"status updates"

watched cop-out for the lack of a better available movie and i can now safely say i know at least 10,000,000 ways to annoy someone to his grave!!!

have started training at the gym and i love seeing the numbers go down, though it's not happening fast enough! also, i secretly love showing my trainer i'm tough stuff although i'm pretty much jelly and end up sheepishly grinning my resignation.

have finally decided to use ONE day of leave tomorrow (monday). i selfishly hoard my days of leave because i'm terribly optimistic i will be using it for a big road-trip sometime in the very near future.

discovered the joy of a helium can and letting go of heart-shaped balloons into the bottomless sky this afternoon. i felt a tinge of sadness as my very own purple balloon floated further and further away from me into those stormy grey clouds, carrying with it my cry of surrender of the things wrapped around my heart.

realised how utterly confused i truly can be. so totally sure one second, so totally not the next. i'm cool with it. i'm ready for the gunshot. bang!

:), i think.

wanna put my tender

heart in a blender

watch it spin 'round into a beautiful oblivion

- inside out by eve 6

the movies

your hand reached down from the abyss out there into mine. the connection whizzed through my entire body and sent a jolt right through my heart. the dead skin, the heavy blubber surrounding my heart, all started to melt away under the heat of your never-changing love. then i could not ignore it any longer. now, it is clearer than ever before and i'm in shock. is this really happening? will i really choose this? somewhere inside, i know i must! but.

so now i've started to reel in my heart strings that have gotten themselves anchored in what seems like the wrong place, for so long. i feel my heart start to beat more easily and my guts relax as i pull those strings in. what an insane, beautiful, excruciatingly painful mess we would all be in if you knew just what made me pull in these strings. what a disastrous, historical, monumental tragicomedy we would all be in if i actually followed my heart unquestionably and completely.

i mean, it only happens in movies, right?

to walk on water

i attended mass alone today, but somehow, i was everything but alone. i just knew.

my body felt totally ravaged, by all that movement, by all the noise, the abandonment, the tears, the anxiety, the thoughts, and even by my strange strange dreams. i wanted to stay in bed till late, avoid people in general, waste the day in a cesspool of self-pity, then trudge along to evening mass with my bleeding heart on my sleeve.

i don't know whether it was the fear of weirder dreams to come, or a sense of eldest-childlike responsibility towards mustard seed community, or an urge to be available in the evening to avoid catastrophe, or just because. but i got up, took a shower, emptied the wardrobe onto the floor because everything felt like nothing fit and made my way to the 11am mass at SFX.

i think that sometimes, God purposely wears you out till you can't fight anymore. and that is the moment when he takes over and tells you to shut up and just let him drive. by then, you're too tired to argue so you just do. no counter-thoughts, no "but what about....?" you just follow.

i just followed.

traffic was bad around serangoon garden way and i could have just turned around and gone the longer but less congested way. but i just "hecked it" and went along with it. reaching church, i looked around at the smaller lanes surrounding the area. i saw an empty lot somewhere but the car behind was approaching too fast, so i just "hecked it" and turned into the crowded church entrance. cars were fighting to get into the huge carpark, so i just "hecked it" and went along the side past the premium lots. and lo and behold, one huge empty premium lot is waiting for me there. i parallel park just fine into it, no car pressuring me from behind because all of them were still fighting to get into the huger carpark. seemed like all the "heck it" moments were like turns and bends guiding the flow of a river.

so by now, everything is starting to fit, the clothes on my body start to feel just right. i'm in church. but i'm still tired. i try to sing but i can't because breathing takes alot of effort on its own. my mind is empty because thinking is strenuous. as i am praying before i go up to receive communion, the whirlpool of thoughts spins into motion but comes to an abrupt pause when i feel Him say, "look at me!"

immediately, i see a stormy sea. and He says, "storms always come. but they always pass too. the thing is, are you going to sink or be washed away, or are you going to walk on water? it depends on what you choose to look at. peter started to sink when his eyes drifted from me to the storm."

and instantly, i started to see him in every situation i was in this week. His body, bruised, as people tore each other apart at home. His arms, enveloping each wounded soldier in the countless battles this week. His hand, on my shoulder, as i was reduced to my frightened 8-year-old self. His loving gaze, keeping watch by my bedside, as i curled under my cocoon of a blanket and cried myself to sleep alone. and now, in communion, in me.

then, mass ended and it was time to go for mustard seed's session. i was hungry to the point of an impending migraine. i drove down to serangoon gardens, where colin helped me to get a burger and coffee and drove back to church. session had started but i was so hungry i "hecked it" and sat out of session for a while to eat. when i went in, they began to sing these words:

Only by grace can we enter
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavor
But by the blood of the Lamb
Into Your presence You call us
Call us to come
Into Your presence You draw us
And now by Your grace we come

i immediately knew, just knew, that He had been everywhere with me on that lonely sunday morning. i wanted to kneel, i didn't know why. but i knew i had to. nevertheless, i didn't, well simply because nobody else did. then, jeanette flashed the next slide and it was a picture of jesus holding on to the arm of a man, i assume peter, sinking into the sea. and i immediately remembered the words that were spoken in my heart at mass earlier.

we then went into the next song, "heart of worship", and the urge to kneel became so strong. every act to resist it felt like i was holding back an entire ocean. i caved, and allowed my knees to buckle in resignation to the cold marble. and the tears, they just started to flow unceasingly!

