live with a life of expiry dates

There’s a curious phenomenon that begins in your brain when you start grocery shopping as an adult. You know where the aisles are, you compare prices and brands, but most out of character, you begin to check labels. The nutrition, weight, calorie content mumbo jumbo. Most importantly, your eyes will graze over the numbers and look for a singular one that means the most to you: the expiry date.

The expiry date, ah, the singular number that initiates the countdown to a produces death, the day it grows all wrinkly, changes colour and tastes funny, like some morbid food grim reaper. We plan our whole groceries around them, when’s the next buy, or we change our food habits suddenly, like furiously thickening the density of the peanut butter on a single slice of bread. Of course, there are often times we just ignore it altogether, sniffing at the milk like some deranged idiot to see if we can sense the slight shifts in pH values.

However, figuring out how to grocery shop around expiry dates was the easy part of adulting. Figuring how to treat every life event with an expiry date was the hard part.

It was not throwing things out before their deadlines arrive.

It’s holding on to that phone eventhough the new model is coming out and you can afford a change. It’s not dropping out of school even though a few assignments are missing and they needed to be rushed till five in the morning. It’s not cutting off of friendships just when the first argument arises. Not swallowing an excessive amount of pills when things have been going on too hard for too long.

The resilience of staying on to care for things whose time hasn’t come yet, the toughness to leave things in life aside for now and deal with it when you can.

It was to get rid of things that have extended their stay.

It’s understanding that it’s really time to declutter your space of items you don’t need. Time to reexamine unhelpful thoughts that have propelled and motivated you but there isn’t any need to anymore. It’s cutting off toxic relationships that have drained you even though it pains your heart deeply and all you feel like you should do is stay.

The firm resolution to take care of yourself, to not let spoiled things pollute your space, a toxicity that crawled into your ecosystems.

Yet, it was still being okay with the indefinite numbers of not knowing when the expiry dates were going to come.

It’s taking the risk to open your mouth to create connections without knowing when the fine line might snap. It’s being okay with reaching the end of education lines and a vast unknown of what happens now. It’s loving someone with a whole heart of uncertain periods even when you know it could head towards dead ends.

The solace in the absolute silence yet solidity of the end that is sure to come. The peace you make as you link fingers with the oblivion.

The delicate dance of hope and despair with time is the biggest concept I have yet to understand. Yet, it was letting go of the cranks and the cogs and the levers of clocks, willing to free the prying human fingers to manipulate our time, and simply succumbing to the silent countdown to inevitable expiry dates yet to come.

ew, romance

Hate is a strong word, but I hated the idea of love. There was nothing admirable about giving your life up for someone, nothing sweet about waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back. It was idealism at its’ extreme, a futile attempt at fairy tales and happy ever afters.

However, I often found myself in situations where someone has confided in me about their love life. Their yearning for a girl that won’t love them back, a guy who they liked but they knew they were never their type. Everything was a competition, texting timings, lovelorn watching, rapid swiping, falling, falling, falling.

I felt like an exasperated viewer watching playthroughs of all the wrong paths. Comments I didn’t publish consisted of:

“it’s been four years, what are you even waiting for?”

“someone doesn’t need a fist to inflict harm.”

“telepathy is not the only means to communication. talk.”

“the grand gesture can only bridge the half gap between your souls if they don’t meet you in the middle.”

After watching people dent their teeth on the curb of eros and phileo, a privilege we only got when our lives were already practical and didn’t need another partner to make it through, I didn’t want to stain my hands with the wax of a candle burned too bright and too fast for the sake of the thrill of five seconds of limelight.

Rather, I used the forest fires of the chaos around me to direct me away from the emotional turmoil and into the cold hard rational lines of logic, of cynical, of understanding that romance isn’t worth the pain of tearing your soul over and over to bind to another in a fruitless idealistic hope of gaining a sense of connectedness for just  moment.

We only think we fall in love for the neurotransmitters to fire rapidly enough so we can form deep sense of emotional attachments and reward that compels us to breed enough children to cover the face of the earth. We get a high each time we see someone we think we love because its our body telling us it’s easier to survive together to fend off predators. There is a longing to see them because your body naturally hates loneliness and the societal pressures views alone as outwanted and outcast eventually pressuring you subconsciously to fit a mold.

