Sunday Nights

Sunday nights are a little like family nights right now, and it's such a blessing. No, it's not my family and it's not Ivan's family, but they are our family in Christ. It's really Ian's family, and they've welcomed us into their home with such gusto.. every Sunday there's a home cooked meal by Uncle Poh Suan that just speaks volume about how hospitable they are. They've hosted us every week for as long as Alpha has been going (with a few weeks in between where they're away, or we can't make it) but it's been so awesome to be at their house that even on the weeks when we're not having Alpha per se, we still go over to hang out. It's become a Sunday night routine that I don't think I'll ever be willing to give up. That's our family away from home.

Who is this Lord?

Who is this Lord, who knows me so. Who is this Lord who has taken away all anguish and all pain from my body and my mind, even after I tried everything before Him and did not turn to Him? When all the drugs in the world and all the therapy and all the human comfort in the world did nothing to change my life, He gave me His breath of life, and I am reborn. There are just so many things I have too many words for, too many thoughts I cannot pen quickly enough, and everyday my life and my mind are filled with a myriad of praises for His good word, for His good love and for His amazing and perfect will. God just brings me to my knees, and yet He raises me up. Everything in my life, good or bad in the initial have all worked out exactly as He intended. Perhaps not in the way He intended, but He has brought me closer to Him each time. Every issue I have tried to skirt, every pain I thought would not be healed, He has taken them all under His wing and changed my life. I cannot, simply cannot convince myself that Jesus, my Lord and saviour, does not exist. My mind, my body, my soul and my spirit cannot comprehend this concept any longer, no matter the foul depths of hell I might be in. I have experienced His living waters, and there is no turning back. This is my life, this is my God, this is everything I am meant to be. Amen.

I just keep hoping that your heart opens.

I've never wanted so badly to be different. Or perhaps I have and I've simply forgotten. I think at the time it was more an issue of existence, rather than projecting my being onto another person's existence. It's not so much that I want to be like any one particular person I meet, but I'd rather be a mash of them all. When I adore my friends, I want to be like them. In some ways, I feel it's a shabby means of drawing one's identity. It falls apart too quickly and there are too many variables. Too many ideals and too many people to idealise. And soon it starts to feel like despair, not knowing and always being confused about who you want to be. It's not that I don't like who I am, don't get me wrong, but there's always the allure of being someone else and living some other life. It's more about not being yourself, even if just for a moment. And soon enough the moment will be gone, and you'll go back to trudging through your daily life and enjoying the little things that make you who you are - like mopping the floors at 4 am and knowing very thoroughly that it's a very you thing to do.

On a side note, it's gotten to the point now where if I tell Alex that I'm not at work for the day, he says "okay, sorry, get back to cleaning". Am I that predictable? I guess I just can't help myself, but I do feel very good about cleaning up most of the house today. I actually got the kitchen cupboard organizing done today, which I've been putting off and off and off. But it really only took about ten minutes and just all the willpower in the world. It feels so good that it's done though! It's like ripping off a band aid. You just put it off and off and off and then when it's done you realise you should have just done it earlier because it was so easy! And it made you feel so good! But this is a concept that is lost on Ivan. It's difficult to get him to do ANY housework. And I wouldn't mind doing it all if we were married and he was supporting me. I mind a little bit now that I'm doing it all, but I really don't think I would if we were husband and wife. I'm old fashioned, but to me it's probably my "duty". Having a maid would be nice, just to get the grungy stuff out of the way, then I get to focus on organizing, which is really my forte.

I'm pretty tired today. I managed to organize, dust, sweep and vacuum the living room, ditto on the kitchen (including organizing the kitchen cupboard shelves according to appropriate food categories) and cleaning the toilet bowl and wiping the veneers. Of course, the whole time I was cleaning the toilet bowl I was having a conversation with myself in a full British accent. Very reminiscent of the days I used to walk home from school and argue with myself in British accents. A little insane, but it did help me practice my oral skills back then and I attribute my keenness on the accent to practicing so much. And it helps me affirm that I'm crazy as well. That's always a useful trait to have on hand.

"Why did you not pay your rent?"
"Oh, you know. I'm crazy."
"Oh, I see. Well, alright then."

There's still so much to do, but I feel better about today. I'm not sure why I ended up feeling so lost but there really is just too much to do, and I'm spending too much time avoiding doing it all.

Time to start the daily grind.

Inertia

It's too easy, too easy to get sucked into the despair that accompanies unemployment, lack of job prospects, bills to pay and no hope for a stable future anytime soon. It's too easy to be jealous of all the girls out there getting 20K a month from their parents to travel, eat drink sleep and be merry, and on top of that they live in gorgeous houses and will never have to worry about paying a mortgage. It is too easy to despair and too difficult to be just right. I really hate money and dealing with it. Having, owing, spending, saving, earning.. none of these things are easy and I feel like so many people can't relate, and the ones that can are doing okay. It's mostly me. I don't like to talk to people who would understand these problems because I just fall into the motions of silence. It sucks to stay home, it sucks to go to a job that doesn't pay well, it sucks to need a place to live and the fear of being homeless. It feels like I'm a little out of options. I have bills to pay, household chores to do, work to do, skills to learn, a job to get, and nothing is falling into place.

