Well, I am going to be very honest here, this is my I-don’t-knowᵗʰ draft. Initially, I wanted to write a 2014 kind of post but I found it to be very cliche, you know… the “New Year, New me, New Resolution” kind of thing so I decided to do with this instead and scrap all my other drafts.
Today marks the start of the new year, twenty fifteen. Looking back in time, twenty fourteen has by far been an eye opening year. Like any other year, it had it’s fair share of ups and downs as one would imagine to have on the rollercoaster ride of life. I know… I just can’t help but use this more than slightly but overused metaphor of life.
I haven’t been writing over the last few months so do forgive me if I’m a little rusty here. Having said that I feel as though I have so much in my head right now, so much I want to say, so much I want to tell you all; my imaginary internet friends, so lets begin. (Lets just take it as we’re best friend and I’m pouring out to you right now alright?)
For awhile now I felt as though I was having my mid life crisis at an early age of twenty. It’s just that I didn’t have my life in place nor did I had it all figured out back then. It was a mess. I was a mess. There was my serious self-esteem and confidence issue. I was troubled and my introverted personality didn’t help at all. I hated how I was and my self-loathing monologues didn’t help at all. Basically, I didn’t like myself, I never really did. I think it’s one of the hardest thing in life, that is, to have is self-love and self-acceptance because we can be our own worst critic and I am my own worst critic. People think they hate me and it’s sort of funny because do you know that I hate myself even more?
Life was falling apart, perplexing at best. Everything seemed anew, I was experiencing life on a whole new level for the first time or so I thought. School was nothing but vapid, an endless grind of attending dreadful lectures day after day listening to lecturers on their lullaby singing virtuoso. Projects were being dished out one after the other and were indubitably challenging and then we have the prospect of me thinking about the future, my future. Everyone else seems to have it all figured out except for me and I worried everyday, fearing I will never my place in life. The question of where am I going to go after I graduate from this place played like a broken recorder stuck in an endless loop on my head. Right… I am joining the compulsory two year National Service here in Singapore but where do I go soon after? I had no clue, not a single vague idea. And then there was Love. I had a shot at love this year, not a random hookup (not that I’ve had any) or anything. It was something special, I could feel it, subtle yet vehement, maybe the word here is fluttery. I wrote about it few posts back and yes, If you’ve read my previous posts, you would know what I’m on about and you would know I blew it. I was stupid. I mean… I am stupid for messing up. Everything seemed so trivial now in hindsight but I guess I wasn’t really ready back then. I think my own mental state did not allow me to love, not correctly. Either way, it’s over and I respect that.
The truth is, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for Love nor will I ever be good enough for anyone. You know… the insecure-“I’m not good enough” mentality many would have though I feel it’s more of altruistic mindset I might have. I think it’s safe to say we all want the best for our partner, the very best in everything for them, including us. Maybe I was wrong back then, maybe I don’t always make the right choices, maybe I don’t always take the right turn in life but I did really had the best intention for everyone and I really need someone to know that. Maybe I keep self-sabotaging myself because I don’t know what happily-ever-after looks like because I never had happiness before, I never did…
And so I started reading books again this year after what seemed like eternity of not touching any. I recently finished “All we know of Love” by Nora Releigh and “The Looks of Love” by Sarah Jio. Yes, books revolving around the topic Love, hoping I could gain more insights on Love and the perfect picture of how a happily-ever-after looks like. I remembered the first decent book I had was “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” back when I was in Secondary School or High School as you westerns calls it (no offense, I know it sounds rude, sorry). It was part of the English Literature program or something and everyone in the school was issued a copy of the infamous book. That was probably 5 to 6 years ago. The first book I actually started reading this year was “The Faults in Our Stars”. I’m sure everyone knows what the book is about, they even made a movie around it. It was quite popular for some time and probably still is because i see them on the shelf wherever i go.
