Scatteredfafa

Came across a picture book with remarkable illustrations. I don't remember the name, just that it was about a tiger and its smile. I don't know what other people think when they flip through the pages of jungles and arrive on the last page showing the imaginative, unrealistic grin of a tiger, but here's what popped into my mind: I am going to learn how to draw. I highly suspect that the main reason why I have barely accomplished anything with my life has to do with the fact that I want to do too many things, be too many Mes, and of course another reason could quite easily be that I have a genetic disease of procrastinating. I want to learn so many things and sometimes I wish I could rewind time and redo life.  I think a lot of things, but mostly I dream. I dream about all the possibilities, all the versions of me. A cartoonist, a film director, a writer, a pilot, a chef, a tree... Yes, a tree, with barks and leaves. Then I overthink and ruffle myself up to a state of melanc...

I'm back. It's 2am. And I have things I want to say to everyone. I'd probably regret it, I mean regretting being vulnerable, not the things I am going to say. But who's going to read this anyways? My blog is like my diary, which I secretly hope someone would read but no one will.  I've missed writing. I didn't realise this until tonight. What have I been doing? So preoccupied to the point I've negected what sets my soul on fire. I'm disappointed in myself, but I've just learned a new word:  "Amor fati", it means love of one's fate, and I intend to practise this stoic way of life. It's Nietzche by the way. Is it fate that I didn't write? Is it fate that it just so happened that I had time to write but didn't feel inspired to? I don't know, it clearly stems directly from my choice to not write, but I'd like to blame it on fate.  I should probably write a little something each night. Maybe I should write stories.  Okay ...

The world is vast beneath me. The awareness that I'm just a speck in the universe hightens yet I feel much more alive and seen than I've ever felt. I stretch my wings wide as the fast wind ruffles through my feathers, urging me to leap off the tallest building in the world and trust my wings will carry me somewhere and my heart will soar. Do I trust the wind? Do I trust my wings? Do I trust the place I'm going? Would trust be enough? I turn my head around and squint my small eyes against the torrent of the wind, just enough time for courage to dissipate and self doubts barges in. Do I really need to do this now? What if I can't do it? What if I fall? Suddenly I can't breathe. My heart's drumming in more fear with each deafening beat.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to push the fear down. It is now or never. I will always be afraid, it will still be scary the next time, but each time I survive the jump, I will be braver and stronger. I lift one le...

My mind has been swarming with negative thoughts, and the familiar feeling of doom is back. My pores are clogged up with toxicity oozing out from inside me, and the air around me feels heavy, clinging on to my skin, anchoring me to the dark clouds that surround me, drowning myself in a torpedo that no one else can see. I feel very bad about myself. There's so much limiting beliefs that I cannot shake off. People say self-awareness is the first step towards healing, but I feel like I'm still stuck in square one. I'm confused and lost but most of all, I'm scared. I'm afraid of the future.  I'm stuck inside too long. I wonder whether the sun misses me, but then I doubt that, who am I anyways. There goes the problematic self-deprecating way of how I talk to myself these days. There's no need to contemplate on whether or not I think too much, I'm a known overthinker.  Delving in deeper, all I see are my flaws, and I don't know how to look somewhere else. ...

Everything is in pink. Love songs blare inside my brain as soon as I open my eyes in the morning. Sometimes I wonder whether my eyes turn into pulsating heart shaped balloons like in cartoons.  The cold and critical persona which I liked to wear is finally stripped and thrown away, revealing the true romantic and passionate person that I am. I am in love. And it's such a great feeling. I am in love with another human being. A human who glitches between being a boy and a man. When he is a boy,  I have the most adorable child with me and my heart would swell in promise to protect him from any evil and give him all the love I have. As a man, his eyes shine with kindness and his steps radiate courage, when our eyes lock, I swear my heart stops and whispers, 'He's superman'.  This is better than winning the lottery. Having met him and then being loved by him, it feels like I've won the whole world. 

