woke up late for 9am japanese studies tutorial this morning! can't believe how i thought the tutorial was at 10am. arghh. school. just goes to show how my brain isn't cut out for school after long breaks. term break was a good week long, but in my opinion - TOO DARN SHORT for my mental wellbeing. heh. had no time to rest AND study! only managed to rest here and there.

and as proof of my scatter-brainedness when i awake with a rude shock, i forgot to bring my matric card with my this morning. i hateeeeeeee it when i leave my card in my room. then i have to tag along behind some fellow hallmate in the hopes that they're going my way.

slept a good two hours in the afternoon just now. and had several rather random conversations with God as i drifted in and out of sleep. sigh i had big plans for today initially, but i whiled away the earlier part of the afternoon watching cycle 3 of ANTM and the later part sleeping.

i was just thinking about it - sleep is such a miracle. you lose complete consciousness for that period of time after you close your eyes and your mind wanders off. it usually takes some time between you closing your eyes and your consciousness dwindling, but that period of time is when one falls into sleep. like a wave rushing over your thoughts, covering them in blackness until, - nothing. you lose consciousness, almost as if you cease to exist for that span of time. i imagine dying would be somewhat like that, except that the process might or might not be more painful. someone once said that he wasn't afraid of death, only the process of dying. i totally agree. i don't think i'd be quite that terrified of death itself, honestly. but it's the process of dying that i have so much trouble thinking about because no one likes to travel to distant, far-off places alone without company. when you die, it's a journey your soul makes out of your earthly body, it's a journey none of your earthly companions can follow you on, even if they were by your side when you died. maybe that's why people want to die surrounded by their loved ones. it's like, if you have to travel alone, fly out of the country alone, you'd want your loved ones the nearest they can be before they have to leave you and you step through the airport gate, right?

so to conclude, i just realised what the deepest human fear is: it's not death per se, it's loneliness. being alone scares people, and it's fundamentally the fear of being alone that makes people fear death. after all, when you're leaving this world for a better one, why should you fear the better one? i think it's precisely because we're all scared of being left alone, and hence we're scared of the process of dying, the journey the soul takes on that its earthly companions cannot come on. something just comforted me though, the thought that the angels will be with me as i embark on the next leg of my eternal life as i die - makes me not quite so terrified of dying now.

spent the better part of the day gambling! haha i think i made some money. :) chinese new year's always a good excuse to while away the hours with the cousins, talking non-stop about the randomest things and playing cards. and making money while at it too! heh.

am slightly heavy-hearted now, for some strange reason. think i am really bogged down by work and other issues. and lack of sleep too. every morning i have to give myself a pep talk telling myself that i can make it through the day, it's quite funny.

shall go bathe for the second time today. suchhhhhhh a bloody humid day, i tell you.

i'm reading The God who Loves You by Peter Kreeft now and it's a really good read. i started reading it on Thursday and i'm not even half-way through cos i'm reading the book paragraph by paragraph, literally. there's so much to think about, so much to comprehend, that i really couldn't bring myself to race through the book like how i race through other books. wouldn't be doing it justice, neither would i be doing the whole concept of God's love for me any justice.

you know, the whole truth about God's love for me is so simple, and yet it's something that can't be grasped quite so easily. i can't, anyway. over and over again, i realise with new and renewed fervour and conviction that God loves me simply because i'm me. not because i've been a good girl, not because i'm pretty, smart, kind, loving, humble, or whatever. not because i'm doing what he wants me to do either. God loves me because i'm Kelly, i'm me. that's all there is to it. if i were born less kind, less humble, less contrite, less anything, God still loves me the same. he loves me for my flaws, my vulnerabilities, my insecurities, my goodness, my everything.

that's why the poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning is SO apt when we talk about God's love, i just realised. sonnet 43, the one that goes: how do i love thee? let me count the ways.

Sonnet #43
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


God doesn't say why do i love thee, or let me list out why. he says HOW do i love thee, and let me count the ways. can anyone love someone so freely, so unconditionally? when a boyfriend tells a girlfriend that he loves her, she usually smiles and asks: why? and he supplies his reasons. because you're beautiful inside and out, because you're such a special individual, because you light up my life. all very beautiful reasons, definitely. but imagine if he told her: i love you simply because you're you, that's all there is to it. i love you for all the bad things you're going to do and have done, i love you for all the wonderful things you're going to do and have done, i love you for who you are, was, and are going to become.

ha i promise you, she'll never ask "why" again. after all, what else would she want to hear? what else could he say that she hasn't heard yet?

same thing with God. if he tells me that he loves me and i ask why, and he tells me all i've said above, then how can i ask him why again next time when he tells me that he loves me? he already said that he loves me for everything i am, and why? because i'm me. i can't even ask "will you still love me even if i'm bad tomorrow?" he already said he loves me for all the bad things i'm going to do tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.

