dear me,

from february 2022: "i tell myself different people have different finishing lines, and yet i derive happiness from feeling as if i'm ahead of the curve and conversely get incredibly discouraged when i feel i've been left behind. i tell myself that i am lazer-focused on forging my own path ahead but i still get envious when i hear about peers moving on to greener pastures. i tell myself that the world is abundant and there is more than enough for everyone, but i still fear the prospect of competition and i do feel wistfully piqued when someone whom i view as a "mentee" outperforms me, as if these are not tell-tale signs of a latent insecurity that's festering within me. it is almost as if i'm playing a game of hypocrite with myself and hiding how i truly feel with self pep talk and confident smiles on the outside." 

dear me, 

contrary to the conclusion you arrived at in the beginning of this year, you are not a hypocrite - neither are you playing a game of hypocrite with yourself. you are merely human and still in the midst of untangling the complex web of buried insecurities from the past - the collective narratives you fed yourself when you were not doing too well. 

you have always thought that you had adequately put the past behind you as part of growing up: those adolescent memories of nearly failing at math and the sciences, of feeling like you were the only one who could sense the immanent potential you had within you and feeling disillusioned with the world bc somehow that belief never translated into real-world accolades or opportunities which (on the contrary) seemed to come easily to other people around you. those narratives you had internalised when you knew you were a small fish in a big pond, but no one had ever warned you that you could feel so small and so crippled by failing to achieve the singular definition of success laid out by the cold, meritocratic education system in this country - an education system which continues to penalise those who fall behind. those afternoons when you tried so hard and yearned to be one of those girls "up there", but all you could do was stop yourself from recoiling from the familiar, sinking feeling of handing in papers with blank answers at the ring of the bell, or feeling utterly empty as you swirled frozen yoghurt while your accomplished peers seemed they were getting a head-start at their pre-university internships. 

this un-wrestled brokenness and your subconscious desire to never put yourself in such a position again were and continue to be at the root of what shapes your present-day inclinations - now that you are in better control to define your own narrative of what success looks like. in order to never feel like you're being left behind by the world ever again, you over-compensate and sprint towards the forefront of the curve: doing a solitary internship in new york during the summer of freshman year while your peers were organising orientation camps, overworking yourself to the bone with 4am nights in sophomore year to fundraise for two conferences, sending out linkedin cold-mails from holly's cafe in seoul during your semester abroad in junior year while your friends were properly enjoying their semester break partying and making friends, doing two of the craziest 28mc semesters (unprecedented in student body history) in senior year to graduate on schedule - and as if the workload was not insane enough, putting immense pressure on yourself to find a "dream" job in tech before graduation, all bc you wanted to reap the benefits of your tech giant loa internship without fulfilling the opportunity cost of delaying graduation by 6 months. college were your best years but they were also filled with immense toil and striving. and your brokenness had inadvertently compelled more striving as you transitioned into the next stage of life - starting your nascent career and concretising the dream of settling down and starting a new family. the dream of having your cake and eating it - being both a career woman and a young mother. setting arbitrary timelines for yourself and feeling upset with both yourself and the world when those timelines drawn in the sandcastles of your head did not actualise. feeling perturbed when you felt like the year was coming to a close but you had nothing concrete or noteworthy to show for. subconsciously pushing those self-expectations on your spouse bc you need him as the other puzzle piece to fulfil your lifelong dream. 

step one is recognising that you don't have to hit all these arbitrary milestones that you've set for yourself, bc no one is chasing you anymore. there will be no math teacher pulling you aside expressing concern for your grades and future. you are officially outside of the formal education system which had once made you feel so small with its singular definition of success. everyone is running towards their own finishing lines now and no one cares about where you are in yours - so look ahead bc the only question you need to ask yourself is this: is this path the path that i truly want to be on?

dear denise, this is a reminder to stop inflicting so much pressure on yourself. you can now afford to smell the flowers and pause to appreciate the season you are in - be it a good one, or even one in flux. the beauty of life now is that you have someone you love doing life together with you, in a house that feels like home 365 days a year. and most importantly, you have Him - the giant slayer who is for you and who fights for you, whose open door is one that no one, thing or circumstance will be able shut. 

and so, in this new season - i put my hope and trust in You, knowing that You bring all things that You will into glorious fruition. 

