Rerolling

After I wrote my post on death and the afterlife, Malcolm brought up the idea of rerolling, and how he would like to reroll. I thought about it, and said that actually, I kind of like my current roll. I may not be of sky-high intellect, I may not have model-like features and looks, or even be of average height. I may not have the inbuilt charisma that draws crowds. But I realise that I don't really want all of this from life. I have a pretty decent roll Ernie: and you have me!, and what I really don't like about my life is how I spent it. The way I used the talents I was born with, the choices I made through this journey. That's what I am really unhappy about. And Malcolm agreed. Finding the restart button for this life would be something I would be keen on doing.

But today, he touched on the point that rerolling would mean a different family, and how that might have affected us in a totally different way. I must agree that my family is something I keep complaining about, but looking at all the families around, and those that keep on popping up in the news and all that, and I'm actually grateful that my family, though dysfunctional in ways normal families are (or possibly slight more than the average family), isn't totally messed up. I didn't get (overtly) physically abused as a child, there was no sexual abuse, and I can't really say my parents didn't provide for me financially. Yes, they do like my brother much more than me, and he does get hell a lot more benefits than I ever did or will get, but they did take care of me all the same.

Then, on the way home, my mother calls me (yes, she called me when I was right outside my doorstep, a common practice of hers...) and asked me where I went. I told her I went for breakfast. She asked if I went alone (??!!). I said no, I went with Malcolm. She asked who he was. I told her he lives next door. She asked who he was again. I said he was from RJC. Then I hung up on her because she doesn't pay my phone bills I was at my doorstep. She chased me from the door all the way into my room asking all about Malcolm. I repeated that he lived next door, and she said I told her he lived in Ang Mo Kio (??!!). I said he's not Gilbert!

At this point, I have to detract from my mother to people associating guys with me. I don't know if it's me, or just something adults (fine people at least 10 years older than me) do. Malcolm's response to being thought of as Gilbert by my mother was 'i am.. mistaken for gilbert' followed by 'she tot i was gilbert?' slightly later in the conversation, as if he couldn't believe the fact that my mother would think he was Gilbert. Neither could I. My mother is mad. (This will be made more evident later.) At the recent IMP pairs (bridge event), Greta thought that Licai was Gilbert when we signed up. I wasn't even signing up as a pair with Licai (and no, I wasn't signing up as a pair with Gilbert either, and neither was Licai.) Licai went into shock after that, possibly more from being mixed up with Gilbert than Greta not remembering who he was. For Greta's benefit, it was 9am on a Sunday morning and she was probably 1/2 asleep (I know I was more than 3/4 asleep), why is probably why she tried to charge my partner who has been working for several years the student rate.

After my fixed partnership with Licai dissolved, I was dragged aside during a bridge session and asked if I had changed my boyfriend. o.O. I told him frankly that since the first time I ever met him, Licai and I were not attached. It's bizarre. That guy doesn't even play bridge with his own wife all the time. And then I'd get comments from people who were saying that young people change bridge partners all the time. Er? They do it more frequently than I do >.<. And these were for ordinary weekday sessions, not for serious competitions where people usually play with their fixed partners. I, however, completely understand Gilbert being called Gideon for several sessions, given the similiarity in their names. (As with the above 2 scenarios, I think Gideon is more affected by this than Gilbert.) Licai apparently got it worse. He told me that for one session where he went with another girl, the guy he signed up with absolutely refused to believe he was playing with some other female, repeating my name over and over again and even writing it down despite Licai's ardent protests. When he finally got his point across, he was told 'Young people these days...' ZZZZZZZ. Don't these people know it's very unhealthy to play bridge with people you are dating/married to?

Ok, so back to my mother. I told her approximately 10 times that Malcolm lived next door, and 5 times that he came from RJC. Maybe my mother forgot that I went to RJC. She kept asking how I knew him. In the end, I gave up, and told her Malcolm was from NUS, which weirdly enough, got her to leave me alone. Not before, of course, asking me if Malcolm was this guy who lives in my estate (that guy is also the same as as Malcolm and I, and also has all his siblings coming from Raffles). ARGH.

Mother, if you ever ever read this, I am not attached to Malcolm, Gilbert or Licai! And no, please don't even entertain the thought that I am attached to more than one of them! I would add something here about your son, but I think he is more likely to find this site than you are, and he would kill me.

I suspect somewhere along the way of reading this post, someone will go 'hmm I was right about her after all this' and send me SMSes/MSN messages telling me how so. If you are that person, for goodness sake. Read the entire post first. THEN you can message bash me all you wish.

So yes, possibly if I could reroll, and get a more normal mother, I would. But the thing about rerolls is that it's all a gamble. I kinda like myself in this roll, and I don't know if I would like to gamble away this relatively normal family for a more dysfunctional one. Is it worth it? People usually don't know what they have until it's gone.

When Angus was a fixture in my life, my mother would keep telling me how there were 'so many fish in the sea' (yes so cliche..) and how I shouldn't settle on the one person so early in life etc etc. It went on nearly forever. She just never stopped. Not that it really affected me. I learnt a long time ago that everything she said should be taken with a (really big) pinch of salt (= ignored). But then I decided to go exploring. Suddenly, she kept harping on how nice Angus was.

And the big punchline. 'He really loves you.'

Well, at least she noticed in the end. Isn't that the most important part of a relationship your daughter is in? That she is in a relationship with someone who loves her and wants to take care of her? And will try to to his best capabilities? At least one person in my family realised this when it wasn't yet over. Sad to say, it wasn't me.

My feelings on this? 'The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.' (Melanie Carmichael - Sweet Home Alabama)? Or maybe 'My heart can't possibly break when it wasn't even whole to start with' ('Because of You' by Kelly Clarkson. Even the title of this song seems apt.)? The song 'What If' by Kate Winslet probably expresses it best. 'If I had stayed, if you tried, if we could only turn back time.' We were supposed to find out in 2 years' time. I wonder if the ending of the song will be the end of this chapter. 'I guess we'll never know.'

In one of her closings in Ally McBeal, Ally said that people seldom say the found the right person; they usually say they let the right one slip away. I don't know if I've done that yet. But the regret that I feel and could possibly feel over one single part of my life makes me wonder. Is rerolling all that great? Will it take away the pain? Will it make living any much better? I really believe that you can't fully appreciate something until it's gone. And then you'll regret ever having let it go. So I don't think I'd want to reroll this life for another, because if I ever knew of this life in my next life, I'd likely live that life in permanent regret.