I have arrived again at a crossroad. The arrow signs are crooked and unwieldy. My compass has gone haywire and I can feel the invisible tugs coming from every direction. A choice has to be made, but my heart is heavy and my legs refuse to take another step forward nor backward. It's a strange predicament to be in. Knowing the sky is the limit but yet struggling to fight off the feeling of being chained and restrained. I've been standing at the same intersection for some time, trying to calm the nerves that frizzled at every bird that flutters past and to hold on to hope that dwindles at every light that dims. Time flies, ignoring my silent hopeless pleas of stopping just for me, a wretchedly lost girl.  And so I come, to the comfort of words, to listen to my heart. I've come back to swim in the swirl of my thoughts. I shall now sit and listen at the crossroad. Soon, I'll see my path and walk it with faith. 

I've been incredibly busy and overwhelmed. With my sister's 21st birthday coming up, personal projects and school, I find myself locked and tied, yet again. Some heavy anchors and locks, some ribbons and heart strings. They said life would get easier, you'll have time to be who you are one day. I thought one day the sacrifices and regrets would make sense. But 5 years later, I only realised, life doesn't get easier, you only get stronger and most of the time, good things don't come twice. Sometimes the only thing you can do is move on from mistakes when you find yourself repeating them over and over again.  I don't really know where I'm going with this post. I'm just itching to write something, anything at all. It's no secret that I have a problem with commitment and hence all the short stories that I never finish because my mind is buzzing with too many ideas. I'd post the half-hearted writings, maybe finish them someday.  Dear readers, I need t...

As someone who gets taunted at night by the ghost of past mistakes, a lot, I'm writing this on a bright sunny afternoon with a clear conscience, to remind you and myself that we are not our past. We get to evolve, we get to be someone new and better.  We all have those moments when we turn around and briefly look again at the past. Sometimes it can start with something small like spilling coffee, and we start travelling to the bad parts of the past. If we don’t stop it, we will find ourselves stumbling through the rabbit hole, landing in the underground archive of our mistakes and regrets in life. Ornaments from an embarassing thing we said, souvenirs from broken friendships. We’re no Alice, there’s no ‘Eat me’ cake or ‘Drink me’ potion to save us into finding a way out. We will be left a crumpled mess, too absorbed in self-pity to realise we fit through the door to leave afterall. But we can leave, and we'll get better and faster at finding the way out.

In a blink of an eye, there are only 4 months left to another new year.  I would like to first congratulate all of us for surviving. Survival has been the ultimate goal these two years. Despite the many disappointments and regrets over what-could-haves, I am immensely grateful to be alive. I'll leave the more thoughtful and tear-jerking 'essay' reflecting the year in December, I just want to whip up something short about my thoughts and feelings on these past 8 months. The first 3 months was me being burned out and busy with moot competition. People say, "To do one thing that scares you every year", I've gotten that out of the way early on. They were dark days filled with anxiety and nervousness. Surprisingly in the midst of it all, I still had a lot of fun. It's the first time in many years that I finally allowed myself to relax over studying and not to punish myself too hard. I'm really glad I took that leapt to step out of my comfort zone, even thou...

My favourite movie is Little Women. I read the book before I watched the movie, and I love the storyline so much just as it is, but Little Women (2019) by Greta Gerwig catapulted the story to a whole new level, adding on modern twists of feminism and giving us a satisfying ending. It's my comfort movie. Sometimes I just watch my favourite scenes, just to remind myself I'm not alone in feeling the way I feel. I strongly urge everyone to watch it, starring Emma Watson, Timothee Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan and all the other actors are wonderful as well.  The storyline is simple, nothing exciting, but it's definitely not boring. Centering around the four March sisters and the boy next door, taking us through their childhood and stepping into adulthood. It's relatable, we all go through the same threshold, saying goodbye to childhood. But like Jo, it's more difficult for me to move on, and it's comforting to know Jo feels the same way. Although she's fictional, th...

