ChaNGe

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

(from A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela)
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... (2)

Him and I, we parted ways.
Our union was not meant to be.
Is there such a thing as fate or destiny?

Or do we chart the course of our own life?
For I was the one who so badly wanted out.
When he took a different route.

And the deed is done, I had to do it.
Signed and sealed.
I wonder when the wound will heal?

Perhaps a keloid will form.
Always a reminder.
That I remember.
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...

It’s not as easy as they make it out to be on TV. In fact, the process is a lot more complicated than just signing a piece of paper. The decision itself is fraught with a lot of indecisions. It involves not just you, but also the people around you. And the repercussions will be with you for the rest of your life. Like scars and scarred tissue, it affects you both outside, and in.

Making the decision to divorce is never incidental, always painful. You have to deal with the doubt. You have to battle with the regrets. You have to face the consequences. Alone. The thing about divorce is, no one can help you. And that is what makes it frightening.

I know. I’ve been there, done that.
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LovE

I can’t say I know a lot about love. Love is a strange thing. Is it an emotion? A feeling? A thought? A deed? It can make you happy and sad at turns, sometimes both at the same moment. Many people through many years and centuries have been pondering love. For what is love? If there is anything to go by, many songs and books and conversations are of love. Of love lost and love found. Love is the stuff of legends, so they say.

How much can you love someone? Forever and a day.
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eXisTeNCe

Not too long ago, I came across this strange mood stirring inside me. It felt like nothing had a point anymore. It’s a very strange disembodied feeling. Like I was floating outside of myself, looking at me. And it made me feel a little hopeless, hapless even.

I’ve encountered this feeling a couple of times in my life. And as usual, it puts me in a very melancholic and pensive mood. When the world around you doesn’t matter, what is left? It always leaves me in a philosophical quandary.

I don’t exist. Except in my own imagination.
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EneRgY

Sometimes, I have these random spurts of creativity that grip me. It could be writing, drawing, beading, or just generally wanting to make art. I’ve tried my hand at origami, collage, mosaic, stained glass, modeling clay, pottery, glitter painting, embroidery, wood carving. Unfortunately, it’s a case of “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

Yet the creative process is absorbing. It demands all of your attention, your time, everything that is you. That’s what gives me the kick, I guess.

I had too much energy. I needed to dissipate some of that.
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thE PaSt

I think a big part of how we cope with life is to learn from our experiences of the past. What happened before informs what we are doing now which informs what we can do in the future. Like links in a chain.

For example, I learnt the hard way that you do not touch boiling water. When I was little, I once rested my knee on a kettle of just-boiled water, and my skin started peeling and 'raw flesh' was exposed. Lesson learnt.

I was arguing with Ms. M the other day. She seemed buoyant, sparkly. Like diamonds.

“If history is anything to go by,” she said, “Three weeks.”
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FeeLiNgS of hABiT

I have a good friend who, in one of his reflective moments, said I tended to “victimize” myself. And as I pondered on the truth of his words, I couldn’t help but recall those times when I felt small and neglected and ignored. Like a victim. That this feeling inside of me is created by my own doing is an astounding discovery for me.

Do we, over time, fall into a certain pattern of feeling? Like I feel happy when I see a rainbow, but when leaves fall off the trees I feel sad.

But a feeling is not a habit. Or is it?
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DeciSiON

I’ve always thought of myself as a pacifist. I don’t like conflicts, try not to get myself involved. Disagreement and differences make me uncomfortable. I tend to give in to what others say. I would defer a decision to someone else any day, any time. This does not mean I don’t have my own opinion on things. They just kind of burble inside me as various streams of consciousness in my self-talk.

So when I had to make this important decision, I was stymied. My natural instinct was to let it go, to leave it. But I knew it was something that only I could decide for myself.

For this, this is the day of reckoning.
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tHE nuMbER gAMe

Numbers play an important role in our lives. Math is, after all, one of the compulsory subjects we have to study in school. And memorizing the times table is like learning our ABCs.