i don't know how to describe it but i'll try.

it felt like i had finally fallen into the arms of God, the first lover of my soul, and He was letting me know precisely that, that it was His arms i was in, and it was His presence which filled that room, despite the disappointing turnout. as the tears fell, i felt as though every word i needed to speak, every ounce of hurt that was steadily muting my spirit, was finally released into the care of someone who actually knew, understood and loved me.

i got distracted after a while though. because my face was a mess and i badly needed to wipe my nose, a very unglamorous moment! i wanted to ask someone for a tissue but everyone was deep in prayer so i turned around to walk out the back door, albeit reluctantly. i wanted so much to stay in that presence! as if to let me know He was taking care of everything, from carparks to near-drowning experiences, lo and behold, there, on the table at the back, lay an open packet of tissue!

sigh. wow.

reminds me of a night back in time, one that i will never forget. perhaps a story for another day?

someone asked me how i was just now. i guess it would be summarised in the following:

"i'm doing ok. not everything is ok, but i feel strangely calm and very secure knowing jesus has my back. just feel extra sure of that today. :)"

there goes a supernova, what a pushover.

yeah.

 don't you waste me in the ground

in these finite moments, i ask myself, what right do i have to deny my dreams from coming true? how dare i hold back this soul which is bursting at its seams? these songs, under what authority should i keep them muted, hidden, tell me! i imagine. soft, melodic riffs on guitars. smiles of loved ones by the seaside. long-flowing dresses. colours, lots of them. a never-ending sunset. you, faceless right now. us, defying the logics of love and reality, creating surges in hearts long after we're gone.

unfailing love

i was out at sea yesterday, the wind tussling my hair and salt water lacing my lips. i lay down on the hull, my wine glass resting on my stomach, and flung my gaze into the stars, searching for the ones i could not see. i knew there was more, so much more. darkness does not seem so scary when you are assured of more stars than you could ever comprehend. i am not so afraid now, God.

to love into change

on sunday, i was sitting at the feet of a wise man who had many wise things to say and i really wished you were there to listen. next, i sat at the feet of his wise wife and judged you for not being there to listen. but there is a reason why you aren't there these days, not even for your own sake. then, i felt ashamed for my judgments, for only judging and nothing else. the truth is, you are just as broken as i am. the truth is, you are far more beautiful than i know.

and i'm committed to loving you into change, into freedom. it's what changed me.

my mind rebels at stagnation

while i have acquired a small collection of books to take care of a small part of this predicament called "stagnation", my mind and body are physically starting to recoil at the thought that this will be me and us for the rest of my life.

no, i will not allow it!

there is still much travelling to be done, more dancing to be learnt, then danced, more planes to jump out from, more mind-prickling conversations over coffee-shop tables and coffee cups to be participated in, more white sheets of paper to have paint splashed on them, more rain showers to swirl around in...no, i'm not ready for a full. stop. this pen has many more adventures to write before the ink of its youth runs out!

so, what do you say? shall we?

why i blog (since i hardly hold a pen to write these days and type instead)

because, everywhere else, i am forced to write about what others want to read, to achieve some end, for someone else. here, i write anything i want, whenever i want, just for the heck of it, for the love of it.

to love writing, what does that mean? to love words? words lose their shapes and meaning and blend into meaningless noise and figures when you stare too long at them. rather, i like how these words flow from the ocean up here in my mind down to the tips of my fingers and out into the infinite expanse of this universe. i love how i can glide over words as i write (type) them, read them, glide over these shapes that make up letters that make up words that make up...all sorts of things! i like how i am carried from one word (and world) to another as i get upgraded to the status of a newborn, and everything is like the first time all over again (accidental pun, intended upon hindsight).

mother teresa once said that she was merely a pencil in the hand of God and i picture the words and visions that flow through me from that incredible fountainhead of love as i allow them to escape into, and find their place in the universe through my fingertips, my nostrils, my lips, my toes and hair (to name a few)!

eclipse of the mind has begun, i need sleep soon, which my dreams so often rob me of!

love is watching someone die

i wish we wouldn't take all these seconds and minutes for granted, fighting, staying angry, waiting, waiting, and waiting, for what?

sometimes i feel like that little girl, trying to catch those bubbles. but they always burst, they never last, just like these minutes, just like these seconds. i catch them in vain, their remains an explosion of soap and water, memories, pain and joy, in my hands, while you just watch them float away, watch me run to catch the next one, and the next, and the next. i don't know why i do it, i just have to, and wonder why these bubbles burst so fast and violently.

so, who's going to watch you die?

And it came to me then
That every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes around and everyone lifts their head
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who's going to watch you die
So who's going to watch you die
So who's going to watch you die 

"What Sarah Said"

by

Death Cab for Cutie 

sometimes, it's almost hardly believable that there was life before me, before 1985. it seems that nothing is real unless i am there. that i am the only witness to everything in the history of the world from my first to last breath. and that everything will cease to be, when i am gone.

i mean, how would i know if there was REALLY life before me? how will i know if there will be life AFTER me? what if everything, even all the "proof", the photographs, skeletons, tombstones, movies and diaries, were all conjured up just for my lifetime? what if history and its stories, people, from babies to old people, were created just for this short span of however long i will be here, and what if that period is really, the only time this universe will ever exist? just like my dreams, alive and real when i close my eyes and forgotten even to myself when the sun finally wipes the sleep out out of my eyes.

indeed.

it's time to return!