House of Horrors

For most people, when their childhood homes get sold off, they take time to reminisce, to walk down memory lane and revel in their years of many firsts that have taken place in there. They recount mishaps, reveal feelings and return to the times of their glory days as a child in that house. For most people, the time from which the decision to sell is made to the time the house is sold, is an emotional, life-altering period where they feel part of their history is about to be maimed as a new family begins their history there soon.

I, for one, am apparently not most people.

My mother has made the decision to sell our home. Yes, my house of many firsts. My address in Singapore for more than a decade: 1A Gillman Heights 03-04 Singapore 100001 will soon no longer be mine. The ad in the paper would read:- 1815 sq ft, four levels of space, excellent view, full condo facilities, used to fetch $1.1 million max but now going for only HALF! Yeah, thanks to a crappy property market, we're not cashing in much from the sale of the house. So, it will obviously not be sold at the premium price it once was but it will definately be sold because:-

1. the SEVEN people who used to live in this house, has dwindled down to almost THREE. I've moved out (obviously!), my brother is hardly at home due to the nature of his service to the government, my nenek is living with my uncle and aunt in Simei coz she can't stand my father and the maid has since been sent back to the agency due to some weird stuff my mom discovered she was doing. The house is WAY too big for just three people.

2. My 11-year-old sister hardly uses the pool and facilities anymore thus paying the monthly $200 condo maintenance fees is quite a waste . She's frequently with my grandmother in Simei and prefers the facilities there. I believe another reason would also be the fact that the Simei condo is RIGHT in front of Eastpoint. She's becoming quite the minah lepak. Heh.

3. My mother wants to move to the East so when I have my Singapore trips, it's easier for me to commute from the airport and back.

4. My mother believes our house is haunted.......( a purely biased opinion of hers!)

So there. Reasons as to why my childhood place will no longer be mine. And do I feel like any part of me is being prematurely ripped from my very soul? Do I feel like my history is henceforth about to be erased physically? Do I feel the need to go home when all the furniture's out, go up to the floor that has my bedroom, sit in the middle of the emptiness and let my childhood life flash before my eyes?

No. Well, okay, I WILL miss the cool postal code though. Where else in Singapore can one live to get a Singapore 100001 postal code? The Istana? Heh.

Seriously, I don't give a damn about that house anymore. It's a house of many firsts, yes. But it was a house where my father destroyed his marriage as much as my mother tried to save. It was a place where I discovered all the awful truths about my father and his second wife. It was a place where my own heart was broken and where I shed many a tear over dysfunctional men.

When I was growing up, primary school life breezed by wonderfully because I was not old enough to understand. So Gillman Heights was all about fun, then. School was easy, I wasn't stressed....and with my rose-tinted glasses, I thought I had a great family. To sweeten the deal, around the time PSLE came, I was about to get a new baby sister! My primary school friends loved to come to "Raihan's big house" so they can play catching, run up and down the stairs and laugh themselves silly.

And so I scored for PSLE. I was happy, life was easy....of course I scored. Right into Crescent Girls' School. And then life took a turn. As teenhood beckoned, so did a stronger sense of rationale, logic and understanding. I watched my father become less of a father and much less of a husband. I made lifelong friends in Crescent Girls and I watched their fathers nurture their beautiful daughters and loved their loving wives. And then I understood. And then a part of me, inside, crumbles bit by bit, day by day. The part which holds respect and love....for my own father.

With my galpals from Crescent, I found solace. They were my laughter, my fun in the sun. They were such a strong part of the best years of my teenaged life. They were there for me, they knew what went on and they always, always helped. Nazreen, SK, Mardee, Izrina, Wardah, Sadin, Nurul.....they were classic. Where other people might have looked at me and saw a girl with a big fat house with a big fat car, these galpals of mine saw me groping in the dark and they lit me up. And because of them, my life in Crescent Girls' School, which could have been sad, was very very happy.

Today, I am numb to all that is to do with my father. He is ill, many who have seen him have suspected that black magic did him into this state. I'm numb. He has hence sold his share of his company and is living off me and my mother. I'm numb. His second wife doesn't want to have anything to do with him. I'm numb. I don't want to have anything to do with him. I'm numb. And that would include Gillman Heights. I'm numb.

Everyone knows I am happy in Dubai, I am happy being away from him. It's not a pretence, a defence mechanism to default the depresssion....no. I am really truly happy now, what more with a man who is a total opposite of my father. I just wish I'm not this far away from my mother. And with that, let me let the world in on the last but the most important reason why Gillman Heights is up for sale.....

My mother is FINALLY leaving my father. My mother finally found the guts to pull the plug on him. And I hope my mother will soon find peace and so much more happiness in her heart. She is such a beautiful person, inside out. I've had her picture on my blog. She is still so gorgeous that one renegade mystery blogger wanted to hit on her! And my friends who know my mother can attest to what kind of person she is. A person who deserves more than this.

And so in the grand scheme of things, the ad in the paper would read:-

1815 sq ft, four levels of space, excellent view, full condo facilities, used to fetch $1.1 million max but now going for only HALF because its FULL of a history of bullshit.

And no, this has nothing to do with the crappy property market.