struggles

I'm just going to write, I'm going to write until there's no more in me, and right now, up to this point, there's a lot in me.

I don't know how this quarter reverted back to this dark moodiness. And by reverted, I mean I went back to the introspective period of my life. The first years of high school when I was never more alone, more creative, more observant, more poetic.

Poetic beauty. That's what I thought of when I looked outside the moving bus window shutting to Midway. Through my darkened lenses, it struck me as tragic. But at the same time, there was something new in going backwards, I never considered myself as beautiful the first time around. I never saw it as beauty. Now that I've come out of it, and Now that I've been reminded of what it was like, this is the term that comes to mind. And just to be clear, the beauty refers not to a physical sort, not even an intellectual sort, and perhaps "emotional" does not even cover it, maybe it's of a personal sort, for the lack of a better word.

At the same time, I do not want to revert personally. It was a dark chapter, I refuse, I refuse to go back it. I dragged myself out of it and I refuse to go back in, yes, there is some sort of artistic quality, but I forsake it, I forsake it for the pursuit of happiness. I choose to be fulfilled externally rather than internally. There are some who wish for the opposite, but I always felt like I was settling. Even then, I was not ok on my own, I was settling because there was no other way. And though I reaped some unexpected results from it, it's not a state I wish to go back to.

Writing that, I realize painfully how much it sounds like denial. Is it out of my control? Can I save myself from what I perceive as a whirlpool? Shall I surrender myself to it only to realize it is not as bad as I imagined, but instead a magical place? There was some sort of magic to it, I suppose.

Likewise, there was magic in those careless days, when I plunged into things with reckless abandon, no thoughts attached. My actions hurtled forward, leaving my trailing thoughts choking in dust. Internally, I could not process it all.

Perhaps this is the difference. I was either too slow to process the happenings, or I processed too much. Saw too much in the smallest movements.

I'm very sensitive, not in that easily hurt sense (though certainly in that way too), but I am so easily affected by what sensory details are provided me. The certain note of a familiar melody. The way a forlorn petal crumples on the concrete. The arrangements of clouds in the distance. But at the same time, the innocent use of a word, the careless moment of forgetfulness, the angry words muttered in a fit of rage. These are all engrained. Like the fight I saw when I was little. I can still hear the bowl clashing to the ground. The shouts. See the tears streaming down. The stare. The streams openly flowing. The feeling of whether to do something. Whether to still sit there. What to do. The feeling of hopelessness.

I suppose this is something I must deal with always, and learn to overcome. For I feel many things of the world and cling to them, feel them on my shoulders. Feel my lack of power over any of it. What anyone says of me I swallow up and mold myself to fit it, without consciousness. How is it that I only absorb, without filter, without discrimination, so intellectually able to analyze it all, but so unable to accept them, reject them, change them, learn from them, so unable to take an active part in the process.

I suppose this comes back to the previous point. What is it that I despised so much about that darkened period? It is my passiveness. Everyone loves the rosy petal flowing downstream, but no one wants be it. I want to be the branch that is able to grow that petal, unchanged in its essence when one falls off. I can no longer be satisfied with observing the world as it passes, I must jump into it now.

By doing so, I risk entering subjectivity, prejudices, foolishness, ignorance. But is it better to be wise and on the sidelines or otherwise?

I know my answer. And I must fight for it.

Trailing clouds

I find that whatever pattern that reveals itself in the summer trails into the fall, at least for these past two years.

They all started where it all started for me. A whirlwind in China, a whirlwind in college. Disillusionment a year later, same in Chicago. Whether I'm bolstered or confused by the people who love me the most, the plot takes stage again on chillier opening nights with a different cast.

So I am constanted rooted and un-rooted, I wonder if I'm really so impressionable that whatever the circumstances, these externalities get engrained in me so deeply. You know, for a control freak I'm not very much in control. It's always ironic how that always happens.

objects of one's affection

Those were just justifications, not reasons.

