It has been a rather long time since I last blogged, and I think this might be my last blog post, ever. The last time I stopped blogging was when Enoch left for Calgary and I knew we were over for good; that was sometime in Year 2 Sem 1. I removed everything from my blog and put up the lyrics of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides, Now, along with a Suitably Emo Picture. For all that, it's a good song, a good Growing Up song. Although Ben Folds' Still Fighting It comes a close second.
No, I haven't broken up with Jon and I don't think that's ever going to happen, however unhappy we make each other sometimes. Because even when I'm at my most pissed off with him, or he says or does something which makes me wonder What The Hell Were You Thinking, it breaks my heart to have to be even the teensiest bit mean. Which is what girls usually are when their boyfriends piss them off. I can't betray my gender, can I?
People do stop blogging for other reasons: I wonder how many of us will still continue with our blogs when we start work. It's not so much about having nothing to blog about, because there will always be things going on in our lives, photographs we want to share. I wanted to have a National Day post this year, sharing about how I wanted to cry when I heard all the national songs - I'd barely just come back from Beijing. Despite Nathan Hartono ruining Tanya Chua's pretty passable contribution to the National Collection of Annual Cheese, Where I Belong, and despite the show segment of the parade paling vastly in comparison with the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I was never prouder or happier to be Singaporean and back in Singapore.
Things like that, you know? And I'm around 7 months shy of the Working World, this is the kind of post you write when you have your last exam, when you walk down Bukit Timah Campus Mountain for the Very Last Time.
But I think it's time to stop blogging. For now, anyway. Even if I have things to say, by the time I get to Lenny and an Internet connection I'm Too Tired to write anything, and I feel like I no longer want anyone to know what I'm thinking. Like how I've been going out of my way to avoid most people - it's become exhausting to say hi, and risk the possibility of small talk which I'm finding more and more impossible to make. Not least because people hurt you in ways they don't even imagine would hurt, and while I'm learning not to be bitter, hurt is one of those things only time heals.
This is my second last mid-semester break, and I've spent the past three days in school doing my IT Law 1 assignment, which is due tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Yesterday I sat in the library for hours at a stretch, only taking toilet and meal breaks. By the time Jon arrived to pick me up (thank God he got the car) when the library closed, all I could do was open the door and sink into the passenger seat and tell him how miserable I was. My shoulders were stiff and aching from sitting upright, and I couldn't quite move my fingers properly after typing for so long.
Is being a laywer going to be like this? No, I think it's going to be worse, and respite will come less and less often. I tell myself now, and pray like anything that I will choose the right thing, the Jesus thing to do, when the time does come to choose - but only recently I've realised Just How Hard it is to do even that.
It's not because I want to feel noble, or that I'm a wonderful person for being able to give up the riches of the world - I just don't want to spend what are supposed to be the best years of my life feeding the vanity of people who don't need more money than they already have, to who I'm but a pawn in the grander scheme of things. It's not just in Singapore, but a large majority of modern civilised society which has traded emotions and human relations for money and concrete; most of the time, it's so much easier to give in to pressure. No matter how awful you feel after that. Forget committments, forget true love - the world promises that there will always be something else to take away the emptiness, but you know, that's a Big Fat Lie.
I feel different from before, and although I was Rather Miserable in Year 3 because Jon wasn't around and I went to Beijing, the contrast between how I feel now compared to the past 3 years in school is more marked than it ever was. I don't think it's hormones, and although I call it a "crisis," which it is, after a fashion, I doubt I'm ever going to go back to feeling the same way I did before. Which is a good and a bad thing, because I'd rather feel this way and know that I've matured than go on trying to be Happy and Cheerful but Bloody Ignorant. Yet I feel that I've become more bitter and intolerant; so many times, I wish the world would Leave Me Alone.
Everybody knows it hurts to grow up.
I'll survive, though, I think.
No, I haven't broken up with Jon and I don't think that's ever going to happen, however unhappy we make each other sometimes. Because even when I'm at my most pissed off with him, or he says or does something which makes me wonder What The Hell Were You Thinking, it breaks my heart to have to be even the teensiest bit mean. Which is what girls usually are when their boyfriends piss them off. I can't betray my gender, can I?
People do stop blogging for other reasons: I wonder how many of us will still continue with our blogs when we start work. It's not so much about having nothing to blog about, because there will always be things going on in our lives, photographs we want to share. I wanted to have a National Day post this year, sharing about how I wanted to cry when I heard all the national songs - I'd barely just come back from Beijing. Despite Nathan Hartono ruining Tanya Chua's pretty passable contribution to the National Collection of Annual Cheese, Where I Belong, and despite the show segment of the parade paling vastly in comparison with the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I was never prouder or happier to be Singaporean and back in Singapore.
Things like that, you know? And I'm around 7 months shy of the Working World, this is the kind of post you write when you have your last exam, when you walk down Bukit Timah Campus Mountain for the Very Last Time.
But I think it's time to stop blogging. For now, anyway. Even if I have things to say, by the time I get to Lenny and an Internet connection I'm Too Tired to write anything, and I feel like I no longer want anyone to know what I'm thinking. Like how I've been going out of my way to avoid most people - it's become exhausting to say hi, and risk the possibility of small talk which I'm finding more and more impossible to make. Not least because people hurt you in ways they don't even imagine would hurt, and while I'm learning not to be bitter, hurt is one of those things only time heals.
This is my second last mid-semester break, and I've spent the past three days in school doing my IT Law 1 assignment, which is due tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Yesterday I sat in the library for hours at a stretch, only taking toilet and meal breaks. By the time Jon arrived to pick me up (thank God he got the car) when the library closed, all I could do was open the door and sink into the passenger seat and tell him how miserable I was. My shoulders were stiff and aching from sitting upright, and I couldn't quite move my fingers properly after typing for so long.
Is being a laywer going to be like this? No, I think it's going to be worse, and respite will come less and less often. I tell myself now, and pray like anything that I will choose the right thing, the Jesus thing to do, when the time does come to choose - but only recently I've realised Just How Hard it is to do even that.
It's not because I want to feel noble, or that I'm a wonderful person for being able to give up the riches of the world - I just don't want to spend what are supposed to be the best years of my life feeding the vanity of people who don't need more money than they already have, to who I'm but a pawn in the grander scheme of things. It's not just in Singapore, but a large majority of modern civilised society which has traded emotions and human relations for money and concrete; most of the time, it's so much easier to give in to pressure. No matter how awful you feel after that. Forget committments, forget true love - the world promises that there will always be something else to take away the emptiness, but you know, that's a Big Fat Lie.
I feel different from before, and although I was Rather Miserable in Year 3 because Jon wasn't around and I went to Beijing, the contrast between how I feel now compared to the past 3 years in school is more marked than it ever was. I don't think it's hormones, and although I call it a "crisis," which it is, after a fashion, I doubt I'm ever going to go back to feeling the same way I did before. Which is a good and a bad thing, because I'd rather feel this way and know that I've matured than go on trying to be Happy and Cheerful but Bloody Ignorant. Yet I feel that I've become more bitter and intolerant; so many times, I wish the world would Leave Me Alone.
Everybody knows it hurts to grow up.
I'll survive, though, I think.
There's a verse that I hold very close whenever I feel down:
ReplyDelete"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
- Joshua 1:9
CY @ Wesley MC