reading the article about Mother Teresa's spiritual darkness in a recent issue of Time made me think. not about the existence of God, no. not that my faith is something that i've fabricated for myself either, like the triumphant aethists crowing over exerpts from Mother Teresa's letters to her SDs, saying that "now this is proof that God doesn't exist!"

but more about the faith Mother Teresa must have had to press on in spite of not feeling God at all in her life, her great love for Jesus, her Spouse, and what she said to a film-maker who came to look for her in his own search for God when he was in Calcutta.

"Your longing for God is so deep, and yet He keeps Himself away from you.. He must be forcing Himself to do so - because He loves you so much - the personal love Christ has for you is infinite.. The Small difficulty you have regarding His Church is finite. Overcome the finite with the infinite." Mother Teresa writes to film-maker Malcolm Muggeridge in 1970. the idea of God having to force Himself to keep away from us, His lovingly crafted creations and children, touches me more than you'd imagine. here we are, complaining about how "boo-hoo, poor me! i can't feel God in my life, i don't want to believe in Him anymore!" seems almost preposterous now when seen in context of what Mother Teresa says about His love for us. God's love for us must be so much more than our love for Him, so infinite as compared to the finiteness of the concept of love our puny human hearts can contain.

so then, the next question would be why would God want to keep Himself away from us? Mother Teresa found herself tormented by this question for almost the rest of her life after beginning her work in Calcutta, and even when presented with a possible reason as to why God would want to keep Himself away from her, she found it torturous to live in such darkness of the soul. and yet, she kept on. Mother Teresa's spiritual advisor Rev. Joseph Neuner tells her that 'the absence [she felt] was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus.' how can God's absence in Mother Teresa's life be what He wants of her, it seems is the next logical question that begs for an answer.

what i found so beautiful was that this absence of God was exactly what Jesus felt when He was dying on His cross that fateful day 2000 years ago. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", He cries out in His passion. isn't this precisely what Mother Teresa felt? that God had forsaken her, and there she is, imploring and imploring, asking and asking, "Why have You forsaken me?" Mother Teresa told her fellow nuns in her order that she wanted to focus on sharing in the suffering of Jesus, among all the other commendable and imitable aspects of Jesus's short life on earth. when she realised that what she was going through - the spiritual darkness and nihilistic vacuum in her soul - was precisely what she was asking for, she recognised it as a grace, a blessing, and made some sense of her pain. because she had a unique part in Jesus's passion and suffering. this didn't make her life any easier to live as it was, nor did it make the spiritual vacuum any easier to bear. she's constantly described to be in 'torment' and describes the darkness as 'painful', and this makes her continuous trust in God even more amazing, to me.

which revealed one more thing to me: that knowing the reason behind the pain and suffering doesn't negate it or make it any easier to bear. accepting the reasons that explain your suffering will not make the pain disappear or make your yoke any lighter. all those isn't enough, and i know why. it's all in the level of the mind. you know why, you understand why, you accept why, but it's not gonna negate the suffering because your mind won't be able to sustain you. it's never gonna be enough. and even though Mother Teresa couldn't feel God in her life, she knew that He was there somewhere through the darkness and she never stopped placing her trust in Him. sure, she did stumble once or twice, she did question His presence, but ultimately she never stopped believing. and God sustained her, even though she couldn't feel it.

"I accept not in my feelings, but with my will, the Will of God - I accept His will." Mother Teresa said. she couldn't feel God's love, couldn't feel God's presence, and yet she accepted His will for her with her will. isn't that total trust? it makes me ashamed of myself everytime i compain that i can't feel God, and therefore He can't be real in my life. what kind of ludicrous argument is that? our feelings lie all the time; they're powerful and are a layer in our lives that's enmeshed as part of our being, and yet they're not the be-all and end-all.

Mother Teresa's example speaks very very strongly to me about not giving up in 'connecting' to God, in seeking His face, in trying to reach out to Him and feel His love. she couldn't feel it for much of her life, and yet she never stopped trying. it makes me feel a lot less of a hypocrite when i talk about God and yet think that i can't feel him and so what i believe in can't be real. it makes me believe that God IS there regardless of whether i feel Him or not, feel His love or not.

aethists and scholars may be rejoicing over Mother Teresa's letters because to them, it's proof that God doesn't exist. my lit lecturer posted an article about her letters on my module forum and suggested that Mother Teresa is the perfect Conradian heroine - the epitome of using something (in her case, religion and God), to fill up the void and abyss that exists in all humankind. that we are all essentially nothing and the loneliness we feel deep in our souls is cos there is absolutely nothing - nihilism at its best. God isn't real, he's just something we fabricate to fill in the nothing.

but i think that Mother Teresa's letters prove to me without doubt that God exists regardless of what i feel in my heart, and it strengthens my faith much especially these days when my feelings are swirling about in me in horrifying dizzying torrents. she's proof that you don't have to feel God for Him to be real, for Him to work in my life.

it's an amazing testimony that really speaks to me and reaches out to somewhere deep in me. the writer of the Time magazine article, David Van Biema succintly puts it, "if she could carry on for a half-century without God in her head or heart, then perhaps people not quite as saintly can cope with less extreme versions of the same problem." and i am very much heartened.

