impasse

the bricks are tantamount to the fleetingness of time.

not too long ago, the building had merely been soil;

but it is now of corporeal structure.

yet i - the epitome of an impasse 

am still like a ship

entrenched in shallow waters.

leap // lightness

why?

perhaps the most preeminent & austere reason why is that i don't want to be scared anymore

i want to be david in the presence of goliath- no, more than that, i want to befriend the giant that has hitherto been plaguing my self-esteem like weeds in its parasitic nature

i want to rediscover the joy in living (via enjoying what i am doing given the current parameters of my life), & the only way to do that before time becomes a hostile nemesis is to sacrifice smaller ideals with faith that it will translate into the fulfillment of bigger ideals in the long run

!!i.have.decided.&.there.will.be.no.turning.back!!

(this really reminds me of z's hxh draft about "gravity" [that is still in the end-process of editorial work]: a fusion of her words & mine have been haunting me ever since this issue had impudently elbowed its way into all of my thoughts this morning  i.e. gravity as a "shackle", "leap of faith", "gravity has no hold over god" - am i abnormal if this makes me strangely pleased??)

pretentiousness

was just contemplating about life in general in the shower:

replayed in the recesses of my head things & topics of conversations over the past few days, & one word that stood out like a sore thumb was "pretentiousness"

the notion of "pretentiousness" has been a frequent friend in "didactic" conversations; often we've heard and even participated in boxing up a particular person in that category on the pretext of something she/he has done - the irony being we become part of the monster we condemn that person to be

but beyond that level of pretentiousness comes the question of self-identity

today i've been hit hard by that epiphany that i actually do not really know who i am, or what i like  

by reevaluating the choices that i've made, the preferences that i have accustomed myself to liking, it suddenly hit me like an impudent wave that the continuous creation of self is shaped by influences that are not borne out of one's own psyche, and that we build our identity - that is, our preferences that shape who we are, on striving to be someone else that fits our ideals

do i like reading because it's visceral, because it's innate? or do i like reading because i aspire to be an ideal, because i aspire to one day be able to write a tiny fraction of what plath was capable of doing (for example)

is my increasing passion for the local music scene borne out of my inherent inclination towards local products, or because 1. my scope of influences have shaped me thus 2. support for the local music scene is unconventional and i aspire to be unconventional

we've (or for fear of oversimplification - i've) built the fundamentals of the components of "me" on the ideals, on the backbones of others

so who am i?
who are you? at the core?

it frightens me because i really don't know who i'll be without my environment
that makes me pretentious, doesn't it? i am constantly pretending to be someone else higher/cooler/smarter etc that i become that fusion of strivings

strip me to the core & i am actually nobody in a vacuous, physical body titled "denise"
& that scares the hell out of me

(also ricocheting between disgust for consumerism & the need to look & feel attractive, which is quite a terrible place to be at)

i really can't do this on my own

lord, save me before these giants swallow me whole - before this boulder titled "lacking" crushes my psyche & leaves me apathetic 

strangely liberating

tonight is a charlie lim kind of night (thanks bunny j) and also a rare night where i feel like i can be invincible again

as this weekend draws to a close it has been (in retrospect) a profligate weekend characterised by an all-time low productivity level, even as cts inch closer with every wasteful second 

 but it has simultaneously been one of the most liberating weekends since 2k14 

three things happened this weekend that made my heart sing 

1. getting one step closer to internalising what god's munificent grace means

felt so languid from falling/ failing prior to service. i had forgotten- or rather chose not to remind myself, out of pride - that i am accepted solely on the basis of who christ is- not what i have done/will do. on the walk to church, i just kept telling god that i really needed to hear him speak into my life, that i needed him to straighten the crooked parts of my life like the pair of retainers i put on every night. during worship, i was swimming in my own mire of inadequacies (no, drowning was the word), wrestling between going & hiding from the face of god. i was so deficient in grace but it was then that sherman said he sensed a group of people in dire need of grace & opened the altar for a reconciliation with that satiable grace. instinctively, my heart started hammering & it was then i knew that god had pounded on my heart - all i had to do was to open that door. answering that call brought a flood of peace, restoration and most of all freedom. the veil that had separated me from Love had once again been torn, ripped from bottom up. 

forever he is glorified, forever he is lifted high, forever he is risen 

he is alive    

2. dance ministry

it was a spontaneous decision yet my heart could not stop singing after i had completed and submitted the form

felt strangely liberated even though i was/am (in a sense) tying myself down to another "baggage" of commitment, in all honesty i am still intimidated by commitment but it has never been about me and how can i offer something up that costs me nothing? 

3. goal - dream 

thur's uk schools mini-fair left me feeling vacuous when it hit me that i didn't know what i wanted to do with life. the lack of a goal i.e. lightness condemned me to the status of a drifter- people had dreams to work towards but i didn't even have a dream- what did that make me? 

tonight i finally have a dream that is (relatively) realistic and idealistic all at the same time (thanks mum for working hard to figure out possible routes on my behalf) - i finally have ideas that can anchor me 

it may be an oxymoron but (finally) having a goal to work towards has unshackled me from clipped wings 

i!! finally!! think!! i!! know!! what!! i!! want!! to!! do!! with!! life!! 

(one more week to get my act together- don't really know how to go about doing it but my god is an omnipotent & omnipresent god)  

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.