It is going to be 5 months exactly by the time I start in my new job since I tendered my resignation at the middle east company in February. During the first month, I was suddenly busy with my father’s funeral (he passed away 1 day after I left my former company). The first month passed with me busy with the 4-day funeral, followed by 1 week or so of recuperating from lack of sleep during those nights.

Shortly thereafter, I was busy with paperwork on the transfer of ownership of my parents’ house to my mum, pension-related matters and closure of bank accounts.  The first month went well, with me staying at home, but neighbours thought I was simply taking a longer break.

We took a 4-day short trip to neighbouring country to relax, as promised to my mum during the days when we were shuttling between home and hospital visits. Soon, 1 month turned into 2 months. The second month I was still taking my time in terms of job applications. I was still choosing what job I want, the salary package, the type of work, and where the company was based in. I was even applying to overseas roles as I was very keen to work in China. Naturally, I applied to a few Chinese-based roles with MNCs (Chinese-owned companies are terrible).
When it comes to my third month of unemployment, there was a sudden dip in jobs that I can apply. It was the dreaded “dry” season. I thought March and April were the hot hiring season, and by May I would have completed many rounds of interviews. In actual fact, I only went for 1 interview in April, 2 interviews (one was a specialist role) in May, and 2 interviews (and one was a totally new role from my current career) in June, followed by second-round in early July and a job offer the next day.

I faced many rejection emails which I was used to it, and saw many roles that was advertised at the beginning of the year (or since last December), before it closed and re-opened again. I am guessing there is a possibility that these companies have internal candidates in mind, but they are foreigners, and when they cannot obtain the work permit to work here, these companies re-open the positions for locals.

I remembered the anxiety that arose in May and caused me insomnia every night, and I came up with a daily routine to help alleviate my anxiety. Every morning that I will wake up and sit in front of the computer to job hunt for 1 to 2 hours. Thereafter, I will force myself to complete some tasks. Be it reading, working on an errand or writing a blog, I will make sure to maintain a sense of “productivity”. I also regularly meet up with a counselor to keep my mood positive, which I think it helps during interviews.

Hence, I would like to share some points that I have utilized to retain my sanity and maintain positivity:

1. Set up a schedule for each day. Set aside some time for job hunting. Once that is done within the allocated period of time, stop. Move on to other things.
2. Think about all the things that you want to do and DO IT. Do not procrastinate. For example, during this period, I know I have a house to renovate, a holiday to plan and to update my blog with new entries. So I set off to recce for furniture, research on décor themes for my house, sat down and research on various attractions to visit and the route to take for my holiday (I do not know if I can make it but I will try), and to jot down 2 entries about my holidays and experiences for the past few months.
3. Seek a counselor or a friend to talk to. Through online methods, I found a mental wellness workshop to attend for free last year. From there, I learnt tips to keep depression at bay and maintain positivity. I also jotted down free resources available. One of the free resources I got was a newly-formed counseling group for women and depression-related problems. I got into contact with the association and waited. After 2 months, they got back to me, and I got in contact with a counselor. When I was employed, she helped me when I was having a lot of frustration at work and home. Thereafter, she provided me with an outlet during my unemployment to express my frustration.
4. Engage in free or low cost entertainment. I will travel to my neighbouring country which is three times cheaper for simple pleasures like watching movies, having a meal. Of course, you need to be able to travel on your own (since most of your friends are working). Otherwise, I will sometimes dedicate 2 days out of a week to leave the house and go out. I will condense all my activities and errands in one day to maintain that sense of productivity, and to keep my mind off job hunting. It also helps me to work off the excess stress and tire my body for a better night’s sleep.
5. Take on short temping assignments. Because I have been unemployed for short stints a couple of times, I have gradually built up some (very small fee) assignments that are flexible in timing. I generally avoid longer term temping assignments because in my country, they are usually outsourced to recruitment agencies for manpower handling and salary payment. However, there is often a commitment period, or else, you need to pay a penalty fee. I do not like to lose the flexibility to go for interviews as and when companies call, hence I generally stick to events role (1 –day event helper). They are also generally quite interesting and in industries that I will never ever be exposed to in my day job.

 
For example, I worked on events witnessing hundreds of couples celebrating their 50th or more wedding anniversaries, and participated in a 3-day navy trade exhibition and saw how negotiations were done between militaries/government defence-related agencies and state-owned companies on requirements of military shipbuilding and costs. It was an eye-opener for me, besides getting paid for it. I love government/commercial exhibitions that are not open to public because the delegates and visitors are matured and not pesky like the general public.
 
