Endings and Beginnings

If I had to sum up all the life lessons the past year has taught me, boil it down and condense it to one sentence, it would be this: "Life is unpredictable." Three words, but its meaning runs deep. 

"I love you."

"I hate you." 

"This is goodbye. "

Three simple words can have so much power. Words can damage things the very second they are uttered. 

This year, I have had all my assumptions, predictions and beliefs challenged like never before. I have learnt that three hundred and sixty five days is more than enough time for your hopes to be shattered and your life to be turned upside down. In just a year, I have had my aspirations for myself trampled on in front of my very eyes and I've lost my faith in humans. 

I have learnt that the only way to avoid disappointment is to keep your guard up and lower your hopes. That people, including myself, will inevitably disappoint me. But each person to a different extent, when I least expect it.

I had entered 2017 with high hopes, expecting life to treat me as well as it had in 2016. But life, being as it always is, decided to play cruel jokes on me. 2017 was a reminder that 2009 was not a one off. That I may very well have 2009 repeat itself over and over again, at times when I least expect it, when I'm in my bubble of joy. That one day, when I'm unaware, the bubble will break. And then I will crash and fall and maybe burn.

"Everyone joins a band in this life. One way or another, the band breaks up."

- Mitch Albom

Bands were broken up. So many that I lost count. New bands were formed, but things have never been the same since. I'm not saying these new bands are bad. But like all new bands, starting out is always difficult because everyone has a different rhythm, different style. And it takes time to learn how to work together. They say time heals all wounds. And I dare say, that saying has truth in it. But patience was never my strong suit.

It was a very, very trying year. But like all years, there is always something to be thankful for. In this year, I am grateful for the new friendships forged. For the people who stuck by me after hearing my story. For the person who was there to listen to me when I told her how hard it was for me to take each waking breath and helped me through that extremely difficult period. For the people whom I have still yet to share my story with, but bring a smile to my face every time we meet, every time we text or snap.

I am grateful that the year started and ended on a good note. I entered the year going on my first ever solo trip to Japan that I thoroughly enjoyed and will serve as a reminder that I don't need to depend on anyone to have an amazing trip. I exited the year with a road trip in NZ with an old friend and a stranger-turned-new friend. I was reminded that it is possible to go on a trip with people without ruining friendships. That strangers can become friends and travelling does not necessarily break friendships. I was reminded at the end of the year that I am not as stupid as I thought I once was. That I can do well academically. That I accomplished my goals. 
I am grateful that despite all the obstacles I faced this year, there were still many moments of joy, laughter and love. That all these obstacles have served to help me better see who is truly there for me. I am not sure what to expect for the year ahead, but I hope to make it through stronger than ever.

Midway point

And just like that, I'm halfway through my journey in achieving my degree.

This year has probably been one of the hardest years I've ever had. Not only did I have the regular academic load of a typical student, I also had to juggle my clinical placement responsibilities and work with real people, who have real problems. The gravity of those responsibilities made me tremble with nervousness every Sunday night. I was so scared that I would ruin real lives if I wasn't able to do my job adequately.

The results I got at the end of the first semester had me really shaken with fear, filled with disappointment and left me questioning my worth. What am I, if I'm not smart? All my life, if I could bank my hopes on one thing, it would be my academic success. It is the very thing that has even brought me to Australia to study. To be honest, I want to believe that my results in the first semester was a one-off incident. But as the second semester began to flood my timetable and impose a heavy load on my back, I can now say I am truly questioning that "intelligence" that I once thought I had. I am pretty sure I won't do as well as I had hoped to for this semester. What scares me more is whether I can do well in the next half of this programme. If I can't even do well in second year, what makes me think I can do better in 3rd and 4th year, when the topics will be even more complex? So many questions that I ask myself, but I don't even know if I want to hear the answers. Do I want to continue believing a lie I've told myself since I was 7, or accept the ugly truth and concede defeat?

