The Wilful Sunflower

I really hate introductions. Not those, “Hi, I’m Sunflower, and you are...?” kind of introductions. I mean introductions that are the beginning of stories.

I have all these wonderful notes in front of me, all the information swimming around in my head, and I don’t know where to start. Arrgh!

Fuong was in town yesterday for a company training programme. It was good, talking to her. Ours is one of those friendships whereby we can go months without seeing or talking to each other, but when we meet up, we can just pick up where we left off. It’s awesome. She is one of my oldest friends – I’ve known her since we both were eight years old. We were classmates back in primary (elementary) school!

We talked about our relationship with God, what’s been happening in our lives, our struggles, hopes and fears. I’m so encouraged by her love for God. “I just want to live right for Him,” she told me. We were real with each other, which is a rare thing with most people. Most of the time we wear masks and don’t let people probe too deeply.

I went to meet Fuong after my church cell group meeting (translation: at about 10:30pm) and ended up staying in her hotel room with her, because it was so late by the time we finished our chat! She was sharing a twin-bed room with a colleague, so the both of us squeezed into one single bed! “You don’t take up that much space, right?” she said. “I think we can fit onto the bed, as long as you don’t kick me off.” She’s so funny. :)

It’s good to know that I’m still young enough to do crazy things like unscheduled sleepovers. *grin* When I was a kid, I never stayed over in any of my friends’ houses. In fact, I seldom even visited them, and they almost never came over to visit me. Looking back, I feel like I didn’t have much of a childhood at all. I was such an introverted kid – my nose was forever buried in a book!

Sometime last year, my (now ex-) roommate and I were talking about our “younger days”. She has stories of sneaking off to swim in the river, playing with the neighbourhood kids, getting into scrapes… I really have no childhood stories to tell.

The next time I was home for vacation, I asked Mom and Dad whether I had ever done things like climb trees and such. Dad said, “You? Climb trees? The sky would have fallen down!” Oh dear… that bad?! LOL

It wasn’t till I left home for college that I started to learn to mix around and come out of my shell. The me now is so different from the me then. I started to explore my individuality and find out who the real Sunflower really is. At the same time, I needed to find my identity in God, because He’s the One who created me and I wanted to become the person that He meant me to be.

Of course, that particular journey is going to be a lifelong one. :)