restored back from exile

it has been more than a week since i started work back at the same company that i was previously at, now having pivoted into a role that has been on my career bucket list for a long while. it was a role that i knew deep down i was running away from, but was also cognisant that i should attempt it at least once in my professional life, so that i will be able to confidently say that i've tried and either conquered it, or realised it isn't for me. 

"...when seventy years are completed for babylon, I will come to you and fulfil My good promise to bring you back to this place." 

i have been restored back to this place that i was once from. 

in a really human way, waiting on God's timing was difficult while being in the thick of it. even as door after door slammed shut in my face, i knew in my heart that God had the best plan in store for me, but i would be lying if i said my optimism and faith did not waver as the months started stretching out. not knowing when a drought will end is a scary feeling. i yearned for the relief of rain to come and deliver me from what had seemed like the pointless toil of tailoring applications after applications without an end in sight. 

but that experience has demonstrated once again that God's divine providence and timing are indeed impeccable. my severance package was at the tail end of its generous lifespan - it was slated to run out by may this year, but my current payroll will begin from this may onwards. the little "merry-go-rounds" i went on while searching for the right opportunity enabled me to build resilience while plant(ing) and eat(ing) in the season i was in. but most importantly - that season of professional drought enabled me to not just witness, but also play an active part in caring for our tiny newborn and watching her blossom into a feisty little human being with the cutest babbles to express her big emotions which she hasn't quite found the words for. i always knew i needed that season, but now that i am away from baby n for majority of the time during the weekdays, i am so thankful that i had ten solid months of quality time with her.

in this new season, i want to remember that my worth is not in how many deals i close or how much revenue i bring in, but in my identity as the daughter of the most High. i want to remember that money can get really good but i am ultimately a steward of my resources, and the true value of money is its use in showing the people around me that i care about them. i want to remember that He is my giant slayer, and i only need to pull heavenly strings when i have tried my best and exhausted all my options. i want to remember that i am here to be salt and light on this earth, that my actions may point people towards Him. 

i know the road ahead will be tough but i am both encouraged (by my new team who reminds me of my grad program ohana) and excited to meet with the denise of the past from nyc's union square in '16. i've really missed the feeling of setting my heart alight from stepping up to face something that had hitherto scared me, showing up for myself despite the fear and conquering it until it no longer scares me. my muscle for showing up for myself had atrophied during my time working at home and i am exhilarated to be meeting with the favourite parts of my former self in this upcoming season. 

riches even in a season of exile

these few days i've been waking up with a sinking feeling in my chest, feeling beaten down by the poor market climate, by the multiple doors slamming in my face, by the voices in my head echoing the world's view that i'm not good enough, not relevant enough, not experienced enough etc. 

here comes the feeling i've thought were of days past:

feeling left behind by the world and daunted by the widening gap between where i am and where i want to be professionally. 

flashback to the post-jc days where i was swirling yoghurt and cashiering at kinokuniya while my peers were pursuing corporate internships with prestigious organisations; to when i was put on the waitlist for my dream college and didn't know where i'd eventually land up - while my peers were already knee-deep in preparations for their rag & flag performances; to days when i was still single and in pursuit of a romantic partner, but could not find anyone who deemed me worthy enough to commit to.

this season feels like one for the books - another example that i can stash away into my book of "feeling left behind by the world". 

i think this is precisely why this season has been difficult for me - it cuts deeply into my greatest insecurity of feeling like i've been left behind, while everyone else seems to be bounding ahead with ease. 

but in the midst of being in the thick of this valley, God i hear You - a quiet voice whispering:

'this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from jerusalem to babylon: 

build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce...also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which i have carried you into exile. pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper...

when seventy years are completed for babylon, I will come to you and fulfil My good promise to bring you back to this place. 

"for I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you", declares the Lord, "and i will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you", declares the Lord, "and I will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile." ' 

- jeremiah 29:4-14

i may feel like i'm currently circling wastelands, but even in this season You are asking me to settle down, enjoy what i have, seek You earnestly and wait on Your timing. 

and in that glorious timing of Yours, You Lord, You will personally escort me back to the desired place of my heart. 

so i will wait. as You have always done, i will wait for You to open that one door that no man, thing or circumstance will be able to close. that one door i will wait on, even as all the other doors close shut in my face. 

i will plant and eat, and seek both the peace and prosperity of this place of exile. even in this place, You have made me so rich.

