it's a different kind of conversation.....

......your blue room.

excuse the dearth of entries. it happens when i need an escape. i need new experiences to release some epinephrine and norepinephrine a.k.a. happy juice. i need a jolt, an electric shock, a splash into the deep, a boost into the cosmos.

u2's "your blue room" is an amazing song in every sense. it's one of those songs that's hard to get sick of even if you listen to it over and over again. the worse thing i can do is to pick it apart and analyse it.

i wonder, if you manage to pick apart something totally, you'd be left with these little pieces. atomised; electrons, protons, neutrons and is there anything smaller than that? do we know for sure? isn't the beauty in how it all comes together in different combinations? the whole? isn't that what makes you marvel at the tiny details in the first place? that something so glorious emerged from their insignificance?

or look at a human face. we see a perfectly pretty face and try to pick it apart. ok, ugly nose. hmmm, eyes are too small. ok mouth is too big. cheeks a bit chubby? you reduce a perfectly pretty face to a few adjectives about its different parts, forgetting that the whole was in fact beautiful and how every feature came together so perfectly. you forget about the way it touched your heart and jolted your senses.

and here i am analysing what it is to analyse. my life pretty much spirals into a paradox these days. like how i sometimes feel/know i'm living a lie, admitting truthfully that i am, thus in a way, being true and honest with myself. this is all so tripped.

back to my psychology books, the mother of human analysis.

...

must be the leap year

remember my musings about how art/entertainment imitates life and/or vice-versa? since wednesday, it just went up a notch. strange things have been happening since wednesday.

the head of jemaah islamiah (supposedly a terrorist organisation), mas selamat, escaped from the ISD's whitley road detention centre on wednesday. as i picked up the papers yesterday morning and saw his face there with the accompanying headlines, i was just shocked. how could this happen? apparently, he had asked to go the toilet during a family visit or before and that's when he fled. that sounds too easy. watching too much 24 set my brain ticking, as i tried to play detective figuring out how a high profile criminal like him who poses a big threat to so many people could have escaped so easily? going to the toilet?? hello??! next thing we know, the military, police, airforce, they're all over scouring the roads, coasts, borders, homes, schools on a major manhunt for mas. meanwhile, all the possible plots are flooding my mind. insider job? an excuse to put him down? plain stupidity and carelessness???

i was having lunch just now and looking at my gate and i started to imagine mas running into my house to take refuge. i imagined i was on the stairs looking down and he couldn't see me. i tried to plan what i would do, how i would outsmart him, get him caught. but he must have had alot of training in combat so that would be tricky. i imagined him going to the kitchen and knew that if he got himself a knife, it would be too late. i imagined aunty sitting in her room, oblivious that a man, now armed, was just outside her room. i imagined how i'd save her, how i'd knock him out cold with a vase or something. it's not highly impossible. i imagine that having nowhere to run, it could turn into a hostage situation. but if it's an insider job, there are probably more people involved, planning his whole escape route. watch 24 season 3 if you don't believe me!

then, last night, i was at the park near the main road beside my house. mutu and i were talking when we heard a loud sound. i remember the first thought that ran through my head, "motorcyle!" after a moment's hesitation (we hesitated because it seemed like noone was stopping, there was no shouting, and everyone seemed to be going on with their life normally), we decided to go out and see what it was. when we caught our first glimpse of the road, we saw a man lying flat in the middle of the road, knocked out cold! we walked over to where he was. 3 other people were there, but they were passerbys. noone saw what happened to him. but from what i heard, he was definitely hit. and whoever hit him had scrammed. it was an old man. there was a cut on his left leg and his right elbow was dislocated (it was a horrible sight to see his arm dangling from the elbow!). his newspaper and wallet lay a distance from him. one slipper was still on his right foot or nearby, i forget, and the other one lay some distance away. thank goodness he was still breathing. he looked as though he were sleeping. one of the bystanders smelt his breath and realised he had been drinking himself. someone called for the ambulance and the rest of us stood there not knowing what to do, afraid that by moving him, we might aggravate an unknown injury. just then, a woman came by and started yelling instructions to us. a few of us followed her instructions and carried him to the pavement. the ambulance and police came and by that time, the guy had already woken up. he was struggling and trying to get up from the stretcher! he just wanted to go home!! can you believe this guy? he didnt have an IC or anything with him, not even a phone. and he refused to let us call anyone. well, mervin and i left after the paramedics and police came but i guess the guy is probably ok. i just don't get how you can hit someone and drive off, even after hearing the thud and the screams and watching the person's body squirm on the ground or lay motionless. i wonder how you can live with yourself. or are you "used" to it? i guess i can understand but it really shows some kind of poverty somewhere. fear stinks. it reeks. but i think, nonchalance is worse.