I must have mentioned this before, that I like odd numbers. I like how there is a middle number, with an equal number of numbers that fall on either side of it. I like 13, it is my favourite number, despite people associating it with death and scary things. I used to like 21 when I was younger, I would keep all my bus ticket stubs that added up to 21. I also like the 9 times table, how you can magically calculate the numbers with a trick of your fingers.

In every culture, I think there are different beliefs and values placed on numbers. But one thing is for certain, and that is the intricate web of relationship that we share with numbers. In my part of the world, 4 is bad (death) and 8 is good (prosperity).

I wonder who will be the lucky reader number 8888?
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BoOKs & mE

From young, I have had this love affair with books. It gives me a high to be in libraries and bookshops, to be amongst books, to be reading books. It’s my dream to have my own bookstore-cum-cafe where I can display my collection of books. I want to have ceiling-to-floor built-in bookshelves with glass windows. I imagine myself in my old age, sitting in my rocking chair, reading my favourite book, a cup of hot chocolate beside me.


Home is where the books are.
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RocKeT

For you inspired me, and made me want to be a better person. This one's for you.

...
Remove the covers of the morning
And I don't see the new day dawning
Just can't cope

Cold shadows hide me as I go through the day
No one at all seeming to say
The feeling they long to convey
But could it be I am the one
who has lost my way?

Why can't I see my future clearly?
Is there a chance that I can break free?
Please help me

This maze has complicated day into night
Repetitive hours I see
My spirit is ready to flee
Then suddenly you come to me
and everything's alright

You've given me reason to live
You've given me reason to try
You've given me reason to stand
Don't let life pass me by
Whenever I feel hopelessness
Whenever I feel I could cry
You rocket me up to the sky
Give me wings and then I can fly

Together soaring to the sunrise
I feel the passion comes from your eyes
And I know
Strength cast away the fear and
Faith made the soul sing clear and
Love is the music we can all hear

You've given me reason to live
You've given me reason to try
You've given me reason to stand
Don't let life pass me by
Whenever I feel hopelessness
Whenever I feel I could cry
You rocket me up to the sky
Give me wings and then I can fly

Whoa I can fly
Whoa fly away with you forever
Fly away 'til end of never
We'll fly away

You've given me reason to live
You've given me reason to try
You've given me reason to stand
Don't let life pass me by
Whenever I feel hopelessness
Whenever I feel I could cry
You rocket me up to the sky
Give me wings and then I can fly

(Rocket by The Ten Tenors)
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siNe CuRVe

She likes to draw the sine curve to explain to me the peaks and the troughs. That after the darkness comes light, and after the light comes darkness. Again and again. And of course, I am always more interested in the highs than in the lows. I want to be filled with love, not hate. I want to fly, not crawl. I want to be happy, not sad.

Life unfolds, like the stock market these days. Volatile, temperamental, unpredictable. But I guess this is also what makes it interesting, and well, like life. I wonder though, what would happen, if you pulled the sine curve taut?

What goes up must come down. Or so they say.
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tHE sMeLL of HomE

I love smells. I love how smells are such an intricate part of our being. I love how intrinsic smells are to our living. For in that breath we take to stay alive, smells become a part of us.

Smells evoke powerful emotions in me. The crisp smell of just-cut grass. The homely smell of just-washed clothes. The warm smell of just-baked bread. I think the world would be a less colourful place without smells.

And if you get lost, follow your nose. The smell of home will lead you back.
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LiBrA

My birth sign is Libra
A pair of scales
Shrouds me my aura

I seek balance
In all things
The yin-yang cadence

Opal is my birth-stone
Woes to fight
In my flesh and in my bones

I am a moon-child
Wandering in the half dark
Fearless and wild

Round me up drink me your cup
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inSPiReD

I am very inspired by this quote...

"I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember."

(Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider)

... and I hope I can live by these words.
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The OnLY WaY

"The only way to last a really long time is to build something useful enough that people will want to keep it going after you die, and to cultivate a sense of ownership in other people. In short: make good shit and give it away as fast as you can."

