16 years on: what?

sheesh.

when i was a little girl, i always dreamt of the day i’d turn 16. it was as if it was the magical date, the Open Sesame to all i ever wanted. the glamour of 16 lay elusive, far out in the dim horizon, something laced with black and gold and surrounded by shimmering diamonds. 16 was the bomb, or so i thought.

and thus, my progression from girlhood to adolescence was all about my 16th birthday, and how i was going to be this tall, pretty girl with lots of friends and i’d throw this giant birthday bash and get all sorts of presents. and how afterwards i’d roll around in bed with my boyfriend and he’d propose with a diamond ring and blah blah blah. (you see, i was 6 then. thanks to Mary-Kate and Ashley trash, as well as years of vegetating in front of Xena the Warrior Princess, i was quite the mini-slut.)

and now, that “bomb” is right here at my doorstep, fizzling out. i don’t think it’s even gonna explode.

so i look at myself in the mirror and i go: 

 I’M 16!!!

and then i drag my feet to the kitchen and eat potato chips. then i examine the blackheads on my face, brush my teeth and shit (if i’m lucky) and this and that and life goes on.

in terms of height, i’m not 16. i’m 6.

emotionally and mentally though, i’ve grown up. too fast. i’ve become so numb and cynical and jaded like a piece of agar-agar that’s been boiling for 60 years.

i’ve had an amazing life so far. i’m surprised that i’m still alive despite the threat of cancer ever-present.

you see, when i was 7, i was a girl with crew-cut hair (that was curly. imagine that) who hitched up her skirt, sweared in english-accented Hokkien and arm-wrestled with the boys. in short, i was a tomboy. so there was this showdown between me and this dude Li Yang. after we drew at the spitting competition (we could reach no farther than the teacher’s table), there was a tie-breaker. this girl came forward with this assorted array of pencil leads and suggested that we have an eating face-off. so imagine: the whole class crowded around the both of us, sitting face-to-face, each armed with 3 boxes of leads.

“GO!”

my supporters constantly fed me water as i hurriedly crushed thick leads between my teeth. i might as be eating granite. as i was finishing the 3rd box, my opponent threw up and i won hands-down. for a few weeks, i became a god and everyone whispered my sacred name in awe.

when i got home that day, my mom asked my why my teeth and lips were grey. i told her i fell on the classroom floor.

so since then, i’ve always been waiting for the day i’d be diagnosed with cancer, and so i can tell the doctor: “i know why, it’s cos i ate pencil leads when i was 8.”

fast-forward. yesterday i hauled out some tapes from my cupboard. yes, from age 9 to 13, i taped stuff off from the radio and i played them on my walkman. i remember the horrified look on my friend’s face when i changed tapes on the excursion bus. “is that your mother’s?”

some of them were mouldy and i ditched them. i picked the rest up and played them on the cassette player.

the songs sang about the past. memories of my first crush, our little love notes. my dad slapping my mom, my mom slapping my dad, both of them slapping me, me poking holes in my mom’s photo. playing with make-up, dismantling a sanitary pad, drenching my nails in polish. me finding my mom’s divorce papers. hating my first crush for talking to another girl, hating him after our break-up. watching the total disintegration of relations between my sister and mother. failing my mid-year maths paper and trying to forge the signature, only to end up in the principal’s office.

enter: age 14. the most chaotic, contradictory and absolutely exhilarating years of my life. when bad tasted oh so good.

age 15: becoming christian again.

and now: another year, another kilogram added.

happy 16th birthday to me. i’m going to Fairprice to buy some instant noodles.

Tags: 16, birthday, memories, nothing