First Loves.
I said it once on my Facebook status, I'll say it again:

Lee Kong Chian, I ♥ you.

Sometimes I think coming back to Singapore has been a nightmare of sorts.  Not that I dislike the place--God no, a thousand times no.  I love my country deeply for all it has given me--like my wonderful family, my faithful friends, crazy hawker food (lau nuah man!!) and a great, timeless education.

In fact, sometimes when I think about the obscene amount I have been given, I am both embarrassed and humbled in lieu of the little I've returned.  In moments like these, I'm lead to believe that Singapore loves me really, much more than I do her.

Still, the return home has been a bitter sweet one to say the least.  I was supposed to have stayed just for a month before flying back to Spain to continue training.  As Christmas break came, my coaches were well pleased with my progress and had lined up a list of tournaments for me to play in for the coming year.  My body had tuned itself into a hardwired, lean mean fighting machine, and I was starting to fall in love with Barcelona.  Quiet streets, Spanish quirks, paella and all.  According to the grand plan, by now, I was supposed to have just cracked my first WTA challenger tournaments.  Stand aside, skeptics, I'm gunning for my rankings.  Guts, gore and glory to boot!

Instead, Capi's (prophetic?!) line has recapitulated itself back into this quiet space.  "Capi, can you tell me how long you think I'll take before I'll be fit enough to start competing?"  What's going to happen six months down the road?  Can you predict what will be? 

I think of Capi's furrowed brow and that quick, decisive shake of his head. 
"We don't know.  We really don't know."

And true enough, his words struck gold.  "We can try, but we really don't know."  These six months have--instead of intensive training--been plump with trying trials of patience of another kind, stretched taut across an island I know I love, but whose presence serves as a constant reminder that I'm not where I'm really meant to be.  Think backfired sponsorship plans, upturned planning, a litany of international calls, slow reverts, no reverts!  It has been a bed of frustration, of waking up every morning not to the sound of tennis balls, but grating traffic outside my window. 

"Bonkkk bonkkk bonkkkk!!" go the cars.  It's hard not to feel like they're screaming at you to get off your butt.  Get off your butt, Sarah.  Go do what you're supposed to do while you literally feel your heart plummet to the ground.  That's right.  Down, down, down.

Go look for sponsors.  Go talk to people.  Go put your neck out.  Be honest.  Again.  Make those calls, send out those emails.  Again and again.  Do it vainly, stubbornly, in spite of the sad wistful gazes your acquaintances give you, pregnant with their slient "Oh,-you're-still-in-Singapore" stares. 

"I told xxx that you are very foolish for choosing this path." 
"If I had to, I would say I have very little hope in you making it."

 Keep believing in yourself.  Again and again and again.

And so I did.  I continued talking, writing, speaking even when it felt like no one would read or care responding.  Many times, I was simply fighting against depression and a deep sense of loneliness.  Fighting against staying in bed curled up--shutting daylight out of my lids, and squeezing it out of my mind.  Fighting that damn feeling of being a bum while everyone else goes to work.  Fighting the overwhelming fear of running out of savings, or going back to Spain with only EUR650 to boot.  The best part is that I didn't even feel like training.

So this is what unemployment feels like.  I thought.  And this is what being empty does to you.  It fucks your brain big time.

My pastor shared once about how too many people let their occupations define them, and in the process, precariously tie their self-worth there.  Once that occupation stops, they lose their sense of self.  "God," I thought to myself.  "That's exactly what's happening to me."

DAMN IT.  I am not Sarah Pang the tennis player.  I am Sarah, beloved of the Lord.

Come on, Sarah, you can tide through this.

To fill the empty hours between practice, I started going to the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library.  To start that whole process of finding myself, talking to people, outside my sport, outside places that I had grown to tie my identity so close too.

Afterall, it's in the best books that great men talk to us.  They give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.  I needed to find someone to speak to me outside tennis--to move beyond the paralysis of fear, self doubt and anxiety.  I needed to read, to free my mind again

And what freedom found!  Stepping into Lee Kong Chian on a hot sunny day is like stepping into a different world.  Away from the sweltering heat and the inane traffic, travel up by glass and be transported into something almost equivalent to Willy Wonka's world.

Stroll down the aisles, pick up The New Yorker, and just about any other title that piques your interests.  Look for a couch, curl up, and read for the next two hours.  Maybe three.  I was genuinely surprised that the books actually talked back.  Whatever bugged me, spoke back in the form of another voice, through prose.  Even if it was just short fiction or a Pablo Neruda poem, the words themselves had a strange, calming effect.

Needless to say, Lee Kong Chian has been an immeasurable help in helping me find myself, and my mind again.  It's not to say the battle's over, but I definitely feel firmer, stronger, surer now.

Lee Kong Chian, I lub you lots lots xoxxoxxxox