Write it down. Spit it out.

Ever so often I get a little message in my askfm/other platforms telling me that they’re thankful for my blog, this little space I’ve kept about 8/9 years, documenting aspects of my life when I get the time to/when I feel like it. And it’s just one of the things that make me realise how important blogging is to me. Yeah, I don’t update this space often, and when I get the momentum, I spam posts like nobody’s business. It might get tiring to blog because of how long-winded I am, but its messages like those that remind me how important my “purging” is, for others and for myself.

So this year (I know it’s already 3 weeks into 2016 but bear with me...CORRECTION: IT'S NOW 3 months in), I found a fitting New Years’ resolution: to blog more because of how disastrously I fared last year emotionally (I SAY THAT EVERY YEAR TBH. IT'S MARCH NOW SHU, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE).

2015 had not been easy for me, but at the end of every year, I get a kick from how much people hated theirs that I kinda feel better about myself. There was a post on tumblr in particular that went: “2015 definitely had a part 1 and a part 2”

YO that was so true.

I can say at the very least that it had been a year of de-familiarisation for me. Leaving JC, starting work for the very first time, waiting for results that for the first time in my life would play a major role in where I went, instead of being another one of those simple primary > secondary > JC/poly decisions. Oh and not to mention how REAL money affairs became because of university fees and scholarships and all of that. And then university life started and everything just went downhill.

I started this post very positive and hopeful but thinking about that splotchy, surreal and “seemingly huge but soon to be irrelevant” mess of a dark period is terrifying and will continue to unsettle me.

It’s funny because, I’m still me, and I know I have made it out of that ~dark time~, and I know what lessons I have learnt but looking back at it really freaks me out because of how foreign it all seemed. I did things I didn’t think I would do and for the first time in my life I have major regrets. Even friends I thought knew me very well told me things that made me realise that nobody actually does see me the way I see myself. But that’s not to wallow deeper in self-pity or anything; it’s to recognise that even I don’t know who I am and that I am always changing (I say that a lot because I’m a lazy cop-out). And I’ve been very dramatic.

They see who I’ve always tried to be: somebody who has it all together, put simply, Anybody who has read this space can tell I put a lot or reasoning and reassurance into processing all of that negativity and deadweight, and for good and productive reason. Purging myself of thoughts on here freeze and acknowledges my pain and anxiety so that I don’t have to carry it myself.

I’d like to think that I have it all together. But I have got to start cutting myself some slack. It’s pretty naive of me to say this, and I admit it makes me quite a bit of a nerd, but I have always placed so much pressure on myself to get shit right that when I really really get things wrong I beat myself so terribly over it.

Dear Shu,

You’re allowed to screw up.

Love, Shu.

I’d like to relate a very very small incident that left a profound impression on me. I was at my class BBQ that day when a friend of mine, who’s a devout Christian asked me how I was doing.

Me: “Oh yeah, great academically, but er, spiritually, not so good.”

And he said, with a look I could only read as condescension, “You? Spiritual?”

I think it was only then he considered the possibility that I was not a zombie.

DO I REALLY COME OFF AS SOULLESS???? MERELY CORPOREAL??

Maybe I do, with my agnostic and humanist beliefs with a side of cold feminist salad and a sprinkle of Buddhism. Maybe I don’t do spiritual the way he does, but I’ll have him know I took Religion and Film in my first semester AND learnt about 5 religions.

I’m just kidding of course, but while I’m still grappling with religion, I don’t think it’s fair to discount that I too, as foreign an idea as it might be, seek peace in here *places hand on heart* and here *points to brain*.

Interestingly, a lot of the things I learnt in film class kept me going (even if I didn’t realise it) and became advice that I doled out to others. Perhaps it gave me words to finally capture what I felt. 

Disclaimer: Look, you'll realise that a lot of these "mantras", though taken from religious contexts, are universal. You've probably repeated them to yourself in different words

"All emotion is pain" aka "you have to hurt in order to heal"

The whole idea about "you have to hurt in order to heal" is basically what this is all about. I know it sounds really fatalistic and sad but it's comforting because it's realistic. We've all had those moments of people telling us that it's going to be okay, which we find difficult to believe and for good reason! When you're in a dark place it's very difficult to see the light. To be even more dramatic sometimes when I'm down, I forget what it's like to be happy and I fear I may never be happy again. But far from discouraging myself further, the belief and perspective that happiness is also a source of pain cushions the downfall and reminds me that sadness and pain are but part of our lives. 

"All things are impermanent" aka "This too shall pass"

Don't bluff I'm sure you've told yourself this too. But take it a step further beyond temporary emotional states! Believe in the void [the void sheds a tear, touched by your continuous support]. Handy when dealing with existential crisis! Combine with the scientific understanding that billions of living creatures before you had died out and the earth is older than you can imagine. And the things that you're worrying about mean jack-shit in the grander grander scheme of things. 

The last of the bunch is actually from a film with Jewish beliefs that I adore from last semester, A Serious Man. check it out check it out i love it so much

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"

My version of this is "Someday, you'll know why it had to happen." This one is a lot more retrospective but I realised that you've got to trust in that things that happen to you will be valuable, Which is why  I've been trying to make it a point to learn something about myself or my environment every time I encounter something that seems sucky or rough. It happened in JC when I regretted taking TSD (everyone remember that?) but then I came to learn that I walked the path (inevitably) and gained friends and experiences I wouldn't have traded for the world. 

So back to the point of my story: the first moral is never to undermine what other people are going through, especially when it comes to their beliefs and self. I was quite miffed when I heard that because it was firstly very touché, there I was feeling uncomfortable with the way my spiritual self was out of form and secondly that was so holier-than-thou. Again, not everybody does "religion" or "self" the same way!!!!!

But enough about that. I know this (really outdated post) comes just before the A level results, so I just wanted to put it out there to the little children that it will be alright. There will be room for you in this world regardless of your grades, there will be paths to tread, lightly, because you will fear the uncertainty. But these paths will take you on a journey you will learn to appreciate and grow from. See the thing about life is that you can't turn back the clock. It's scary, but it's inevitable that the only way then is to move forward. Breathe deep, try new things, take care of yourself, emotionally and physically, write it all down. Write it all down because your fears will manifest themselves on the page and stop bothering you (for a while), write it down because some day in the future you will realise it all went too fast and you can't remember when your limbs felt so different, and when your brain started having weight. Write it down because you need to take it slow amidst the chaos and the uncertainty and the unpredictable decisions and consequences.

I wish I could say that things get better as you grow older, but they haven't for me. You get new sets of problems and fears and anxieties and a "clean slate" is only superficial. As we grow older the weight of what we carry inside of us, of what has passed stays. And it's only ever alleviated, at least for me when I let those feelings become productive in words and speech with close friends.

That being said, know this: You are the sum of your experiences, of what the world has to offer, of whatever the universe could muster up to produce your unique DNA in this very time and space. The possible realms of consciousness and dimensions are surreal and impenetrable and you are so very very small, but also miraculous. So don't be in a hurry to shed your sense of wonder and passion. Those are the things that keep us, as individuals or as a species, going.