It pains me to watch you drown in your pain and sorrows, and hold on to fears that you would never be the same wonderful person that you’ve always been, because someone said you’re not enough, that you’d never find true love, and you felt that that was the only truth you could ever know.
Deep down, you know that’s plain bullshit.
You are worth so much more than what has happened to you, how others treat you, and how you think you view your own self-worth.
You are so, so loved, no matter what. Not by the scumbags who don’t deserve a shred of your time and love, but by yourself and the ones who never left.
Don’t know why I still come back to this space ever so once in a while (like some annual post here. It’s always when I’m in some random spur of super reflective introspective mode.
Last I wrote I was 8 months into work, and I was trying desperately to breathe and to hold on and to hang on, and to not let myself drown. 10 months later… I know I can breathe a bit better, but I also do know that with time, experience and knowledge I have to be able to learn how to help myself breathe for the long run, especially since soooo much has happened in the last 10 months. I went to Korea with my 2/3 of my best friends, dealt with a crisis case, started on yoga, went to Phuket with #plot33, moved house, started planning for a 50th anniversary gathering, did the 2nd half of my wisdom tooth surgery, booked my trip to Korea for the year, and started to work towards changing of workplaces as my (already decided) time in my current place has begun to end.
I also started to learn how to deal with my anxiety better and pamper myself still. I’ve faced many personal losses and confrontations about truths about myself and life and the world in general. I’ve begun to read more, eat better and exercise well. But most important I’ve started to dream more, love well, give my all, take less, and trust in the courage I have and choose vulnerability, irregardless. So here’s to the continuous fight for more grace and empathy in my own life, and to building it in the lives of others.
wow, i haven’t posted since just before i started work.
what a journey the past 8 months have been.. a messy mix of tireless typing, fighting of battles, dried-up tears, numerous doctor visits, crazy contemplations, terrifying aches… no one day is the same. transitions have always been the most difficult phases of human lives, because change is so painful, and requires such adjustment expectations for the volatile beings that we are and the crazy state of affairs that we are in. finding the strength, courage, and even time to centre myself around all these has been terrible and terrifying – how many times have i fallen, or feel like i would fall, and needed so much more to be able to stay grounded and calm amidst crisis.
all i can say is… you’ve worked hard dearest yixi. 정말 수고했어요.
it was timely that i received the letter i wrote to my future self from the social work induction camp i attended in my early working days.. i scrawled the lyrics to Lee Hi’s Breathe.
i’m truly glad i did.
숨을 크게 쉬어봐요
당신의 가슴 양쪽이 저리게
조금은 아파올 때까지
숨을 더 뱉어봐요
당신의 안에 남은 게 없다고
느껴질 때까지
숨이 벅차올라도 괜찮아요
아무도 그댈 탓하진 않아
가끔은 실수해도 돼
누구든 그랬으니까
괜찮다는 말
말뿐인 위로지만
누군가의 한숨 그 무거운 숨을
내가 어떻게 헤아릴 수가 있을까요
당신의 한숨 그 깊일 이해할 순 없겠지만
괜찮아요 내가 안아줄게요
숨이 벅차올라도 괜찮아요
아무도 그댈 탓하진 않아
가끔은 실수해도 돼
누구든 그랬으니까
괜찮다는 말
말뿐인 위로지만
누군가의 한숨 그 무거운 숨을
내가 어떻게 헤아릴 수가 있을까요
당신의 한숨 그 깊일 이해할 순 없겠지만
괜찮아요 내가 안아줄게요
남들 눈엔 힘 빠지는
한숨으로 보일진 몰라도
나는 알고 있죠
작은 한숨 내뱉기도 어려운
하루를 보냈단 걸
이제 다른 생각은 마요
깊이 숨을 쉬어봐요
그대로 내뱉어요
누군가의 한숨 그 무거운 숨을
내가 어떻게 헤아릴 수가 있을까요
당신의 한숨 그 깊일 이해할 순 없겠지만
괜찮아요 내가 안아줄게요
정말 수고했어요
Take a deep breath
Until both sides of your heart get numb
Until it hurts a little
Let out your breath even more
Until you feel
like there’s nothing left inside
It’s alright if you run out of breath
No one will blame you
It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes
Because anyone can do so
Although comforting by saying it’s alright
Are just words
Someone’s breath. That heavy breath
How can I see through that?
