So recently I had to move. While it was necessary and had been on the books for a while; when it finally happened, there was (and still is) an immense sense of lost.

As human beings, we tend to attach ourselves to something – be it another person, an object or a place – and we cling on to that as our comfort zone, our safe place. At which we feel that once in or around it, nothing can harm us there. The issues arises when we finally have to leave it, it makes one feel all alone – just you against the world and no where to go back too. It causes one to be in sheer panic for the lack of a safety net feeling alone and cornered against your will.

While I know deep down inside I will probably never be alone thanks to some amazing few people, this sense of loneliness will be hovering and haunting me for a while till I find my next comfort zone. I sometimes realise that it is not the brightest thing to do – to pin so much importance to one thing, but I just cannot help myself. By doing that just that, it gives me a sense of stability that I crave so badly and to identify myself with something permanent in my volatile life.

Right now, I feel a little like a helium balloon that has been cut from its weight. That I do not have any ground and that I am floating aimlessly. Someone pointed out that the metaphor gives an option of seeing it as soaring through the skies to see where life will bring me. In many ways I think I am not ready to do so or be so optimistic. I have always believed that people need to be grounded somewhere or via something. Now that I have in a way lost my roots, it will definitely take me a while to rebuild it. There is a part of me that keeps telling me to just move forward and take the bull by its horns.

But for now, I need to take a step back, take some downtime and rebuild my foundations right before starting new adventures. 

I have always like being random. It makes people around me stay on their toes and sometimes stuns people into speechless. Anyway, who wants to be boring and staid? Definitely not me! I like spice and continual change.

Recently I have come into contact with someone who might be the most random person ever – that says a lot when most of the people around me are fairly random too. Yes, that gets us into hilarious situations from time to time but I digress. Unfortunately for me, it’s the worse relationship possible – this random-est person I have ever met is my boss.  Obviously that does not bode well for me.

Imagine this scenario – you are happy working on some project that needs to be complete, only to see the Outlook alert tell you that your boss has sent a new message.  Like any good staff, I switch to my Outlook to see if I can solve this immediately so the boss doesn’t have to wait.

But what is on my screen completely confounds me – a 3 sentence email with a 1 word subject heading.  I am left to fill in the blanks to what exactly my boss needs me to do. Even some of my closest friends needs more information than that to figure out what I am trying to say. What makes everything even more confusing – we were talking about something completely different just barely two hours before.

Some of my friends think I have met my match… but I believe it has yet to be seen as I’m sure I can come up with something more random than my boss.

So tata for now while I go and read in between the nonexistent lines to figure out what I am supposed to do.

So, one month later… my life has drastically altered again. Tho not for the better this time.

As my cousin said, its not the job or the job scope that kills me. It is my own self that does the job pretty well. That being said, I am once again working fifteen hour days, seven days a week. I haven’t seen the sun much and family and friends have taken to coming to my office to “visit” me since I haven’t seen them since I started work.

The grim reality is, do I really want to do a job in any other way? Will I be happier if I go back at six every day, not really caring if I am doing a good job or not in the company. Leaving all my work, coz of the mantra – there is never an empty intray.

Where does that really leave me? A life filled only with work and no outside activites? Yes, in some sense, I am getting close to my colleague. The million dollar question is, is this worth is? Is defining myself by my job even a good idea? The other side of this coin, there is nothing else in my life besides a couple of extremely close friends whom I have failed in the last few weeks for various reasons which I know I need to atone for but I don’t know how or when.

Now, I am exploring a new option in my life which truly scares me. I have become so comfortable with the position I am in, that even considering moving out of my comfort zone makes me shiver. Sooner or later, I need to bite this bullet anyway. So I might as well do so now. We never regret the things we do, isn’t it? It is what we don’t try that makes us look back on our lives wondering what could have been.

As a little girl, I remember been surrounded by books. My childhood home seemed to have books at every nook and cranny of the apartment.

This is the most likely reason for my bookworm status and the reason for my bag always been so heavy - mostly you will definitely find a book, or sometimes two in there and I have perfected the art of watching the telly and reading my books just to maximise my reading time.

What got me all riled up the other day is that while on the bus, I felt terrible and dismayed by the actions of someone else.

The lady seated beside me was reading a book and half way through the journey, she had fallen asleep.  As she fell into deeper slumber, she was less conscious about the book on her lap and the pages of the book was getting rushed by her arm as it moved. While I cannot fault her for this, I felt the strings of my heart tug as the book was being hurt (tho completely unintentionally).

So when she woke up and smoothed down the pages, it no longer seemed to be an issue. Until it she got to her stop. As she was packing to get off the bus – she folded the page she was reading into half. Not a dog-eared tag. It was folded into HALF. I was speechless and I couldn’t believe she did that. But that was not the cake topper. When she closed the book, I realised that the book she was holding did not even belong to her. It was a library book she had borrowed and was mistreating so badly. I almost wanted to say something but unfortunately, by the time I got my wits about me, she already had popped up from her seat and was on the way down the bus.

It’s strange that the young kids these days don’t seem to see books the way the older generation sees them. A getaway from where you are to learning about a castaway on Treasure Island, or the pomp and pageantry of an era gone by. The way the words come off the pages and you can dream up your own little fantasy world and walk through it with the characters. I always think it’s a shame when the child is hidden behind a handheld game or a mobile phone instead of a book to release their imagination.