You have given me our dearest daughter n, who is the most precious little human being i have ever come across - she is our little bundle of joy who is worth infinitely more than the greatest riches, and whom money cannot buy; 

someone i wholly love and trust to journey this valley with, who can take care of both n and i and bear the financial burden of our family alone, should this wintery season extend into the months ahead; 

my former bosses and work friends who are rooting for me and finding ways to either advocate for me from their positions of power, or hire me back - the people in this world who can still see my value shining through and constantly remind me of that - despite what the rest of this world tells me - that my skillsets are still relevant, still worthy, and still in demand; 

the support of family and friends (close friends, cg mates etc.) outside our little family of three - in the form of words of encouragement, career advice and even working through interview preparation and case studies with me; 

enough in my bank account to wait out this season of exile; 

and most of all, i still have You - You who goes before me, You - my biggest giant slayer, You - the creator of this universe. You who pulls heavenly strings for me that i need only be still in a season of striving. 

i will wait for this season to be yet another testimony towards Your realness and Your goodness. as You have always been. 

in the words of a former colleague whom i bumped into yesterday just before my interview: "i'm rooting for you, denise".

even from this place of exile, i still have so many people rooting for me. even when i feel like i don't have much going for me in this one area of my life, i look around and i find - i am still so, so wealthy. 

in a season of having and being enough, despite -

these days i've been thinking about my youth a lot. i think of the blackened sky and the cool morning mist against my skin as i climbed into the back of my mum's altis, vague memories of oldies playing in the background and being awoken at the petrol station outside sji en route to anderson road, where i knew i could look forward to a mini bottle of sunkist's apple juice with aloe vera bits as a little "pick me up" before classes started. i think of fourteen year old me with such a fanatic crush on my chemistry teacher it actually made me seriously question my sexuality. or fifteen year old me with a trauma of handing in blank math papers while feeling like the biggest academic loser in the world. i think of digging into my favourite tom yum chicken noodles from haw's kitchen with princesses and our quarterly post-exam tradition of having a well-deserved, fancy lunch followed by the movies, or drinking koi at the windy benches while wearing our faux leather friendship bands that each sported a similar anchor-shaped embellishment made out of cheap metal. i think of the disappointment i felt when i finally got to work at kinokuniya as a cashier and realised that no one there actually loved to read, except for the store director with the same name as my father. i still remember the sinking feeling in my heart on bus 89 on the way back from yet another monotonous shift at a frozen yoghurt shop, as i read about friends and acquaintances getting into my dream liberal arts college on social media (while i was being relegated to the waitlist). i think of the alienation i felt when i finally shifted into my dream college and abruptly realised that i was going to have to find a new "home" in a completely new environment that had seemed all too overwhelmingly artificial and high-achieving. i think of the numbing brokenness i felt from getting my heart trifled with again and again - the unfounded jitters, the suite parties, the chilly night walks past midnight etc. 

i think of this song in particular:

 

it was either the tail end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. i remember being on a cruise deck drinking a cocktail with my mum when a live band started playing this song. we were talking about my poor love life from being consistently attracted to the same type of boys who were undeniably attractive but always lacked the courage to commit. she said something along the lines of "imagine dancing to this song with your future husband and putting your arms around him while you sway to this on the dance floor...how nice would that be?" 

we both paused and imagined it together. it has stuck with me ever since. 

a few days ago, m and i were talking about how we spent our twenties. his twenties are over, but i'm a few years shy of finishing mine. 