I thought I knew all there was to it.

But I was a teenager. They were teenagers. It was a teen love, a young Eros, Phileo love. A bulb of actually understanding a relationship beyond a quarter of its purpose.

I may have woken up earlier, but I still haven’t gotten out of bed until it was time for someone to pull off the covers.

Love isn’t just fluffy emotional fulfillment and attachments, nor intense physical intimacies, but it’s not cold hard pragma either. It’s all of those and more.

It’s learning to be rational about situations, yet hopeful that it will be okay eventually. It’s learning that there wouldn’t be any eventual benefit or gratefulness out of things but you still do it anyways. It’s something you have to do together, as long as the other person does it 40-60% of the time too. It’s knowing when and how much to give, and when and how much to take.

Love is…growth. It’s mature, it’s adulthood, and it’s fulfillment.

It should be a model of the perfect love God gives to us imperfect beings. It’s Agape. And it’s beautiful.

 

 

what now?

It’s the question of every graduate, every job seeker, every parent to be. The end is always a start, and the start eventually leads to an end.

Since we know that truth so well, the care given into answering the question of “what now?” is ambiguously ambivalent. The world of crossroads and choices. The luxury of choice. The burden of privileged perfection.

The world is our oyster yet I’m embedded in the flesh of my protective shell.

what now?

Yet all I wanted was the answer for how.

First Love

She is hard edges,

Cheekbones and jawlines,

Sharp enough to cut fear with blank stares.

 

She is candle glow,

Curved nose and gentle lips,

Soft enough to melt hearts and cushion tears.

 

She is tall walls,

Fortress barriers and mountain gates,

Storms can she withstand.

 

She is dove cage,

Held together by tears,

And brittle hair.

 

She is wild child,

Valley mouth and flailing arms,

Tumbling like lost wheels downhill.

 

She is rabbit soul,

Slight creaks and elevator doors,

Can cause heart attacks.

 

She is lava streams,

Time bomb scarring bursts,

Two second countdowns and red wire cuts

 

She is rain drizzle,

Mild enough to not harm but can annoy,

As she breaks her emotions out in gray clouds

 

She was a walking contradiction,

Mismatched socks,

Out of place paint swabs,

 

And I hated her for that.

 

She was

Someone so close that I took for granted,

Moving lungs I wanted to flatten out,

Innocent child on the death row

 

I learnt harshness is not the best teacher,

Inflicting pain not the best lesson,

Over criticizing,

Blaming,

Does nothing to help you grow,

Throwing out everything,

Means you lose the lines in between too. 

 

I spent too much time chasing the world,

Concrete jungles,

Ocean waves,

Forest trails,

Till I neglected the bloody girl on the bath tiles in tears.

 

So I hand her a towel,

Wrap my arms around her in the shower,

And help her scrub off the dirt she accumulated,

Carry her to the room,

Place her on the freshly made bedsheets,

Make her a cup of hot tea,

And write her poems of apologies.

 

For neglecting this wrecked body,

For forgetting that disasters thrive in creaky plank homes,

For leaving for what I thought was bigger things doesn’t mean you don’t have to come home.

 

And I peel back the bandages,  

Learn to uncover the mystery,

The pain,

The mess,

Of the only person who will forever remain with me.

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Super Dad? Nah, he’s the supporting Father

 

Since birth,

In the middle of the oldest and the youngest,

Towering over,

Used to being overshadowed,

My dad became a quiet follower.

 

He grew accustomed to the darkness,

Spent lots of time in its company,

Soon, he became one with the shadows,

He sewed his cloak into his skin

And the quiet assurance of silence

Became his kin.

 

He picked up lessons while tracing footsteps,

Watching people rise and fall,

Being the silent backbone while empathising through it all,

Heart growing bigger, though he remains small.

 

At times I worry if,

He spends so much time out of the spotlight

He will forget to come out during the roll call.

 

When I was born,

He continued to his silent parenting role,

Never the disciplinarian,

But always adopting different roles,

Like the self-help book recommendation librarian,

The calming catalyst of chill vibes,

The reasonable rational authoritarian,

The goofy dad-jokes personnel.

All while remaining the supporting character in the shadows of the grand hall.

