Wednesday, October 06, 2010
First In, Last Out
Sometimes I marvel at the workings of life...its ins and outs.
When I studied accounting at school and university, we learnt about different methods of inventory keeping. There is the First In First Out (FIFO) and the Last In First Out (LIFO) method of accounting for stock flow. I thought the latter was stupid- why would you want to sell your most recent stock first, assuming they are all identical when you should be thinking of getting rid of the old stuff first? Then there are perishable goods with a shelf life.
I apply that to life.
One would think that when you go into the dating circuit way before your peers, you should be ahead of the game. So you have sussed out the market before everyone else got in, then as the time is ripe with more entering into that pool of dating game, you have since trained your eye to pick that one gem in that crowd, get hitched and you exit the dating game before you become a Christmas leftover. You get overridden by your younger counterparts who form that new wave of fresh, young and delectable daters prowling and searching for fun, love or incidentally both. You see, even humans have a shelf life, though its span is subjective to the beholder. General consensus or social conditioning may suggest that ladies start hedging for an exit strategy and being more than ready to go by one’s late twenties and make way for the new. So I apply the FIFO approach to life- if you got in the game earlier than your peers, you would have had your fair bit of shopping around and first to come out with top goods.
In recent years, say the last 7 years or so, I did observed an interesting phenomenon of LIFO amongst ex-classmates from social hearsay predominantly served to me by one of my best friend, B. (You see, I am not usually home in Singapore for the most parts of the year or the whole year in this current situation so I know no better.) Vaguely remember dull Jane or ugly Betty or geeky Nelly from your high school days? Now I am beginning to think that there are some smarts around these people. In a timely fashion, they get in the dating game fast and swiftly at the “ right” age i.e. university and wasted no time in shopping and/ or coquetry, pick up THE ONE and bam, you got a marriage or in our culture, as old friends, you might be served the red bomb (ie. Chinese red coloured wedding invitations) a couple years before you shy to age 25! Might as well- just in time before Christmas! The worst thought is to become a Christmas leftover with a fast diminishing shelf life.
******
Yesterday, I took stock of my own life.
***
It has been 2 long weeks in business where deals are going awry. That is another story in itself.
Night before, DL dropped the bombshell on me. Not the red, joyous kind.
He hasn’t been happy with me- I am leading a double life, he felt. The weight our business did nothing to improve his happiness and quality of his life. The deep seated issues have compounded over the years. We left too many things unsaid and we have grown tired of even getting in an argument of you say, I say. We thought we have forgiven or let go. We both thought we did.
He could never see himself marrying me, he said. He meant it.
I do consider myself off-market for quite a while now, actually. Not because I feel like an expired good but because I have no real desire to be a shelved item.
It started off with that dull resignation or was it resolution when I decided to return to Sad Town 2 years ago to be with DL whilst I tried to make peace with my emotional mess spilt over by my past with DL pre-reconciliation and then the pain from my affair with the Old Boy. By March 2009, I was ready to make the next step. The astronomical investment into this dying/ growing business was my big leap of faith in affirming my relationship with him. You see, I am a realist and a pragmatist at the end of the day. I believe in putting my money where my mouth is.
DL will be that harbour of love for me, the errant boat to hang up sails for good.
He has always been the designated person- so why did I even grow errant? I wondered.
Well, precisely since we met at a time in our lives where this designated harbour didn’t feel so safe and secured for me. The actions of his youth (and he still is) was dictated by his emotions and recklessness, which caused a hitherto disciplined and focused P to feel like she was living a joint life with a train wreck which she had no control over. That made her unhappy for the most part. But she did feel secured in his love.
So who says one can’t live on love?
I have learnt my lesson too late.
The damage is done.
But as they say, the greatest healer in life is love.
Let’s hope we have enough in us.
Propositions coming my way these days did little to peak my excitement or send an adrenalin rush like it once did where I was that hungry, wanton cat on the prowl for the next kill to preserve my (in)sanity and Ego. I was in need of the next kill to fill in the emotional gap I experienced in my life. I could not bear that torturous feeling of emptiness.
