Bridging the Distance: Navigating A Family With Lost Intimacy

Alone in Singapore, I feel forgotten most days. Distant.

To be honest, I don’t always feel welcome in my family. Perhaps it’s the fact that I live four thousand kilometers away from the rest of my family in Kunming. Or perhaps it’s because I’m different. As the years have passed, my memories of joyous moments with them have grown fainter. My existence feels like a liminal space—not Chinese enough, not American enough, and not Singaporean enough. These words should give me a sense of belonging, but instead, they only remind me of the spaces in between. The distance between us is not just measured in kilometers but in the growing number of  unspoken words and the slow, almost imperceptible fading of connection.

To feel forgotten is not merely to be physically apart. It is to sense that the essence of who I am—my struggles, joys, and aspirations—is unseen. It is the absence of questions, the unreciprocated efforts to reach out, the realization that even if I were missing, life for them would go on, untouched.

But the absence of intimacy is not loud or sudden. Instead, it seeps in quietly, in the spaces between conversations, in the silence that grows longer with each passing year. It lingers in the shorter WeChat calls, in the widening gap between what we once shared and what remains silent. One day, you wake up and realize you no longer know what your mother’s favorite song is, or that your grandma’s laugh sounds foreign, or that you no longer know how to start a conversation with the people who once knew you best.

Coping was never easy. I grew up being cared for by foreigners. My parents hired an aunty to take care of me until I was twelve. She gave me a sense of belonging and security in Singapore as a young child. She was my world, the closest thing to a mother in my day-to-day life. And then, one day, she left—went back to care for her father back home. Just like that, I was on my own. The space she left behind was one that I never quite learned to fill. 

My parents visited occasionally, but it wasn’t the same. Their presence felt unfamiliar—like guests in a life that I had learned to function without them. I had longed for their attention, but when they arrived, the distance between us felt more apparent than ever. Instead of bridging the gap, their presence only reminded me of how far apart we had grown in the years.

Then my niece was born, and I felt the distance widen even further. With school, physical separation, and a new priority in my family’s life, the gap between us only grew. For a long time, I still felt like that twelve year old girl, deserted by the one person who had cared for me daily, trying to hold onto memories that slipped through my fingers. I struggled to cope because I wasn’t sure how to fill that absence—how to redefine what family meant when it had always felt out of reach.

I have always feared change. The unfamiliar unsettled me, making me feel exposed and uncertain. I longed for stability, for the comfort of things staying the same. But life doesn’t wait for you to match its pacing. With every shift, I felt like I was losing something—an identity, a sense of belonging, a version of myself I once understood. At first, I tried to hold onto the past. I clung to memories, to the ways things used to be, to the times when I was the center of my parents’ world. However, memories alone could not satisfy me. I had to learn to move forward.

I remember the exact moment I realized I was no longer the same. It was not a grand revelation, but a quiet acceptance. One evening, I sat at the piano, playing a piece I’d wanted to learn for a long time. But this time, I was not playing for approval or validation. The music felt like an expression of my growth. I understood then that I had changed—not because I had been forced to, but because I had chosen to.

As a child, the piano was my constant companion and it was my language; my way of proving I was worth remembering. I practiced daily, not only because it was expected, but because each note felt like a call of recognition. My parents monitored my progress, setting milestones that determined their pride: ABRSM grade 8 by 5th grade, Diploma 1 by 7th grade, Diploma 2 by freshman year. To fall short of their expectations was to risk fading into the background. So I played, note after note, hoping the music would be enough to keep me connected. But in doing so, I lost something intangible—the ease of belonging, the unspoken understanding that love did not need to be earned, that I did not need to perform to be worthy of being remembered.

A few years ago, I attended a family friend gathering alone, representing my family. My mom’s close friend jokingly told me that my mom had once said, “怎么就记不起她这个人”—How is it that I just can’t seem to remember her? It was meant as a lighthearted remark, but it struck me deeply. I felt hurt, sad, and uncertain. Was I really that forgettable? Had my presence faded so much that even my own mother struggled to recall me? 

I do not regain what was forgotten because circumstances have changed. The past does not return to as it once was. But at 17, I have learned that coping is not about regaining what was lost—it is about reshaping what remains.

I still carry pieces of the past with me, but I am no longer the child waiting to be cared for. I have grown into someone who finds solace in solitude, who navigates distance with acceptance rather than reluctance. The ache of being forgotten lingers, but it no longer affects me as much. 

As a child, I mistook this silence for indifference. I hated the absence, believing that love was something that had to be spoken, affirmed, and proven, as my Western education had taught me. But in traditional Chinese families, you infer from the silence. Love is not always loud; sometimes, it is in the simple presence of those who show up in the ways they know how.

My dad reminds me of this every time he picks me up from the airport. He does not need to ask questions or force conversation. Instead, he lets the music from his QQ 音乐 playlist fill the silence in the background. It took me years to understand that love doesn’t always come in the form of words or grand gestures—sometimes, it’s simply the act of showing up. Silence does not mean forgetting. Absence does not mean a lack of love. And maybe that is enough for me. Despite the distance, the door to connection remains open. It is up to me to walk through it, to seek out the intimacy that feels lost.

Being “forgotten” is not the ending; it is an invitation to rediscover what matters.