"i took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. i am, i am, i am."

there is still so much to be thankful for. 

it is truly the little things that differentiate good days from bad ones, and today was a good day. whatever transpired at the beginning of this week felt like a massive step back from manifesting my vision and compass for what constitutes the truest and most beautiful version of my life. but today i felt alittle more like my old self again - the "me" who brims with joy from the sheer promise of life but who is typically stashed away whenever i go into auto-pilot mode and amble along in the lucid slumber of the mundane day-to-day. today i showed up for myself by going forward to introduce myself to that specific person who had showed up in my dreams before - that someone who personifies the qualities of the strong career woman whom i aspire to be one day. it sounds inconsequential, but i've been wanting to do this for the past 2.5 years and i finally found both the courage and opportunity to do so today. the best part of showing up for myself is that it's a gift that keeps giving: it creates joy in my heart which makes me more inclined to pause and connect with the people around me, and those connections in turn make me even more joyful. i become a cup that overflows. 

this is by far my favourite definition of contentment that i really resonate with: "contentment means to be happy with what you have, who you are, and where you are. it is respecting the reality of the present. It is appreciating what you do have and where you are in life. contentment does not mean the absence of desire; it just means you are satisfied with your present, and you trust that the turns your life takes will be for the best." tonight, i am reminded of a particular evening in the summer of 2016, where i was on the new york metro and it suddenly struck me that i was the living embodiment of a persona i had admired years ago. today i realised that i am already building and manifesting the ideal life for myself, at least in the career facet. 

this is what i wrote in april about my personal definition of what constitutes a true and beautiful life: "...work is challenging but it is also incredibly meaningful. i am still in the industry of my dreams. i am needed, seen, heard and respected by everyone around me. work makes me feel alive and in my zone, bringing me back to that feeling of "flying" that i used to feel during my yirpa college days. the work that i do is so uniquely "me": it fits the value proposition i have to give to the world like the glove i have always been meant to wear. i have finally found my niche - one that sits at the perfect intersection of business needs and what i naturally gravitate towards." there is still a steep learning curve ahead but there is also so much promise of gratification from the potential value-add i can bring to the table. god has placed me in this unique position in the business that is only privy to me and i have the opportunity to use my skillsets to make a positive impact. my favourite words of wisdom from m is "the grass is greener where you water it." staying put was difficult and comparison made it all the more tougher. but i am also now reaping the benefits of deepening my roots. i love this article that m shared with me. it eloquently articulates (far better than i could ever have) the value of staying put even as the world uproots and cajoles you towards the allure of a greener grass patch outside from where you are. 

contentment comes from the realisation that youth is my capital. in a world where age correlates with credibility, deepening my roots and staying laser-focused on my own defined path mean i can be both young and credible. i just need to continue showing up for myself in the little ways like i've always done and wait for time to compound the impact of working both hard and smart.

the best door

the prelude was harder than the actual event of knowing, but i will only give myself tonight to feel sadness in whatever forms it comes. revelations 3:7 has been strangely comforting: "what He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open." it is as proverbs 16:9 so aptly articulates: ""in their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."

my life story can be summarised as a series of god shutting doors in all shapes and forms right in my face, only to open the best ones for me. interning in new york. going to spain on santander's scholarship. interning at aws with the best mentors. getting into salesforce as a graduate. meeting marcus. finding our current house. securing our wedding venue and solemniser. my career thus far. today is no different. i will await the glorious day where god opens the destined door for me, and for us: that door will be one that no one, thing or circumstance will be able to shut. 