I’m not so sure if I am liked much by my younger cousins, nieces, nephews and all the children I know as I tend to give them books whenever I can in hopes that their love for books and reading can be cultivated.

So last night was a terrible night for me. I did something I promised myself I will never do again.

I found comfort in alcohol instead of working through it. Today, I feel weak and backboneless if that is even a word. I can’t focus. I keep playing yesterday’s sequences of events back in my head.

As much as I try to re-integrate myself back into my family, there are certain members of the clan that can always set me off. I thought I had prepared myself well enough for yesterday’s showdown. But I guess I didn’t.

It took all my willpower and self-restraint not to create a scene but every thing ate at me inside. I felt like I was completely powerless in that situation. I didn’t know what else to do.

I’m tired of trying to sort myself out after incidents like this. This wallowing for days after is not a good thing either. But it is no use telling myself to snap out of it. Somehow it doesn’t work that way. On other days, I seem to be the epitome of happiness. That no one can believe I am scarred and hurt inside. Yet it is days like this, where I hole myself up to not let anyone see me.

Why am I so afraid to let people know how I really feel? How much I am hurting inside? How much I need that shoulder to cry on, or that support to lean upon? So many see me as their shoulder, support and everything in between. When is it my turn?

People always say that catching up with old or long lost friends will always be a chance to reminisce on the good times.

Personally, I won’t say that it is so.. Its more a pickup of where we left off. Maybe we’ve put on a couple (or so) pounds, we look a bit older, we have different views on our future but from ‘Hello’ everything else is the same.

There is no stilted conversation, no odd bouts of silence. The chattering flows as easily as Champagne during a party. From updating each other on the happenings on each of the members of our clique that have inadvertently also drifted apart to claiming that this meal was two years in the making. 

I know this post is late, but PN this photo is now very dear to me. To me, it stands for how we even travelled together to prolong the meeting (which I am so grateful) and that it was an automatic team work in creating this with hardly a discussion.

Thank you for a laughter filled night and I wish that there will be many more to come.

When you walk into a familiar place, it is great to see old friends turn and smile at you.

That warm familiar feeling washes over you. It finally feels like there is somewhere you belong; regardless that it is only temporary. That feeling hardly comes around these days so you need to savour what you have.

And it feels strangely fuzzy, very unexpected for where I walked into. But it brought a smile to my face and I am glad that I went.

For the most part of my life, I have been a loner. I grew up depending on myself, fending for myself. Yes, there are friends that give me a crutch if I require it, but as some of them say, I am the most independent person they know (maybe their friend circles are a little bit smaller than one would hope, but I digress).

Recently it has hit me like a ton of bricks that I have in some ways become very dependant on someone close to me. And the only reason that dawning of light has occurred is because by some strange way, I feel I have lost that person.

Then when it finally came to pass, there was a terrible sense of loss, a missing part of me that I do not know if I will find again. This strange rush of emotions took me by surprise and I reeled from it when the reality of my changed life hit me.

It feels so strange to be dependant on this person. A person who swept into my life like a gust of wind and turned it upside down (In a good way of course). I doubt anyone can fill that person’s shoes but yet, there is a strange longing inside of me that wishes the void can be filled.

It has been so long since I have logged into my flickr account, I actually forgot my login details and had to do it three times.

Well, here is the picture that has caused me to dust the cobwebs off my flickr account (at least the login part)

I am happily finishing this dessert as I type this post. This is one of the very few things that I remember fondly from my non-existent childhood.

I remember as a little girl, always pestering my parents that that supermarket to buy this. I think then I thought it was only available there, who knows. Yes, it doesn’t seem to taste the same as my memory remembers it but maybe it is because the circumstances are all different. Maybe my palate has tasted different perfections (I am being to taste the nuances in some alcohols. Ok getting off track), different amazements. There is a possibility that they have changed the recipe, but I don’t really believe that.

I’ve changed, my tastes have changed with it. But I guess, some things never change. I need to finish my dessert before it melts into a googey mess.

Am I too ambitious? Aiming too high? Bitten off more than I can chew?

It feels like I am drowning at work. Every ball that I am supposed to be juggling seems to be landing on the ground with a loud thud. My emotions are running so high and wild that even I am afraid of myself a lot.

Self doubt and a lack of confidence is slowly chipping away at me. I have started second guessing myself in a lot of things and I am no loner sure of some of the decisions I am making. I don’t understand why this job is affecting me so much. My already shaky self confidence is now hanging on by a thin thread. I guess I need to figure out a way to keep myself together – somehow.

How is it that some of my colleagues seems to be able to cruise through their days while I am struggling so hard just too barely stay afloat? It does make me wonder if I am just not capable enough; that I have taken on too much and now I am drowning.

Someone asked me recently – why don’t I just leave. Sometime it feels like there is still something left for me to do; like there is some unfinished business that I cannot walk away from. But other days (like today), it feels that I am killing myself over nothing. That I am pushing myself too hard and too much for no reason. Even a rubber band breaks sometime doesn’t it?

This sense of aimlessness and void, is unnerving and I am afraid I am losing myself.