It’s weird. I am so free and still so busy. Is there no end to the things I have to do?

Anyway, I just got a scrape on my knee and it got me thinking.. I haven’t got an open wound like this for ages. When I fell and got up, the only thing I felt was irritation because I had landed in mud. In the lift, I realized my knee (not the ACL one, I would have realized immediately) was aching, and then I realized it was bleeding. Right. And I felt weird – really weird. I have just only realized this weird feeling is due to the prolonged period of not experiencing any form of abrasions, cuts or scrapes since, I think, primary school. Seriously, the only injuries in the past years since entering secondary school has been sprains, knee pains, back pains, what else, shoulder pains, and well the ligament thing. All internal, and courtesy of gym.

Now its back to the plain old scrape on my knee. Life’s plain simple again. I know what to expect, since I’ve gotten so many scrapes before. Just the usual pain, pus, zam bak, then the picking at the scabs. I’ve forgotten what its like. Looking at both knees now, I see that the many scars there have faded. I remember there was this day some time in that long ago that my mummy told me, “You’re a girl, see all the scars? Don’t keep jumping, jumping, jumping, like a monkey like that.” And that time, there were really many more and dark scars at my knees. I used to run a lot, used to go bukit timah hill every weekend to climb and walk, used to go cycling, rollerblading – oh one of the main sources of the knee scrapes, oh tennis! And the occasional squash and badminton too! And swimming! – All the sports I used to do that gave me those scrapes and cuts.

I miss them, the rawness of doing, playing them. No poise, no pointed toes, no fixed routine, no restrictions. Excitement is something I rarely feel now, something like, elemental, tribal, crude..just raw, like swinging. God, I haven’t swinged for so long. Havent cycled for so long. When I was swinging and cycling, there was always this feeling of exhilaration, mixture of fear and speed. I never told anyone that secret fear, and I’ve forgotten the feeling. The swings are now too short, the bicycles to small. The racquets I haven’t held for years and the sports shoes I haven’t worn for years – they no longer fit me, nor feel right now.

Back to the scrapes, they aren’t something internal like a sprain or strain or pain that refuses to go away, and you don’t know whats wrong. Then you tend to leave it out of your mind, until the next gym training comes, and you go, “my knee pain, my back pain, my ankle pain” and why? Dunno. My lifestyle’s so different, then and now, and now somemore. So recently, there’s totally no sports, just restlessness, listlessness, pt, walking, which a really cannot count as sports. I used to be active, and I used to have blisters from monkey bars that are now too short too. I haven’t thought of my childhood for so long, and these injuries really link me to them. I cannot stress how long I haven’t had these open wounds. I remember also, so times I fell straight, flat on my butt, and my whole world was just ‘numb, pain, don’t cry, don’t cry, pain’. And those bruises and bumps! THE BUMPS! Oh, how I never dared to tell my parents I knocked my head again, or some appendage. Raw Pain. Haven’t felt that for a while too. Sure, there was shooting pain in my knee, but that is kind of different. I haven’t seen blood for a long time on myself. I haven’t met with a kind of injury this physically obvious and tangible. And perhaps im really making a lot out of the scrape, cause it is really nothing compared to the op, but there is just so much meaning in this scrape, and this incident just led me way back in time to a period where I was most happy.

Gosh, I have really become much less active, my life is so quiet now. I miss those times. So much. Freedom. The wound is raw. It is secreting yellow stuff. I know thought of bio, the blood clotting process and the platelets, and I know I freaked out over the dirt I still can’t get out. I never would have given a damn about the dirt, or any infection. Now I think of just how large the dirt particles are to be able to be seen with the naked eye, and I feel so sorry for the sheer number of white blood cells needed for the secretion of neutralizing agents to fight the germs and foreign particles, and the sheer no, of platelets and red blood cells needed to form a blood clot. I immediately went to put dettol, something I would NEVER have done. And I did NOT poke and prod at my wound, something I would DEFINITELY have done.

I am not longer a child and I no longer have that much time. I have matured, and I have lost a lot at the same time. I can’t help missing those times. Its nice to open that casket and jump back into the pearl memories. [qiao yan you should know this. Hmm, liang hui too]

I laugh in memory of those chest bruises; in memory of those stitches and blood; in memory of that time I couldn’t walk for no rhythm or reason; in memory of the really bad wound that one time that got pus flowing down my knee.

In memory of all that, I laugh.

