Hello people.
It's almost three a.m while I'm typing this particular sentence. Instead of feeling sleepy, I'm feeling nostalgic. In fact, this feeling started this afternoon, when I was attending a church service at my cousin's church. I started having flashbacks of parts of my life before, and I knew I have to get them all down before I lost them all again. I straight away pulled out my phone and started scribbling with my personal, messy handwriting, and jotted down this new idea called: Fondest Memories.
Here I introduce this new section of my blog, where I record down all those little memories my subconscious had stored for me over the what little amount of years I'd lived. I'm not trying to make this a formal thing, but I don't think these pieces that I'm going to do will be well-suited under the labels I'd done before. It's about life, of course, but the mostly-forgotten parts of it.
Fingers-crossed that more and more little, insignificant memories will come back one at a time, so I can continue to jot down the piece of my life. It feels like putting pieces of puzzles back to their own places to form a bigger, clearer picture: my life.
The image that hit me hard today was a short lane just right out of my maternal grandparents' house in Sibu, Sarawak. I was about four, I guess, on my way back home from the kindergarten there, wearing my red color uniform, if I'm not mistaken. Sibu is my mom's hometown, where we visited almost every year till our financial abilities stopped that routine. My mom was walking hand in hand with me as we turned into that lane that lead to the house. The kindergarten was located in a church nearby my grandparents' house, so it's not that far of a walk.
I still remembered vaguely that I was talking to my mom about how my day was when a huge tall man riding his motorcycle turned into the corner that lead to the lane. I was delighted when the motorcycle halted to a stop, and saw his easy grin etched on his face. It was my uncle who's years younger than my mom that met us at the crossroad. He still had that boyish smile on his face, and his playfulness in his personality although he already has a daughter who is the same age as me. Back then, he had less dignity than he is now as he was much more or less of a young adult.
A few casual words exchanged between him and my mom, then he turned to me and offered me a ride on his motorcycle. Let me get something straight, for all of my life, I've only been on a motorcycle twice or thrice, and I believe that it was my first motorcycle ride. My parents deeply believed that motorcycles are dangerous and they never ever let me get a ride on motorcycles; I only get rides when I got back to Sarawak, where my uncle and grandfather used motorcycles as their transportation. I was so excited to finally get a chance to sit on a motorcycle, no matter how short the distance was. As if a miracle had happened, my mom actually said yes and my uncle just hauled me off the ground easily (he's really tall, I think easily over 6 feet and he's huge) and placed me in front of him on the motorcycle, in the small basket where he could ensure that I wouldn't fall off and hurt myself.
Happiness literally filled my by then four years old heart. I felt like I could burst with pride and happiness as I finally got a ride on the motorcycle after watching my cousin sat on it so many times. I didn't know what got my mother to agree to this monstrous request (you should see how my parents react to my brother wanting to take up motorcycle lessons when he's older) but I was so happy she did. I was so happy through the short ride, I think not more than 30 seconds. That's how easy to please a little child like me back then.
Now that I hardly go back to Sarawak anymore, I didn't get to see a lot of my relatives. Of course my relationship with my uncle faded a little by a little over the years, where he started to get busier with his work and having more children to feed. He has become successful in a way, and now has six kids and believes in almost all religion. My aunt (his wife) still sends us clothes whenever my grandmother comes out and visit us in the Peninsular Malaysia (aka the pineapple-like land below Thailand). Well, that's one reason less for me to spend money on new clothes.
This particular flashback make me realize how much I really miss my family back in Sarawak. I miss our dynamic and our old routine, where I always went back with my mother and little brother during our long school holiday at the end of the year. I think my mom misses her hometown even worse than me, but given the fact that I'm out here in college (meaning tons of money need to spend) and our financial status, and of course, her lack of holidays (no need to start the shitstorm) equal to no chance to head back to Sarawak anytime soon.
Well, I think I'd better stop the coming-whining before I begin to whine over little things (typical) and it's pretty late now (or early) so I better get some sleep so I won't be late for class tomorrow. Also, I have a lot of packing ahead as I'm heading back home for almost two weeks for Chinese New Year, eep!
So I guess this is it, my first fondest memories and hopefully, many more to come.
I hope you guys enjoy reading this and if you have any little memories or flashbacks you wanna share, you can always comment below. I'd love to see what your little memories that you haven't think for quite a while are.
Till next time people.
xx
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