If problems were raindrops, I'm definitely in a rainstorm.

I'm so mad about so many things right now, or perhaps mad isn't the right word. Sometimes when I take a bath I just want to duck under and not come up. I want the silence that comes when water fills my ears and to feel that pang in my chest just go away. It is difficult to be anything, even dead.

I don't know why, but every time Ivan leaves Vancouver, I IMMEDIATELY become bored. Even before he leaves on the plane, I'll find myself really restless. I don't know what to do with myself, and I wish that all the things that need to be done while he's away would just get done, such as the housework. I hate doing housework when he's away, but it's the only thing other than applying for jobs that I think would suffice as jobs for my spare time. It is truly a pain in the ass. But I don't want to complain, I just want to get things done. I think the real problem lies in the fact that after 2 days, when he returns, I know it's going to go back to the state it was in. I don't know why my inertia is so high when he's around, and why I'm okay with mess and grime when he's here. It's horrid! I'm not okay with it, really, but it just happens to be there and I just happen to live with it. Which is basically being okay with it, I suppose.

I will clean the house when he is away. And I hope he'll help me keep it clean when he returns. In the meantime, since there are only so many things I can do, I shall try to go out and keep my mind as sane as possible. I NEED TO GET PAID, COME NOW, THURSDAY.

Also, the place I work for keeps calling me to tell me there's no work. This is very troubling because they did promise a certain number of hours of work and now it's not happening. I don't know whether or not to kick up a fuss.

The Science of Loneliness

It's strange to be alone. It's strange to lose your best friend to distance, to both be falling in love and not know a thing about each other's love lives. It's sad to be so far away, both physically and emotionally, to have lost touch with each other in more ways than one, but saddest of all, it's sad to grow old apart.

It's really difficult to have a best friend who doesn't keep in touch with you! :(

Some days I confuse myself. I feel so alone because nobody seems to care much, but at the same time, those who are caring are really just bothering the crap out of me. Leave me alone! I don't need your do-gooder advice. The view is just lovely from where I am.

Sometimes I wonder why the ache in my heart is so severe and prominent. I don't want to love you if it hurts this much. I don't want to be the one who loves you more. I don't want to live like this.. Is it wrong for me to expect more sensitivity from you during this time when you know I'm in pain and fear?

I too, want to go away..

When does my real life start?

Why do I always feel like I'm in trouble?? I don't have bad spending habits, but I always have to feel bad about money I'm spending. This is why I cannot wait to start my real life.

Fashion Literacy

Oh my goodness. Ivan and I are undergoing a massive clean up of the house, and it's really quite hilarious. He set his new shelf up about a week ago and then left it there to collect dust, and being the bean that I am, I took it upon myself to dig all his stuff out of his closet (which had been messily shoved in) and started to display, dust and shelve everything I could find. 20 minutes ago, I decided to revamp the closet, and then appeared all the bad clothes.

I had to sit there for 10 minutes explaining to Ivan why he should throw away one of his shirts. It's the dirtiest, raggiest polo I've ever seen in my life. it's a shit-brown-purple colour with a collar a mile high, straight as a piece of cardboard, with those intentional rips that make it look like his shirt had caught on fire one day when lightning struck him, and the patches here and there from overwashing which made it look like a hobo shirt. I HAD TO EXPLAIN THIS TO HIM. I almost blew my brains out trying to be nice about it, but I told him that even if he were to make it a home shirt, I would have to punch his face everytime I walk past him wearing that shirt. So he ruefully threw the shit-brown-purple one away and kept the exact same one, just in the apple green colour. I couldn't bring myself to make him throw both away because the look on his face was just about a mile long, but I almost shit my pants laughing about the whole matter because I couldn't believe I had to explain this hobo, 90s boyband shirt into the donation bin.

I just read him what I wrote and he said very indignantly "It's abercrombie and fitch OKAY". Hahahah, yeah, okay. It's still shit-ugly. Heeheehehehehe.

He's having the most stressful night of his life because I made him re-organize his closet. Say whhuuuutttt!! He should thank me. Although I did make him refold all his tshirts a thousand times because they weren't all perfect and straight and the same size.

First nosebleed of my life.

It's not even spontaneous. I was cleaning my nose (I felt like it was dirty) and accidentally scratched it really hard so now it's bleeding. It feels really awful. I feel like I need to scratch the other nostril in the same place now, but what's really driving me nuts is just how shocked I was to see clean, openly flowing blood coming from my nose. It feels raw. I feel like I have a tic and an itch and I NEED to scratch the other side but I really don't want to bleed from the other nostril. This is such a dilemma.

