End of 2010s

Image result for fireworks sitting to watch illustration

What is the decade 2010 to 2019 called?

The 2010s (pronounced “twenty-tens” or “two thousand (and) tens”; shortened to “the ’10s”) is the current decade in the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 2010, and will end on 31 December 2019.

I don’t think it’ll be possible to completely sum up all my thoughts about the past decade, but I’ll try to do a categorical summary so that the thoughts are put neatly where they belong.

Overall, the 2010s were the decade where my adult life started – professionally and romantically. I started full time work in June 2010, and met Tim at work on that day, and we’ve been together ever since.

Every decade has been a really really orderly for me.

  • The 1990s was the start of my primary education – started going to school in 1991 and finished my PSLE in 1999
  • The 2000s marked my secondary education, and the end of my education career. I entered secondary school in 2000 and graduated from university in 2010.

So, really quite neat. The 2020s onwards will really be the start of uncharted waters. I no longer have a set path to follow. Afterall, the life of a typical middle class Singaporean is all the same – school, university, get married, get a kid, etc. But from here on out, I suppose it’ll be very much unknown, coping with the inevitable, middle age, deaths, financial stuff.

Relationships

Tim
I met Tim in 2010 and got a whole new family to go along with it! It was an amazing journey of love – not just romantic, but familial love. Familial love is very unfamiliar to me (hurhur see what I did there). I am still not used to it but I’ve learnt to go with the flow.

Everyday I tell him “I love you” at least once, because as much as it is for him, it is a re-affirmation to myself. Every “I love you” is a new promise for the day. I will love him every day, as long as I am. I think in JC, my literature teacher said that love is a combination of affection and habit, which is rings very true for me.

The relationship with Tim was a lot of growing alongside each other. I think we had many rocky moments, because our basic processors were so different! Also we were really lucky to be able to sort out issues using drugs. It has been a wonderful journey so far though. I think I’ve been extremely lucky to get Tim and his family.

After I fell ill in 2014 and all my plans went to shit, Tim rose magnificently to the occasion and took a year off school to take care of me. All those long hospital visits! I was getting 3-4h sessions of blood transfusions while he just sat next to me. We got married in 2014 in case I sodded off to the next world. But I survived!

The Tans (my family)

Bad relationship with parents for all of 2000s, and we’ve been estranged since 2014, ever since they reacted badly throughout my illness. I’ve been really much happier ever since I was estranged. All my memories of being in my paternal house is being constantly questioned, guilted, pulled apart between my dad and my mom, and really so much conflict. There were days that I went to work with my eyes completely puffy from being reamed by them the entire previous night, wondering where I went wrong.

But I do wake up every now and then going “well I am not a filial child”. Thank you, 4 years of hardcore confucian education. It is something I have to come to terms with. I still pay some of the bills in the house and transfer my mother money every month, but I don’t think I want them to be involved in my life any more than that.

Distant relationship with both siblings. Relationship with Jeremy improved since I fell ill in 2014, but we’ll never be ‘normal’ siblings. Our parents completely ruined us.

Oreo

Jeremy (Tim’s brother) found Oreo in Bt Batok in July 2011. He was being chased by a horde of alley cats. Luckily for me (but not his family), he brought Oreo home. I don’t know what happened, but I ended up adopting Oreo then.

He has since been an irreplaceable part of our lives. One of the biggest things this dog has given me is a heart. I didn’t know how much love I could give to a child until he appeared. He’s also provided a structure to our days (otherwise I can easily spend an entire day, unmoving, on the bed).

The Teos

Honestly, the Teos have been my biggest pillar of support in the past decade. No matter how small the triumph, they’ve always surprised me with their unwavering love and enthusiasm. Honestly, I’ve never been treated this well in my life by my own family, and it is almost too good to be true.

I think one of the things that constantly haunts me is how I got into an accident with Dad’s car and he had to pay extra insurance premium or something. And he never blamed me once. I will never get over it. LOL.

Not just the immediate family, but I’ve made lifelong friends with Shaun and Liz. I met Shaun in Xmas 2010. Liz shortly after. They’ve been with us from the beginning, and we’ve sorted each other’s messes out for each other. I love them very much (from the bottom of my cold, dead, robotic heart). I’m really happy to see them grow along with us! They’ve really been around with us for all the big and small events in our lives, and have been really generous with their time and affections. I’m really grateful for their company all the time.

Also Liz is very important, being the only other T person around (otherwise I would go completely mad). If the world considers us socially unwieldy and rude, at least we’re being rude together.

Travel

2010s marked the start of my travels with a loved one. Previously, I was a solo traveller, and I moved around most of western Europe. Some of the places that I’ve travelled to with Tim (grouped according to countries):

  • Bali
  • Malacca, Tioman
  • Phuket, Bangkok, Krabi
  • Taipei
  • Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka
  • Melbourne & Tasmania
  • Hanoi
  • London, UK
  • Paris
  • Rome, Venice
  • Berlin, Dusseldorf
  • Amsterdam

It’s already shaping up to be a very exciting new year, because we’ve already planned 3 trips in 2020 – Bangkok, Turkey and Japan.

The House

Getting a place of our own to live in has been the most transformative experience. I think for a couple of introverts, this was really a godsend. It’s really freeing to have your own space and do whatever you want at any hour of the day/night.

Tim’s parents have been wonderful in putting up with all the junk I brought to their house when I unceremoniously moved in in the middle of the night, and they’ve been so generous in feeding this extra mouth, but I think it was a relief for everyone when we finally moved out in 2017.

I didn’t do much in terms of designing the house, thankfully. Tim did most of it, and I just wrote the blog. And managed the monies.

https://solitarymusicblog.wordpress.com/

I’m very happy to say that as of now, we only owe $5,000 to the bank! Everything in our house is fully paid for!