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.

thoughts on nyc

i haven't written since the morning of tuesday the twenty fourth when i woke up all alone in an empty room of an apartment in flatbush & it hit me like a brick smashing through my ribcage how most of the people i love are 15 280 kilometers away from me & how i'll have eleven more weeks to go before the familiarity of home; how i would pause on the way from the subway to work & look on in silence as the plane above me roared and traversed through the sky, wishing to god that i were on it; how the twelve hour time difference made me treasure early mornings or late nights so much more, how the loneliness of being the only one here in this vast city would kill me alittle on the inside. i never really understood homesickness until then - but how lucky i am to have somewhere to miss, & somewhere to ground me. 

having what had hitherto comprised my world on the other end of the globe has made me so open to making new friends & rekindling old acquantainces: to latch on to every friend i meet like a lifeline, to initiate conversations & to be curious about what makes them tick / how do they feel about where they come from etc. perhaps the magic of this city is meeting mere acquaintances & realising how capable we are of having good conversations - nearly the kind of conversations i have when with old friends. 

breaking away from home & the world i have (momentarily) left behind has been such a liberating feeling: this is my summer - my time to grow. to roam. to fly. pre-summer was precisely (nearly) a wreck bc i knew i needed to fly without clipped wings - & fly i will. but i've also realised the little parts of me i've left behind over the past year - emotions invested / the familiarity of things and people - these things still move me, even when they are knocking on closed doors. i've realised they still tug at my heartstrings despite being so far away because i have gone past the point of invalidating their existence. there are only good memories left. and they were beautiful while they lasted. 

growing. a word that encapsulates this season i am in. 

giant-slayer

have been looking forward to summer since the end of february but now that summer is finally here the beginning has been utterly rough & ruthless - have met with so many curveballs thrown my way & have been feeling blue most of the time but this just takes the cake:

god You don't do a work halfway, & i know You make a way when there seems to be no way. this will be the summer of my life bc You have seen it from the start & will see it until the end. i pray for tomorrow to be smooth-sailing somehow, i know with certainty how powerful You are, & i will pull divine strings.

i will still choose to proclaim Your goodness.

after thought

i looked up to the ceiling, felt myself effacing into the crowd like smoke dispersing itself on its upward trajectory, half-inebriated, the synergy of bodies chafing against one another to the beat that was drumming so loudly it hurt my ears yet felt so alive in my body it was moving me, arms strewn up, was i imaginary? body to body, packed like sardines - if this were the mrt i would have hated my lot but this was the place where people lost themselves to the collective effervescence of a crowd, lost themselves to their loneliness, lost themselves to insobriety (& impropriety), who are you but it's fine bc i am lonely & in need of company, so this is what it feels like to have somebody to hold - 

last night was a whirlwind and it left me thinking: do we feel ourselves going out of character bc we are losing ourselves or bc we are set on the trajectory for growth & to fully initiate ourselves into adulthood we have to undergo this phase (almost like a "rite of passage") where we normalise things previously frowned upon by our own conservative selves? this entire week thus far has felt like a true "inauguration" into adulthood - had a haircut & dye for the summer i.e. a new season, am embracing the last few days of residential living independence, booked an appointment to the dentist without anyone telling me to - before i fly off to the states i really wanted to replace my crumbly retainers & check my teeth but now my bank account is gaping like the hole that was in my molar, packing the remnants of my first year of college life into a suitcase & preparing my heart to move out of this room/suite that i have grown so accustomed to, to abandon my school-social life-gym routine that i have been sticking to for the past semester, ladies night & learning with pleasure that i'm getting better at the one thing i set out to learn in college i.e. to drink bc it is such an important social skill, setting up a sam account bc i need to pay my mrv before i can schedule an appointment to the embassy for my visa, & fretting over expenses bc the bulk of it went into my teeth & visa etc.

i have so many residual thoughts on ending freshman year here that trickle periodically like a dripping stalagmite (hence explaining so many after thoughts) - it has been a season of introspection & expression, but here is one thing that i can say for sure: this place still feels so right, despite the occasional blueness whatsoever. my homies just sneaked up on me on two separate occasions to celebrate my birthday two weeks in advance bc they know i won't be spending my 20th in sg this year - & what can i say but college gave me more than just growth: it has blessed me with friends who will go for night walks with me whenever i need conversational catharsis, friends who will splurge nine bucks on a slice of cake to celebrate my growth with me (which i never got to eat after a mouthful bc it turned bad when held captive, but still), friends who made the effort to spend more time with me when i experienced sadness from loss or when some boy made me blue, friends who can make me laugh until i'm bent over & nearly crying from stupid things, friends who will knock on my door & count on me to talk about their own problems. i am just so thankful i have found friends i am willing to abandon important things for, & they are the true mvps of freshman year.