elderly to be inoculated. (I'm told that in Penang, we're still at those 79 and above.) Vaccines are insufficient. (Private hospital PPVs are on standby but have yet to receive their share of the vaccines from the government.) Frontliners are overworked and tired. (My cousin is a dentist in Kapit and she's been put on Covid duty for awhile now; how crazy is that?)

When will the wait end? When will I be called? When will Malaysia achieve herd immunity? When will life go back to normal? Will life ever go back to normal? Aih. Who knows, man. Who knows. Am tired after today's runarounds. Body tired; brain also tired. Don't want to think liao.

I ❤️ U

JJ: Will you be my mummy forever?

Pam Song: I will. #momvows

And then he put a ring on it. 💍🥰

God didn’t give me girls. But He more than made up for it by blessing me with this funny, artsy, giggly, loving, homemade-jewellery-gifting second son. I liked the first ring he gave me. But I think I love this one more. 🥰

Non-Monday Blues

What does it mean when you feel neck deep in

Monday morning blues on a Friday night? 🌊

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Currently listening to Lean On Me (기대) by Jeon Sang Keun (전상근) on repeat. So many feels though I'm not 100% sure what the lyrics really mean. My Korean is K-drama-level pathetic and Google – like everything else – is intent on failing me tonight so I can't find out for sure either. But... it sure does seem to sound the way I feel inside – blue. 😞 

Someone... anyone...

Accurately translate this song for me please?

*crickets*

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Yup. Guessed as much.

No one reads this blog anymore.

#foreveralone

Long Time Since, Long Time Till...

I've been doing my best to avoid all things raw (save for salads 🍃🌿) since my diagnosis. Sad to have to do so but I guess to err on the side of caution would be better than to take a leap of faith when it comes to things like these. Chemo kickstarted me on this journey back in August 2019, and I've just continued to deny myself, ignore all cravings and keep at it... 

...till tonight. 😈

3-slice Salmon Sashimi @ Isogin Japanese Restaurant.

SOOOOO GOOD. Other places, I wouldn't dare lah. Especially in Penang. 😔 But here at Isogin... well, all I can say is that it pays to chummy up with the owner and chef so you know when the latest shipment of raw goodies come in. Haha. 

5ct Ring From JJ

A precious gift of an (imaginary) precious stone ring

from a precious little one after school. 💍💎

A true gem from a heart of gold, duncha think?

This mommy’s heart is full. 🥰❤️

Testimony: The Missing Piece

It's 12.22am as I begin writing this.

It's late and I really should be in bed,

but I felt that this couldn't wait.

I wanted to write out this testimony

before I forget the details.

#chemobrain #thestruggleisreal

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I bought a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle last Saturday. I've been happily working on it for the last 3 days and as I neared the end of the first half of the puzzle today, I began to realise that I could be missing a piece. (I worked on them by colour so I could kind of tell.)

Well, I reached the end of the first thousand after dinner today, and true enough, one piece was missing. 🧩 NooOOooOooOooooo!!! You know how it is with jigsaw puzzles... a single lost piece and that's it. You're screwed. 😣

The missing piece.

I panicked. Got super upset with myself. I grabbed our brightest torchlight and started hunting high and low. Dug around the sofa, checked under the beds, and looked under the tables – nada. All I found was dust and two stray pieces of the boys' Lego. 😩

I got so desperate I even went online, googled the manufacturer (Pintoo) and went into the customer support page to ask if I could purchase the missing piece. I even contemplated buying another full box because there was an Amazon "Buy Now" button sitting right there to tempt me. 🙈🙉🙊


Shen helped me look for awhile, too, then asked me to pray. So, I said a silent prayer – a desperate plea for God to step in and offer me some help 😅 – and went about looking again. Frustration overwhelmed me. I was angry, hot, flustered, and so super upset. 

Worst thing was, our daily helper came by today.

I worried that she might have cleared it away. 😰

I texted her – hoping she didn't vacuum it up and toss it into the bin. She said that she didn't. That offered me some relief and I believed her cos while she was cleaning, she did ask me where I bought my puzzle and said she liked puzzles, too. So... with an appreciation for jigsaw puzzles, I wouldn't think she would have thrown it away lah. Fingers crossed. 🤞


I asked that she help me lift or move the sofa the next time she comes so I can look under it properly. That was my only hope. I'd looked everywhere possible. That was the only place I couldn't reach nor see. So, I had to wait. Sigh. And I resigned myself to the fact that I won't find the missing piece until then. 😞

BUT THEN...

Before I went to bed, I decided to take one last look around. I checked the desk and the box. And I saw the second half of the puzzle, which I hadn't touched, still in its bag. I thought to myself – "Forget it la. What's the point of finishing the puzzle now when it can't even be completed." 😞

But then a part of me also felt that maybe – just maybe – they packed it wrong? Maybe my missing piece wasn't "missing" after all and that it was in the other bag I hadn't opened?? #hopeful 😁 #delusional 😅

So, I decided to open it up. While I poured out the 1000 pieces, I shook the bag to make sure every last piece came out. It was then that it suddenly dawned upon me that maybe I didn't shake the bag the first round because I was so excited to start working on it!! 😱

So, I immediately dug through my trash. And guess what? It was. Right. There. Sitting in one corner of the crumpled up plastic baggie it came in. The same one that I had already thrown into the bin and covered up with other bits of trash from other days past.

Now, here's the super duper miracle. The helper forgot to take out the trash in my room today. Just like she did on Saturday when she came, too!! I was just complaining to JJ about it earlier this afternoon – saying that she forgot to take out my trash AGAIN today.

Well, God works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

If she had taken out the trash last Saturday, that puzzle would have been long gone. 🗑️ (I grumbled about it then.) If she had done it today when she came again, it would also have been gone. 🗑️ (I also complained about it today.)

I'm also usually quite fussy and I would have tossed out the trash myself in a huff if she had forgotten. I did that the other times she forgot. But I didn't this time. No idea why. 🤷‍♀️ I just didn't. Maybe I was too busy dedicating any free time I could spare with fixing the puzzle. Haha. 

So, yes. God answered my simple but desperate prayer tonight. Over one little, tiny piece of jigsaw puzzle. 🧩 Quite insignificant in the big scheme of things but important to me nonetheless. Truly, our God is the God of both, the big things, and the little things in our lives. What's important to you, is important to Him. 

My other lesson learnt tonight is this: no matter how impossible or forlorn of hope the situation, we should never give up. I was already on the verge of packing it all up and shelving the puzzle. But if I had surrendered to my situation and decided that this lost piece made the whole puzzle a lost cause, then I would never have had the epiphany that the missing piece was still in the bag. 

It's also important to note that all in all, it took two mishaps for my miracle to take place at the end of the day. (The helper forgetting to take out the trash – not once, but twice!) If those two "bad things" hadn't happened earlier on, I wouldn't have gotten my miracle anyway.

The problem with us humans is that while we're in the middle of our pain, and in the thick of our troubles, we often complain, grumble and gripe. Simply because we cannot understand the hows and whys, and don't see the ending yet.


But it doesn't have to be that way. Life may not be perfect. But we don't have to grumble, struggle and hate the journey. If we could only choose to rest in Him, and see all our pain as a necessary part of God's good, greater, perfect plan, we wouldn't beat ourselves up over things as much. 

So, if there's a takeaway from this missing puzzle testimony, it's this: whatever your troubles and whatever tough times you're going through, take heart and do not give up!! God is working in ways we do not understand – AMEN! 🙏