My problems in the areas of academia were just the tip of the iceberg. Then I had problems in the social and emotional realms of my life. There was a lot of change happening and I couldn't handle it well. I couldn't regulate my emotions as well as I used to. I let my ugly side show and I felt a major throwback to 2009. It was as if life was saying to me, "You're forgetting the lessons you learnt in 2009. Here's a not so gentle reminder."

I was reminded that people can change overnight. That relationships can change in a moment. That trust can take mere seconds to break. That if I don't keep my guard up and trust people easily, the consequences can be excruciatingly painful. I was reminded that the world can be an ugly, cruel place. That the only way to stop feeling disappointment is to keep your expectations so low that it will definitely be met. I was reminded that I can't trust anyone. Because people are human and humans will fail you, in some way or another, just like how you can fail them, or fail yourself.

But in the midst of that mess, I have also learnt that the world can be a bad place, but it still has good. That just as how best friends can become strangers, strangers can become best friends. That every person is different, therefore, so is every friendship, so I can never recreate a friendship I once had with person A with person B.  It has been a very long and arduous journey and I'm glad I'm here, out of the pit. At this point of time, I will admit that I do have regrets. I regret the mistakes I made, for those have changed the course of not just my life, but the lives of others. Who knows, maybe 5 years down the road, I will look back and think to myself that it was worth it. But I will never know for sure right now. I have come out of this year more guarded, more sad than happy and less hopeful.

Strangers, yet again.

Today, I scrolled through my instagram feed. I scrolled it till 2 years back, about the time I started documenting my life before I would leave home to study overseas. I chanced upon old pictures of us. Back when we were happier together. I was reminded of the time we went for self defence classes, shopping for clothes and took the train to the other side of the world(or country) just to see statues and idols. And just 3 minutes into writing this, I went to dig up my old posts. And I am reminded of the time we did things together. Quilling paper on a rainy day, travelling for 1 hours on public transport to eat $2 food, going grocery shopping together. That's just the tip of the surface.
It's funny, how time really can heal most wounds. Just a few weeks ago, when I chanced upon the photos, I felt nothing but sadness. I felt distanced from the emotions I had felt in the memories. But today, I saw the photos and I felt a tinge of nostalgia, know that while I missed the old times and that things are different now, I was glad for those times.
I hope you're happy now. I wouldnt say I'm 100% happy and moved on, but I'm moving away. I'm in the process of fixing myself. I'd say I've picked up the pieces and eventually, I'll get there. From strangers to the best of friends, and now we are strangers, yet again.

Hurting and healing

I thought I was doing fine. I thought that I could speak about this freely, without any pain, resent or sorrow. But somehow, every couple of days or weeks, I get a fresh wound. I lasted for a couple of weeks, and today, I get another wound. It's smaller than the previous one, but it still hurts.
Maybe the motto "Don't give up." just so ingrained in me that I can't bear to end the friendship. Maybe it's the sunk-cost bias. After 4-ish years, it just doesn't seem right to throw away all the time I invested into this. But I know I need to stop.
You've made it pretty clear you want out of this, you don't want me to depend on you, you want me to keep my feelings to myself, or tell someone, just not you. Well these are my feelings. Feelings that I probably won't tell you because they are feelings, and I'm unlikely to act on them.
I want to move out. I want to get out of this house. I don't want to ever see you in my life again, be it in the instastory of our mutual friends, or in lectures, or even worse, in the same clinic group. I don't want to hear your name, or read it anywhere.
I am not hating on you. But, I just want to get away from you, so that I can try to forget. So that I will not be reminded each and every single day of my life here that we were once friends, it didn't work out, and now you hate me. No, I take that back. I don't want to make a false accusation. Maybe you don't hate me, but it sure does feel like it ever since you told me you found it weird to be friends after all that happened. Maybe you can continue to be civil to me and not pine after our lost friendship. But I can't. Believe me, I've tried. I can last for a few weeks maximum, but then something will just trigger me and I crumble. I will pine for that friendship that I invested too heavily in.
I wish I could be indifferent to you. I wish I gave zero fucks about what went on in your life. And I'm trying, but I can't do it now.
I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming you. It's not your fault I feel these feelings. It's not your fault when I cry. But it's my right to feel how I feel. I can't control it. And I'm not going surpress how I feel. I'm not gonna bottle them up.