"do you regret any point of your twenties so far?" he asked.

i thought about it -

"no... i'm actually so proud of how i've spent my defining decade so far. i think i've accomplished everything i wanted to accomplish thus far. i don't think i regret any part of it. i truly don't." 

baby n is the reason why i've been reflecting on my youth a lot more. thinking of her makes me think of the relentless 5.45am mornings my mum had to go through in order to send us to schools so far away from where we lived, and all the other sacrifices my parents made for me while i was growing up. i think of the brokenness i felt as a lost teenager and adolescent, and i hope with all of my heart that she will not have to experience that desolate feeling of being left behind by the world. i think of all the boys who may eventually break her heart and hope that she will have enough self love to know her worth and stand her ground. i think of how we can teach her emotional resilience, so that she will be able to overcome any failures and challenges that life will throw at her. i think about the friends that she will make - will she be able to find her people too? i think about how lucky i am to love and be loved - that i have someone i wholly trust, someone whom i can finally dance to journey's open arms with together. i think about the life we've embarked on since our first date and how incredibly blessed we are to have this little human being who makes our little family even more complete. i think about how it's been a long while since i'd felt that dull ache of loneliness from wondering if i'd ever find love. i constantly think about the truest and most beautiful story of my life that i've been working towards manifesting, working with God in tow and not in retrospect. 

i recently found out one of my favourite feelings in the world is hugging baby n close as she snoozes on my chest in a baby carrier. there is just something so pure about feeling her bodily warmth envelope my every being that grounds me so immovably. she feels like this little peanut i want to protect at all costs whenever she nuzzles into my chest for comfort, making me feel like the luckiest person in the world that we get to call her ours. 

this season is God's biggest blessing in disguise, and i try very hard to remember how lucky i am to be where i am - particularly when i feel discouraged about the shrivelled job market from a prolonged tech winter. there are always two sides to a coin, and i choose to see this season as an opportunity to rewrite my career narrative once again, even as i emerge from the duality of juggling motherhood alongside my multi-faceted identity as a career-oriented individual and daughter of the most High. despite how ambiguous being in this limbo feels, i am exactly where i want and need to be. i am at the very cusp of change, and where i go next will be the stepping stone towards defining the next chapter of my life's narrative. God has always only opened one clear door for me, and that door has always been the best door for me. i truly believe it will be no different this time. 

i also recently found out that mental resilience is one of my strengths. it's strange bc i've never really thought of myself as a resilient person, but apparently - according to the person who knows me best (next to myself), he says that i am. we were in the trenches together when we found out about the miscarriage. we were in the trenches together again the day baby n was born - when we found out that she had torn a hole in my rectum (it was a 0.01% incidence) while being yanked out unceremoniously with a pair of forceps. it was absolute chaos - as a delayed side effect, i was throwing up uncontrollably while the oxygen machine periodically beeped in the background signalling baby n's oxygen levels were unstable from her distress. m watched on helplessly as i was wheeled into emergency surgery soon after the delivery (it was in the wee hours of the morning). i laugh when i think back to how my mum kept stressing the importance of "skin-to-skin" contact with the baby just before we checked into the hospital 24 hours earlier to induce the delivery at 40 weeks ("skin-to-skin" was clearly the last thing on our minds and i only got to hold baby n for the first time the next morning after waking up from that episode). we were talking about the future a few years down the road, if and when we're blessed enough to have baby number two - "us and pregnancy don't really seem to get along very well...i'm surprised what we went through doesn't deter you from wanting more children. you actually bounced back really quickly." he is right - somehow i am not horribly averse to the idea of going through this all over again. interestingly, i feel that the scars from my formative years of growing up haunt me much more than the trials i've been through as an adult - and it could very well be bc having someone steadfast to hold my hand and journey through the hard times with me makes dealing with everything so much easier. we just celebrated the end of his master's exam and our second marriage anniversary a few days ago. time passes with blatant disregard for anything and anyone: what had seemed insurmountable (i.e. waiting on God's timing in the sheer ambiguity of not knowing how my career and his residency would line up together perfectly with having a child; going through a full-term pregnancy while working and preparing for the arrival of our baby as he laboured through the final year of his residency; struggling through the arduous newborn phase of being first-time parents, all while he juggled studying after work for one of the most challenging exams of his life) have all come to pass. on paper, everything sounds almost impossible to bear. in reality, we bore everything so incredibly well - all bc of God's grace and how we made it so much easier doing the difficult things in life together.  

