wrench

July 8, 2022

it is a dilapidated house. you take stock of your surroundings and spot broken blinds in a dingy room. walking further out and you find yourself in a hollow and closed-in corridor with floorboards that seem to creak with every other step.

you can hear the children, their hushed and hurried voices carrying through another room over.

suddenly, you look down and see an emaciated young girl with neat pigtails clashing shockingly with her overall drab disposition; she pulls at your hand. her eyes plead with you to come with, so you give in and let her lead you.

this is the entertainment room, she says, even if there was barely anything that could be considered relatively entertaining in that room. littering the room are torn-up curtains, couches and chairs with their upholstery and springs spilling out like guts. you look up and squint your eyes at the rain patches on the ceilings, and the cracked wallpapers fluttering limply in the drafty room.

tucked in one corner of the room is a man. he is tall and lean, with strips of his clothing hanging off of his frame. he’s hunched over on the table in front of him. the children are huddled around him, and one by one he tries to scare them albeit unsuccessfully. there is an empty, faraway look in the children’s eyes that is more terrifying than what he is attempting to do.

the girl holding onto your hand moves to stand in front of the man. she pushes herself back against your chest as he playfully lunges at her. you try to soothe her, caressing the top of her head with a hand and rubbing her shoulder with the other.

you look at the man. i know him, you think to yourself. and he knows me, too.

bending down to her height, you explain to the girl that he is a good man. he’s not going to hurt her. she looks up at you with a dull shine to her eyes, and then walks away without a word.

with the little girl gone, you conjure up a chair and sit before the man. you start talking. and find out that you are each other’s. he looks much different now, you think. but it is, without doubt, him.

in this world, you have become separated. but you have finally found each other. he is older, and so are you. in another lifetime you are your much younger selves, and together.

the room brightens, but not enough to make much of a difference. your heart thumps in your chest with something resembling relief, as the white noise inside your head quietens.

you steal another glance at him, probing his eyes for answers. and you find them.

boldly, taking hold of his arm, you pull him towards the children. they are preoccupied with nothing so you try to get their attention.

he has to leave now, you say. but we can’t let that make us sad.

the man’s hand shoots out to take yours and helpless against it, you let him hold it. he holds on tight and squeezes, resolute. he shakes his head at you once.

i don’t have to be anywhere where you aren’t. decidedly, he slides his hand down your arm and twines your fingers. no more letting go.

and then, i’m staying here with you. i don’t have to leave.

you are bursting to full with astonishment, hope, admiration, joy, love. think to yourself, finally someone who isn’t going to leave.

the floorboards creak and the walls groan in gratitude.

you smile up at him, and he returns it.

2:26am

May 16, 2021

i accidentally scrolled through my old twitter dms and i saw all the past conversations i’ve had with the people i met over the years. some of these conversations are years old, some left hanging, others completely abandoned. it was heavy with dust and time. 

it made me reminisce for a bit and remember just how many people i made friends and connected with. i used to be so friendly, making sure to reach out to meet new friends. always eager to strike up a conversation. i tried so hard to hold and prolong those talks in hopes of keeping them around or so they wouldn’t think i was boring and they wouldn’t tire of me and eventually stop being friends with me. i wanted so hard to be liked.

why did i try so hard?

all those conversations dried up in the end, anyway. they died their own natural deaths, i guess. 

these days, i keep a very small and intimate circle. you could even call it stifling with how small it is. even then, it’s not like i get to talk to every single one of them constantly, nor do we share similar interests now. 

i guess i don’t have much energy to expend on making new friends anymore. i don’t see the need to play the part of the friendly extrovert any longer. sure, i still wish i had more friends than i do sometimes, but i’m simply grateful for the people that do stay and make an effort to keep their place at all. i understand now that i have a limited reserve of energy for the people who really matter.

i’m not always going to be as important to some as they are to me, but it’s a fact that i’m going to have to learn how to live with. because that’s just the way that the universe and relationships work, i guess.

