A long time coming...
It's hard to believe it's been just over a year since I've sat here pensively, laptop across my crossed legs, typing into this achingly empty text box, trying to inspire feeling in places that seem consistently numb. A lot has changed in a year, making this one of the most remarkable times of my life. I've managed to find and lose those things I thought defined me, and have (it would appear) found some form of mental equilibrium that mostly keeps the monsters away.
Being single is not necessarily synonymous with being alone. I have come to terms with listening to the voices in my head, instead of shying away from those thoughts that haunted me at 2am when televised images are burning imprints into my eyes. I realise that life is as much what you make of it, as it is what you don't. I know that soudns awfully cryptic, but to be honest, I doubt anybody really expects pure clarity from a girl whose head has been fucked with more times than the most popular Singaporean street worker. It would appear though, that my anecdotal wit has remained, even if other, more vital parts have eluded me all these months.
Life changes at such an alarming rate. If somebody had told me that I'd go from crying, incomprehensible maniac to the calm, composed little splash of colour I appear to be sitting here inside 12 months, I'd politely tell them to go and jump from the nearest bridge. I had never really believed that circumstances get better, they simply evolve and become more bearable. We as a race, humans I mean, are rather terrible at living life smoothly - we merely ignore that which we cannot explain, envision that which we cannot attain and smooth over that which we cannot repair. Forgive me, I always did type too fast for my brain to keep up, and I realise that that sounded incredibly petulant coming from a 21 year old grad-student just starting her life in the real world. What could I possibly know of human traits? What could I possibly realise from all my years of walling myself off?
The answer to those questions is, surprisingly, a lot. I find that an astute sense of understanding imbues me after so long spent crying into the night, staring unseeing into the void that I comprehended as my life. I realise that all this time spent simply watching the world - refusing to take part out of my own abject fear of feeling something other than utter despair I suppose - has granted me a power of foresight that has nothing to do with the occult religious practices I so frequently indulge in. Maybe that's what makes me such an excellent sales person, maybe that's what makes me such a contrite pain-in-the-ass. To be honest, I don't really mind either way.
What I have managed to realise in the last year - despite the fear, the loneliness and the crippling self loathing - is that people can save you, even if they don't realise that they are doing anything. People can remove or include themselves in your little personal bubble, and the consequences associated with that have a lot to do with whether or not you sink or swim. I've left so much behind in the last year, and so many people have turned away, convinced that I can neither save myself or be saved. But I find myself finally able to tread water and keep my lungs from filling with that choking, burning sensation I always associate with life suddenly denying me air; whether it be through the chances it throws at me, or the opportunities it denys me. My head has always been chaos: a place where even I feared to tread too heavily for fear of awakening uncontrollable emotions that threaten to cripple the very essence of who I am and who I think I want to be. After being assailed by pills, therapy and the cold slap of alcohol, I realise that giving in to my condition does not make me weak, it makes me that much stronger. To deny what we are brings a hardship born of desperation to feel normal, when it is painfully obvious that such a condition or 'normality' does not exist. I am a mess of entangled emotions, a tumult of screaming emotional baggage that no matter how far I run I cannot escape. And so, I bow my head in acquiescence, accepting that which until now I could not come to terms with. I defiantly embrace these obscene difficulties my psyche throws at me, throwing back my head and laughing at the impossibility of it all; of the impossibility of being just another human. I deliberately nurture my defects, throwing them at my attackers like an assassin would knives, and somehow it all works out. I toughen my skin, accept the blows and smile when I come out the other side still alive.
I am aware that living on the edge of such a keenly honed knife, so to speak, is possibly not the most practical of solutions for a soul such as mine, but I have to clarify my slightly ridiculous and overtly dramatic lifestyle choices by mouthing once again the phrase that sums up my life...
...my addictions always seem to hurt
Being single is not necessarily synonymous with being alone. I have come to terms with listening to the voices in my head, instead of shying away from those thoughts that haunted me at 2am when televised images are burning imprints into my eyes. I realise that life is as much what you make of it, as it is what you don't. I know that soudns awfully cryptic, but to be honest, I doubt anybody really expects pure clarity from a girl whose head has been fucked with more times than the most popular Singaporean street worker. It would appear though, that my anecdotal wit has remained, even if other, more vital parts have eluded me all these months.
Life changes at such an alarming rate. If somebody had told me that I'd go from crying, incomprehensible maniac to the calm, composed little splash of colour I appear to be sitting here inside 12 months, I'd politely tell them to go and jump from the nearest bridge. I had never really believed that circumstances get better, they simply evolve and become more bearable. We as a race, humans I mean, are rather terrible at living life smoothly - we merely ignore that which we cannot explain, envision that which we cannot attain and smooth over that which we cannot repair. Forgive me, I always did type too fast for my brain to keep up, and I realise that that sounded incredibly petulant coming from a 21 year old grad-student just starting her life in the real world. What could I possibly know of human traits? What could I possibly realise from all my years of walling myself off?
The answer to those questions is, surprisingly, a lot. I find that an astute sense of understanding imbues me after so long spent crying into the night, staring unseeing into the void that I comprehended as my life. I realise that all this time spent simply watching the world - refusing to take part out of my own abject fear of feeling something other than utter despair I suppose - has granted me a power of foresight that has nothing to do with the occult religious practices I so frequently indulge in. Maybe that's what makes me such an excellent sales person, maybe that's what makes me such a contrite pain-in-the-ass. To be honest, I don't really mind either way.
What I have managed to realise in the last year - despite the fear, the loneliness and the crippling self loathing - is that people can save you, even if they don't realise that they are doing anything. People can remove or include themselves in your little personal bubble, and the consequences associated with that have a lot to do with whether or not you sink or swim. I've left so much behind in the last year, and so many people have turned away, convinced that I can neither save myself or be saved. But I find myself finally able to tread water and keep my lungs from filling with that choking, burning sensation I always associate with life suddenly denying me air; whether it be through the chances it throws at me, or the opportunities it denys me. My head has always been chaos: a place where even I feared to tread too heavily for fear of awakening uncontrollable emotions that threaten to cripple the very essence of who I am and who I think I want to be. After being assailed by pills, therapy and the cold slap of alcohol, I realise that giving in to my condition does not make me weak, it makes me that much stronger. To deny what we are brings a hardship born of desperation to feel normal, when it is painfully obvious that such a condition or 'normality' does not exist. I am a mess of entangled emotions, a tumult of screaming emotional baggage that no matter how far I run I cannot escape. And so, I bow my head in acquiescence, accepting that which until now I could not come to terms with. I defiantly embrace these obscene difficulties my psyche throws at me, throwing back my head and laughing at the impossibility of it all; of the impossibility of being just another human. I deliberately nurture my defects, throwing them at my attackers like an assassin would knives, and somehow it all works out. I toughen my skin, accept the blows and smile when I come out the other side still alive.
I am aware that living on the edge of such a keenly honed knife, so to speak, is possibly not the most practical of solutions for a soul such as mine, but I have to clarify my slightly ridiculous and overtly dramatic lifestyle choices by mouthing once again the phrase that sums up my life...
...my addictions always seem to hurt