(Funny, my Tibetan Buddhist name bestowed to me by a highly ordained monk relates to the Buddhist concept of Emptiness- the most profound Buddhist teaching that I am still trying to meditate on and come to grips with. An important lesson I need to make peace and apply in my life.)
I was always a hunter but now, I can safely say I have lost my killer instincts. But again, this is perhaps a little too late for DL.
***
I have been missing home a lot with so many challenges with our lives since the start of our business.
I missed my close friends and wonder how each of them are doing.
So Del is due to deliver a baby boy in November. She wrote to say she missed me and would be great if I was home. She has since quit her air stewardess job and took classes to learn how to bake wonderful cakes and goodies, pictures of those yummy pastries posted up on her Facebook. She adapted her role as a happy mother-to-be quite naturally and doing an awesome job out of it.
Then Janine wrote with pregnant news- second baby due sometime next year.She was another player who saw her changing boyfriends as quickly as she changed her underwear. A few disgruntled years in the corporate world and a couple more of bad relationships and staying single for couple of years or so, she found love again in church and walked down the aisle as quickly as she spotted the man of her life. In an equally unpredictable manner, they were surprised with baby news and she took up her maternal role just as effectively and lovingly.
I have yet to see my best friend, B’s baby girl in person- baby E must be fast growing. B mentioned that she is neither excited or unhappy about the arrival of that bundle of joy but knowing her, she is probably as dutiful and as adaptable as she is in handling any matters of importance. B is after all, a safe pair of hands.
My other best friend, V got married last week. I weren’t there but I sent her a text to wish her happiness. She replied that my text meant a lot to her and she wished I was there.
Yesterday, she wrote to say that she didn’t want me to say she was doing a B thing to me again- yes she just found out that she is 8 weeks pregnant so I am one of the first to know!!! Her German hubby is over the moon and it was so unreal when she felt the baby’s heartbeat. I was so happy for her.
Just yesterday before that message from her, I thought about my 2 best friends, B and V. I am now the only unmarried one standing. Their lives are in order or rather stable and they are experiencing marital bliss. Good on them.
I recall I had been one of the first to have a date with the opposite sex and always the girl with the interesting boy stories to tell.
Larger than life I had led my life. Still is, but in a struggling type of way.
I thought life struggles of the financial and emotional kind would also have a shelf life. When one hits 30, slightly older and wiser, surely those struggles would disappear with age and happier days could be had?
Here I am, that last woman standing.
The vision in my mind’s eye shows that around me, my close girl friends live a routine of marital bliss with preggie bellies. Gone are their days of emotional struggles, conflict and pain.
It wasn’t too long ago that V and I were at Pump Room where we met the German. 2.5 years ago and the memory and the feeling of fun and carefree-ness as swinging bachelorettes still haunt my memory. I was living an emotionally precarious life (little did I realise). We were pushing 29 and at New Year, we said damn, we are almost 29 and then going 30. We are now 31. The residues from that recent past continue to set a bleak backdrop to my current emotional state of mind. Trying, still trying to work on my path of happiness and inner peace, fighting those inner demons of nostalgia and pain that should have no place in my life that could otherwise be quite safe. Emotionally speaking.
The angst is long gone. For the better part of me, I have made peace. Slowly, I am coming out of my dark, heavy shell, finding happiness step by step and making the best of my life with Dl, drawing colour back to my life.
I am feeling A-ok. Until, DL's bombshell two days ago.
******
Again, my life’s path debunks my own theory at applying one’s social progression of life from the stock taking method of first in first out (FIFO).
I must be made of a different stock altogether with an infinite shelf or rather, expiry life altogether. As life would have it, I seem to set an example of that new breed of stock that might well go by the first in last out (FILO) stock keeping rule.
From the looks of life, I might as well stay in cold storage. Actually I prefer a time capsule. Marriage is no longer an option, so is that inclination to put myself on the market, so to speak.
FILO sounds to me like a case of no takers. Or do I hear taker out there?;)
So let all FILO ladies be preserved in an age defying time capsule where we bask blissfully in eternal youth!:D
Sometimes I marvel at the workings of life...its ins and outs.