I hope this helps to encourage those who are still job-hunting to continue to push on. Sometimes, hope is just around the corner when it seems the darkest and bleakest. But please always have faith that when you are at your bottom, the only way is to go up.

Be it single and married, I am fully aware at a very ripe age of 38 that there are both pros and cons. Married people have companionship, either from spouse and kids, or either one (well, I just learnt another story from an old friend that her husband and her lived totally separate lives at home).

I am not going to lie. With the abundance of freedom at hand, I do feel lonely at times.

Very.

That sense of deep down sadness, loneliness does grab you tightly. It does.

This afternoon, while doing yoga at home, I actually could feel the loneliness resurfacing again. Towards the end of the yoga session, I teared.

Because I always locked myself in my bedroom and do yoga based on an online course, I have the space to weep quietly in that moment.

It was a very hot and sunny day. As I laid down in my savasana pose, I could see white clouds gathering and dry thunder sounds in a distance. From the bottom of my heart, I instinctively put my palms together, closed my eyes and sent a very sincere prayer to Buddha. After ending the practice, I gave three bows.

For the past 37 years, I always place career above everything else in my prayers.  I do feel lonely at times when I see couples together, but I never really pray sincerely for someone to appear in my life.

Today, I finally did with all my heart.

Because today, I really wish that for the next 30 years (assuming I lived till 70 years old and 4 years have passed beyond 35year mark) I will have someone beside me, holding my hands, for me to hug when I feel sad, and travel the world together.

I yearn for someone to live with me in my own small house. Whenever I open the door, I can see someone at home, or at least waiting for someone to come home if I am earlier. To cook and have meals together, to have a meaningful or engaging or relaxing conversation depending on mood of the day, to have someone to say good morning and good night on a daily basis.

I yearn to be able to hug someone when I have a bad day at home. Even as I try not to spread my negativity to him, at least I can hug him and feel better without mentioning a single word about work.

I yearn for someone to care about me, to text me if I want lunch, or to go home together (we don’t need to have a car – a bus or train ride together is fine with me).

I yearn for someone to go travel with, for me to share my travel experiences with him, as we explore places together, meet different and new people together.

Today, I do not know why, but I feel extremely lonely. 

Ever since my father passed away, I started working on getting back into the workforce for the past 3 months. The momentum of job application grew stronger as the days turn into weeks, and weeks into months.  I am craving to get back into the workforce on a permanent basis, and get cracking on churning out good projects to enhance my portfolio.
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One of the interviews that I got called for was with a government agency tasked to promote design in my country. I was excited because I felt strongly for the cause itself, especially since I am a freelancer at the moment and I could feel the pains of delivering creative works to painful clients.

However, after so many bad experiences with government officers, especially bitchy ones that loved to congregate within my field, I have learnt not to pin high hopes. The interview session comprised two parts: a 1-hour writing test and a panel interview with the hiring manager (I shall call her The Bitch) and the HR officer (I shall call her the Nice One).

The moment The Bitch waltzed into the office with her gaudy dressing – yes it was gaudy and looked like bedsheet – I knew the vibe was wrong. I caught a glimpse of a Caucasian husband/partner with her as her phone wallpaper and I knew I up against a Sarong Party Girl (Asian girl who loved to hang out with white men. In their eyes, only white men are the best accessories worthy to own) once again. I groaned inside my heart that this was a wasted interview but I had to complete it.
This lady looked at my resume and wanted me to introduce myself. Halfway through the interview, she questioned my knowledge about the agency. As a person with only private sector working experience, I gave her what I learnt about the organisation from the website and other background research. Although yes there was a typo error in my resume (which I rectified very quickly but alas this application was prior to my discovery of the mistake), I felt that she was being biased in checking my knowledge on the details of each department. If someone has not been exposed to that organization, it is common sensical and obviously biased to fault that interviewee on the lack of knowledge of the specific roles of each department. She also pointed out that I have little knowledge about the organization. The Nice One was quiet and was frequently asked if she has any questions.

Thankfully, somehow I managed to pry the information from her on the specific portfolio that this role entailed. The successful candidate (but rather unlucky, in my opinion) would need to publicise a series of education-related programmes, including scholarships. My heart sank.

WHAT KIND OF A RUBBISH PORTFOLIO IS THIS?

