in one year's time

today i felt a fraction of what i hope i'll feel in exactly another three hundred & sixty five days: that surge of benign adrenaline coursing through my veins, that inexplicable joy bursting forth & erupting in bubbles, that preeminent invincibility at having finally accomplished something up to personal standards.

yet i know it wasn't me. He did it, His faithfulness came true, more than a year late, but nonetheless it still came true. i can finally get over the shadow of 10.1.13 that has plagued me over the past year, i can finally vindicate myself from its accusation that i am an unequivocal lack.

dug out my journal entry from 10.1.13, here are fragments of my brokenness:

"let me know You are journeying this with me every step in the way"
"this too, shall pass"
"lord, can You be strong for me?"
"there's so much sadness trapped in my system & it's inexhaustible i cannot even cry it out"

i remember how amidst the joyous faces, mine was tear-stricken, i remember wrestling with myself & god, i remember feeling like my insides had collapsed & given way to a cavern

now
i need to remember how good it felt & replicate it in its full-fledged glory this time, next year;
i want to be able to say that i have absolutely no regrets;
i want the only kind of tears to be those borne out of visceral joy

witnessed a myriad of facial expressions that sent my palpitating heart on a roller coaster ride: stoic faces, teary faces, beaming faces

i am not ready for the year ahead
but faithfulness cannot disown Himself

isaiah 55:8-9

to forget / to remember

yesterday:
(take five 2014)

with legs ankle-deep in the phlegmatic sea & feet feeling the texture of damp sand, i back-faced a crowd of fortuitous drifters & tried to case myself up like an ancient relic for a private, solitary moment.

eyes closed: i was ready

rock music was blasting in the background but all that was ringing in my ears was what i'd read from an article of thought catalog - the words that are easy to utter but difficult to act upon

delete delete delete delete d e l e t e

for my own sake i had to let go of my treacliness, for my own sake i had to kill the ideas that had been borne out of my being, the very ideas that were toxic, that were like weeds wrapped around my throat

yet these weeds were special. they were perfumed; they were delicate; they were beautiful. even though i knew they strangled me, they felt like part of my psyche - they made me feel alive.

one by one, i pulled them at the roots, from the roots.
if our eyes were cameras and  memories could be completely captured in a roll of film, i pictured myself setting it alight from the starting end. i watched the hungry flames devour everything in its path; i heard them echo "delete" as everything smothered into ashes & their remains were languidly carried away by the sea breeze.

delete delete d e l e t e. slowly i felt my insides lighten, i felt a smile hovering on my lips, i felt like i could finally feel invincible again. if vacuity was what it took to secure a sense of closure, then i rather lightness than heavy ideas built on shams.

there will be no turning back & i pray that You will seal this work with Your hands.

//

tuesday:
(last day of kaleidos'14 & onite)

felt such an acute lassitude by day four i thought i was ready to crumble into a heap but i need to remember how alive i felt when we emerged from the glass doors & strutted down the aisle as a comm during the onite item. i need to remember that inexplicable happiness i felt during our last onite rehearsal where everyone was so dead we were alive- how we laughed at every single thing (that wasn't funny) because we were all on a high, how i just collapsed on the floor & nearly streaked tears when fs did ringalinga with a gigantic axe & gun prop picked up from backstage, how r went hysterical because jj said oolong tea was "water with a taste" - i wish i could pen all these memories down but they lose their essence when translated into words.

i need to remember how goosebumps erupted from my arms when i watched the competitors of dance-off regurgitate the batch dances - our dances that were birthed from scratch since late november 2013, how i unconsciously shrank because of "the feels" - how memories,dating from snd's first dry run where we learnt one another's choreography to the filming of the batch dances at sentosa's boardwalk, replayed themselves in my head.

i need to remember the warmth emanating from og dinners with hh04 - how they so sweetly treated us to pizza on the last day, how b & i completely yolo-ed & killed our already wonky throats by devouring more pizza slices and downing them with pepsi, how our "truth & truth" (because there was not a soul besides us to spring a dare on) session became more of a subtle (but nonetheless) heart to heart talk about insecurities/bgr, how the tranquil and dim backdrop of the playground where we hung out was just perfect for the last dinner together (in a long, long while).

