Know Your Expiration Date (and more)

Eye-Opening Moments are real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. In this episode you will hear about Know Your Expiration Date and Bathroom Horrors

Website: https://inspiremereads.com
Books: https://amazon.com/author/emily-kay-tan.2021_

Chapters

• 0:21 Introduction
• 1:02 Know Your Expiration Date
• 6:22 Bathroom Horrors
• 13:37 Key Takeaways

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode #135 of Eye-Opening Moments where you’ll hear stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. They are moments that can lift your spirits, give you some food for thought, or move you. For the introspective mind that likes to reflect, discover, and find solutions or meaning in a complex life, this is for you. I’m your host Emily Kay Tan. In this episode, you will hear about Know Your Expiration Date and Bathroom Horrors.

Know Your Expiration Date
Several fortunetellers have told me my expiration date, and I have kept it in my mind. Some may say it is morbid, but there is something good about knowing. We will all die sooner or later; knowing when I can prepare for it so I can plan to get what I want done before I go. It creates more urgency to live fully; it motivates me to do what I want sooner rather than later. It forces me to live like there may be no tomorrow. If you know your expiration date, would you do more things on your bucket list? Would you find the time to do what you always dreamt of doing? Wouldn’t you want to say on your deathbed that you lived a full life with few regrets? Wouldn’t you want to say, “I am satisfied; I am at peace and am ready to go?”

Fourteen years ago, my last boyfriend broke up with me, and I was devastated. I walked around like a zombie, as if I died. I was like the tin man in The Wizard of Oz for several months. I was breathing but lost my heart because I was numb and could not feel or taste anything. After flying to a foreign country and hearing about a stranger’s miserable life, I snapped out of my robotic state. I wanted to live. I realized the fragility of life and began “living” like never before.

I never considered living abroad, but I moved abroad because I had a great passion for learning a foreign language. It was a significant risk, but I had nothing to lose because I had hit rock bottom by losing my home, money, business, and boyfriend. 

I never dreamt of living in a paradise where I could be carefree and worry-free. But it did happen when I took that risk to move abroad. I had a job I loved. I had social meet-ups every weekend. I didn’t need to worry about money. I enjoyed my freedom like never before.

I never thought I could have the money to travel up to six times a year, but I did. The more I traveled, the more I wanted the travel education that broadened my perspectives. Co-workers asked why I traveled so much and why I didn’t wait until retirement to start traveling so much. My response made good sense to me. By the time I retire, I may not have the energy or health to travel as much as I would like. Furthermore, who knows how long I will live (even though fortunetellers told me I would die later)? I need to enjoy life now and do it while I have the income to afford all my adventures.

After some years, when I no longer loved my job, I searched for a new passion that would be meaningful and satisfying. Life is meaningless if you don’t love what you do for work. Since so much time is spent there, it needs to be enjoyable. That was my rationale, and I was fortunate to have had a long career I loved. After over twenty years, it lost its appeal, and I got to experience what it is like to work only to pay the rent. 

Luckily, I discovered a passion that laid dormant for many years. I always wanted to write a book and become a public speaker. I researched but never picked up the pen to start writing or the microphone to speak. After ten-plus years, I finally started. It began with me reminding myself that I had an expiration date and shouldn’t wait until retirement to start. After all, I could lose the memory of more things by that time.

I began to bring the plan into the present. I started writing, and within two and a half years, I wrote six books. In another month, it will be eight books! The result has taught me that you can get things done fast when you think you are running out of time. In my case, I fear getting older and losing my memory, so I hurry to write. Knowing that our time is limited, I rush to write to put my printed words on paper and to speak my voice on a podcast because I am making my dreams come true, one at a time.

Dreams need not be only dreams; you can make them come true now. If it registers in you that your life could expire sooner than you think, you will hurry and get a move on realizing your dreams. At this writing, mine is twenty years from now, and I started running fourteen years ago. The sooner you start, the more you can achieve. Remember, what will you be able to say on your deathbed? Will you smile or frown? You get to decide now.

Bathroom Horrors
The bathroom, a place you visit every day at least several times a day, may be a place of cleansing, but it could also be a place of horror. It was for me.

Imagine living in an apartment with eight members and only one bathroom. I didn't need to imagine it; I lived it. With three uncles, two aunties, grandparents, and me divided up between three bedrooms, it was warm and cozy. But many nights, when I needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, somebody occupied it. Waiting to go was hard, and my bladder did its job well to hold it in for me before I could go. 