The second book I went on to read was actually “Eleanor & Parks”, I remembered I first saw the book on her instagram and I thought hey, maybe this might be a good read but then again, it was really just “I should get to know her better” kind of thing so I went to grab the book. At the same time, in accordance to the “I should get to know her better” mentality, I started watching “Supernatural”, one of her favorites. I was actually watching “Walking Dead” and coincidentally “Sherlock” back then. (She was watching Sherlock too) At some point, she recommended “Glee”, “Gossip Girls” and “New Girl” to me and I started watching them except for Glee, don’t ask me why. I can’t remember the reason, perhaps I was already watching too many TV series at that time and my progress was slow. Well, I didn’t have a plethora amount of time back then.
Gossip Girl was exceptionally good. In all honesty, I didn’t felt like watching it because it seemed overly dramatic, toxic, gossipy (oh the irony) and all at first and everything there just seemed so overly complicated, entangled and confusing. The love/relationship they had, it started off with Queen B with Nate but Nate secretly loves S and then there was this jackass Chuck Bass (do note that I specifically highlighted and latinize the word ‘was’. He’s actually the man, the gentleman, the good person, you’ll see!) and then we have “hypocritic” Dan Humphrey and not to forget their overly super complex parents, like lily, rufus and bart bass just to name a few. Now that I think of it, it has actually always been like this, overly complicated. But as it pans out, I soon grew to love the characters, the synergy they had on the screen. I love Chuck Bass and Blair Waldolf, they are like the best couple ever, don’t argue with me on that. Blair is like the evil master mind of the group with all the scheming and tricks all up on her sleeve and Chuck just compliment her so well they were perfect together and then there’s Serena or rather Blake Lively. Gosh, have you seen her smile or laugh on the set? It’s wonderful, I get completely smitten by her whenever she do that laugh when she’s with Dan and she’s hot, yep, she’s hot.
Then we have New Girl, let’s not go into details on this, I don’t want to do another lengthy paragraph here describing the TV show. Simply put, this show is hilarious. It’s still being aired if you want to catch it, I think Season 4 just came out not long ago but I haven’t had the time to watch it. Maybe I’ll wait for the entire season to be aired and I will go on a full-on New Girl marathon or something, no plans yet.
Having read and watch these romance, Love has seemingly started to intrigue me. For the record, “The Looks of Love” by Sarah Jio is really good imo, y’all should pick it up from the book store, just saying. Well, I sort of hated the idea or notion of Love when I lost it because it daunted on me, Love is a risk and it’s terrifying yet rapturous. It’s either you end up with them, which, of course is a great thing or you break up with them and you lose your world and everything in it because chaos is bound to ensue or you just end up grieving for months over the loss. And I think I understood now, why she or anyone could be so afraid.
Maybe I am hopeless but I still believe in Love, for what’s it’s worth, I crave for the fluttery feeling I once had, the idea of having someone to share everything with, having someone who you can adore, who you can share your day, your secrets, your quirks or simply just chilling and being with each other intrigues me. The idea of taking the one you love to a date, an actual date where you officially ask a girl out, the perfect, satisfying conversation you could have as so portrayed by romance books, the opportunity to be a gentleman, to pull the chair, to pay for the stuffs. I know now, having seen, lived and read the life of different characters in different story books and TV show.
I once stumbled onto this thought, how do you know when you have grown up? I think the answer would be it’s when you feel victorious when you get to buy the bill instead of feeling defeated. It’s like at this age when you go out with a group of friends and dine at a restaurant, everyone will pay for their own share of food when we get the bill but I would imagine once everyone had graduated, gotten a job, be financially secured, the scenario would differ whereby everyone would fight to get the bill. I think it’s really a bro code kind of thing, because we’re brothers, we might not be blood related, but still, we’re a family and it really makes a difference you know… when you’re using your own money to pay and treat everyone. It’s like when you buy a gift, the money surely must come from you or at least the allowance you have saved right? Because it comes from you, not someone else right?
“One day, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find, is they are not always with whom we spend our lives.”
So, back to Love. A fire was ignited inside me and has been burning ever since. I want to meet someone, someone new, someone special again, someone that I would be interested in. You know… for awhile, I actually suspected I was demi-sexual or something and that is not a equivalent to being gay or anything relative because then I had just realized I was simply afraid or simply fearing the notion of Love. I think right now I have reached an impasse in life, theoretically it’s impossible for me to meet someone special however much I want and that I am just waiting for the next phase of my life to start which just so happens to be joining the Army, adding on another level of impossible and it’s depressing.
