Many years ago, I used some fancy metaphor in my writing, something like "my blanket was textiled in threads of masochism and my dreams coated in grief."
Very dramatic that one was. But it's interesting how we use metaphors that are most real to us, almost like an actual literal description.
Since moving countries, my bed and blanket are in fact the comfiest place - safe, peaceful and my dreams are (for the most part) calming or non-existent.
These days I process my uncomfortable feelings in bed (rather than running away from them), I sleep in as long as I want to when I'm fatigued, and when I lie down in bed, I literally feel the peace in my shoulders.
If I were to write another metaphor it would be this:
"I found a peace whilst hiking a rocky, uphill path. The power of that peace was akin to a Saviour who comes and cracks the sack on your back you've been carrying. Out of the sack falls every piece of your load. You don't look at it, you don't know where it falls. All you know is that feeling of peace that touches the edges of both your shoulders, as you sleep, breathe, and rest, beneath a vast night sky.
You are untouchable, you are safe, and you walk accompanied.
It's been surreal to be back in the United Kingdom.
Despite the political unrests that have erupted at certain times, there has been more good than bad.
I still walk around like I am floating (:
I ask bae to ground me so that I don't spend eternity in dreamerland but he then assures me I am free to float away - to be happy.
I do not believe this opportunity to be back landed in my lap by pure coincidence.
I believe that God has placed this path before me, as an alternative path to the one I have been treading.
Because of this gift I have been so graciously given, I take this privilege with an open heart and an open mind.
I will explore all there is to explore and live life to the full.
No doubt there are ups and downs but I feel like I am living on a borrowed timeline. A timeline I wouldn't otherwise have been given were it not for the graciousness of God.
If I have been given this so graciously, surely His grace is sufficient for me to forge ahead.
So I will go, with agency and authority, the author of my own life; fully responsible for my efforts and actions, and I will go with gratitude and sincerity.
"I think running away gets a bit of a bad name. I think it’s near impossible to clarify exactly where things went wrong or how to fix them when you’re sitting in the mess you made. Whether it’s time or distance, sometimes the further you get away the clearer it all becomes to piece things together and make your come back." - Hazlett
In a moment I am there, progressing and then in a moment I am not; regressing. There is a control tower somewhere in the vicinity, or is there?
It's a circular rhythm, an accelerating pace, a repetitive tune and there it goes, droning on, and on and on. Like the many sleeps, the many wakes.
If a heaven exists, I imagine it sits outside the loop de loop; outside the INFP Fi-Si loop, outside capitalism, survival modes and fights-or-flights.
I imagine that if someone is coming to save you, they handpick you from the loop, and transport you from loop 5 with a concrete chair, to loop 60 with a cushioned base.
No one is coming to save you, however - not in the way that you need. The heavy grief wells over, spilling out of your gut, through a thousand protective epithelial cells and dissipates into the cold, cold air, the gray skies, the heavy raindrops, and into the plunging river.
The hope that you hold is poison. If you carry it with you through all the loops, you'll always want to be saved. You'll always be calling into a void. You'll always hear an echo that taunts your vibrating cochlea.
The hope you're looking for is you. From loop 1 you have carried the weight of your lifeless mass through the dumps, across the glistening sea, into the sparkly night and away, away you go!
So let us go, again. You and you, alone. Through loop 35. Through loop 40, 50, on and on we go.
Maybe it is because a big life change is coming. Imminently, it is coming.
Not all your wishes can be granted, I learnt this from about the age of 17, and again at ages 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 (the years of yearning).
Sometimes, however, dreams make it through the needle loop.
With enough fate, serendipity, dreaming, happenstances, manifestation and dots-joining, sometimes life surprises you. 7 years in the making, brewing, striving, sweating and tearing, wishing upon star after star, after star, a day comes when reality converges with fantasy.
Will it brew into everything and more, or will it add a load to your shoulders, only time will tell.
After all, there is no time like the present.
If we do not grab a 7 year dream in this miracle moment, what would the 7 years of toil have ever been for?
As time becomes more and more a precious commodity, I ponder upon everyone around me, the human connections I've made, the friends and comrades with whom I have chanced.
I've always been so very lucky.
I've always been surrounded by people with gemstone hearts. At the age of 2, I found my childhood best friend. At the age of 5, I met a goofy friend who moved away 3 years later, with whom I happened to meet before my very eyes again (by utter chance) in college. At primary school, I met a girl with a tupperware bottle, she had a Chinese name but went by an English name later on in life. At age 11, I met a girl whose mom was a teacher, and she later went on to meet my childhood best friend separately and became best friends with her too. At age 13, I met my closest friend whose very being still pulls at my heart strings.
I was always surrounded by love. I was always loved. And I always loved.
Amidst my closest friendships, I met a zillion other people too. Poor people, rich people, kind people, people with disabilities, people with secrets in their closets, people with anxiety, musical people, people with big dreams, people who party, people who live for their religion, passionate people, warm people, giddy people, people who make me laugh, people who make me dream, people who turn life from shades of blue to warm shades of yellow, with tinges of amber too.
How lucky I am to have been along your path.
How lucky I am to have been by your side.
How lucky I am to have seen your smiles and felt your sorrows too.
The human experience is an oxymoronic encounter.
We are social beings. Introversion and social anxiety oppose that very statement, which is what I've waded through all my life.
But it is friendship that walks with you, grows with you, moves you, sways with you, and takes you to all the places you will go.
"We cannot foresee what is most essential. Each of us has experienced the most blazing joys with no forewarning of their coming... What do we know, except that there are mysterious circumstances that make us fruitful? Truth is not in what can be demonstrated."
I finally got to the end of my book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. That was one of his quotes from his book "Wind, Sand and Stars".
It took me forever to finish it, as it is not at all an easy read as compared to his one hit wonder "The Little Prince" which I could not simply put down.
The quote is apt, however, and it's meaningful to me that I had to endure long poignant paragraphs in order to discover it all the way at page 99.
Great things take effort, musings, strength, attempts at comprehending life, the earth, mechanics, callings, life purpose, and such.
The idea that I could and would feel immense joy at my wedding was a notion so foreign to me. At one point it was incomprehensible to me that throwing a spectacle of an event would equate joy, as someone with no dream of a wedding, and as someone who hates planning with a passion.
Yet, that was what it was.
On 30 September 2023, the day of our garden wedding, surrounded by the grounding elements of nature, huddled beneath the shelter of leaves, caressed by the winds of the hills and basking in the uplifting smiles of loved ones, I felt immense joy; the joy of getting here, the pride of my enduring grit, the love of an impeccably patient partner, and the gratitude for everyone who came to share in our heartfelt moment.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)