Packing up now...

In my studio apartment, packing up now. The procedure of opening up my empty suitcases and filling them up with my clothes, shoes and stuffs kinda depressed me. Until when I was going through some blogs which I have written but never published them. I was reading one of the blogs and now I am really glad that I am going home after all... ... I guess everyone needs a remainder to set one's priority right again.

Below was what I have written on May 23 2004:

I am freezing my ass off right now in this very moment.

Where: American Museum of Natural History in New York City. To be specific, I am in the cafeteria of the museum.

Time: 4.39 pm and another hour to go before I can get out of here.

Why:

There are a few reasons that contribute to why I am stuck right here.

Firstly, my brother is now in NYC on a vacation. Thus, me being a good sister, I have the obligation to show him around and bring him to all the museums that he wants to explore.
However, I have a dateline to meet by Monday, so instead of me working at home and risking my brother getting lost (which also means that I will be skinned alive by my mum if my brother did get lost in the BIG, BAD and UGLY city); I am now building my spreadsheet using my laptop in the cafeteria of the museum.

My little brother just arrived on last Friday (21 May 2004) and it was on that fateful day, which I have come to learn that one of my cousins had passed away due to a motor vehicle accident. My little cousin, let’s call him “sweet pea”. He was like a little brother to me. Sweet Pea used to come over to my place very often and hang out with my 2 younger brothers. They played and fought together, laughed and cried together and grew up together as the years roll by.

He was a naughty little boy, full of mischief but never malicious. Definitely drove my uncle and aunt up the wall and even me, myself, have the urge to discipline him every once a while.

However, things changed when he started his secondary school and began mixing with bad company. He began to drift apart from my brothers; everyone was too busy to realize that he had skipped school, started smoking and participated in those petty gang fights. My uncle, being a very gentle man, could not handle him and eventually allowed him to drop out of school to enroll into the Army.

Everything seems well ever since he went to the Army, the army disciplined him and kept him busy, he did not seem to be hang around much with those gangster friends anymore.
Everything seems to go well for a while, until… he got involved in a motorcycle accident.

It was a Sunday afternoon; he was rushing to his camp to book in. Being a good friend, he gave his fellow camp mate a ride. He lost control of his motorbike. He crashed into a tree. He died instantly on the spot. He was only 19 years old… … … His fellow campmate was in a coma for a week before passing away too.

He barely bought his motorbike 2 months before the dreadful accident happened. The bike was a gift from his dad… a gift which ultimately caused his death.

Everyone took his death rather badly. It was so unexpected. It was so tragic. All my family members were there at his funeral, everyone except me. And the worst part was that I was not even being told of his death until about 2 weeks later. I was hurt and angry; I called my mum to demand for an explanation since I have never felt more left out.

My mum answered: “So what If I told you… by the time you fly back home, his funeral would have been over anyway.”

Then it hit me. Yes… she is right. If anything were to happen to my loved ones, by the time I were to fly back home, it would have been too late anyway. No last goodbyes, no last words and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.

I want to go home now.