I wish I could somehow rewind time like the sands in the hourglass by simply turning it around. I wish I could restart life or at least go back to high school where everything were still good or so it seemed. Where we were still young and could do really silly, stupid things, where our worries were trivial at best. I have wasted so much of my youth playing video games. It was an escape from reality and I was addicted to the virtual worlds in the interweb that I became so withdrawn from society. Simply put, I was sort of if not, really awkward and I hated how I was. I had this alter-ego I developed over time while I pandered into gaming, a really nasty alter-ego. He raged all the time, he took his game very seriously because he believed if he’s going to spend 30 minutes of his life in a video game, he’d better win it and he get very upset when people makes mistakes in-game. I think the mindset was adopted by me when I started playing Hockey as an extra curricular activity back in high school. Someone once said something along this line: No athlete has ever went into a competition with the mindset of getting 2nd or 3rd place. Everyone is there to compete, to do their very best and of course, to win the gold medal and so I was sort of rewired to that mindset. I get very upset with people when they mess up in game, even friends and that was bad. Really bad. I can’t tell you how regretful I am, for the time I will never get back indulging on video games, for the words I have said and I am truly sorry. Right now, I play games for fun on my free time. I no longer obsess over winning. I mean… it’s really just a game right? As long as everyone is having fun, it’s alright. You don’t have to win to have fun.
I think I might just be jumping back and forth everywhere and it’s getting really messy. Let’s do this by topic with a little structure instead.
//School
I am on my final and last semester in my tertiary education. I get this weird sense of relief that I have survived in this school for the past three years. The day I have been looking forward to is drawing closer, graduation, but somehow I wish time could slow down or even stop. I don’t want to graduate, not this fast. I want to enjoy schooling, hanging out with school mates, learning together, laughing in class and talking during lectures, slacking around in the clubroom, giving the lecture a skip to catch the latest movie in town or going over to Malaysia (the country beside us) after school for some guilty pleasure like cheap foods, karaoke and of course, movies. I don’t want to graduate, not yet, not so soon. I don’t feel ready for the real world.
Looking back, the last few years flew by so quickly but it felt so long. It’s funny isn’t it? When you first started, you can’t wait to finish and when you’re near the end, you just want to slow down. Going in, I didn’t really know what to expect, how would my classmates be like, the kind of people in there. You know… the first day of school kind of fear. But as it turns out, I met great people. People from all walks of life through the various modules I took/take with special thanks to the general education module my school have. I was exposed to a whole new world I never knew existed and I can’t be more thankful for that.
Remembering back when I got back my O level result, I didn’t score very well except for science. I did terribly for my Mother Tongue (Chinese) and my Principle of Accounts paper. It was atrocious, I got a C6 and C5 for them respectively can you believe that? I mean the C6 was sort of given because my Mother Tongue was terrible, I can’t even write my own name in Chinese. Yes it was that bad and no, I am not over exaggerating. I remembered fondly I balanced the balance sheet of the POA paper and cinched the remaining of paper 2 which was like 60% of the whole entire POA paper if I remembered correctly and yet I scored a C5 for it anyway, talk about being petrified. Oh and I almost forgot. I got a B4 for my english paper. I never really had a good command over any language back then. I ended up being at 16 pointer, 14 if you were to credit in the CCA points though but still, sigh… I wish I would have done better.
//Me
I feel like sometimes my mind is a whole chunk of mess, evidently from this post you could already tell by how I am jumping back and forth with no structure at all. Well in my defense, I do have a lot I want to say or write for the matter of fact.
Have anyone ever felt like you can’t do anything right? Because sometimes I do. I feel as though I am the architect of destruction, everything I handle, every decision I make, every turn in life I take goes wrong, horribly wrong. I get so emotionally consumed it has become unhealthy for me.
