By Hannah Wong
I have to admit, Christmas was tough. The impending doom of exams and assignment deadlines clouded any feeling of joy I may have had during the ‘holidays’ and, of course, I use that term loosely, much like Santa pants. Sure I was optimistic, that I would finish my work just in time to soak in some holiday cheer, but as days and soon weeks followed, I kept saying to myself, “If I can get at least two essays done by the end of the week…” it was of course an oversight. The more I pushed my personal due dates, the more I flailed. The tunnel that I entered was gradually getting darker and narrower; I kept thinking, ‘How the hell am I going to get out of here?’
It wasn’t all a tragedy though, my own personal bundle of joy, my tiny human, was a welcomed distraction and, as it turns out, I wasn’t alone either.
She too had some personal struggles of her own. For quite some time now, she has been getting around by ‘spider-manning’ the furniture, stretching from table to sofa to her walker to the TV stand to the zimmer to the table, tentatively side-stepping around the furniture holding on as if she was hanging from a cliff. The Rational One and I have been trying to coax her to let go and stand unaided, but then, she would only let go when she wasn’t thinking about it. For example, if we were applauding her or singing ‘if we’re happy and you know it’ she would let go to clap, only to suddenly realise that she wasn’t holding on to her cliff edge. The fear of falling would kick in; she’d panic and grab on to anything nearby – like my hair.
It wasn’t until Christmas Eve that a new development formed in the walking episode. She took her first shuffled step forward with the help of man’s best friend, Granny’s dog, Buzz. She wasn’t thinking of holding on at all; in that moment she wanted to reach out and pat the dog without any conscious thought. Then on Boxing Day, her first official steps were taken in the big wide world although she had to be coaxed by raisins – what else right?
Watching Tiny Human walk has been one of the most amazing things I’ve seen, and no less than a week later she was strutting about like she’d been doing it for, well, all of her tiny life, which got me thinking (I need to stop thinking so much). I always take in the big picture when I really should concentrate on the finer details of the scene, one by one. It would be less overwhelming.
With that thought in mind, I threw caution to the wind and just stopped thinking so hard about my workload and I, finally, made it! I’m out of the dark dingy tunnel of Semester 1 – assignments and exams completed on time and fairly painlessly.
I can take my step forward in to Semester 2.
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