Looking back, you're not the first person that I depended on more than I should have. Maybe it's my character flaw, something that I will take note of for future friendships. I'm fiercely loyal to the ones I truly love, but sometimes, I pick the wrong ones to care for. I pick the ones that don't reciprocate how I feel for them, and I get crushed. I'm hurting right now, but I am also healing. I am making mistakes, and I will learn from them. Or maybe I won't. Because sometimes, the ones I love fiercely do the same for me, and I don't want to shy away from a friendship that might potentially last for my entire lifetime. What you are is a reminder that sometimes, investments fail and that I just need to learn to move on from there and find other people that can care for me like how I do for them.

Reflection

Nearly 3 quarters of the year is over, and I have learnt so much. Life has reaffirmed that it will always be unpredictable, especially when I least expect it and that change is constant. Change is constant. Three words, but they hold such significant consequences.

I'm learning so much about life and I want to document it right here, right now. So for future reference, Danelle, this is what 2017 has taught you thus far.

1. The importance of the people you choose to travel with.

I cannot stress how important this is. If you choose the wrong group, and the dynamics are off, that's equivalent to the whole trip being screwed up. Before this year, I never thought that group dynamics would play such a huge role in ensuring a trip's success. I knew that good planning was necessary to make the trip enjoyable, and choosing the right location was important too, but I neglected to consider the people I chose to travel with. Which, up until before 2017, had never been an issue. And then, I had the trip that changed my viewpoint on travel. The trip that taught me that a trip can be thoroughly miserable. The reason? Just poor group dynamics. It wasn't any one's fault (or well, if the other people on the trip want to blame me then, that's their opinion), but the mix of people that went just did not fit well. It was equivalent to making a sandwich and combining mayo with strawberries, gravy, brussel sprouts and venison. Just...NO.

2. That friendships end. Sometimes earlier than you expect them to.

Just when you thought that you found someone you can rely on for an indeterminate period of time in the future, that person might just leave you. So remember, don't every make someone your everything. People change, so do you. Sometimes, not everyone can handle your every mood, your personality, and it's ok. As long as you are able to make yourself happy, you can get through this. 

Sometimes, you meet people that you can't handle either, and sometimes that will happen to you. It might take you a short time to figure out who can be your friend or maybe a long time, but you'll learn. And this-people failing your expectations-is probably why you still have trust issues. I know it's not easy to overcome them, and I know you still haven't, but you can work this out. 

3. How hard it can be to cope with changes.

This is a year of many changes. A new house, a new living arrangement, changes in the friendships around you. I know it's difficult to cope. Sometimes your old coping mechanisms just don't work anymore and you use unhealthy methods to cope. You lash out at people, because you don't know how to channel this pent up frustrations and stress properly. You withdraw, because sometimes ignoring the problem and trying to forget helps, temporarily. You put on a mask, because when you're in that mask, it feels euphoric. I wish I knew how to help you with this right now, but the truth is I don't know. But I hope, for your sake, that you will eventually learn how to cope with all these emotions. It's not easy, but I hope that you will figure this out.