soundtracks for seasons

it is the soundtrack that truly makes a drama. it is the soundtrack that encapsulates the longing, the melancholy, the joy, the anger, the catharsis, the butterflies, the nostalgia, the camaraderie of a passé world where characters lived out their glorious story arc, then rolls everything up into a ball and delivers its punch to whoever who would press play. even after the raving reviews fade and the world forgets, the soundtrack remembers and evokes the listener to remember as well. 

in the same vein, the soundtrack is the surrounding context. two saturdays ago, i walked away from the inaugural college alumni reunion with ambivalent emotions in my heart. there was warmth from meeting up with old friends, but also a lingering emptiness from conversations that i would have had, if only we had turned back the clock by six years. i felt connected - yet displaced, uplifted - yet dispirited, nostalgic yet hardened. it made me realise the gravity of context in shaping a sense of belonging and a sense of what's important in life.   

my soundtrack for that season ended in 2019. what had felt so real then came rushing back - but i had to stop myself to remember that my feelings in the present were a mirage. revisiting 2015-2019 in 2022 without its context was like visiting a house without a home. my life is happening in 2022 now, with a completely different soundtrack. what is important to me now is completely different from what was important then. the old me would have stayed for the mixer and let myself go for the night, but that's no longer who i am and what's important to me. i strode out of the campus gates alone with this sole thought in my head: "what's important to me now is going home to my husband who's waiting for me, so we can turn in together." these days, it's the prospect of our next phase of life that excites me. working towards manifesting my vision for what i envisage to be the truest, most beautiful story about my life is what makes me feel so special to get to be "me" - a "me" living in this vast world that can be harsh but will still find space to be gracious enough to me, bc it is my Giant Slayer who goes before me.  

yes i'm changing, yes i'm gone, yes i'm older, yes i'm moving on i've moved on

the language of remembrance and imagination

the routine of work often makes me forget who i am, down at my core. and then it comes back - all at once, on solitary nights when i'm armed with a chilled glass of red wine and my 2016 spotify top songs playlist reverberate in my ears. i close my eyes and give myself into the ebb and flow of the build up and subsequent post-climax catharsis - i let the massive wave of nostalgia crash over me and remember the fragments of an unfettered me from my earlier youth. this is how i remember how it feels like to be alive and brimming at my core. 

"when women write to me in the language of indoctrination - when they use words like good and should and right and wrong - i try to speak back to them in the language of imagination. we are all bilingual. we speak the language of indoctrination, but our native tongue is the language of imagination. when we use the language of indoctrination - with its should and shouldn't, right and wrong, good and bad - we are activating our minds. that's not what we're going for here. because our minds are polluted by our training. in order to get beyond our training, we need to activate our imaginations. our minds are excuse makers; our imaginations are storytellers. so instead of asking ourselves what's right or wrong, we must ask ourselves: what is true and beautiful?

...what is the truest, most beautiful story about your life you can imagine?" - untamed, glennon doyle

i've been dreaming (quite literally) about a specific person for awhile now. she appears in my dreams every once in awhile, sauntering in with her iconic red lip, jet black hair and poised, goddess-like stature. she is a female business leader i don't know personally in real life, but is actually someone whom i secretly look up to - just bc she embodies the strong career woman archetype i'd always admired and aspired towards during my college days. there are many variations of this dream, but in all of them she comes over to talk to me as if we're friends. we sit down for coffee or wine while she holds my hand and i ask her questions i can't remember when i'm awake. all i can remember is that surreal, perplexing yet warm sense of pride from intimately knowing and being valued by someone so accomplished and put on a pedestal by the rest of the world. i'm not sure what these all mean, or why i even dream of her at all. but if i could hazard a guess - i think its my subconscious telling me that despite the motivational slump that comes in seasons and the inevitable monotony of a routine 9-6 day job, there is still a part of me who aspires to become a strong, career woman like her one day. i think it's my subconscious telling me to become someone who will continue to give back and inspire younger, aspiring career women to shatter glass ceilings and steer mnc ships into newer highlands (when i make it big in the future). it also reminds me of the tangible trade-offs of pursuing a career at full-speed, perhaps at the cost of having children. which then begs the million dollar question - can i have both, to have my cake and eat it? 

