Hello Old Friend,

 This blog is 10 years old.

I started it in my senior year of high school, back when I was still young, confused, and brimming with potential. Torn between pursuing my passion of becoming a writer, or following the traditional path of getting a degree in the medical field.

Well, the degree happened. I never used it, but I did get it.

I wonder what 18 year-old me would have thought if she knew that 28 year-old me would still be writing here, but also working as a full-time writer.

I'm nothing special, though. There are like 50 more of me at my workplace and some of them are unbelievably good at what they do. But I'm okay with it. I'm okay with not being the best.

Yeah. After years of struggling with what I want to be versus what everyone else expected of me. Years of fighting with all my power just to stay afloat and keep my head above water. Years of hopes and fears and disappointments. Years of gathering all my strength to prevent myself from becoming another cog in this magnificent, grinding machine.

I just let it happen. I stopped grasping at straws and let myself be what I was always meant to be; just another person.

It's crazy but it also isn't. To think how the decisions that 18-year-old made are what brought me to this point of my life where I'm so at peace with being mediocre and seeing it as a positive thing. 

I stopped trying to stand out when swimming against the current for so long absolutely damaged me. Instead, ways to fit in became everything I hoped and dreamed to find. 

It wasn't that hard, either. In fact, it was one of the most liberating things to have ever happened to me, precisely because it happened to me, I had no incentive or hand in doing it.

How funny is it that I'm writing about this without bursting into tears, though? The worst thing I could have imagined happening to me ten years ago is exactly why I'm so at peace today.

Hope that's how I'll be looking at things in 10 years, though.

Left Behind

 Lately I've been contemplating the feeling of being at a stand still, considering the fact that before last year, all I ever did was move within channels that were cut out for me ever since I was born. I was always doing something, fulfilling an expectation or chasing achievement without really looking twice to check whether I want to be doing whatever it is I was doing or not. I finished school, graduated from university, worked an internship for a year, during which I wound up finding my life partner. We got engaged then married, faced (and are still facing) a global pandemic together, while trying to figure out what to do in these rapidly changing times that aren't really kind to us. 

It's funny that during all of this I'm moving so fast, ageing, growing, making plans and remaking them after life has plans of its own, yet the one feeling I've been consistently having is being stationary. I mean, sure, the fact that I'm currently -barely- working from home is a big part of it, but I made a conscious choice to leave my field of work for the time being because it poses an immense threat to the health and safety of my loved ones before it does me. And in all honesty, I wasn't really eager to work as a dentist even before the dangerously perilous Covid-19. But something about being home at all times is making me feel almost...not there? Like I only exist to the people I interact with daily, and this circle is tightening by the day. 

I was never really a social butterfly, and when the stakes are that high, I wouldn't risk being social over this odd feeling of slowly vanishing. But for someone who's always had a loud, anxious inner voice dictate what they can and can't do, sitting still away from the loudness of everyday life brings about a whole slew of other, equally unpleasant feelings. Hah, it's funny that unpleasant feelings is all I seem to talk about on here.

I still struggle with my mental health though it seems to be less vicious nowadays, for which I'm very thankful. I just hope I can think my way out of feeling redundant, stagnant, left behind.

...

Sometimes I wonder whether the state I'm currently in has more to do with the things around me that I can't control, or with who I am as a person...and whether who I am as a person was influenced by the things around me, or it was just an innate force that stirred me in the direction I'm headed to. The thought process carries on in this spiral that can keep going for hours, and is only interrupted by daily conversations and engagements that are a temporary distraction from this headache-inducing slide. I guess this is what anxiety is; some kind of incarceration in one's own mind, because I'd rather not question my actions, words, appearance, choices, and relationships at every waking moment without a clear trigger. I'd rather not revisit past mistakes -for which I paid time and time again- and force myself to acknowledge how weak and unwise I was to have made such poor choices. I'd much rather live, unburdened by the weight of my psyche that's constantly reminding me of how little control I have over what goes on.

I pretend to have my shit together on a daily basis, to laugh off my awkwardness and smile through the grating moments when I truly fail to communicate despite my best efforts. But on the inside, I can't fight off this constant, nagging feeling of inadequacy. It segways into self-blame for my loneliness that gets too hard to hide and desperation leaks out from the corners of my sincere attempts to connect with people, and makes little sense when I avoid those reaching out to me when I need it most. As a matter of fact, I hate this need and what it makes me do, and the fact that there's no resolution to this struggle. It'll always hang around like an unfinished sentence I can't contextualize the meaning of.

Abandonment

From innocent confessions in normal conversation that tell you exactly how little you matter to the other party, to long speeches of "it's not you, it's me" uttered to clear an unstable conscience before extinguishing any glimmer of hope that might exist of them staying. By now, I've learned that abandonment comes both when you least expect it and when you've been expecting it from the get go.

Some might call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, or acting to reflect your low standards, thus allowing people who step on your pride to leave and welcoming them back whenever they please. Well, I never thought of myself as privileged enough to act "heavy" or "hard to get"...I always thought this will add to the perception of me being a cutthroat bitch that I've been trying to shake for some time. I ask for a fraction of what I'm willing to give, and it always seems a little too much anyway.

There will always be unfavorable circumstances that get in the way of every meaningful human interaction, and when it comes to either fighting them or leaving, the easier option is always to leave. And I understand. I can't not understand. But I want to know what it feels like to be someone who's worth fighting for. It's desperate and pathetic and a little disgusting to blurt out, begging not to be taken for granted. I'm just a bit tired of being a form of excess, it wears down the soul to the point where it becomes a belief about oneself. And I don't want to believe that.

Purpose (23rd birthday post)

Sometimes I wonder what the use for a sense of purpose is, whether our primitive brains have way too much time on their metaphorical and literal hands after our ancestors helped us escape the woes of a feral life and tribal wars, and now we're left wondering about things that are partially comprehensible and entirely optional to our survival.

I wonder because I'm perpetually dissatisfied with my life, nothing comes naturally to me like fidgeting for ways to have more of what I crave; purpose, love, and achievement. I'm always anxious about not being enough, about not striving enough to have more security that will ideally put my mind at ease. The people around me are true champions for putting up with that!

 This got me thinking and theorizing, the less a mind is preoccupied by the basic aspects of survival, the more it has time to wallow in questions of purpose and identity. The fewer distractions it entertains, the longer and harder its days pass. The more a mind questions its purpose, the less clear it becomes. It's not a groundbreaking revelation to many, but it's a relevant one to me at this point in time.

 Perhaps the only good-enough distraction to me is falling and being in love. It's the closest thing to magic spells for all the chemistry that goes into making it materialize. I remember the dark days I went through as a teenager deeply and hopelessly in love, but also how I pushed through milestone after milestone with ease when I had a full heart. I achieved so much, felt like I had a reason to wake up every morning and be someone, felt like my existence was justified because it was so entrenched in someone else's...this is something I can't say I have right now.

 Stepping into my 24th year of life, I can't help but wonder for how long I can run on an empty heart and an over-worked mind.