then, there's this dog. he has a collar so i think he belongs to someone around here. but he keeps walking around freely on my lane. this morning, when i was in the bathroom, i heard the dogs in this lane creating a racket! they were howling away and barking. and amidst their howls, i heard the squeaks and yelps of another dog. i ran out of the bathroom to the window, afraid that something bad was happening but i couldn't see where that yelping bark came from. i did see the wandering dog but he seemed to be looking at something in my neighbour's house. when i got back just now, that dog was still outside my neighbour's house!!! it looked like he'd been waiting there the whole time. i asked aunty why he was there and aunty said, he must be waiting for "ginger", the neighbour's dog. but i didn't see ginger anywhere. i've never seen ginger in my life! it's so strange.

i think what makes these 3 separate incidents very strange is that there are so many missing links in these stories, thus enshrouding them in mystery. how did mas escape and where is he now? who hit the old man? why does the old man want to remain anonymous? why was that dog yelping today and why were all the dogs howling? why was the wandering dog stationed outside my neighbour's house for such a long time??? so strange...

update: the wandering dog is ginger's lover. the howling this morning was because they were "at it", through the gate. gosh. haha. and then, the neighbours took ginger inside and ever since then, wandering dog has been sitting there at the gate waiting for his lover the whole day! he's still waiting there!!! sigh.

thank god i'm finally on my bed. everything's aching like mad i'm getting old it's not funny. some days, even a minute seems too long and you want the whole week to fast forward. then there are some day where even 24 hours is not enough. but i say, if a day was longer than 24 hours, we'd be very tired people, i think. or maybe just me. a very tired old aching person. cultural psych exam on thursday with 6 research papers to digest and pick apart (it's an online exam in class and so i have to look for a laptop with windows!! actually my mac has one but i decided i didn't want to use it anymore and i think i deleted bootcamp.). filming for amazing race asia audition tape, which has to be done by friday because melt is going to climb kinabalu and we'll have no time after that (melt and reenie are trying their luck! will talk more about it after the application deadline. can't let our brilliant ideas leak out to our competitors, can we? we have to get in! i can't stop dreaming about it!!!). video-editting is gonna take forever. and there is cognitive psych exam coming up too. and oh, internship work. and of course, decisions to make and things to plan and you know what, i'm gonna sleep. goodnight!

building a mystery

i love you.

pause. why?

what do you mean?

pause. why do you love me? (why would you love me?)

i don't know. i just love you.

pause. why?

when i look at you, i just want to love you.

silence. why me? why not anyone else?

pause. why do you love me?

i don't know, i just do.

you see!

when she fell silent, she was already convinced. that was the difference between the pauses and the silences. his one-liners always stunned her; they were always perfectly simple and simply perfect. most importantly, they were from his heart. love uncomplicated itself in his presence. it was just...love. but she never told him so, told him that she believed. she always added an extra "why?" for good measure, to make sure that it wasn't a mistake. she didn't have to. noone could have said it better, something so simple and true.