i am immeasurably tired and i am so emotionally spent. too many things to think about, my brain is constantly buzzing with activity. i don't want to pour out my heartaches or secrets online, and i'm not going to. but i'm so tired, i just want there to be a fullstop for once and not just another comma.

a woman's heart is really something men can never comprehend. that, i am beginning to see now for myself. i don't even fully understand the secrets of my heart, sometimes. they're just lying in wait, undercover sometimes.

it doesn't mean that when one keeps silent about her world, all's well in it. sometimes, the things that aren't said are more important than the things that are. all the constant chatter, all the mess of words and language bandied around each day. but the things that aren't said? sometimes they hover thick in the air and makes the silences more pregnant than ever. silences can be full of things unsaid. just listen. cock your ears and listen to the silence. i can almost hear my unsaid words ringing in my ears, pulling at my heartstrings. the ever-abundant energy to eat innumerable lunches - you don't see the total shutdown of the brain when she falls into bed at night from exhaustion.

so many untold stories. each of us have some.

then you chance upon something that makes you rethink your convictions. i know, paradox, isn't it? to have to rethink a conviction. a conviction doesn't need to be thought about again, you're convinced. but note how many times i've repeated the word 'convinced' and yet are you even the slightest bit clearer about what the word actually means? you chance upon something that makes you hold your breath for one millisecond and blink 5 times to check, double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check and quintuple-check what you see with what you know. the second seems to last for an eternity, doesn't it? it's like one of those movies where the director slows everything down onscreen in an effort to bring across the idea to the viewers that that moment lasts for an eternity. i don't need a director to slow down any images for me, i'm my own director and my second slowed down to the eternal absoluteness of freezing in time.

you hear words you don't want to hear, feel the tears you don't want to cry dripping down your nose and off your chin. blink and take a deep breath - and yet the tears won't stop and the words won't stop ringing in your head. and all this while, that awful tugging at your heart that reaches to somewhere deep within you and pulls at your soul for what it's worth, and you feel the eyes of your soul cry tears you can't see. tears that hold a second's worth of misery and brokenness in their water-and-salt molecules, each tear a concentrated drop of despair. if only you could imbue the sadness encapsulated by each innocuous drop your soul cries - you'd understand how it would feel to never be happy ever again. to feel that somewhere something inside you has been broken beyond repair and try as you might to reach in and grab it, the shards are too scattered to gather and what was is now nothing.

you try to understand how Love can be something that judges, that places her opinions and intentions above yours. i understand Love as something that ought to be given unconditionally, no matter what your opinions are and even if i don't agree with them. i'm not being hypocritical, i'm being unconditional. you try to understand how Love can be something that hurts you, stabs you. what happened to the beautiful, light, fluffy thing she's supposed to be? which is the copy of which? the dark, fatal beauty of the Love i know, or the bright, airy pleasantness i thought i knew? you don't spew out the words 'i love you' without thinking about the implications. i don't. there're very few people i've really loved in my life, the rest i try to but end up failing more often than not. how many of the people i love realise that i've placed Love as i know it now on them but they think it's just an innocent young girl's confusion between Love and her flightier cousins Infatuation and Like? i hate it when i introduce Love to people and they mistake her for Infatuation, i hate it when i introduce Love to people and they reduce her to Like.

and feelings. you're so reliant on them and yet you wish you were free of them and would rather embrace logic. feelings, what men derogatorily trash as characteristically 'female'. emotions, what some people denounce as 'not deep enough' in spiritual experiences. don't discount the power of emotion in an experience, don't tell them 'it's only an emotive, you don't know what it's like, really.' do you know what it's like, really? do you know the power of emotions, in the first place? if only you knew. you'd not dare decry those who feel and act on their feelings again.

i've run out of words to say, but you cannot imagine the torrent of images bashing themselves at the gates of my mind trying to break free to let themselves be seen and heard in some form of coherence. so with this, i part for now - but i know this for a fact: that i've said less than what i haven't said.

i'm getting a little tired, physically. and it's only the 2nd week of school! i'm slowly slipping behind on my reading schedule already and my allowance has ALL been spent. so i'm just waiting in great anticipation for my tuition pay this end-of-month..

i hardly have time alone to myself anymore. i'm not complaining, just.. stating. takes some getting used to, i must admit!

friday can't zoom nearer any faster.

it's been a long time since i last blogged, it seems. i'm increasingly having less time to do anything other than my readings or stuff related to that, and sleep is getting hard to come by! i'm out a lot, travelling a lot, on the phone quite a lot - which leaves me little time to do my own things at home besides keeping up with my readings.

i just watched Akira Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August for a Japanese film module just now. Tuesdays are my film-watching days since i have such a long break from the 8am lecture till the 4pm one. it's rather thought-provoking and it's left me with a lot of thoughts in my head about the way the film was edited and shot. i do think i'm not quite the film critic, i haven't the predisposition nor the eye for that sort of artistic beauty. but i am able to tell when the director is trying to bring across a certain message through his shots, camera angle, editing process, background music, things like that. and when i can tell, i can appreciate and think about what he's trying to tell me, us.

