Christmas celebrations are finally over for me.

It's been a rather busy week, with shopping, arcading, and visiting here and there, hence the lack of blogging. It's turning into a bad habit, but perhaps an inevitable one.

Earlier on, around the 20th, I was thinking that the return of my cousins to Singapore was something extremely important and my complete ambivalence towards it was terribly inappropriate. Today I realize thankfully that it is not a bad thing - ambivalence at times comes as a result of being used to a situation, as opposed to a state of I-could-care-less-if-it-doesn't-occur.

Christmas this year, however, ends up a time of transition for me: in religion, in life, in friends, in self. After Christmas celebrations, though, I now need to add another one to the list: in bartending. Apparently it is a role I play a bit too well, enough such that an uncle actually said that it would be ok if I skipped university and decided to be a full-time bartender. My thoughts on this in the future, perhaps. It is annoying enough to have to think of another set of drinks for the new year.

I spend the minutes into Christmas staring at the stars in the sky, listening to slow almost-melancholic instrumentals with my cousin. It feels almost like yesterday that she and I lied down on the grass and just talked about life, love, the future and the past. Two years collapse almost simultaneously for that short moment. I am extremely grateful for a cousin like that, for they come rarer than rubies. Perhaps I could say that I am truly close with no one else, but that's a rash statement and I'd not jump there just yet.

At this time my mind drifts back to the past, to her, to the lessons I've learnt and managed to carve out almost melodically in an analogy still silent to others. A time of life that I have already reconciled with; a past I have come to terms with and a self I have come to accept as truly 'me' without any regret.

The rest of this day I shall spend with friends; some new, some old, all precious. Not rarer than rubies, admittedly, but very much as valuable.

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