Cinderella's Evil Stepsister

“ Jie (sis)…why don’t stop wasting money and start earning money instead?” Ouch. That stings. When your younger sister sticks her pointy finger to snub at your nose as a family inheritance squanderer and demands u to start finding a job and earn some money.

Yups, she is younger than me, but we will be graduating in July together and SHE HAS ALREADY GOTTEN A JOB AT KPMG. On the other hand, her ELDER sister me, is folding ringgit notes into aeroplanes and fly them all over. It gets even for more fun when u tear them into little pieces and shower them on yourself in a rain of ringgit confetti. Woo hoo.

It got me to reflect upon myself as the eldest daughter and sister to my younger sisters. Eldest sister is supposed to be the one who sets good examples to her younger siblings, care for their parents, make sacrifices etc, but my second sis has always been the more “sensible” one. By means of sensible I mean the model prototype of a child that any parents would want. Imagine 150 years from now advancement in genome and genetics engineering allow parents to choose the design of baby they want from a catalogue of characteristics the baby will exhibit in the future, they would point to the tag with all these characteristics that my sister has: “Honey, we will choose Baby Pristine okkk. Look, she will be thrifty, filial and meticulous, and she is predicted to go to college and work in a corporate firm. And most importantly, the tag says she will take care of us when we are old. She is a little more expensive, but oh well..at least she’s purrrfect and predictable, aww. ” Yepz, doctors will reap much profits from making prototypes of my sister, and parents and children live happily ever after.

I do admire my sister sometimes. Things to her are often so clean-cut and obvious. There isn’t any devils of decadence which can lure her into doing things that are ethics-defying, that stem from selfish desires and dangerous curiosity. Her only ‘deviant’ character is that she can be obsessed with things being clean that gets on my nerves sometimes, but that is just a good characteristic gone a bit warped if u get what I mean. On the hand there has always been a wild streak in me, albeit not to the extent of being gutsy enough to imprint a tattoo of a gothic symbol (something which I have always wanted to do) on my lower back. I wish I have more guts at times, to just do certain things with wild abandon, and heck the hell care with whatever others have to say. Sometimes I just feel like biting people’s heads off (esp those of insensitive people spouting callous remarks) , or condemn their stupidity right in front of their faces but my composure always gets the better of me and I am gradually tired of it. Tired of my diplomatic, “nice”, gutless self that is gagging my true self and condoning the multiplication of stupid and socially dysfunctional people in the world.

I wish I can be more contented at times, to be someone like my sister, to just follow the well-trodden path walked by so many before me. Don’t think and just walk. After graduation, just get a white-collared job in a company, from then on be financially empowered; for once start to give money to my parents. But there is this untamed spirit inside which is forever restless, forever yearning to wander off to some sidetracks and risk being bitten by leeches and get all muddy. I want to fall crazily in love with a guy, and feel that whirlwind of happiness twirling within me; I want to shudder in the harshness of winters and hence appreciate the first blooms of flowers in spring; I want to talk to exotic strangers on public transport whom I will never see again; I want to live out of my comfort zone for a while and experience the feelings of homesickness, missing nasi lemak while munching on dry bread. Basically I can’t settle down in Singapore or Malaysia for now. Not before I get a dosage of prickly torture and fun at the same time overseas.

But my playfulness and craving for something more comes at the expense of my parents, who need to finance the bulk of my expenses overseas should I go. If I stay, they would be so much better off without the excess financial burden and I do not have to live with the burden of guilt either. I will then start to work my ass off like anyone else and allow my paycheck to be the main source of my happiness, and wonder endlessly of what coulda, shoulda , woulda. Sometimes I feel it is indeed selfish of me to quench up my parents’ savings just to fulfill that flighty and floaty desire of mine.

If only. If only I am just like my sister. And everyone will live happily ever after.