JOanna Undefined

Mary turned around and started home. She should go get her brother who was probably still at the ironsmith’s. She wandered through the village square and looked at the colorful cloths and flowers… They would never be able to afford those… But she didn’t mind. She saw all the colours she wanted when the sun shone and was more then willing to wait for it again when it went away.

03:10 17/12/2017

Another muse inspired late night blog post.
after binge watching Gossip Girl…. a show that i started watching almost 10 years ago… just the very thought of how long ago that was is scary- by comparing the person i am now and the person i used to be, the contrast, in terms of life experience….
GG used to be pre-O. now it’s post-C….

Watching it brings back SO MANY memories of the person i was at 18-20… when i was so excited about everything, living life, learning new things, trying new experiences, pushing my limits, being different things….

And now, i’ve done my fair share of all of it, i’ve lived more than a little, i’ve learned more new things than i can remember anymore, i’ve had more new expetiences than i can count, i’ve pushed limits so many times that it has become my new norm, i’ve been all the things i’ve wanted to be that i almost inevitably find myself coming back full circle. That makes me wonder, is it something that happened naturally, following the path that i did, or was it something that i wanted to let/make happen subconciously? I’m going to see it as a self-introspective checkpoint, because i wouldn’t have wanted to risk hindering my progression with a spell of regression, yet analysis of the past is undoubtedly beneficial to future development.

what this is about is how GG has triggered all the emotions and memories of the person i was when i wa watching it, and how confused, almost lost i was at the time, but resilient in never giving up. It was a time of new experiences, university, independance, choices, friends, the expansion of my circles, my world…. and now i find myself entertaining thoughts of doing the exact opposite, probably becauase i finally find myself comfortable enough to consider actually establishing a comfort zone, a concept that i had givern up on at 16, after the fourth time we uprooted, moving back from Kuantan to KL, in my last year of secondary school, where i had no time to fit in before i had to end my lower education years.

And then university hit, and i had to go in feeling unsupported, misplaced, even though ironically that was a chance for a fresh start.

And I did get the university experience- new friends, new subjects, new rebellions, first love. And i was watching GG to help me get through the rougher bits. and i loved it back then so passionately…

[just got side tracked looking for my old blog and ended up reading a few other blogs leading from CK’s to SL, LY and LM’s…]

So that was a huge blast from the past letting me see how many people from back in the day are still pretty much stuck in their same patterens… that’s rather disheartening, i had hoped that i would be more smug about it but i guess there’s no value in that.

That actually is a very good metaphbor for what i’ve been thinking about. how even though my choices in life have never been the triesd and tested ones, and even though i feel like i am going with some version of “the flow”… i’m still making some important directional changes of my own accord and setting unique standards for myself, that would challenge me, instead of using the same (small) scales people i would have once loved to be associated with, do.

all my fears from when i was younger, about becoming insignificant, not just in society, but more importantly, to myslef, have not come true at all, even though i thought that it would happen no matter what i did. I may be more insignificant in society in more ways now, but i love that i can now say that i have lived in foreign countries, almost completely on by my own means, that i have reached the first peak in an industry, that i have changed peoples lives, that new people (whom i otherwise could not have helped) have benefitted in some way in knowing me, that i have been involved in more thatn one aspect of life, of work, of multiple teams.

And to think that when i was younger i only imagined…. the worst. I hate to admit it but damn i think C might be right… is there some non-selfish reason to bear offspring? Even still, to me, nothing will ever outweigh the negatives in life.

I’m trying to give some specific examples of preconceptions i held at the time i was watching GG to illustrate how much of a contrast i am now to who i used to be, but i’m not recalling a single specific thing… was i unsure? confused? scared? none of those things sound like me, and i wouldn’t be here had i let those things get a foothold in my life… so am i trying to say that i am now braver than ever? maybe not recalling it at all says it the most of all.

