AGoodBirth

What does it mean to be a good person? Clementine lay face up and pondered this conundrum. Is your goodness something that you yourself measure and decide? Or is it up to the judgements of other people? The questions only increased in breadth, branching out wildly in Clementine’s mind like an isolatedraintree,atreethatkeptgrowing far too much for its own good. Like how unanswered questions drove Clementine insane, the tree’s unruly branches curved back toward its trunk, as if about to strangleordecapitatetheirsourceoflife.

It was the night of her sixteenth birthday

All the birthdays in Clementine’s memory had been accompanied by the sombre melancholy of leaving the day behind. Especially since she was born in December, it was a day she would subconsciously (and sometimes consciously but secretly) look forward to all year. Like every birthday, Clementine had begun the day feeling like she had absolutely succumbed to the magical golden sunny bliss that only her special day could bring on, a feeling that persisted from her childhood days. Why wouldn’t she feel gloomy to watch it come to an end? Today especially, the weightiness of each tick of the clock reverberated in her core as her party was packed up. She couldn’t help but feel that turning sixteen marked the end of an era for her, and the start of a new one. She wanted to be a good person, or rather, thoughtthatsheneededtobecomeone.

Through e had been told tha ionable. She had bee y y as the angry child, always quick to throw a tantrum when things didn’t go her way. She recalled vividly the time when her aunt had babbled on about her friend’s daughter, whom she had praised with the accolade of being a “good girl”. Five-year-old Clementine had wondered what virtues her peer had possessed that she lacked. She had felt an ugly jealousy towards this girl whom she had never met. Her tot brain had even convinced her that her aunt was telling her that she was a bad child. Maybe that had been the first instance which sparked Clementine’s lifelong quest to be a good person

Clementine had long struggled with the inferiority complex of thinking she was a bad student. She wasn’t book-smart and lacked the ability to score in tests Furthermore, she could only be rowdy and inattentive during lessons, unintentionally giving her teachers the impression that she did not respect them. Yet, each time she had been told she was at the bottom of the class haunted her deeply. She hated that no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t be a good student, one that her teachers would praise in front of everyone. However, there had been one teacher who had recognised her hard work Mr Sun once told her that her positive attitude towards bettering herself was something he admired. It had meant a lot to her then and still did four years later, but how could her attitude alone allow her to be a good student?

Teenagehood complicated Clementine’s relationship with her mother As she began to form her own thoughts and opinions of the world, Clementine found her mother gradually more unbearable and suppressive. In their arguments, both would throw heartwrenching words at each other She’d wish she wasn’t her mother's daughter, to which her mother would reply with, “You’re a bad daughter anyway.” She never meant what she said in those catfights and knew that her mother didn’t either But hearing it from her mother’s mouth that she was a bad daughter cut so much deeper than telling herself she was a bad daughter, which she assumed she was.

Now that she was sweet sixteen, Clementine thought she could no longer be this bad daughter and bad student. She had to start being good. She and her five-year-old self shared the same yearning for the approval of those whom she respected and cared about. Beyond her fundamental desire to be virtuous, she simply felt a human thirst to excel. Clementine needed to be a good person

Then it hit her, the true meaning of a birthday: the celebration of growth. She need not still look through the lens of her inner child; there was no absolute good or bad. She had been a difficult child, but not a bad child. A student is made up of more than just grades, and goodness is similarly multifaceted. There was not even a need to be so fixated on goodness as it is just a word after all. Clementine could take pride in the values she nurtured in herself: her patience, her craving for self-improvement, her love for her mother and others. But if it really mattered, she could say that she was good enough. Clementine lay underneath her rain tree, taking shelter from the tempestuous rain, feeling the warmth of her inner peace and knowing that all was right in her world.