Though I can’t understand your breath
It’s alright I’ll hold you
It’s alright if you run out of breath
No one will blame you
It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes
Because anyone can do so
Although comforting by saying it’s alright
Are just words
Someone’s breath. That heavy breath
How can I see through that?
Though I can’t understand your breath
It’s alright I’ll hold you
Even if others think your sigh
Takes out energy and strength
I already know
That you had a day that’s hard enough
To let out even a small sigh
Now don’t think of anything else
Let out a deep sigh
Just let it out like that
Someone’s breath. That heavy breath
How can I see through that?
Though I can’t understand your breath
It’s alright I’ll hold you
You really did a good job
let this 8-month mark be a pledge to myself? to refresh myself and start anew a better mindset at work.. less emotional fatigue, more client-centric.. 할 수 있다.
아무 일 없을 거라고 Nothing’s gonna happen
내일은 더 나을 거라고 Tomorrow will be better
we all learn about love and how to love in our own unique ways, and more than often they are arduous, lengthy journeys we embark on unintentionally. sometimes we struggle to get through the bumpy roads, and we don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel; sometimes it seems so easy that we’re so afraid it’s fleeting, failing to see that it’s because we’ve struggled so much before that it has somehow become so seemingly effortless.
as usual there is nothing i have for you here, in this strange space i post very-oh-so-not-often. just bits and bops of disconnected thoughts that i will never be able to put together. but i hold an important lesson dear to my heart that i saw once and was afraid i’d lose it again so i might as well immortalise it here.
Love – it all counts
Okay, I’m going to let you in on a little secret here. You don’t need to be in a relationship. I know you know it deep down. You’re just giving into pressures of society that make you think that you’re not really pretty unless you’re ‘wanted’, or you’re not really mature unless you’re having sex, or that you can’t be loved unless someone is dating you and trying to have sex with you. They feed you these notions and force them down your throat until you choke.
The truth is, a relationship won’t always make you happy. But you already know this. You’ve seen it a thousand times. The fact that someone ‘wants’ you, doesn’t mean they’re deserving of you. They expect you to serve yourself on a plate without having to make any effort nor work for your love, because in this warped world, you’re supposed to feel lucky about it. But trust me, the one who deserves you, will work for your love without complaining. It will come naturally to both of you.
Romance is wonderful, when it’s genuine, when it’s pure, when it is not in lieu of anything else. When it’s just because someone loves you, simply for being you. Regardless of whether you’ll end up together, when they think you’re that amazing that they don’t care if nothing comes of their efforts, it’s okay. They’re truly fascinated for however long you’re in each other’s lives. but it’s not the only type of love that exists.
There are friendships, with a love deeper and purer than most couples who swear they’re going to stay together forever. Yet the love in a friendship so often goes overlooked as nothing, and taken for granted.
How many times have single friends said that no one loves them? How many times were you that single friend? And if you ask hem about their friends, parents, family etc – they’ll say yes, they love them, but they don’t count. How hurtful is that? Of course it counts. Love doesn’t become any less valid just because a person isn’t having sex with you, and that is the problem with this generation. They think love doesn’t count unless it comes from someone who, given the chance (if they havent already been) would be interested in sexual relations with you.
So love doesn’t count, if there’s no potential for sex? However, wouldn’t that make the love more real? When they don’t want anything out of you. They just purely love you and all that you are.
It’s awesome to be in love, don’t get me wrong. It’s a magical feeling, but it doesn’t take sex for you to feel it. It’s just as magical stopping for ice cream in your sweatpants with your closest friends. Exploring the world with a bunch of mates who are just as excited as you to learn something new. Believe me, there’s a lot of love there.
Where we’ve gone wrong is making everything about finding ‘the one’ – but maybe you are ‘the one’. Just loving yourself, having fun and being happy. Perhaps instead of looking for our other halves, we should be looking for ourselves. Perhaps we weren’t born incomplete, we don’t need someone else to complete us, and we need to acknowledge the love all around us, learning that regardless of who loves us, we are all loved deeply. No matter where love comes from, it all counts.