Two best friends laid horizontally across the bed, with their legs up against the wall and their hair fanning around them. The occasional sound of lonely cars racing along the dark highway outside, reminding them time has not stopped during their pensiveness. The silence between them was understanding and comfortable, an invisible message hanging in the air: "I'm here for you".  Telulah turned her head to the left and looked at Fiona, who was so still as if she was holding her breath, afraid to disturb the peaceful night. She poked her friend's face, relieved that she was still alive.  "If I'm ever reborn, not that I would want to come to this goddamn world again, I want to be a dog", Telulah said with a deadpan expression, her voice croaking a little at the start. Her delicate eyelashes still wet and crumpled from the weight of her overflown tears. Fiona, continued staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars scattered on the ceiling, afraid to look at her fri...

22k cases. My mind can't wrap around the logic of how this is happening. I believe everyone is as fed up as I am. It's a frustration that's brimming and even the lid is flying off, the whole being about to explode. It's an invisible itch that appears to be crawling along every inch of the skin. The question that haunts me, driving me up the wall to yell at everyone: "how the fuck did we get to this point?"  I've been like a lunatic. Randomly saying how life is meaningless and making jokes about how stupid everyone is. Fake it till you make it they say. Waiting for someone to inject hope into the wound swollen with pus of despair. I have a great imagination, but it has failed me, because I cannot imagine what could make me happy today or even in the future.  I love being busy, I don't like my mind. Ever since the lockdown, it has just been a constant inner fight. I can never go to therapy because I'd feel bad for wasting the therapist's time and...

It was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower a few days ago. Growing up watching Disney, I've always wanted to see a shooting star. Even as a young adult, having spent my whole life learning about logic and reason, there's still this small light of hope inside that if I wish hard enough, a shooting star would hear me and make my wish come true. My wishes have grown bigger and bolder; from the desire of turning into a princess to being happy everyday. There's so much I want to wish for. I want to wish for everyone I love. I wish I could write them all down on a piece of paper and throw it up into the sky and a star would reach for it.  We all could use a wish, especially this year. And so on that day, I waited for the dark sky to rain stars. I waited since 8pm, craning my neck and straining my eyes, just staring at the black sky. But there wasn't even one star in sight, just the moon lonely hanging, surrounded by the polluted air. I wanted to be sad alone, to bathe in my...

I’ve watched a domestic abuse happened right infront of me before. I was just a visitor, I was just a child, I was just there at the wrong time. I remember it vividly how I could feel the fear before the strike happened. The tension in the air as the abuser paced back and forth, his voice raising as harsh words are spewed out and how in a rush he strode in and repeatedly slap her. How it ended was a blur, but I remember the look of the bruises.   The memory never goes away. And I wasn’t even part of it. It has been years and when that person is around, all I can think is that moment. I got a glimpse at the monster he is just for a few minutes, and that’s who he is to me for the rest of my life. I can never forgive him for what he did, and luckily I never need to. I’ve read many books on domestic abuse. Even if the victim tries to convince us readers to look at the good side of the abusers, nothing can soften the steel voice in my mind that they need to leave. But I’ve been re...

I find my mind drifting to the future recently. Imagining the days I would have, the life that I wish I would lead. It's so fun decorating the house I have in my mind. It's like playing sims social or cafe story (My knowledge of games is limited). I would probably still stay here in my little town. I love my little town. The other place I might consider moving to is Ipoh, no explainable reasons. Maybe it's the rumours of good food or the excellent people I know who come from Ipoh. I actually love the current house I'm staying. My room is the best place in the world. But if my parents want to sell it and move back to their hometown, and my sisters are married, I'd want a small little apartment. Like those in F.R.I.E.N.D.S but I think that would be difficult or impossible to find here. It's not going to be minimalistic. Decorations would be everywhere, souvenirs and gifts from loved ones or places I've travelled to, all displayed in the living room. There woul...

