Well. It is now 2.49 p.m. on Thursday and I am sitting in the office, taking a break before extracting some plasmids later. I am feeling rather easily overwhelmed today so I am keeping the volume in my AirPods at a gentler volume. I shall attribute this to the four hours of sleep I got last night; I wasn’t even doing anything important, I just revenge procrastinated until 2am. Oh well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. Meh.
I am currently listening to Bo Burnham’s That Funny Feeling and it got me feeling nostalgic, though I am not exactly sure what I am nostalgic for. The other day I was on the train, making my way home at the end of the day, and I put on Fireflies by OwlCity. It was such a strange feeling that I turned up the volume, closed my eyes, and imagined that I was a teenager again, making my way home after school. That night, I listened to Vanilla Twilight and that funny feeling increased tenfold.
It is such a strange feeling to listen to the same song you used to listen to all the time when you were younger and to know that the singers have grown older too, but in that song, they remained in their early twenties. They have changed, I have changed, but in that song, they remained frozen. I do not know how I feel about that.
I started listening to other songs that I used to listen to all the time back when I was a teenager. What a strange feeling. I keep repeating this sentiment, perhaps it is because I can’t get past this strangeness. And slight melancholy. I listened to Out Of The Blue’s cover of Hips Don’t Lie, and I got this weird feeling about it. It is the same feeling that I get whenever I rewatch one of Ryan Higa’s (Nigahiga) YouTube videos. I remember looking forward to him and Kevjumba uploading new videos all the time when I was in secondary school, and now he has stopped making Youtube videos. I remember as a teen watching Out Of The Blue’s YouTube cover of Hips Don’t Lie and Ryan Higa’s videos and thinking to myself that they looked like the epitome of carefree young adults in their 20s, and just overall having so much hope and expectations of my 20s. But now I am in my 20s. There is also a sort of grief associated with knowing that I am now in the same age range as these people were when they were shining online, knowing logically that they too have grown older, but in my mind’s eyes they are forever frozen at that age that they were in those videos. If I were to go to Youtube right now and search for Ryan’s videos, I would still see him in the videos, all bright-eyed and vibrant and corny puns. In a couple years’ time, I will be older than the age range he was in when I was religiously watching his videos, but in those videos that I loved, and still love, he would forever remain that age. What a funny feeling.
2.43p.m, Friday
It seems that we are at the end of the week. The day didn’t start off fantastic—I threw up on a patch of grass on my way to office. Damn the bumpy bus ride, but I felt better almost immediately after heaving my stomach’s contents up by the roadside, so I don’t feel too bad about it. I have been taking it a little easier on the experiments this week, as I am waiting for some specimens to be ready in the meantime. Anyway, back to my musings.
I am not exactly sure why the thought of songs and YouTubers that I used to love make me feel all achey inside. Perhaps it is the knowledge that there is no going back—it isn’t just about them, it is me. I think a part of me is still grieving for the younger version of myself that I am not ready to let go just yet. At that age, I was convinced that adulthood would be exciting—life would be vibrant and carefree. Even my vision of being a scientist was that of me being Brilliant, wearing a Brilliantly Pristine lab coat in a lab that seems to come straight out of a movie, discovering Very Important Things. Instead, what I have now is almost the complete opposite. Being tired and anxious all the damned time, in a lab coat covered with unidentified stains, in a lab that is perpetually messy, doing what could be considered manual labour all the time. Oh, that and the thing where I feel stupid most of the time. Of course, I now know enough of research labs in general to know that most labs are somewhat of a pigsty and to appreciate that my lab is in a rather good condition, and of course, to know that half of research is repetitive manual labour that leaves one with aching shoulders at the end of the day. It does not help the grief that comes with the disillusion, however.
I used to verbalise the fact that I miss being a teenager a little more, but in recent years I have stopped for fear of being labelled the “girl who peaked in high school.” What “peaked”, though? I do not see my younger teenaged years as any “glory days,” rather, I think I simply miss being at an age the future seemed vibrant and exciting. The possibilities were endless! Dreamy! Exciting! Filled with hope!