these days, i seem to think about my world in articles. i look at everything around me and live through them, all the while thinking about whether whatever's happening to me would make a good article and how i'd develop it further. after watching the films, i'm also slowly starting to think of my world in through a movie. i wonder at how my life would be depicted on screen, how those times i lived through and felt so keenly would be shown on a film. the pain - how would it be brought across to do the actual feeling justice? the happiness - how would it be told to the audience so they can feel my euphoria?

my mind's whirring through a million and one things these days. so calm on the surface but so many things going on inside, still. not entirely bad to be thinking though! there're the whitish good thoughts, and then there're the blackish bad thoughts. and then, there're those greyer ones that're neither good nor bad, just thoughts. i've realised that i'm still completely unable to sit through the entire memory of the last 2 years in one sitting and not flinch. in fact, tears still prickle my eyes every single time i happen to recount in my head. i hate it when the prickly tears turn into trickles down my cheeks. that's when i feel like i'm really crying - and that just means that the past isn't really the past yet, right? when i remember, it just feels as though i'm reliving everything again and the stabbing hurt from the incident/instances still stabs as hard now, many months later.

when does the past cross over through time somehow, reach out its hands through the silken threads of time and space, and grip me here and now to replace my present with the shuddering, hurtful ghosts the Past contains? how does it? is it cos i let the Past cross this threshold of dimension and time? or does it manage to do it, regardless of whether or not i do anything to 'let it'?

my reality now becomes my past every now and then and i get so lost in the moment that i feel every sensation as keenly as if i were living then right here right now. this is so dejavu-ish! i had this same thing in j2, when the littlest things would trigger bittersweet (in every sense of the word) memories and force me to relive them in my mind. same thing now, my reliving of whatever past i have can't be fast-forwarded or muted - everything is as it was and i have to live through the agonisingly sweet and familiar and maddeningly normal scenes as though i were going through it now. on one hand, i don't want to pull myself out of those memories because as they were then, they weren't painful. they were pleasant, more than pleasant. i felt safe. but the maddening thing is that as i relive those scenes in my head as though they were happening to me now, i am also living with the knowledge i have now that i didn't have then - that they wouldn't last at all and that a couple of months down, i'd be mired in self-pity, hatred, frustration, and so many other things that i can't even begin to list them down. it's like being cursed with the gift of foresight and you can see how your loved ones die one by one and still have to look at them in the now with the same eyes.

i'm afraid to think that anything will last, now. everything seems so transient! no wonder people need tangible signs of love, care, concern, commitment etc. those intangibles which mean a whole lot more don't count for anything when you're striding the line between what was and what is to come.

i still cannot believe i was insane enough to sign myself up for an 8am class! my brains must've been mushed up then or something, i cannot understand why i go on these bouts of insanity and cause myself to suffer for one whole semester.

first day of school yesterday! on one hand, i was rather excited to be back to another school term, to having to juggle 5 modules' worth of readings and work, to putting that rusty ol' mind back to work again. and the mods i'm taking are quite exciting this sem! lit - which i've been wanting to do since forever, some new media modules that include an intro to interactive media (which will let me take the gaming modules next time!), mass media and culture, and film and anime in postwar Japan! all things i'm interested in, so i'm looking forward to learning.

but i'm so incredibly tired, and it's only the second day of school! travelling to and from school every day is so yucky, and i've only done it for all of one day. my brain is fuzzy from lack of sleep right now, rah. i'm not upset, just tired! think i should try to do work faster so i'll be able to sleep earlier every night. i'm absolutely determined to work myself hard this sem and keep to the readings i'm supposed to do on time. need to do well. i wanna go on exchange the sem after to Australia.

funny, my writing ability seems to have deteriorated with the beginning of the school term. my sentences are all irritatingly choppy and my brain feels suspiciously empty.

the YISS conference over the weekend by Fr. Gino was surprisingly good. i say surprisingly not because i didn't expect Fr. Gino to be superb or anything other than fabulous - but because i dragged myself to St. Theresa's church on Saturday with such bad grace. i was literally having to drag my physical self all the way to Bukit Merah because i had a million and one reasons for not wanting to go. i felt disgusting cos i could feel the cramps starting up (i had just gotten my period that Saturday morning); i felt horrible and grouchy towards every single person and i just felt like snapping at every single living thing; i'd argued with my mother over everything i was wearing before leaving home - from top to earrings to shoes.

so many excuses for not wanting to go, so many ways i could justify my reluctance to attend the conference.

but i was real glad i went though, even though God had to drag me kicking and screaming, almost against my will. i attribute my ability to turn up for the conference in spite of my strong inclination to just heck it and allow my anger and irritation and pain from the cramps to dissipate over an afternoon spent at home to God - not me. in the end, i wasn't that deaf as to ignore the Spirit telling me to just shut up and go, and i'm so thankful.

after the weekend, i feel like i'm a changed person. not because of the weekend - though they were definitely mighty good and superb - but because the sessions precipitated a realization within myself and an acceptance of certain gifts God has so graciously bestowed on me but i have been keeping in poor stewardship all this while.

my attitude towards prayer and my spiritual life has been changed deeply. not a hundred-and-eighty-degree change, as many people often describe their encounters with the Holy Spirit and the embracing of Jesus as Lord and saviour of their lives; but my change seems more subtle, and yet i recognise it so clearly.

