Here's to talking to myself...again

It has been a whole year and a little more that I've stopped talking to myself in a written manner. The past year was wrought with more lows than highs but instead of heavy clouds of gloom overhead while trying to keep up with the ever appearing stepping stones on bruised feet, I think it was a slow downhill collapse that went nearly unnoticed.

It was only somewhere during the last quarter of the year when I sat down with my Managing Director and confessed I'm not doing very well, for myself and for the company and not for the lack of trying either. A few talking-to's with my other, much better half only riled me to get back up just a little before waves of futility knock me over and wash over my head.

Equivalent to digging a hole in loose sand that keeps falling back and filling up, I eventually lost sight of what I'm doing and what I'm supposed to do.

Pretty bad shape, I'd say. 

Stifling up erratic, over-enthusiastic, overly blatant outbursts of personality in order to exude a calm, controlled manner in adulthood has somewhat girdled off the supply of life into the rest of me and what is left is a slow death.

What prevails is uncertainty -  the lack of direction in pursuit of anything - and lethargy in overcoming even the smallest hurdles of life. All this then leads to short bursts of enthusiasm but then is quickly dampened by so-called rational, adult-like thinking.

There were attempts to put things into order by going back to old ways which have served well in a way - colour coding and compartmentalising but yet in a more transparent way. Sadly, there seems to be more than a lethargy in getting things going; life in 2016 was more of trying to overtake on a slope but my car doesn't have enough torque to speed up.

My Other and Much Better Half asked me if I had any ideas or whims and fancies in relation to our wedding - not to my surprise, even though I'm at that age-stage where peers are getting married left, right, and centre, following the natural phases of life, I have always 'prided' myself in not walking the same path which yes, could be quite despairingly lonely and trying at times if not most and this includes having a notion of how my own wedding would be. When asked, I had to confess that whatever that is in the drawer marked 'weddings' are notes on what not to do and what I don't want to do/have.

In fact, I don't think it has fully sunk in me that I'm actually getting married, myself. Too often have I been reined back and have reined myself back and thus, adopted a Pavlov-like behaviour - do not overreact, wait and see, do not count your chickens before they hatch, do not dream so high and so big so you won't have far to fall.

This has to stop.

It's always darkest before dawn

The wolf hour. 

Before first light.

Before day breaks.

Tomorrow will be the eve of the new year 2016. 

2009 - 2012 were the best, eye-opening, loneliest years of my life. 

2013 was the most adventurous, limit-pushing, frustrating year of my life.

2014 was the most risk-taking year of my life - where I've now reaped the harvest in 2015. 

My world and perception has truly expanded and in that short period of time it did, I was busy playing catch up, trying hard to fall into step, squeezing out every drop of life to live like there's none to be wasted.

I can equate this year to a frantic hop-skip over hot coals while juggling hot potatoes. Hopefully when the new year rolls in, I would grow half a brain to not expect to develop calluses thick enough to handle the heat but to wear heat-proof gloves and shoes instead. 

Instead of a laissez-faire attitude towards goals and resolutions that has happened for the past few years, resulting in a no-surprise lack of achievement, I'm setting some this year....just that I haven't really gotten around to some serious thinking ah-hyuk hyuk.

Here's to a blessed year of Mercy.

Still singing the same old song...

I read back my old blog posts from a year and a half ago and came to the dreadful realisation that not much has changed.

Still singing the same old song where I'm feeling sorry about myself, reminiscing too much of the supposedly glorious past, not doing much about making things better or striving for change for the better....

I feel like hitting myself. Today was the day where I realised that there's no point looking for a job that I would love getting up in the morning for. 

THERE'S NO SUCH THING. 

Optimists will say, there's always one bad day or two..., and unknowingly, that bad day or two had stretched into nearly two years now. This enlightenment came after the boss 'had a word' with me about decrease in income and lack of proactive productivity from my one-and-a-half man department. 

I had vowed never to be chained to my desk during office hours. I end up doing so despite part of my job scope is to go outdoors.

I had vowed to avoid sales and high levels of interaction with people where they are to be persuaded to part with their money. Unfortunately I'm being warned reminded constantly that public relations - which includes some sort of salesmanship - is very much 80% of my job scope. 