 

And dad,

I know you don’t have your own shadow

No one to support you,

No dad to follow,

As much as you are forty nine,

You feel your fatherhood is on the line

 

But let me reassure you this

You have been the best dad I could ask for

 

You’ve laid the plans of values I build my life on

Caught me when I fell and held my hands

You’ve pulled me back from the cliffs I wanted to dive from

Helped me pay for my consequences you never earned

You’ve taught me more about love than a boy ever can

 

And in the end,

After all the heartbreak,

The pain,

The hurtful words,

And wounds we earned,

 

To be a family is to choose to love despite of everything

 

Thank you Dad

For being my shadow

I know the darker you become

The brighter I’ll glow

‘

And,

I promise to shine in this life

While never forgetting to turn and see the mark of your love and time

 

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Maybe

Maybe,

The city was better left a forest

Mismatched houses and jigsaw streets

The sidewalk a disarray of steps

Leaves would’ve been a calmer set  

 

Maybe,

The education system has always been

A mess of structure and curved guidelines

Thinking outside of the box

Into a bigger box

As if we could forget the existence of it

 

Maybe,

I didn’t ask for this,

To be struck with questions

Detours and reroutes

Interference and miscommunications

And most annoyingly

The weather changes. 

 

I don’t even know where this poem is going,

Maybe its Maybelline.

 

But,

 

I’ve stopped looking for definites

Constants,

For promises and full stops.

I might not know the full truth anymore,

Settling for exaggerations and unspoken lies.  

 

And that’s why,

Maybe

Become it’s my favourite word,

An infinite nebula of uncertainties and possibilities

The utter meaninglessness lost with the stars

And two syllabus

Of a

Maybe.

 

 

Forgotten Waves

I haven’t seen water in years,

And you brought me the ocean.

A vast,

Gaping,

Depth.

So much of it I was scared.

 

When you’ve forgotten the taste of salt,

Your tongue will curl,

And you aren’t sure if you hate the taste,

Or just familiarized yourself with blandness.

 

When you spent all your life in caves,

Would the light not blind you?

When your reality was white noise,

And edges,

How would you know,

What to do

With soft hands,

Gentle eyes,

Curved necks,

And quiet whispers?

 

My mother told me

We were bred to fear the unknown

And I forgot how to swim.

I don’t want to drown in your depths.

 

So I hope you can understand,

Why I can’t hold your hand.

Or my back becomes the first barrier.

 

Because to love you is to maybe lose you,

For being ripped from the ocean to the desert

Is scarier.

 

But I promise,

One day,

I will jump,

And even though my skin flinches at the feel

My legs screaming to run

I will stay

In the intensity of our burning time.

Privilege

 

I guess I can say I’m an all-rounder like a typical Asian stereotype, I get decent grades, an okay athlete, and I can kind of write and do art stuff. Most people praise me and my peers who achieve the same standard as me, but most of the time, I feel like none of the praise should be attributed to me because the only reason why I’m here is purely by chance and privilege.

 

Here are a few things I feel I should remember that I’m simply a product of my circumstances and privileges and hopefully, keeps me humble.

 

  1. School Background

 

I come from a rather high-performance school (at least that’s what they say because I’m reminded every second that the school is such but we never actually feel it). This hence opens up a lot of doors to me to a lot of International forums and opportunities to participate in and expand my horizon and knowledge through such extra-curricular activities.

 

I hence manage to improve my skills, from leadership qualities to self-evaluation and this in a sense makes me better at what I do, because I have connections to gain experience.

 

Plus, coming from an apparently high-performance school, I have been blessed with good teachers to push us just enough to do our work and develop some form of discipline. The pressure is slightly over the top here, and hence it pushes us to perform and we kind of do?

2. Family Background

 

I grew up with very loving, supportive parents, and even most of my relatives keep to themselves. There wasn’t any pressure in this household to by a high achiever and my parents have always encouraged making the best out of life through personal development and not just supposed success.

 

I was supported to do whatever on earth I wanted as long as it was healthy, pursue all my crazy dreams and opportunities that were thrown at me or I chased after, and they taught me plenty of good morals and values that I uphold up to today.

 

We are mostly financially stable as well and everyone is healthy.

 

I feel that even my leadership qualities come from being an older sister to two younger ones, and because they trust and respect me, I manage to learn to lead other people the same way I lead them due to the way they teach me how to be a better leader.

