Maybe Next Year.

I think I surprised a number of my friends, when I made my decision. I surprised myself, even. It was a tough choice to make, but it sits well and my soul resounds with peace.

It was that time of the year again where auditions for our faculty play was on. With much anticipation and excitement, I participated in the auditions. Just give it a shot, I thought.

I was offered the main role, and was given time to confirm my acceptance. A year ago, I knew I would have jumped at the chance. To be in theatre acting, conveying a message, dissolving into the life of a Stranger whose life has a Story to tell, a memory to unfold, and presenting it to an audience in the elegant simplicity of voice and movement, sound and light- must be one of the most exhilarating experiences I know, and enjoy. There is something exquisitely liberating about theatre, and the stage.

I think I surprised a number of my friends, when I made my decision.

I surprised myself, even. It was a tough choice to make, but it sits well and my soul resounds with peace.

I declined the offer. It would take a long time to distill all the reasons. And I hardly feel compelled to explain myself, even. For it sits well with me, and my soul resounds with peace.


For this is a different season. Winter and spring have gone, and summer is here. Summer is taking stock of Recovery. It is realising my primary call in medicine, and giving my priorities my all. Summer is ripening under the heat, and maximising my resources for fruit of eternal value.

It's not that I've turned my back on on the theatre stage. But tis a different season, that's all.

A season where I'm learning to be smaller, humbler, more focused, more human and less of a superwoman. A season where I'm learning to go into the inside rooms to tidy things up, rather than spending my time keeping the outside rooms emmaculate for the world to see. A season where I'm learning to find joy and value, not in big things flooded in the limelight and decorated with flowers and showered with confetti, but in the little things- like studying my list of medical conditions well, like enjoying the time I spend with my team-mates at the hospital, like giving the patients I meet my time, like going up to an elderly patient and helping him with his breakfast, because he's got his kaya-and-butter spread all over his intravenous drip and himself.

It's not that I've turned my back on the theatre stage. But tis a different season.

And though it was a tough choice to make, a wrestle between my mind and flesh, a tussle between both principle and reason, a struggle between two ends, I am learning, that for some decisions, there isn't necessarily always a right one-only the one God calls us to make, the one we ask Him to reveal to us, the one we open our hearts and ears to listen to. I hardly slept much that night- I was thinking, thinking and praying about things. It sounds silly, to think so hard about an apparently trivial matter- but I wanted to hear God's whisper. You will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Something was stirring within me. Something, something, something I could not quite place my finger on stirred. Give me a sign, speak to me God- through a person, through things, through my peace in my heart.

The next day, with a heavy heart, I decide to speak to my pastor to share with her some of the concerns I had on my mind of late. From a distance, she embraces me with open arms and says, " Wai Jia! I want to introduce to you to someone! Here, this lady wants to speak to you- she's looking to publish someone who writes wholesome children's books."

One door closes. Because another one opens.

I don't know where I'll go from here. I have learnt not to rush into things on impulse, not to take to much into my own hands- for it is wiser to be prudent, and allow oneself to be swept away by God, than to run one step too many ahead of Him and be swept back, right where one started.

But all I know, is that I am starting to write and paint again. It is in my head. The paintings and writings are on my feet, in my lungs, on my palms, in my heart, in my head, on the train. I even see them when I lay my head to rest. They are in my head. What I will do with them, I do not yet know- I'll have to have a word with my secret Friend first.

Tis the season to enter into the inside room, inside the Train carriages of life.

Tis a different season. To go into the inside rooms, to be quieter, humbler, more grounded. Tis not that I've abandoned my passion for theatre. Tis not that I've turned my back on the stage, scripts and all its elegant devices. Tis not that I've become a workaholic, because do you still call what you find delight, enjoyment and excitement in, work, still?

I know my decision has surprised a number of people around me, but this feels right for this season, and it sits well in my soul.

It is the season to go into the inside room, where the lights are dimmer, where the sounds are quieter, and where God's voice is softer, and yet, clearer, too.


It is not that I've abandoned the theatre stage.


Maybe next year. When it's a different season.