friendzone

During my recent breakdown I started reading old messages. It became reading old tweets and mentions, then digging up old diaries and now, reading very old blog posts. My past self was very sweet but naive, and she still had long roads to walk and strong currents to swim through. 

Now I'm thinking, I haven't written about something as simple as my day in awhile. Reading my 2011 posts brought me back memories I almost forgot. I'd be damned if I do, seeing as they were the foundation of the person I came to be.

It's been twelve years since the aforementioned posts, of the days in my first parttime job. Almost everything in detail, things that I find myself still laughing about. When did it stop being cool to journal and document your days via writing? I'd be honoured to be one of the flames who keep this alive again.

So here I am now, at the end of a day worth writing about. For someone with traces of social anxiety, I did a good job today. The first step taken was registering for this community event thing, where people in my age group gather to make friends. Something I very much needed during my anti-hero year.

My next obstacle was seeing a friend I haven't seen in ten years. There is still some invisible expectations you hope to meet, that you're still as nice as they remember, maybe better. But somehow it was easy falling back in, maybe from a combination of the old bond and my new outgoingness. 

I kept my friend company for awhile, since we were the first of our assigned tables. After just a little bit catching up, my anxiety already gone, I saw two members of my table arrive. I picked up my food and made some joke about me being accident prone, before walking over to table 7 and saying hello so easily. 

I told them where I live and work, being very careful not to reveal anything weird about me. About my living in the Northeast only recently and having been a pasir ris girl my whole life. One guy was in tech, and the other a civil servant. Add my retail to the mix and we already have three very different people at the table.

After some chatting and our group of three becoming five, we were made to fill in these cards. The guy on my right, the one in tech, he was pondering for awhile and I thought he looked like gurmit singh from his side profile. I told him so, but thank god we got interrupted before he could react. Looking back now I'm not sure if that was considered rude.

So I had to think for quite abit before being happy with my own answers.

I spend my days: daydreaming, writing

2 things I want to learn: 1. How to keep friends 2. Singapore history

2 things people can talk to me about: 1. Anything about themselves 2. Anything about myself

A question I'd like to ask is: Is there a way to have both happiness and identity?

There was some sort of icebreaker, which I thought would make a round and have the spotlight on us one at a time, but thank god it wasn't like that. There was an outline of the Singapore map on the floor, and first we were told to head to a makan place we love.

Honestly I didn't have anywhere to recommend per se, but I went to where I thought pasir ris was, with my mother's house in mind. Everyone seemed to flock to the west, but another girl looked a little lost near me. I told her I think this is pasir ris, and we got to talking very naturally. When she told me she just lived in the block upstairs, I said Oh so that's why you're just wearing slippers. And she laughed so heartedly, the dimple on her left cheek so deep.

Next we were told to go somewhere we want to explore. I went to the North where woodlands was, and I tried explaining to the nearest friends why but I couldn't put it into words. Basically I just see woodlands as an old friend I haven't seen in awhile, and I wish for us to catch up again on our many changes.

I'm surprised I didn't flaunt my northsouth line tattoo at this point.

One of those friends told the rest of us his clementi reason, how he stayed with his aunt since childhood and treated her like his own parent. It resonated with me, but I held back my story. He looked like he hardly talked about it, despite it being a big part of who he is, and I wanted him to have his moment.

The last, we were told to go somewhere we love to hang out in. I went to the central where orchard was, without hesitation, and my tech friend from table 7 exclaimed, Did you really choose your workplace?! I laughed and had to admit that work was one of my favourite places. Then someone beside me told us the magnetic hold that bugis had on him, and I understood what he meant.

We got back to our assigned tables after. I admitted a few things, like the way I enjoy my job unlike many others. I talked about the book I painstakingly wrote and then neglected. I shared the outline of it and the traits of one of the main characters, made a joke like Hmmm I wonder who is she based on. We talked about a post apocalyptic Singapore and the local writing scene, both of which tugged at my heartstrings.

We were given cards with conversation starters on them, but our group didn't seem to have trouble moving things along. We were all so different, jobs and aspirations and places in life, and that was exactly why we had so much to talk about.

One of the cards: What are some of the challenges that are preventing you from what you want to achieve?, something along those lines. And I was the one who had to get the ball rolling. At this point the mp of punggol west decided to sit next to me, telling us to pretend she was invisible. It was still a lot of pressure, but I somehow managed to go through.

I told them about how I really have so much to look forward to and yet I still feel so unfulfilled. Being happily married with a one-year-old son, working in a place I love, knowing what I want to be. These are the things some people wish they could have. And my entire table was single, so I was somewhat steps ahead in terms of these cliche achievements. (But then again I never graduated poly and they're all higher educated, so they're steps ahead of me in that sense.)