Spring

Growing up in a tropical country left me ignorant of the changing seasons temperate climates experienced. I spent a good 16 years of my life idolizing the four seasons. The sweet scent of spring flowers, the warmth of summer and its fruits, the beautiful orange hues brought about by autumn and the pureness of snow in the winter. All my life, I had only known two types of weather. Rain and sun. I didn't experience much changes in my diet due to the season, with no strawberries to snack on, no squash to roast. Everything I knew about the four seasons came from books, movies, TV and anecdotes from friends.
I remember asking my aunt, who lived in Australia, what her favourite season was. Was it spring, because of the beautiful flowers blooming everywhere? Or winter, when you get to experience snow, make a snowman, snowballs and snow angels?(I have since learnt that it doesn't snow every temperate country, especially not in the part of Australia she or I live in.) Or autumn, because you could rake up all the leaves and toss them in the air? Or summer, where you can go to the beach and surf?
I spent my entire childhood fantasizing about what I never had. I remember going to Hong Kong for summer once, and it rained for our entire trip there. Is this summer? I wondered to myself. I went to Taiwan in winter and it never snowed. I went to Korea and had the chance to ski, but not the chance to experience persistent falling snow. Then I went Japan and was fortunate enough to experience falling snow, and realised that it wasn't as magical as it once seemed. Don't get me wrong, it was a magical moment, but I realised that it could be frustrating to have lots of snow because snow is essentially frozen rain which lands and your clothes and melts and makes your clothes damp. Then I came to Brisbane, Australia, where I've learnt that summer is 6 months long and everything else is squished into a tighter schedule.
I still remember the young me, reading books and imagining what it would be like to experience the four seasons. I remember yearning to travel, to experience what I never had, to see the world. I remember dreaming of studying in France, purely because I wanted to learn French. I remember my yearning to study in an overseas university, a dream that I am blessed to be able to fulfil. Sometimes I wish I could meet the young me, for I have much to tell her. Oh little one, there is so much the world has in store for you. And I promise, it will be worth the wait.

Ending life

I think about dying. A lot more than usual recently. Maybe a lot more than normal. But then again, I don't even know what the prescribed amount of time one should think about dying. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I killed myself. Would anyone care? I mean yeah, maybe people will take time to grieve but would anyone actually really miss me? Most people mourn, then they move on after a while. They eventually fill that void in their heart. And that's what I'll be. A replaceable, dispensible void. I'm tired. I'm tired of life. I think about killing myself sometimes, about slashing my wrists so that the physical pain can numb the emotional pain. Because sometimes I just want to watch myself bleed. The only reason I'm holding on right now is a rational one. It is that if I leave this earth, people will be hurt. Not emotionally, but financially. My parents will have a heavy burden to bear. Sometimes I think I need help, but I don't want to seek it. I want to be able to fix myself. But it's so hard. Even after I fix myself, I get spoilt again and I need to be repaired yet again. It's an endless cycle and I'm getting so sick of it.

My first lie

I was 5. My parents had decided to leave the house, probably to go on a date or something(which on hindsight, was a cute thing to do). My mum was in the toilet, washing up. She said she was going out with dad and I asked if I could go. My mum said, "Go and ask your dad." So I ran out to the living room and asked him. I don't think I caught what he said. But I ran back to my mum anyway, and asked her again. She asked me if dad said yes. I said yes. Then they talked, and I got in trouble because I "lied". Maybe I knew my dad's answer, but I can't recall the state of my mind at that point of time anymore. They brought me out anyway.
That was it. My first lie. The first sign that I had developed presupposition. And with that, a small part of my innocence left me.