i listen to the tunes of my youth a lot, particularly those tunes i played on repeat during my college days. i listen to them often partly bc they bring back a flood of nostalgia for those archived times that now seem so imperfectly perfect through rose-tinted lenses. but a huge reason why i still listen to them on repeat nowadays is bc they remind me of who i was and how i had felt then while in the thick of experiencing growing pains. now, they serve as little celebratory hymns of victory reminding me of how far i have come and will continue to go. 

preliminary thoughts on motherhood

it has been slightly over a month since n's existence here on earth. time is a curious thing - while i was counting down the days to her due date, i could not - for the life of me, envisage how it would be like to push out a human being who had been growing inside of me for the past nine months. childbirth itself terrified me. and now that momentous event has already come and gone. walking out of the hospital with tiny baby n wrapped tightly in my arms felt as if christmas came early. it was our first victory together as a unit of three. even looking at her now feels surreal. i cannot fathom that she is the same person who had been doing little submarines and windshield wipes in my belly - that the little fist which had surfaced to greet us from within the womb is actually the same fist which lobs us impatiently for milk now. 

motherhood feels slightly different from what i had imagined in my head. i am currently writing this with a glass of white wine in hand, soaking in charlie lim's orgasmic voice in my ears (to me, his tunes scream of high school nostalgia) and keeping an eye on our sweet little angel chilling on the couch beside me. it almost feels like the old days. such days are rare, but in times like these i feel like myself again. unlike career-planning, parenthood is too complex and variable to make up five-year plans in advance. instead, we are tackling it by breaking it down into phases: phase one was our twenty-eight day confinement nanny phase, marked by wound healing, recuperation, dealing with the onslaught of new motherhood challenges (i.e. three-hourly pumps and dealing with the pain of breastfeeding attempts) and getting used to a new household dynamic of living with three additional human beings. from phase one we graduated into phase two - a life without a confinement nanny but with our relatively new helper and m still at home with me for a week. now we are currently in phase three - adjusting to a new normal with just our helper and i at home during the day. and i think we have been doing pretty well so far. i do miss not having the house to ourselves, but it has been such a worthwhile trade-off to have that extra pair of hands whose full-time job is to share our load with us. we are still not sure how things will pan out in phase four (when i eventually return to the workforce). but we're just tackling one phase at one time, at least until m is done with his exams at the end of this year. i am just thankful that god has provided so richly thus far, in the form of the people and community that He has placed in our lives.

but beyond the logistics of coping with this new normal, motherhood is also about the intangible adjustments towards this paradigm shift: dealing with an altered and battered body that has been through and continues to go through so much; displacement of hormones resulting in unpredictable mood swings; the inevitable mum guilt and pigeon-holed narratives of self-worth defined by milk production and how much one is willing to sacrifice for one's baby. to a large extent, motherhood has felt reductive: i am enslaved to the pump every two hours, counting down the hours to my day shifts alone with baby n, dreading waking up during the wee hours of the morning just to pump again. the day resets but my tasks remain the same. i feel like a shadow of my former self - almost as if those days of driving customer conversations, pantry coffee chats and putting on my "chief-of-staff" hat are so buried in the past now. motherhood surprises me bc i had heard so many platitudes about how it would be like - statements such as "you never know you can love anyone so much until you have children"; "give yourself some time, you may not even want to go back to work"; "breastfeeding is difficult but it's one of the best things of being a mother" or "when you have your own children, you'll want to give him or her the world" etc, but none of them truly resonate with me. when i gazed into baby n's eyes for the first time, i felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude, but that overwhelming flood of love i was expecting never came (it actually felt strange to have this tiny human being presented before me as my child, and i almost had to manufacture the feelings of love by telling myself that i loved her). being her sole care-giver in the two/three hour blocks during the day (while the helper is resting from taking on the night shifts on our behalf) makes me feel i will most definitely go crazy if i were to do this full-time, without help. i also made the decision to stop latching her one & a half months in bc it was painful, difficult and an inefficient use of both of our time. she is so important to me, but i do not want to make her my world - i still want to be known for who i am and what i can do in this world, outside of being just her mother. i will not trade her for anything, but she came at a cost and i still look upon my new body - the same unimaginably resilient body which grew her from a mustard seed, brought her to term and even continue to produce milk for her, and struggle to find the new me in the mirror (with a hanging mommy pooch and stretch marks peeking from beneath my shorts) attractive. i read somewhere that stretch marks are how love writes on our skin. i am still in the process of appreciating and being patient with my body which i do not give enough credit for. 