it all stemmed from Fr. Gino reminding me again about the definitive choice we have to make as Catholic charismatics - a resounding YES to Jesus, and an equally resounding NO to sin in our lives. even though i may have made that choice for the first time once before, it doesn't necessarily mean that i don't have to consciously remake this choice over and over again as i stumble and grope my way out of life's snares and obstacles. i realise that i thought i had made that choice before, and so, no longer have to bother with continuing to choose Jesus completely and reject sin totally in my life. which, up until the weekend, i didn't realise.

and how do i continue to keep making that choice for Jesus and reject sin? by praying. praying deeply, praying everyday, and meditating on the Word of God because that is God's love letter to us, anyway. God may not speak to me in bolts of lightning and rumbling thunder, in a fiery burning bush or in the parting of any sea - but He definitely can and will speak to me through His Word. how could i have not realised that until now? you have no idea how much more i treasure my Bible now that that realisation sunk in. i used to gobble up books pretty darn quickly, and lap up every single word and description in the books as the scene came alive in my own mind and the beautiful words of the prose washed over me. i loved reading, i loved books. i had and have a gift of reading and of words, of understanding sentences quickly and well. i don't understand how i could have failed to realise that my Bible is a book too, and the most beautiful and delectable one at that, too. it's better than my Harry Potter collection, my Blind Assassins, or Lolitas, anyday. those are fiction, the tales they tell are but tales - even if they are quite breathtaking and epic in scale, allowing my mind to run wild and free in the fieldscape of my imagination. the Bible is a personal love novel from my God to me, it's not imaginary or fiction, it's real. the promises God makes in the pages of the Bible; fantastical as they may sound, they're real and true, and i know that now ever so much better.

i love praying, now. i really want to expand my knowledge on my spirituality and so many other things pertaining to the mysteries of the Godly realm. put that gift of intellect to good use and deepen my spirituality rather than to just read for the sake of reading. the beauty of the gift of intellect is that once my intellect is convinced of something, it translates into my heart pretty soon after.

my eyes have been growing pimples in them, lately.

first my right eye, now my left eye! looks like mom's Eye Bright pills aren't really working, eh? they're supposed to be improving my eyesight - acting as antioxidants and all, but well.. heh. more thingys have taken to growing under my eyelids lately, rendering blinking a rather painful reflex action.

i've really been trying to tune my body clock back to normal sleeping patterns, but it's not working! i have to really drag myself out of bed at 10am every morning when the alarm rings. maybe i should aim for 930am, soon. i'm hoping to be able to jump out of bed bright and cheery at 9am every morning when school term begins in 2 weeks!

these days, inane things to blog about keep coming to me. like my sudden improvement in doing housework, my also-sudden desire to read more literary books besides Harry Potter. oh, and also my increasing need for a vaccum cleaner to work its magic in my room.

what other unimportant things i feel the need to blog about? oh, the stupidity of the CORS system. the sudden onslaught of pms on my system - something i haven't felt for the longest time ever, i even thought i was pms-free! the eruption of bumps all over my forehead. the warped weather these days which i think is largely due to global warming - we're gonna suffer the consequences of global warming and air pollution, soon. my teeth are getting crooked again and i think it's time to take out the trusty ol' retainers of my teenage years and put them on nightly, again.

planning for SEP after my CORS headache is over. planning for an internship next holiday, too. i'm this close to the working world, i'd better start getting ready cos 3 years ain't a long time. my spending habits have improved in the last month, largely due to my self-imposed imprisonment at home to ensure i don't spend. but i feel like shopping again, and i think it's cos of the influx of cash in my wallet again now that August has arrived and July has left me far behind.

my heart's at peace now and i'm no longer the angsty, upset kid i was a few months ago. so complicated, i was! i'm a lot less messed up now, and i think it's cos i don't mess myself up and let God lead me into doing whatever he wants me to do. i've given up trying to struggle for my own happiness, it just doesn't work. i've found out that God's way is always the best for me, but i tend to meander onto other possible paths and take detours and roundabouts before getting to that destination. but then again, if i hadn't trodden on those paths that i did, i wouldn't be the sum of who i am today, either. cried much, hurt much, but also learnt much, and grown much.

i don't deny that some things still bother me. but it isn't like, a pressing bother. it's more like those that come into your mind very randomly and unless you entertain the thought, it leaves you alone again soon after.

and, i need to exercise.
and sleep now. it's 330am. shucks. i'm not helping my lost cause.

today/the last few days has/have been one of those days when i feel annoyance bubbling up from somewhere inside me and threatening to completely engulf me and explode outwards to the people around. funny though, since i ought to be a more peaceful, God-loving, happy person going through the experience of Parish Renewal in the Parish Renewal Experience. pah! i haven't been more unsettled, irritated, and overall, more FRUSTRATED in a long time.

i surmise it's cos i feel i've been dragged to this to accompany my mom, hence the bad grace and the sense of being victimised or made use of. the angry tears keep threatening to well up and i feel like throwing a tremendous tantrum - but happily enough, i still possess enough presence of mind not to lose any semblence of self-control.


i sense the need for God to come into my life fully again, cos i don't know where all this anger and irritation is coming from. it seems as though sometimes, there's this other beast living in the body people know as Kelly, and it's making me feel all this bestial wrath. roar? i think i'm no more bestial than a cat, but you know what i mean lah.