The agency prides itself on promoting design on a country level, yet it has done a shoddish job after 16 years.  Since its establishment, we are still not able to have a national identity, the level of design awareness and adoption is still ridiculously low.

The content on the website, blueprint and the releases says a lot and says nothing. There are plenty of words, conceptual words, that I have seen and called it “bullshitting” in my mind. In communications, yes the language is important, but communications is no longer deemed so important in marketing. Public relations professionals are now used to write executive communications (AKA write for the senior management) and for the employees (AKA write for HR on every single damn initiative that they wants to push). After leaving the building, I wrote an email to inform the recruiter that I was no longer pursuing this job (and of course I gave a diplomatic reason). 

I am so sick of communications as a professional career. When I first started this blog, I wanted to show the world that I could write. I really prized writing as a genuine gift. Don’t get me wrong, writing is still very important in today’s world, but like what one interviewer mentioned during interview, media relations/public relations does not generate results that impact the bottom line.

Communications has now been relegated to a support function, abused by many who simply get you to do their work because they can conveniently say: “My writing is not as good as yours.” Or “You are an expert in writing.”
Does that mean I have to write every single bloody notice on the employee notice board? Or write an email for you?

NO WAY!

I was grateful for this interview because the hiring manager revealed the bitchiness right from the start, told me the most pertinent information that made me lose my interest in the job right away, and prevented me from hoping for this role which would turn out to be another GREAT BIG DISAPPOINTMENT in the future.
So yeah lady, thanks for saving me from accepting a potential disaster, which I really do not need it right now.

If lady luck can stay with me this time round, hopefully I can make the switch back to marketing and learnt all the latest valuable skillsets that I need to prolong my career life! 

According to my family’s beliefs, a person will be lingering around for 49 days before he moves on to the next life. Hence, there are a few important dates that we keep in mind and pay our respects, for example, the 7th day, 21st day, 35th day and 49th day. On the 7th day, it is also commonly believed that your departed loved ones will return back home.

However, my father did not appear in any of our dreams on the 7th day. Nor any day.

Recently, I met my neighbor during one of my evening jogging sessions. She hemmed and hawed for a while before telling me that she smelled cigarette smoke on the 48th day after my father has passed away. The strangest thing was because no one, except my father, smoked along our floor. It was around noon that she smelled it.

I recalled there was a particular night when we smelled a very strong bad odour smell lingering in our house. It was late around 11pm and there was no one using toilet, nor anyone doing gardening and adding fertilizers. When my father was alive, we used to have such smells in our house, which thinking back was such a strong signal that his health was in a very bad shape.

This makes me wonder: did my father return?

I recalled once in the hospital I had a conversation with my father and he affirmed that his late brother appeared in his dreams one night. He wanted him to pass the messages to his family members. However, he said he was unable to enter his wife’s dream himself. 

Surprisingly, that very day (48th night) my sister dreamt of him sitting in the car with the whole family. It was like one of the usual family gatherings we used to have.

So, did my father really return on that day?

My father passed away on 2 March 2019. It was a Saturday, and one day after I resigned from a Middle East company. It was unexpected because we had a false alarm back in December 2018. That false alarm took place in Singapore General Hospital (SGH) at Ward 58, a high-dependency ward.

I remembered that day quite clearly. I received a call from my mother at work around 11am, and she told me the doctor told us to get ready to be by my father’s side because all his readings and indicators did not look good. I immediately went to my boss, informed him and was out of the office within 5 minutes. The fortunate thing was I was at Central Business District, so getting to SGH was very easy – 4 bus stops away.

We started informing our relatives, and more and more came down to the hospital. A few of us got mad because the high-dependency ward restricted only to 2 visitors at a time per patient. Each high-dependency ward can accommodate 5 to 6 patients. We also had to wrap ourselves with gown and mask before we can enter the ward.

However, my father pulled through with tons of antibiotics and fluids pumping through him. We stayed overnight for a night, and 2 more days in hospital to ensure he was ok. I went to take Medical Leave (for 2 days) and split my off-in-lieu into 2 half days to account for my missing in action at work.

Therefore, when my father was transferred to St Andrews’ Community Hospital (SACH) on 4 January 2019, we thought it might be another false alarm (on 2 March). I went to Expo to attend the Reno Fair, but left within 15minutes after getting a call from my sister that my father’s condition was starting to deteriorate rapidly. The rest of the day we stayed in the ward with him. Fortunately, this time round we had a single room to ourselves. Hence the experience was way better than SGH. We bought food and my family went back home (it was much closer to home at this hospital) to take his clothes and portrait (in the scenario that he passes away and we need to pass to the casket upon his death).