"when i look at you, i just want to love you."

till today, i had forgotten how i much i loved long, lonely busrides home at night. till just now, i had forgotten how music can take me away to another place where everything makes sense, where pain is fully acknowledged and experienced but does not sting and does not need to be hidden, where i can celebrate the sacredness of my being and the essence of my soul.

some days, i go to the movies. i pay about $7-9 for a ticket and sit tight for 2.5 hours watching people laugh, cry, fight, make love, lose, win, sleep, eat, drive, hide, die, date, break up, dance, turn into a total mess, lose faith, kill, steal, watch tv, stare into space, pump petrol, dream, sigh, put on make up and comb their hair, only in different combinations. some days, i think, how my life seems to have jumped straight out of a movie, or did movies, as incredible and unrealistic as they seem, jump straight out of life itself? (well, the truman show illustrates this really well) i replay memories in the screen of my mind, which only i can see, these memories that i never dreamt i would one day have, and wonder that maybe, just maybe, people might actually pay $7-9 for this. but noone ever will, because noone will ever know. i wonder, will these memories die with me. these stories, these moments, will they just cease to exist? or did they die the moment they were born?

i attempted to begin writing a script for a movie two days ago after listening to my grandma recount snippets of her life to me. as she spoke, my mind was a giant projector. i added music and colour, visualised the characters, imagined how the scenes would connect between past and present and finally, the inevitable future. it started to look like the epic of the century up there and i was really serious about it. it wouldn't be for money, it would be a tribute to life and death, a tribute to memories, a tribute to humanity and its beauty, a tribute to amama. i didn't know what spurred me then (i don't just go writing scripts on a whim!) but i think it's the sudden desperation to grab all you can of what's left of those moments, and then, the memories, before you lose them forever. it suddenly hits you, you could lose it forever and you think that perhaps, just perhaps, you could just immortalise some part of it.

i should be sleeping. i did something stupid today. like one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid horror movies who stupidly walks straight into trouble and makes you feel like slapping her silly. or one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid chick flicks who can't see what's good infront of her and walks away from it and makes you feel like shaking her silly so she'll wake up her friggin' idea. sigh.

nobody said it was easy,
no one ever said it would be so hard.
oh take me back to the start.

i need a break. i need to put myself around people who care and are not reckless with my heart. i need to stop being around people whose hearts i'm reckless with, at least until i learn how to stop being reckless with their hearts. i need to take myself out of situations where i have to pretend and end up feeling confused about who i am and utterly empty and alone inside. i definitely need to distance myself from triggers until i learn how to be calm. of course, i'll still have to go to school and meet my boss and get work done and blablubleah, but i will need to be more discerning regarding my socialising and activities.

sometimes, you have this bad feeling about things, but you just do it anyway, and it really turns out bad? some people call it the self-fulfilling prophecy or the workings of the laws of attraction, others call it intuition or gut feeling. well, i think it doesn't matter what it's called. if the feeling is there, i'm going to trust it for now. think about it. if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you feel bad about it thereby causing it to turn out bad, would it change if you felt "good" about it? perhaps. but would you be able to change your mind to feel genuinely good about it. perhaps, with the help of cognitive dissonance or something. but i don't really buy that. if you feel bad about it, you just do, because some part of you is screaming no to it. and if that part is not resolved, it's going to screw everything up thus fulfilling your self-created prophecy. you can apply cognitive dissonance tactics on yourself, but you're just bullshitting yourself really. so the other scenario, gut feeling or intuition. well, if it really is and it really works, what have you got to lose? so i say, no point rushing into things, changing your feelings to suit the occasion instead of dealing with why it's even there (it'll come back with a vengeance!). instead, i will just say no when those bad feelings come and deal with them slowly and steadily. even if it means staying home on a friday night or breaking a daily routine.

i think i'm ready to leave my room today. i don't know how it'll be tomorrow. let's just take on today for now.