was watching Infinite Challenge’s Wedding Singers and Lee Juck sang this live on request and i sobbed like a baby
You suffered so many hardships You lost what it meant to be new Let out all the hardships you went through Let yourself go from the blame
// Just let the past be the past It’s meaningful in that way Just sing to the one who left you Say you loved them with no regrets
/cues mess because my thoughts are disorganized
it’s always been painful when you watch the ones you love the most crumble and fall apart. this while feeling so helpless, because all you ever wish you could do is to bear the pain for them. you wish that even in the depths of their wounds they’d see the hope that lingers, that they’d stop believing they are of any less worth because of whatever it is that they have lost or has happened to them.
i often wonder how i find myself in a position like that for one too many times. you cry alone at night, you feel the pain physically in your literal heartaches, you are dying to remind them “我在這，別忘了”, and you feel the hurt from deep down when you get rejected. but we all know it’s not about you. they do not need to bear your pain right now either.
and at some point in time you stop giving in to the helplessness of seemingly not being able to make a change in the situation. you remember that you still have power to change narratives, including your own, no matter how seemingly minor that power is expressed. and even if you find that you have poured yourself empty, God’s love and grace will go so much further than we could ever imagine.
In our pursuit for passion, there will be suffering. A hell lot of it. It might kill our fire, and we will struggle so powerfully there will be blood and sweat and tears. And these are the times that present to us hard choices. Hard choices that will define the kind of person that we are and the kind of person we want to be. And it is during these difficult times that we can grow in our capacity for love and compassion.
And He will always be with us through it all. A grace-filled, if not always graceful self-transforming cycle that is driven by a pursuit of love through suffering.
We should not consider our poverty and limitations as failures, nor simply resign ourselves to them, but rather we should see them as an authentic school of transformation and contemplation.
And we will always have a choice. To be the better person, in spite of hard choices.
I know I used to come back here to write every month but I guess this semester has been quite crazy aha… when I have time I usually just nua and sleep and watch food/baking videos ha ha ha
Will probably have more time next semester! The start of the end of an amazing 16 years of formal education and the start of the beginning of difficult but beautiful times of formal work life. Enter the plankton of the ultimate food chain.
Still got 2 more (two much) finals to go. Difficult times ahead. And then lunch with batchies, Gardens By The Bay Christmas Wonderland + Future of SG with momsies, collecting my shopping and getting new schedulers, starting a new attachment, going to Korea for Christmas (!!!)..
Tbh I would really love to scream and shout and complain but I don’t even have the energy to do that anymore.
They were decisions I made about my own education anyway.. And the consequences I would bear. Though I can already see that any point in time something goes wrong I would likely break apart and crumble. Hahaha. I’m so busy trying to handle all this, I have no energy to deal with other people’s stuff even though I really want to be there and around and listen and all that. My quota of empathy and love and patience and all that is all maxed out in focusing on my own education. If I have to be honest with myself, I have always found it difficult to give and love a little more. I was just walking along the corridor in school and thinking to myself, wow, I really love myself more than I love anyone else.. And I’m pretty darn selfish by my standards. I would always fight for myself first and making sure I’m well fed (hahaha I live to eat). It’s quite sad knowing that mentality stems from experiences of the past in which I constantly depend on myself to fight for my own life.. Hahahaha
But nonetheless, there’s an even greater limit to loving and giving in face all this stuff going on. I wish I could give more and love more but I really think it’s a time when I need to focus on myself more about realizing what I can give and who I am as a social worker in the making.. And I really need support even when I don’t ask for it.
I wondered if I made the right decisions about my education, yknow? What if I chose an easier final year? What if I didn’t go for exchange? What if I don’t do Honours thesis? But I made those decisions, and I wanna be responsible for them. I don’t wanna run from anything anymore. I’m not the same angsty kid I was in ’09. I’m not the girl haunted by the ghost of her mistakes in ’12. I’m the girl who’s happy, and free, and crazy in ’15. A pretty darn patriotic Singaporean who’s passionate about love, and faith, and hope. A believer in the goodness of people, and that we all deserve all the goodness this world has to offer.
We all deserve our best chance, and I wanna be a better person to help give others their best chances.
I’m actually pretty afraid of what will come this semester. I’ve never taken beyond the typical workload in my whole university career and have in fact been underloading for three semesters. Now I have to overload in my Honours year AND do Honours thesis with my placement agency AND plan&execute a neighbourhood health screening project with the Medicine students. And I have to start preparing for job interviews.
I’m not sure why I signed myself up for such a difficult life…….
믿음 ‧ 소망 ‧ 사랑 