*

2:52AM

it’s always up to the living to tell the stories of those who have gone ahead of us. 

my dad probably would have loved netflix.

grocery run

May 16, 2021

after some indeterminate number of weeks, i finally had the chance to get out of the house so i decided to bring my camera with me. i didn’t really know what for at the time, but you know. just point and shoot, that type of thing.

i apologize if some of the shots are either out of focus or very shaky. i’m using my 7 year old (handheld, go figure) camera and i’m super out of practice. i just really wanted to do something for the sake of creating. i had fun shooting and editing this.

here you go.

cake tracks

March 16, 2021

she was tired and her legs felt like they were on fire, threatening to buckle out from under her and give way.

but she still had ways to go before she could even think of reaching her destination. where was she even headed to, anyway? her brows furrowed when she swayed on her feet, feeling lightheaded. maybe she needed to sit down and catch her breath. yeah, that’s right.

she did just that, plopping herself heavily on the grassy dirt ground and resting her arms on her knees.

her creaky old bicycle lay forlornly on the ground before her. its wheels were smeared and caked with mud. the sweat was beginning to pool around the dip in her collarbone, and her shirt stuck to her back uncomfortably.

all she wanted was to go home. her shoulders and back were aching in protest, after being hunched over her bike for far too long. even her hands were trembling imperceptibly now.

the forest was humming awake, springing to life around here. the nocturnal creatures that called it home were rising from their slumber, eager to start their day. the sun was slowly dipping in the horizon and stars twinkled into existence one by one in the skies.

funny how she had felt more alone in the daytime. right here, she was surrounded by life all around her. the moon was her friend and companion, and the nighttime, their warm blanket. she was eager to greet it.

but for now, dinner was waiting for her back home.

gingerly, she stood up again, dusting off the dirt from her knees.

time to go home.

new year reflections

February 1, 2021

I’ve been procrastinating on writing a journal entry to start off the year on good footing, but I’ve also been busy this entire month sorting out some requirements for my new job. Apart from general laziness, I also found it a little difficult to really have anything to want to write about that doesn’t feel contrived to me. But I don’t want to go back on my resolutions for the new year before I’ve even gotten to start, so in a last ditch attempt to save myself from letting myself down I looked at writing prompts and themes for my first entry of the year. So, that’s what I’ll stick to.

I’m kind of doubtful that I’ll be able to finish writing this before the month ends because there’s so much to fill in but I’ll try my best! (If I could even remember half of all the things that went down in 2020, that is…)

Write down one word to describe your 2020

Life-altering. I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it other than that. And I guess I also speak for everyone after the world seemed to stop for everyone because of the pandemic.

My biggest challenge of 2020 was…

Re-learning how to adapt. I think that it was so easy for me to have lost myself and gone down a dark path last year, to go past the point of no return because that humdrum of a year seemed to have laid traps for me every few steps or so. Riding with the tide seemed to be the most logical path to take, but I also acknowledge the fact that I’m speaking from a a place of privilege because we are still relatively well-off despite everything. I’ve also mentioned this in past journal entries but I never truly realized the pain of losing your job until I did. I think that posed a lot of challenges for me, and the subsequent lull of job-hunting did not help my case.

3 lessons that 2020 taught me

  1. I should never take my physical well-being and health for granted.
  2. The right things will come to you in the right time.
  3. There is great payoff in waiting.

2020 was the year that I…

2020 was the year that I decided that I wanted to get to know myself better (sounds vague but I’ll probably expand on this in future entries!). This was also the year that I finally mustered up enough courage to rebuild my wardrobe (I’m still currently in the process of this.) and dressing myself the way I’ve always envisioned. It’s really helped me regain my confidence and has helped me feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin.

I’m proud of the way that I… in 2020

I’m proud of the way that I practiced resilience in 2020. Like I’ve already said earlier, I did not think I could have successfully pulled off a strong finish last year. I didn’t think I had the fortitude that was demanded of me to have survived 2020. I guess my will to live won out in the end.

I allow myself to grieve the fact that I…

I allow myself to grieve the fact that I have yet lost another year to things that I cannot control. I’ve always talked about grieving and being resentful that I’ve lost so many years and my early twenties to mental illness. Now, it feels like I’m losing my late twenties to a pandemic, but it’s a thing that I could neither control nor stop. All I can really do is live in the moment and choose not to dwell on my losses for too long. After all, I don’t believe that everything 2020 brought me were nothing but losses and grievances.

I allow myself to celebrate the fact that I…

I allow myself to celebrate the fact that I am growing up and in the process of accepting the pains of growth. I think I haven’t really had the desire to live before. But now, I think I am ready to recognize that I want to live and live my life the way I want to. I know it will take a lot of time and hard work to get the life I want to live, and that will also involve a lot of figuring things out – mainly with how I want to direct my life anyway – but I’m ready for that. I don’t want to deprive myself of choices any longer.