lovely greyish sky today again! it's been like this the last few days. i love this kinda weather. makes me feel good staying at home, makes me want to stay home. good actually, this wanting to stay at home. cos i'm terribly TERRIBLY broke! so for the remaining of this week AND next week, i'm not gonna go anywhere that involves spending money.

the one thing that would make my homestay more cosy and enjoyable would be rain! then i can curl up in bed and take a lovely afternoon cat nap.

speaking of cats. one of those friendly neighbourhood cats attempted to get into my room early this morning! i awoke to the sound of things falling to the floor and scuffling by the window. upon further investigation, i saw dirty little pawprints on my wall - evidence of the kitty's break-in this morning.

it doesn't look like it's gonna rain afterall. :( was looking forward to curling up in bed to the sound of the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof shingles.

things have been quiet on this blog lately cos i haven't been able to put my thoughts into words. paradoxical, really, how there's so much happening up there in my mind, but when i probe deeper - nothing much at all either.

met Lynette today for a catch-up! realised that i've missed being with her. you never know how much something means to you until it disappears from your life. then you start to see that gaping hole where it once resided. friendships are all a bit like that. when i get frustrated with the way things are going, i tend to turn away from people and just keep looking within. keep turning to me and wondering what i'm feeling, why i'm feeling, and just shut everything else out.

sometimes i feel like there're a lot of things i gotta say to quite a lot of people. but then i just don't feel like talking for many reasons. i just choose to not bother about these outstanding things that ought to be settled cos i don't want to stir things up in my life. things have reached an equilibrium and i just don't want to move from this vantage point where at least the boat doesn't rock and i don't feel like throwing up from sea-sickness.

strangely enough, it's starting to get lonely where i am. though it doesn't seem to warrant loneliness from anywhere - loneliness nonetheless engulfs me and leaves me gasping for air. it's like an uncalled for sort of feeling that just creeps up on me and ambushes me.

some things just trigger reactions or memories that force me to behave strangely, still. i'm frustrated, and yet resigned to the fact that maybe, things will always be like that for me. as normal as normal gets, but not entirely tension-free or awkward-less. i'm wary about talking or sharing about myself; increasingly, as the days go by. not a good thing to be proud of, and yet i suspect it's a defense mechanism too that kicks in to prevent me from ever getting shell-shockedly hurt again. i've given up trying to bring people by the hand over to my point-of-view, to try to show them where i'm coming from and how the sunset looks from my opposite ledge. it's been a few months since i've given up and i can safely say i'm a much less emotionally wrecked up person now.

and so, we just exist as friendly strangers.

my heart is heavy and inexplicably, everything hurts more than it should. we're all lonely deep down inside. i'm no exception. i'm trying to not yield to my desires and immediate wants, to stop thinking about myself all the time and think also for those whom i love and care about. but all these extra cares are wearing me down even though i've barely begun to even try to shoulder them and i'm lost.

for a while, i thought i knew where i was headed. i thought i had everything figured out and my life was finally going to be settled and dandy. how wrong i am, because there's still so much i don't know, so much i'm unsure about. it's during times like these when i feel that my veneer of grown-up-ness and the surety and confidence that being a young woman brings - all melting away to reveal the lost little girl i still am deep inside. i think i know what i'm doing, i think i know what i'm saying, and then it all explodes in my face and i'm not sure about what i even knew to begin with.

when i see the disappointment, when i see the hurt and sadness etched in, when i see that i selfishly caused it all - i hate myself for it all the time. careless words, careless thoughts, carelessness all around. everything around me dripping in carelessness.

i'm single-handedly managing to ruin everything once again and i'm wondering how i even managed such a magnitude of confusion. i undermine my own prowess at ruining things, sometimes. this tendency to self-destruct is terribly dangerous, but how to curb it i have no clue.

then when i try to turn to God and fling myself at his feet, all that wells up in me is an overwhelming sense that he loves me. i love you, over and over again. but i don't want to be comforted, i don't want to find refuge; i want an answer. i want help. i want direction. then i feel bad cos i remember how God loves me so and i don't understand how i can just flick that knowledge aside. and i go round and round in my own head.

i'm terribly sad suddenly and i wish i knew what to do about everything. what wouldn't i give to make things right again for everyone? i'm beginning to wonder if i have a reversed Midas touch about me - everything i touch gets messed up. but then again, i remember the world doesn't revolve around me, so i'm not The Only Factor in so many things. variables i don't even know about could have contributed to the mess.

i suddenly also feel un-understood at all. not misunderstood. un-understood. that sometimes no one bothers to try to understand where i'm coming from - but that could be my own fault because most of the time, i give off the air that i'm perfectly understood and fine. i'm so cautious about certain things now, so careful about treading certain paths - and yet in all the care i take, carelessness still inevitably seeps in and ruins everything. like one of those land mines you take painstaking care to avoid, but you end up walking right into one of those potholes right in front of you in the end.

today on my way home, i was thinking about a lot of things. wondering if i could do certain things. if i could give up certain things for certain other things. wondering what would be the best thing to do. not the easiest thing this time, but the best thing for everyone. calculating my opportunity costs, and getting fed up with calculating cos i can't deal with emotions the same way that i deal with my numbers in algebra. if the equation doesn't add up - just chuck the number away.

i'm still human, after all!

