The Middle Ground

There are 84 blog posts sitting in my drafts folder. There's one about a difficult day 4 years ago, another about having, for the 1st time ever, just one New Year's resolution instead of a laundry list. There's a post about a strange, sunny day on the bay, a post about an adventure with my friends, a post about something Ifo said that stopped me in my tracks, surprising me in a way, a good way, that words haven't surprised me in years.

Sometimes this happens. I have so many things to say that I don't know where to start, and I end up saying nothing at all. Do you ever have that dream? The one where you're trying to talk to someone, and although you hear the words in your mind, muffled, as if you're underwater, you can't speak?

Hard to imagine that? Forget it then. So this is a few pieces of the drafts I've been saving for a long time. 

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It's been a good month. A really, really good month. The kind that's so good, you have to force yourself not to grow suspicious that something difficult must be around the corner. That feeling has been nagging at me, though, and there's nothing worse than that train of thought, the when-will-the-other-shoe-drop kind. It comes from a place of such fear and guilt, as if you have to pay for your happiness, as if joy will always be followed with some kind of inevitable sadness.

That's a defense mechanism, of course. When things feel like they're moving in the right direction, you can't help but brace yourself for whatever challenge will come up first.

**********

I hear my dad's voice in my head a lot. On a revision night after getting bad grades in mathematics and he bought me a lot of practice books to improve my maths, he'd say, "Do it correctly!" He sometimes sounds like yelling, the kind that intimidated coach but motivated me, pushed me to work harder and work smarter. He's the best teacher.

I hear my mom's voice in my head, too, a much softer one. With 6 kids, she's the kind of mom who always carries not just a first-aid kit for medical emergencies, but a first-aid kit for, well, life. From her purse, I've seen my mother pull out everything from Vicks to biscuits, just in case. She's a big just-in-case type, and before I ever did anything (go to school, take a test, leave for a night out), she'd repeat, "Be prepared."

Do it correctly. 

Be prepared.

 So much of parenting boils down to readying your kids for what's next, and helping them learn how to ready themselves. My parents instilled in me a borderline-ridiculous affinity for planning, and it's one of the passed-down habits I'm most grateful I adopted. There's something to be said for training yourself to anticipate what's coming, and to be prepared for your next move. 

But here's where I've sometimes mixed up their message: You're not always anticipating a blow, sometimes you're preparing for something great. You can't know that, of course, but you can learn to understand that good can follow good. There are ups and then there are downs, but sometimes there are ups, and then more ups, and then the down isn't so far to fall, after all.

**********

The words come quickly when things are really hard, and when things are really good. Maybe it's because the emotions feel more extreme, the thoughts more defined. It's the middle ground that's tough to sort through, I think. Even easy joy can be hard to navigate sometimes.

What I've Learned from my Husband

Sometimes you need to make sunshine a priority. Sometimes you need to set up a spontaneous picnic with friends just to soak up the daylight and yes, the laundry (and the groceries, and the dishes, and all those tv series) can wait until tomorrow.

Patience can solve just about anything.

It's important to take time for the people you care about most. Even if it means stepping outside your comfort zone or rearranging your schedule, those moments are worth it. They make you whole.

Happy music can do wonders for your mood. So can YouTube.

Cooking really isn't that hard, so don't be afraid to try something new. Plus, if you do mess up, who cares? There's always cereal. (Or takeout)

Most of the time, your stress is your own doing. Relax and take care of it, one to-do at a time.

People deserve 2nd chances, and sometimes a 3rd, too. Trust yourself. You'll know in your heart when it's time to step away from a relationship and move on.

Nothing beats rainy day, hot fish noodles, and a good movie.

It's possible to wake up happy every single day. It's possible for cool, calm, and collected to be your version of autopilot on a daily basis. (He's like that. Seriously.)

Before you ask for help, try to do it on your own. You may just surprise yourself.

Silly faces and ridiculous dance are a crucial part of life. Let loose. Acting childish every once in a while is good for the spirit.

When you're good at your core, really, truly, honestly good, love comes easy.

Trust and empathy are important, but relationships are really built on the little things. Don't overlook the smaller moments, the tiny ways in which you relate and react to each other. Flirt, laugh, stay up late talking about anything and everything, and never forget to show how grateful you are.

The Vow

On 16th July 2016, I got married to a wonderful man, Ifo, whom I've dated for 8 years. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I swear I can never forget the solemnization moment and when he read his wedding vows. There were also some unforgettable moments that make me smile every time I think about them:

1. Waking up to text messages from my long distance friends wishing a "Happy Wedding Day".

2. All the flower girls and bridesmaid eating cupcakes while getting ready.

3. Stepping into my giant white dress, all the girls around me.

4. The silence, and the sound of my dress rustling against the floor as I approached Ifo for our first look. And how he smiled at me.

5. Scanning the crowd and feeling, in the most surreal way, buoyed by our friends and family.

6. Again, the wedding vows, which was my cue to cry.

7.  My veil slipping off as we made our way to the feast, delirious with joy, and Ifo catching the veil as it fell. The most perfect imperfection.

8. The biggest, best hug fest in the entire world as everyone came to congratulate us.

9. Slipping away with Ifo to take pictures, and the look of sheer amazement on his face as he whispered, "Alhamdulillah, finally..."

10. Cutting the chocolate cake coated with mint green fondant specially made by my sister.

11. Everybody's having fun with karaoke and some others were waiting turn to sing.

12.  My adorable nieces and nephews twirling across the dance floor, giddy and tired.

13. Friends and family dishing out all kinds of emotional, slurred, perfect "we love yous".

14. Hanging out with Ifo under the canopy while eating leftovers after everybody's leaving, feeling tired, happy and thankful.

