Growing up - not all its cracked up to be

I must say I am quite tired of having to grow up. I am realising that being grown-up means taking care of yourself, more and more, and then, taking care of people who cannot take care of themselves. In other words, no-one takes care of you.

First of all, I had to live with my mother and realise that I am now increasingly getting to the stage where I might have to play parent. At least my mother is still pretty much there and can run her own life, so she is not tied to my apron strings. I thought that was the peak 'I am all grown up now' experience. But heck, no. There's more!

It appears that my brother has decided, due to shortage of time and ongoing ill temper, to prioritise his wife and family and simply leave my mother and I to our own devices. My brother could once be counted on to come over to help out when things began to fall apart. He saved my arrowana from certain death many times. He installed the closed circuit TV in my flat when the I wanted to see if the neighbours were screwing around with my pot plants. We've had quite a number of companionable suppers when dinners at home were crap, because his wife is not interested in food. Now, I wouldn't even bother to ask for help. He won't answer his bloody phone.

Most times, it is difficult to even get a civil word out of the guy. Yet another milestone towards adulthood. It used to be that we thought family came first, no matter what. He was the one that could be counted on. Now, we are the ex-family. His wife and kids the only recognised family - and the in-laws, of course. (They are, after all, the baby-sitters).

When do brothers become mere (disappointing) males? I'll tell you - when their wives come into their own as wives and mothers, and men learn to shut up to keep the peace. That's when brothers become mournful creatures, bad tempered all the time, and plain down in the mouth, with no time for anything except work, and ferrying the kids around the shop - or running other errands. I do not know one single male who is married, and is still full of joie de vivre. What is it about marriage that turns men into such beige people, mere shadows of their former selves?

And their wives - flush with their own power, they turn into people who feel it is permissable to be rude to the in-laws. Who's going to stop them? Our brothers? No way.

Here, I must add that most men will also say that they are happy, that these are the trade-offs of having kids and a family and that they are ok with it. But - why does it have to be one or the other?

Ok, back to growing up - one, I now have to practice holding my temper and refraining from giving the dolts a right ticking off. After all, I want to continue to see the kids and ultimately, they will be the only family I have left. So, I have to turn the other cheek. Another exercise in humility - so character building, I am reassured. I wonder when the time will come when God decides I have more than enough character, thanks very much?

Two - I realise that, ultimately, I will have to shift for myself since obviously, my brother cannot be counted on for any help at all ie. I will have to be an adult.

Marriage and Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Marriage is supposed to be for adults. Yet, I feel sorry for anyone in a marriage, with kids. I cannot think of a worse fate, one involving a complete loss of self and identity - except maybe a concentration camp. Why do people do this to themselves? And why is this an acceptable outcome of marriage? Why do people marry someone, only to turn them into beige people, whose friends are other beige people, whose main topics of conversation are the kids, the education system and the price of cars?

How boring to build your entire life around your children, where they are the touchstone for every decision. What about big world issues - like AIDS in Africa? Or the war in Iraq? I wonder if it is really good for kids to be so pampered - surely, they need to be taught independence, that they are part of a larger reality, one where they are not at the centre? How long should boo-boo, coo-coo, mummying and daddying last? With such beige parenting, no wonder each successive generation does not break out of the beige parenting trap, all reverting to type once they are themselves married.

Really, no wonder marriage is called an institution - anyone would have had to be nuts to agree to enter into it. Thank God this is one grown up experience I will never have! In the words of Bryan Ferry, '(I'm gonna be) eighteen till I die!"

I have just been discharged from hospital after a hysterectomy on Monday - the final leg of this initial phase of my journey with cancer. The histology report came back - everything was normal, no cancer was found! I am now set for a speedy recovery and am booked on a flight back to Shanghai on Mar 1.