Sentosa, Cathedral, Soup Spoon and Thai Express yesterday!

yummy day, yummy time i had.

days like these make me wanna stay forever where i am. and yet i also know somewhere in the back of my mind that days like these won't last forever. they're just fullstops between sentences, and the story goes on after the fullstop with yet another sentence.

as i was praying last night, something troubled me muchly. ah actually. many things trouble me muchly these days even though i seem to have minimal reason to be troubled. it's the smallest things that cause me great trouble, actually.

tomorrow always comes. even though sometimes you don't want tomorrow to come and you just want today to stay forever. all the tomorrows of my life, what do they hold in store for me? i wish i could take a peek into the future and see how my tomorrow next year will look like. on one hand, i'm ready to just heck it all and let myself get swept up in everything going on around me. don't bother to think, just do and worry about the consequences later on. but on the other, it's all too important to me to just ignore and pretend i'll be able to deal with the repercussions later.

unfortuntately, things don't always go the way we want them to. if only i knew for sure, if only i knew what i had for sure, if only i knew what i can give for sure.

God's voice is becoming increasingly faint in my life these days and i so desperately want to keep straining my ears to listen out for him. someone once chided me for clinging on tightly still in spite of everything. just let go, just give it all up to God, he said. but i choose to hang on still - hang on to God and never let go. it's tough to not give in to my physical and mental exhaustion and just do whatever pleases me. isn't it odd how your struggles seem the toughest to you? probably because they're tangible to you, whereas to others looking on, they can only imagine what you're going through - and what people imagine always doesn't measure up to what's actually going on.

SGL meeting on Saturday reminded me terribly about this verse in the bible in Ecclesiastes.

Vanity of vanity, and all is but vanity!

and i'm afraid this is what everything's about. everything in my life thus far seems to have been to feed my vanity, horrible, needy thing that it is. work is vanity, toil is vanity, and the list goes on. it's hard to accept that, but i think there's some degree of truth in what the guy Qoheleth says. to some extent, everything that we do save the pursuit for God in our lives as a personal journey - is vanity. i say pursuit of God as a personal journey cos sometimes i feel that people (especially in communities) 'seek' God because they want to attain spiritual status over their peers. i'm not guiltless of that, mind you, but being aware of this possibility helps keep me in check and makes me evaluate my pursuit of God in my life and examine my intentions behind everything i do. it's not easy to maintain such a high degree of self-awareness. sometimes you just wish you didn't know so much about yourself, cos it seems like the more you learn about yourself, the uglier a person you appear to be.

upon discovering what a horrible, yucky person i am deep inside, i shuddered and wanted to die. wanted to just stop it all, stop knowing so much. it's hard, it's definitely not pretty. you wonder why God loves you so much in spite of your yuckiness, then you stop and berate yourself cos you know that God's love for you is unconditional. not for laudable reasons and merits about you, but unexplanable, undeserved, and illogical sometimes.

i wish people'd practice what they preached. talking so much and knowing so much isn't enough in life. don't live in fear, someone told me. nothing doing, i say now. i'm suddenly very tired of everything and i'm not quite sure what to do anymore.

i've more or less planned out my timetable for next semester already. by some divine providence, my entire schedule sort of suits my nocturnal nature! my earliest class is 11am, and i'll end at 6pm most days. and.. i have a 4-day week! i have Fridays off. yes, even with tutorials planned in. most amazingly, there were no tutorial slots on Friday for any of the modules i'm planning to take.



i'm looking forward to the semester. looking forward to getting a good start to the sem, working hard and getting (hopefully) much better results. mods next sem seem a lot more interesting, for one thing! actually, arts mods are all seemingly a lot more interesting i guess.



am currently waiting for my painted toe nails to dry before i put on the top coat. i realise i only bother to repaint my nails when i'm feeling good about myself. like, i'll do everything. cut my finger nails, shave my legs, the works. i think i only bother to take care of me when i feel there's reason to do that. shouldn't it be like, the other way round? or a year-round, all-the-time kinda thing?



have been increasingly frustrated where my prayer life is concerned lately though. i'm mightily unsettled and confused, i can't decide what to do, and it's making me IRRITATED.

some days, i just sit where i am and stare out of my bedroom window, watching the fluffy white clouds float by in the deep blue sky.
other days, i fling myself down onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling, watching the spider weave its web and letting the bright light blind me.

what goes on beneath the calm surface?
wouldn't you like to know.

don't want to lose me, don't want to have to change myself - i say. but nonetheless, i tell you i'll try. so hard, but no choice. i'll have to try. ain't worth it, not to. my feelings, i'm learning how to control them a bit. ignore them a bit. leave them be a bit. shuffle them down the rankings of my Important-Things list a bit.

my middle name, Marie, means bitterness. and other cheery things like sea of sorrow and the like. sort of gives me a license to be melancholy, doesn't it? melancholy never leaves me. it's always lurking somewhere deep in me - i suspect i was made with a huge dose of melancholy and the like when God was creating the fibres of my being in heaven. there's always that little tinge of sadness in the reccesses of my soul, and i'm learning to just embrace it as part of me and not worry too much about it.

i'm happy now, i'm contented and very much happily and contentedly in love. with life, with him, with God, with everything. but at the same time, there're little vestiges of things that keep nibbling on my heels and annoying me, like one of those toy dogs that keep snapping at your heels when they want to play and you don't want to play with them. i'm learning how to ignore these left-over irrational nonsensical things, but to be able to do that i'm taking drastic measures - or am about to, anyway. i don't know if taking the most drastic and retardedly over-the-top course of action is the way to go, but i don't know how else to deal.


from Keats' Ode to Sorrow
... To Sorrow,
I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept;
And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.

