Identity crisis

Met up with Jayson in Bangsar yesterday and caught up with gossip and London news. J's contemplating coming back after 10 odd years being there. Ijun... well Ijun, I heard from the grapevine, is coming back here for good in a week's time.

Sigh, and here I am, applying for my settlement visa, going to go over there to start a new life with my fiance.

I've been avoiding thinking about the issue of settling over there with a whirlwind of activities and get-togethers with friends lately. I don't want to think about it. But I realise that eventually, I have to face up to the fact that well, I'll be taking on a whole new identity.

I'm giving up my name. Proximity to my family, my friends. I am giving up my nationality.

I can't imagine not being Malaysian.

Oh, of course I have my gripes about how the country is run, I worry about where it seems to be heading to. I hate how unscrupulous our politicians are, how everyone is so apathetic about everything. I'm saddened by our mentality. I'm appalled by our blatant flouting of human rights. I'm scared for my own safety everytime I walk back home from the cybercafe near the Kerinchi station at night (my laptop officially died). Since I've came back, I've been mugged, molested and verbally abused while going about my own business around town.

But despite all that, I still love Malaysia. It's still my 'tanah-tumpah-darahku'. It's where I'm born, the country where I grew up in. I was raised to be a Malaysian. Socialised into it, taught into being a good one by our education system. I even know the Rukunegara by heart.

What if there's a war between Malaysia and England. Whose side would I pick? On one hand I would been a citizen of the United Kingdom, on another, well, Malaysia.. well, like I said, tanah tumpah darahku. I've been raised to think of Malaysia as my country, that I'd fight for her to the death, and now, suddenly having to change loyalties... i still can't get my head around it.

But then again I am thinking too much. Touch wood, I would never be in a position where I would have to choose.

I'm changing my name from Vysia to Renee. Renee Duffield. Relatively anonymous compared to my current name. No one can ever do a google search on me now and get precisely who I am. It's as if the slate's been wiped clean and I've been given a second chance in life. Not even that. As if I've reformatted my life and there'd be no trace whatsoever of what once was. I know I only have to change my last name when I get married, but well... I don't feel like my first name anymore.

I don't tell people this, but my name is actually a coinage from the phase 'Vision for Malaysia'. My being Malaysian is central to my whole identity. My father came up with it, hoping that I would epitomise what our then young country was heading towards. 10 years later, Vision 2020 came along, clarifying it further. Great expectations? I know all about it.

And I know I've fallen short. I am painfully aware of that. That I'm not what I am supposed to be. I want to do so much, but I guess, I've forfeited that. I'll never be a trailblazer, a freedom fighter, a social activist, an advocate for causes. Do I even want to be all that? No. I'm even rethinking my wish for a life less ordinary.

Because being ordinary is good. I don't want to be a hot shot. I don't want to be a somebody. I just want to blend in the masses. Be invisible. Be normal. I really want to be normal.

But I've never been normal. Normal in the way that I'm forgettable. Almost everyone I meet remembers me. If not because of my name, its because I somehow managed to get into all sorts of trouble, even if my intentions were good. I somehow always stood out.

I guess in a way, my name has served me. Because I never found keychains with my name and characteristics, I had to find out for myself what I was really like. I was never put into a box that said, 'Mary - kind sweet pure etc'. It offered me the freedom to be less conventional and more experimental. And fitting in.. I never worried about fitting in. I was happy with myself, doing the things I wanted to do.

And now Renee... it means re-born. I had originally thought that if I had a daughter, I'd name her that. Because it's a beautiful name. Because it would mean that she'd be like a phoenix thats been resurrected from the ashes, renewed and reborn. And in a way, I do feel like I'm being reborn into something else. A new phase of my life, I guess.

This is the part where I give it all up. There's no having it all. You pick and choose, you prioritise. Don't I want to do all the things I talked about? Throw a dart on the world map and go where it lands? Join the UN Peace Corps? Take a year off just helping the childen in Peru? Learn Esperanto (look it up)? Of course I do.

But at the end of the day, all my dreams of adventure are just a symptom of the fact that I'm not grounded. I was restless because I never stayed anywhere long enough to really take root. Growing up, I was always moving from one place to another... Kelantan, KL, Melacca, Penang, Kuala Kangsar and finally, Taiping. And I've finally realised what I'm looking for is some sort of stability. Security, if you must.

Will grounds me. I'm content when I'm with him. Whatever dreams I had about discovering places thats never been discovered before and always wanting to know whats around the river bend just melts away whenever I'm in his arms and I could just happily stay there forever. I don't feel that I need to do anything, be anything. When I'm with him, I just am.

I guess thats all that matters to me. Because at the end of the day, the prospect of a house in the suburbs, living happily ever after with my husband and possibly a cat named Booty and a dog named Kooky actually does rock my boat. I look forward to it. Of course I still have dreams. But I dream different dreams now, dreams that can be shared with him. Like having a house by a lake and going camping in our own backyard. Like setting up businesses together, a little restaurant with a bakery. I really am buying into the 'American dream', aren't I?

And I guess thats where I have to shed my old name for Renee. Vysia as a name is too intriguing, too uncommon, too conspicious. It elicits too much attention, people always do a double take at it, treat it warily, not knowing what to expect. Well, Renee will never be treated like that, they'd never have to wonder how to pronouce it, and quite quickly sum you up and leave you be to go your own way. Renee is more... 'in and of the world'.

You think; what's in a name, its just a synonym for me, right? But it's not.

It influences how people see you. How they treat you. It's your calling card before you even arrive.

Anyway, why am I thinking about all this when I've been trying to avoid it?

Because after meeting with Jason, I met up with Petra for updates, girl talk and gossip at Delicious and then we adjourned to Attic where we also met up with another friend of mine. I had a cosmopolitan and a La Dolce Vita. And thanks to that, I now have horribly painful, itchy hives around my chest, neck, and shoulders. So I'm hiding out at the cybercafe hoping that no one at my hostel catches me at it. And now that it's almost 3am, I'm too afraid to walk back home on my own, so I'll wait out here till morning when the guard lets me in. Huhuhuuuu...