It was as different an experience from the mastectomy as one could get. For one, the pain level was about 200% higher. I awoke in a haze of pain, and remained like that for about 5 hours. They gave me a button to dose myself with the painkiller from a drip and I literally fell asleep after the operation with my finger on the button. I did feel much better at 10pm though, pressing the button every 2 hours. I was on a pathadeine drip for the rest of the second day, and on pills for the rest of the hospital stay. By the time I was discharged on Friday, there was no more pain, and I was moving around as normal.

The big disappointment, though, was that the much-anticipated hospital food was not that great. I remembered, from the mastectomy, that the food had been fantastic, and I had actually put on 2kg from the hospital food. No such luck this time. I had to keep to the vegetarian diet, which was bland. I tried the fish selections in the non-vegetarian choices, but it was just...ok. The last time, I had all the red meat selections and therein, I am sure, lies the difference. It is now back to macrobiotic with a vengeance - thank goodness! At least this stuff is edible!

Apart from all this, it was a very peaceful time. I read alot, was glad of the visitors who came by and, actually, did not watch all that much TV. I must be the only person on the planet who is always sorry to leave the hospital!

Once back home - I went for a 6km walk on Saturday, did not need to nap after that, and even managed some of the easier tai chi moves. Cannot wait to start jogging again!

To everyone who prayed for me, called and visited, a big THANK YOU! I have been much blessed throughout this journey, and you are all a big part of this blessing.

I have been having hot and cold flashes! At first I did not know what they were, I thought it might be a bug I had picked up, or heatiness and non-heatiness from the radiation, or excessive consumption of that traditional Chinese 'cooling' tea, Ho Yan Hor. But no, according to the gynaecologist, they are hot and cold flashes.

Now that I have a name and reason for them, I find them quite alot of fun. For one thing, I now have a reason to throw a shawl around my shoulders. Pre-cancer, I was always too hot. Now, I have the opportunity to make an shawl-punctuated fashion statement even while out of doors, and this justifies those pashminas I bought years ago, and the ones I recently bought to get me through radiation. I love it when I find a reason for past extravagances, makes me feel quite virtuous, a feeling I do not often have!

Also, it means that sometimes, the cabs here are too cold. I can actually tolerate the tropical heat now, even when I have the airconditioning in cabs switched off and the windows down. This makes cab rides so much healthier, with fresh air circulating through the cab. No more damp, petrie-dish cab rides for me. Not so much fun, of course, for the sweating cab driver, but hey, I'm the customer, right?

With hot flashes, I turn a little red - great, I look so much healthier, like I have a vigorous exercise routine which has given me such efficient blood vessels, what with the blood pumping through my system and all, that I look well-exercised all the time.

With this discovery, and the fact that it has not been too horrid, I have resolved NOT to have a menopause. Mood swings? As one of my friends told me:"Don't worry, we won't notice those. You've always had them." Depression? Forget it, I refuse to be down for any reason and with the help of MaxMara and Ferragamo sales, I won't be. Weight gain? I intend to buck the trend and kick up the exercise and brown rice routine. I understand that there are also non-invasive procedures which can shift the fat. My plastic surgeon is going to be one happy camper. For my part, I simply cannot wait to get over the hysterectomy and get 'de-lined', 'lifted', and Lasiked!

I can almost see my mother shaking her head in despair over the amount I am spending on superficialities, hear the sermons and the tsk-tsk's. My justification: I have no more room for 'some days' in my life. As long as I keep things fairly sensible (by my standards, at least), I am going to do everything I have always put down as a 'some day' item, including Lasik.

So - look out, world!

I wonder what happened to the concept of the aged being the revered elders of the tribe, where our elders were looked to for wisdom, and guidance, whose stories we could rely on to light our own way forward? Now, as I look around at my relatives, I find that the old are struggling for continued relevance.

As someone squarely at middle age (or past it, depending on if one is a pessimist or optimist), and who is ageing 10 years before her time due to forced menopause and chemo fog, I have had occasion to understand how people who are older feel.