JOHN KEATS


i feel a lot like that sometimes, that misery and melancholy loves me dearly and is ever so constant in my life, so faithful. ah well.

i am the most horrible person alive and i ought to be flung into the sea.

i am a horrible specimen of a human being and i am disgusted with myself.
i know what it's like to be hurt by someone i care for, and i tell myself that no, i will never do the same thing.
and do i not do it?

no.

over and over and over and fricking over again.

wicked girl. i deserve not to be loved.

the past 2 days have seen me waking up at record early mornings! i was up at 7am this morning for 8.30am mass, and 10am yesterday morning to make it down for worship at 1.15pm.

that'd be good, all this early morning waking-up - if i slept earlier too. but i haven't. i haven't been able to. i haven't been sleeping well the last few days, having to stay up till 5am to exhaust myself to sleep so i don't think and think my brains out as i drift away to sleep.

my thoughts crowd my head at night just before i fall asleep and make it very noisy in there. it makes it hard to sleep even after i've quietened myself down somewhat. hence, the need to tire myself out to the point that i don't think, i just sleep.

conversation with God these days are somewhat dominated by 2 main things. i think God must be getting bored of me - who doesn't get bored with someone who keeps nattering on about something over and over, even when there's nothing new to say? ah well.

it came to me last night that i'm immeasurably peturbed and i don't like this feeling. i don't like feeling what i am feeling, and i try to chuck it out. try, have tried, am trying. not succeeding? but rah, it's frustrating. i'm not masochistic, i don't like to experience pain. it's only natural for me to want to protect myself. but is that right?

funny, i don't hear any one else asking themselves "is that right?" before they decide to do or say things. if everyone did that, people would cause each other a lot less hurt. i'm aware that my words and actions have certain repercussions, and i try to minimize that. God wouldn't want me to be going around ignorantly hurting others with careless words or deeds, and i wouldn't want to either. don't want to. God said in Galatians 5 to love my neighbour. love my neighbour before i can love God. i think that's the order - if i can't even love my neighbour who's right in front of me, how can i claim to love God who i can't even see? well, true, it's a lot easier to dislike people who we can see, too. but it's also a whole lot easier to love the other people we see.

i can't decide what to do, in all honesty. i'm not sure i'm willing to put myself in such a postion again when i'm on the brink of blissful freedom and i'm just about to fling myself out of the door and run far far away to a nicer elsewhere. i don't want things holding me down, those chain balls that drag me down and keep me from taking flight. i want to live, and i do or don't do certain things so i can really live. not exist, live. i don't want to exist in misery anymore. so all those things that cause me misery must go. i don't want to exist in unwantedness, either. so all those things that cause me to feel unwanted must go, too. all these negative feelings in me, i don't need them anymore. they must all go. i'm this close to running from them. do i want to sit down for a minute to think and risk not being able to shake off those shackles? i'm not sure i want to.

i'm not sure i'm so unselfish either. i'm not sure i'm able to, either.

i'm so aware of what i think and feel, and yet unable to really say anything cos i'm trying so hard to bury everything in my subconscious, banish them to the realms of my subconscious. it makes it all the harder, knowing what i know and feeling none the better for whatever i'm doing, and yet having to bear the brunt of judgement too on top of the horrid feeling i'm already feeling.

the stakes are much higher this time round. i cannot afford to slip up again.

my prayer for the 7th of July 2007 (07.07.07!):


Father God, that you will show me what you want me to do.
that you will lend me some of your infinite patience, oh, just a little.
Father, i want to know that you are all i need, that you are more than enough for me.
i want to know this with my heart.
let me not feel bitter whenever feelings of being unwanted, unloved or rejected prick me,
because you want me, you love me, and you want to embrace me.
and there is no need for bitterness.

Father God, i ask that you send down your Spirit upon me,
that you send down your sweet Spirit of gentleness onto me.
let your Spirit fill my heart with your love, God.
love for everyone around me, whether they deserve it or not.
Spirit, please teach me how to be wise,
how to be patient,
how to be loving,
how to be forgiving.
i want to do what's right in your eyes, Lord,
and not what my willful heart desires for itself.

you see the depths of my heart, God,
you see the things that i've hidden so well or buried so deep.
and through the ugliness, through the mess,
you still love me,
and i thank you, Lord, for loving me undeservedly.

whisper to me your guiding words, Lord.
root out all that will lead me away from you,
and instead, replace them with what will lead me to you.
let me not live in my selfish ways anymore,
but live in me everyday of my life.

