Author / Eileen 配仪

by Eileen 配仪

Being An Adult

My boss today said something like, if you have parents, remember to spend time with them. He had just returned today from a 2 week urgent leave to take care of things at home (overseas). He also said that when he and his siblings were younger, he had idealistic notions of parental care with parents traveling from one sibling to another through the year.

I started to feel guilty about not ringing my father. Yet on the other hand, I don’t like having any conversations with my father.

He has lost the ability to have a conversation. He is perhaps afraid and anxious all the time. His normal state is always imagining he has the world’s attention on him and someone is always out to get him. Most of all, he is always competing with me – about being right, about being more virtuous (scrimping and saving) and more filial. Every conversation is peppered with a scam that he figured – ie nobody can trick him; or, that I should be as virtuous as him.

I am unable to link what he says of himself to the father I know.

I mostly ignore the self praise and competitive virtue signaling. It bothers me when most conversation is something negative about me even when I am helping him.

I am adult enough to understand parents are also human and imperfect. Parents deal with their own private emotions and they don’t intentional hurt. I also see my responsibilities in this dance. I listen and buy into whatever that was said, intentional or not.

The more I listen, the more I dislike the speaker. The more I assist them with their day to day, the more I resent my assistance because I am hearing the habitual criticisms. Simply because I believe those words. The way I see it is this – I don’t defend myself, I feel angry and upset because I should stand up for myself.

But if he is actually scolding something that doesn’t exist – why should I need to defend and dance to his imagination?

If it is a poor fantasy that he has conjured up for himself – he is deserving at least of compassion and kindness since he is suffering all the time.

So logically, I should visit more – create more possibilities for good interactions. Yet with the problems I am handling now at home and work stress, it’s hard to have the energy to be positive and remain open.

by Eileen 配仪

The last of the blogs

Surprised to find Transparent-hummingbird has gone dark. I hope she has found someone reliable and gone and got married! I remember her and her friends more than I remember the names of my secondary school classmates not on my facebook. Ha!

Seriously, I need a list of Singaporean bloggers – not the ones with a “theme”. Just your everyday journalist.       

by Eileen 配仪

At 48

I updated the front of my blog with the pictures I painted. It feels fancy – as if I am artistic. My daughter has been very kind, saying that I am so cool, that I can paint so prettily. It feels funny hearing her say that. I immediately deny it, insisting I don’t have any talent. 

When I imagine being 48, I imagine myself single, mostly pay check to pay check in a spartan home. I imagine myself a lousy writer whose always blocked but writing bad novels about Singapore and stuck, not knowing where to sell my book. I imagine that my job requires me to look at data and never talk to anyone. 

At 48, my life is not what I imagined myself to me. I am now squarely stuck in Operational Risk. I might have a called a couple of locations in the past to help them with their troubles. My calls are now daily, clarifying, educating, organising. I am writing a lot more PPT and being “gifted feedback” about my bad PPT.   I can’t imagine myself now – having the kind of immense difficulties with my son. The kind of difficulties that makes me suspect some level of  disorder. That the view from my home begs to be painted. (It’s a Housing Board flat.) That I have learnt to save money. That I have learnt how to do art. That I have a post grad in Finance – astounding, really. I also never thought that my actual friends will be in my office. Just yesterday, I sat with V. at work; the week before I was in the same call as Z.      

It feels like a giant leap for me. No way I would have been able to imagine enough to write this in my 5 year / 10 year / 15 year plan. In case you imagine that I have landed in a place of incredible, eye searing success. Just a leap into a different universe. Strange and amazing. 

I hope this will be for my kids.  The kind amazing giant leaps that makes life interesting.  Hard but not boring.

by Eileen 配仪

Rambling about art practice

Looking through my art practices, I am surprised that my first posting was only 2 years ago in May 2022. I felt it was much longer – I feel some impatience in the learning process. I didn’t feel impatience when I was drawing. I was mainly prodding along. When my drawing skills improved, I was excited because I gain confidence enough to try watercolour. However there is a strong sense of I want to learn more, learn faster. There is a lot of frustration. I just began and haven’t done much practices yet I have this strong ambition to want to hit the tutorials close to the artist who post them. I hit some marks and don’t hit others. This is normal yet I feel frustrated.

Last week, I was copying an Oliver Pyle’s painting and I actually felt relaxed and the final output was not horrible. (I was very unrelaxed following Egle Kolev botanical paintings. I just couldn’t get it but strangely that really improved my skills.) I also tried Prema Watercolour which many others love but I don’t. I found Yong Chen Enjoying Art really hard but I love the art school look but the session was too hard to follow.