That afternoon, my father started displaying the same symptoms as he had in SGH. He had breathlessness and was given oxygen tube. They monitored the amount of morphine given, and increased it steadily. From half propping up, my father had to lie down. But he did manage to drink a bottle of bird’s nest before he started to lie down. More morphine and another painkiller were administered intravenously. Oxygen tube was replaced with oxygen mask for higher concentration to relieve his breathlessness. My sister and I wanted to get some drinks from the vending machine at ground level after our dinner so we left for around 5 to 10 minutes. Once we went back up, the nurses quickly came to us to tell us our father was not feeling well. They were changing his diapers and monitoring his eye motion. It was still and he was staring into blank space. We already noticed this around 5pm that afternoon.

At 7.55pm, my father was declared dead. We were all around him, with me whispering into his ears to follow the first white light he sees.  A quick short emotional process followed, and we quickly called the casket. From his death to the 4-day funeral wake, it was smooth. Yes, I did experience some bouts of sadness and did properly grieve in the wee hours. At one point, I was wondering if I would feel any sadness because there were too much shouting and anger during the past year.

At this point, I could only say that I do feel sad because after he was my father, but I was very relieved because we can finally close this chapter and move on with our lives. I always believe that if there is no hope for recovery and quality of life is non-existent (he was bedridden towards the end and couldn’t eat at all), it is better to pass on as quickly as possible to reduce pain and suffering. I was also very grateful and glad that we managed to get my father in an in-patient hospice environment because the nurses and doctor helped us a lot during the very last few moments before my father's death. They explained to us the symptoms displayed and we felt less frazzled. Their constant checks and comfort/consolation to us played a very very great role. Hence, my mother decided to make a donation in my father's name to express our heartfelt appreciation to them.

Right now, we are just following the Chinese rites of 49 days where we go on alternate 7th day (the first 7th day, third 7th day, fifth 7th day and the seventh 7th day) to pray.  Thereafter, since my new home will be closer to the temple which houses my father’s tablet, I will go and pay my respects on a yearly basis. Even if there are any days that we cannot, at least the temple will be able to do it on our behalf.
Life has resumed very quickly back to normal for my mother and I. For the past 2 years, especially 2018, my father was spending most of his time in hospital. Hence, we already got accustomed to living without my father for a long time. I am now back on active job hunting and my mother is now planning for her own holiday with her friends.

But my sister and I did fulfill our promise to her by bringing her to Penang for a short getaway after a long and tiring caregiving period. I shall devote another post on our experience in Penang shortly!

The topic of settling down came to me again when my cousins came over to visit my father. Yes, currently, there are many people who will visit my house and see my father, ever since we told them my father’s days are numbered.
While chit chatting, my cousin who is like 9 years younger than me and a father of one, asked:
“Don’t you want to fnd someone and get married?” 
 
Well, I replied him that now that I have my own job and a small house of my own, I do not want to compromise and get married to anyone for the sake of getting married. Especially, since I do not want to have children. I know this last condition will eliminate the very limited pool of guys who are keen on women my age. But I really am not keen to have children in my forties and do the diapers thing. That is horrifying.

Looking at my facebook, I see some posts of my ex colleague who is about in her early 30s and managed to find a guy to marry after her Masters in Wealth Management.  Another friend of mine from my Japanese class, found a guy from Coffee Meets Bagel app. Well, I have tried online dating before and I think if no guy is willing to ask you out for the second meet-up, shouldn’t you get the hint and move on?

Yes, I do admit I do lie down in my bed and wonder in life if I am going to be solo in this lifetime, but I also think it is highly based on fate and affinity to meet the right guy. At the very least, the guy must be interested enough to woo me by asking me out on dates right? If I woo someone who doesn't like me, wouldn't my twilight years be tough serving and waiting on someone who will be old by then too?

If any of my readers in their late thirties/forties experienced this before, I look forward to hearing from you on how you respond to such comments/remarks.
 
 

Sorry for the disappearance for some time after I did my last update on the “My Experiences” section on my June trip to China and Korea (I actually went to Mount Bromo and Ijen Crater this July but I will strive to post that next weekend).