Le Papillon

When I was 6, I had taken an interest to the French language. On hindsight, it was probably ignited by my obsession with Madeline, the cartoon. My uncle very kindly offered to tutor me and give me some very introductory lessons on the French language. To the curious ones out there, I have since stopped learning and I am inept in producing the /r/ sound. I can only say my Ps & Qs and count to three. I can say simple words like pomme, mademoiselle, madeleine, bon appetit. Don't try to get my to say croissant. I'd only be able to produce an abomination of it.
Moving on, I remember in that year, the movie Le Papillon was set to be released in theatres sometime at the end of the year. After seeing a newspaper advert for the movie, my mum promised me that she would bring me to the cinema to watch it. I can't recall if I was very excited for it. I know that there was some level of excitement, but I can't recall how high that level was.
Anyway, 2002 came and went. Le Papillon was released. After a couple of weeks, it stopped showing. My time to watch it had come and gone, but it had completely slipped my mum's mind. I turned 7 and had yet to watch Le Papillon. A couple of months later, my mum realised that she can broken her promise. That was my first broken promise. The first time anyone had made a promise to me and broke it. I will never forget it. I don't mean that I still hold a grudge against my mother about the movie. I don't. Eventually, I got to watch the movie when my mum tried to make it up to me by renting the DVD from the store to play it at home. But I will never forget this broken promise as a reminder for myself, not to make promises I cannot keep. I take the word promise very seriously. All my life, I have tried very hard to keep every promise I have made. I can probably count on one hand how many promised I have ever broken. (The biggest one was probably leaving church, but that's not a story for today.) I don't like to agree to things or discuss things that I don't think will happen. (i.e. when my friends say, let's go Fiji, and Whitsundays, and ____whatever country). I don't think it will happen so I don't see the point of raising my hopes and their hopes. Broken promises and broken agreements are soul-crushing, at least to me. It signifies a loss of trust in a person. Trust that took years to build up. That kind of trust can be broken in minutes or even seconds, when a promise is broken. And even more so if I have to break a promise that I made. I try so hard not to, because to break it means that I lose a part of myself, I lose a semblance of consistency in my morals. I become inconsistent in my identity and values. I become a hypocrite. And I won't be able to live with myself very well, staring in the mirror wondering what happened to the girl who kept her word, because that girl fell off the bandwagon. And even though she may get back on, people will always remember how she fell, and predict that one day, she will fall off again.

Death

Life is unpredictable. We will never know when is that moment that we die. Some people get a glimpse of it, some don't. And most of us, don't like to pursue this train of thought about our death. Think about it. I challenge you. Confront the reality that someday, you will die. That you have no clue when. It might be today, next week, or maybe next month. You won't know. You may not have the peaceful death, lying in your bed surrounded by your loved ones that you wish for. Who knows, you might die while walking across the road, getting knocked down by a car.
It's scary to think about death sometimes. For me, it's not so much how I will die that scares me. Rather, it's what happens after I die that worries me. After this life is over, what meaning will this life have to the people left behind? It sounds strange now that I'm saying it, but I realize that when I die, I want to be immortalized in the memory of people. I want this life to have some meaning. I want to have made a difference. But the truth is, I don't know if it will. Maybe my family and friends will mourn for me, but then what? Soon enough, they will reach the termination of their lives too. Within a generation or two, any memory of me will likely be wiped away from the surface of this earth.
Then what is this for? What is all of this for? I used to say that I believed that we created the meaning of our lives. That we decided our own purposes and lived to fulfill it. That my motto was to make a positive impact on the lives of the others around me. And maybe I can do that. But that impact, however great it is, is ephemeral. Is it worth it then?

Why am I here?

What is my purpose here? Why am I doing this course? Why am I here, in this foreign land, studying speech pathology? These are the questions that have been echoing inside my head, haunting me for the past few weeks.
For starters, I didn't do as well as I had expected for Y2S1. My final grades did not meet the goals that I had set and it made me feel terrible with myself, because grades are something that have a rather important role in my identity. I used to think that doing well academically was one of my strengths, but my recent grades have shaken that belief and I'm worried I can't do well academically anymore. What other strengths do I have, if not my grades? I fear that the answer to that question is nothing and I cannot accept that. I'm supposed to be the "smart" one, the one that does well. If I'm not that, what am I? Stupid, useless and a parasite to society?
Then, there's my current performance in the profession I'm to undertake for the next 8.5 years. I conducted my first therapy session on Monday. For the first time in my life, I had to work with real clients, not the standardised patients that I had been practising with. My experience was...well, something that requires more than one adjective to describe. Firstly, it was daunting to plan a therapy session for clients that I have yet to meet. Without having a clue of their interests or how they were as people, I had to plan and prepare for a 45 minute session with them. Already with just the therapy plans I had written, I received so much feedback from my Clinical Educator (CE) on what I had to work on. There's so much room for improvement. In other words, so many areas that I'm lacking in. I guess that is something I accepted pretty readily. After all, different CEs have different preferences and I can always learn to adopt a different writing style.
But the greatest obstacle lay in carrying out the therapy session. After conducting the session and receiving feedback from my CE, my confidence in my skills as a therapist was shattered. My guilt as a student clinician engulfed me. There were so many areas that I was doing terribly in. So many things that I was doing wrong. I don't feel qualified to work with clients yet, but I have to in order to get practice in the skills I need. My clients are going to be on the receiving end of the trial and error phase of a student. I feel inadequate to conduct therapy. What if the sessions I conduct have absolutely no effect on my clients and my sessions with them are an utter waste of time? These are real people and I'm dealing with them and their lives. If I mess up, I'm going to screw them up(at worst) or waste all their time(at best).
Why am I here? What if I'm not cut out to be a speech pathologist? What if this isn't right for me? I am petrified that I will fail the clinical section of this course. I truly am. I lie in my bed at night shaking, just thinking, "How am I ever going to manage being a professional speech therapist when I'm struggling so much as a student therapist?". I am terrified of failing this course, of having to go back home carrying my shame and a huge debt to repay. I don't see a way out of this and I'm really frightened that I screw up the lives of my clients, fail this course, then screw up the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel like I'm already in a living hell. And suicide won't fix this, because that just means my parents will be bogged down with the debt that I had incurred and there won't be any life insurance payouts. Why am I here? Why?

