Mum bursts into my room, yelling for me to get up. Eyes open, head throbbing. Family friends appear, disappear, reappear, cramming joy down throats. My two little cousins glued to the TV, frantically mashing buttons and racing cars. Crusted bread and cold noodles waiting patiently on a makeshift table. Panzer scrounging for scraps like a metal detector. Every now and then check my phone for missed calls and unread messages (sigh). People walking around, sitting down, getting up, hands everywhere, food dropped on floor. Mum tearing around the kitchen. The plastic Christmas tree stands forlornly, hung with bells and balls and tinsel, the fat girl at the party in her ill-patterned dress.

After the congee and the sashimi and the slabs of ham, grandparents lounge on couches, perplexed by the children or dozing in a post-lunch slump. Bittersweet taste of chocolate truffles in my mouth. Sister playing piano, brother strumming the guitar. Play a tune, Grandma urges me. I decline, but she persists. I hammer a few notes, every now and then my fingers stumbling on the keys like a drunken sailor.

People start leaving, and then they are gone. Traces of happiness (now gone) scattered on tables and floors. Cleaning up and packing up is sad. There is a party tonight, I hear, and I ring my friend for details. He doesn't pick up. I try again and again. No one wants to be alone on Christmas Day. I give up, go online, feeling blue. And then the phone rings...

How do you comfort someone over the loss of a loved one? Tell them they've gone to a better place? That now they're free from pain? Words such as these seem meaningless to me. I'm not sure how I'd deal with it. The weight of memories will be too much, like a ton of feathers to be slowly lifted away, one by one, by the winds of time. One day my turn will come, too.
My hairdresser, let's call him Bruce, once told me something memorable after cutting a balding man's hair. He said that as we become older, we turn into babies again. We lose our hair, our teeth, our memory. We become fragile and defenseless like we were when we first entered the world. Ah, to be lost and dreaming in life's womb. Bruce and I often have deep and meaningful conversations like that.

I went to dragonboat training on Thursday night after work. As we rowed lazily out toward the middle of the harbour, the water rippled gently like a sheet of velvet, catching the the dying remnants of the setting sun in flashes of orange. After a few warm-up drills, we did a long endurance row that left my arms burning and my chest heaving breathlessly. We then rested, sitting there, the boat bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the water. Everyone in the boat had their heads bowed and paddles across their laps, like a religious ritual there in the gloom of the bay, a prayer to the god of boats and water and men. It was then that I had a moment of doubt, looking up and seeing the others in their silent worship. I wondered what I was doing here, spending so much time in the cold and wet, digging a watery grave with my wooden paddle. Is this where I want to be? What I want to do? Who I want to be with?

Am I coming or going, I hardly know. I shall burn brightly, and quietly implode.

Nothing unusual...nothing strange...close to nothing at all...

My god, it's almost Christmas again. I was planning to go somewhere during the break, a short road trip even, but it doesn't look like it's happening. Too tired to plan, too poor to splurge. Perhaps I'll save my leave for sunnier days.
Work is actually getting a bit better - there are now times when I enjoy what I'm doing. I even got complimented for my hard work (ha!), leaving me with a warm fuzzy feeling for the rest of the day. Oh and today, whilst helping a female colleague move her folders upstairs, another colleague commented that I'm a "ladies' man". I didn't know how to respond; I was slightly annoyed by the label, and found it condescending even.

Now that I've got more spare time on my hands, I've been catching up with friends, catching up on reading and doing more dragonboating. I went to my first official race on Sunday, and it was pretty fun. Our team did really well considering most of us were new, and we all came out of it exhausted and a little browner. All those teams dressed in uniform, banners draped across stands, the shouting, the food, the hot hot sun...it reminded me of school sports carnivals, many, many, many years ago...

At night the only warmth comes from the neon glow of the desk lamp, the only smiles on the faces of TV celebrities. Alone in your room, the phone is silent, the world outside, distant. The heart aches, clutching desperately for the past, afraid for the future. You sit and ponder, thinking that there must be a logical way out, but the more the ideas run in your head, the more they snowball into some hideous monstrosity, soon to consume you.

You are an Evening Emo.