I focused back on getting a job because it was getting increasingly harder to pay the bills out of my savings and especially when we engaged a maid to help my mum out with chores. After two months of my mum with my maid, the constant complaint about the maid was driving me crazy. Thankfully, my father decided to discharge himself out of hospital because there was nothing they can do for him.
The maid showed her usefulness by helping to wheel my father to meet his friends while my mum do the cooking and preparing the medicine. The maid also helped my father to go toilet at night so both of us can sleep. To me, this was the period when we needed the extra pair of hands.

For the first week when my father came back, I arranged for the home hospice care to commence. The palliative nurse came and decided to bring the palliative doctor on the second visit. The doctor told us it seemed my father still didn’t know (actually he has been told before by the surgeons) that there were no more solutions and he had to face death (of course, they said it in an indirect manner).
I decided to seek my father’s chemotherapy doctor’s help by asking him if he could spare a session to meet my father. It was tough but we need to drive this message to him. After coming back from the session, my father just told me: “The doctor told me I am going to die. No more help.” It seemed a little heartless to break this news repeatedly to him. But I firmly felt that one should know, accept the fact that his/her days are numbered so that they can move on to accept the results emotionally and mentally. My father resumed his smoking which he stopped for close to a year, but we let him be.

The palliative nurse’s regular visits helped us tremendously by teaching the maid how to take care of the wound (so my mum and her could take turns) and improve her caregiving skills. I could focus on my work and earn money which I badly needed now, with a house to renovate next year.

 I am thinking of bringing my venerable to talk to my father be it in hospice or home so that death is less frightening for my father. Other than that, I think pretty much my work is done. I have accepted the fact that I will welcome 2019 mostly likely without my father.
 

The first quarter of 2018 has passed. It was a period of constant change, anxiety, a sense of eventuality and boredom for me.  

Why?

My father was in and out of hospital for three times within the past quarter. In April, he was re-admitted for the fourth time. February was the worst. When he was discharged after a 2 month-long hospitalization, he was feverish for three days and nights. My mother and I experienced anxiety for the first two nights. On the third evening, my elder sister came over and decided we need to send him via ambulance back to hospital.  Subsequently, he stayed twice more due to fever and high output volume from his fistula opening.

It was a nerve racking experience each time he was home. In addition, it was tiring. Making sure he ate his medications, cleaning his wounds which could come up to four times a day, monitoring the colour of his discharge, and quarreling with him when he refused to eat the home cooked food. To be fair to him, his stomach became smaller after the surgery and he could not absorb the food he ate. He also vomited frequently if he overate (by his standards).  I was angry and spent a lot of time complaining and wrestling with the hospital team over their lack of attention and care.  Eventually for the most recent hospitalization, I decided to re-admit my father to his very first hospital. It was nearer to our home as well, which made it easier for us to visit him.

Last week, I was asked to go to the hospital to meet the doctor, three days after he was admitted. The doctor sat me down to explain his planned strategy to help heal my father’s fistula opening.  I agreed to the plan. Then, he looked at me and said he wanted to talk to me about my father’s CT scan. It was diagnosed that my father’s cancer has spread to his lungs (he was first diagnosed with colon cancer).
This meant that my father’s cancer is at advanced stage and the current prognosis is 1.5 years. In a strange way, I felt a sense of eventuality, a final sense of certainty. At least I know the time left for us to do planning ahead. I decided to withhold this information from my father at the moment while he struggled to heal his fistula.  I believe towards the end I will definitely feel sad again, perhaps when I break the news to him. It will be hard for him to accept. But I want him to enjoy every single day now in blissful ignorance.

The boredom arose when I took on a temporary job while deciding to give myself a final deadline when it comes to switching fields. Just when I was struggling to keep myself awake at work because there was nothing to do at all in that job, my current role came. I stayed on in the temp role till the contract officially ended because I needed the money.

A strange contrast of feelings

Why do I call it a strange contrast of feelings? Well, my father brings me sadness to a certain degree (although I am holding up pretty well since I was mentally prepared a long time ago), and I am facing a brand new start in my second career, which should be a happy occasion.

My current new role marks the start of my journey to a new career – hopefully a less intense job than my previous line in corporate communications/public relations. Naturally I experienced slight anxiety again in this new field but I told myself I will just give my best shot, yet pace myself right this time.
I will not bring my laptop back home unless I have US night calls. Other than that, no work for me during evenings and definitely not weekends. My weekends are for my father and pursuing my own personal pursuits.  Mentally I am also prepared to face bad colleagues, colleagues who push work to me and colleagues who are condescending.