Sometimes, the towel on the floor before the toilet would be wet with urine. "I didn't do it; I didn't do it!" I repeated over and over to Grandma, who accused me of it. No matter how many times I told her I did not do it, she insisted that I did it, and then one day, she grabbed and dragged me by my arm to the bathroom. She picked up the towel before the toilet and told me to suck the urine out. She pressed it onto my mouth. I was horrified. Someone else's urine on my mouth and nose was vile. The memory of the scene still disgusts me.

Worse than the actual incident, I was accused of something I did not do. As I got older and learned about human body parts in a health education class in junior high school, I wondered if it ever occurred to Grandma the absurdity of me urinating on the towel in front of the toilet. Maybe I was accused because I was the youngest in the house, but just because I was young didn't mean it had to be me! 

Sitting on the toilet, I pondered how I could possibly do it. I began to doubt myself, but when I learned about a male body part, I clearly couldn't have done it. It had to be one of my uncles who did it and didn't aim right. It happened many times, and I was blamed for all of them. That hurt the most. I had no say about it. I was deemed guilty and could not prove my innocence unless I could witness one of my uncles urinating.

One time, Grandma was in the bathroom, and I could barely wait to get to the toilet. I asked her to hurry because I needed to go. She didn't come out. I pleaded for her to hurry and come out. Still, she didn't. Holding it, holding it, in pain, I said, "F*** you; I need to go!" Suddenly, Grandma stormed out of the bathroom and said in her native language, "You want to f*** me? You tell your Grandpa you want to f*** me." That was the day I learned Grandma knew the English slang word. And I was disgusted that she would think I would want to f*** her (in the meaning she gave the word). Gross, it sent nauseating chills up my spine while I splattered in the toilet. That was a disgusting bathroom memory.

All grown up and no longer living in a house of eight with one bathroom, I thought the bathroom horrors were over. I was wrong. I married a monster, and he gave me more bathroom horrors. My husband had a horrible temper. When he got angry at me, he'd scream for two hours until he had his fill. Nothing could stop him. If I responded, he kept on going. If I said nothing, he kept on going. I couldn't stop him until he felt he had yelled enough. It was usually two hours long.

One time, I ventured to go to the bathroom to escape his rants. I thought I had come up with a good idea to stop hearing his screams. He would call me all kinds of names and put me down in all the ways he could think of. If I hadn't strengthened myself before meeting him, I could have been a broken person after enduring his raging temper many times. When I escaped to the bathroom, he followed me and continued to yell at me through the door. He demanded that I hurry up. He wanted me to finish sitting on the toilet so that he could yell at me some more. I insisted that I had not finished. 

The next thing my monster of a husband did was take the hinges off the door. That was how he opened my locked door. Now he was happy to see my face so he could finish yelling in my face. The lengths he went to ensure I could see his face yelling at me were incredible. His desire to show how right he was about everything under the sun was too important. He had to make sure I heard his stance. 

His screams became deafening noise to me. My head was spinning with dizziness. It was nauseating. I wish I threw up so he'd leave me alone. Maybe he wouldn't. The bathroom was one place I could be alone, but my monster husband wouldn't allow me that space. It is a horrifying memory I don't wish to remember.

Since I need to go to the bathroom daily, I don't want to recall those horrors. How can I disappear the nightmares? Replace them with pleasant memories or create new ones.

When I moved into another house, I had the largest bathroom. On the left was my walk-in closet that housed all my clothes, including coats. You could fit a twin or full-size bed in it. On the right side were a bathtub and a separate shower. They were the length of my closet. In the middle, separating the two sides, was a long counter with a sink on each side. At the center of the counter was space to do make-up. I put my old boombox and CD player there. I had the bathroom all to myself; I didn't need to share it. 

What did I do? Sometimes, I would turn on music and dance; I had so much space at the bathroom's center to dance and prance. I once filled the bathtub and spread rose petals in the tub. I soaked in bubbles and enjoyed some relaxing time alone. I even sipped tea while in the tub. After all the cleansing, I stopped by the toilet, which was in a room by itself beside the shower. The pleasant memories in the bathroom help me forget the bathroom horrors.

Whenever you have a terrible thought or memory, it could be hard to forget. However, replacing it with something else, especially something nice, makes forgetting much easier. Try it!

Key Takeaways: Though it may sound morbid to know your expiration date, I find it thrilling to help you do what you want to do NOW and live life more fully. 
Though I experienced bathroom horrors, I also had relaxing and fun times there. 

Next week, you will hear about two real-life stories called Disrespected and How to Overcome Adversity. If you enjoyed this episode of Eye-Opening Moments, please feel free to share it with others, support the show by clicking on the link in the description, or go to www.inspiremereads.com and leave a message. Thank you for listening!