Said that the problem really is myself, that the only thing stopping me from finishing my novel and my dreams was me. Then I read out the question I wrote on my own card, Is there a way to have both happiness and identity? Everyone gasped at the question, I tried to relieve the seriousness, but I could see the entire table already pondering about everything themselves. 

After so much conversing, both deep and funny shit, we had to gather one last time with everyone else to share our takeaways of the night. And I learned that I had no reason to panic and get anxious at the thought of being who I am. Nobody is judging, and in a way, everyone sticks out like a sore thumb because we're all just so unique.

I've been having some identity crisis thing lately, feeling very washed-up and faded. Like I'm not very interesting anymore. Motherhood has brought me up in ways, down in others. But now I know, I will always be interesting, the way everyone and everything will always be to me.

I figured that my identity was never at stake after all. That I am still me, 27 versions of myself that have come to be who I am. The 28th version is forming, and I can see that she is made of both the sides of her that have been in constant battle. She is a mother who doesn't have time to write while raising her kid, and because he keeps trying to smack her keyboard; she is also a writer who is inspired by the bruises on her soul and her ghosts that follow her everywhere.

Today was exactly what I needed, laughter over parents pretending to be their babies in Instagram captions; reflections over our places in life and the steps to take next. It's been awhile since I stepped out the triangle that is the two loves of my life and I, and it's okay if you ever need to feel like yourself apart from the people you already love.

11. Midnight rain (2018)

(the playlist)

The year I turned 23 I was lucky enough to find the two nicest guys on a dating app known for notorious fuckboys. Of course this came right after my being unlucky enough to be dumped by yet the same person for the ninth or tenth time. But well. 

Among the many other matches, the first thing these two had in common was the pictures of cats on their profile instead of themselves. The second was the gut instinct I had that neither of them had an ounce of hidden intention. The third was their taking me seriously and choosing to start a friendship despite my dark humour and negativity. 

If you don't know, I would come to marry one of these two. Here's the story of the other, one of the forms of friendship that I somehow managed to find in a place people usually only found rebounds. 

When you've been shipwrecked you will do anything to survive. Some of us prioritise finding a water source, or building fire. Some of us forge weapons to fend off live danger. But we tend to forget also keeping our sanity intact, there being no sign of humanity anywhere. 

When I was marooned, my sanity subconsciously became my priority. I talked to friends both old and new, I had one-sided conversations with my notebooks, my version of stray volleyballs. Somehow they all morphed into one person, a living, breathing human that restarted my life on a Wednesday night. 

He was the very first from the app that I met in person. Late night conversations that made me feel like we'd known each other our whole lives. He became my best friend in that short timespan, somehow knowing me the way nobody else did. Somehow liking me, despite my negativity I thought would only repel.

I will always owe him for understanding me wholeheartedly, and I know he liked me for me, among all the girls in his life. I will always owe him for the dreamcatchers he twined together after I mentioned my constant nightmares. And I will always owe him for leaving him stranded, for being his hurricane after crying to him about mine.

I ended up choosing somebody else, but he will always be the first friend I had at the end of my years-long tunnel. A friend who wasn't an ex's first, a friend who simply accepted and understood. 

The long walk beneath the train tracks, coping forks from a convenience store for the cheesecake he bought. Petting a stray cat in the middle of people's bungalows and unintentionally making him laugh. Driving home, him letting me choose the music and the flow of the conversations. These are the ways he will always be the sunshine I remember him for.

Saying out loud that I didn't see anything worthwhile in life despite his support. Slow replies suddenly one night, he was sick and I was with someone else. All the laughter we shared wiped out with a few swallows of his whiskey. There is no way to replace his last memory of me anymore; I will always be the midnight rain he remembers me for.

kisses [drafts, 15 Jul 19]

They always make it a point to watch how a man treats other people. From waiters to children to their own mother, it doesn't matter how much he spoils you or treats you like a princess. It speaks more than enough if he is unkind to the rest of the world.

I've seen him angry, at strangers blocking our way or stopping suddenly, making us crash into them. I've extracted that anger myself, teasing him to a boiling point. But he has never lashed out at anyone apart from a click of the tongue. He has never retaliated, just closing his eyes and taking a slow, deep breath that is enough for me to get the message.

I have been in his house and out with his parents enough times to see how he treats them. On the first dinner, I watched him lay out serviettes and cutlery for his family. His mother had laughed that he is never like this, suggesting that it was just for show because of me.

When we first met, he told me that his mother is first in his heart, followed by his nephew and his dad. I'd listened to him go on about his nephew but watching them together was a different story. The kid was so shy hiding behind his mother's back, until he ran to his uncle and jumped onto his lap. Even now he is always looking at me wearily, but never hesitates to wrap his arms around him and kiss him.