I stared at my bookshelves. A haphazard collection of books from different genres. My eyes skimmed through the titles and I caught myself regretting buying some of them even when I know I shouldn't be. I plucked out a book wedged so deeply among others, one that I read when I was in primary school. My fingers left their mark on the dusty cover, I have no recollection of what the book was about, and after reading the description, I cannot remember why I found that book interesting enough to buy it. I hate my younger self for buying such an expensive book which I don't even want to read. I don't remember whether I used to love it. It's one of the signs that I've grown up. Another proof that people change.  With a heavy heart, I wipe off the sheen of dust on the books, flipping through the weathered pages, trying to remember at what age did I meet and hold them for the first time. Books are just objects but to put them away, they mean more than that, it's a reminde...

Olympic drama, politics, plague, people etc! So many things! So many problems! So many hate! So many evil! I'm moving to another planet, where love grows flowers and tears heal all wounds. I'm just tired, knowing very well that I have not done anything for the fight against evil and contributed nothing to the world but I still wish I can bring joy and hope amidst the chaos. I don't care about drama where it just involves pure hate, not scandals and conspiracy theories. Politics hurts my feelings, I can't believe how selfish politicians can sleep at night. If I think too much about the coronavirus, I don't think I can function. It seems like everyone is preoccupied with either one of those things right now, I wouldn't want to be a bother. And so I isolate myself and I write. I've been writing everyday, but I never finish any of them. Conversations with myself has increased tenfold and I have this nagging feeling to be a whole new person and start a new life. ...

Healing is a process. Self love, a relationship with yourself is like any other relationships, it's not perfect and sometimes a turbulence hits.  I've just realised that these few days, I have not been true to myself and it has caused me to relapse. I don't know where my mind went, I wasn't conscious. Doing things that I don't want to do and being a pathetic beta. Let's call her out shall we.  Few nights ago, a group of friends of mine wanted to have a call, I didn't really want to but I went anyways. I was quiet the whole time, I felt even lonelier than being alone. I've never known how to end or leave a call, and so I stayed on, and I hated myself for that so much. It's not their fault. I wanted to be part of their group. I messed up my own sleep schedule and neglected my own feelings, and ended up being really angry at myself. The old me wouldn't have done that, the old me cared about me. I need to believe that I'm good enough that people ...

Both my aunt and uncle were getting vaccinated yesterday and they asked me for a favour to babysit my cousins. I have to admit I was more thrilled than I allowed myself to show. I've always wanted the alone time to torture them. HAHAHA. I was there by 7.30am. My cousins were still sleeping and I had some quiet alone time to read. I was about to fall asleep again when I heard little twinkling sounds of my little cousin's ankle bracelet. Like a zombie, with her eyes half closed and hair tousled, she stumbled drunkenly to a corner and just squatted there. It was weird but she has always been weird and quiet, so I just went back reading and let her 'sober up'. But after a few minutes, I finally noticed something was wrong, she looked guilty and too silent. I walked towards her and asked her what was wrong (as if I expected an answer), that was when I saw the pool of water she was drenched in. In hindsight, I should have noticed something was wrong My reflex action was to ca...

I have always loved playing 'paradoxical games' where I create hypothetical and sometimes illogical scenarios and ask people what would they do. It's really interesting to hear their justifications and reasonings for their choices.  There's a book called "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". It's a short story about a utopia called Omelas. People there live prosperously in an abundance of joy with days full of festivities. A fairytale land where people daydream to run away to. However, this gaiety of everyone comes with a price, they must make sure that one innocent child will always be kept away in despair; shrouded in perpetual darkness, crouched among his own filth and diseases, forbiddened to ever be cared for and never allowed to taste any tenderness of love. Anyone who break the rule would jeopardise not only themselves but put the land under a curse, turning into a dystopia. To succumb to the rules and turn an eye away from such evil, surpressing on...