And so...I just want to thank you all for your best wishes and your really, really sweet comments as I shared all our wedding photos and details on instagram, facebook and twitter these past few weeks. Special thanks to our families and friends for their continuous support and help to make the wedding as wonderful as it can be. And also special credits for these people:

Wedding suit and dress: Permaisuri Pengantin Boutique

Dais and hand bouquet: Normah Wedding Planner

Cake: Dinasha Bakery

Canopy and table set: Kris Canopy

Caterer: Kharisma Catering

Photographer: Mr. Ajib

Thanks so much everyone!

Annddd...last but not least, here's my vow:

Dear Ifo,

My best friend,

My brightest light,

My husband from this day forward,

You're the greatest, most magnificent man I've ever known.

You've taught me peace and charity, strength and integrity,

the beautiful bliss of life's most simple joys.

You've shown me what it means to be good and true,

what it's like to wake up each day with faith and hope and a fearless, grateful spirit.

I love you for so many reasons, but I love you most for your heart,

Your true and kind and open, compassionate heart.

Our love has always felt both incredible and inevitable,a miracle that's meant to be,

And my most cherished blessing is to know that I'm yours.

Today, surrounded by the ones we love,

I vow to honor, inspire, and respect you for the rest of our days.

I'm yours, my love, forever and always:

All that I am now and all that I'll ever be.

Arrival of the groom

The start of forever

It's such an honor to be his wife

A kiss

Mom

"Can't take my eyes off you"

My best friends

His best friends

Our moms

I'm honestly loving my dress

When Dust Settles

Endings keep popping up in conversation lately. Stories of leaving, of finishing. Stories of conclusion. I for one have never been good with endings. I'm a beginnings person, someone who revels in the delight of change and enjoys navigating new territory. Endings startle and stun me, stop me right in my tracks. I never know how to negotiate the aftermath because I'm afraid to see the dust settle.

Looking back, I haven't allowed for many endings. I've managed to steer most of my experiences and relationships so that they land on a forever timeline, or at least something close to it. Come to think of it, some of the most heartbreaking endings have been leaving certain places. I knew as I left those places that my time there was over and I struggled, wrestling with that knowledge and doing my best to pretend it wasn't so. Even now they're the places that tend to fill my daydreams, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc.

This is all to say that it's hard to close the back cover. With books I find myself clutching the final flimsy pages and re-reading them over and over again, wishing I could stay in the world just a little bit longer. More often than not, I'd rather balance along the edges of an ending, unsteady, than see the conclusion rise up to meet me. Isn't that sort of how it goes, though?

Well, I'm leaving home soon.

Grow a Thicker Skin

Something I've been thinking about lately is toughness. Being tough, being strong, being resilient, being scrappy, being brave, being stubborn, being unfazed and unrattled and unshakable and relentless. Being confident. All of these these things are synonyms in places, overlapping like a weird venn diagram of words and emotions and feelings. These are all good things to be and to have, and work as assets no matter who you are or what you do. Everyone's faced with criticism and critique, and everyone has to rise again from setbacks. That's how life works. It ebbs and flows.

But of all these tools in the spectrum of human emotion that help get you from valleys to peaks and back again, I don't want to have a thick skin. I don't want things to bounce off of me. I want to feel. Even if the feeling sucks. But the feeling's a reminder that I'm human. 

In some ways, thinking you're not human, that you're superhuman, and maybe even invincible, is helpful. It's the adrenaline that pushes you through something scary and challenging, and makes you think you're stronger than you are. Fire isn't as scary if you don't feel the flame. And whether you work or even just spend part of your life in a digital space, you learn pretty quickly to let things bounce off you. We're told to know better than to read the comments. People send nasty messages to complete strangers, either forgetting or ignoring the fact that there's another person and not just an anonymous computer screen on the other side of those words. It seems like the news is reporting on another atrocity every single day. Life would, in theory, be so much easier if you felt and reacted less.

But I don't think that's the way to go about it. Often, telling someone else to grow a thicker skin is to excuse the actions of everyone around them. "People are awful, don't let them get to you." But of course awfulness is going to get to a person. Of course it'll bug someone. That's human nature. You can't tell a person to not feel, just because it keeps the status quo intact.

And okay, sometimes people can be hypersensitive about some things, but they have the right to feel any which way they choose. You can't tell them that a feeling is wrong. And excusing the actions of other people, that oh, people are just overwhelmingly shitty, grow a thicker skin, move on, is to excuse that shittiness and let it keep happening. Sure, you can only control your own actions and not the actions of other people, but your actions can also include taking other people to task when their actions are bad. You don't have to ignore, and you don't have to roll over, and you don't have to simply accept things as they are. You don't have to grow a thicker skin. 

You can and should be resilient. You should stand your ground as much as you can, and especially when it's for things that are right. But don't grow a thicker skin. Don't teach yourself how to not feel. Let things affect you. Let things get under your skin and crawl up your veins and sit uncomfortably with you until you do something about them. Call people out when they say mean things to you. Stand up for yourself, and for anyone else you see being bullied or put down. 

We may mostly be grown ups, but we're still not so far from the playground. And sometimes on the playground, you'd skin your knee and it'd sting and you'd get gravel and grit in your scrape, and it'd hurt, but you'd remember that sting and you'd learn. Sometimes it's your own damn fault. But sometimes it wasn't. Just because somebody else pushed you over didn't make that sting hurt any less. And sometimes, those scrapes left scars. Sometimes, those moments of vulnerability lead to lessons and breakthroughs. Those moments of weakness often tell us who we really are.

Be strong and confident and believe in yourself and know when people say things, sometimes they say wrong things just to get to you. By all means, be stubborn and be smart about the fact that the internet is often dumb and people on the internet say dumb things and it's often smart to ignore these things. But having that wisdom is different than having a thick skin. Don't confuse the two, whatever you do. Don't grow a thick skin, or at least keep parts of it vulnerable. Feel. Be human. Be imperfect. Be alive.