I’m not as appreciated as I think I deserve to be. I’m not loved as I love. However, is it anyone’s fault? Maybe there is something I could do to make myself visible. Maybe I need to find people who do see me as visible. Either way, I am not as close to them as I believe to be.

"One shouldn't be too hard on oneself when the object of one's affection returns the favor with rather less enthusiasm than one might have hoped."

--Object of My Affection

How did this happen? I was the one who led, the one with the dominating, strong personality, the one with the charm to spare. Now, I’m barely visible. Who am I anymore? And more importantly, how do I get myself back?

Genies and Chameleons

Believe whatever others believe you to be. Stupid. Fashionable. Witty. I’m a human chameleon, I am whatever you want me to be. All you have to do is say it. I am a genie. Able to morph into all things but having no control in what I change into.

Transparent mirror. That’s what he said. That’s why he threw me away. He no longer needs to analyze me. I’m so easy to figure out, so apparent. I am the project that he labels “done” and filed away in some tragic corner.

I’ve spent my life finding trees, finding ground, finding whom I belong to. Who do I belong to? Because I can’t lean on myself. I am the one person I don’t trust to be strong enough to lean on…I cannot stand to feel alone,

because I’m not strong enough for me.




There are some people who tell the world who they are, and then there are those who let the world tell them who they are. I belong to the latter. For now.

Masochism

I never labeled myself as masochistic. It was a trend, helped along by Meredith Grey, a barely-disguised proclamation of sophistication, when I saw nothing admirable about it. I've always prefered to call myself optimistic--hoping that people are going to surprise me with what I want to hear.

The thing is, when you want what you can't have, it's not optimism anymore.

So I got to thinking...are we all masochistic? Is the very act of hope, against overwhelming odds, a form of masochism?

We all want what is impossible for us to have. And at that point it ceases being charming optimism and becomes foolish, self-inflicted pain. We hit ourselves with that hammer. And it's not because it feels good when we stop.

The truth is, we never stop. For some of us, it's the glamour of pain that draws us to it. For others, it's the consistency, the comfort of knowing exactly what is in store. For me, it's the pathetic, idealistic wish, that one day I raise the hammer and it won't hurt, and what I want most of all will appear instead.

And so I wait, bruised and all, for the tide to turn.

After

The thing is, I'm in pain. I'm in more pain than I was when my favorite teacher died of lung cancer. That makes me sound like a horrible person, but it's how I feel.
How do I feel? I feel hurt, and skeptical, and embarrassed, humiliated. The thing is, lung cancer is unpredictable, unpreventable, it had one path to take, and that was forward.

But this? This had many paths that could've played out. Many, many forking roads, each one I could've stopped at, taken the other instead. And the irony, the IRONY, is that I took the ones that led to this mess, which, in a way, you could label as self-destruction.

When I read that valedictorian speech a year ago, I foresaw forking roads. And I urged my fellow classmates to make those decisions on their own, because realizing that others had made you walk down a path over another--even if it was willingly--is cheap. Is irresponsible. Is something to regret the rest of your life.

Now I've made those decisions, and I ended up here. I could blame it on others, say they led me here. But strip all that finger-pointing away, you have me choosing to believe favorable arguments over realistic instincts. When it comes down to it, I led myself here.

And it's everything and nothing I could do to get out.

Spring

It's spring break and there's nothing to do here. I miss dorm life, where even lazy, unfilled hours become laden with activity.
Here, nothing begets not another mischievous doing, but just itself. It's the emptiest equation.
I'm in a strange town, yet again. It's beautiful, I've scoped out at least that much. It's what I do every time I move, I scope things out like a cat, quietly and carefully, lightly treading on new earth. I suppose this new place is pleasing to the senses, so I'm not sure what's wrong. I read somewhere that we depend solely on our senses to understand the world...we are trapped in our senses, you could say. So it makes no sense that what I feel doesn't agree with what I sense.
I suppose I do have familiar people here. But I've always thought that it was better that I live far from home, I've felt guilty thinking it, but nevertheless, it's how I feel. Now I know why. Because there are people that can hurt me more than the rest of the world together. and it's all I could do to pretend that it's not true when I'm 2000 miles away.
Maybe "hurt" is the wrong word. It has too negative a connotation, especially for something only those we are closest to can cause. Maybe I mean that it complicates things a whole lot more than I could deal with.
I hate that word, "complicated." What does it even mean? It's a word feeble people use when they are too obtuse to explain. Too out of touch to grasp.
For now, that's what I seem to be.

