aug 12 2019

i went through a month of up & non-stop blurry of action (...visiting auntie, phuket with colleagues, diving at tioman, kayaking, picnics, friends...) & here i am back in this well again. i have no more energy left in me. alas, i should will myself into excitement for i am going to jogja & travelling with my best friends in a few days time. yet, somewhere deep inside, i feel sapped, drained as if this life i am living is one of somnolence and someone’s else. i am a third person, peering through grey tinted glasses, looking at this girl’s life: who is she? it seems surreal. she turned 26 in july, she felt excitement, exuberance, calm, rigour and now i am back again - this blanketed inadequacy, this sense of self hate and this overwhelming feeling of wanting to fall back into eternal sleep. hush, the demons are back here again. they roar inside of my mind and its 3am, she is trapped in this toilet and wishing for a escape out. there’s no escape. this cyclical swing of moods - it comes and goes and she just have to will herself again & again.

“i will be happy. i will be happy. i will be happy. i will be the gayest lark in the sky, singing the canary’s songs of love.” 

for the mind is one of plasticity, capable to the master’s bending and willing

for...

this too shall pass. this too shall pass. this too shall pass. this too shall pass.

sunday june 9 2019

Lately, I have limited impetus to write because the impetus to live life as it is – day by day and moment by moment compels me more so. It’s strange though because I feel much more sociable, though socializing still exhausts me. But lately, I haven’t felt as drained and every conversation with stranger & friend brings gems of insight. Now and then, I still anxiously or flittingly drift into my own world but there is a stronger intent to be present and involved in others’ life. I feel like I can be more myself around people. I suppose, then in the name of growing up and becoming a full-fledged adult, I had slowly inchingly hid parts of myself away. Piece by piece, inch by inch. Be it to protect the child within, or to harden the soft edges… but bit by bit, the motivations meld into a blur and into days and months, and slowly my self-hood and identity disappear into the faint cracks of lost time.

In a way, I was fervently rushing the process of forgiveness because I suppose the road to forgiveness is a long, arduous and a crooked path. Some days, it spirals and turns into a dead end. Other days, you face a detour and you muster all the strength you can to keep walking through this endless journey. The voice inside of you says, “There will be a light out of the tunnel”. I remember the city of Mostar – a picture perfect scene, devastated by war and destruction. The iconic Stari Moist: five centuries and still standing in its reconstructed glory - no longer the same as it was 500 years back. The remnants of gun shots carved into the torn wall; a legacy of the 1992-1995 religious war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two old men sitting by the winding steps, chitchatting as if it was the good old days in a ghost town filled with nothing but tourists. It was 2013 – nineteen years later and the evening dulls into a still thick whisper and how would a nineteen-year-old girl, born in a faraway continent would have known of the trauma from decades ago. Funny, how she would naively and unassumingly stumble into a Sufi mosque during prayer time to be wrapped in a makeshift hijab. She recalls their eyes and then, she couldn’t make out why their eyes cowered unflinchingly when she casually mentioned she was a Christian. But now she knew – the war that had devastated and torn the city was a war of religious differences. But even so, the girls had led her to the back of the mosque where the women sat and prayed. And amid guided hand gestures, a thick language barrier, she had learnt how to pray to God in their way. In a way, it was a step to forgiveness; a small step to move away from the past and to reconcile the differences because how saddened would God had been if He knew we prayed to the same God in our way but bore so much anger and violence at the other?

I am no longer angered at M. Then, I had coped with the anger by finding outlets to exorcise it. I busied myself with sports, friends and work, but the anger remained because in a way, I was trying to escape it and to rush the forgiveness process. As the anger and pain chewed at me, I kept praying for the moment of forgiveness and yet it felt like it was bouncing off the walls. Why couldn’t He take the anger and terrible pain away? Why? Why?

I realized it was because I wanted to rid the anger and pain through forced forgiveness and it doesn’t work that way, does it? Stuck in a traffic jam, the months of evaded pain took its toil and I broke down in the Bluebird ride from Seminyak to Canggu. What Yan and QS had told me then profoundly and providentially transformed my interlaced web of hurt, pain, anger and longing. There are moments in life where you would remember impression-ably, and to me that was one of those moments. I remember how incredibly cathartic and relieving that sob was. “It’s okay to not have to forgive him now or even in the future. It’s ok to not have to forgive at all.” And it dawned on me that it was ok to not forgive because how could I forgive him if he doesn’t even believe what he did was wrong. I didn’t have to forgive to let go of the anger.