What I've Unlearned

When I was working with kids, I've noticed something. I've noticed that the older the students, the more fearful they are in the classroom. Of learning. Of putting themselves out there, making mistakes, and doing it differently next time. My point: there's a ton of stuff I learned growing up that I'm spending my 20s trying to unlearn. Didn't Picasso say something insightful about how it takes a very long time to become young? Related: we teach ourselves our limitations, you guys. I started to write the following manifesto as a notebook entry, but to hammer it home I wanted to make a public declaration of it. (Don't I always?)

Here's what I'm unlearning:

Life's hard

You have to fight for what you want. It's not designed to be easy. Prove yourself. Urgh. My new year's resolution for 2015 was to do more of what feels good, and less of what doesn't. And you know what? It's awesome. And that's because life wants me to be happy. Life wants me to pursue my dreams, and see the magic in the everyday, because the universe wants to be noticed for the glorious work that she does. We notice the presence of the divine by personifying love, by leaning in to what feels amazing for as long as it gets us off. What if I believed that I deserve every lovely thing that happens to me?

Chase facts, not feelings

Nope. You know what facts do? Distort the truth. There's not a single statement that can't be justified with a percentage or statistic or number. We prize numerical data above all else because we can quantify "facts", and feelings are slippery little devils that change and alter, that can't be "proved". I don't have to see something to believe it: I can see it if I believe it.

Being alone is lonely

How many times must I learn the lesson, that I feel one thousand times worse spending time in the wrong company than I do if I pass the time in that of my own? I recently declared to myself that for any social occasion, I'll only go if the thrill of it outweighs the thrill I feel of being at my desk writing or reading: my happy place. That means my social life will shrink exponentially, then, and I have to be comfortable with that. FOMO (fear of missing out) is for the insecure, and I have to be determined to find peace in my own (much less busy, much less outwardly interesting) path.

(Shockingly, I'm applying this to fellas, too. You don't need to have a romance in order to have a romantic life, said a very wise woman. I hear that so hard.)

Likeable girls are modest

This is absolutely the hardest non-truth for me to navigate. Oh, how I want to be liked! LOL. I consistently talk myself down, making jokes at my own expense (getting to the punch line before anyone else can), so as not to appear threatening. But actually, I'm a badass. I'm smart and kind, self-aware and determined. I'm a good person. But beyond that, I have talent. I can write. I'm over the moon about that. It makes me wonder: What would I do if I wasn't so afraid of what other people think?

Disagreement is bad

I find comfort among those who agree with me, but growth among those who don't. Not seeing eye-to-eye with somebody is where the good stuff happens, and I wish I could be braver about that. See: stop trying to be so likeable. Furthermore: I am enough.

Screwing up is failure

You know what? My mistakes have taught me so much that I'm thinking about making a few more. The only failure is not trying. Failure is not trying again, when that 1st attempt didn't work. Failure is fear. And fear is a learned state. It's the flawed, imperfect, mistake-riddled path that leads to the best games adventures

An Open Letter to Socality Barbie

Dear Socality Barbie,

I spilled my coffee this morning trying to take a photo of it. It's dumb to even ask why I was trying to document the experience, I wanted people to know that I'd gotten up, made my own coffee, and was now preparing to conquer the first Monday of November. Why else would I need the perfect morning lighting and my cellphone at 6am? My mom looked at me and blinked twice like, "why are you even taking a picture of it?" Now not a single soul knows how authentically I managed to live this morning with my coffee. If you felt like your day's missing something then it's probably that photo. Happy to solve the mystery for you, Barbie.

But do you know what happened after the coffee spilled this morning? Life moved forward without the documentation. I made my new coffee. It's still good and piping hot. No one's made better or worse because of some inspirational caption I planned to pair with a photo softened by VSCO Cam. I tasted real life for a second and it felt pretty foreign on my lips. I wrapped myself in a blanket and a little bit of conviction for this day: why is it necessary to obsess over making life look perfect for the others? We all know it isn't. Why does the charade play on until something breaks? Glass or a heart, why can't I actually show you my real mess?

…

You weren't made to have my actual, day-to-day mess. It's you and a couple hundred or thousand followers who are not equipped for what happens when my junk actually hits the fan. You and I both know it, Barbie: the day you get drunk and leave Ken, and act like an angry train wreck with a megaphone on all your social media streams then people on the fringes won't want you anymore. It's harsh but probably true. Ken's friends will unfollow you. So manage your mess, Barbie. We want a mess we can monitor from the people we follow. We want honesty without the bruising. We want the kind of pain that's digestible and won't disturb our days. The day you use social media as a megaphone for your pain, the kind of pain latte art can't touch, people will leave you.

Some people will start talking in their circles the day you start to let the anger and the rant statuses flow. They'll start psycho-analyzing and putting the pieces together from a safe distance. They'll take social media and turn it into a soap opera, sigh out of relief as they say, "at least I'm doing better." But when did tiny glimpses of our lives, cropped to perfection, become the measuring stick for who's doing better and who's doing worse? When did life, and managing to live it, become a competition and a comparison? When did we confuse the real with fake and the fake with real?

Maybe I'm being a little too cruel to you, Barbie, seeing as you're not really 'real' but I reminded her of all the times people manage to say, "well, that person was fun to follow until that happened." And we all know what that thing was. Point's this: we want you right now, Barbie. We like you right now. You're doing something awesome and managing to make some really great puns of out of posed coffee shots and #liveauthentic hashtags. When you're doing something awesome people will always want to claim you and tag you. When you're making life look easy then people want to follow you.