Dear Stranger:

I want to know you.
Why can't you open up to me?
How come the others can open up to me and relate so well, and you're so closed off?
you seem friendly, but you're not, you're distant and it's not my fault.
I guess I'm pushing you, maybe i'm pushing you too hard.
God i wish the words could just come to me on the page right now, but they don't.
just like how they don't when you and I are alone.
When he's doing something else, and it's just us two,
Do you know what you do? you turn to your computer.
You admit you're reserved, but what are you doing to change that?
Nothing.
I want to know you, let me in your life.
confide in me
I want to be THAT girl
which is ridiculous because I can't define what THAT girl is.
I don't even know what i want.
the only thing i know,
is that
I want to know you.
and it's the one thing, the one simple thing
that he so readily gives me
that you don't.
So here it is.
I'm laying it out on the table.
Except I'm not.
I'm writing this in the privacy of my journal.
Thinking about you.
After lingering in your room for hours, after leaving
still i'm thinking of you.
Are you thinking of me?
What do you think? Do you think anything at all?
Give me something. Give me anything.
Your sister, your parents, the crew team, michelle branch, anything you can offer me
I'll take.
Because i'm throwing away almost my pride.
Because I want to know you that much.
Why can't you see? Don't be so reserved.
Don't be insecure, if that's even what you are.
I'm not leaving if you take off your wall.
I'll still be here,
I'm too invested.
So talk to me,
Because I want to know you.

musings

--i fall in like very easily...the opposite for falling in love...in fact, i think i will only recognize love after i've fallen out of it
I don't think I'm very deep, i keep waiting for that one person to come and find it perhaps, but if i don't see it, how can he? i'm very surprised when people find layers within me, like how i think my hum teacher (soucek) is reading too much into things...that cannot possibly what augustine intended, can it?
I like copying from others, their favorite music, how polite they are, their sleeping habits, mom says it's ok, we have to copy from others to see what we like, when do i start creating? I think it might come with time, like my sense of fashion, but i think that truly flourished when others started to notice. Shall i discover my own originality only when others start to take notice? that seems to defeat the purpose.

Disillusionment

College was so much fun for me. It was a whirlwind, a blast, a f--king smorgasbord, whatever. So so fun, so much fun I never slowed down.
Now the pace slowed me down, and I don't know where I am.
It's like this instability, like I'm in this giant field, and I reach my arms out hoping to hold on to a tree, so maybe I won't be so scared of spinning, so maybe I won't feel so unbalanced.
I had those trees.
Except...now...the trees are shifting...closer to some and further away from others. In this field, every tree is shifting, moving around, like they are on mobile, volatile vulcano lava.
Every tree...except me.
What makes me hate change so much? When I find something, I hold on like I never ever want to let go. There are some things that I grasp tightly in my hand like precious stones...but others might not feel the same...so the sapphires and diamonds spill to the ground unceremoniously...and before I could stoop to pick them up...the lava moves yet again...and I'm lost...
Yet Again.

Wisdom

I used to have a band teacher who said:
"the stupid person doesn't learn from his mistakes,
the smart person learns from his mistakes,
and the wise person learns from his neighbor's mistakes."
I have never met a wise person.
And very few smart people.
We've all heard it before, learn from what you've done wrong. But for most people, they drift across life without taking anything from it. The truth is, some lessons are just too painful to learn. Some mistakes are just too fun to make. And sometimes, we just have to see ourselves, what a mess we really made of our lives.