A love that built you up only to tear you down is gone. In the worst way possible yet, where the emotional cheating not only happened but recur.

A love that was shamelessly tainted and examined by an irrelevant third party sat on their high horse who never knew a single part of my existence.

A love that was ripped apart by mental gymnastics to sustain their martyrdom. As if they haven’t also tried to absolve themselves of responsibility.

And always remember this: there will never be a chance like this again. Never a chance that you will allow someone to hurt you because they lacked boundaries. Never a chance that they can accuse you of wanting predictability when all you wanted was respect. That they will always be stuck in this karmic cycle they deserve because they never learned to be fine on their own. That this complicated filth is for them to bear.

When the truth is uncovered and clarity keeps you alive…. Peace is indeed the greatest currency of our times.

雪都還沒看到，煙花就散了。

這次的痛好好記住。

不愛也不用恨。

漸漸的，

不痛也不癢。

0000: Lessons from 2020

I just wanted to start off by saying: good job, everyone. It’s been a rough year. All of you deserve that pat on your shoulder for surviving this dreadful year.

Anyone could have died of anything in the years preceding 2020 but we were somehow locked in this dehumanising, traumatic impediment brought along by COVID-19.

I was hopeful at the turn of the decade. I had travel plans. I wanted to leave my job and dive into something completely foreign and revel in that hunger of chasing the new and unfamiliar. But I’m not one who finds opportunities in crises. When COVID-19 finally hit the shores of tiny Singapore, it didn’t just send waves of emotions within me; it sent a fucking tsunami over me, a tiny speck of dust in the universe.

I wasn’t able to handle life with grace like I always thought I could: less of yogi flowing through life having yin and yang figured out, or at least being able to vinyasa through the extremities, and more of driftwood seeking a shore to wash up onto, breaking into pieces along the way. Didn’t I say that I wanted the unknown? And there I was, breaking apart.

I couldn’t accept how life spiralled into this deep, dark hole just soon after my perceived newfound freedom and life in 2019. The scariest part of the journey was to watch all of my defences, coping, and self-sabotaging behaviour get drawn out repeatedly and yet I could not help it. That’s when I learnt that nobody can really love you at your worst; myself included. Everybody gets tired of the soap opera, and then it creates another episode of WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT TIRED OF ME. Even laundry gets personal. 

As healthcare workers, we did not get to enjoy the ~quarantine~ and ~work from home~ experience. Some normalcy to say the least. We ended up soothing our anxieties in other ways and through other people. We laughed. We engaged. We led. As if all of which becomes part of work as we returned home unmasked, shut-off, preferring to binge watch all of the K-dramas that we missed from when we were in a better space. What’s the use of ability to establish therapeutic relationships with your clients when you can hardly apply the same curiosity for the person you proclaim to love?

I went through rounds of self-judgment and self-blame because I could not stop this push-pull dynamic on my part. And I hated every second of it as various episodes added onto my resentment. Why do I seem like the only one who sees this pattern of behaviour? How can we work together without losing sight of what we wanted for us in the first place? I guess it’s good to become actively aware of how we are turning into textbook assholes, but what ultimately lies at the bottom of reenacting the past, recreating the hurt, is our desire to be accepted and held dearly.

And I wished that you could see the desire underneath all of that acting out. Although yes— time and again I was told to just express what I want instead of feebly hinting at mind-reading.

Fast forward to November where things started to look up. Perhaps physical pain makes room for action. We both like action over words. I found some emotional healing in the process of easing that physical pain, which made me wonder what had been missing in the past months. Perhaps something so painfully obvious, like forgetting to show each other the care and concern that every human being needs. Perhaps something more elusive, like inadvertently practising a consciousness of not dumping my emotions on someone else out of convenience.

“Maybe I should get more surgeries,” I thought. 

As I am drafting this section in December, I’ve been home alone for the most part of the month. I’d thought, “This is it— my quarantine experience— but better, as there is no work to be done, nowhere to go except inward.” And I’ve realised that the discipline to sit down and do just that doesn’t come as easy as I’d planned. Most days I’d waste hours playing The Sims 4, trying to create an imaginary perfect life. I’d be distracted doing minimal chores. The reality that time continues to pass quickly anyway would lead me to lay in bed at night with immense guilt that also passes quickly as I scrolled through social media.

It’d be a cop-out to just stop short at the mere awareness of what’s happening in me. 2020 is done and dusted— take it as a break from the grand scheme of life.

For 2021, I hope to regain the clarity to discern action from the lack of it. And may you and I have the courage and strength to always choose action.