He is like me, with a general dislike for kids; but it is adorable when he smiles at videos of babies on social media, softening his voice to coo at them. Even with the power his mother and I have, both of our pleading isn't enough to make him stop smoking, so him mentioning that he will give it up after having a kid is a big deal. It just melts my heart to hear how much he wants his own.

But what makes the wonder is how he has changed me. Before, I would grumble and groan when my mum asks a simple task of me. Before, I would never glance twice at a child even if one was staring me right in the face.

Somehow amidst my hatred for people, I chose the son who kisses his parents on the cheek, who makes funny faces at kids and smothers his nephew with pecks.

Happy first

 A year ago I was screaming and begging for my life to meet you.

Maybe I still am, internally, but there's nobody coaxing or helping me this time. I give myself laughing gas trying to take my mind off the blinding pain, but it still goes through. You're out of me, but I'm still out of it.

I've been in this dark place many times before. From losing a years-long relationship, a couple boxed drinks, a soul way younger than you. I'm familiar with the fire and my mind engulfing each other, me in the process. 

These aren't things I want to tell you, be it now or twenty years down the road. This isn't the side of me I want you to read about. But why would I keep the truth from you? Maybe you'd be the kind to romanticise your mother's struggles for the hell of it.

You'd tell your peers about the wars your parents have fought, joke about their exaggerated trails to school. You'd post pictures of us from the roaring 20s, not a trace of the wrinkles and silver hair. And I'll just be the background in your arc. 

For you to arrive to that point, I need to pull myself together first. I've already lost more than a month with you, breaking down and pining for things that are not your fault. I have to be the one to hold you while you take your first steps, lead you onto the many paths life shows you. Because at the end of it all, I want to be your best person, even when I'm at my worst.

So here my happiness and identity are at loggerheads, the latter being what led me to this very moment of mine. But I have to leave it behind and choose you now, my source of the former. Happy first birthday, and happiness first. You first. I will give you the childhood and youth I am owed, I will give you what I'll never be paid back. 

// foreshadowing 2020

In which I read back some old diary entries, nearly three years ago now, foreshadowing how I feel today.

17 06 20 // 11:30PM

It's been a long time since I've written in that I can't even remember how I used to write my dates. No slashes. Definitely no slashes.

Actually I'd started in yet another notebook in mid-2019 but it was left abandoned after a few pages. It's what happens when I don't practise much. Or when I stop making the effort to sit at a cafe with nothing but music and the thoughts in my head. Or maybe it's just what happens when you're finally happy.

I have a diamond ring on my left finger as I write this. That's how long I've been away and perhaps how far I've come. I'm still the same person who sees love in railway and hope in butterflies, yet I am infinitely different. I look how far I've come, and at the same time wonder about the other two roads.

I wonder how my 22-year-old self thinks things would be today, and what the future me would see in me when one looks back. But at the moment, I am alive and content. A few tiny concerns and some anxiety left, but nothing I can't go through. I have made worse decisions and walked rougher roads.

05 08 20 // 10:53PM

Always had the dilemma of suicide by what you love, or what you fear. While sympathy floated all around me for the two railway staff who got knocked down by an incoming train, all I had was jealousy. That was how I wanted to go. Well, that or drowning. Until now it's a decision to make.

But I always had a hidden fear. The fear of being someone else, of blending in. I do not want to be genetically modified... someone who doesn't stand out. I do not want to change the person I took a lifetime to be. To accept. The first time I voiced it out, it went out the car when his mother opened the door suddenly, asking if I could squeeze in the back instead.

The second time I expressed it was in type. I could not see his reaction and he did not offer any either. Not even the next morning, everything of yesterday basically forgotten. Until the third time, months later, when my expressions finally came accompanied with tears.

I do not want to be someone I'm not. The day I blend in will be the day I die, my past and art and metaphors seeping out of me. I do not want to be prim and proper, to wear clothes I am not comfortable with, to say sensible things. I want to always be the strange artist that I am, never shy to express any differences.

13 09 20 // 1:24PM

Why do people pretend to like rain so much, when it is our version of winter? Cold, dark, reminiscent of the worst of our time. Then again, on the equivalent of summer, the strangers show off their 'sun-kissed' skin to disguise the hatred for the heat, conveniently shown all over the other side of their pages.

I don't pretend. I don't mask my hatred and annoyance of the rain, from the splatter of droplets hitting my face to the sudden flash of lightning, reminiscent of photographs taken without my permission. I don't pretend to like the cold, rising my goosebumps and the puddles that obscure my usual routes, forcing me to find new ways to walk paths that should be familiar.

I don't have my balance, and no matter where I walk my steps are masked by mud and drowned by raindrops. Drops that once flourished, from the moment they leave their clouds of comfort to their demise on the sidewalk. Where they meet their fate of soaking my shoes. 