…

Social media's in the DNA of our relationships now. It scares me to say that but it's true. I wanted to see how a friend's doing the other day and I clicked into her Instagram. I checked her off my mental list without even using the phone in my hand to perform the task it's always meant to do, dial and hear a person's crackly voice on the other line, find out they're okay. I know how damaging that action of mine was. I know because I sat across from a friend, and I heard them say to me, "from the looks of social media, you are doing just fine."

Them saying that, it broke my heart. It broke my heart to think that, because I had white walls in all my pictures, it meant there's no longer a reason to reach out and ask if I was really doing okay. Barbie, I'm so afraid to check people off my list because of surface level visuals. I'm so afraid to find out, too late, that I needed to ask "how are you" before someone died inside and no one could get to them. Please don't hide within the cracks of the exposed-brick breweries and trendy tiled coffee shops you find. If you're lost, pick up the phone and call someone. If you think you're about to lose someone (and yes, there's a gut feeling for that), pick up the phone and call them. Ask them 4 words: are you really okay? We save lives everyday when we just manage to speak up.

…

This whole letter might be a terrible waste. Maybe your life's as perfect as you portray it to be, Barbie. In that case, congratulations! You beat us all with your plastic lattes and trendy hiking boots. Regardless, I hope you find something real today. Something tangible and intangible, all at the same time, that you would skip the act of documenting it just so you could live inside it for a little bit longer. I hope you spot a rare, soon to be extinct, moment. And I hope it's all yours, no need to share it. Maybe it's the smile of an old man who's going to leave this earth real soon. Maybe it's a piece of a mail from a friend you used to be able to trace the scent of when they showed up in a room. Maybe it's a single dance from a cute stranger at a wedding who makes you feel like you're the most beautiful thing in his orbit.

Either way, I hope you feel known. I hope you feel picked out and chosen. I hope something grabs you so hard, shakes you so good, that even the notifications can't touch it. You're not fake, Barbie. You, like the rest of us, are probably just doing the best you can within a world that wants to trace and tag every tiny, beautiful piece of itself.

Ask the Question

You want more love. To be in love. In love with your life.

You want more adventure. More chances, and with it the guts to grab them with both hands, greedily and hungry, knowing you deserve to dive into every opportunity your belly aches for when nobody else is looking.

You want to understand how it feels to try, really try. To trust yourself in succeeding beyond your wildest, most inventive daydreams. You can't even comprehend what's waiting for you yet: that's how daring your future is.

You want the security of self to demonstrate, without permission, without restraint, that your vulnerability is your biggest strength, and that your humanness is your greatest asset.

You want to know, mind, body, heart and soul, that who you are is already exactly perfect.

You want to be enough.

I know that sometimes you settle for less because the prospect of daring to ask if you can take up more space, of demanding more, is crippling in its "but people might not like it" murmurs. There's that voice. a voice stubbornly rooted, deep down in your belly, that whispers, even at your best: nope, you can't do this.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"I'll prove everyone right when I screw this up."

"It's better to be safe than to be sorry."

"People like me don't live lives like that."

Listen, sugar. You deserve to conquer the absolute shit out of your kingdom. To be the protagonist of your own beautiful life. You're worthy of the room it takes to spread yourself wide open, legs akimbo, hands behind your back, surveying the land from your throne as you say, without a trace of shame, here I am. Here's what I want.

Know your place. Who the Beyoncé are you to keep yourself small? Who the Virginia Woolf told you to not to swell, not to open your heart and your wings, lest you fly? Are you telling that to yourself? Quit it. Re-write the script. Right now. Actively choose, demand, from yourself and from the world, to direct your life according to your rules. Because your place? Your place is in the sky, soaring. Your place is front and centre. Your place, your purpose, is what you say it is.

The alternative is a half-life. A half-truth. A half-you. The good stuff isn't designed to only happen to other people. The universe wants the good stuff for you. It's not a privilege to know who you are. You don't need to await consent to show all of your parts. To be you. To possess your truth. The show has already begun. The cameras are rolling and it's your line. What are you going to say?

- me writing to myself

Pieces

An incomplete list of things that are mostly inconvenient but all true, concerning values, and how they change.

- I self-identify as a documentarian. A sort of variation on a memoirist. I want to write things down as a way of taking their picture and framing them. To capture something. But I'm not a "writer". I'm just a human.

- To that end, what I do decide to chronicle has an agenda, and that agenda is mine, and changes, and is dressed in the sure knowledge that every narrator's unreliable. The eye doesn't see, it transmits. And it transmits to an information processor, the complicatedly simple brain, that's loaded with feelings and past hurts and triumphs and feelings.

- Living out loud isn't a character defect...

- ...but the best plan's to just do good work and shut up. That says more than I can, anyway.

- I have a list of regrets that I try to shed a little more light on every goddamn day. A chronicle of shitty things I've done, and shitty things I've tolerated, and humiliations on both sides because of it. But you'd better believe those things have been my best teachers, or, at least, the most vociferous ones. I'm only an asshole if I don't learn from them. 

- "A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It's a terrible fight between 2 wolves. One wolf is evil. He's anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf's good. He's joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight's going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed." This fable is my true north.

- People are built 3 ways: as subtractors, adders, or multipliers. Subtractors are energy vampires, adders contribute to your energy, and multipliers make you see stars. A person's categorization is directly related to the amount of drama they bring to your life: if they add to it, they're a subtractor; if they subtract from it they're a multiplier. Friendships are maths, and your tribe's a reflection of your vibe.

- Less is always more in word counts, and in accessorizing.

- An author said that the heart's a muscle and so should be exercised regularly. Show up. Practice loving. Practice some more. A few dents is the trade-off.

- I hate being the boss, and I hate having a boss.

- There's more than one self. I'm hard and soft, confident and unnerved, ready to go big and also ready to go home. No one thing's any more or less true than the other, and I can be all of them at once.

- Charisma is the ability to make both of you feel good.