2330: 28 29 (Clearly forgot how old I’ve become)

To you in the past decade and before:

It always felt like there was something special about being born in the final days of the year; in between the fanfares of Christmas and New Year’s. Yes, you tend to be the youngest of your cohort, but somehow it also meant that you would be stunted in many ways — mentally, emotionally, vertically. People forgetting your birthday amidst their festive celebrations would merely be prelude to your later tendency to recluse. Older adults at the Chinese temple always told your mum that you will be a bright scholar just by looking at your face and how your eyebrows arched. Little did they know, that nobody had coined the term “resting bitch face” yet. Still, you would accept the praises with grace, just as you would accept math exam papers marked 38/100. Yes, you bloomed late and straight into mediocrity. Yes, you would spend your young adulthood trying to undo the damage of venomous words thrown at you as a child.

You would not become a lawyer. The Bayfront area penthouse that you wanted from age 11 will probably be unattainable in this lifetime. Forget about living in New York City, thirty-flirty-and-thriving. Instead, you would become a social worker and go through some holier-than-thou-woke-AF moments, until you realise that you will have to downgrade your dream to a 4-room HDB flat. Ah! Of course, coupled with the anxiety of having to downgrade further, because you would seem to be the only person who cannot afford public housing that costs half a million dollars. Wait, just place in another Black Friday / 11-11 / 12-12 order since your dreams are dead anyway.

It will always be difficult for you to forget the circumstances of finding out your father’s death, and to speak about it without bawling your eyes out.

You would peak at your existential crisis approximately once every 3.5 years. Ah! the FOMO of not having 7632456 side hustles to become part of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. But you’re too afraid to join the LFDY (Live Fast, Die Young) crew. At least you finally started to teach yoga to a closed group, almost a year after getting your YTT certification.

By the end of the decade, you would complain about fatigue just like every other adult even if you never worked as hard as the hustlers. Oh death, it will be sweet slumber! Darkness aside, you would appreciate how life has worn you out, because you will be forced to look for alternatives: Minimalism? Marie Kondo the fuck out of 10-year-old digital trash that no longer serves you? Is this why people moving into their 30s start meditating and buying plants? And maybe, you can try not to destroy yourself before others get the chance to.

Finally, congratulations, or too bad that you survived two major pandemics.

To you in the next decade and beyond:

Perhaps you will continue to struggle at finding your ‘true calling’. Perhaps you will continue to dream and kill your dreams. Perhaps you will continue to be envious of people who have embraced their dharma and developed the ability to detach from the fluff, conveniently leaving out the fact that they have expensed their lifetime doing the necessary work. Perhaps your dharma is but an anti-heroic attempt to reconcile your relationship with words: that which is tactless may not amount to malice; that which is sweet may not be deception.

And I hope that you will continue to make prose out of misery. To study just how it is to be a human being, before everything goes. That despite the ups and downs, you will look high and low for the meaning in them. And you will commit to the attention and deliberate work of becoming yourself. And just maybe, you can finally laugh at yourself, minus any incidental resentment.

Even if you hate that you are inspired by a quote from a dead White man called Henry David Thoreau: Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.

2139: “She Has End-Stage Liver Cancer”

“It’s end-stage, but we are not able to prognosticate. It will likely be a gradual decline until the demise. We understand that there is no plan for her to go through any surgery or further investigation since your mum and grandmother do not want any.”

“We’ve arranged for a team of doctors and nurses to go to your home to manage her condition. She may eventually start to feel pain and they can prescribe drugs such as morphine, but don’t worry, the dose is so low that there is no possibility of addiction.”

“A palliative team?”

“Yes, a palliative team.”

It was a longer conversation. Everything made sense. The doctor asked my mum if I was a doctor, or a nurse, or someone working in a hospital. I could give a background to my mum about how the palliative home care team works. It’s almost as if I went through social work school and became a medical social worker as a trauma response just to get myself prepared for subsequent illnesses / deaths in the family. There is much less anxiety now but man, cancer always has its way of putting out the littlest fire I have towards life.

I’ve hardly touched my grandmother even though we’ve slept on the same bed intermittently in the past year. I can’t even remember her age because it seems that she’s celebrated her 80th birthday for the 5th time. I looked at her ID today and noticed for the first time: 28-11-1940. My mother told me that her actual birth year is 1938, but people actually needed more time to save up for the administrative fees for a birth certificate back in the day. My eyes scanned closely at her yellowing skin, interspersed with age spots and bruises from pinching herself so that she wouldn’t feel any itch. The things you see and the things you don’t. I helped her with transfer from the pushchair to the car seat. I held her hand to the bathroom twice.

