hello 2008

i've been trying to blog the past two consecutive days already, but to no avail. somehow, somewhere along the line, i acquired a severe case of writer's block where my own blog is concerned. heh.

i'd wanted to blog about my past year. about what i'd learnt, what happened, - so many things. and then, i got stuck at the third paragraph. both days, all i'd managed to type out was a paragraph of my year, then i couldn't go on. which is strange, right? i can type out paragraphs and paragraphs of my day, then when it comes to my year, i have nothing to say.

perhaps sometimes when too much has happened, you no longer have words for them. they're all just jumbled up into a mess of shapeless, formless visuals in your mind's eye. i'm no weary war veteran, not by any chance. i have much to be thankful for in my life yet, and i truly am, thankful for these. but grief, loss, hurt - these horrid emotions have a take no prisoners quality about them in the way that they strike indiscriminately. doesn't matter whether you're beautiful or hideous on the outside, rich or poor, everyone's been hurt before.

that doesn't make my hurt more real than anyone else's. but i guess only those who give form to their grief are able to hold their hurt up by the scruff of the neck and show to the world "look, this is the form my pain takes."

much has happened in the last 12 months to have made me who i am today. the Kelly of 2008 will be very different from the Kelly of 2007. a year makes a world of a difference, and i recognise it only now. i'd like to say i'm the sum total of happy experiences, and i'm only made up of the happy, sunshiney stuff. but upon reflection, i think that truly, those gawd-awful moments in my life were the ones that have made the deepest imprint in my life thus far. i rehash them over and over in my mind, learn whatever i can from them, and yet i don't let them go. i can't let the unpleasantness go, because it's so much a part of me now.

sometimes, i think i don't like the Kelly i see in the mirror these days. where's the optimistic innocent girl of 2005? she seems to have disappeared behind a carefully painted face, a whiff of perfume, bright clothes - all that seems so immaterial in spite of the heavy weight of their visibility. i'm a lot wiser these days, but that has robbed me of my genuine niceness. i'm a lot more demanding these days and hence am more comfortable as a result, but that has come at the price of my simplicity and concern for the wellbeing of people around me.

it seems more often now that a single event in my life has the ability to affect many other aspects of my life. life can't be compartmentalized as i wish it to be. no, the threads that make up me are inexorably knotted up with each other. cutting a knot out would sever another portion of the tapestry of my life. things aren't simple anymore. no wonder adults always say that things are simpler when you're a child. i used to scoff at that, putting it all down to adults' own conflated sense of self-importance. but now i'm beginning to see how there is truth in what they say yet. things WERE a lot simpler when i was a child, and they became exponentially increasingly complicated as a grew up. bah. would it be that i never had to grow up!

i'm also becoming increasingly certain of the possibility of forever. of always. for so many things. for happiness, for secrets. i wonder if i could die holding on to my secrets. or if it is as the Bible says, that everything in the dark will come to light one day. i'm not pushing that one, i don't really want to know, cos the day my secrets are unravelled will be the day life as i know it unravels rapidly. or maybe not.



some things will never be the same again. i know that for sure. so where i am now, just on the thereshold of 2008, there are things i need to decide on. so that at the end of 2008, i can look back and embrace the Kelly who lived in it for having lived as she knew best. i may not like who i've become through 2007, but i do accept me now because i know i've truly lived as best as i could and knew how then.


sometimes i feel like i'm a bird with broken wings. / at times i dread my now & envy where i've been. / but that's when quiet wisdom takes control, / at least i've got a story no one's told. / these days it feels naive to put your faith in hope. / to imitate a child, fall backwards on the snow. / cos that's when fears will usually lead you blind. / but now i try to under-analyse. / is the rope i walk wearing thin? / is the life i love caving in? / is the weight on your mind a heavy black bird caged inside? / i finally learnt to say: whatever will be will be. / i've learned to take the good, the bad, & breathe. / cos although we like to know what life's got planned / no one knows if shooting stars will land. whatever will be / vanessa hudgens.