- I think I'm scared, but my fear got me this far. That's surely a bigger victory than feigning fearlessness. If I wasn't afraid, it wasn't a challenge, and it's the challenges I rise to I'd like to be counted by when you read my eulogy.

- I have 3 core desired feelings: strong, committed and inspired. If what you're offering doesn't tick all of those boxes, it doesn't feel good. If it doesn't feel good I don't wanna do it. Life should be lived in the joyous zone, else what's the point?

- I can never go deep enough. I confront my fears. Go into it willingly. That's juicy, to me, exploring aliveness for aliveness' sake. 

- Life's a conversation. A dialogue. We have to sit down with her regularly and ask, "Hey. this working for you?" We have to seek out the pain and own it before the pain owns us. We have to look for the happy and show her who is in charge. We must be active in our peace.

- I secretly think my feelings are more valid than your feelings, but I'm working on it.

Perfect Backdrops

Past few days, the weather's erratic: rain one second, a brief intermission of blazing hot sun, and then it's raining again, and sunny again. And I try to be the sort of person whose mood isn't linked to the weather. But it's hard, you know? Sometimes it's hard not to let your environment affect you from the inside out. And this fitful weather, I must say, is just way too appropriate. 

This weather is probably more true-to-life than anything else. It's rare to find a day when you feel only sunny, or a day when melancholy is all you can muster. Most days are unpredictable. Inconsistent and unstable and entirely contradictory. Funny how exciting and difficult so often come hand-in-hand.

And yet. October showers have arrived. Rain is wonderful. Sometimes rain reminds me of some moments and places, days spent with my cats, evenings at a cafe laughing and swapping stories with friends. Sometimes rain helps me sleep. Or provides the perfect backdrop as I read or write. Or sets the mood for a melancholy, romantic kind of day.

Like anything else, it's not all bad and not all good either. But I'll take it as a good sign that for these days, I've woken up hours before my alarm, feeling light and lively. It's been nice. Really nice, actually. There's just nothing quite like first-thing-in-the-morning happiness, if you ask me.

Besides, the whole point of October showers is to cool down this heated earth and bring flowers and fruits, right? Something to endure, something to find beauty in before beauty's simply handed to us.

For When You Forget

Plastic surgery doesn't age well, ever. Put your phone down. Detox your body. Daydream about the good things. Always keep a good book in your bag, it's both a secret and an escape plan, two good things to have. Make the bed. Hold the door open for strangers. Smile. Look other people in the eye. So, you're scared? Good, fear indicates worth. And guess what? Everyone's afraid. Which means fear doesn't absolve you from the attempt, or the conversation, or the adventure. You can always try again, good people are pretty marvelous about the whole forgiveness thing. And, oh yeah, put your phone down! Eat greens. And toasted pine nuts. Ask yourself if it'll add value to your life, will it be good for you? Prioritize your health, and happiness too, because life's short. Humility, humility, humility. And kindness. Words are important, so don't give them away too carelessly. Honesty above all else. And the music of Billy Joel. Roses. A clean purse. Write. Chip, chip, chip away at a body of work. Not everyone's good. The core of a very many people is a rotted root. And that's just...well, unfortunately, that's just the way it is. Offer them kindness and then walk away. You can't save people, you can only live your life the best you know how, with a strong set of values and a clear set of boundaries. Values are strong trees that bend in high winds, trust their ability to adapt. We get better when we risk, and grow, and move forward. A lot of things are contagious, fear and anxiety and ideas, even. Keep your door open because that's who you are. Take the 20 minute walk because that's who you are. Small revolutions are born of small, everyday actions. The current can change. And occasionally a plant will thrive where you least expect it to, it's green leaves sprouting new buds, growing wide and tall in defiance of your expectations.

One Step Closer

Hey everyone! Guess what..

I just got engaged! ^^

Oh wow.. 

I have to start with a big, sincere thank you for all the heartfelt congratulations! We're completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of well wishes, and million thanks to those who came to the engagement ceremony. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!

When he proposed, I undoubtedly said yes. Now I'm staring at this ring..I can say that, yes, this most definitely is it. He's the one, Mr. Right, the whole package. Everything I always, always knew I wanted..only better.

When people hear that we're engaged, there's an inevitable follow-up question: "Wait...how old are you again?" And when we say that we're 25, the reaction is almost always the same: "Wow," they say, eyebrows raised, surprised. "You're so young."

It's true. We are. And for a long time, as in, my entire life, I imagined that I'd be single right now. I imagined that at 25 I'd be single, living in some place, and nowhere near marriage. I imagined that I'd be living with my girlfriends and pretending that I was Carrie Bradshaw, minus the wardrobe. Instead, though, I met the most incredible person I've ever known. And my girlfriends, we're not living together though. They're spread out across the country. Some are married, engaged and others are single, and hardly any of us are where we expected to be..in Sabah or in life.

I understand that marrying young isn't for some people, I really do. Truth is, I thought it wasn't for me, either. There's something to be said for waiting, for focusing on your friends and your career and dating throughout your life so that by the time you run into that one person, you never have to question it. I believe in that theory, and if I hadn't met Ifo, I'd probably be living it.

I did meet him, though, so any kind of life plan I'd ever created for myself bent and unfolded to allow room for him, for us. And still, I'm always sort of shocked to see how much of my life has gone the way I'd thought it might. I followed the path I set out for myself, and that never really ceases to amaze me.

There are certainly upsides and downsides to marrying young. The most common "downside" is true: in every decision you make, you have another person to consider. In that sense, yes, there's less individual freedom. But to me, I feel sort of blessed to consider Ifo. I feel blessed that there's someone in this world who means so much to me that I want to match my life to his.

A stranger, actually, is the person who said it best, I think. A woman shared her experience on marrying young. "I'd have given anything to share all that extra time with the love of my life," she said. "To share all those extra years, all those experiences in your twenties that shape you forever. You're lucky."

