Its yesterday once more....

I went to meet the best financial planner in the world today. I hurrayed the moment i got into the bus; for a good 12min or so i was spared from the sizzling ambient heat of the summer( hmmm i thought there's no seasons in singapore ). At that juncture i suddenly realised that the world's getting so much hotter these days. I never recount days of complaining about the searing temperature nor feel sick about sweating my guts out; Well i did grumbled back then, but certainly its not as bad as now... After settling some financial planning updates and reviewing more policies from the best financial planner, i headed home in the same fashion

Something is different this time round ; seeing the familiar stretch from Causeway point to my parents' place going by.. all these seem to hit a raw nerve in me. I havent been moving around the woodlands estate as much as i used to when i was on my skates in late 06

Those days were simply marvelous. I was so crazy into freestyle slalom that i initiated meet ups with fellow freestyle skaters( many of them are now doing it competitively ), filling every corner of our neighbourhood with laughter, exchanging pointers and stories that one would tell in a campfire. I played slalom so frequently i realised that i was getting better and better. To add on to that, people were eagerly learning tricks from me... Well it feels very good to be so involved into the sport...

... Until now. I hold a full time job, having an estate legally under my name ( erm, its actually a long term borrowing from HDB to be frank ) and happily married to a gal i so fondly love since the days in 1999. Life now is really a challenge, having to fight with the dusts at home, doing laundry,cleaning up the toilet, trying to cook dinner ( i think i'm getting into the hang of preparing meals for myself )and clearing up the dishes in the kitchen sink. Everytime i finished a particular household chore,I would kowtowed to my mum from the bottom of my heart, having to endure what i am going through now, six fold( my dad, my 3 brothers, my sister and me).

It is no longer easy to say that i am balancing it well. Maybe i havent been able to do it at all.. I had minor taskings awaiting for me to accomplish, many of them are house related....

In the midst of procrastination this evening, i rushed out for a quick slalom session after preparing fish and chips for my wife ( its Friday so no meat related food for meals!). I must say that i could no longer train( i would like to think of it as training, as you would know why soon )as hard as i did last time. Today's slalom session was barely an hour and a quarter maybe. As i tried to maneuver around the cones, those nostalgic moments at Blk 711 hardcourt from 6pm to 10pm overwhelmed me...There were times after my ATC trainee days when i headed there with my skates to look for some personal space of my own. Not only did i gain solitude, i managed to keep in mind the moves i want to learn so as to build up my trick ability profile. More tricks means more fun, and more tricks will last you longer into the sport...

Today was a very cold start... It made me realise that the past few months of slalom sessions were random and aimless; I was there for the sake of being there. No doubt that i was slaloming with pros from the team, i could no longer connect to the transitions and had difficulty performing stunts i once thought was bread and butter.

I left the court feeling this sense of austerity. As i wheezed through the veins of the neighborhood, penetrating void decks and doing tight corners around concrete bends, this particular song from The Carpenters filled my head.

Its Yesterday Once More