In other news, my midterm is tomorrow, for which my professor decided he would like to test us on 3/4 of the course material. Crazy nut. Plus it's a math intensive course with lots of formulas and we don't get a cheat sheet. That's terrible. I have been studying, but I feel like my brain might bust if I continue to look at the material. I have to do it though, I still have lots to go so I will pull myself together in a little bit. In the meantime, I gotta do something about my nose. IT'S DRIVING ME NUTS. There's the same sensation in my body as if someone were tickling me which I know will only go away when I stop FEELING WHERE MY NOSE WAS BLEEDING. And now I keep worrying that it's going to bleed some more. WHAT DO I DO

Ack... I hate money problems. Even buying a $30 bike poses a problem for me, much less the tuition fees, general life.... food. Pah. I hate money. If I could do one good thing for this world, I'd eliminate money. We should all just go back to trading salt but then I'd probably die because seriously, who knows how to farm salt these days anyway. Which kinda sucks because there's all these high fashion dresses on sale for $250, the need for a bike, furniture... food.

Wow slicing my fingers up really hurts.

So, I've got a pretty serious slash in my right index finger. And the finger condom thing didn't work to keep it dry while I was showering, which frankly, was really hard to do as well. The bummer thing is that it's such a small injury (meaning it's not quite on the same scale as breaking your hand) but it prevents me from writing, from showering properly, from sleeping (woke me up several times) and from cooking. Gaaaaahhhhhhh hate being injured.

The sting and the burn that is rejection.

It's really hard to leave your comfort zone, acquire new friends in a faraway place, change your lifestyle, your thoughts, the way you speak, then encounter losing all those friends (literally all) and then thinking you could find new friends through your boyfriend, doing everything you can to be on the same page as them, be hospitable to them, nice to them all the time, tolerate being the only one to not understand a word they speak and being told to "shut up" all the time, only to find out, you'll never really be a part of that group. They'll still just always be someone else's friends. If I didn't have any of my own friends left I wouldn't give a shit and I wouldn't be so sad about the fact that the people I thought I was actually becoming friends with are just.. well, what can I do? So here's my hiatus. My break. I'm pulling myself away from the group because it just fucking hurts that people are going out of their way to make me feel like I don't belong.

It's time for me to figure out who I am without friends - something really hard for me, since I've said that life would be meaningless without friends.

Songs and their Effect

It's funny that all it takes it one song to remind me that I'm glad I didn't go to the grad ceremony last year. There would've been too many things that I would not have wanted to see, like you, like her, like people moving on with their lives, while I'm stuck behind. There's the promise of graduation this year, but like all things, it feels lonely.

But really, this isn't about graduation. This is about those fateful days, and my impending doom. The fear of what would happen if one should ever find out the dark secrets I'm hiding, the impossibility of the future in my mind, the truths that elude me. Confound my greed.

I'm in a very bad slump.

Fuck me. There's nobody around to witness my descent into madness, nobody I can cling onto for sanity. Where's everybody? Why is it so lonely in my world?

Crisis in Retrospect

I'm currently experiencing a high level of anxiety related to the fact that I just, without thinking too much about it, sent my resignation in to my employer. I don't know what she's going to think when she sees it or what she's going to say to me on tuesday, but there's been so much pressure on me to do it that wasn't going to go away without me actually going through with it. So as much as people say I had a choice, I didn't either. I can't live with this kind of anxiety and pressure on me, so it's better for me to choose the temporary anxiety of having to face her with this bomb of a problem than for me to go through the next 3 months with my family on my back. I agree with everything they said, it's just really hard for me to throw curveballs at people I feel obligated to, particularly when I can see the reasons why I would be making their lives difficult and the possible consequences. Still, it had to be done.

Anyway, so I realised I went on a shopping spree today to make myself feel better. I got 2 lipsticks from Mac and some hand creams from Crabtree and Evelyn - and a hand scrub for Ivan for our anniversary present. They threw in $28 worth of free stuff for our purchase, so I don't feel so bad. And I didn't buy anything useless, so I don't think I have anything to feel bad about.

At present, we've got 36 gigantic cookies sitting in our house from my cityflavr deal. 36 cookies. I think I'm going to have to freeze some of them or they'll just go stale. I'm cutting down on my sugars and upping my calcium intake, so it's unlikely that I'll be eating too many of those cookies, although there is calcium in milk chocolate. Anyway, it's a good addition to yoghurt, which is healthy, so I guess I can just take the good with the bad right? And dinner's on the stove, and I've got work waiting in my computer for me.

Ugh, need to make my hands stop shaking and my stomach stop churning.