Kayla Ng

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou Back to California. This was all I could think about as I lay awake in bed losing the precious hours of sleep before my 4 am flight. Back to the sunshine, beaches and fun times with family. Every trip to visit my cousins would always involve them whisking me away to squeeze in as much of California as possible before heading back to school - and this time did not disappoint. The drive to San Francisco was 7 hours of open road. Even with the radio station blaring in the background and the hum of the car engine, everything seemed silent as if to welcome me back to freedom from responsibilities. I walked through streets flooded with tourists from every country. My cousins took me by the hand, guiding me through the history of the buildings, stopping at popular landmarks and commenting on all the changes to the city. ...

You tell yourself to stop caring this time. You swear to yourself as you hold back your tears that you’ll never let someone in so easily ever again. You put up your walls, you play the game everyone is playing where you invest only a little bit, caring but pretending you don’t. Seeing their text message but not replying, making them wonder how you feel. Maybe this way you won’t get hurt again. But knowing yourself, you don’t seem to change. You still jump into every relationship with both feet, head first even. You choose to see the good in people who can’t see it in themselves. And you take it upon yourself to love them in their brokenness, in hopes that they’ll learn to love themselves too. You rarely give up opportunities to show the deep care and compassion you have in you, because it is in your nature to do so. Most importantly, you don’t second guess them. The thought of them potentially breaking your trust would somehow never cross your mind. But when it happ...

“It’s all part of growing up,” I thought to myself as I walked to my gate, awaiting to go back to the U.S. I had the privilege to go back home to Malaysia after my mission trip to Cambodia ended last summer. The moment I step foot on the streets of Phnom Penh – being in the hot humid air, smelling food in the atmosphere, feeling and witnessing the sense of community ingrained in Asian culture – I knew I couldn’t wait to be back in Malaysia. I was received by my dad and my sister at the KLIA airport. “Welcome home, Kayla,” my dad said as he hugged me tight. I almost forgot how gentle his voice sounded in real life. For the first time in what felt like forever, it was no longer his over-the-phone voice that I was hearing. I came home to the smell of my mom’s cooking. She hurried out the kitchen, apron still on and all, and excitingly said: “Look what I cooked for you!” She smiled gleamingly as speckles of sweat dripped down the side of her face. It felt so foreign, t...