End of a fortnight

It’s the last day of the week and two weeks since it began albeit a public holiday at the beginning of this week and a “play day” of sorts mid of this week. Nevertheless it hasn’t been easy.

I wonder what’s wrong but I constantly experience brain fog whenever I try to read something; I’m unable to focus and I just feel restless and cold (in all these highly-air-conditioned spaces we have in Singapore be it work or leisure spaces). People here definitely love their cool environments, which have often proven to be too cold for my comfort.

I need the resilience and tenacity to last this stretch. For as long as I can but my goal has a possibly shorter-term horizon ahead – 2 to 2.5 years. That is how long I estimate I’ll reach that ribbon to cross and then anything beyond would be a bonus to me. Two weeks in out of a plausible 2.5 years feels like just a tiny little dent in what’s going to become an arduous journey and balancing act that is already feeling somewhat exhausting and debilitating.

Breathe….

Nosh

Sometimes I wonder (as usual my mind never cease with its wondering and wandering), if I’ve always tended to monopolise conversations, consciously or otherwise, voluntarily or not. The result is that I err in oversharing which could and has led to situations that involve broken friendships, and also friendships that feel too one-sided where I have someone I consider a friend but know next to nothing about. It’s a strange predicament yet I am not sure it is in me to probe if the other is unwilling to openly share more about one’s life.

vibrant colours

Economical option in an uneconomical location; only downside is that I made a mistake in my choice that caused the rest of the items to be drowning in a pool of sodium-laced sauce. But maybe this would still yield greater satisfaction and satiety as compared to eating a couple of breakfast buns that would carry the same amount of calories?

Hump day

It’s Wednesday and just less than halfway into it, still grappling with how best to manage and balance. It’s rather exhausting to say the least but I need to stay focused. Part of my brain is going into overdrive with the balancing act while low key panicking about the steep learning curve that accompanies a deluge of information overload of new things to pick up, especially when it’s something that’s left halfway through.

pricey lunches even if it’s just simple fare

seems to have changed after not being here for a while

New start

Let’s go, Monday. Lord, please bless me with the right attitude and mindset to carry me through this new phase You’ve brought me into.

Had to make some changes to my usual due to certain reasons.. which saw me heading to the gym, which I’m honestly not really that fond of because my legs are perpetually tired and I associate gym work with a lot of legwork, since I’m not really well acquainted with the use of weights or certain other machines. I probably only know how to use the treadmill, the bike and perhaps the elliptical machine, all of which just screams massive legwork. Nonetheless I went.. and did a grand total of … 15 minutes slow jogging on the treadmill haha. OMG I’m such a disgrace and it’s not even considered a workout per se.

But that was because I knew I wouldn’t last on the treadmill like how I used myself onto it when I didn’t have other choices back in the biz traveling days. So since there was this other option available to me, which was a 45-minute virtual class, aka watching a prerecorded video for RPM (cycling), I thought I’d go for that too and not have to stress myself with keeping up with the instructions since the instructors were all on screen only and also there was only one other person who joined the class, who was rather faraway from me so no judgment (I hope) when I was slacking or cycling too darn slowly or out of sync. In all honesty I really did try my best. My legs/quads were really crying when I did the hill climbs because somehow the resistance seemed to just abruptly turn heavy with a small twist of the knob. Or I was just too weak and out of practice with spinning. I can’t even recall when was the last spin class I did and I did anyhow let 14 of my classes lapse when my previous package with a spin studio expired.

So it was a weird morning of sorts, of exercises I hadn’t done for eons and which somehow still didn’t really make me break into the sweat I was wont and desired to have when I attend hot yoga. So I guess.. these are the kinds of compromises I have to make, the adjustments I need to make, and I have to be ok with them and not let them get them get the better of me…

insomnia

It’s 3am. I’m awake. I can’t get back to sleep and prior to that I’d been tossing about since 11pm unable to slip into slumber, and had awoken at 1am from an unpleasant and weird dream for a bathroom visit as well.