For one, they are increasingly marginalised. Once upon a time, they were considered vital. They were breadwinners, essential to the survival of their children. Once the kids become adults and independent, the role of care giver is no longer important. The kids begin to make sure they know in no uncertain terms that they are not needed any more, part of the typical growing up process. Once the grand-kids come along, the older generation become caregivers once again, but not essential in the same way.

Secondly, they were once on the up-and-up in the corporation. In Singapore, however, once they hit 40, it begins to dawn on them that they are being sidelined and pastures are being identified for them. The technologies and processes they were once expert in are no longer relevant and they are pushed to learn new technologies and skills, all the while looking at the younger, more aggressive executives nipping at their heels.

This past holiday season, I had the opportunity to catch up with several older relatives and one thing seemed abundantly clear - our elderly folk are all struggling to find relevance. One of my uncles, at age 75, told me he works 10 hours each day. I thought he meant running his business. His wife later told me he watches news programs and makes notes on the latest and greatest. His kids are all fairly well off now. Once he was king of the castle and ruled it with an iron fist. Now, his kids barely speak to him because his world view is completely out of synch with theirs.

Another one of my uncles refuses to leave his neighbourhood in the east coast, hates going out to eat and certainly will not make a 15 minute drive - it's too far for him, so we hardly ever see him.

Finally, I look at my mother - scatty, and needing guidance on simple decisions such as: can I put the pecan pie in the freezer? Or the hinge on the window is wonky. The solution: don't open the window, rather than: get the window fixed.

There seems to be a certain amount of trepidation of stepping outside an increasingly smaller comfort zone. All these answers which I toss back at her are those that she taught me. Yet, now, she does not seem to know the answers. Has she gone senile?

By contrast, I know people who are the exact same age as my mother, who are still vital, still working, still travelling, still participating in life to the fullest. So I know this is not a consequence of advancing years. I think it is a grasping for relevance. Relevance, being needed, keeps us youthful and alive.

For example, by asking stupid questions, our parents are seeking the comfort that someone cares enough to respond, and engage with them. By talking endlessly and repetitively about the minutiae of their days, they are seeking to share with us their thoughts. I am reminded of a small child who, when you see them, hauls out all his toys to show you, or begins in baby-talk to tell you about their kindie friends, or their favourite sweeties. They are sharing things that are important to them and showing you, at the same time, that they are according you a gilt-edged invitation to enter into their world. We do it with alacrity for toddlers, but we are less enthusiastic about our parents.

Having said that, though, I have to admit that it is hard to take day in and out. We are so used to thinking of our parents as the adults in the relationship, as the ones who taught us things and who are supposed to know better. When they begin to act 'less than', we get impatient. We think they are not making an effort to be more cognisant, that they are getting mentally lazy. Perhaps it even scares us that they are growing old and will leave us one day - and so we try to make them what they used to be.

As someone who knows what it is like to be shunted aside because of a physical development that I cannot help, I think giving our elders relevance is the answer. The trouble is that our culture does not foster this attitude. Most of the older generation of Singaporeans (indeed, most Asians), are used to a feeling of urgency, of focus - working to earn their living, put food on the table, put the kids through school. "Wait till I retire", is the much-used refrain. But what happens after retirement? There is a whole lifetime waiting for all of us once we are turfed out of the company and my people in my parents' generation never planned for it.

I and my friends will be in the first generation of Singaporeans to have grown up without the sense of strife. I wonder how we will greet retirement? I wonder how we will find relevance in a country where the government and society has no time for retirees and the prevailing attitude is one of condescension. Considering we seem to be turning into a gerontocracy, one would expect the opposite.

The solution is, I believe, to look for work/life balance, to begin planning retirement at 40, to find one's bliss - process which can take years. The job does not satisfy most people, it's just a means to an end. We need to start the seach way before we retire, so that we can build a plan to stay relevant, needed and contributing through the golden years. We need to learn how to put ourselves first again - not the kids, not the job, not even our country. Us.