i was on the way to school this morning and the bus was passing this motor parts store along jalan besar (???), the one with the mannequins dressed in motor sportswear standing on top of the roof in poses too cool for school. so here's what tickled me today right. there was this guy (a mannequin) with a really long beard and a really long mustache dressed in his finest qing dynasty gear frozen in a chinese opera stance inviting passerbys to enter the store. then i glanced up on the roof right. and the mannequins who were usually decked in mini skirts and funky jackets were now in their finest chinese new year clothings ready to go to their uncles and aunties to collect their new year hong bao (red packets (money envelopes)). it just cracked me up! then i started wondering about them standing up there rain or shine, and lately, alot of rain. and i was like, oh what a pity! their new year clothes! then i was wondering further, maybe someone goes up on the roof to wear raincoats on them and place umbrellas over them when it rains. or maybe, they are brought in or stripped or i don't know? i wonder if there is a special job for that. hmmm. whatever.

so then, i was sitting on the second deck of the double-decker bus and still looking outside and General Wu Tang was now somewhere far behind when i noticed the outer casing of the red light camera and i don't know why but my first instinct was to check that i had my seatbelt on. the only thing is, buses don't have seatbelts and for a few seconds, i was wondering where i was. have you ever had that feeling of losing the sense of where you are physically? like when you wake up after an afternoon nap and it's evening and the sun is almost down or already gone, and you feel disoriented and puzzled about time and space? or when you sit down and keep still for a while and suddenly you feel like you've floated away from your body? like your arm or leg doesn't belong to you anymore? i don't know, it just happens.


i don't know why but despite all my fellow year 4 friends telling me they don't see people they know around in school very much already, i keep seeing them all the time. however, i feel a strong urge to remain unnoticed, unrecognised, invisible. when i choose a place to sit, i'm hoping it's the most obscure (but comfortable) place. or if i'm walking, i've decreased my range of visibility to like right infront of me, trying not to turn my head left and right too much though i love to look at things. i don't know why. perhaps it's just a phase. perhaps i'm scared that i'm really forgotten, unnoticed, invisible and don't want to know it for sure. it's pretty silly but that's me right now. shireen the recluse. the hermit. the whatever. maybe i should read that exchange manual that OIR sent for students coming back from exchange. i don't know. i think i'll concentrate on finishing this mushroom spaghetti that tastes like phlegm and get down to work. irk.

talk

i suddenly feel so tired. so tired of small talk. so tired of all talk. talking about internships talking about cute guys and summer scandals and exchange, about injustice and hurt and blame. i'm tired of talking about my problems and dreams, about love about life, about things i know nothing about, about the things of my secret garden as though they were merely weeds to be trampled on, ordinary, meaningless, mere coincidences. tired of talking about why i'm sad, about what makes me happy, about myself, about you, you and you. tired of talking to fill up the space, talking to connect, to belong, to be noticed, to not be alone. man i'm tired of talking about talking. i'm just so. tired. of. talking. what's the point.

it's funny, it really is, how you sound sick, like you've got a cold, when you've lost all drive to talk.

out to get you

another brilliant song by james. out to get you. check out their live performance on one of their gigs during their last tour. amazing! excuse the glitches and jokes in the first part, just adds to their charm and simplicity. so just plug in your earphones, stick them into your ears, play this video and be blown away, gradually but eventually. mind you, this is just the live performance, raw and uneditted. and i particularly enjoyed watching tim booth (vocals) spinning around and flailing his arms in a trance.



besides that, =).

bigger than my body

my pinchable cheeks have always been one of my trademarks. "oh hey look at shireen. let's pinch her cheeks yay!" that kinda nonsense. so imagine my joy when mutu (M.P.) tried to pinch my cheeks and realised he couldn't pinch them anymore. hooray for weight loss yay because no matter how heck care you are about your weight, and if you are a girl and not terribly skinny, you can't deny that a tiny grin finds its way onto your face or you get a little light-headed with a sense of victory when someone says, "wow, you've lost a lot of weight ar?" and then, that little modest angel in you goes, "aw, nar.." or "what? you mean i was so fat last time.." and then the complimenter thinks, "man, girls are hard to please!"