Bali was luscious & healing. The first few days I was in pain because the places we went reminded me so much of the past but the sea, the experience and my fondest friends took the pain and transformed them. It was divine providence that impelled us to book a spontaneous trip to Bali and it was divine providence that made me grieved, but it was also divine providence that showed me that the past and the space didn’t define the new experience and could refashion it in better ways. While clumsily chasing the waves on a surfboard, I had slowly felt the anger and hurt gradually dissipate into the waters. The waves carrying it away and crashing the pain into the shores. And I had never felt so healed and rejuvenated and so joyous to be with the company of my friends and in the sea.

I had felt that we bonded terribly, and we had learnt how much the other had grown and matured and I am so confounded and elated? What is this word to describe this emotion? I think I am slowly learning how to be myself again and how much I took all my friends and loved ones for granted. Maybe the impel to socialize and to keep trying comes from this impel to prioritize people in my life because they were and still am my God’s angels and I want to be a bearer of light to their darkness and pain as much as they were to mine. 

april 05 2019

Dear God,

How best would I explain my joys, my sorrows, my insurmountable pains and my days - through the noise of all my memories, whirlwind of emotions and outbursts? I am a horrible child when it comes to spoken prayers for my thoughts fumble and flicker and I get distracted so easily. I don’t know how to sit still and verbalize the varying shades of my emotions, thoughts and of myself. They come out horribly wrong or disjointed and all I desire is to talk to you in dueness and in heavy contemplation, in a quiet place where I feel safe. My heart and mind races like rapid fire; pounding furiously when I am alone and overwhelmed with thoughts. I know, I know you are near and I want to surrender my anxieties, my worries and all of my clumsy unadulterated thoughts to you but my heart is a monster that can’t stop beating and even as I fervently prays to you, it smashes and pounds as furiously like deep dark storm-brewed seawater.

unless I am here -

here in this page and in this quiet place, trying to meet you. writing to you soothes and calms me down. I feel small, vulnerable but protected by You. I want to meet you slowly and achingly through my words.

I still ache when I remember the movie’s rendition of Amadeus - Mozart’s endearing, childlike purity and passion to praise You through his musical gift; to create a musical cacophony of life to best represent and praise Your creation. And then I remember, Salieri’s green eyedness and how his envy and jealously slowly and insidiously transformed into anger and hatred for You.

SALIERI: What was God up to? …All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing—and then made me mute! Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?

The past few days I endured a series of heartaches - fleeting, much more minuscule but nonetheless still painful. I thought I was growing cold again but then again, You know my character best for I am that stubborn greedy child who clings on to things and people. The past few days I had felt the flickering pain of grief, loss and uncertainty again & again, as if it was on Spotify repeat. Having to come to realisation that my touch league is ending, our coach is returning back to Australia and that Ras is finally fulfilling your calling. I am very proud and excited for her new journey that You are embarking her on but its double edged eh? For she will be gone ‘forever’ without a deadline and it terribly saddens me - why do You take the things and people I love and connect with (prematurely) away from me before our time ripens? I know, I know, Your timing is perfect but please can’t You give me more time?

It’s the same with touch rugby and with people I connect with, I am anguished with uncertainty. People come and go. I recall the dream I had in Japan on the last day of the trip. It was a dream of loss and it weighed heavily in my mind & heart. In a way, it was a foreshadowing and omen for loss. In the hazy clouds of the dream, Melissa was baked with an earthy tanned glow and her nose was reddened and sun-kissed. She wore a tight beautiful dress that wrapped around her body and in the fragmented dream, I remember waving and saying goodbye for she was on an en route to Japan; migrating from Singapore to Japan. In the dream, I felt a sinking and heavy anchor in my heart - her migration would signal that she would no longer be physically near. I woke up from the dream to that dread and weight. But funny, because why was I so saddened in the dream as Melissa & I have never lived in the same place & country. She had always stayed in Perth or Jakarta and our paths merely crossed because of circumstances. And it made me so wretched because God, why do You have to bless me with souls and connection as if it was a tantalizing trailer or a prequel to something deeper and more, only to shut it off again & again. My heart is too small to stand that kind of pain and potential loss. Moving from FPR to AXA office made me increasingly anxious because it signaled another potential for loss. I don’t think I can handle any more loss anymore. Please.

I know, I know, I know. I am greedy and I don’t want to trek down the paths of Salieri to become furious and hardened at You because of my narrow and selfish conception of what You can do (for me). and there I said it, for me to feel loss and to grieve so deeply was because You have once gifted these moments of joy and exuberance and deep connection. To be able to feel this resonant sadness was because You have given me much joy. I don’t know what is Your plan but please pry open my heart again. you see, I had wanted some form of closure from M because of how brutal and how painful the breakup was; of how much he had disregarded my feelings and our five plus years of relationship. I was so pained, angered and saddened but You came to me through Your angels and lightened the weight of the loss that I had felt and yet, the obstinate human that I am still desired for some form of closure and answer from M. the thing is, I will never get the closure I desired, right?