A letter to somebody I used to know

Dear _,

I'm afraid we've reached the point of no return. The point where everything that has been building up for the past few years will come to naught. It's over. There isn't anything left to fix, because our friendship is beyond repair. At least, I think it's beyond repair. I already see it as a sunk cost, like a car that's been written off. And I don't wish to start over.
I think it's fair to say that we both tried to make it work. And for a while, it did. But then, this semester, everything began going downhill. What we did isn't working anymore. We've changed and grew apart. You said you valued our friendship. But I don't think so. Actions speak far louder than words, and all I heard was silence. I wish it could be better. I wish we could both just say sorry and move on. But this state of things requires far more than two "sorry"s to fix. Honestly, I don't even think it can be fixed. I don't want to try anymore. I'm done trying. You may say I'm being selfish. And maybe I am. But I can't try anymore. I can't trust you anymore.
To see our friendship end hurts me. Maybe more than it will ever hurt you. I will never know. I let you into my house, but you've only ever accommodated me at your porch. You know my every emotion so well, you can tell exactly how I feel with every small action I make, yet I hardly know what is going on with you.
You probably don't know what's it like to be hurt, have trust issues, swear never to let anyone in, then meet someone who makes you believe in people again, only to have them hurt you. Well then, let me tell you, it's similar to feeling like a fool for knocking into the same glass door everyday even though you take the exact same route to school everyday, but way more intense.
I give too much of myself, too fast, and often to the wrong person. To a person who will never reciprocate. To a person who doesn't care for it as much. Relationships are never 50/50, and stupid me is always the one giving 60, 70 or even 80.
I don't know why I said I was going to move. I don't think I'm in greater wrong than you. I don't see why I should be the one moving. I'm just so fucking unhappy here. But you, you probably don't give a fuck how I feel.

Social constructs

Everything is a social construct. So say some. But I'd say, many things are social constructs.

I came across this video the other day and I was just disturbed by it on so many levels.
1. The fact that people actually are identifying as transracial, transage, transpecies, transdisabled. I find it ridiculous. Like, that is just weird.
2. I have to admit, the parallel with all these trans-everything and transgender is there. From a logical point of view, if we allow one, then it's illogical to ban the rest.
3. I just didn't like how this video was against transgenderism because I feel that it's a personal choice. I have some pretty complex feelings about trangenderism but that's for another post.