so anyway, the point is, my cheeks are once again pinchable!!! shock horror gasp faint!! and my dear mother does not fail to point this out to me by laughing at the roundness of my face in the middle of giving me some instructions for whatever. in fact, a few days ago, i was looking in the mirror and marvelling at my cute little small mouth (also my trademark), only to realise it was cuter and smaller perhaps because my face was rounder! shock horror gasp! take me back to new zealand so that i can grimace at the high prices of restaurant food and washing dishes and survive on a staple diet of tuna sushi and a measly amount of something else which would constitute my two meals a day and a hell lot of walking from anywhere to anywhere you name it! aaargh!

what can i do? christmas, new year, holiday, ice-cream and chocolates, cheap hawker food everywhere, public transport, cars, taxis, oh my! so i tried to almost starve yesterday in my panic and today i helped myself to a nice bowl on ben n jerry's ice cream.

i can't believe i dedicated a whole or half post to food and weight-loss shame on you shireen.

oh bother, school is starting again soon. it makes me think about my days in otago last semester. well, about the days i did actually go for classes and study in the library. i liked it. i loved going to the music lab underground with windows near the top where you could see the feet of people walking by while trying to churn out a piece of music that would rock the instructor's socks off. it was like my secret dungeon, which opened up to a whole other universe once you were in it. i wish i had my own lab like that in my room with maybe just one mac desktop and one keyboard. for that one semester at least, i could do something i really loved without writing essays and whatever and actually be graded for it (with an A by the way!). but who's gonna care right? just me.

when i was on exchange, i actually found a new sense of confidence in myself. besides all the other stuff that comes with the package when you live independently, i was actually doing really well in school without the stress! or if there was stress, it would be the night before a big roadtrip where i was rushing to finish a bunch of essays beforehand so that i could enjoy the roadtrip with no dark clouds looming ahead. the end result, a bunch of As and well, one B+ but hey, all my essays and projects came out with As and A+s. and what's more, i thoroughly enjoyed myself and did almost everything i ever wanted to on my little getaways! and i remember thinking to myself, i am shining over here! i am a nobody but i am shining!

then i got back home, and it meant coming back to the reality of internships and grades and class participation points. pui! so anyway, to my horror, i realised that i would only be able to graduate with a merit, not even a cum laude, no matter how many A+s i get next sem! my grades in otago didn't matter because you only get pass/fail for your exchange credits (which i knew from the start, but wanted to shine, well, just because i could and for myself). and i thought about the hordes of other students who were aiming for their magnas and summas and i recalled my conversations with my career counselor months ago and how discouraged i felt after every session, feeling lousy, not-good-enough, a jack-of-all-trades, mediocre and lackluster. but see, something didn't add up. all my talents, my achievements, my character and personality reduced to one or two pieces of paper and a number? ah, what a waste i thought, what a waste. there's so much more!! way too much!

and so while i go on with life back here in singapore, joining in the crowds in the buses and trains and hunting for internships and preparing for classes and wondering about my future and all that jazz, i'm not entirely what you see. you may see me in the crowds, you may not. i may be invisible and insignificant, my presence just a feather floating from one point to the next. i may be just like any other girl you see, worrying about her weight and her looks, unpredictable and confusing, wearing hoop earrings and flip flops and talking about the most mundane things like the weather and heroes season 2 and whatever. ah, but what you can't see is this.

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (from the little prince) in me lies another universe where i see things in different colours and where possibilities are infinite and where memories carry me far, far away and help me believe in miracles. these thoughts i carry, these things i see, these things i've done, these places i've been to, these emotions i've experienced, there are some things noone can ever understand or experience the way i do and in that loneliness, it is untouched and sacred.

i just need to smile more.