kaleidos'14 was the perpetrator for (my missing of) five days of classes, a beaten health that is still in the progress of recuperation, more than three weeks worth of late nights- but in return i got so much more: the intangible, small things that allow me to say that i have indeed, lived, even if it was just for awhile.

february

hello february: 

as orientation'14 inches closer i feel like my hands are increasingly ladened with a myriad of mutually-exclusive things all demanding my immediate attention. i am a mediocre juggler - the effort it takes to keep up makes me languid, but i thank god that i believe in what i am doing & i honestly wouldn't have it any other way. january/february (i speak for the future) without late nights spent with snd polishing up different dances for different purposes would/will not have been real -would indeed have been vacuous without this group of lovely people so munificent with their love & laughter :-) 

//

catch-up lunch with one in a million today (squeezed out time between snd practice) before the guys enlist for army was so blessed :-') honestly haven't laughed so hard for a long, long time and lunch today was just the epitome of a happy time; but what made my heart sing above all was when we said grace together before we ate - always feels good when god comes true in the littlest ways amongst a supposedly secular group of people.

//

these coming two weeks will be madness, but i know they will be so worth it.  

psalm 23: 

"He makes me to lie down in green pastures; 

He leads me beside the still waters"  

languid

it's only january and i already feel so spent

i think j2 takes things to a whole new level: new set of stringent expectations from self on self, keep reminding myself that there is no need to strive because of my identity in christ but sometimes the line blurs between constant self-improvement and an unequivocal lack.

day six // in progress of pulling back those translucent curtains that obscure necessary ugliness  // there is a certain tragic irony when the only way to forget is to remember- to deliberately rub oil on a lacerated wound and remember the reason for eschewal, and to know that this will benefit in the long run - and i take heart in knowing that i am not alone

also keep forgetting to live in the moment in the midst of shuffling from one relentless activity to another, it's like i have to inwardly shout at myself most of the time to stop existing and start living, to appreciate the small beautiful things, to play my favourite tunes from 8tracks/ipod and pretend that i am invincible once again, to remember the things that i love and do them well- the fact that i forget is really telling of how i am merely just drifting.

last day of juggling tutorials with the dreaded sats, it's been exhausting carrying a balancing scale that never reaches an equilibrium on my shoulders

i am pretty messed up for sats & basically everything school related, but i have a Hope
& that Hope is an anchor for my soul

You are enough

my eyes are closing but i feel compelled to pen down these thoughts & internalize them in the process before they drift out of the recesses of my head (prospects that your heart isn't fully convinced about do not wait long to leave) 

1. ideals are shams (wake up sleeper)

2. seek not the product of the maker but the maker Himself: to chase only after the Father's heart 

3. lord, have my heart, have it all 

4. to be stoic to everyone except You

2k14 will be arduous (first week of sch feels like it has already been three terms) but psalm 23 shall be my armour

& nothing formed against me shall stand 

thankful

i had the most splendid two days in a long while


friday: faremel with the cell

the holidays make me inclined to recoil into my comfortable, introspective shell: where all i have to do is crawl back into my own skin. the product of propriety means exercising facial muscles against their will, which can get extremely tiring especially when those very voices are the perpetrator for spinning walls & dull, throbbing headaches. hence, in all honesty, my opinion of "faremel" was relatively far from sanguine- the prospect of having to interact with a big group of people was exhausting in itself, but i am so so glad i went, because i need to remember that this is how love feels like.

spent the afternoon + night with a very spechul bunch of god's people. only limtay would lengthen a bunch of helium balloons till they shot beyond a high ceiling (& seemed to go on for infinity). only limtay would let go that seemingly infinite string of balloons with a straight face while singing frozen's let it go. only limtay would treat a bunch of balloons like they were flying a kite. only limtay would pretend they were shooting a vogue photoshoot in the middle of a muddy field with a slight drizzle. only limtay would do whatever they felt like doing at that moment, even if they marred the public's first impression of them. so many things that only limtay would venture to do, so many queer things that make this cell an unorthodox one (in other words, extremely attractive because unconventionality is attractive)

this is why my cell is so spechul: (all photo credits to zann the amazing resident photographer who captured every single light-hearted moment because it's the little things that speak the loudest)