imagine if you could love someone the same way that God loves us all. if you could love someone simply because he's him or she's her, come what may. if you could love someone today and for always knowing how imperfect he or she is, knowing he or she is perfectly liable of doing something horrible that could hurt you the very next day, month, year, whatever. and still love him or her nonetheless. imagine if you could love someone knowing that he or she doesn't love you, like how God loves us all even though so many of us don't love him too. or even when i do tell him that i love him, the "love" wavers when things don't go well in my life. unconditonally, without that awful need for reciprocation, without the desire to feel wanted in that person's life too.

you know, eros as sexual desire has been sorely and sadly misinterpretated. eros isn't merely sexual desire. it's desire, period. it could be an artist madly and passionately in love with his art, a chef who eats, sleeps and breathes recipes and cooking techniques, a poet who thinks of nothing but words because he's in love with writing. they do all these to fulfill some form of desire in themselves. eros has been painted as something bad, as something to be completely quashed out because it's often tangled up with lust. a huge part of romantic love. but not all romantic love is bad. agape also constitutes a lot of romantic love, the unselfish, unadulterated form of love which God lavishes on us so unconditionally.

okay, i shall share more later if i have the time. i have to go shower and leave for more CNY house-visiting.
i have a ton of webcasts to do and i'm really drowning in work. did all my ministry work late last night out of sheer necessity and some guilt for having neglected it all, and i'm so tired now! even though i slept for 8 hours.

how do i love thee? let me count the ways.

i am tired, so bloody tired. i just want to sleep for a million years.

today was a good girl and food day. woke up early in the morning for smu meeting at 10am. had to wake up at 7am to shower then leave by 810. i tell you. when i move out of hall, i will really die. the travelling will kill me. had lunch with Chels after that at the noodle place at Harbourfront, then came home to study for a while with Tri. i tell you, i was so fricking tired that i fell asleep on my geog readings and was so tempted not to go for mass. i even picked up my phone and composed the "hey mel, i don't think i can make it for mass today" message and told Tri very tiredly "argh i really don't think i'm going for mass anymore. i'm dead tired." when i woke up from my nap. but i went anyway, even though it rained and even though all i wanted to do was to sleep that hour away. we went to Toa Payoh for crab dinner after that. good stuff, i tell you.

argh i am so sapped. i can't think anymore, i just want to rest my tired brain and body until i'm refreshed again.

just had a gooooooood talk with Tri! gosh i had no idea how much i missed the old times. when it was just the two of us girls, arm-in-arm, girls against the rest of the world. tiny girls with big dreams of wanting to be more than just the average Singaporean woman working away in her office cubicle. those wonderful afternoons after school when we'd go to each others' houses and pig out on pizza, potato chips and just laze about on the sofa watching tv or on the bed, just yakking away for hours on end. so carefree, so innocent, so happily spent in each others' company.

when our worlds had no real boys yet, when the only boys that ever existed where the occasional fellow who tried to get fresh with either of us (and we had very little difficulty in telling the poor fellow that he stood absolutely no chance, i can assure you), when things were just so much simpler.

now?

we've both grown up. we've both gone our separate ways. our lives have taken different paths. and so have our hearts. she's found happiness with her boyfriend. me? we shall not go there tonight, shall we. haha.

but still, our hearts haven't lost each other, and i'm so so so so so thankful for that. people walk in and out of my life all the time, it's something i've come to accept as part of life. it's something you realise when you get older and when friendships and relationships become slightly more complicated. but at the end of the day, there're just some people who you pray never walk out of your life, no matter what the situation is, no matter how complicated things become. i'm seeing some people threatening to do just that now, and it's so painful cos i mean, the basis of every relationship is a friendship, isn't it? and there's lots of love between friends too, isn't there? philia is the greek term for it, and it's supposed to be a more spiritual kinda love than eros is cos it's more sharing and selfless. but when you see friends walk out in your life, you wonder whether there really was love between you two in the first place. or what was it all?

Trina's someone i never want to see walking out of my life, ever. she's my sister, my darling twin, the reminder of what i used to be as a girl, the reminder of what we both aspired to be when we grew up. Chelsa too. guys should not and will not tear us from each other ever, eh? as we promised each other from the start: sisters to the end, guys come and go.

and Dan and Clem too, even though so much has happened. i dunno, but i think a beautiful friendship is what lies beneath this all and i just don't want to lose it all just cos things became complicated. but as i said, the basis of every relationship is a friendship, i don't wanna walk out on them or have them walk out on me just cos of everything. maybe i'm being selfish, maybe i'm not letting things settle and move on. but to lose two very important people in my life just cos things became slightly more complicated than they were at the start? i don't want that to happen. i can't stop things from happening, can't stop people from drawing away from each other, can't stop people from moving out and away from my life. but at the end of the day, if that's what happens, all i can do is pray for the day when the very important people in my life come back to it, if at all.

