About This New Year

Sunset, Senibong, Johor Bahru. Not new year’s eve, unfortunately.

Four years ago we celebrated the new year at a hospital. We being my mom, my brother and I. It seems like yesterday; I remember where everyone was and we were watching the TV, and when it was just about to strike twelve my brother, with his hospital garment and stuff sticking in his body, went to the toilet. It was the first time we welcomed the new year in a hospital. Since then he has been hospitalised three more times; the last being early last year.

This new year, we received a news that we had been expecting but didn’t think it could happen so suddenly. Nothing short of a miracle could turn this around. I don’t have faith that it would. I have more faith that it could in books, such is that everything gets solved in the end, but in real life or in my life it rarely happens.

I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions, so I don’t have one to share. And I don’t have a motivational quote to share either; I find them often too simplistic to apply to real life situations where problems are often complicated and multi-layered, that I find these quotes comical and sometimes outright condescending.

I'm sorry to start the new year with a sad note. Do share a happy memory if you have one.