 

3. Community

The friends I have are very healthy, open friends who value a lot of the same values and make me a better person with gentle yet straightforward lectures. They are open and honest with me, and even though their little flaws, we managed to accept each other for who the other one is.

 

These friends that are open minded yet also very over achievers and striving to make the best out of themselves every day have motivated me in more ways than one to better improve myself.

 

Plus, due to the experiences that allow me to meet all different types of people, I managed to gather a lot of perspectives from different people that have graciously opened up to me and trusted me, and all in all made me a more empathetic and whole person with different perspectives.

 

4. Timeline

 

We live in a time where learning has become so much easier, and all we need to do is to type into a search engine and we can get what we want to find. Plus, there are all these amazing creators and educators on Youtube and Blogs that make such quality and interesting content that enhanced my life through talks and informative videos jam packed with philosophy and general knowledge and made extremely interesting and fun.  

 

I only get the information and learning I do because of them, for otherwise, I would be too lazy to even bother if I was in a different timeline.

 

There are way more factors that I keep forgetting to mention when I remind myself who I am today is not entirely my effort but sometimes, by circumstances or pure luck.

 

At the same time, we shouldn’t disregard our work and effort that we have to put into things to make them happen, and the outcomes we have to bear when we don’t.

The percentage of effort still remains as the percentage we have to fill, sometimes the circumstances fill up the higher percentage and we only have to give minimal effort, and sometimes it is the other way round, but we still have to give something to make things that within our control happen.

On a side note to that, we have to remember that sometimes, we are not our effort or our circumstance or privilege and we don’t have to feel bad for that.

It might be a bit depressing when you face problems when you come from an extremely great background because you feel like everything else is done for you but yet you can’t even put in the minimal effort because you’re just tired or just not well enough. Like you don’t deserve to complain because you haven’t earned enough bad circumstances to.

But I think we must remember, we should never ever compare suffering. Just because someone else has worse circumstances than us, we shouldn’t feel bad because we didn’t choose your circumstance or the option to not feel pain, and neither have them. Pain is universal and everyone gets hurt.   

I guess in the end, it’s just about being grateful for your privileges and utilising the privilege you have right now to the best advantage and making the best out of it.

A Letter To A Friendship that Went Wrong

Dear Friend, 

Kind of ironic isn’t it? That it was my letter writing that started our friendship, and a letter that ends it.

Well, I guess this is it. You’re finally leaving. I don’t know what to feel about that, nor do I know what you feel about that.

There are things I wish I said, and some I shouldn’t have, and chances that I didn’t get to apologise for. But as much as it has become difficult for both of us, I cannot deny that you have played an extremely big role in my life, and I thank you for that.

From here onwards, I will be extremely harsh and straightforward and I will not give you any loving words that will make you leaving easier. You also have a choice to say no, I’m not reading your bullshit and just toss this letter, I will not know nor will I mind. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

You’ve always come to me for advice, and I cannot say that I give good ones, or true ones, the only ones and the right ones. But I will give you my last ones, accept or not, it’s your choice.  

  1. Please think about the consequences before you do anything

I have sat through enough sessions where you have tried to hint something to a guy and it never works out, or you have tried something purely reckless and suffered the consequences badly. The thing that I’m trying to get across to you is your philosophy of YOLO is going to hurt and wound you and the people around you badly one day.

Yes, it is good to take chances, and yes I guess in a sense, the lesson that comes after that is beneficial. And I am an “eff it” person, I take chances too often, wear my heart on my sleeve and go in for the kill because I want to experience life at it’s fullest. But the thing is I weigh out my consequences and am willing to pay for the cost of the risk. And unfortunately, no, you do not and can never get the best of both worlds.

There will always be a price to pay whenever you do something, and if you have to be willing to bear the cost do it.

I will be harsh about this because bad decisions have and will screw you over and eff you up, especially if you’re not ready to bear the cost.  Really, really badly.

  1.  Be friends with your siblings

We have both gone through this. Rejection in friendships and relationships and absence of friends that cause loneliness. My mentor’s best advice to this it to first be friends with your siblings before you even think of making any friends outside.

