Saturday, September 17, 2005
Moving The Goalposts
by venitha
In auspicious and suspicious collusion, this, our 100th blog post, is aligning with today, our 100th day in Singapore! Adding to the festive and mysterious atmosphere is the full moon, which is officially tomorrow at 10am, but is close enough to make me cock an eyebrow and start looking around for shelter from the lightning that is undoubtedly about to strike.
As I sit blinking foolishingly at the stacks of boxes and strange artwork stored in our bomb shelter, it slowly dawns on me that this reactive, this overreactive, way I'm living my life these days has got to stop. I've taken not worrying about things I can't control, primarily how long we'll be here, to an unhealthy extreme. I'm making my life about reacting to life - and cowering on the sidelines while I wait for life - instead of boldly calling my own plays to fashion the life I want.
I mean, here was this big bright yellow goalpost, towering above a yard-line clearly labelled 100, and it's taken the brilliant light of the full moon for me to see it and to give myself just reward for kicking a very wobbly almost-short last-second field goal just barely over and inside the corner of its uprights. Oh no... It looks short... Hold your breath... C'mon wind... Score!
Surviving our first 100 days in Singapore is worthy of celebration, and we'll spike a victory football beneath the radiance of the full moon on a night hike tonight at Pulau Ubin. Perhaps we'll even howl a bit. Well, we'll probably keep the howls down to a low and private roar between ourselves so as not to alarm our fellow trekkers.
Once our howls die down, the cheering fans depart, and we glibly tell that annoying reporter that we're headed to Disneyland Hong Kong, however, it's time to get down to the sober and serious business of moving the goalpost.
And that is my job.
venitha
Moving The Goalposts, a Billy Bragg song, also provides an appropriate, if less inspirational, comment on my friend Karen's latest brilliant blog post.
As I sit blinking foolishingly at the stacks of boxes and strange artwork stored in our bomb shelter, it slowly dawns on me that this reactive, this overreactive, way I'm living my life these days has got to stop. I've taken not worrying about things I can't control, primarily how long we'll be here, to an unhealthy extreme. I'm making my life about reacting to life - and cowering on the sidelines while I wait for life - instead of boldly calling my own plays to fashion the life I want.
I mean, here was this big bright yellow goalpost, towering above a yard-line clearly labelled 100, and it's taken the brilliant light of the full moon for me to see it and to give myself just reward for kicking a very wobbly almost-short last-second field goal just barely over and inside the corner of its uprights. Oh no... It looks short... Hold your breath... C'mon wind... Score!
Surviving our first 100 days in Singapore is worthy of celebration, and we'll spike a victory football beneath the radiance of the full moon on a night hike tonight at Pulau Ubin. Perhaps we'll even howl a bit. Well, we'll probably keep the howls down to a low and private roar between ourselves so as not to alarm our fellow trekkers.
Once our howls die down, the cheering fans depart, and we glibly tell that annoying reporter that we're headed to Disneyland Hong Kong, however, it's time to get down to the sober and serious business of moving the goalpost.
And that is my job.
venitha
Moving The Goalposts, a Billy Bragg song, also provides an appropriate, if less inspirational, comment on my friend Karen's latest brilliant blog post.
