I'm deadbeat. From doing nothing. Have been decomposing at home for the past 2 weeks.
Sigh...sometimes I wonder what if I wasn't born last instead. How much better would that be? Lots of people would probably disagree with me though. "Are you kidding? The last kid always gets it good."
Let me clarify, the answer is NO. I have two elder sisters, and don't get me wrong, I love them and look up to them really much. All my life, since I was able to walk and speak, I have treated them as my role models.
I was closer to my 2nd sister, probably due to the smaller age gap(6 years is still a lot), and we would spend time 'pillow-talking', playing games(esp. Neopets), collecting seashells on the beach when our Dad brought us there, passing notes filled with tic tac toe drawings when we were supposed to be studying at the table etc.
My mum would always tell me, "你看，你的两个姐姐那么聪明。你长大后，一定要学她们一样聪明。" And I can still vividly recall accompanying my second eldest sister with my mum to collect her PSLE results at EPPS. I was still thinking in my mind, 'Wow! My sister did so well, and I'm gonna be Pri 1 next year in the same school that both my sisters went to. I wanna be like them!'
Both of them went on to AHS, TJC and then NBS.
You know where I ended up.
I felt so sad whenever anything to do with results popped up, cause I'll always be in the shadows of my two sisters. But I had to put on a brave front, acting like I was oblivious to the fact so that I'll end up being less vulnerable in the eyes of the people around me.
Whenever I collected my exam results, my parents would always scold me, but that wasn't the worst. The worst part was that deep down, I knew they were disappointed, but they were just using their anger to mask it all up. And that made me feel terrible.
Guilt would be eating my insides up as days went by. This went on until probably my upper sec years, where a part of me just kept reminding myself, "You'll never be as good as them, so why try?" And thus began my downhill journey. I detested A maths and Chem so, so much. Hah, I didn't even bother practising A maths cause I knew I would flunk the tests and exams. Ms. Faten deliberately made me stay back after one of her classes to talk to me alone. Or was she berating me? I don't know, but her words were something like that: "Melissa, I realised you have stopped trying to accomplish anything in my class. I don't know what is happening but you better do something. If you find my lessons not suited for you, you can stop attending them."
Her harsh words stung me. I wasn't sure what I was feeling at that moment, probably a mixture of disbelief, confusion as well as hurt. It was true that I did neglect A maths, but I really worked my ass off for E maths, really. And I tried time after time doing A math questions but I just couldn't master them. But I'm glad she spoke those words to me, because they gave me a sharp jolt, and a reminder of what I had aspired to achieve years ago when I was a kid. I even made a big decision to drop geography(one of my fav subjects, damn, I miss drawing all those diagrams of oxbow lakes, plate tectonics etc.) and convert my pure history into elective so that I could cope better.
And so I did give it another shot, but still got mediocre results.
Fast forward to now, I've graduated from college and in the midst of transitioning to uni life.
A few weeks before I collected my A level results, my Dad kept hinting to me about Australian universities, and I felt so frustrated but I couldn't blame him. Even I myself had little faith in being able to qualify for local Us. I have never been so shaken and worried in my entire life. That looming feeling of collecting that slip of paper made me lose sleep up till the actual day.
My parents were...relieved I guess? After I shared my results with them. What's there to celebrate about right HAHAHH, our first two daughters also did well, if not, better. That was probably what ran through their minds.
But y'know what? I don't care anymore. I can't believe after years of feeling inferior, I'm finally liberated.
What if I was the firstborn? I wouldn't have to worry so much about such stuff, cause there'll be no bars set, there'll be no expectations to be met. Whatever my subsequent younger siblings achieved wouldn't affect me at all.
So ya, stop trying to tell me that I'm so lucky to be the youngest kid. Cause even though I'd led a fulfilling childhood & teenhood, I was constantly reminded by myself that I pale in comparison to others.
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