"Bodies. Oh, groan. I've always just wanted to leave this body of mine. What a treat that would be. To be a beam of light, a little comet, jiggling itself loose from these wretched bones. My inner beauty could shine and soar! But no, my body is my test in life."
- Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

sometimes, when i look deep in your eyes, i swear i can see your soul

you have to listen to this song by James. papa put the cd in the car and everytime i drive it these days, i play it on repeat. each time i listen to it, i fall in love with it more. and it doesn't help that it's been raining like mad too. and listening to it while driving in the rain and smiling through the tears, it just makes my heart burst. BURST!

and i love how they are all standing so upright and firm and strumming their guitars with a mission in their eyes.

p.s. you really have to listen to it!



There's a storm outside, and the gap between crack and thunder
Crack and thunder, is closing in, is closing in
The rain floods gutters, and makes a great sound on the concrete
On a flat roof, there's a boy leaning against the wall of rain
Aerial held high, calling "come on thunder, come on thunder"

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

It's a monsoon, and the rain lifts lids off cars
Spinning buses like toys, stripping them to chrome
Across the bay, the waves are turning into something else
Picking up fishing boats and spewing them on the shore

The boy is hit, lit up against the sky, like a sign, like a neon sign
And he crumples, drops into the gutter, cut strings, legs twitching
The flood swells his clothes and delivers him on, delivers him on

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

There's four new colors in the rainbow
An old man's taking polaroids
But all he captures is endless rain, endless rain, endless rain.
He says listen, takes my head and puts my ear to his
And I swear I can hear the sea

Somtimes, when I look in your eyes I can see your soul
(I can reach your soul)
(I can touch your soul)
Sometimes

- Sometimes by James

raw

i wonder, no. i know, that i seem to place a lot of importance in pleasing people. it's pretty funny, and maybe even pretty insane.

like take for instance, i was at this retreat from monday to wednesday at the canossian spirituality centre where i happened to pick up a few books from the library about dying. and some other books not about dying as well. took the whole stack and sat outside my room along the balcony/corridor facing the bukit batok nature reserve. the australian priest who stays there comes along as his office is nearby my chosen spot. he asks what book i'm reading and i tell him, "life after death" by raymond moody and he says something about how we should be reading books about and focusing on this life first and it's my response to this that perplexes me. i look like i'm there talking with evelyn and cheryl anne and we've gone on to other subjects and are laughing about other things and the priest has already gone into into his office but in my mind, i'm still stuck on the same one subject. "what's wrong with this book i'm reading? what's wrong with me? does the priest think i'm not very wise? i hate that he thinks i'm foolish. i hate that maybe i've been foolish all this while. i don't want to be foolish. i don't want him to think i'm foolish. i want him to think i'm special. i want him to like me. blablabla."

and then i started thinking, how nonsensical these thoughts are. firstly, i'm shireen. secondly, i'm interested in this dying thing, in those spectacular, intense, scary, beautiful, unpredictable moments separating one life from another and, so what? thirdly, why do i care so much about what this priest thinks about me? i am who i am and i love who i was made to be.

take another example for instance. i was leading praise and worship for session today and i was pretty nervous. i know i prepared and i prayed and i reflected. i know that what i typed out on those pieces of paper was real and genuine and not just plain fluff. then it was time to start. i stood there, looked around at the faces of my friends as i was sharing, praying, leading, and i would see what i thought was a blank face and i'd start thinking about what this person is thinking. "oh, why is she so long-winded? can she just get to the song already? i want to sit down. ok, good try leading, shireen. at least, she tried." and then i'd start thinking, "oh man, am i really lousy at this? do they think all i said is fluff? maybe it is. who i am kidding? it probably is. blablabla."