They will be your toughest companions, the one who drive you the craziest, the ones that you will hate, that you will love. If you can learn to be patient and tolerant and kind with them, fostering a relationship where the people you have to communicate with are the most difficult, you will learn the best communication skills, patience and time.

They will be your biggest support when you all become adults, and the closest ones that you know will always be there. They will teach you more about relationships that any boy can and will.

  1. Do not fear vulnerability

In all your relationships, there has always been a case of fear of vulnerability. You’ve always asked me why have I been so honest with my feelings, well not just because I’m a straightforward person but because I choose to be vulnerable to people around me that I trust.

You have to accept that in order to build connections with people, you will always be at a risk of getting hurt. And yes it will suck, but if you want the good feelings and the good parts of the relationship, you have to go through the painful emotions of being rejected too.

Everyone is scared of rejection, but do you know what hurts more than rejection?

Love. Because when someone loves you, there’s a possibility of them hurting you and leaving you, and when the happiness leaves, you will be left more broken than ever. So do you not love anyone?

No, instead you learn to be grateful for the love you have and cherish it as much as possible so that even if it leaves you, you can say that you have appreciated it to the fullest.

Also, if you can’t be vulnerable and honest with someone because they treat it with nonchalance or misuse it, those are the people you don’t need close to you in your life. Sure, you don’t have to break ties but you know that it won’t be a relationship worth building.

Yes, vulnerability will be painful and hurtful, but being vulnerable is what makes you brave.

  1. Romanticism will ruin your love

In most cases, you have the madly unrealistic concept of romanticism stuck in your head. And I’m sorry to say, but it will not happen and you will ruin yourself.

Firstly, romanticism is believing that marriage is a hopeful thing, that it will be a lifelong, loving marriage.

Well, that concept is true, but your love will change. In the beginning, it may be big proclamations with fireworks and flowers, but it will evolve into paying the bills or bringing the kids out so you can have some peace or nag you and checking up on you every five minutes. The expressions of love will not be always comfortable to the other person or even pleasant, and sometimes, out of love, the person will hurt you. But it is a different kind of love.  

Secondly, the other person is not God, even though we always paint them a portrait of them as so.

They will not understand you nor accept everything about you or find your little flaws attractive. It will take a lot of work to understand each other and many, many explanations that will tire you out. There are small annoying habits about your partner you can never change, like never washing the dishes, or clipping their toenails without a bin, and bigger flaws that they should change but they don’t, can’t and won’t, like a drinking problem or a tendency to lie a lot. You cannot do anything to make them change, even as their partner. The only one who can change them is themselves.

But you aren’t perfect either.

Your partner will unashamedly point that out about you, and nitpick and annoy the life out of you.

But love is acceptance and change at the same time. You learn to accept the person for who they are and accept that you have to change to accommodate them.  

Eventually, you will learn that relationships are more than just feelings and more of learning. You have chosen to be a lifelong student and teacher to your partner; they will teach you how to be a better person and you them, you will need teamwork to work practical activities even though teamwork may not always be present, and you will have to discuss money and family backgrounds. However, you can only work on yourself, because as much as you are a pair, you are also separate.

Your identity doesn’t change; you just have another identity to be responsible for. For example, you don’t become “single” to “in a relationship”, you are “single” AND “in a relationship.”. The person will not change and will change, and you got to be ready to handle that.

But so will you.

As we go through stages of courtship, trust me when I say this, but you will know with a certainty if someone is not right for you or if things will not work out. Don’t force it to work out. Let it go. Don’t be together for the sake of conquering loneliness or for the fear you won’t meet someone else or for the fear that life would be worse without them. 

Essentially, it’s saying, yo you’re stuck with this person who you’re legally bound to for life whom you will try to love and cherish and he/she will try to do the same to you, but it doesn’t mean you both will always succeed, and it will be rough because circumstances will hit you, your love will change but you will (try to) go through it together, and you gotta learn to accept the changes in your love, to fully appreciate the different stages of love.

No matter what, you are stuck together and it’s not always gonna be fun and it takes work but it will be worth it.

 

Now here’s the toughest part, for both me and you.

Here’s the thing about the mental illness that tore us apart.

Firstly, it is random. That means there is no specific reason about why I get panic attacks and anxiety.

Secondly, I cannot control it.

