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Sunday, April 29, 2012
I wonder what it is about them that scares me sometimes. The Art class dinner three days ago was quite chaotic for me, because instead of just having two to three people I'm more familiar with (Yuxuan and Ahmad, and maybe Jonat), the group ended up growing to include Eugene and Batara and a couple of other seniors. I don't know, I initially thought I'd be perfectly fine with it, but after a while I just started feeling strangely cornered and for a good amount of time I couldn't control my emotions very well. Being around too many people just made me feel suffocated. I felt the urgent need to get out, to go away, to be with myself...and it surprised me, because it's been a long time since my control has wavered this much in public.
I know Yuxuan and Ahmad noticed because as much as I was avoiding everyone's gazes, I was still observing from peripheral vision, and I knew they were making subtle attempts to approach me or just stay nearby. And small gestures like offering food...I appreciated that. Maybe it's true that guys show concern in a way that's rather fundamentally different from girls, and to be perfectly honest, I find myself liking it quite a lot. It feels much less cheesy and more sincere, more reassuring.
You know, actually now that I think back on it, my loss of control might have been (partially) due to the movie Yuxuan and I watched earlier in the art room that day. A large part of it dealt with issues of loneliness, and not just loneliness...it was about being utterly, totally, inexplicably alone, an idea I tend to take for granted whenever I consider that topic. Perhaps it struck a chord somewhere deep but obscure and I wasn't quite aware of its impact until a bit of it manifested during dinner. But oh well. Whatever the case is, it was a thought-provoking movie, and rather brilliantly shot too. I might blog my views some other time.
That aside, it was Yunteng's birthday the day before yesterday. I felt a bit sorry for not attending their dinner celebration, and I hope I managed to make up for it by helping Ahmad and Yanyong paint the shirt (ahaha not very well done, actually, but I suppose it's the thought that counts...), but I really wasn't sure if I would be struggling to control my emotions again and I didn't want to spoil things for them. They deserve to have fun, to be the energetic youths they are. I didn't want to ruin their mood with my own personal issues. This art class...this bunch of people...I love them too dearly. I don't want to trouble them if I can afford it.
Anyway, it was probably good that I stayed, because Yue and I had the whole room to ourselves and so we had a long talk, during which I got a chance to reflect a little upon the recent occurrences in my life. What really set me thinking was Yue's advice to never hate myself no matter what happens. It's a very common-sensical piece of advice, but it came at the right time. Yue was concerned about me because she thinks I've been looking exceptionally tired and depressed over the past few weeks, even though I myself wasn't quite aware of it. To be honest JC life has been so fulfilling that I wasn't actually hating myself lately...but what she said made me realise that I have before, and not too long ago, and that if I don't take care of my life I may very well loose my footing and fall right back into the same hole again. Since I'm born in this physical body, there is no way to escape unless in death, and if I'm going to choose to live I might as well learn to love myself for who I am.
Yue's right. I'm the only one who can really change myself. I'm the only one who can help myself, and I must start to see that soon.
***
~~~*Waited for the Winds at 2.32pm*~~~
Sunday, April 22, 2012
A chat with a friend yesterday somehow ended up on the topic of ostracising and pandering to norms, and as much as it was merely a brief discussion, it reminded me quite abruptly of my own childhood. For once in a long, long while, something that no longer existed so palpably in my life brought me close to the verge of tears. Everything was over, perhaps, but not gone as I had wished. It took me a moment to realise that.
Memories resurfaced. Faces bobbed. Voices rose. In that lonely hour, I was back to being a hapless child trapped in the shadows of uncertainty and confusion, wondering, for all the world, why that last empty seat at the table circled by a group of children couldn't be taken by me. You know, you have no idea how glad I am that I'm no longer a child now. I'm also glad, and immensely grateful, that those around me aren't children anymore either.
It's a huge relief to know that those times have passed and wouldn't come again in quite some time.
Right. So I looked through the past few posts on my blog and realised that I haven't really been updating much about my life; my posts, if I do take the time to write one occasionally, have been getting shorter and more emotionally-packed. It seems as if my ability to express what I feel in writing has dissolved into something akin to a desperate struggle for words, as most of the time I appear to be hastily chucking in one thing after another, hoping too fervently to get them off my chest, to roll the stones from summit to valley. I don't know if it's good, really. For one thing, it would serve the comforting function of a rant, but it could also delude me into believing that shallow and emotionally-driven rants can actually amount to anything. I need to be aware of the watershed between emotion and thought. I need to make the thresholds of my mind clear and distinctive, just in case wave after wave of emotion pulls me, once again, to depths from which I cannot extricate myself.
Life for the past few months has been rather...queer, I should say. One thing that is certain, though, is that I love JC regardless of all the crap that has been shoved onto our plates within barely a term. There is one community I cannot help but dedicate nearly all my love and attention to, and that is H2Art, an all-too-amazing bunch of people I am only too exhilarated and grateful to have met. I love everything about it - from the people to the work (well perhaps not so much of quantity of work, but that's a different matter), staying back in the art room until godforsaken hours of the night, having class dinners, drawing together, fooling around, getting scolded...every single damn thing, really. After a horribly depressing sec 4, it was a humongous change to have something you actively cherish and look forward to every day of the week, and I can't say enough to express the amount of gratitude and appreciation I have for this long-awaited blessing in my life. I felt like I belonged. I belonged, and I can't believe how long it took to finally feel this way.
