The years following that question Jit asked me in 1996 were of a series of stepping stones, each waypost I encountered marking the long journey I went on since, planning my life with guided intention, moving forward boldly and without fear. I believed that when I was right in the centre of my destiny, doing the work I was meant to do on this earth, I would never want to retire from it, and nothing else would be more important. I would never be content with just a simple family-oriented existence that included breeding or procreation. Because I was and am convicted that my calling would involve work for the children already on this overpopulated earth, ones already born but have no parents or at least ones that could function as available and adequate caregivers for them. I desired to show love to the people i knew my God loves, acting as his proxy and vessel. I merely desired having a life partner who would be my destiny-partner, a person with a similar calling, someone to walk alongside on the shared path of destiny. A partner who wanted the very same things. I didn't want to be tied down to a life that would cut me off from my path. If I was called to leave everything behind to move to a different country to serve Him, I had to be able to put aside the trappings of BTO flat ownership and suchlike, as well as family. But I didn't want to do so alone. Thus I needed a better half whose destiny was in concert with mine, someone who would receive the same call to go wherever therefore and serve. Our callings shouldn't force the relationship into a long slow death through untenable long distance, I would not be able to bear that outcome. 

Fast forward years later: to date i have cycled through relationships with boys and men who have all eventually missed the mark in one way or another, and I now stand alone in my journey towards ikigai. There is perhaps no longer a desire in me to hitch my dream to that of a lifelong lover's, because all the men in the three decades since eventually proved themselves as fallen short at being my destiny-partner, as idealised in one of the first poems of mine posted on this same blog thirty years ago.

Now in my forties, I no longer ache for a companion the way I did at age seventeen when I first started exploring the answer to Jit's question. I've grown to feel extremely comfortable in solitude, without familial relationships close by, except for ones I have with my adopted furkids — I cannot bear to be separate from them, and I will always adopt more when those I have cross over from this world after being my best friends on earth. Their companionship has become necessary for life. I also believe that, apart from learning how to start up and lead a nonprofit through the experience I had with setting up our cat rescue organisation, animal intervention is part of God's plan for me and to fulfill my mission on this earth. God has used my furkids to show me love, to heal my past traumas, and to partner with me in showing love to people around me. At first, I thought my cat rescue work was just a stepping stone in learning how to establish, manage and lead a nonprofit organisation, in learning how to find and steward resources, and to mobilise people into serving a meaningful cause. Now, I know this work is more than just a practice run: when God created this world, our planet and its animals, he didn't just mandate that we ought to care for them well, he put them on earth with us to help us care for our fellow human beings and fulfill our calling. 

Right now, I am in the seventh year of a long sabbatical from leading my cat rescue organisation, one I undertook to recuperate from my ill health that began to hamper my leadership effectiveness. I knew it was time for such a furlough when I started getting panic attacks from incoming phonecalls. To date, I'm still barred from my return to my work because my health has not improved enough, my disability has not been mitigated enough, for me to function and work in spite of it. I ought now to be in my third decade of work in answering that call I received in 1996. 

This introspective longitudinal analysis of my adult life shows me the stark difference between that fearless young adult I was then, and this middle-aged complex-disabled woman that I am now. As a young adult, I had a meaningful outcome from my quarter-life crisis, as I was taken apart and brought to my knees in surrender to God to the soundtrack of Jars of Clay's Worlds Apart. This occured when I was about 22 years old, and in having my worlds taken apart, I started putting them on the written word by starting this blog, hence the domain and name of this blog (taking avalon's worlds apart, layering them upon words). 

Today, approximately 22 years later, and I am going through my mid-life crisis, also spanning across a few years. I am not through with it, and it is seemingly much harder; a mid-life crisis with an added kick, thanks to my complex disability throwing multiple spanners in the works. Existing symptoms of my depression and complex PTSD worsening was why I went on sabbatical, and they are now, still, too severe or even more so, for me to be able to return to my work. To add to that, as a result of my ongoing divorce with J, new symptoms have been triggered, emerging visibly through their increased severity, proving themselves to become a set from another health condition – ADHD – to add to the complexity of my disability made from the sum of all these chronic illnesses. I find myself at the very edge of hope, hanging on by a thread, wondering when I will be the avalon of grit, excellence and bravado once again.

Comparatively, I am now someone who is very reticent and tentative, regressing somewhat to my childhood self. In school, I was tentative in trying to learn the games my friends played. I had and still have poor dexterity and shitty hand-eye coordination (which I know now is primarily due to ADHD), and so I could never gain proficiency in such games as five stones and zeropoint. The more my self-confidence was impacted, the more tentative I was in my attempt to learn these games  Eventually, I would not even try to play these games at all, I was willing to just hold the zeropoint rubber-band rope. I stuck to games I could master, such as hopscotch, flipping erasers, and hanging on the monkey bars. In my adolescence, during P.E. lessons, I was unable to ever gain enough momentum for jumping over hurdles, and being tentative as I approached the hurdles meant that I could not make it across a single one of them. 

I also clearly remember that in my reticent nature, I hardly asserted myself with my parents, such as telling them honestly and confidently about how I felt, or asking them for what I wanted, always holding back after a lot of hesitation across thoughts in my mind. 

This childhood reticence was most likely borne out of fear of parental anger and what I believed to be the withdrawal and witholding of their love for and acceptance of me. Acting contrary to their expectations, or shedding tears because of scary or painful situations, would bring on internal heartbreak and unbearable psychological trauma inside me from their resulting displeasure. I know how to word and explore these reasons now, but as a kid I didn't even know this was how I felt and that my reticence was because I was trying to avoid pain caused by feelings of abandonment and rejection by two of my best friends in my mum and dad. These are complex emotions that I had no idea how to navigate as a child, because I was never introduced to the playbook of emotional self-management skills, ones which all children need to learn as they grow up, in order to become healthy adults in future. 

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