Where else am I supposed to rest or call solace when the light of my bedroom is louder than the buzzing in my head, a feat I thought impossible. A family and other half I once thought I could belong in, revealing their true motives of blending me into the rest of the nieces and wives? With headscarves and outfits that scream no personality despite what they try to portray?

I don't want to blend in with the lovers of rain and a god I don't quite believe in. I do not want to exist for anyone but myself even if I'm the harshest critic of me. I want to revel in my worst, from my hatred of normal people to my lowball dark humour, I want to sit on my throne of the worst years of my time on earth, not of motherhood and the automatic blessings of submitting myself to a husband and his god.

A loose thread

It's already been more than a month since my unraveling started. I've always had a few loose threads but they only started getting pulled when I found out early March, my dad had thrown away many of my old room possessions.

The thing that made me most shocked were the dreamcatchers an old friend had painstakingly handmade for me. This bad-dreams thing has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. But nobody had ever come close to even thinking of making or buying one for me. Not even myself.

And this friend, who isn't on social media; I never knew if he is still alive and well. When I started pulling this thread I read back old conversations and remembered the way I had left him hanging, the way our friendship was so important to me and I only made it last less than a month. 

I do believe everything is connected, so all my emotions from then are more than the throwing of dreamcatchers. I started thinking about the personality that had reeled my husband in back then, the dark sense of humour and slight eccentricity. The way I think I do not have either anymore. 

It sent me further downwards, forcing myself to starve and down caffeine every chance I could. I forced myself to read old posts and listen to old favourite songs in a desperate attempt to get my old mind back. At home I hid our kitchen knives, I was reaching the point of wanting to cut myself open, hoping I still bled ink like the writer I want to be. 

Where was my husband in all this? He laid beside me in bed, his snoring not as loud as the returning voices in my head. I did find out a long time ago that having somebody to fall back into doesn't make you immune to depression. I still hit rock bottom despite having somebody doing everything he could to prevent it. 

And in the past month, there have been instances I think that is one of the problems. In the past, loneliness was a big part of my personality. It was the loneliness that sat me down to count trains and pick moths up with my bare finger, that made me skip to work and always show up even with migraines and eyepatches. 

It was the hatred for the world and everyone in it that made me read lists of most gruesome deaths and profile myself if I was a serial killer. It was the lack of exterior emotion that identified me as an android and that made my smiles more rare and valuable.

I feel nothing special anymore. I don't spend time alone anymore and I don't write well on the good days. The trains I take now are underground and I am in cars more often than public transport. When I take down customers' names on enquiry forms, my hand shakes like I'm still learning how to write.

Where have all the flowers gone? Is there really no way to have both happiness and identity? 

Maybe I've been wondering this deep down but only the loss of my past possessions pulled and pulled and pulled until I am left naked. 

10. Maroon (2018)

 (the playlist)

maroon /məˈruːn/

adjective: of a brownish-red colour

I'm audibly sighing while staring at this blank page. From the moment we met I've written about nothing but you and the trails you've left behind. I was your fire going mad but you were always my gasoline. What more can I say about you now? 

After your thirteen missed calls I thought your arc was over. No wait, after I moved on when you broke up with me in April 2017, I thought your arc was over. No, wait. After I moved on when you broke up with me in June 2014... No, wait, after I moved on when you broke up with me in January 2014...?

Your story was getting old, but I always found a way to bring you back. As if our relationship was a timeless piece of clothing instead of its stains.

I may have been smart enough to close the door on you the last time, but not enough. It didn't stop me from leaving the room myself every other day, looking for you, talking to you. My feelings for you sat on a spectrum, floating around on good days.

After five years of breaking and reconciling again and again, things get old and colours start to fade. What started out bright red will wash out and rust eventually, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. And after a while we really weren't trying at all. 

I saw bright red walking home from Ikea, carrying new pillows and trashcans for the room you started renting. I saw maroon in the fact that you now lived in the very place I hated after having been separate entities. I saw bright red in the time we could now spend together without you having to rush home through customs; maroon whenever you chose your friends over me instead. 

Red in the night we went drinking just the two of us; maroon in the night we drank with your new friends in City Hall. Red in the time you joined my family for dinner on Good Friday and maroon in the way you had decided that you never want to have anything to do with them. 

Red: the way you waited with me while I was watching out for a snail on the cycling lane. Maroon: the conversation you had with your mother when she called. 

There was a part of me that still thought I only deserved someone on the same level of poisonous. But I'd be lying if I say I didn't have love for you at all. I was at constant battle with both sides of our past, and I wasn't selfless enough to not let it affect you.

You made the choice for us again and finally left for good. For someone who had gone through the same copy of heartbreak like nine times already, I still didn't react well right off the bat. The feeling of suddenly waking up and not having the same person to text anymore; you will always feel confused and lost.

maroon /məˈruːn

noun: leave (someone) trapped and alone in an inaccessible place, especially an island