Extra time together, that's how she put it. Lovely, don't you think? Well, 25 is not really young though. Lol.

Well, even if it's cliche, even if it sounds cheesy and ridiculous and totally scripted, I've honestly never felt freer in my life. Because real love, the best kind of love, makes you feel free to be yourself. Free to let go, hold on, take risks, and move forward. Free to be wildly, absurdly happy. And I am. I really, really am. :)

Road Maps and Treasure Chests

I'm the kind of person that's easily overwhelmed. By the kindness of a waitress on an ordinary day or the breeze that blows in sunny afternoon. And on a daily basis, I'm overwhelmed by the indifference of the world in light of all the suffering that takes place. I get anxious about small things like passing a test or an interaction that didn't go as I had hoped. And I've always been the kind of person that can be overwhelmed by how much I have left to do and how little I've done.

So it's no surprise that I was standing in the make-up aisle when I was suddenly overcome by the number of products I was surrounded by. Highlights, blush, foundation, and mascara. Eye shadow, lip liner, and eyelash extensions. Age-defying cream and wrinkle prevention lotions. There are lotions and sprays and tanning beds. The magazines that tell us what we're supposed to look like, the headlines that call on us to be thin, tan, and flawless. The implications that our outward appearance is a determinant of our individual worth. And all I could think about was how many products tell us that the way we look, the way we are, is not enough.

I generally don't skim through magazines, but I hear the messages all the same. We tell them to ourselves. We've been trained to become insecure about a blemish on our face, a haircut that's a little too short, stretch marks on our stomachs, or weight gain in all of the wrong places. To be clear, I wear make-up on a daily basis and I workout as often as I can, I reward myself with new clothes and even bought Korean facial products. In no way am I suggesting that there's anything wrong with wanting to feel beautiful and confident, I just don't believe that a flawless outward appearance is the only way to get there.

In high school, my friend said that it didn't matter whether or not we understood calculus or algebra because at least we're pretty. While I understand that they're trying to be comforting, encouraging, and nice, I can remember my exact feeling of outrage. The anger that arose because I was supposed to feel relieved by someone's perception of our outward appearance; of the implication that the way we looked would somehow be enough to help us get a scholarship so that we could go to college. That somehow the way we looked would help to determine whether we would develop enough self-discipline to finish what we started, that somehow our appearance would help us to further our career. And I remember wondering when 'being pretty' began to outweigh our intelligence, capabilities, attitude, and our individual contributions to the world.

I find that sometimes we place so much emphasis on what our body looks like that we forget about the amazing things it does for us. Your legs, regardless of their length and width, have carried your body for all of these years. They have held you up on your weakest days and were there with you to jump for joy in moments of celebration. They've ran through the grass during hide and seek and they've rooted you to this earth. And your arms, they work. They can bend and they can write. They can pick up a child and hold another's hand. They've helped you to feel objects and to build things, they're your ability to reach out to the world. Your mind, it's a wonderful, magical, and complex tool that continues to guide your perception and understanding of the world. I could go on, but you get the point. Each and every one of your body parts has served you in some way. Each and every part continues to do something for your life. Let's not forget that every minute detail of your being is made with extraordinary and intricate capabilities.

I've always believed in not being attached to something as impermanent as our physical appearance. Of being attached to short hair, long hair, thick hair, or thin. Of not being attached to the number on a scale or the amount of space between your thighs. The way you look can change. It'll change and it's always changing. It has never been our job, responsibility, to be beautiful. We're not alive for that purpose. We all have so much more to offer the world than our physical appearance.

Who you are as a person, that's what matters. Are you beautiful on the inside?

I believe in intelligence, the ever expansion of your mind through books, travel, and new experiences. I believe in having conversations with people who have a different point of view than yours and in staying current on world events. Of challenging yourself to set higher expectations and to dream bigger dreams. And i believe in health, eating healthy, nourishing your body, and being good to your soul. I believe in exercising to add longevity to your life, to add strength to your mental and physical abilities, and to foster self-discipline. I believe in getting adequate amounts of sleep so that you're energized throughout the day. I believe in confidence and beauty in the form of a smile to a stranger, of a hand that reaches out to help without question or reservation.  Kindness towards others, determination to succeed, and the courage to forgive. That's beauty. Our internal integrity, our ability to respond with grace, the gifting of our time, and the mark we leave on the world. That's the beauty that should define us.

I believe in beauty that's real. In the naturalness that can be observed when you become who you are. I believe in our bodies serving as road maps to remind us each where we've been. That scar on my left knee from the bike crash I had as a 7-year-old kid, the burn scar on my right arm that I got from playing fireworks when I was 10. In growing old, your body having all the proof to show it. The wrinkles, flaws, blemishes, and stretch marks. Laugh lines for a life well lived. Grey hair for all of the challenges you've overcame. Extra weight around your midsection from the babies you've birthed, from the celebrations you've had the opportunity to experience, from those delicious desserts you were able to indulge in. Worry lines on your forehead for the uncertainty you felt during troubling days. Your body's a treasure chest holding within it all of the goodness you've received, the love you've given, and the pain you've endured.

You are more than beautiful. And you are more than something to be looked at. You're strong, brave, intelligent, kind and funny. You're a giver, receiver, dreamer, and a doer. You're as bright as the sun and you're so much more than the simplicity of your outward appearance. You are so much more.

