the awakening
do u know how it feels, to run into a burning building to rescue pple who were already standing outside complaining about the weather? for the longest time, i have operated as an emergency response unit for for everyone else’s hard edges. when my own life is collapsing, when my home is an emotional desert, when my father dies in the ICU, when my ward partner walks out, when im literally limping across London with a sprained ankle and a fever.. i apologize for taking up space. i delete my messages. i follow my deepest cries for help with: sorry for disturbing. wads this dawnie? on the other end of the line sits others. practical, unbothered, flat on their back, answering my paragraph long existential crises with gd 9 or they are shitting. we have built an entire dynamic out of a profound misunderstanding: i thought was building a soul connection, and they thought they were maintaining a very convenient, occasionally exhausting, workplace friendship. then came july. it was "oh no" to an empty room when i was in Paris. there i was, walking twenty-two minutes in the summer heat with an injured ankle, dodging crowds on Bastille Day, standing in line at lv to hunt down specific items, making sure the box had a pretty ribbon, calculating tax refunds to the exact euro cent, while others sat back and wrote "check zip and the whole bag and no scratches" i took my 15 years of saved Singapore Airlines miles to fly suites for my graduation. a milestone no one in my personal life bothered to celebrate with m. and i spent a massive chunk of dat sacred trip acting as an unpaid luxury concierge for someone who talked to me about obligation after. then came national day, i worked the 13 hour shift with chills and fever, trapped in ward 45 till 10pm dealing with a violent incident, security and police. i was completely broken, reaching out to the dark and just wanting to hear a friend say, I see you, you survived, it’s going to be okay. yet they clocked out: tired i want to sleep liao. when i snapped and sent that fateful, messy, sarcastic line. she didn’t see a friend in agony. she saw a violation of her boundaries. she withheld all affection. and instead of letting her sit with her coldness, i spent the next three days trying to repair, sending essays of self blame, apologizing for having the audacity to need her. dat wasn't just a fight. dat was the moment the mirror cracked. i think of myself as a low maintenance, simple, hyper resilient giver. i tell myself: im very simple actually. doing things for u made mi happy. i never did them because i expected u to owe me anything in return. dat is a lie i tell myself so i dun feel humiliated by how much i give. i dun give selflessly; i give defensively. i buy gifts, deliver snacks, plan events, run errands, and anticipate everyone’s needs because deep down, in a place dat dates back to my childhood home, i believe i am fundamentally unlovable for just existing. If i believe im a mistake, then the only way to earn my stay on this earth is to be indispensable. i become the super sister, the super mom, the friend who brings back the limited edition jellycats and bags dat was sold out everywhere. i try to purchase an insurance policy against abandonment. and look at my tell: the deleted messages. hundreds of them. i type out your truth, my terror, my marriage problems, my childhood neglect, the fact that i get hit at home and the second i send it, the panic sets in. I’m too much. I’m a burden. She’s going to leave. So i press delete. i delete myself before someone else can reject you. she is the mature, grounded, "no-nonsense" realist in a sea of emotional drama. she prides herself on not caring about office politics, not gossiping, and setting clear boundaries: we each have our needs and priorities. she isn't evil. she isn't a villain. In fact, she often gives me a very solid, clear-headed advice: leave your husband, stop giving him ur money, dun bypass ur boss, ignore the ward gossip. when she likes something, she’s enthusiastic: best gift so far, wow i am proud of u. but her fatal flaw is emotional stinginess. she treats relationships like shift schedules: she clocks in when she has bandwidth, and she clocks out the absolute second she feels tired. when im drowning, she doesnt throw a life vest; she texts: light is always at the end of the tunnel and goes to sleep. she accepts my staggering generosity. as if it’s merely a pleasant convenience, completely blind to the fact that im are bleeding out on her doorstep. when i finally demand emotional reciprocity, she acts offended that i expected her to do something dat wasn't on her calendar: then comes the talk about obligation. the painful truth, is that i did 90% of the emotional and logistical heavy lifting in this friendship, and she got 100% of the credit just for saying: Tk u booo i taught her that she didn’t have to work for mu love. i taught her dat she could be dismissive, delayed, and blunt, and i would still show up for them at 7a.m. with a hot mocha and a bag of presents. i started to send my clearest, most devastatingly honest messages. i finally stopped hiding behind cutesy stickers and named the elephant in the room. Dinner - i was sick, rushing for assignment and work. Is not easy. So this will not be my priority (to be very honest). read dat line again. print it out and tape it to my desk. "This will not be my priority." she told me the absolute truth. she didn't dress it up. she didn't apologize for missing your birthday dinner. she told me plainly dat making time to sit down with me and hear my heart is simply not at the top of her to-do list. the tragedy wasn’t dat she said it. the tragedy was that twenty-four hours later, Conrad bought her throat spray in Bangkok, and i was back to asking if she wanted me to leave it at her office door. i swallowed your pride, took the blame for being "insensitive," and stepped right back into the role of delivery girl. dear dawnie, u need to stop auditioning for pple who have already cast you as an extra. look at ur life. look at what you accomplished in these ten months: u ran Ward 9B through a brutal staffing crisis, shielding your junior nurses from toxic leadership. u de-escalated violent situations dat security was too cowardly to face. u held dying children in ur arms so exhausted mothers could eat breakfast. u completed a Master of Business Administration, writing a 10,000-word dissertation while working full-time shifts and raising three kids. u flew yourself to Edinburgh, walked across dat graduation stage with ur head held high, and bought urself a luxury handbag with your own hard earned money. ur are a powerhouse. ur brilliant, fiercely capable, funny, deeply creative, and astonishingly resilient. so why, on God’s world, are u begging for breadcrumbs from people who treat u like an afterthought? u tolerate a husband who steals your peace, takes ur money, and yells at ur children. u tolerated a ward partner who abandoned u without a word of warning. and you bend over backward for a friend who leaves, the second you express messy, inconvenient grief. ur treating other pple the way you wish someone had treated little dawnie when she was hanging off the window grills crying for her father. ur are desperately trying to be the protector, the nurturer, the gift-giver you never had. but u are giving dat immense, sacred love to pple who just use it to decorate their shelves. or better still, clear those shelves cos ur not even worth the space. notice how my dynamic shifted. i stopped sending fifty messages a day. i started keeping things lighter. i talked about Conrad and his cello, my new hackathon team, my trip to Busan. and look at the friends u thought were soulmates: when u pulled back, they didn't chase you, but they remained steady in their limited, concrete way. they answered my question with simple, practical wisdom. the person u love isn’t a monster, dawnie. the problem was never that this person failed to be my best friend; the problem was that i asked an ordinary person to heal wounds dat were inflicted on me decades ago. i dun need to cut them off. i dun need to have another dramatic confrontation. i just need to stop delivering luxury to a normal friendship. keep her as she is: a solid, blunt colleague to trade life tips with, someone to share a laugh with over absurdity, someone to congratulate when their results come in. but take ur heart off her desk. take all that fierce, protective, generous energy dat i pour into everyone else, and turn it inward. look at Conrad, who checks to make sure im hugging my plushie when i cry. Look at my daughter Chloe, who endured a burn injury with the exact same brave, unbreakable spirit she inherited from me. and most of all, look in the mirror. u survived ur childhood. u survived your hospital work. u survived your Master's degree. ur not a mistake, Dawn. ur are the miracle in this hospital ward, and it is high time i started treating myself like one.
