Life-changing things discovered by Sharmaine #1

"Van Houten,

I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently.

Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.

(Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.)

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.

People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox.

After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.

A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse.

What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."

The Fault In Our Stars - John Green

My amazing life so far

It's the last day of July, soon to be first day of August.

I guess I could have posted this any other day in July but since it's the last, I thought somehow it would be automatically more significant. 'The end of something always signifies the beginning of another' seems to be a very, very applicable phrase in my life right now, so applicable it's not even funny. Just within these six months A LOT has been ending, leading to A LOT beginning as well. Like, so many things it's not even funny. Guess you could say that it means I'm changing. Not 'changed', changing. I'm changing. It's happening quick and fast and it's scary. And everyday I get reminded of how much I'm changing. Don't get me wrong, it's not the terrifying-take-away-your-sleep kind of 'scary', it's more of the amazing, shocking, crazy, unfathomable and take-your-breath-away kind of feeling that lots of people lazily label 'scary'. Indeed, life right now for me is 'scary', but that's just another way for me to describe that even though I'm changing and life is changing, it's changing into something indescribably beautiful.

How I know myself and life are so obviously changing is when, firstly, I realised I've gotten used to it. I've gotten use to the old changes that now I've started feeling the new oncoming ones. My 'new school' is now just 'school', 'my new friends' are now just 'friends', everything new that I've been complaining about getting used to earlier in the year now feels completely normal. They've become new habits. It's kind of like this now - when I visit places that were once new to me, they feel like habits. When I visit places that were once my habits, they feel like memories. Things I talk about now make thoughts like "hey I've grown up" pop into my head every now and then. The change from secondary school to JC has transformed my lifestyle so much and 6 months into this new lifestyle the realisation hits me. And it hits me hard.

The heartwarming and perhaps beneficial thing about this change is that somehow, I'm embracing it. I'm enjoying it. It's been healthy for me. With the influx of so many new and exciting things happening, comes the influx of nostalgia as well. Everyday I tell stories of the 'good ol' days', sometimes I reminisce on my own, then the next thing I know I'm reliving them in the little spare time that I have. I've retained so much of my past, even though it's completely gone. And sometimes, although it's not possible, I try turning it into the present again. When that happens, convincingly, it seems like we're young again and nothing has changed. Anyway, the Whatsapp group (comprising only Celine and I) 'No. 51' still sees daily Whatsapp messages. 'Note #51' seems to be an ill-fitting description now, because it seems like we could write a book. And I think I'll soon be needing a chest for my box full of memories. I find it rather queer and interesting that I chose the night right before founders' day service to read the letters from Celine I've kept in my box since the last few years. I cried that night. And when something so random like that happens, it's hard not to think about it.

I realised, that night, how much I miss her. How much I miss the past. I thought I knew how much I did, but that's just what I thought. And so I guess it was time for me to know that well enough so that I wouldn't forget the importance of 25th July. And as major a thing the past is, so is the present. I've never seen myself so happy in years. This is coming from the girl that's originally really, really, really happy already. Like really. I didn't know it was humanly possible to be so happy. I didn't know feeling happy could be so limitless. And I didn't know I would be the lucky girl to get the chance to know that fact, today. Bob Marley's lyrics go "don't worry/about a thing/cos every little thing/is gonna be alright". Sometimes people sing songs because the tune just gets stuck up there. Nowadays, when I sing Bob Marley I sing it because I really mean it. I look forward to school everyday because people give me so much to look forward to. Su Jin Chandran serves fresh piping hot bullshit every single day, and I kindly fling just as much bullshit back. And that's just a naughty way to say that I like him. I like him a lot. And please stay in my life. Continue serving your bullshit that somehow magically gives me strength to survive each challenging day in our hellhole. I like all my classmates and teammates a lot too, heck, I even like people that make me sad and angry. You are the people that tone my face muscles. I also like the canteen stall aunties and uncles. But the sad thing is I will never ever ever have enough time to thank the people that make this happen. I just hope that I can show them what I mean by being the past they treasure, the present they're enjoying and the future they're creating.