To be honest, I've had a few long-ish weekends where I have some time to myself to think things through and do some serious adult-thinking. But it never happens as I end up reading or sleeping the entire day. Even cleaning up seems to be half-hearted. 

Despite having to meet people, I feel happiest when I'm "OOO" which means Out Of Office. No, I don't have colleagues from hell that I hear a lot of, and that's a blessing. I have a management that may be budget-tight with big dreams but after each admonishing, I walk away not dispirited and disheartened but quite the opposite - more annoyed and frustrated at myself for not doing my best when I could but didn't due to lack of prioritising or enthusiasm; wishing for more time and self-discipline.

After all that, I know I do need a break. A real one where I don't think of impending workload or overworrying about things to come that I have no control - and that's scary. The danna is constantly reminding me to let go of things I cannot control, not to let my emotions run me, that there's really no point in spending effort and time on happenstances that cannot be helped, or let everyone and anything get to me. 

He might not know I use him as a tissue for my anxiety tears 

but he really is my pillar of strength to hold back that ceiling of fear. 

Breaking Boundaries

That's my motto before I hit the big Three-Zero.

Since young, like everyone else, I had set a timeline for a couple of goals; mind you, these goals were set during the "freedom" after UPSR at 12 years old.

• Move out at 18 years old
• Buy myself a diamond ring when I'm 21
• Get married at 25 years old

Well, at 18 years old I was no where financially or mentally smart enough to think farther ahead than looking at newspaper classifieds. I was nearly dead broke at 21 years old when I pooled my meager savings (probably just touching a couple of grand) with my parents' EPF withdrawals to start my degree in Tasmania. At 25 years old, I was just as broke and far, physically, from settling down.

It's been half a year from my last post and very nearly the reason would be is that I started full-time at Tropical Spice Garden. Very nearly the excuse would be that I took on, or was given, quite a lot to deal with for a one-person department. Very nearly the blame is my over-enthusiasm yet under-prepared yet shy-to-ask-shy-to-say-no.

What prompted me strongly to start writing here again was Evan. Speaking to him during last weekend's Halloween Night Walk showed that I've been neglecting myself and definitely straying far from what I've discovered as my true passion - one that I may not be strong in but is truly something that has not waned since that dark, windy night catching and 'processing' bats with Lisa Cawthen.

Start again. Even if it's small. 

So I'm looking to break some boundaries before I'm 30 because that age had more significance to me than any other age.

Writing
Drawing
Riding (and getting) a motorcycle (license)
Nose piercing....

A step forward

So I mentioned how I hate being friendly to random strangers.

Unless it's a passing comment and no obligatory conversation ensues, I actually would say something ice-breaking...like "oh, the toilets are that way."

Weirdly enough, last night during the Easter dinner gathering for Penang Choicees, I actually walked up and introduced myself while the danna hung back. However, I introduced myself to two people whom I already know but didn't realise.

Yes, thou shalt facepalm thyself. 

One was Jmelda, a senior in school and former parish. The other was Adeline, also former fellow parishioner in IC and I've actually texted her quite a bit last year. Both were quite perplexed on why I was introducing myself when we all knew each other already. During the mingling before dinner, someone sat down at our table and started reminiscing about last year, throwing out facts about our lives that we were sure we didn't share with her, whoever she was!? Found out, it was Jeanne from the publicity department in Choice and I also had been texting her plenty, and even went to the extent of calling her dear/babe.

Surely, despite the faux pas, I could take it as progress in real-life socialising?

Another scenario was a few days ago where I had a meeting with the bosses and colleague with a couple of small entrepreneurials on stocking their gardening merchandise in the gift shop at work. I noticed that Joleen was being uncharacteristically quiet and I was the one throwing out questions (and answering others) and making comments alongside the bosses.

After that, it was a pro-active follow-up... adding and chatting on Facebook (yes, how professional).

I pray that it'll be no more flashes in the pan.
No more quicksilver heats but slow burns leading to (environmental friendly) long-lasting bonfires.
No more hiding behind my armored walls, built on the grounds of personal and emotional safety.


One more thing I would need to learn is not take things personally. The ability to read people and know what they think or feel about you at that particular moment can be hurtful or embarrassing due to the circumstances, whether or not its your fault.