When I studied accounting at school and university, we learnt about different methods of inventory keeping. There is the First In First Out (FIFO) and the Last In First Out (LIFO) method of accounting for stock flow. I thought the latter was stupid- why would you want to sell your most recent stock first, assuming they are all identical when you should be thinking of getting rid of the old stuff first? Then there are perishable goods with a shelf life.
I apply that to life.
One would think that when you go into the dating circuit way before your peers, you should be ahead of the game. So you have sussed out the market before everyone else got in, then as the time is ripe with more entering into that pool of dating game, you have since trained your eye to pick that one gem in that crowd, get hitched and you exit the dating game before you become a Christmas leftover. You get overridden by your younger counterparts who form that new wave of fresh, young and delectable daters prowling and searching for fun, love or incidentally both. You see, even humans have a shelf life, though its span is subjective to the beholder. General consensus or social conditioning may suggest that ladies start hedging for an exit strategy and being more than ready to go by one’s late twenties and make way for the new. So I apply the FIFO approach to life- if you got in the game earlier than your peers, you would have had your fair bit of shopping around and first to come out with top goods.
In recent years, say the last 7 years or so, I did observed an interesting phenomenon of LIFO amongst ex-classmates from social hearsay predominantly served to me by one of my best friend, B. (You see, I am not usually home in Singapore for the most parts of the year or the whole year in this current situation so I know no better.) Vaguely remember dull Jane or ugly Betty or geeky Nelly from your high school days? Now I am beginning to think that there are some smarts around these people. In a timely fashion, they get in the dating game fast and swiftly at the “ right” age i.e. university and wasted no time in shopping and/ or coquetry, pick up THE ONE and bam, you got a marriage or in our culture, as old friends, you might be served the red bomb (ie. Chinese red coloured wedding invitations) a couple years before you shy to age 25! Might as well- just in time before Christmas! The worst thought is to become a Christmas leftover with a fast diminishing shelf life.
******
Yesterday, I took stock of my own life.
***
It has been 2 long weeks in business where deals are going awry. That is another story in itself.
Night before, DL dropped the bombshell on me. Not the red, joyous kind.
He hasn’t been happy with me- I am leading a double life, he felt. The weight our business did nothing to improve his happiness and quality of his life. The deep seated issues have compounded over the years. We left too many things unsaid and we have grown tired of even getting in an argument of you say, I say. We thought we have forgiven or let go. We both thought we did.
He could never see himself marrying me, he said. He meant it.
I do consider myself off-market for quite a while now, actually. Not because I feel like an expired good but because I have no real desire to be a shelved item.
It started off with that dull resignation or was it resolution when I decided to return to Sad Town 2 years ago to be with DL whilst I tried to make peace with my emotional mess spilt over by my past with DL pre-reconciliation and then the pain from my affair with the Old Boy. By March 2009, I was ready to make the next step. The astronomical investment into this dying/ growing business was my big leap of faith in affirming my relationship with him. You see, I am a realist and a pragmatist at the end of the day. I believe in putting my money where my mouth is.
DL will be that harbour of love for me, the errant boat to hang up sails for good.
He has always been the designated person- so why did I even grow errant? I wondered.
Well, precisely since we met at a time in our lives where this designated harbour didn’t feel so safe and secured for me. The actions of his youth (and he still is) was dictated by his emotions and recklessness, which caused a hitherto disciplined and focused P to feel like she was living a joint life with a train wreck which she had no control over. That made her unhappy for the most part. But she did feel secured in his love.
So who says one can’t live on love?
I have learnt my lesson too late.
The damage is done.
But as they say, the greatest healer in life is love.
Let’s hope we have enough in us.
Propositions coming my way these days did little to peak my excitement or send an adrenalin rush like it once did where I was that hungry, wanton cat on the prowl for the next kill to preserve my (in)sanity and Ego. I was in need of the next kill to fill in the emotional gap I experienced in my life. I could not bear that torturous feeling of emptiness.
