Oogachaga

This is a very late weekday night posting, something I dun normally do. After showering, this come to my mind and I will be staying up all night if I dun write it out.

Last year, someone asked me why am I so involved in OC. I was thinking really hard for an proper answer. I am one person who dun see a reason to do anything I think worth doing. And that question is really unusual and I supposed the answer is in the subconscious mind. After the shower, I realised I do have an answer after a night out with the two sisters from JLC. This posting, if found by a homophobia person, may be used to prove the 'absence father' caused me to turn gay. Hell, they can think of one thousand other reasons too and I won't have to bring myself to their levels to argue with them. You can never beat idiots.

People who know me now see me as one who is very comfortable with my sexuality and often ask me about the coming out journey. I always have to tell them that I have a very short and compact journey, that barely lasts for 5 years. The first time I realised I am a gay was my days in Victoria (I think I can hear the homophobian saying "see... never send your son to a boy school") From then till polytechnic first year, sexuality was never a priority for me to manage. I often see it that I am just different, like I can't play basketball or soccer to save my life. Somehow, I figured out I just know that I am engineered differently and what the heck is sexuality?

Instead, during those days, my main purpose in life was to ensure that I must be by my mom and sister all days after school, to protect them from an abusive father. I dreaded to go home after school and sometimes take one hour to walk home even though the journey probably take 30 min. The only purpose to get home is to make my mom less worried of me turning into a young gangster. And to be by her side so that my little 1.55m frame can protect her if anything happens. I was tiny back then. It was a whole 5 years of struggling with my family problems, my failing studies and understanding why is my face so pimply. Like a close friend of me now, it was a darkness moment of low self esteem caused by these problems, but sexuality is never one of them. Should I say I hardly have time to think of me being gay. I understood GAY as in Gay World along Geylang Road where I used to watch old Chinese movies and have stewed seafood.

As I recalled years later, the struggle was a quiet one, with mom holding the fort against all odds. From physical abuses to verbal abuses to mental abuse. One classic was that I have to make phone calls from public phones because the house phone is locked by the father, how crazy can that get. When I am older, i always wondered why did not I conveniently become a delinquent. Plently of reasons for me to do that if not for my stubborn proudness wearing my Nil Sine Labore school badge. (actually I still lived my life by the Victoran motto). That maybe responsible for my sometimes interest in gay ah bengs. :)

Back to now and about why I am involved in OC. Because of my crash course in gay communities, there is a consistent desire to know more and wanted to find out how how else can I help another gay person. My understanding of myself as a gay person is formed rather hapharzardly during the early years and it is really only the past three years, I redefined myself as a gay as well as the many other roles I played in my life such a son, a colleague as well as a friend.

Contrary to the general belief that a volunteer help others, it is most of the time, the others helping the volunteer. The interaction with people helped me to make sense of the gay communities and the larger community. Things I will never learn from studies or the smaller group of close friends. The vast experiences of people around me, such as my volunteers amazed and educated me how diversified the whole gay communities can be. Many of them have went through the lowest possible point in their lives one can imagine and bounced back.

Volunteering humbles you as a person and grounded you firmly if you started off with a right intenton. It helped me to feel in touch with the more humane side of me during my days as an air force regular. It widen my whole perspective of being alive and comfortable of who I am. The friendship gained is priceless. So volunteering is never truly about selfless giving because you always gain something in return. It is not about wanting to be like Mother Teresa.

So ya, that is why I am with OC and any other places for that matter. Stay alive and love it in all possible ways.