and then now i think about it. and it's just plain rubbish again. these thoughts. how sad it is that i discount my own experiences and identity because of the fear that others may not like or agree with me. these thoughts get so loud and in-my-face i sometimes get bored and nervous about the sound of my own voice when i'm talking to others.

see, it's not the priest. i have nothing against him. i rather like him, he could be santa if he had a long white beard and snowy locks. it's not my friends who just happened to look the way they do. it's just that i've been like this as far as i can remember. i want to please people. i want people to like me, to say good things about me....but ultimately, it's because i want to know i'm not wrong, that i didn't make the wrong choices, that i'm a good person, that i'm lovable. like, i have to be a certain way to be lovable, to prove to you that i'm lovable. which is just crazy because i know i'm a good person. i know who i am. i know i love who god has made me to be, just the way i am. i know this. and yet, why do i need to prove it to anyone?

i guess i'm beginning to understand why. i grew up like this. i don't blame anyone. but i somehow learnt that to avoid being blamed and hated and shunned and misjudged by the people closest to me, i had to make myself liked by them. because i paid a price when i was disapproved of. i found myself feeling guilty and disgusted with myself when i was disapproved of. maybe it was their words, maybe it was my need to feel loved and accepted, maybe it was their insecurities, maybe it was my need to prove to them i was a good person and they could trust and depend on me, that i wasn't the monster they said i was, that i didn't deserve to be called and labeled all the things they called and labeled me as, maybe i just wanted them not to give up on believing in life and its goodness. alot of maybes. i bent over backwards and bit my lip so many times for it. it ate me up inside. i could handle it though. i was strong. i trusted and believed. i loved.

but these days, every little sign of disapproval or disagreement or lack of interest in me seems to get me feeling edgy and worried, like i failed something. and i'm not so nice about it anymore. i don't just take it in anymore like i used to. initially, i still might, but then i hate patronising people and i hate living in a bubble of untruth. i want to make people pay for it, to show them that they made me feel this way, to make them feel the same way i feel, or just to assure me that i'm still loved. or i just believe what they say about me and fall deeper into my doubts about myself. i'm short on love and high on impatience and anxiety. i'm slow to love but fast to get angry and upset. i show everything opposite of what paul says about love in corinthians. impatient, rude, angry, jealous, insecure, keeps account of wrongdoings, you name it, you got it.

that's not all. i start to feel i've failed and not done my duty as a good person when i see all this suffering around me and can't do anything about it or don't know how to. i feel so disappointed in myself, i feel i don't have a right to be so happy, all these things. it all somehow links with all the misery i inflicted upon myself when others inflicted their own misery on me. i felt i didn't have a right to be so happy then. that if they were miserable, then i should be too. maybe all this, this whole post, it all sounds crazy. but i don't think i'm alone in having thoughts like these. i think we all have them, some of us, more, and some, not so much.

well not every uneasy feeling is bad. sometimes, restlessness is a sign that one needs to be spurred to take action about something important. but i won't talk about that now though some of the uneasiness i feel now is about that too. and some of the uneasiness i feel now also has to do with a whole lot of other stuff as well. but i'll probably never get round to sleeping and just end up with a very bad headache if i try to think it ALL out now...

well, at least now i can put a finger on it more clearly. i don't think i'm spiralling into a black-hole just yet. actually, i think i have been in one for some time (don't need to be surprised, most people never show it). but i guess i'm kinda trying to make my way out and i'm aware i am/was(?) in one. i think i've pretty much become a baby again, in loving, in believing. but i still love, and i still believe. i think i've fallen many steps behind but i know it's not the end, it's not everything and i know it's time to humble myself and take those baby steps. i feel like i am starting from the beginning all over again and progress is slow, oh how i stumble and fall again and again. how i throw my tantrums and become a lump of hopelessness (i'm sorry and thank you for your patience). but i am taking those baby steps determinedly, with thanks and praise in my heart. baby hope, baby faith. but still hope and faith nonetheless. don't let me let go.