what is the truest, most beautiful story about my life that i can imagine? 

i can imagine a life where i am both a career woman and a young mother of two beautiful, kind and intelligent children. three is nice but two is good too. it is finally the weekend. we're at the mall and i'm clasping the tiny palm of our little baby girl, while m is carrying our precious baby boy on his shoulders. even trips to the supermarket have become family adventures now. we're making pesto for dinner tonight and so we're on the hunt for some basil leaves, linguine and kiddy juice boxes. the cashier exclaims in benign surprise that we look too young to be parents. we smile and say "thank you, we get that alot". i take in the scene of what has now become my world - our baby girl sleepily snuggling her nose into m's chest while our boy's peskily tugging at m's trousers, the corners of his mouth turning downwards into an adorable pout from the lack of attention received. life now is an amalgamation of quiet moments and sheer havoc. we ricochet between the two extreme ends. sometimes the incredulity of it all makes us want to cry and laugh at the same time, but in an ironic sense it is also the havoc that completes us and we wouldn't have it any other way. 

i think to myself in quiet affirmation: "hard work is what makes rest days truly so restful". work is challenging but it is also incredibly meaningful. i am still in the industry of my dreams. i am needed, seen, heard and respected by everyone around me. work makes me feel alive and in my zone, bringing me back to that feeling of "flying" that i used to feel during my yirpa college days. the work that i do is so uniquely "me": it fits the value proposition i have to give to the world like the glove i have always been meant to wear. i have finally found my niche - one that sits at the perfect intersection of business needs and what i naturally gravitate towards. my enthusiasm and sense of purpose are infectious. i am so efficacious at producing the right outcomes which move the needle towards the larger, existential purpose of the company that no one can ignore me even if they ever wanted to. nothing fazes me anymore - not even customer calls with angry c-level executives, bc i know that i can easily win them over. i am exactly where i need and aspire to be in this stage of my life. i've earned my seat at the table and i'm lifting others up to sit alongside the table with me. i truly believe that the world is abundant and enough for everyone. 

i remember that god is the giver of all good things and i am only able to do the good work that i do bc it is Him who empowers me with the gifts and talents i possess. i no longer feel the temptation of pushing god to the peripheries. instead, i wake up everyday with inexplicable peace and joy brimming in my heart bc i am immovably grounded in Him. the people around me wonder what my secret sauce is (they speculate: "there is something so distinctive about denise that sets her apart from the rest in this cut-throat, corporate world but i can't put a finger to it"), and finally arrive at their own conclusion that it is bc of my faith. (and this is why i do the work that i do - to glorify Him in all that i do, that people may turn towards Him on their own accord). despite the busyness of work and life, m and i have made a conscious commitment as a family unit to give back to our church community. we have a new spiritual community that we're plugged into and it feels like we've known them for a lifetime. we give back in every little way we can - including opening our home to bless our newfound spiritual family. our cup overflows beyond all that we can ever ask for or imagine. 

this is the life i see when i close my eyes and use the language of imagination. in this world i have my cake and eat it, only bc god is embedded in the language of both imagination and truth. 

pendulum narrative

do i want certain things bc i truly want them for their own sake, or bc i've fallen in love with the idea of having them and its ensuing pride from feeling as if i've beaten the curve early in the game? do i truly believe in the values i espouse or is that actually a sham if i dig deeper inside, merely words and thoughts filtrated pure from its original, impure form of consciousness? 

i am inherently not a super competitive person - i would like to win but most of the time i don't need to win, particularly if it's at something of minuscule importance. i am innately a secure person - i dislike participating in water cooler gossip (particularly if the subject is not someone i have worked or interacted with before) and i always try to focus my energies on carving out my own path ahead instead. i tell myself i am a kind person - in thoughts, words and actions i try to practice authentic empathy and stand up for what i believe is right and just. 