I put so much effort in everything. So much, so fucking much. I don’t curse and swear a lot but when I do, It’s because my emotions is at it’s peak level and you know I am serious when I start using vulgarities. I put in so much fucking effort in everything fucking thing I do. Part-time jobs, work, I can’t say I put a lot of effort in my studies but I put in the effort, to revise, to read slides after lessons and evidently, games. I put in effort in every fucking thing I do. I make mistakes all the time and I fault myself badly for it. I think of ways to fix things and I do what I feel I should do, I don’t fucking sit around all day imagining, daydreaming about cleaning up the mess I make. I fucking go out of my way to do things. I make the effort, to clean it, to fix it. I try. I try so fucking hard to do things but there’s only so much I can do, I am but a human and if it’s not salvageable it’s fine. It really is. I respect everyone. I do. I take everything as it is. A yes for a yes a no for a no. I back off. I leave people. I restrain myself. I force myself. I spend hours invalidating my emotions. I listen to music. I numb myself. I don’t fucking care what it gonna take, I will force myself down and I suppress my emotions. And it’s unhealthy because it always ends up like this, I burst into flames. I am going mad, I am going crazy because for once, I wish things would go my way.
I have anxiety issues. I will start to hyperventilate in public places for no reason but also, especially when it gets really crowded. I start by overriding my brain’s hard coded breathing semaphore and I go into this manual hard, heavy breathing mode because I become so self-conscious and you could even say paranoid when I have my episode. It’s better now though I have a better grip of my anxiety woes.
I am mildly depressed at best and It’s not something that I can easily explain. I am not necessary sad all the time. In fact, being depressed doesn’t mean you are sad all the time (I think). I could jump when I’m elated, I could smile when I am happy, I could be joyous, sappy, enthusiastic, over zealous… well, you get the point. I could crack jokes on days when I feel really witty but other days, I just feel really dumbed down. I don’t really know how to explain depression but here’s the thing, to me, I think depression takes you onto another level where you see things a lot differently. Sometimes I sink into this deep sad thought and my emotion just spirals out of control down the stair into the oblivion. It’s scary because you get so into it, your pessimistic thoughts, they chain and line themselves up together one after the other eating away at you. I start to overthink everything, my thoughts would usually lead to more thoughts as if they chained themselves up together and I just get stuck in a endless loop of pessimism. I really have no idea what I am trying to explain here but I hope you get the point. I wrote something to help me cover this so here goes:
My demons are on my shoulders
Whispering destructive thoughts
This lonely night.
I try to do what’s right
To live a normal life
But I feels hopeless.
I walk this darkness alone
In a world so full of strife
My inner torment
No end in sight
I have so much regrets
I am ruined
I ruined it all.
I hope one day
I could see and turn around
Towards the blinding light.
But for now,
I guess
I am blessed I could still fight.
Past few months have been nothing but terrifying.
I am experiencing growth at an unprecedented level. I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been, I try my best to not fault myself for little mistakes I make, though I feel I should still be stricter with myself. I try to keep my own criticism as minimal as possible. I try to compliment myself a little more. I tried to treat myself a little better. I feel more open to people, maybe I am finally letting go of my fears of showing people the inner side me. Maybe light has finally found it’s way in. I feel more confident than I have ever been for the last 20 years of my life.
Change is terrifying. Actually, I think of it more as a growth instead of change. Nothing in me has changed, really.
It all started around mid july. Something broke inside of me. I
I was dwelling in an endless pit of sorrow and when I fall too deep, I can’t get myself out. I spent everyday
I was melancholic but then I realize, I couldn’t go on like this anymore. No amount of sadness, regret, remorse would put things back to the way it was.
//Music
I think we all listen to music when we are sad. For me I find it comforting to know that I am not the only one experiencing whatever I am experiencing. It has this sedative effect on me, when I turn the music on in my ear piece and really get into it, nothing else really matters. For all I know, world war 3 could be happening around me and I would be so oblivious to it I wouldn’t even know it’s happening. That said, I won’t care about anything. You could be spamming me with texts and I wouldn’t bother myself with it. I am sorry but I really need the time alone, to sort, calibrate and retune myself back so I won’t care but I do promise I would get back to you as soon as possible unless it’s really urgent, you could always call.
I know this is a really long post. If you are still reading this, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re taking so much time to read what I am writing, it really means alot to me. So thank you very much.
//Social Media
I think I wrote about this before. I realize social media is nothing but a platform for me to feed my ego
Zh 