There are of course problems like my feelings for that friend of mine, but I welcome them because they provide me with new experiences that will prepare me for what is to come in future. I have been thinking over the past few days...that no matter how much I like him, I do not want this to intervene with our friendship. In a sense, Grace is right. There is something I see in him that I hold special to me, because I would rather bear the weight of my emotions and suppress my feelings than take a risk and lose everything altogether. It wasn't like this with my friend in P6. Even though my decision to confess at that time could have been due to my childish and immature mindset, I believe that this disparity still means something, no matter how obscure it is. I'll bear with it, and I'm determined to continue being silent about it.
After all, I'm not hurting anyone by liking him. As long as it remains known only to myself and a couple of trusted friends, at the end of the day, even if it's all a distant dream (and it almost certainly is), it's a relief to know that the only person I'd be hurting is myself. Yue asked me if I could guarantee that I won't be majorly affected. I replied very honestly that I can't. I will make sure not to hurt anyone else, but I know I can't protect myself, because the thing with me is that while I don't love easily, when I do, I can climb very high...and fall very hard. I don't mind, though. I knew when I started out that it will happen, but I know my feelings, and I will not deny them.
I'm not looking for romance - just a purpose, some meaning, something to look forward to and to curb the advances of depression. I'm satisfied as long as the friendship can continue.
Alright, enough for tonight, I should go hit the hay now.
***
~~~*Waited for the Winds at 2.18am*~~~
Saturday, April 14, 2012
I realised that what gave me such a subtle yet motivating mixture of pleasure and uncertainty over the past few weeks was really just a massive delusion I've fallen prey to. Why am I making such an effort when I know full well that it's all in vain? Am I trying hard to prove myself? Am I trying hard to believe that people will really acknowledge me not just for who I am, but for who I'm capable of being?
Am I trying too hard to love and feel loved?
He commands my interest in such strange ways, and I wish no more than to attain a level of friendship with someone that would fulfill that hollow in me I've felt for too long a time. In almost all aspects I admire him; art, confidence, charisma, sensibility, intellect, individuality and overall character, amongst many others. In many ways, he's the type of person I've been hoping to find since many years ago when I first gained some sense of direction in my inner pursuits. He's someone on the same wavelength, someone with such an adequate balance of character and ability that I find more than sufficient reason to excuse his rather (prominent) flaws. I like him very much, I'll just be honest. Yet it's strange that while we can talk both casually and formally depending on the situation, there's this invisible barrier of communication that we can never get past. I can never connect to him as much as I wish to. I can never show him care, concern, attention and thought beyond what mere words can convey, and it troubles me because it frustrates me only too often. While he looks people in the eye, I evade people's gazes - not because I do not wish to open my heart to them, but rather because I can't. I just can't, and I don't know why!
In so many ways I fail at being a person one can love. When I first told a close friend about my feelings for him, her reaction was one of surprise: "I never thought you were that kind of person." What kind of person? Pray tell, what kind of person? A person who can love? A person who can be loved? An utterly normal human being who is just as weak to the command of emotion and desiring the warmth of acknowledgement as any other? Do I appear to be the kind of person who walks a path of my own, cold and uncaring about the affairs of others, desperate to be independent and yet, in moments of need, become so emotionally driven that it irks my companions? Do I appear to be lacking in something that all others have, this quality, this strange unfathomable and distant quality I have failed to attain, which draws affection and acceptance so readily and naturally?
As for him, I know he likes someone else, not necessarily in that sense, but at least at a much deeper level. It was something I've acknowledged ever since I fished out the truth from the jumbled mess of my feelings not too long ago; in a way, I knew somewhere within that the efforts I make will be futile, that I'm being foolish, that in the end, ultimately, I'd be the one losing. I'm tired, and there's a feeling of resignation right now. I think I should give up, I really should, before this hurts me more than it already does.
But why can't I stop? Why can't I forget it and move on?
Why is it that I know I can never be truly loved, and yet I can't stop loving?
***~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.54am*~~~
Monday, April 2, 2012
I hate the way I cling so desperately to something I've found and want to treasure. In what way do I depend on it? What reasons have I to feel that it belongs to me and solely to me? When others lay hands on it, my heart aches and my teeth clench and there's this horrible squirming sensation in my chest that I cannot help but succumb to. I think I'm not good enough. I know I'm not good enough. But all this while, even so, I liked to think I had a chance.
Maybe it was all a dream, and I've been deluding myself every second of the past instance. Maybe I'm just desperate and didn't notice the hunger of my unappeased desires. I've been searching so long and hard for this something...and I want it, I want it so badly that to see it taken away even though it was not mine to claim in the first place...just hurts. It hurts so very much no matter how hard I try to persuade myself otherwise. I've grown, but the thing I look for remains unchanged.
I try, you know, I try. There are just some things I can't do. I can't show affection to people as freely as I should be able to. I can't speak words of warm sincerity to people I'd love to articulate them to. I want to act freely, trust freely...I want to love freely, just the way I wish, and be cared for as well.
I want a chance, and no more shall I ask.
***~~~*Waited for the Winds at 8.17pm*~~~
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