(from The Lessons of Nixon by Lisa Williams)
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mEAniNg & HaPpiNeSs

I have been searching for a long while. Not for the elixir of life. I don’t want to live forever. But I do want to know this. How do I live a happy and meaningful life? For happiness seems so fleeting, and meaning so ambiguous.

Many many years ago, my best friend and I tried to define what happiness is. I don’t think we were too successful. Happiness defied definition. Many years ago, I embarked on a personal journey to discover the meaning of my life. I don’t think I was too successful. Meaning defied discovery.

Is happiness what makes life meaningful? Is meaning what makes life happy?
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QuoTe

As I wind down to my last week at work, I chanced upon this quote that spoke volumes to me.

"Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined."

(Johnny Carson)
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aLl-iN-onE

I am now the proud owner of a swanky new phone! It comes with a whopping 8.1-megapixel camera, which means I can hone my photography skills. It also comes wi-fi enabled, which means I can literally be connected round the clock. I also bought an 8GB memory card for it, which means I can store quite a bit of songs in there. A phone that is not only a phone, but doubles up as my camera, triples up as my internet, quadruples up as my mp3 player.

How cool is that!
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RaNDoM

The dog lies contentedly on the sun-baked asphalt road.
The cat stretches lazily on the moon-lit concrete path.
The rain is falling in a light drizzle.
The sun is hiding behind the clouds.
The day flows into the night flows into the day.
The moon reflects and glows, glows and reflects.

I walk into the setting sun.
I bask under the waning moon.
My shadow grows long.
Time for me to go home.
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DisCOveRy

After another painful cryotherapy session, I am hobbling at home nursing my feet. So it seems I have a weak (weakened?) immune system. Which makes me susceptible to viral infections. And of a particularly virulent strain.

I have never really been worried about my health – apart from the usual cold and flu, I seldom get sick. In my 8 years of working (when I was working), I have not taken a day of medical leave. A fact which I like to repeat to anyone who is willing to listen.

Until I found out that there are certain medical conditions that preclude one from working in particular occupations. Which totally floored me. Because I happen to carry an illness which can potentially stop me from working in a job that I aspire to. How can that be? Through no fault of mine, I may be denied the opportunity to do something I really want to.

And panic sets in.
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FriENDsHip

I was visiting a friend the other day, and we had fun catching up. It had been some time since we last met, so I was a little apprehensive. I even had a mental list of questions prepared, in case we ran out of things to say!

But I needn’t have worried. As friendships go, I don’t think we even noticed the awkward silences and pregnant pauses. We were able to pick up where we last left off, as if the months and years we hadn’t met did not exist.

It’s interesting, this thing called friendship – how it blossoms, starting with two people who don’t know each other. And over time, sharing lives and building trust.

“You look happy,” she said.
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fOR yOu, MY fRieNd

"Any ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first, but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain."

(Sharon Salzberg)
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cReaKy

Recently, my joints have started creaking. It’s a little scary. Every once in a while when I move, something goes pop. And I worry whether my sockets have disengaged or something. It’s not just localized at a particular spot, but my wrists, my shoulders, my knees, my pelvis all seem to share the same problem. Which makes it all the more scary.

Don’t creaky joints belong to the realm of old people? Sigh.
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wORk

I’m sure it’s psychosomatic. I feel a little ill just thinking that I need to go in to work tomorrow.

It’s interesting, how work affects me. At some existential level, work is like an extension of who I am. My ex-boss used to tell me that I take work too personally. Something I never figured out. Because of course work is personal. It is a reflection of me, what I am capable of, how good I am. Because people judge me by the work that I do.

And now that I am going to be jobless soon, I am actually looking forward to that!
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CaT iN a BaSin

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LovE & hATe

In an instant, love can turn into hate.

For love and hate are both as strong, as intense, as gut-wrenching.

I have, many times, crossed the thin line between love and hate.

Like the Viking ship, one end being love and the other hate.

I love you and I hate you.

It’s the same difference. Or not.
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