It's weird how I finally have a name to my successor and I still can't put a finger on what it means to handover. Still feels like a surreal yet imminent occurrence, almost as surreal as when the news first hit me that I was going to the chairperson of Raffles Players.

It's easy to be condescending and criticize how clingy leaders can get towards the end of the farewell and for those who like to push boundaries, perhaps even going to the extent of accusing CCALs of having a feeling of unaccomplished dreams and thus the propensity to drag out their time and remedy their mistakes. Derogatory feelings aside, I think what fuels my unwillingness to leave is the emotional attachment that has been rooted (knowingly and unknowingly) whilst serving my obligation (and now my dream) here as chairperson.

Granted there are regrets and there are unfulfilled purposes (some of which I cannot entirely take the blame for) but above that, there are memories and experiences, friendships and bonds forged, and the things that I've done right that continues to fill me with passion and desire to remain serving. It's never easy to just turn away and let go. There are insecurities that come with handing over to the next generation of leaders. There is a sense of lost and misdirection when a significant part of your life goes missing. There is a string of attachment you cannot just snap when you want it to. Handing over is but a ceremonial process but the emotional roots are always ingrained within you. As time goes by, the distance between this generation and the next will widen and that is simply a reflection of how much more thinly and perhaps tightly your string is being stretched. Some strings will snap and leave hurtful ramifications but others will simply even out the tension, unifying a generation of leaders and sealing that kinship between family.

If there's one thing I learned being a leader of Players is that it is oft far more important to be a friend than a ruler. Nobody likes being told what to do but people would be more receptive to being advised on what everyone could do as a group; as a family.

And indeed, Players is very much a functional unit of blood relations--my family. And you don't simply walk out on your family one day without a rhyme or reason.

But still the currents move us along and our determination to hold on can never best the natural flux of things.

So perhaps it's not about not letting go. It's about discovering what else you can hold on to and what you should continue to hold on to. No one can ever let go of everything but neither should you grab on to everything. Some things do matter and I've decided what to hold on to: The experiences that we have weathered and consequently the unbreakable relationships that make them, that make us

my family.