That is not to say that I know for sure what my future holds for me right now. I think what I meant to convey is simply that at that age, the future seemed exciting regardless of what it would contain. As for now…well. I wouldn’t use the word “boring,” but it simply no longer provoke the sense of wide-eyed hope.
It is a little amusing to think that what I always thought of as the Ultimate Adulthood Challenge would be all the adult responsibilities that comes with it. Bills, taking care of your own place, legal matters, etc. Somehow, all these pale in comparison to coming to terms with the fact that adulthood is in reality a big pile of disappointment. Like finally opening the box containing that latest model of your new phone and discovering that it is, at the end of the day, still a device of communication not unlike the model you have been using all along, instead of that magical and life-changing tool that was advertised. The friends whom you thought you would see more of once you guys were All Grown Up, with Adult Money and Adult Freedom in your hands, are often shut away in their corporate jobs, doing so much overtime that you have the urge to shake their superior until the teeth rattle in their heads. You thought that being a researcher is such a glamorous thing to be, in reality you are always in ratty clothes under your lab coat, hunched over data that you are not even sure would do anything good and impactful in the grand scheme of things. They say all that glitters is not gold, well, I guess old-timey proverbs hit much harder when you are grown up enough to fully feel it.
Obviously, I do appreciate many aspects of my current adulthood. I am living with Q in our little rental place until our BTO is all ready for us to move in, and I do look forward to having it renovated to fit the image of a home that I created in my mind since I was a child. The thought of creating a home that somewhat fits the image that I conjured up, as a child, based on stories from Enid Blyton books…just the thought of that cheers me up immensely. Of course, reality sets in sometimes. I can’t erect a bird-table outside of my place, despite wanting it with all my heart growing up—unfortunately, the laws of this land is such that feeding wild birds is prohibited. I can’t have a chimney or a real fireplace, Singapore is perpetually at a temperature of 30ish degree celsius, and anyway, it is a flat, not a house. There is no place for a chimney! Not unless I somehow open a hole in my ceiling going up into the floor of my neighbours living upstairs and smoke them all into oblivion. A roaring fire in the house, even if it is in a fireplace, would likely bake us into pies as well. There, I have now amused even myself. Still, having a place that belongs to us is still a sweet, sweet thing. I suppose there might be some gold in all that glitters, then?
I do not think I will stop grieving that wide-eyed version of me anytime soon, but at the same time, I do feel a little guilt for being so harsh towards what I have now. I try to think about whether 16 year old me would have admired what I have now, but I honestly do not know. Would she? Maybe she would, I am doing a graduate degree after all. That sounds like the exact sort of thing young me would have swooned at. I am living in my own little rental place, awaiting my BTO flat to be ready for us to move in. That does sound pretty good on paper. Perhaps 16 year old me would think current me to be ungrateful. That does seem likely. Well, she does not know the toll it takes on the mind and body to be where I am today, and then to realise it might not even be worth it after all. Regardless, it is comforting to remember that I am standing where past me wanted so badly to reach. Perhaps I just do not see it now.
Perhaps it is a possibility that I have been a little unkind about the life that I now have. Looking back, all I wanted as a teenager was to grow up, but now I look back on my teenaged years with fondness. Perhaps 5-10 years later, I will look back on this time with fondness as well. Well. Now I am alarmed. Does that mean that life for future me would be that bad? Now this is a concerning thought.
Oh well.
Anyway. I suppose it would do no harm to count my blessings a little. The stress of graduate studies aside, there is some sweetness to this current life of mine. I have my own place! Mine, mine, mine! Well, Q’s too, I suppose. But potato, potato, so, eh.
Now if only I can finally get through this current hurdle within my graduate studies—I am not dense enough to think that life would finally start looking up, but at least I would be able to breathe a little easier…I think?
Bealie
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