"happy" 2k15

spent new year's eve at the airport & ushered in 2k15 on the airplane; it was absolutely lovely trying not to think ill of turbulence on the plane (especially with the extremely recent air disaster)  & trusting in the Almighty's arms to hold it up in the skies (irrational i know, but uncertainty is as real as it is irrational). [funny how i welcomed the new year with a sense of foreboding from a literal event that aptly mirrors the figurative]

2k14 has been a sentimental year - strangely the bad actually clouds the laboured year with fondness, especially in retrospect. i feel like we/i've laboured too hard last year & december came by too quickly. it's gone now and i feel like i've used up my grace period bc now i have to be more responsible for myself than i would have ever liked. (i only ever wanted independence of thought, not independence from being -completely- materially/physically cared for)

anyway, spent countdown journaling at the airport bc i just had to let something (?? idek what this was) out:

we've worked too hard,
slogged our guts worth
for the coveted slip of gold -
our entrance ticket
to yet another rat race.

fourteen minutes
to the end
of another beginning.
i am ambivalent -
a mere matter of minutes before
we land at the foot
of another arduous cliff.

time - an incorporeal being;
slipping like sand
yet
so intangible, its worth
lies in recognition.

i wish
i could choose negation;
but i cannot afford
being
left behind.

"welcome to singapore, the time now is 5:36 a.m, 1st january 2015" 

world - heart - God

she is the girl who rolls in her own muck -
defying vertigo
by believing that she has not reached
rock-bottom
bc God cannot find her at the foot.

he is the God who has long & strong arms.
as she falls, sheds contrite tears
& does anything but love herself -
even running away from her own skin, or God,
he loves. 

he is the kind of dad who will pick her up,
shower then towel her dry from ordure,
hold her close & tuck stray locks of hair away
from her face, for clarity,
for his picture of love beheld.

he is my daddy God, who treats me
to vanilla ice-cream
after such an episode,
bc Grace is mimed in an ice-cream treat.

I am my own rice

attempting to compile a portfolio of personal writings (that i really hope will suffice) for future references & this is pretty funny bc i have become my own editor, my own greatest critic.

perhaps the journey up starts with a journey within: it is unnerving & simultaneously liberating to become "(my) own rice" (as a.p so astutely phrased it more than a year ago). also, i am getting to learn from the 师父 this coming january (!!!!!!!!) - i am an ambivalent mess of happiness & apprehension in clashing & irreconcilable intensities.

"the future"

all these talks about the future have been exhilarating & unsettling at the same time, & today i finally had the will (i used to wield the trump card of "not enough time" in the past but post-as life has been gr8 bc naps on whim are therapeutic) to consolidate the flotsam-like thoughts in my head, especially the fear of the unknown that eats me up periodically:

what is the future, but a continuation of the culmination of seconds snowballed into minutes, then hours, days, months & years? 

wherein lies that paralysing fear if one sits in inertia, strapped in & sent through the tunnel of time & continuity, as the days repeat their existence & subsequently blur into a slur? 

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i am conflicted - wrestling between apprehension of both change & continuity. 

change in general scares me (if one negates the tinge of thrill that accompanies fear, if it is a good change): perhaps it's the idea of something Bigger than oneself out of one's realm of control, & the sole "choice" (an irony) to adapt to uncharted waters - or drown underneath a bed of weeds, strangled & relegated to the bottom of the ocean. 

yet, inertia - its antithetical counterpart, brings little solace as well. 

what is more terrifying than a helpless inability to change, a life condemned to & entrapped in dissatisfaction, while the world spins on its axis (bc no human is indispensable), brings day & night, & leaves one behind to one's own devices? 

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perhaps what grips me (at my very first crossroads of life where there is suddenly no structure to adhere to) is the conundrum of striking a precarious balance between the dichotomy of change & paralysis (the Victorians who were unable to reconcile the abysmal purity of Virgin Mary and the depravity of the "fallen woman" archetype compromised a solution of coexistence by cutting middle ground). 

i don't want either this or that - what i insist on being spoilt child who wants to have her cake & eat it?

i want to be both in the face of the forcefield of impending changes, & i am afraid that my attempts in the near future will be futile - like the inevitable yellowing of favourite pages of novels neatly stacked in shelves against moisture in the all-encompassing air - air that engulfs everything & leaves no book safe from its clutches. 

0%

no, this will no longer be a negation of ineffable feelings/thoughts,
nor an attempt to remain impervious to inevitable changes.

i used to think that this unsettling stoicism in my psyche was borne out of an interactive, constant cycle of pelting & numbing,
but today i've realised that this unease is precisely the product of acceptance (which should not be used interchangeably with resignation) that has been gradually defusing into my veins, so gradual that it has become unconscious & one with my being

& so, this will now form the cement of the ground i am treading on.
it has started to become a recontextualisation, a redefinition - the same things that had once made my heart sink into its cavern can now sing & bestow blessings.

things that used to remind me of the vacuous will now merely remind me, of me.
(how do i put this properly into words but freedom comes two-fold for me in this season)

!! so immensely & positively hyped up bc life begins when this weekend ends !!
(yes, life has yet to begin)

all hail literature

thoughts on the last literature paper (at least for a while, or probably forever - idk) yesterday:

immense relief bc lit had hitherto been akin to a blunt knife chafing at me with the intensity of unfulfilled expectations

but there was inevitably also a sense of loss bc i think i've befriended almost every single primary character in all of my literature texts  (with the exception of the duchess- lol sorry stoic, death-defying martyr) & perhaps lived vicariously through them in some way or another:

newland archer: as much as he is an absolute douche who makes me want to punch his face sometimes, i think he is probably the character i can identify with the most (& i have mentioned this countless of times but aoi arguably has one of the best endings ever - it really couldn't have ended any other way) 

ellen olenska: her unconventionality is so freaking attractive!!! 

silas marner: sh mentioned as a passing comment before (in jest) that i resemble mr marner in my propensity for solitude (to the point of complete social isolation), treacliness (while he couldn't bear to dispose off his broken earthenware pot, i couldn't find it in myself to throw away my old pair of lounge shoes despite buying a new pair) & liking for dull-coloured things, all of which i completely agree 

nancy lammeter: she is such an unlikely character but i can almost identify with her fetishism demonstrated in her visits to her drawer of hand-sewn clothes for her still-born child (the occasional, night visits to the closet of  thoughts/feelings/ideas in the banished recesses of my head - unborn, incorporeal ideals that i thought i had already given proper burial to). but yes, like her, i think i can also safely say that i have renounced the habit of visiting these desolate places again (or at least haven't suffered a relapse)  

lady windermere: "we all have ideals in life. at least we all should have" - i think this says it all

vivie warren: like vivie, i think i aspire to be a less dire version of the New Woman archetype - & like her,  i think individuality functions as my defense mechanism from getting hurt (it kind of goes hand in hand with my inclination for ideals, i think) 

i really love how literature is more omnipresent than one thinks - it is everywhere, because "the air of ideas is the only air worth breathing". 

& i thank God & "dead poet's society" for giving me the courage to take the one subject that i can safely say (regardless of the future results) that i do not regret taking

Your hands

for only You - & nothing nor anyone else, can make me brave

'but He said to me, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.' (2 cor 12:9) 

take me from strength to strength & glory to glory, just like You've promised