Blood

It's not funny when someone's bleeding!

In all fairness, I wasn't like this when I was young.

I went to donate blood yesterday, or rather I tried to. I chickened out in the end.

During my primary school days, I used to beat the queue to get to the front for our yearly jabs. Granted I wasn't at the first of the queue, but I would aim to get somewhere like the second place or somewhere around there. My reasoning was that I didn't want to be the guinea pig by being the first. Being the second in queue or at least somewhere after that place, I'd get to observe and get the ordeal done in a jiffy when it gets to my turn. I still remember the Malay girls in my class (no malicious offence directed at any particular race here) would squeal, howl and cry right before that march to the classroom where the injections are administered. While waiting in line for the injections, those girls would sobbed and hugged each other. I would always look at them with a sense of superiority and laughed silently in my heart. I'M NOT AFRAID! I thought proudly.

Years later, I saw my mother let out a yelp when the nurse took her blood (2 tubes of it all) for blood-testing while she was lying on the hospital bed. She was a very strong woman who seldom (if not never in my sight) cave in to any show of vulnerability. The doctor and the nurse standing around her looked "as-a-matter-of-fact" and official. I could still remember that scene vividly even up till today. It was as if that scene was the hallmark when it comes to extracting blood. Though I wasn't the one inflicted with the pain of her illness, it was as if I felt her pain too when I heard her let off that yelp. If all that chemo, radiation, surgery to remove her eye, the after-effect of that and the effects of being cancer-stricken in the terminal stage, that she couldn't even walk, that she would hallucinate etc etc wasn't painful enough, it was as if merely drawing 2 mini tubes of blood from her lifeless arm was.

Blood. A word with many connotations to me. Ties bounded by blood. Blood is thicker than water. Why then are we less than fair weather people unrelated by blood? Overlook me please, I am just whining past rage when an adult me right now should have more than enough logic in me to know better. But the thing is, emotions are not logical. You cannot reason away an emotion.

---

Unfortunately, humans are not thinking creatures who merely feel, they are feeling creatures who happen to know how to think... and that is a major difference! - Mike Pilinski

The very fact of living up to "expectations", ironically, curbs one's very own potential (if they're contradictory to one's potential) by putting the wrong focus onto what people expect (so either one under-performs, escapes from situation, or carry on tasks expected without much joy), instead of developing what potential one has. Thus, this leads to feelings of being "trapped", evolving into poor self-esteem and thus less happiness. Also, by denying one's own feelings, it dulls our intuition and reflexes. The more honest one is with one's own feelings, the more liberated one feels and is thus happier, more content and free to make choices based on love instead of fear. Depression comes from feeling trapped, happiness stems from having self-worth and choices. - Bon L

You Cannot Change What You Do Not Acknowledge ~ Rodney Hudgen