It’s like Jobs - having everything taken from him was Your doing and yet he found the closure he needed within himself and hoped and waited for You, knowing that You have the best for him. I need to find the closure on my own accords. Please let me hope and wait like how Jobs had waited with patience, with stride & with dutiful hope.

“Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24–25).

growing a heart like You

in this season of trying to get better and to heal, i had vowed to journal and reflect more; to concrete the (im)temporality of the season and its little moments. i busied myself endlessly to evacuate the pain, fury & the inconsolable sadness and/or betrayal I had felt deeply in the first week of 2019. the end of 2018 and start of new year melded into a blur. i had let the days and immeasurable anxiety and pain gradually slip through my hands like coarse sand. some days, it comes back and in passé – like torrential waves that comes and goes – it feels as if it unbinds and washes all the emotional healing and journey that was done.  baby steps under my guidance, He says. 1 step backward but 5 steps forward, it’s still an improvement. I tell myself that every step forward brings me further & every day, I am learning to love Him and the person I am supposed to become through His strength.

my thoughts are a mess – it comes in spurts and dissolves fast, it leaps & sputters into a heave; a punctuated exclamation and then a full stop.  they manifest as a mess and they don’t make sense but I find that having this moment of contemplation, and this act of writing (typing?) forces me into a conversation with my mind. slow down, make sense of them and let it unravel meaningfully. conversations with close friends illuminate aspects of me that I never knew & makes me feel present and bonded in those moments.

moments I would like to note down:
(in case I ever forgot the sacredness or special-ness of those moments):

•  sitting on the grass next to west coast pier beside YY, watching and listening to the rocking of boats & waters in quiet, tranquil companionship – our hearts and minds unraveling. before we knew it, the dark of the night crept in and 3 hours flew by. it was special because I don’t have many friends who would sit back next to water bodies and be soothed and calmed by it. we used to creep into the corner of siloso beach to sit by the sands. to be caressed by the sea breeze and to feel the weight of the world dissolves into sands and its passing waves – I would never trade it for anything. even the rare few moments of sitting by the beach with M felt ultra-sacred even if having to think about him still slightly affects me now & then.
• having hurried but meaningful conversations about faith with Worm over a sickeningly sweet salted popcorn ice cream in Lavender’s Macdonald. on hindsight, the sweetness of the ice cream would continue to linger in my mind as an aftertaste.
• JK’s soft, empathetic eyes & the like-minded pain that he conveys while I walk him to Clementi MRT. and when JK writes, “it’s important tat the worlds overlap. yours overlap only in as much as your affections for each other.” it saddens me that our inner and external worlds rarely overlaps as much as i wanted to believe that it did. perhaps, that is why i felt like i grew the most when we are separated, during 1 year LDR and now.
• chatting with HN & realizing that our worlds had always overlapped - maybe its the hunger to experience the vagaries and shades of life.
• the softness & vulnerability in (people)’s eyes
• rediscovering my love for painting? the smell of turpentine, the greasy smudge of oil and its gentle swish and malleable blending of pigments quietens my racing thoughts.

its nearing April. last year, i had felt increasingly restless and listless such that i had tried out classpass and various exercise classes in hopes of finding something I could work towards. but the pursuit was in vain and i had thought my need to escape was one of whims. so grateful and thankful to Him for leading me and for resolving the restlessness within, partially. i know i am a stubborn and obstinate child, greedy to experience all shades and tones of life for vincent van gogh once said, “I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.” and in many ways, that still holds true for me but in this season of my life, i vow to be contented with whatever happiness and grace i am given - to not take these bearings lightly and to hold them dearly. for in this season, i found a sports i could love again - touch rugby. i fervently missed the feeling of playing competitive soccer, of having the glory of growing & winning together as a team. the end of the touch league is nearing. i feel a twinge of sadness but then again, this isn’t a closed chapter but a work in progress.

i am incredibly thankful to You for leading me through the storms, for sending angels and for breathing back life & faith into my heart. last year, I had felt so numb and so cold, so distant from You and from everything else. life felt like monotony, clockwork. but thank You for not forsaking me; for bringing me back into Your embrace. this season is a a season of preparation and growth & i am sorry for being such a strong-willed & reckless child, for believing that my life is solely up to my control. i promise and commit to surrender my will to You, to keep pursuing and knowing You in all varying facets. i resolve and commit to be supple, accepting and tender hearted to Your grace, to be shaped by You & to extend this light and growth i feel within outwards. ❤️