#40: Interlude
Spring: a time of helloes and goodbyes.
March happened to be somewhat of a transient month for me, hence the title. I began the month endlessly scrolling news articles about February 28, bound for Alicante where I was to be in town for an office team retreat. It was my first kind of trip where I got to call another city/country my office, where we did nothing but work, albeit in a Golf Country Club, which in itself was a rather strange experience. There I thought that Spanish styled-houses continue to be my favourite type of house design (our home itself being one), so this I did not really complain about. Despite the pollen trickling in through the windows and causing some hysterical sneezing fits, olive trees always make for a picturesque scene.
Two days in, my tooth began to ache. A speedy drive to the dentist in the desert-like Alicante only added to this already (fever) dreamlike “team retreat”, where I was given a week of antibiotics and pain killers to nurse the intense throbbing reverberating on the left side of my face. I learned that it was finally time to extract my wisdom tooth (which I was convinced just two days prior that I did not have…). Despite being fluent in Spanish some ten years ago, I was thankful that the dentists and nurses in Alicante could all speak English. How the brain reverts to the familiar in times of distress!
I flew back to London later that week, where I had less than 12 hours to pack for my return to Singapore - the de capo moment of London living - after almost two months of travelling away and making arrangements to officially sign off on the life I had there. Albeit, I was ready to be back home by this time (toothache induced reality check, if anything); I really missed my bed.
The first thing I did after lugging my five suitcases back home from the airport was go to the dentist, schedule my wisdom tooth surgery and spend the afternoon doing my nails and prepping for Seventeen’s concert in Singapore that night, which was wonderful and only added to the peculiarity of that week. After all, I flew back that date just so that I could see them. The only bit of reprieve I got that weekend was trying (the best) nasi lemak in Singapore with Ju and Wenqi at Tanjong Katong, and finally returning to the art studio the morning after and reunite with my new painting. I squeezed in as much pilates and work as I could in the days that followed, knowing the rest of the week would be lost to me.
I had my surgery on the Wednesday and was thankful to have gotten the dreaded tooth out! My best friend came with me to the dentist following brunch, and we achieved a new milestone in our 16-year friendship. I spent the rest of the day sleeping, swallowing blood and bingeing season 2 of XO Kitty. I did not even have time to get over my jet lag because the intensity of the painkillers and aftermath of the surgery left me in a zombie-like state. I watched a bit of TV, but mostly slept until I could feel the pain dissipate. My diet at this time was also rather strange, being somewhat bedridden but not really ill, only adding to this feeling of having a split headache - but across life.
Mid-month, things started to roll back into normality, though I still felt like I was out-of-body. I returned to work after five days of blissful medical leave, where my mum and I barraged through Netflix’s trashiest content. I don’t think I have ever slept as much as I did in this period, and somehow this felt so good. Not going to the gym, not looking at my laptop all day, not having plans...the antithesis of the lifestyle I am used to, and taking a break from it also meant freeing up my mind quite a bit.
I won’t lie, I’ve struggled to write on Substack for over a year now, and not because I don’t have time or energy - but for two reasons. One being that I have become addicted to my phone and social media (in ways I never was before), and that the constant busyness of me being online, be it for pleasure or work, and opting for a busy life and calendar had meant that there was little space in my brain for the things I actually wanted to make space for - the things that made life interesting. Books, writing, art and other creative projects, and the whole act of developing and nurturing my ‘taste’ palette; as opposed to consuming all of these things in chunks and pieces over the internet, and in passing. The online scroll had begun to apply to offline as well, and what a horror I thought that was.
Plus, the more AI I use (regretfully...for work, and the resulting fact that it has become a tool of convenience), the less unique I feel my brain get. The effects of doomscrolling, AI usage, algorithm-ised content curation and the Tik-Tok-ifcation of culture definitely has not helped with the one common trait underlying my proclivity to the aforementioned: a lack of willpower and FOMO.
So during these March days, having been nestled in the cocoons of my various memorabilia and books, I was reminded of the pre-AI version of myself and of life, where I documented everything in notebooks and actually made time to do even the most mundane things. Of course, life as a student was plenty more times more blissful than as a working adult - so is the excuse I have fallen to every time I feel an emptiness in my life.
Inspired by my past self but also ready to let her go, I have begun the process of cleaning my room where I see my 20s and teens unfold before me as I throw out and reorganise my things. I am constantly finding things that are intrinsically useless, but feel like these were the parts of me that made me the person I am now, and now that part of my personality feels as if it has been buried beneath practicality - and let’s face it - the hedonistic and hyperactive lifestyle I had in London. The scale of introverted versus extroverted activities I take up has definitely tipped in favour of the latter over the last year or so. In this way I have found that my tastes have changed quite a bit, and I think ‘interlude’ very much captures this feeling of everything being in motion right now, and settling into a new place. Food tastes, reading tastes, clothing tastes - a metamorphosis chronicled by my time abroad and now returning home to something old, but something new as well. A spring-like feeling, if any.
Assouline books in Paris ; Art Basel Hong Kong 2026
One example of this - and it sounds a bit silly for someone who writes and reads - but these days I have been wanting to actually read again - fiction, magazines, archives, Assouline (my new obsession). As much as I love some of the stuff I read or see online, the gates of hell that act in itself conjures, is the kind I would like to step away from - that I need to (and all of us do too). Content has somewhat lost its meaning now, with everyone becoming a content curator and dictating what we should do and why - and opinions fly about like bees around a hornet, and that has made me feel like the art of discovering things and thoughtful curation or critical thinking have become drowned out in a noisy world. Of course, there are lots of gems out there, but that’s also for those of us who look for and follow through with it.
In this sense, I have felt very motivated by this happening, of this transitory state of rewriting the playbook of my mind a little bit. This means cleaning up and reordering my space (as I think about what my future house looks like as well!), finally taking initiative and getting driving lessons, and refreshing old ‘systems’. A weird but maybe revealing example: I recently reset my Apple Watch and updated my laptop’s software, and the clean, sleek design of the new Tahoe OS, and literally just a new wallpaper and home set-up has brought my brain serotonin in ways I never would have expected. A new chair to replace the one I have had since high school to upgrade my home office, throwing out old stationery and finding the small joy of buying new pens (a favourite pastime of teenage me), and organising all the bits and pieces lying around the house (I am admittedly, a very messy person who owns TOO many things).
As I declutter both my mental and physical spaces, and put both of them through system refreshes, I hope to also bring more thoughtful writing to you. I started here on Substack because I wanted to explore my interests and develop my voice as a writer and cultural critic/curator, which I probably have not done as much as I initially set out to. Heck, I’m cleaning this article up on a bus right now.
I do think that after the chaos of moving back and leaving London, going back and making some mental peace with that, and starting over back home has changed my mind in a lot of ways (plus a recent trip to Hong Kong that was reminiscent of the 19-year-old me whose first love was the city itself). All this time away - living and growing up...! - has helped me grow as a person, and focus a lot better in areas of my life I never paid attention to, and re-think my goals as a writer and creative anyway.
For the time being, there are a few bits of life admin to get through. But creatively and mentally, I feel that I am now ready to make heads with the part of me that yearns for that life, that I always used to. I think that I now have that spark back.
To end, just a note here on the importance of the space(s) that you create for yourself, a post on Substack I saw yesterday that captures the particularity of this passage in time (life).