Amen.

okay. sleeping on the pull-out bed in MY ROOM everynight for the last say, 4, 5 nights - is not funny at all.
not funny AT ALL.
having to creep around in my room for fear of waking my mother up - isn't really very funny either.
having to apologise when i sneeze or cough in my room - is totally unfunny.

i can't sleep like this anymore. either my nose will lose it completely, or i will. the dust on the bed that i'm forced to sleep in is present in huge quantities.
so huge, that my sinus problem just kicks in and runs away.
if the air-con man doesn't repair the air-con in my mother's room soon, i am going to find someone who can because i cannot live with my mother taking over my room for much longer without not saying anything remotely unpleasant to her. for 5 days, i've been gritting my teeth and saying "sure mom, you can sleep in my room tonight again" (even though she didn't really need to ask, she just plops herself on my bed anyway) with a painfully forced little smile on my face.

i wake up today with severe dust allergy symptoms kicking in and i want to cry out of frustration. tonight, tomorrow night. rah. i bet the air-con won't be repaired on Friday still, and i have to endure ANOTHER bloody week. i think i will come downstairs to sleep on the sofa or something. i need my personal space back.

my days have been surprisingly busy, surprisingly! aites, bad english here. oh well. my language is deteriorating terribly, given that we hardly have to write many essays in uni, anyway.

feeling loads better now! cramps have almost deserted me (many hoorays and whoops of joy for that!), got my allowance for the month, and things at home are somewhat at an equilibrium for now too.

i take back what i said the previous post, though. i haven't lost respect for her. on the contrary, i still do respect her. i still do love her, very much.

i respect her because she loves him. even though it's so hard to find reasons to keep on, she does it anyway. even though to her, he deserves none of her love, she does it anyway. and that is why i respect her, because i know how it feels - and it sure as hell doesn't feel good. that is why she keeps emphasizing the importance of eventually being with someone who loves you, who you know for sure loves you. i never understood why she kept harping on it, but now i think i can sort of understand. it's so you don't get hurt most of the time, it's so you're not on the losing end, it's so you don't end up feeling so despairingly frustrated at your own stupidity.

the hardest lessons that people have to learn is to love unconditionally. is to love like how God loves. everytime someone tells me about how difficult it is to love unconditionally, the extent of unconditional - it always hits me hard and i feel for them immediately. everytime someone crys because they still love in spite of a myriad of reasons telling them not to, i feel too cos i know how it feels. it's frustrating, it's so hard to understand, to accept, and ultimately, you just want to stop loving cos you want to stop the hurt. stop caring, then stop hurting. so many people around me right now who're learning what it's like to love unconditionally, like how God loves, and nothing i can do except to tell them that i know how it feels. exactly how it feels. God prolly taught me then so i'll be able to relate now.

and what also struck me was that it seems as though girls learn unconditional love a lot quicker than guys do. i'm not saying guys are incapable of it, but it seems as though girls have a greater propensity to stumble upon it in the course of their loving someone. living examples around me, living example in me.

it's such a hard, painful lesson to learn, and oftentime you just want it all to stop.

i'm glad i saw it through though, cos i'm where i am now because of everything i've learnt. i'm glad i didn't shut off completely - although i was so close to doing that - or i wouldn't be who i am now, either.

it'd be a pity to let one failed attempt to find mutual unconditional love hinder other attempts. i learnt what i could from it all, the memory still stings badly, but that's all it is after all - a memory. i wouldn't want to lose myself to memories.



i do want to live. very much. i do want to keep living. very much. i'm grateful for having lived, too. i got this in an email recently, and it really struck a chord within me since.

we make them cry, those who care for us.
we cry for those who never care for us.
we care for those who will never cry for us.

i never want the first line to be true for me again. i'm going to live my life trying not to let anyone who cares for me cry for me anymore. too painful, too cruel, too heartless, too ignorant.

i feel disgusting. absolutely disgusting. time of the month, time of suffering.
i didn't ask to be born like that. i didn't ask for my body. i had no choice. i was born like that. cramps will be the death of me before i turn 30. i've been having them every single lousy month since almost 10 years ago now, and it's not getting any better.

i have no respect for her anymore, too.
unreasonability ranks very low in my books. i have very little patience for that.

killmenowplease. sure, there's such a lot of life to see. but i'm so tired of the pain that plagues me, of so many things, that sometimes i just think it doesn't matter if i don't wake up tomorrow. just slip away quietly in my sleep, so my soul can take flight and find its way to God where it belongs, anyway.

as i sit here feeling goosebumps prickle me and my feet feeling oh-too-cold and my hands trembling with the sharp waves of pain, i'm not looking forward to tonight when she comes home and goes on her rants again. nothing i say makes a difference, she's beyond reasoning and it's taking all my self-control to stop myself from saying a lot of cutting things. today, as i tried to close my eyes and sleep the cramps away, she didn't - couldn't - leave me in peace. even though i was obviously in some sort of pain, she couldn't leave me alone. fling the door wide open, scream scream scream, demand me to do stupid things. when i say something, i'm rude. when i keep quiet cos i can't say anything, it's too painful to open my mouth, i'm rude also. never satisfied, that's what she is.

let her think whatever she wants already. i'm too drained from this afternoon to explain anything. i hate being me, i hate having my body. i didn't choose to be like this, can't you see? if i could, there're so many things i'd choose to leave out from me and my body. RAH. frustrated and so tired.