It’s weird. I am so free and still so busy. Is there no end to the things I have to do?

Anyway, I just got a scrape on my knee and it got me thinking.. I haven’t got an open wound like this for ages. When I fell and got up, the only thing I felt was irritation because I had landed in mud. In the lift, I realized my knee (not the ACL one, I would have realized immediately) was aching, and then I realized it was bleeding. Right. And I felt weird – really weird. I have just only realized this weird feeling is due to the prolonged period of not experiencing any form of abrasions, cuts or scrapes since, I think, primary school. Seriously, the only injuries in the past years since entering secondary school has been sprains, knee pains, back pains, what else, shoulder pains, and well the ligament thing. All internal, and courtesy of gym.

Now its back to the plain old scrape on my knee. Life’s plain simple again. I know what to expect, since I’ve gotten so many scrapes before. Just the usual pain, pus, zam bak, then the picking at the scabs. I’ve forgotten what its like. Looking at both knees now, I see that the many scars there have faded. I remember there was this day some time in that long ago that my mummy told me, “You’re a girl, see all the scars? Don’t keep jumping, jumping, jumping, like a monkey like that.” And that time, there were really many more and dark scars at my knees. I used to run a lot, used to go bukit timah hill every weekend to climb and walk, used to go cycling, rollerblading – oh one of the main sources of the knee scrapes, oh tennis! And the occasional squash and badminton too! And swimming! – All the sports I used to do that gave me those scrapes and cuts.

I miss them, the rawness of doing, playing them. No poise, no pointed toes, no fixed routine, no restrictions. Excitement is something I rarely feel now, something like, elemental, tribal, crude..just raw, like swinging. God, I haven’t swinged for so long. Havent cycled for so long. When I was swinging and cycling, there was always this feeling of exhilaration, mixture of fear and speed. I never told anyone that secret fear, and I’ve forgotten the feeling. The swings are now too short, the bicycles to small. The racquets I haven’t held for years and the sports shoes I haven’t worn for years – they no longer fit me, nor feel right now.

Back to the scrapes, they aren’t something internal like a sprain or strain or pain that refuses to go away, and you don’t know whats wrong. Then you tend to leave it out of your mind, until the next gym training comes, and you go, “my knee pain, my back pain, my ankle pain” and why? Dunno. My lifestyle’s so different, then and now, and now somemore. So recently, there’s totally no sports, just restlessness, listlessness, pt, walking, which a really cannot count as sports. I used to be active, and I used to have blisters from monkey bars that are now too short too. I haven’t thought of my childhood for so long, and these injuries really link me to them. I cannot stress how long I haven’t had these open wounds. I remember also, so times I fell straight, flat on my butt, and my whole world was just ‘numb, pain, don’t cry, don’t cry, pain’. And those bruises and bumps! THE BUMPS! Oh, how I never dared to tell my parents I knocked my head again, or some appendage. Raw Pain. Haven’t felt that for a while too. Sure, there was shooting pain in my knee, but that is kind of different. I haven’t seen blood for a long time on myself. I haven’t met with a kind of injury this physically obvious and tangible. And perhaps im really making a lot out of the scrape, cause it is really nothing compared to the op, but there is just so much meaning in this scrape, and this incident just led me way back in time to a period where I was most happy.

Gosh, I have really become much less active, my life is so quiet now. I miss those times. So much. Freedom. The wound is raw. It is secreting yellow stuff. I know thought of bio, the blood clotting process and the platelets, and I know I freaked out over the dirt I still can’t get out. I never would have given a damn about the dirt, or any infection. Now I think of just how large the dirt particles are to be able to be seen with the naked eye, and I feel so sorry for the sheer number of white blood cells needed for the secretion of neutralizing agents to fight the germs and foreign particles, and the sheer no, of platelets and red blood cells needed to form a blood clot. I immediately went to put dettol, something I would NEVER have done. And I did NOT poke and prod at my wound, something I would DEFINITELY have done.

I am not longer a child and I no longer have that much time. I have matured, and I have lost a lot at the same time. I can’t help missing those times. Its nice to open that casket and jump back into the pearl memories. [qiao yan you should know this. Hmm, liang hui too]

I laugh in memory of those chest bruises; in memory of those stitches and blood; in memory of that time I couldn’t walk for no rhythm or reason; in memory of the really bad wound that one time that got pus flowing down my knee.

In memory of all that, I laugh.