The dream left me feeling like how I’d usually feel in reality – uncertain of myself and wondering what others are saying and judging of me, regardless if the people in my dream were family, including oddly, both my grandmothers who have passed on many years ago. It could be due to the various posts I’d been reading about grandmothers arising from the recent demise of the UK monarch. More insidiously was how the dream was marked by disapproval from family of me, of something I wasn’t aware of or could be aware of – something happening in my subconscious that I hadn’t control over. It was disconcerting and it was sad.

I think my next stage of slumber has another dream which I couldn’t recall but I awoke at 3am from itch caused by mosquitoes I gather. The bites from mosquitoes here seem to differ from what I’d gotten before so I wasn’t sure and was sometimes left wondering if there were other things I should be more concerned about. Although I would also be concerned about the ongoing spate of dengue cases…

Sigh. Why is life so hard. I start to get anxious about my state of unemployment. While the nation is seeing record low numbers of citizen unemployment, I belong in the minority, even if I chose it voluntarily but am now unable to reenter the job market into a profession or job I want. Is this really going to be my life that I would have to do something I don’t want to or possibly accept a grossly low-paying job just to make ends meet?

And while I’m fretting about the possibility of a long wait before something comes along, despite knowing and reminding myself this is not what trusting and resting in God is… I’m slipping back into the chronic people pleasing mentality again. It hurts and pains so much when someone I hang on so tightly to as a friend (or desire to) somehow treats me as a second grade person; I’m never the one she approaches to speak to as she would rather not speak and engage with me but when someone else appears the attitude is one of such friendliness it really kills me. There was once we were walking towards each other facing each other and I waved and said hi but she just looked through me. I include her in my CFL on IG but she doesn’t bother to look at my story posts even when she’s active (which I can see)… why am I behaving like a puppy, spurned yet still trying to get into the person’s favour? I sometimes feel disgusted by myself how I keep trying to ingratiate myself with her but I just can’t seem to help it and this seemed to be built into my DNA when it comes to certain people. It’s almost as if I’ve been casted a voodoo spell.

constant reminders… notes to self

I have to keep telling myself that things are never really in and of themselves a be-all-and-end-all. Maybe if it were a terminal illness… but otherwise, nothing really signifies a definitive conclusion to our lives.

So, I was rather distraught when I got rejected for a job that I had applied for without initially having much expectation that I would even be shortlisted. However, shortlisted I was and then I went through more than month of attending a series of interviews that led me onto an expectant path of snaring the job. But I guess I was really too naïve for my own good and that is perhaps how things work in that sector where it is the norm for people to progress into advanced stages of the interviews in order for the team to decide who is the best person to bring on board. It certainly did not help that I received the notification via email and I really did not know why it hit me so hard.

I saw the email and read it while I was outside and immediately, I could feel the rush of emotions surging from within, bringing hot stinging tears brimming in my eyes as I tried to blink them back and choke back the hard big lump that formed in my throat. It was hard to accept but yet it is the cold harsh truth that I have to accept. Life is like that, there are always such rejections that we will encounter; maybe I have had more than my fair share as compared to others and that is also because I made myself enter into such circumstances with the past decisions I made in my professional journey. I have only myself to blame but then again, life is indeed as short as it can be even if it often feels like an eternity to those living it and not exactly having the time of their lives (again this warrants another separate discussion), too short to actually stay put and wonder about the what-ifs. While many of the decisions made weren’t exactly wise, they would have somehow contributed something to my life that I can take away positively or at least wistfully.

So I need to cut myself some slack. This I need to tell myself, after all there really is no point ‘crying over spilt milk’ because what is done has been done; I cannot rewrite history or turn back time and even if I could I cannot guarantee that another decision taken would have turned out with a better outcome.

It is once again back to the process of applying fervently for jobs. It feels like I am just casting aimlessly into the deep sea without getting anything back in return each time I pull in the nets. Breathe. Cry and let the tears flow; then get back up on your feet and continue this plod through life. Until such day when Jesus comes back for us.