But deep down I know one thing, I won’t give up on writing. Every single cell in me refused to write for any corporations now – those meaningless silly emails, speeches, letters etc. I hate others trampling on my work. I hated it. And I want to protect my love of writing fiercely. No one shall change nor distort my work ever again. I will devote my true love for writing in areas that truly meant something to me. The greatest reason for a career switch is to have a less intense career.

Moving to a new career doesn’t mean I will give up communications. Nope, I will not. I will continue to write, but only for myself.  My book (I will get to it, definitely), my blog and if possible I will try to start contribute to some media to start gaining traction.

All I can say is, life really throws curveballs at you when you least expected it.

I know I post very infrequently on my blog, and I should be more diligent, which means I am going to make that a reality this year.

Readers know my blog is about sharing authentic true experiences and thoughts, be it good or bad, evil or kind thoughts. It is all about growing up. However, I could only write an article if I feel that it is a common issue that I think not only me, but others could also come across. I need to write articles that echoed with others.
However, after my first book attempt, I decided to re-start again as I decide to make writing all about passion only (I shall only write to express myself). Instead of writing in word and chucking it in one folder on my laptop, I am going to start posting the first few chapters onto my blog under the My Books section. After receiving a basic workshop on photoshop, I am also going to try my hands on drawing and using my own pictures for my book as well.

I am hoping readers can give me some feedback so that I can shape my book along the way and at the same time, I want to use this site to attract publishers as well.

I am also going to post a recent (well, 6 months is not too long for me) China/South Korea trip on My Experiences section.
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I promise I will write more and more often to populate more stories under different categories. Please share with me your feedback! Your feedback gives me energy and motivation!! 

With 3 more years to the big 4-0, fellow classmates around my age are already busy with their children. For those who are married and have kids later (around 35), they are busy juggling work and family. However, I firmly believe that you can afford to spend one day out of 365 – no, make that 1 afternoon –  to meet up with your friends to catch-up.

I have a university friend whom I was closest to her during university days. After we graduated, we still met up but on an ad-hoc basis. She was attached in her first job and soon followed her boyfriend, now husband, to Boston for further studies. Thereafter, she moved to London with him for 4 years. I never visited her in London because honestly speaking, it is an expensive destination and not an appealing country to me.

She invited me to her wedding prior to her trip to London, and it was 4 years later when she returned to Singapore heavily pregnant that I caught up with her again. The meet-ups were infrequent and the very last was when I visited her after work. At that time, my workplace is near her house and she was waiting for her first job back in Singapore to start.  I saw her first child. Then, when she started work, I also visited her during lunchtime when I was not working/in between jobs.

However, after not meeting for another year and my workplace is not near town area, I decided to ask her for a date this June. Considering now is January, there is plenty of time for her to make plans for childcare on a Saturday. She rejected flatly stating she needs to take over caring for her kids and give her in-laws a break. Well, what is her husband for? And couldn’t he take over for a Saturday afternoon?

After 3 years of me compromising to her schedule/venue, I decided that was it. And it dawned upon me that perhaps the friendship had already changed after she went to London with her husband. Hence I gave her a text replying perhaps we shall meet up 5 years or later when her kids are older  since I have my father to take care, and gave a nonchalant take care to end off the conversation.

She replied “So no lunchtimes?”

I didn’t open that message and promptly blocked her on WhatsApp. I knew she likes to check others’ facebook status and so I also blocked her from my facebook.
Although it was sad, but I felt that perhaps this friendship had already “expired” several years back. I always made it a point that I will not make myself that available to anyone if they do not know how to reciprocate. Since she never really asked about my life and is pretty self-centred after I reflected the past few years’ conversation, I decided ending my friendship with her once and for all really doesn’t make an impact on my current life.

It is true. After blocking, I realised I did not miss much at all. There was NO IMPACT at all. Although I still have flashing angry thoughts about her, but I always try to tell myself to move on. She may be happy with her current lifestyle, but I knew, like all women, when their children are grown up and have their own friends during their teen-hood, they will regret for not keeping any female friends around. I am not going to be one of those spare tyres then. I deserved more and much more genuine friends.

Another university friend whom we recently patched back – me taking the initiative – told me: “You change your friends as you get older.”
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That is so true. But I disagree with her when she said your social circle gets smaller.  I can be extroverted if I want to, and I want to strike a balance of keeping my secondary school (equivalent to high school for those in USA) friends and continuously making new friends through workplace and other business/social meet-ups.