so why do i have instinctive thoughts in my head that run counter-intuitive to the intrinsic narratives i tell myself?

i tell myself that everyone has their own stories and that may mean they're predisposed to project the lives they've only ever known on the people around them - that the only way they know how to be loved is the way they've been loved, and the only way they know how to overcome is the way they had overcome in the past. and yet - at times i still find myself judging the quality of advice i don't resonate with with latent contempt - contempt that slowly wraps and wraps itself around my heart in a chokehold until it negates whatever kindness and empathy that were originally present. and i bottle everything up until a conversation triggers me to open up on my thoughts and then there's this voice in my head that eggs me on to spill and incite discourse - not for the purpose of furthering logic, but for the end goal of getting the person on the other side to agree with my point of view and validate this contempt i have shoven deep into the recesses of my indignant heart. in doing so, i put myself on my own pedestal and end up doing exactly the same thing that the other person was doing - projecting my own thoughts and ideas on someone else, just bc they feel valid to me. why do i feel i need to be right in situations like these? we are all entitled to our own point of view, but sometimes i just find it hard to let the need to be validated as "right" go. 

i tell myself different people have different finishing lines, and yet i derive happiness from feeling as if i'm ahead of the curve and conversely get incredibly discouraged when i feel i've been left behind. i tell myself that i am lazer-focused on forging my own path ahead but i still get envious when i hear about peers moving on to greener pastures. i tell myself that the world is abundant and there is more than enough for everyone, but i still fear the prospect of competition and i do feel wistfully piqued when someone whom i view as a "mentee" outperforms me, as if these are not tell-tale signs of a latent insecurity that's festering within me. it is almost as if i'm playing a game of hypocrite with myself and hiding how i truly feel with self pep talk and confident smiles on the outside. 

this should end on a good note but my eyelids are drooping and i can't think straight - all i can conclude is that i am painfully self-aware of how unaware i can get on bad days, and i need to dig even deeper into uncovering what my true "i want" statement is - an "i want" statement free from vanity, pride and contempt. 

2022 already?

every january i find myself in denial of the dawn of a new year - to me, january seems to nullify the hard work of the previous year, and 2021 was a year where i - no, we - worked so hard that when we could finally rest the year was already reaching its twilight. to me, it seems almost cruel to let go of a year without feeling sufficiently rested entering into the new one, you feel? 

maybe i'm also nostalgic that way - every year i feel like i'm peaking and i become so reluctant to let it go, but the next year rolls along and it surpasses the previous in an alternative dimension and an alternative high. every year was special in its own way: 

in 2014 i remember resisting the onset of 2015 with every fibre of my being - reasoning that we had worked too hard while battling the mighty a-level giant and was left feeling utterly spent. but 2015 rolled along and after a long series of hot tears/being angry at god for making me wait for the promised land, i matriculated into the college of my dreams (the one i had a post-it of in front of my desk while studying for a-levels) and got to embark on a new life different from one i had hitherto known - living with new friends, suite partying, greek literature, dining hall conversations about the philosophy of living and the ultimatum - witnessing the picturesque backdrop of the snow-capped, himalayan peak in the quaint town of mussoorie on an all-expenses paid, learning journey trip overseas. 2015 was also the year i finally felt the vertigo of falling for someone who was reciprocating my feelings to a certain extent and it was so beautifully intriguing (as much as it was the eventual downfall of my heart). 

in 2015 going on 2016 i remember wondering what 2016 would hold - hopefully no more heartache? nope, 2016 was a year of solid heartache, loneliness and emptiness from crashing, burning and feeling played to varying degrees after a multitude of experimental pushing of zhuangzi-esque, personal boundaries - but it was also a year where my personal growth was off the charts. it was the year i got to spend 3 months alone in new york city, and that adventure of a lifetime sparked something in me that has since changed my outlook on life completely. those angry nights in the gym culminated in my resolve to remain unabashedly proud of who i am as an individual, so as long as kindness remained my key value. "love will come when it comes, & i will wait for it - but i am done pursuing it" were my famous last words.