(disclaimer: it's a jacket underneath bcuz santa has a belly)

hpbd hunz

(zxnn.weebly.com)

interacting was tiring, but what pulled at my heartstrings was that almost everyone was as tired as i was at the end of the day - that even though we are seemingly unique in so many different ways, (most of us) felt the same things & could empathise with one another on something so subjective as personality types. it is always a warm feeling to be able to understand without trying.

ohana: so thankful

today:

chinese combined christmas service today has reminded me how meaningful chinese worship songs are - when english words have been overused until they are spent, trying to describe god's love in another language becomes rather novel

brought sh for service today & it is one of the things i am thankful for,
for more reasons than one

today also reminded me of fop'11- 6.8.11 which was the watershed moment of my life

在那黑暗中与祢同行

让我纪念祢的恩典

impressions

light dances on those translucent, white curtains-

there is something so magical about these curtains.

they are unmitigated & astoundingly pure;

i marvel

at the way they are pervious to the wind 

and let her mould them into corporeal forms.

because they look so happy, 

my heart sings along with every ephemeral change

i know their ultimate purpose is to conceal,

but with every strand of consciousness,

i still choose to believe in what i see-

the contrary will be too wrenching.

with doggedness, i pursue the view before me

i have only enough strength to continue forth.

i know one day i'll have to stop,

draw these curtains back

and face the ugliness of a world stripped bare of ideals.

but i am intransigent; 

or rather, i am too weak, & this is my mechanism of displaying strength.

//

a list of things/impressions of my week thus far:

1. monday was wonderful: finally caught up with j after a long, long time. went back to the place we spent the "zenith" of our nov-dec holidays at, and it felt like time-travelling because everything seemed virtually unmitigated by time- the christmas decorations were similar & even the layout of the temporary stalls in the center of the mall were uncanny. was predicatably hit by a wave of nostalgia, because everything seemed so imperfectly perfect then when in retrospect. beef pie & hot chocolate in buck's classy christmas paper cup, mandatory m&s & times visit-- these are the little things that i will remember.ended off the evening with a tour of the school & taking extremely professional pair-fies (instead of selfies), especially the ones with the legendary sir. s. raf who was of course, in marble.

2. snd workday on tuesday was extremely blessed. we were all so spent by the end of it but learning all four dances (technically three because one belonged to our group) in the darkening amphi & panicking half-way through almost every dance with the music because of a forgotten step or two made the experience really enjoyable :-) learning & singing the batch'14 song as a "sample size for the j1s next year" reminded me so much of orientation & why i am so blessed to be part of this (new) journey. ended the day with comm dinner at j8's rooftop, which ended with a bang because of charades where (mainly) the girls went mad while the guys sat and laughed at us. some instinct tells me that these are the things that will comprise "nostalgia" in time to come. 

3.vacillation between reading, sleeping & studying for sats on wednesday before math, & a deepening impression that vociferous boys cook up a racket in a supposedly placid place so that you will notice them, but it often backfires because 1. noise is a mega turn-off, and associating oneself with a turn-off inevitably makes one one too 2. personally, i'll be more likely to notice quiet people 3. swearing right in front of me thinking it makes one look like a badass...i'll reserve my comments. 

4.finally finished murakami's norwegian wood today & i came to a self-drawn conclusion that i shall be avoiding murakami books for awhile. in the novels that i've read by him thus far, i've often been struck by the fluidity of his words & how he uses them (not even bombastic words but somewhat simplistic ones) with dexterity to create impressions that i've always lacked words to express myself, but through his books i've found myself falling prey to something. the way he normalises issues that are perhaps acceptable in japan are sort of a taboo not only in this society, but in the Word that i've been called to (try) to live by. everytime i am reading a murakami novel, i begin to find myself accepting these standards that are inherently warped (to me at least), and it's only when i contextualise them that i realise that they are anomalous in the form of a vice. i need to stop before the lines between the kingdom of the god and the world blur into one.

5. i also think that i need to stop drifting between "neither here nor there" and start living.