and i thought Cheryl was someone i'd never want to see walking away from me too. but look at what happened. she's so cut off from me now and it's so sad cos we used to share so much together. we said we were so alike it was scary. and i think ultimately it was what was so alike about us that drove us apart.

you know, when people start leaving your life, you start to wonder whether there's something wrong with you or whether it was just circumstances that drove us apart.

anyway, bottomline is: i never wanna lose these people or see them walk out of my life, ever. i will fight tooth and nail to keep them with me, but if after all's been said and done doesn't change anything, it will hurt like crap and i don't even want to entertain the possibility of things like that happening.

gonna bathe and sleep soon. stupid smu meeting in hall tomorrow morning. :(

slept a good long sleep last night - from 1 to 11 this morning!

woke up a couple of times in the night though. my retainers were irritating my mouth and hurting like crap cos i think my teeth have already shifted out of alignment. everytime i woke up, i just continued praying where i left off when i dozed off previously and i'd go right back to sleep in a jiffy. i thought it was quite cool, how i'd fall asleep talking to God and feel so comforted and safe while doing that.

went to heartland mall today with dad to run some errands and pick up some things. bought another year's supply of contact lenses. and omg, i must whine about this: i discovered today that i have developed astig! :( :( :(

for years and years and years, i'd prided myself on staying astig-free, only having to contend with a rapidly deteriorating left eye. but now. i have astig on BOTH EYES!! :( i am appalled. how did it develop overnight? whyyyyyy. but nevermind. the optician said that since my myopia's already so imbalanced on both eyes, i don't have to make special glasses or contacts for my newly developed astig since the imbalance balances out the astig. or something weird like that. whatever lah. as long as things are under control and i can see my bus numbers, i'm okay.

and when you can't eat meat, meat looks especially good. i tell you, when i was eating my mushroom noodles just now, the lard looked especially delicious and i was so tempted to eat the crispy, tasty pieces strewn about in my bowl. i really had to force myself to pick up the pieces and put them elsewhere so i can't see them. temptation man.

then dropped by spi to buy word among us for the month. i tried looking for An Invitation to the Contemplative Life by Thomas Merton there but couldn't find it. but it wasn't a wasted trip anyway, cos i picked up two books. :) books make me happy. reading makes me happy. when i read, i lose myself in the pages of the book and all that i'm thinking, feeling or worrying about before reading just melts away.

last night was a good night, in several respects. i had a wonderful wonderful time with God. a lot was revealed to me, and i spent a rather long time journalling it all down lest i forget about it all. i will share about it all, later, perhaps.

but for now, i have to go do some schoolwork. do some readings, do some webcasting, whatever.

what if this is forever?

while i was at mass today, a scary thought came into my head.

what if this time next year, i'm still in this? feeling the same thing for the same person?
what if all this i'm feeling never leaves me and God meant it for it to be forever? i wouldn't discount that possibility you know. i mean, i'm not looking to be in this limbotic state forever and i want to get out of this whole thing asap. but if God means for it to stay with me some more so that i can learn and grow, then who am i to say that i want it all to end?

i can live with this, i know.
i've lived with all this for so long already, another year or so won't make much of a difference i think. God will not give me something i don't have the inherent ability to handle. with every trial, God provides a way out - God'll show me a way out of all this, i just need to be patient some more. i don't know what the way out will be like, it mayn't be what i imagine it to be. but keep faith, he always tells me. faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). when i read that line, it just hit me like a bullet train and i was blown away by the implications of what it meant and promised.

so if this was meant to be forever, i'd deal with it and live with it. somehow, i know whatever happens, happens for a reason and i'd be a fool to wish everything away. if this was meant to be forever, it'd be a damn good thing for me cos number one, God obviously wants me to see how it feels like to have your feelings so adamantly unreciprocated. and number two, God wants me to realise what faith is. it's a lifelong thing, you can't have faith one moment and then just lose it all the next. that's like, faith when you feel like it. but you can't only believe when you feel like it, or when things seem to be going your way. you have to trust and believe even when things don't seem to be moving, changing, or improving into what you think should be the ideal scenario. faith means trusting in God's plan for you even when situations aren't improving, when all you want to do is scream and kill yourself, when nothing you do seems to be working. it's like Job, who i think really personifies what having faith is like.

argh more things i can say now but i'm getting sleepy and want to sleep already.

wipe the whiteboard

i shall blog here from today onwards! managed to rouse myself to shift blogs. shall do the template soon.

going to grandma's place for lunch nowwwww.

NO MORE TEARS, i say!