before n was born, i wrote a letter to myself so that i could encourage the denise of the future, which is denise of the present moment: 

"in this upcoming season, i hope you will continue to love and affirm yourself regardless of however you feel. just like how the boys who didn't reciprocate your feelings in college days didn't define your beauty and worth, so does not being able to breastfeed or give everything up for beanie define how good you are as a mother and as a person. i hope you'll continue to keep your identity separate - you are multi-faceted: you are first denise - your own individual, before you are beanie's mother. you can be both, in the same way you can fulfil your life dream of being both a young mother and a career woman...by the time you revisit this, you'll probably have gone through the unthinkable feat of pushing this human bean out. you are a champion and i hope that you'll continue to be kind to yourself. you've already done enough. you are enough."

if motherhood were ever a graded assignment, i feel i'll be a mother in the lower percentile rungs for not wanting to sacrifice so much for my child. but tonight, in spite of everything - i think i am doing pretty well. i have already done enough. i am enough. 

what i'll miss about this transitory season

there are moments which you only miss after they pass you by, but there are also moments which you know you'll miss even as they are passing you by. 

i feel the latter so strongly on this quiet night: drake & post malone in the background, sparkling ribena in a wine glass by my bedside as a poor substitute, eagerly awaiting a new jo malone scent i'd just ordered online to mark this new, transitory season from womanhood into impending motherhood. being alone with my thoughts and feeling like myself again despite the burgeoning belly. counting my blessings that He has so wonderfully stitched together the desires of my heart in the wildest manner - turning the mess of this extensive massacre in tech into a personal testimony and enabling me to focus on cultivating one season at a time (where i'm headed for next in my career is still unknown and the unknown is always unsettling for someone like me who loves clarity, but by God's providence i can afford to park that discovery until next year when i'm ready to start thinking about career once again). 

what will i miss? 

i'll miss the stillness of being in our nest exclusive to just the both of us - m & me. i'll miss feeling you doing a little submarine dance inside my belly - squirming and doing little punches to remind me of mealtimes whenever you get hungry (and my body responding by assaulting me with ravenous hunger - the kind of hunger that makes me get up at 5am to make pancakes !!!). i'll miss sleeping in and waking up to the prospect of being able to have a leisurely breakfast as well as a clear schedule ahead of me. i'll miss m snuggling up to my belly and calling your name. i'll miss both the freedom and mobility of being able to go for shopping/tea dates with mumsie at whim, or being able to freely grab lunch with friends/former colleagues. i'll miss wind-down, uninterrupted drama nights with m in the comfort of our bedroom. i'll miss being able to take naps throughout the day and being the most well-rested i've ever been. 

i've gotten so comfortable with this season - it feels nice to feel in control but i'm cognisant that we've also finally arrived at the last stretch of this marathon. i imagine what awaits us at the finish line of this race will be sheer havoc and a whirlwind of emotions - from postpartum blues to inexplicable joy to mental breakdowns from the lack of sleep. but it is also a necessary rite of passage and one that we've actively chosen. above all, it is the passage that allows us to finally meet you - an inch towards manifesting the truest and most beautiful story of my life using the language of imagination. 

pupa

here i am: 

me in the present moment -

taking it all in as i stand at the cusp

of a new and foreign season ahead.

i am where i want to be,

but still - it remains difficult to reconcile

conceptually ready me with the present me,

who feels as if i'm an outsider looking in. 

in this transitory season,

i feel i am in limbo - 

cocooned in a chrysalis. 

days past an unfettered version of my youth,

days awaiting a cardinal transformation

of my identity unlike any other i've hitherto known.

i struggle to remember how life was before this,

but i also struggle to envisage how life will be after this. 

and so

i just straddle the in-between,

trying to embrace this current season of stillness -

stillness before the whirlwind of all that is to come.

hands pressed against my ballooning abdomen

counting flutters and kicks 

emanating from the inside,

the most tangible reminder that 

everything is poised to change: 

the three month countdown has already begun

until we finally get to meet

you.  