on the last day of 2016 i remember thinking it'll be difficult to beat a year like 2016 - a year where i got to experience what it felt like to be incandescently alive. 2016's new york sojourn primed me well for the solitary sojourns of 2017 in alicante and seoul respectively, where i had to push myself in foreign countries i hardly spoke the language of. and most of all - 2017 was the year i felt another dimension of aliveness that i had never felt before in my life - falling in love, period. for the bulk of the year i found myself glowing in our new found infatuation that gradually developed into love. 2017 was the year where it became easy to imagine myself as the protagonist of my very own korean drama - after years of drooling over characters falling in love but never quite believing i was ever going to get to that stage, i was finally the star of my own episode.

the personal growth experiences of 2017 made me feel afraid that i was peaking in my youth - but 2018 held other plans for me. with hard work and alittle bit of luck i abruptly found myself knee-deep in a 6-months stint at a tech giant of my wildest dreams by the grace of god. i got to travel to tokyo on company payroll for the first time and marvelled as i saw mt. fuji peaking out from the office's window. i made so many good colleague-friends from a different age group and realised it was absolutely possible to begin my career in tech even as a global affairs major. i closed off 2018 in celebratory shock for having pulled off a crazy 28mc semester i never knew i was capable of. i know i always find myself proud of the hard work i'd put in every year - but completing my first 28mc semester in senior year while getting my driver's license was unfathomable and it still remains one of my most incredible feelings of accomplishments i've ever experienced. it taught me that i could accomplish even the craziest feat as long as i had a razor sharp focus and god going before me. 

at the tail end of 2018, i vividly remember wondering out loud with annie at a cute little cafe in penang: "this time next year, i wonder where we'll be". our time in college was coming to a close and the future ahead felt hopeful yet nail-bitingly uncertain. 2019 felt disorientating - in one moment i found myself drowning in capstone and the anxiety of looming unemployment in an already taxing 28mc semester, and in the next moment i found myself in bangkok for the first time, feeling like a fish out of water as i tagged along on my first official customer meeting with a big bank in thailand. the transition from school to adulting was stark but the inauguration into "adulthood" was also empowering - it felt nice to finally have money and channel effort into more tangible forms of output that had real world implications. 

in all honesty - 2020 would have been the only year where i felt like i was plateauing. travel was not in the cards and lockdowns (both full and partial) became normalised across the globe. but feeling is not fact - to do myself justice and not belittle my accomplishments i remember (for the most part) sticking through the 10-month professional development plan i had laid out for myself and baiting myself by withholding korean dramas as the carrot to complete yet another certification. 2020 was the year i studied my way through to build a product niche at work so that i could stem that persistent feeling of imposter syndrome as i sat in meetings. 2020 was the year i found out value-adding constitutes a huge personal value of mine. and just when i thought 2020 was going to fizzle out like old champagne bubbles, a surprise proposal threw me off guard and ended the year on an eventful note - 

and 2021 was the year where we doubled down and hustled to build something out of nothing together: i don't quite know how to quantify the amount of work we invested outside of our day jobs that went into both the wedding and the house. for the wedding our planning went down to the detail of timing my walk down the aisle so that we could cut our wedding entrance tune (with final cut pro) to make my grand entrance sync with the instrumental chorus. with regards to the house, it gets even more incredulous - it is hard for me to name a single furniture/appliance/hardware that we did not personally shortlist and/ buy - down to our folding toilet doors, tiles, carpentry and even our kitchen basin. every single nook and cranny in our house was handpicked and exists for a reason - even the position of our power plugs for future proofing. 

2021 was exhausting on many levels and i don't feel quite ready to start sprinting again. 2021 was such a defining year - it played a huge role in tangibly framing life as i know of now. 

but who knows how 2022 will look like? hopefully still kind and once again crazy, in a good way.