I brought home 5 chocolate-strawberry cream puffs from beard puff’s. I knew my boy would be elated, but watching his face light up and his eyes sparkling like diamonds gave me a level of joy that I didn’t quite anticipate. He tucked into the puffs enthusiastically, decimating 3.5 of them (His mother was unlucky not to have one cream puff to herself).

It’s a quiet joy that descended upon me. This might have been what Eeyore felt when Winnie and Piglet sat beside him in companionable silence.

This joy stands in stark contrast to the exhilaration I felt last Friday during my night outing. Now, I don’t need to be intoxicated to speak my truth, but it’s such an immensely liberating feeling to ask people pointed questions that drive at the core of being human and living in Singapore’s pressure cooker environment - while I am drunk. It’s like alcohol strips away all the social pleasantries and compels me to search for and arrive at the truth. I don’t think I can ever give up this literal and metaphorical high; I’m not sure I want to, either. Childfree people have the headspace and emotional bandwidth to luxuriate themselves in alcoholic bliss. I wish I still have that luxury.

But having said all that, I quite like the quiet joy. I hope it would visit more often.