(Funny, my Tibetan Buddhist name bestowed to me by a highly ordained monk relates to the Buddhist concept of Emptiness- the most profound Buddhist teaching that I am still trying to meditate on and come to grips with. An important lesson I need to make peace and apply in my life.)
I was always a hunter but now, I can safely say I have lost my killer instincts. But again, this is perhaps a little too late for DL.
***
I have been missing home a lot with so many challenges with our lives since the start of our business.
I missed my close friends and wonder how each of them are doing.
So Del is due to deliver a baby boy in November. She wrote to say she missed me and would be great if I was home. She has since quit her air stewardess job and took classes to learn how to bake wonderful cakes and goodies, pictures of those yummy pastries posted up on her Facebook. She adapted her role as a happy mother-to-be quite naturally and doing an awesome job out of it.
Then Janine wrote with pregnant news- second baby due sometime next year.She was another player who saw her changing boyfriends as quickly as she changed her underwear. A few disgruntled years in the corporate world and a couple more of bad relationships and staying single for couple of years or so, she found love again in church and walked down the aisle as quickly as she spotted the man of her life. In an equally unpredictable manner, they were surprised with baby news and she took up her maternal role just as effectively and lovingly.
I have yet to see my best friend, B’s baby girl in person- baby E must be fast growing. B mentioned that she is neither excited or unhappy about the arrival of that bundle of joy but knowing her, she is probably as dutiful and as adaptable as she is in handling any matters of importance. B is after all, a safe pair of hands.
My other best friend, V got married last week. I weren’t there but I sent her a text to wish her happiness. She replied that my text meant a lot to her and she wished I was there.
Yesterday, she wrote to say that she didn’t want me to say she was doing a B thing to me again- yes she just found out that she is 8 weeks pregnant so I am one of the first to know!!! Her German hubby is over the moon and it was so unreal when she felt the baby’s heartbeat. I was so happy for her.
Just yesterday before that message from her, I thought about my 2 best friends, B and V. I am now the only unmarried one standing. Their lives are in order or rather stable and they are experiencing marital bliss. Good on them.
I recall I had been one of the first to have a date with the opposite sex and always the girl with the interesting boy stories to tell.
Larger than life I had led my life. Still is, but in a struggling type of way.
I thought life struggles of the financial and emotional kind would also have a shelf life. When one hits 30, slightly older and wiser, surely those struggles would disappear with age and happier days could be had?
Here I am, that last woman standing.
The vision in my mind’s eye shows that around me, my close girl friends live a routine of marital bliss with preggie bellies. Gone are their days of emotional struggles, conflict and pain.
It wasn’t too long ago that V and I were at Pump Room where we met the German. 2.5 years ago and the memory and the feeling of fun and carefree-ness as swinging bachelorettes still haunt my memory. I was living an emotionally precarious life (little did I realise). We were pushing 29 and at New Year, we said damn, we are almost 29 and then going 30. We are now 31. The residues from that recent past continue to set a bleak backdrop to my current emotional state of mind. Trying, still trying to work on my path of happiness and inner peace, fighting those inner demons of nostalgia and pain that should have no place in my life that could otherwise be quite safe. Emotionally speaking.
The angst is long gone. For the better part of me, I have made peace. Slowly, I am coming out of my dark, heavy shell, finding happiness step by step and making the best of my life with Dl, drawing colour back to my life.
I am feeling A-ok. Until, DL's bombshell two days ago.
******
Again, my life’s path debunks my own theory at applying one’s social progression of life from the stock taking method of first in first out (FIFO).
I must be made of a different stock altogether with an infinite shelf or rather, expiry life altogether. As life would have it, I seem to set an example of that new breed of stock that might well go by the first in last out (FILO) stock keeping rule.
From the looks of life, I might as well stay in cold storage. Actually I prefer a time capsule. Marriage is no longer an option, so is that inclination to put myself on the market, so to speak.
FILO sounds to me like a case of no takers. Or do I hear taker out there?;)
So let all FILO ladies be preserved in an age defying time capsule where we bask blissfully in eternal youth!:D