Goodbye 2014

Here we are saying goodbye to 2014. Ah how time flies so fast. Well, I didn't achieve much this year. But I must say that 2014 is the year of so many firsts. I spent the whole year teaching primary and high school kids. It's one of the best things I've ever done in my life, a wonderful job and I love those kids. I also bought my first iPhone as the reward for my own effort and I think it's gonna be my last phone (or not. Lol.). And this year, Ifo got his first job at Essem Corp. ^^ Annnnnnddd this year, on 23rd December, marks our 6th anniversary of being together. 6 years and counting. ;)

Also, since my mother has retired from the government in September, we started a small family business: catering. We cater for any events or occasions that require some food. We had our first experience on catering for 2-days Islamic Program in our neighborhood which went so well. We've also signed contract with soldier camp at Lokkawi and now we're catering for the army field commanders and some officers (I don't know what to call them) everyday during breakfast. It's been great so far. I don't mind getting up at dawn to work at the kitchen with my mom. Cooking is a fun thing to do anytime anywhere. 

Besides, I have another reason to get up before sunrise: fitness routine. I've been running and doing some workouts that I learned from Youtube; squats, sit-ups, push-ups and burpees. Morning is the perfect time to do my fitness workout. Well I don't quite know why I start doing it, I just do it, you know. Even my mom says I'm not too fat to exercise. But it's not the matter of losing weight actually (I'm underweight, for the record), maybe I just want to be fit, maybe I want a body like Jennifer Lawrence, maybe I want to climb Mount Kinabalu in 2015, or maybe I don't need reasons at all. Just do it. 

I don't want to write about my new resolutions. Apart from being too mainstream, it never works. I mean for me..please, don't let my words ruin your spirit. I do think about my goals..short term and long terms, but I'm not gonna write it down here. While we're all faced with different circumstances, our journey of trying to feel whole, improve and face our trials is the same. No matter what goals you may have for this new year, may I suggest that you look at your life and your beautiful self with gratitude. And depending on where you are in your life right now, even if you can't think of much to be grateful for, be grateful for the opportunity you have to change. Even if your circumstances are not changeable, YOU can always change and become something greater than you are.

And, as we work to improve ourselves, may we not dwell in negativity because of any weakness, flaw or inadequacy we have now.  May we go after our goals with all our hearts? Yes! But dismiss that harmful script in our head that says, "we aren't good enough."  Instead, as hard as it may seem, let's accept that our weaknesses are necessary for us to improve, and embrace them and be grateful for them. That tiny change in perspective is huge. Have faith and be patient. That's what I've learned in 2014. 

Have an awesome 2015. Happy New Year!

Grief Is..

My grandmother was a tiny force of a woman. When she died, she was so light. They say moments live on in your bones, like words layered brick by brick. You're a skeletal foundation of stories and your knees are muddy. I cried at her funeral and the sound of death broke on my skin, falling like rain.

I started this post, "Grief is..." and couldn't find words. I laughed at first, but it's hard. A sad little knot in your stomach. It's hard when something you do doesn't come easy. It's hard when one of your things, your way to process and pull apart life and say, it's still good, still beautiful, feels foreign. Like realizing you're speaking gibberish and you thought it's a language. Unsure. Hesitant. Tasting out words on my tongue and trying to remember if they're the same. I'm reading what I write and telling myself I can't delete the words. That to put something out there, anything, is better than nothing. That the first step to get through is to dive deep.

It's messy. I say that about everything. But life's messy. It's gory. It's gritty. It's unpredictable, in a laugh so hard tears come out your eyes and ache so hard you stay up all night weeping way. I read something on weeping the other day and it hit me right in the face. One of those pieces where you breathe a little deeper and shift in your skin. Because someone tapped into a raw place and pulled out something still beating. Someone put words to it, like touching a frosted glass with cold fingertips. Brushed the edge of something.

Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up. - Sarah Ockler

I had chills when the word weeping caught my eye and I was crying at the end. Maybe that sounds silly. But to be walking through long and lonely moments only to turn and find someone next to you, saying, I get it. That's a relief. That's what's so delightfully, deliciously, dearly human about us. That we're not alone.

Grief is a funny thing. It's unnerving, unsettling. I start to write a sentence and stop. Everything is heavy. There's a weight we carry, unconsciously. Grief clings to our back with cold fingers and we hunch over to compensate. Curl up, close in. I need to apologize more, because I'm so damned shaky. I'm sorry, I just feel so unsettled. I've said it more than I can count to someone. I'm sorry, I feel so uprooted.

The irony of feeling uprooted when my 2014 word is seed isn't lost on me. What I'm trying to say is. I'm sorry that it takes me so long to reply. I'm sorry that I cry about stupid things. I'm sorry that I ask you what you think twice. I'm sorry that I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, especially now with that last sentence. I'm sorry I snapped at you.

It's just. I'm so tired. Of waiting and hoping. The hoping is what hurts the most. It's like carrying hot coals close to your chest because just a little further on, there's wood. That's what you believe, anyways. It's coming. But the journey, staggering forward and faltering steps...it's numbing. It's exhausting.

I feel sapped. I feel heavy. I feel unhinged, in a quiet, curl up with my cat and cry it out way. I gain weight. I cut my hair. I'm tired of writing when everything feels old. November is turning me into a hermit. I want to throw off the stale scent of indoors and last year and scrub everything clean. I want to strip back to the foundation and rebuild with good wood.

I'm waiting for this earth to unthaw enough to plant something new. I don't know. I don't know. My hands are shaking and my head is spinning and all I can think is, the days are lengthening. I make my coffee in the morning. I say yes to green tea. I'm practicing being kind to myself.

Sometimes, it's enough. Right now, it's enough. Grief is. And maybe it's not grief anymore. It feels different, not quite so raw. Maybe the swelling has gone down and it's a sad, slow sorrow. Maybe it's an undercurrent, not the whole melody. The days are lengthening. Thank God it's not the end.

And So, You Get Up

Sometimes, life's heavy.

You don't notice it at 1st. It's like collecting stones. You start slowly, gently. At 1st, you can't feel the weight. Then it becomes harder to notice what's in front of you. You can't see the scope, the slope of the landscape, because you're focused on carrying the foundation. It's easier to shoulder it all and numb yourself to the weight.