i feel like this is where i should end, and where i should end on a positive note. and i really want to insert a bit of reality here, usually a contrasting point to the tone of the post, just to provide a better perspective… but i do not want to fall into old habits that i think i am better off without. and this is good practice going forward (it might even be who i am now!)… so i’m going to say that C is right, and that’s what proves that he is good for me and right for me and how he, of all people, is worth trusting to be my guiding light in life for when i fall short. (why am i justifying him, my choice, my life? or do i just want to remember what miught be a fleeting sense of validation? of success in one aspect of my life? a very essentially key aspect? because it is an aspect i place much value in? probably, that makes sense) That life does work out (well, for me at least, so far, also, i’ve been trying, it’s not that things have fallen into my lap (not more than others, at any rate, dry chuckle), i’ve not given up even when i’ve felt like doing so… and maybe there’s value in that…

Also, do i have a pro-biased version of Europe, one which i should not be having? Maybe, but only because it’s sound in so many ways.

ah yes, a lack of friends, that’s always been a major thing to me… but ever since C, i’ve been getting over that. Although i don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing in the long run (complacency and crazy cat ladies and all that haha). SL has an old picture of us at one of my parties i took up on her wall, that’s sweet, and weirdly reassuring that my time spent in building relationships in the past have not gone to wate, haha! And now that i’ve seen a bit morte of the human race, i’m starting to realise that i’m a good grade of friend types, and not many people have that, and it’s something they want… and that almost ensures that i’ll always be able to make new friends and keep the good ones…. and that also makes me appreciate more the good ones i have, because i also realise that they could also walk away, or change, or turn me away if they wanted to. and that i want to continue building quality relationships. and that although i fear being the arrogant person who turns down friends because i can, i have not done it, am not doing it (at least not without a good reason, these days), and might keep not doing it in the future (or at least not more than i might be doing now! haha)

yes, that’s it. friendships. relationships. the human connection. the societal bond. drifting into oblivion… these are very common existential issues people are dealing with in this day and age. so i guess i am too one of the masses, in a way… which, as someone who has spent the majority of her life feeling as if she was on the sidelines of, is something i am really grateful about. although ironically i might not be an innocent victim of being on the sidelines, i’m pretty sure that some choices i make put me there… is it really my fault that i process so much information so differently (read: logically)?

04:45 17/12/2017 crawling into bed now

01:03 Sunday December 3 2017

sitting up late at night in this headspace
with so many things different
yet so many things that still remind me of things past
the cold. it’s winter here. but i recall feeling the same chill in nights by the beach, sitting with friends, having a beer, doing nothing, the occassional conversation, the smell of smoke lingering somewhere. tioman. the island. the waves. the sea. feeling eternally grateful that i was there and that i was lucky enough to experience that way of life, for even the briefest moments. riccardo. he shaped tioman for me so fundamentally that regardless of our conflict, i can’t but help but also remember him with a tint of fondness whenever i think of all that we had gone through together…. especially bitter was when he left. it was such a relief but also he took a part of my identity on that island. we arrived to gether and we worked together and we saw enough people come and go together. that was too much. we learned so much about each pther whether we wanted to or not. unwilling accomplices.

D. He always plays in the back of my mind. maybe because our the nature of our relationship and how we balanced each other so well that we could explore more aspects of ourselves together. maybe it’s because there are some core similarities between him and C. fortunately not too many. yet he answered something in me that i did not know i was asking. and now i am wondering if the answer was enough. i have so many other questions and i think i have managed to find some semblance of an answer to most of them…. but why does his linger when most of the others do not? is it because the answers he gave me also came with the fun and excitement of a carefree connection? maybe. that might be the closest i have come yet to answering it.

T. why. why is he so trounled and why did he not let me in, or why does he not let himself go? i know that the main problem was him but i cannot ignore the fact that it must have been partly me too…

i don’t know. late night thoughts. ramblings through my psyche.

i thought that i have almost everything i wanted. is it just a matter of waiting? do i miss what i once knew? even though what i have now and what i stand to gain is so much more? and what i once knew will never be again? because of what has transpired and also within me? the allure of the familiar makes it hard to remember that sometimes.

i miss writing. all this constant second guessing of my abilities is not healthy. and questioning whether it’s reader worthy. i just hope that it doesn’t go to waste and someone out there sees the pertinent parts of my musings.