Time to shake off this quarter-life crisis and embark on a self-changing acknowledging journey before I hit my 30s.

Bloody hell, I'm already 27?!!
...and I act like I'm still 17

Raucous silence

For a year or more, I've been having this impending sense of doom... a vague feeling of dread, of things left unfinished, matters left unattended. 

It affects me now and then but I always put it down to PMS until I realise these weird depressing emotions don't follow my menstrual cycle at all.

Perhaps I'm thinking too much. 

Keeping too much inside, a habit cultivated in 5 years of being a partial hermit - active in social media but no where else.

I kept often to myself in Australia and Sabah, albeit loving the environment and appreciating the finer bits, I tend to withdraw from both crowds and one on ones. I would take solo bus rides to suburban places in Tasmania, hop on the nearest tram with no qualms in Melbourne, take mini solo (and prohibited) solo walks in Danau Girang and make those 2hr one-way drives myself from Lahad Datu to Tawau during car services.

Five years of talking mostly to myself.

Ken was the one I talked to the most but obviously, it wasn't a live chat and he only replies when he can. Nevertheless, a reprieve from the crowding of thoughts in my head.

Now, the danna says my mind flits around a lot and he pauses quite a bit during conversations with me since I can, and have, talk about multiple things at once. Long ago, I could hold a MSN conversation with Ying about three different and totally unrelated things at once. If you can imagine, we both type quite speedily and the messages were all so jumbled up that even some international secret intelligence were monitoring us, they would probably flip their consoles FTS!

I can't just start talking to random people. That isn't me. But what is me is that I'm always self-evolving. Adapting to changes in order not to be categorised or seen as in a specific way. THAT I know of myself. Since young, if someone tells me "oh, I see your favourite colour is blue?" I deny and start having more red stuff. If they tell me they notice I like a certain genre of music, a style of dressing, a choice of reads, I deny and deny until the cock crows three times. I've even changed my handwriting every year!

So now knowing that I'm deathly afraid of public speaking, lethally frightened by proactive leadership, I find myself being put into those situations, purely, I believe, by my well-trained subconscious.

What have I done?

Halfway into the first month of the second quarter of the year and what have I achieved?

Flash in the pan

That's me.

Lightning quick starts. Electrocuting impromptus. 

Then no more.

You see, even my #100happydays didn't make it halfway. It wasn't that I couldn't choose between a variety of happy things to focus on each day. Instead, since that last post, it was a slow but steady avalanche of happenings and responsibilities until I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.

I can admit it now, on hindsight, that I'm prone to bouts of depression, yet still partially aware that at some point if each period goes on too long, I will need to seek help and I'm not talking spiritually nor emotionally, but professionally.

I wanted to go home. Even when if I was at home, standing on the balcony in the middle of the night so I won't wake the danna, looking up into heat-lightning lit skies, all I could think of, all I could cry out silently was I want to go home. I didn't even know what that means.

Then came a whole load of work that tired me out so much physically until that I believe it was possible to block out half of my brain activity. A constant dull buzz droned at the back of my head and my thoughts were flitting about and never really settled until exhaustion draped over me.

My last blog post was about planning ahead, in terms of events for the rest of the year. Last week, there was some sort of a follow up on my progress and it hit me that I am still taking things for granted. I didn't take Lent seriously as planned in order to change and during the Holy Week leading to Easter, it was a blow in the face, a punch in the gut.

I was asked what were my strengths and with the answers I gave, my MD said that I 'very quickly went into my weaknesses' instead. How can I tell her that I work better alone, that I have a habit of having a period of silent observation before being proactive? I thought I would carve out some time, an hour or so, to write it all down and as usual, expect to be able to dig myself out from whatever shit hole I fell into.

Somehow, the danna, being the amazing person he is, put things into a different perspective for me. It's like trying to jump out of the shit hole and he's shown me that I can just churn the proverbial butter instead. Instead of being just a shoulder to lean on or being a sympathetic ear, he probes deeper to make me see things clearer. Marvellous, really, that it doesn't take much for him to break my walls. Must be all that badminton he plays xP

So instead of jumping into things too fast or holding back too long, I now know I need to not be adverse on seeking advice from others and listen to that little voice more closely without second guessing it.

It's a new start...close to a week into the second quarter of the year.

Wish me luck