But there's that place. That point where you read your threshold, your valley. Maybe you've walked for so long that you're bone weary and ringed with grief. Or perhaps you ran, the entire way, and your breath's knocked out of you. And you realize you don't know where you are, how you arrived. You look back and see that you've missed the markers, missed the milestones, missed the moments. Too busy holding onto the heaviness of the journey. It's been like that for so long that you're afraid you won't know who you are without it.

You have to let it go. To not go apathetic. To not go numb. To not go quiet. Don't let sorrow swallow your song. You need to be awake to the world, to life, to yourself. It feels like running for the 1st time, like stretching your shuddering muscles, like walking in the cold dew of morning. It stings. You start in the dark, with only the promise of sun. There's no light to outline the path. It doesn't matter. You've forgotten the road anyways. You've walked so long without one that trails are unfamiliar and foreign.

There's no hiding from brokenness. There's no running from grief. Some manage to evade it for longer, others find it knocking on their door daily. It has a face you cannot forget, leaves its calling card everywhere it goes. We're each stitched with ribbons of our every heartache, except, some of us are frayed. Even the best of us have tears.

Sometimes it feels easier, better, to go cold. To give into the pain and become numb, and once again, pick up the skeleton of who you were before grief marked your face. To let your heart harden. Lock it away and melt the key and live in the motions, never the moment. At the very point of pain, it seems less exhausting. But passivity's a silent slow killer, a lie that laps away at the texture of life like water on the stone.

And so, you get up. You keep moving though your bones ache. You walk until you run. You hum until you can sing. You catalogue small things until you can once again take in the scope. You choose to be awake. It's surprisingly painful. It's sobering to look around and realize you have forgotten what it means to be alive, for so long. It's October and you're barefoot and the ground has still not thawed.

Breathe. Again and again. Dive into the core and pressure point of your pain, the heart of your ache. It's red hot and white and bitter black. It shakes like starlight. You swallow it like stones. But you emerge and understand, it hasn't added a layer to your heart, but a ring. It's not a mark, but a message.

The thing about being awake is you notice things; good, bad, beautiful, painful, sorrow, sweet, bitter, broken, dizzying between everything. You cry more. You laugh deeper. You understand broken things and encourage flowers to just be. You find your soul sprouting little green things, that the roots of the marrow of being haven't left after all. And it's painful, the fire of wakening running like blood. You've been asleep for so long feeling's foreign.

But you begin to appreciate what's small. You begin to breathe gratitude. You stumble on meaning, find grace woven alongside ache. It's not easy, it's not quick. It's gradual, a journey. This time, instead of collecting stones, you're collecting colors of the sky. You jot down thanks and let them go wild in the plum breath of the evening. The smear of jam on toast, black coffee in the morning, a walk in the evening that lingers.

Look at the trees, how they burn. Look at the fields, how they deepen. Look at the world, how it cries. It's a choice to go deep and live through your pain, to feel it all, to choose to be awake to what comes. Bravely, when the time beckons, to let it go. Knowing that the struggle and searching builds strength, story, a song. Only, you'are alive and present and find the words to sing inside you, and they were, all along.

Truth Is..

To put yourself out there is hard. To share parts of your story, when you can't share the full, is hard. To juggle metaphor and meaning and to be vulnerable and say, this is where I'm at. I'm not always happy. Life's not always sweet. Sometimes it stings and slaps and feels like winter all the time. That's hard.

And then, to be judged by people who don't know your heart, to have assumptions made. To be offered pretty advice or "kind" suggestions. To be told you share too much, not enough, that you're rude, that you're melodramatic, and on and on. That makes my bones ache.

The thing is..knowing and believing are different things. And getting messages telling you to do or don't do, messages telling you who you are and who you aren't, they still hurt. I'm not going to pretend they don't. There's no power in that. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is a pretty thought, but sadly, not always true. Especially if you're going through something absolutely crappy. If you've had a rotten day. If your heart simply hurts.

No matter that people who love you get it.

No matter that your story, your pain, your joys, are personal to you.

No matter even that you know where you're at.

It still hurts.

And thankfully, truthfully, in the end, the messages don't matter. The words don't stick. But in the middle of places in your life that are raw, they're salt in the wound, lemon on a cut. They worsen the pain, even if the source doesn't stick around. I felt myself collapsing and crumbling. I love writing. I love sharing. I love creating and connecting and being a part of this place. But it had gotten to the point when doing so didn't feel safe for my heart anymore.

But then. You lovely, kind, dear people. I don't know how you did it, if you knew. I woke up to messages on my phone. Encouraging thoughts. I'm praying for you. Love and support. A group of beautiful people all walking through your own joys, your own pain, your own stories, taking a moment to stand up and say, I may not know where you're at, but I'm with you.

I was (I am) overwhelmed. I cried. I had chills.

Because in the process of sharing our stories, in choosing to be open and vulnerable, we create a safe place to say, you are not alone, I'm standing with you, there's hope. In not hiding our brokenness, we form a community built on honesty, authenticity, strength. We create a safe haven for people to gather and share real life and the painfully beautiful and beautifully painful moments that come. We form a place to celebrate the intricacies and nuances of our stories. We're brought together and stand together. And in the places we could find ourselves so very alone, we find ourselves with not one hand to hold, but many.

So, thank you, friends. Thank you for standing beside me even if the story is not all told. Thank you for praying, for loving, for encouraging. Thank you for sharing your stories courageously and truthfully. Thank you for spreading light and hope. Thank you for reminding why this is the way that it is. Thank you for being there even if we didn't meet.

All of it matters more than I can say. You matter more than I can say. I wish I could give you all an enormous hug, could look you in the eyes, could express how overwhelmed and grateful I am and how much you've blessed me. Thank you.