here.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
99.999%

It has become kind of a weird habit for me to never take things so definitely. Behind every “I’ll be there” or “see you”, is a little grey area of doubt in my mind. Will I be there definitely, 100% surely? What if I got kidnapped the moment I stepped out of my house? What if I fell into a drain just as I reached there? What if the train I were on broke down?! WILL I be there?
Today, my friend’s mother gave me a lift in their car. One junction away from our destination, my friend said, “See, we’re here safely.” (This is out of context but you don’t need to know why she said that.) Immediately I thought, don’t say things too early… you never know what could happen in the next 100 metres we take. Not that I’m pessimistic or paranoid or anything, but I think it’s quite a realistic truth, ain’t it?
So sometimes when I notify others of my attendance, I might add a catch: “If all goes well…” If all goes well, I’ll be there.
But who am I to say well? The same thing could seem well to one and be detrimental to another.  Or it could seem bad to one but be great to another. What makes me think that things have to go ‘well’ for me to get ‘there’? Maybe getting ‘there’ wasn’t even a ‘good’ thing to begin with. All could be disastrous and I might still end up ‘there’, never mind if getting ‘there’ is a good thing or a bad thing.
Sure enough, today I told my friend (another friend), “If all goes well, you’ll see me there”. I have no idea what went ‘well’ or not, but I know I didn’t make it there in the end due to some unforeseen circumstances. I am still grappling with whether the circumstances were indeed ‘bad’ that I didn’t manage to meet my friend… Was it necessarily a bad thing I couldn’t and didn’t get there?

Maybe in God’s plan, everything did go well. Perhaps His definition of ‘well’ is just different. Maybe we just haven’t seen that other side of ‘wellness’. Perhaps we don’t need to know.
Have faith.

Happy New Year’s Eve! ;D