Undeniably, there is a parallel between all the trans- mentioned. I just couldn't unravel the argument to see if there was a loophole. I was just so unsure of what to feel. Because I don't condone transgenderism, but I found the rest utterly ridiculous.
I spoke to my friend about this and she said something that really made a lot of sense and I had an "aha" moment right there. The basic gist of it was, "You're accepting of transgenders only because you've been exposed to this idea. You've already been aware of this idea for a while and you've accepted it, that's why it seems fine to you. On the other hand, if you look at your grandparents, they don't even have a word for transgenders in their dialect because they've never been exposed to this idea. So if you tell them about it, they will find it ridiculous. And all the transage etc, who knows, if you get more and more used to this idea if it keeps popping up, someday it's going be normal to you, or maybe the next generation."
And that was a wonderful resolution. I didn't have to wrack my brain for resolution. This argument had been resolved.
But then, another question popped up. If this is how society works, whereby we accept ideas that we've been exposed to, how are we supposed to act? What becomes of morality? If everything is made up of social constructs, wouldn't that be the same for right and wrong? The right thing and wrong thing to do can change over time and you need to be relevant in order to do what's right. Someday, murder might be the right thing to do. What is the meaning of all this then? What does it matter how I live this life, how I make decisions and what beliefs I hold when social constructs, change and exposure will influence how my opinions, and these opinions can and may change drastically over time. What then?

Foolish

"Here's to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem.
Here's to the hearts that ache.
Here's to the mess we make."
- Audition (The Fools Who Dream), La La Land

Am I a sellout? Have I given up my dreams in return for material riches? Given up on my dreams so that I could get financial security in return? Sometimes I feel like I'm becoming an unfeeling monster who's sole purpose in life is to make lots of money and spend it on myself. I used to say that my motto in life was to create a positive impact on the lives of others around me. What happened to that girl? The girl who wanted to work with special needs children. Or just do pediatrics in general? I gave it all up for a scholarship. For job security. For money.
What have I become? A monster. Or am I just being me-the selfish, cold hearted person that I truly am. Could it be that the selfish me has always existed, but only wished to mask my true self with kindness and love. Signing that bond still haunts me. Was it the right decision to make? Should I have done something else that would allow me to do what I really dreamed about. Was it this dratted bond that caused everything to go downhill? Was it this darned bond that made my heart stone cold? Was this the thing that caused something inside of me to die a little? To begin to yearn for material riches. To turn bitter and push people away. To hate people for no reason at all.
I don't want to be bitter anymore. Maybe it's time I stopped focusing on myself, and time I began to focus on others. Maybe its time to create synthetic happiness in the circumstances that I cannot change.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

-Reinhold Niehbuhr

Reckless

I wrote a monologue
Detailing the things
That I wished to say
But I didn't
Couldn't
Wouldn't

I thought honesty was key
But everyone tells me
The truth is hard to take
The truth that I wished to say
Was not something I should ever say
Without considering
The consequences

Oh but the reckless me
Says to just try and see
Where this will go

Yet rational me
says don't
it won't
go very well.

So I guess I shall see
Rational or reckless
Which side of me
Will prevail

Right place, wrong time, or so I thought

16 November 2016

So we meet again, again and again. I see you on three occasions and only say hi on the second time. It's a little too late. I can't help thinking what might have happened if I said hi to you the first time. What we could have become. But alas, I was too late. Because the second time, which was 5 months later, you had already started seeing someone. And I won't do anything because I know I shouldn't.

We're in the right place, but at the wrong time. When I saw you again, my heart sank. Because just as I was going to say hi, you left. You didn't notice me standing there. Bad timing.

Maybe it's a sign from the universe, telling me that it's not meant to be. Or a life lesson. A lesson that I need to learn the hard way. That I am enough for myself. That I need to love myself first. But it baffles me. I thought I'd already learnt to embrace myself for who I am. So why is this occurring?

Friends? Sure. I'd want that. I guess. Better than nothing.

26 January 2017

So you've ended things with her, but you've made it pretty clear to me you're not interested. Now I know, timing isn't the problem. Yet you still do things that could possibly lead me on if I wasn't sharp enough to spot the signs that tell me otherwise. And I know I'm reading the signs right. You're not interested. But you don't seem to be aware that sometimes, the things you do...it makes me doubt the signs I see. No, rather, you make me wish I could doubt the signs I see. You make me wish I wasn't right. But I know, what I want isn't going to happen. And I'm trying to accept that emotionally. Trying to move on. And just be friends.