love?

the residue from a conversation last evening - the nature of a thought festering at the back of your head that had hitherto been only privy to you changes form when it manifests from your own mouth and you surprise yourself, surprise yourself at how weird it sounds when vocalised - "i realised i cannot truly say i have loved someone before - no, not in that sense" "oh...isn't that kind of...sad?" "i guess i just haven't found someone i would go that deep for" - to not have truly loved or felt truly loved at twenty - that hit me. fondness had always smoldered away - was always soldered thin under the solder of an overarching reason or inopportune timing, but whatever it was the glue had always been built on tenuous bricks of compromise anyway. maybe this is why memories have a stranglehold over me. for a girl who pursues absolute clarity i think i scare people away most of the time.

this thought, coupled with monday blues (especially after such an eventful weekend), made me pretty blue today, & when i accidentally smashed my earpiece on the table top while trying to plug it into my iphone i told myself f the gym & made up my mind that i was going to head down to soho to get a new earpiece from the apple store. either way i just didn't feel like returning to the apartment so soon - i wanted to sit somewhere alone to write, to think, to be undisturbed in quietness. survived on fourteen percent of battery before it finally died & i had no way of redirecting myself to union square where there are park benches so i had a change of plans - i hadn't properly solitarily shopped since forever (the times waiting for people do not count bc they were incidental / somehow i always stumbled into stores with mega discounts while waiting for people) & everywhere i looked were symbols of consumerism so i caved in - but i am so thankful i did bc it may sound exaggerated now but this romper i tried on & really, really fancied made me feel like life would be well again (don't get me wrong i am so thankful to be here & life is mostly good but when i feel like i'm in a rut it is easy to negate all the good & wallow in the bad) - my point is: this is the power of feeling beautiful, of feeling beauty emanate & exude from inside your system. when i tried it on in the dressing room i felt so chic / i could almost envisage bae jenn wearing something like that & it made me feel so happy to feel attractive in what i was wearing again (my suitcase fashion isn't exactly spectacular - mostly filled with jeans of different shades i don't need). i rmb telling v over the weekend this is the very reason why i adore make-up - the physical act of getting ready & putting on a more defined version of my face makes me feel psychologically put together. i am not cancelling my features - i am highlighting them & giving them life. this is also the predominant reason why i still bothered with upkeeping my appearances at the end of semester one when i had felt like absolute crap - i rmb telling someone who asked "even if i feel like crap inside at least i look good on the outside - can you imagine if both were crap i'll just be a shitpile."

feeling beautiful & revelling in the confidence it brings makes me feel self-sufficient & whole - i may be a half but until i find the other i will continue to feel whole. this entire experience in nyc has just been growing my individuality - the feeling of oneness with myself & the city while walking down the vast streets, the dearth of anxiety in my system even when my battery grows flat (stemmed from the confidence that i do know manhattan well enough to navigate myself back), the entire business of cooking my own lunch/dinner & doing my own laundry in a laundromat etc.

i will keep growing until nothing fazes me anymore. but for now, sleep. for a new day tomorrow.

the world could do with more love

have never been one to be moved by the news ever since five year old me huddled in a bedroom with my family watched a plane crash into the twin towers on the news - perhaps bc the bad stuff had always seemed so geographically distant from my position of perceived safety. but being here & seeing the entire nation rocked by the aftershock of the orlando shooting - i've always been neutral about the entire lgbtq issue (not perceiving it as inherently wrong but not entirely right either i.e. constant confusion about how god fits into this overarching picture & how if he does then is it still biological or shaped by environmental factors??) but this morning i awoke with a heavy heart at the press' release of more detailed news trying to make sense of this entire hullabaloo & shed a tear or two bc the world could really do with so much more love. & replaying the white house's address just to hear president obama voicing out what is so important "the shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live" - to live, how that word rings empty through the vestiges of life itself, thinking to myself, just leave them be, leave them in their place of "solidarity and empowerment"; we are all entitled to our own opinions, just as they (as human beings) are entitled to theirs.  

i'd always loved scrolling through fb to laugh at stupid videos but recently all i see are videos which make my heart heavy.

how do i put it into words

just today on the subway to work i was thinking about how fortunate i am to be doing this - something unthinkable & rendered absolutely insane by my (preconceived) definition. & then it hit me & i realised i am the embodiment of the elusive & abtruse conception of a person i had admired years ago in junior college: the young adult who embarks on an internship overseas in a vast city without accompanying friends, the solitary warrior who has to settle in a foreign land & make friends only after arriving here, the valiant soul who has to fight off loneliness & find peace with being alone or doing things alone. in my head i had pictured a third year or final year college student - it had seemed "adult" enough to be travelling and living alone in a foreign country away from the bubblewrap comfort of home. but here i am - as a freshman who still feels like a child inside irrespective of the immense growth from the past year. the bed i am sitting on right now still feels as comfortable as the bed that sits at home 15 280 kilometres away - it still baffles me that i am so far away. i cannot reconcile that i am the figure i had looked up to years ago, but i am so incredibly humbled & proud - & how do i describe this ambivalent paradox of emotions. nevertheless i am unabashed to proclaim that i am proud of myself - proud that i have managed to concretise my new year's resolution as early as mid-year, for the first time since forever. in retrospect, it turns out i did not have to look that far. & seeing the close friends around me already settled in on pursuing their respective summers (mostly) living alone, just like me - a group of people of my age literally dotted across the globe - buenos aires, taiwan, australia, india, paris etc. - how they make my experience here seem like the natural thing to do. i don't feel my age - i still feel like i am thirteen inside most of the time, but i absolutely love how this culture of travelling/living/working alone in a foreign city already feels so normalised even though we are mere first year college kids. i took a leap bc i told myself if i could do new york city alone as a mere freshman i would be able to do anything in life. 

i am here,
& i have never felt more alive,
or more capable of achieving my future career goals.

tonight my cup overflows, & i thank You with all of my heart.

indescribable

my name is denise, i am twenty, and every part of me feels alive here, 
here in new york city.