Thirdly, it is chronic. It is long lasting, and I will have good days and bad days, but it will never truly leave me, despite the ten thousand people that tell me I will be free from it one day.

How does this affect us?

Well, firstly, we as humans, we don’t think we like to imagine life as random.

We need everything to have cause and reason, and if we can’t find it, we create one. For example, people have diabetes because they don’t eat well, people get depression because they’re weak, or they have heart disease because  And most of the time, the reasons become overly simplistic and just totally inaccurate.

When I attribute our broken friendship as the cause of my panic disorder, I hope you can understand why I hated you so much. It doesn’t validate my behaviour as a result of the hate, my disorder is a random occurrence in my life, something that just developed.

When I’ve forgiven you, I began to blame other things, my physiology, my genes, the workload, and most of all, myself. It made me feel like at least I was in control of my illness and that if I change a habit, or pray more, or exercise more, or lock myself at home or at least did something, I could get rid of it.

But illness doesn’t work that way.

You can’t simply overpower it by the force of sheer will and constant habits. Yes, you can improve it, make your life better in a way, to make your condition more bearable and immune to the illness, but you can’t stop the flu virus from infecting your lungs when it comes no matter how many oranges you eat or pills you take. And that’s the same thing with my mental illness. 

I’m not in control of it, and if I’m not in control of it, much less you.

The chronic state of the illness is really what separates this from all the other illnesses.

The way we view other illnesses and something we want to conquer and put behind us don’t apply to mental illness. That’s the reason why I changed my testimony from “conquering depression” to “walking out of it”.

I can have bad days and I can have good days, but it will never truly leave me.

You can never treat me the same way you used to because I can never be who I used to be, a person who wasn’t diagnosed with panic disorder and anxiety.

I hope this long essay explains why I had an outburst then. And why we can never ever be close friends ever again, nor can you speak to me the way you used to. I will be lying to myself if I say I truly have let go, even though I would prefer to believe that lie if it makes my anxiety less real. This is also the moment we will cue every single Christian, condemning me for being unforgiving, to follow Jesus example, and that I hang to old things. I am not Jesus, even though I try to be. It will take me time, a very long time to completely and fully let go. I am still young and immature, I will not pretend to be a saint and say that I have reached that point of might and holiness to be all forgiving.

Honestly, I just beg you, if for the sake of my sanity (literally), please leave me alone and let this friendship go. I have given so many chances already, and I just feel more and more stupid for letting you in and consuming the poison that fuels my illness. As you wouldn’t feed sugar to a diabetic, don’t trigger my anxiety.

I know you don’t understand it, and I’m glad you don’t because you’re fortunate enough to not go through what I do.  

You can do whatever you want to do with this. You can choose to hate me, despise me, curse me for making your life more miserable just when you are struck with the grief and missing everyone before you leave for Canada. You can complain about this to all your friends because of the audacity I have to do this stupid thing and waste a week to type this. You might not even read this.

But this is my last act of love and care for you. Even though you may hate me now, do me one last favour and give me the closure I need so I don’t have regrets of not saying goodbye, or at least saying what I wanted to say.

I tell everyone I could care less about you, but I think it’s just an exterior of someone who is tired of being hurt by the same person over and over again, someone who’s tired of giving her empathy and vulnerability, to someone who doesn’t seem to appreciate it but at the same time lets the person take advantage because they care too much about the person’s well-being.

I invest a lot into the people I love and can be vulnerable with, and yes, I’m not going to lie that I do expect something back even though I try not to, so it will hurt when they don’t give a shit about you. I’m trying to get rid of that complex, but it’s not happening anytime soon.

I will miss you. Despite all that, I hope the Lord will be with you, and you can truly walk in the Spirit with him, not just through the bad times where you’re desperate, but even through the times you think you don’t need him, because those are the actually the toughest and the most dangerous times. I pray that you will grow up well, and not repeat the same bloody mistake again. This was just be saying what I wanted to say, with no courtesy or strings attached, so this is the most honest, raw, beaten down advice from me that’s intended for your well-being. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

My final wish is for you to live well, and to become who God intends you to be and to walk with him. Thanks for walking through the full cycle of strangers to acquaintances to friends to best friends and back to strangers with me. I guess this is where we become strangers again.

Who knows how many years later, we can walk the cycle again.