-w.
I’ve resisted calling my apartment in the US home. To me, it will always be more house than home. But slowly, by virtue of prolonged exposure and familiarity, it is taking on more of a semblance of home.
Something about finding and building a home is a neverending process. Homesickness is in itself a longing for a home past that can never be the same. Past homes are not in stasis. They can never be. What we can do is to treat it as symptom, recognise that home-building is a process and must be intentional.
May 2025, after one year in the US
The heavy rain of this afternoon reminded me of downpours in singapore where i would just go out, be drenched, and come home for a long hot shower. it really is the simple joys in life.
im resetting a few things at a time, putting on some scents in my room. im prepared to return home! and maybe bawl my eyes out when i land or smthing
June 2026
ive been wondering what it is that is slowing down my reading. it crystallised this morning when i was getting ready. it is a general ennui brought about by the muggy Singaporean zeitgeist. not the air, not the temperature, not the weather. It is a muggy muddy state of being. i see it all around me, the traits that make Singapore excellent. but most things should exist in moderation. the consistency of it all, the discipline of it all. the way everyone follows. No wonder we are always tired.
i get what you say now, about the weather, about feeling restless, about that suffocated sense of being. for the first time, i feel it too. ive not felt it before, bright-eyed with possibilities and often being able to do things here. but now i see it, how a panopticon internalises the mode of policing, how those with so much light willingly squeeze themselves and others into boxes. put aside their dreams and start confusing what theyve been told to want with what they really want. maybe they do really want these things. i hope they do.
i told a friend in the us about looking forward to winter, she asked are you homesick/miss the states? i denied, missing or being homesick for the states are too strong. i miss parts of being in the states. i will always miss the comforts and convenience of singapore.
and as much as i hold so much of what is near and dear to me here, my immediate, short term future is, cannot be here. this admittance is somewhat painful, i feel it welling with resolution and resigned acceptance and peace and excitement and sorrow all at once. i recall how i decided to take the leap in the first place, how there was a general sense that there is something out there, a dissatisfaction of the here that i could not name. there is so limited rocking the boat here. shaking things up. i am safe, happy, well sheltered here. i am and will always be, grateful to have grown here. there is so much stability. but things were easy precisely because i have been used to it. and i am, somewhat disturbed by all these. it feels like, despite its evident flaws, being in a glass terrarium. many recognise points of improvement, but change is slow, status quo is safer.
there, i am foreign, fed to the wilds, figuring things out. but there is a thrill, an adrenaline, real creative problem solving exercised. the peace of being warm and cozy on a wintry day is unparalleled (it is a privilege). ice skating is freeing, meditative movement. even picking through unshovelled snow challenges the brain in a particular way.
and watching the seasons change, how lovely that is. watching myself change, too, see with more nuance, more clarity, more grace. how precious this growth is. most importantly, seeing what change can look like, having that range of expanded possibilities. how rare and lucky to have this broadening of what can be.
June 2026
I am sick of home
But i will always be somewhat, homesick
Singapore will always be home so i cant imagine being homesick for anywhere else now
June 2026
how does one express the feeling of being glad to leave? how does one express the sorrow threaded through that? my heart is made out of the people past and who they were. my heart is, now, with the ones that yearn, dream for a bigger world.
growth is realising that loving both is possible. i can love the big wide world and this tiny island’s way of living, abhor the instabilities of the outside and realise the limits of stability on this tiny island.
growth is confronting and being honest with how change is inevitable. individual agency be damned, agency seems so scarce here. that paths diverge, that choices are made. the past remains past, the future is ahead.
growth is wrangling with change, in all its contradictions and stark realities and emotional upheavals. it is seeing things as they are, and perhaps letting what is past go.
to choose the variation of growth that fulfils the soul is one’s prerogative. to do so, you must first find your soul. no one else can do it for you. so break, my heart, for i must hold my tongue. and hope, that you, too, can find your life’s goal.
Perhaps homesickness is an illness in so far as one romanticises a static past. The work is to continue building homes and worlds that we will want to aspire for and live in.
