Sunday, December 31, 2023

new year's eve

11pm. goodness. i didn't realise it's been slightly over exactly-a-year since i last wrote. and now it's the last hour of this year. which is why i figured i just had to squeeze it in, no matter how tired and low on sleep i am, because i'll never get to do this again. (i mean yeah technically i could backdate, but it wouldn't be an accurate transcription of my life.)

as for that asshole thing from last year. well this year, my mother sided with the asshole, and...sigh, because they joined forces in the same room to pressure me, i ended up with a compromise in which i settled for less than i was trusting god for, and my mother also got her wish. she partly did because it was affecting my dad too. to cut the long story short, in what has (from what i'd asked a verified source about) been the longest-running resolved court case in my state (what a dubious honour to have), i'd finally received a settlement out-of-court. and not immediately upon request too.

and to be fair, he wasn't a total asshole. there were other assholes in the process. of course, the biggest asshole has been the cop who tried to cover up my case, gaslight me about what actually what happened on the night of my hit-and-run (i didn't believe that fucker until he started asking to see my dad, and then successfully convincing him too – if not for my mother, we'dve fallen for his desperate ploy to switch law firms [and therefore make my problem go away so that he could continue working as a cop]), and then "retire" when it was appearing evident he was going to get investigated for (i don't think i'm the only one, from what i've heard) his attempts to not only make my hit-and-run case non-existent, but to also earn himself some bribery money out of it.

although he walks free now (and ditto the hit-and-runner...though i mean, he's just a kid so i feel more sympathetic), i know my god is a god of justice also (against those who oppose grace), and...he'll get his fair share of what he deserves. (if he miraculously repents, well, good for him.)

whoa. 11.15pm. moving on to what's happened since my court case finally ended for good mid-may, sigh...oh my god. it has been nightmare after nightmare in my hunt to move outta my parents' (what with my mother yelling at me to move out, and sometimes my father, whenever we get into arguments). i've come across unscrupulous, rude, nasty rental agents in jb. but then again there were also some nice ones too, just that they didn't have the places i wanted to rent (and weren't willing to "co-broke", as the lingo goes, i.e. share agents' commission if i rented another agent's place).

i've had to move once, will be moving again the 2nd time next year (hopefully soon), and...suicidal risks aside, will be shifting into what-seems-to-me like the best use of my efforts, and the time and $ god's given me. one irritating and unfortunate trend i've noticed though, in these movings-out (and even while i was trying, with great difficulty, to secure a place i'd actually wanted to stay at), was how shitty most agents' english-communicating abilities are. in fact, this is one of the key reasons i'm about to move out.

i mean it's one thing if the other party can only converse and understand well in "chinese" (they actually mean mandarin, but even if they spoke in teochew i wouldn't be able to 'get' it all the way either), while i can only do so in english (or malay, or whatever smatterings of pidgin english here that come with various chinese-dialect words). but it's another if the other party (in this case my current agent) repeatedly refuses to at least come to a middle ground, and ends up having a lot worse ethics/ moral-standards than i thought he actually did. 

it got to the point where, after yet another lost-in-translation form of miscommunication (in which i've, from the point of me signing my rental contract and paying up, always had to be the one to make allowances on, and take the initiative to try to make it a win-win situation for both of us), i decided i was done with this bullshit and that it was too much effort to continue engaging in his services as an agent. 

(he's already been paid his commission, but – my god, even up till a slightly-over 4 hours ago, he was still giving inappropriate laughter-inserts for not-at-all-funny instances i was writing down about his abysmal level of client-facing service. since i plan to move out early anyway, i called him out for that one, and he hasn't even bothered to acknowledge receipt in blue double checkmarks [on whatsapp] like he used to. he hasn't even called, even after i last wrote that he ought to call me instead of my mother, now that my lost-my-voice-for-over-a-month flu was at a voice-coming-back level. and the last time he called, it was to scold me [which my mother also doubled up in scolding me on] about why i was late for the internet installation timing he'd agreed on, knowing full fucking well that i had to travel from the opposite end of jb where i was previously staying-and-about-to-move-out-from. he then hung up on me and claimed the line was bad. which i doubt coz if it was, why the hell hasn't he called me-not-my-mum ever since.)

speaking of my mother, she is still very much meddling and interfering in my life. in fact, i just saw a whatsapp notification flash across my computer's screen as i was typing this. it's very irritating, stressful and anxiety-exacerbating when she fucking repeatedly scolds me for things that aren't my fault, such as my hit-and-run (the last time she'd done that was just 2 months ago), or a singaporean reversing his car into mine when i was about to drive out of the-1st-place-i'd-moved-to, just to drive over and bring her along as i hunted for some furniture to bring over to this 2nd place here. i absolutely detest how, after this long of praying, praying, praying for freedom from her, that bitch still won't let me live my own life in peace, freedom and full autonomy.

it was 1 of the 2 main things that got me really disheartened, as i sat in my car earlier this just-after-daybreak morning to run my engine (since i hadn't driven it for over 4 days, and my motherfucker parents kept trying to steal the car i paid back for, which still has my name as its rightful owner on its legal papers, and keep it away at my parents' so i couldn't even drive anywhere i wanted, even if it was to get something as basic as food). i eventually broke down when i later returned upstairs to my apartment and had to (yet again) multiple-void coz my pill was deciding not to be effective at the time (meaning i needed to consume more – this has to do with my post-accident insipidus condition).

11.46pm. which is why today's sunday service (which i've watched twice of, 'live' in terms of pre-recorded livestreams) was timely in reminding me that...in every circumstance, i oughta give thanks, coz this is what god wants me to do while in it (1 thessalonians 5:18). i mean, it's not like i haven't been giving thanks. for that is what got me out of that spiral of defeat and waterworks while on the 'throne' in private (which has been a regular habit for me, ever since having to hide at the 'dead' shopping mall down the road in between waiting for the next service to start in my at-the-time church in my teenage years).

it's just that it was an even greater emphasis and reminder, to give thanks more, despite...my life still hardly having changed, in terms of freedom from febrile hell and micromanaging.

11.55pm and already some group got too excited with fireworks and started playing some. (there were other groups elsewhere that were blowing up fireworks as early as 9.30pm-ish. good thing the noise here isn't deafening like my parents', coz i'm actually living in a high-rise now. it faces sg, so...that's about the next best thing i can do, since traveling to-and-from there has become a more jam-packed and more paperwork-complicated journey ever since this global pandemic lockdown thing started.

11.59pm. in short, i give thanks for my past, present and future. made it in time!