(i can't wait to find out how you'll look like, our little beanie)

by His grace and His grace alone

19th feb 2023: today marks the day of my public declaration of faith & commitment to Him who is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent - Him who makes my cup overflow irrespective of circumstances. 

this is a copy of my baptism testimony which i read out to an audience of approximately eighty+ people today - sharing it again in hopes that it encourages someone else here who has not heard it: 

    "i accepted Christ in 2011, but by 2016 the novelty of a transformative, conversion prayer had worn off. old friends who knew sophomore year me in 2016 would describe me with the following adjectives: “bold” and “unfettered”. i was extremely purpose-driven - but my purpose was entirely of the world. my main goals were to (1) explore all plausible, desirable partner options within my tiny college population to get out of single-hood and (2) to bolster my resume with extracurricular activities for what I termed as a “big-fish” internship in junior year. on the outside, i looked like i had my act completely together. friends were applauding me for being “mulan”-esque and a complete “go-getter” for boldly going after both of these things. 

but on the inside, i was like scattered sand. i had pushed God to the peripheries because thinking of Him was inconvenient for what i had wanted to achieve in life. inside, i was suffused with a choking bout of numbness i couldn’t quite shake off. as i wrapped my arms around myself and rocked myself to sleep on bad nights, i thought about how nice it would be to have someone physical to hold me. i didn’t want to think of God - my omni-potent and loving Father-in-Heaven, whom i knew (in my head, yes - but not my heart) had the ability to satisfy even the thirstiest of hearts. how could i, when touch was my love language, but i could not touch and be touched by someone who lives in the heavens, the stars, the seas - whose omni-presence was more than i could bear, whose boundlessness i couldn’t kiss nor tangibly feel? and so i lost myself to the shadows of chasing after things i knew wouldn’t satisfy, after sinful pursuits in the name of personal growth, after fallible people like myself, and got disappointed again and again by prospective love interests who couldn’t commit, who didn’t seek after my heart as fervently as i had romantised in my head. i only prayed for the want of things, not for the want of Christ Himself. 

    matthew 6:33: “but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” 

    and one day, i broke. by the end of the year, i had gotten so emotionally spent from chasing after all these worldly things which didn’t satisfy that i literally felt i had a gaping hole in my heart. as the new year fireworks erupted at the close of 2016, i told God that life without Him always seemed better until it became emotionally tiring and utterly empty, and pledged that i wanted to do things together with Him and not in retrospect anymore. in that moment, i pivoted my heart: i was going to seek Him as the End Desire Himself, and no longer as a means to things which i desired. 

    there is so much joy in knowing that one is finally walking right with God. being anchored in Christ means that i no longer have to resort to sinful pursuits to fill me and make me feel whole, because i am already whole and made complete by Him and His work on the cross. putting my trust in Christ means that my cup will always overflow irrespective of circumstances - because He is the abundant fountain of Love who truly satisfies. there is so much freedom in knowing that in our hearts we plan our course, but it is God who establishes our steps. there is so much comfort in knowing that whatever door He opens no one can shut, and whatever door He shuts, no one can open. my purpose in life now is to glorify Him in whichever secular spaces He has placed me in: to be set apart so that people around me might wonder what my secret-sauce is, and come to their own realisation that it is God behind the works. 

    and just to complete the loop: two months after i told God i would pursue Him and Him alone, God placed the love of my life in my path. we are currently married and expecting a new addition to our beautiful family this year." 

it still feels surreal that i finally (after years of sitting on this decision) bit the bullet and did it, but my heart is so, so full - i am so blessed to have had m, both families and even friends from our community group show up and bear witness to this special personal declaration of faith. today also marks the next step of being officially incorporated into the body of christ which m & i both resonate with. i am so thankful that we made that decision to take the first step towards anchoring ourselves in a new church community we can confidently call our own about a year ago. it has been so fulfilling thus far to be able to do life in a way we know honours Him and sets a good foundation for our marriage.