I’ve been a driftwood for so long that I’ve only started to learn how to properly be a part of a family since I’ve moved out; and I participate with every wish that nothing is too late for now.

1324: Waves of Mutilation

For a long time I was fretting over the lack of creative juices in me. 

I was too busy. Too in love. Too happy. Too bored. Too lazy.

I’ve been writing in a journal again in the past month. But guess what, when the juices started flowing in, I realised that whatever that accompanied with them was nothing that I wanted: anger, sadness, struggles. My resilience seems nothing more than a delusion.

The stock market crash of 2020 has got nothing on the emotional roller coaster I’ve gone through. The temptation for self-sabotage and self-destruction drowns me every day. It seems that the more I try to grab hold of my anchor, the further we drift apart.

This weird energy of a collective struggle that the world is going through alone and together has shown me in practicality just how scary it is to have nowhere to go but inwards. I would like to return to a time where introspection was done in my own terms and not due to a lack of choice. I would like to stop feeling sorry for all the hurt that I’m going through. I would like us to enjoy kissing each other for the fun of it all over again.

0000: Lessons from 2019

Surprise, surprise. I am still telling stories to myself and the kind souls who have been following how my life unfolds since 2011. Ha, how conceited am I? (Say hi if you’re still here, please). At this point, are we still considered strangers? Would we be able to recognise each other on the streets? What would we say to each other?

“How’s life?” “It goes on.”

2358: A Little Life

My imposter syndrome has gotten to its peak lately. Have all of these contemplations, past and present, been a farce? How would I know how much of my considerations were actually thoughtful, or just complete blind spots that, upon realisation, cause everything I’ve worked to build over the past 8 years to crumble? Now, where is the strength and fluidity I thought I had?

The worst feeling is to know that I’ve drifted through life on a “fake it till you make it” notion and learn that I’ve basically cheated to get by. I now see how it can be so difficult to believe that I deserve to be loved. This life is just too tiring and going far too long.

1055: Adrift

Coast to coast. Station to station. Sunset to sunrise. Earth to the farthest star.

To love in directions and depths I’ve never known.

We have dreamt apart for so long and it’s now time to surrender.

0000: Lessons from 2018

I actually started off 2018 with the most immense feeling of loneliness that I could remember in recent years. There could be other events that evoked this but we are all poor historians of objectivity. The first 4 months were filled with dread— I was back to not knowing what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go again. I wanted to be left alone and be sure of myself as I was before I played all these silly love games. Maybe I was looking for love in the wrong places, but I’ve become increasingly convinced my personality is not made for love. In finding congruence with myself while attempting to connect with others, I was 1 step forward and 3 metres’ landslide back. And here are my collective reflections of “How am I” in 2018:—

1437: 27

There were 2 significant things that I aimed to achieve before turning 27: to love more and to get 10 reps of unassisted pull-ups. Obviously my underachieving self could only manage one (which I thought was more important in the grand scheme of life)— that is, to love more. I have, however, managed to pull ONE unassisted chin-up on good days. Admittedly I hadn’t put in the work I ought to; but there were also other things that I was focusing on.

Ironically, I’ve had to end my 2nd relationship along the path to love more. As if I haven’t already loved myself enough over the past 7 years of self-discovery, self-love still sits as a priority. You’ll see me elaborate a bit more about my findings from this relationship in my 2018 reflection post, but the gist is that I refuse to let resentment define my love life in my late 20s. This relationship has made me think whether I am too egoistic for love, but no one deserves my half-assery towards a relationship that I see no future with. I think that per se counts as love for fellow mankind. 

One thing for sure— I was so hungry for change this year. Going back to my roots with my hair colour was just a tiny fraction of it. I’ve tried to go out of my comfort zone to make things move for my relationship. I’ve wanted to change my job, and I have done so via change of work unit, which was very helpful in circumventing a burnout. I’ve finally thrown out all the clothes that I could no longer fit in (kept them for that one day where I’ll become svelte again lololol), because my back has broadened so much (still unsure if there’s any value in maintaining this pride for the lack of aesthetics, but again, by whose standards, etc etc). I’ve simplified my makeup look (also because I have become a tired adult and can no longer be assed to wake up at 5am to make breakfasts and doll up for work. I’m still far from minimalism but at least I’ve become more discerning in my shopping.

You’ll see me love more in the year to come, I promise.