I forgive myself for…

I forgive myself for not taking the chances presented to me last year. There were several opportunities that were laid out in front of me last year that I let slip from my grasp out of fear and insecurity. And simply because I felt that I wasn’t ready for it, and that I wanted more than I was going to get for it. And that’s okay. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I had jumped in blindly for those chances.

3 beautiful moments that stand out to me from 2020 are…

I wouldn’t call them beautiful but some of the most standout memories for me include dyeing my hair all the colors that I wanted. I sacrificed the health of my scalp and hair forever for it, but eh. I think it was worth it. At some point last year, my hair was this really beautiful shade of cherry blossom pink, and then I changed it to a vibrant mermaid teal. I actually miss it!

I couldn’t have done 2020 without…

My family. I don’t think I could ever survive without my mom, especially. Getting seriously sick made me realize that it’s really hard to live alone. I’m so lucky to have been living with my family during that time because I couldn’t have taken care of myself as well as they did me.

I think a lot of the credit also goes to my friends, both ones in my immediate circle and ones I’ve met online. It’s hard enough with the pandemic disrupting normal socialization, but keeping in touch with my friends has been so essential to keeping sane. I also don’t have too many friends in the first place so it means even a lot more to me that I get to keep my circle intact.

5 goals I’d like to achieve in 2021 are…

I haven’t thought much about it (I’ve been sitting on it for too long, aaahhh my bad habits) but I’ll try right now.

  1. Lose at least 5kg within 6 months.
  2. One episode per month for TGIB
  3. Finish 12 books this year. For real!
  4. Finish my Japanese Duolingo courses.
  5. Figure out my life plan for the next three years! Write a journal entry on this.
  6. Have 100k in my savings by the end of the year!

3 things I’d like to open my heart to this year.

  1. Growth never comes without pain. Sometimes, I take things too personally and I want to learn how to take criticism as just that — criticism for my own sake and improvement. This is in regard to my work and my writing.
  2. Figuring out how to live with myself. I can be a little too idealistic with the idea of romance and relationships and while I haven’t had much experience in that area, I’ve always yearned for those concepts in my life. I think it’s stunted my own views on love and made me hinge my ideals on one person which could be unfair? Both to me and my future partner. I think it’s important that I learn how to open my heart to the idea that most of the time, it’s going to be just me and myself alone.
  3. Going off the same tangent in number 2, I also have to open my heart to the idea that love may come to me when I least expect it, and possibly with someone I won’t come to expect either. If it happens, then it happens. I’ll just keep my options and my doors open to anything and everything! No more hiding behind insecurities and superficial ideals.

3 things I’d like to try this year.

  1. Creating a system for myself. Goal-setting is important, but I once heard that systems are far more effective in getting things done. It’s an on-going project, actually. But I’ll try to keep you (and myself) updated.
  2. I’d like to try and put into practice something I keep telling myself but never do: Letting myself write the bad things so that I can write good things. Which means more writing to be had!
  3. I want to try to get to know more people! I’m an introvert through and through but I also want to learn more and people have so many stories inside of them that I want to expose myself to them! I think it’d be fun, but may prove to be a bit of a challenge given the current climate of the world. But it’s a goal for now! If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll just move on and think of another goal, hehe.

What qualities do you want to take from 2020 into 2021?

Resilience and flexibility!

What’s your word for 2021? What would you like it to bring you?

It’s not exactly a word, but there’s this latin phrase that I love and I’d like to bring with me into 2021 and for many more years to come because it speaks of living up to your potential and remaining steadfast in the face of adversity. Or at least, that’s how I interpret it.

incepto ne desistam. Which means, may I never shrink from my purpose, whatever that purpose may be.

That finally brings this entry to a close! This has certainly been quite a challenge to write. But I’m still glad to have made it here. I’m running on my self-imposed deadline which is why I actually feel a bit harried writing this, but if I think of something, I’ll just change things up or whatever. This doesn’t feel like much of a new year post to me because it’s already February 1st as I’m finishing this up, but I do start at my new job today!

So, that’s still a beginning of sorts. Thank you if you got up to this point, hehe. I’ll write again soon. Cheers!