I'm tired

It's so frustrating that I have no one to talk to, and no one seems to really care if I'm dead or alive. I'm extremely tense by the thought that I might not do well enough in finding a job, although I'm at least three years away from that prospects.

It hurts my brain so much, but I feel like it's exactly the worry that many of my peers have - that our early to mid twenties are the peak of our performance and we've gotta get ahead by then, else fall behind.

Hell, two years in the army. I'm only graduating when I'm 23. That's old. We're talking about a bachelor's degree, and I'm still kicking myself for not being good enough.

It hurts. It fucking sucks.

I'm also nowhere nearer telling people that I'm bisexual and that number remains at... one? This sucks. Do I have to out myself? No. But I feel it's probably better, but I get reminded by all the issues like bi-erasure/bi-phobia (something I've talked about... four years ago?) and pause and think again.

It is extremely exhausting for me to actually to get people to chin up, and it's bad when you're dealing with a number of two to four. I know I can be a bundle of joy at times, but sometimes it hurts me so badly that I just don't have that kind of energy to deal with other people's issue and try to get them to be more optimistic about stuff.

I probably shouldn't be complaining, given that I've often not optimistic in front of S. Gosh. Karma's a bitch.

I've asked S before the question that if I disappear, would anyone notice? He said he will.

I'm not sure if he would anymore, but I'm over my broken friendship with him. I'm just hoping other people do realise if I actually do disappear.

Over and out.

Days are longer than you think

I realised how long a day is. The entries on Monday felt kind of foreign to me, but that's just two days ago.

I realised how fast my mood swings in a day. Sleeping became a problem yesterday because I was just thinking of S and I felt empty inside - I wished I understood myself and my brain better. It's ironic - my only lesson yesterday was about neurons and our brains and it's just breathtaking how little we know about the thing that forms part of everyone of us. It feels surreal that I wrote so many entries yesterday, and each and every one had a different emotion in it.

But S, yes. Were it not for good safety videos (props to AirNZ as usual, the last two Qantas ones and even American Airlines acknowledging customers have choices), I would probably have cried myself to sleep. I don't understand why he triggers such an effect in me. I'm ashamed.

Anyway, well - things will get better. It will.

Nonetheless today was pretty rad! Although I was bummed by the fact the finance office was closed yesterday, it was quite good to see the two ladies who I felt would have become good classmates of mine were it not for the fact I left. I honestly thought I let them down yesterday, but that's over. I submitted the withdrawal form today and suddenly walking through the school felt infinitesimally better.

To be honest I was worrying what was taking my passport so darn long - since today is day sixteen, and they pledged to have it done in fifteen else they'll email an explanation. No emails of explanation was forthcoming. Nonetheless the email finally came to beckon me to collect my orphaned passport. Yet it's honestly a bit irritating given the fact I've to rush down tomorrow, rather than being at the right place and the right time to collect like today was. It doesn't help that Friday's a public/bank holiday. Grrr.

I was surprisingly efficient today as well - got my exit permit done as well after worrying for eons about inefficiencies in the system - so that's rad. I managed to shear off three of the most important things/worries in one day. I expected that day to be yesterday - maybe it was just a telling sign I really ought to take a chill pill and let things take its natural course than force my way through.

It's still a bit hard to believe I'm fifteen days away from Bristol. That's two weeks and a day. I've spent two weeks in a row doing nothing before, yet my days now are getting longer and more hectic. I love it. It puts my mind off silly thoughts about loneliness, but hey, I'll be better.

M

About S

I just happened to think of S out of the blue, and since my writing needs some practice - I guess it wouldn't be that bad to dedicate an entire entry to writing about S.

I've looked up to S since I've known him at... the age of 13 I believe. S is three years older than me, and somehow it's very comforting to see his presence in school. We weren't on close terms then, and soon he disappeared from my life since he moved on with school. Nonetheless, in the age of social media and the yesteryears where privacy wasn't a priority for most - it was easy to see how S actually progressed - he went on to do pretty well where he was, and then after a couple of years went to serve the army. Despite so I've always wondered how he's doing, since S isn't really an active social media user, and most of the clues on how he has been doing are all gleaned through his friends.

Meeting S again happened to be this chance occurrence at this event when I was 16, and S was in the midst of serving his mandatory conscription. S looked exactly how he was when I was younger - the person I looked up to, and someone I could take as a brotherly figure. S actually recognised my presence at the event and I happened to have the chance to speak to him at length. That was a pretty amazing day, and I probably wouldn't forget it.

And so we started talking over virtual methods of communication - and when it started, it went on and on. I'd talk to S every weekend after he was out of his army camp, and we'll talk until after midnight and beyond. Being 17-ish I honestly engaged in quite a number of inane discussion - stuff that I will never talk about these days, but it was honestly great. It was great to have his ear - to have someone who will listen. Yet, there was one thing about S - S never told me much about what he was doing, and even when asked S would offer very little details. I didn't think much of it, and I honestly thought it wasn't nice of me to ask too much, anyway. And hence that lovely yet lopsided conversation happened for four odd years - through his years in mandatory conscription, through my years in mandatory conscription, until earlier this year. Somehow we've managed to talk at so much length despite the fact we've only met up twice in the intervening period.

And here's the bit I've mentioned this bit before. Towards the end of the four year period, S became a bit more manipulative and controlling - and terms that he used to call me as a form of (brotherly?) affection felt more like terms of control and subservience. It didn't help that I lost my cool quite a few times - I felt he went a bit overboard and pushed me into a corner where I could not just simply tell him to stop because he doesn't acknowledge it. It didn't help that he knew everything about me - because I told him about all my troubles and worries. Worries that my parents and siblings probably don't know. Troubles and internal conflicts that only he knows. I began feeling that these things were turning against me - and S was using them against me. That if a spanner were thrown into the conversation and our relationship, it was undoubtedly my fault, because I'm "emotionally labile". I'm not - I just don't know how to express my frustrations with the never-ending problems that he was not taking any note of, and yet keep my cool with him.

I felt things were going south and so I decided to end it in January. It was an emotional rollercoaster, since it went from being close to utterly distant in the matter of weeks. I don't know how S took it, but I don't think it ever affected him at all. It had a bad emotional toll on me - some of my nights were just spent crying since there was this void in the night that S used to fill that was now gone. Yet I knew I had to do this because I really need to gain back a little bit of my sanity, and stop double-guessing myself because someone else treats me in a way that made me feel like I'm not deserving of anything.

I thought I've gotten over it by April. Trying to be the best person I could be, I wished him a happy birthday over Facebook on the day itself, and then hopped myself on a flight to China, where Facebook was banned and I wouldn't have to deal with the immediacy of any replies that might be forthcoming.

China was great. I really enjoyed my week without social media and getting my news and information from reading English Wikipedia, since BBC and the like were all inaccessible. I really thought I was fine with things, and mature enough to deal with issues.

I came back from Shanghai after that week seeing his replies and I stupidly decided to reply. Whilst on a conscious state of mind I wished him a happy birthday privately because I was gobsmacked to find that no one posted on his page (which would have limited our contact time), and chose to do so privately; perhaps on a subconscious state of mind I really wished him well and hope he was fine.

April and May was tumultuous for me in the fact that I had to alternate between S apologising the very first time since I've returned to Singapore, to the point that things were just bad, and I tried to be as impersonal as possible in my replies since I didn't want to bear that kind of pain again.

Obviously I suffered when things went awry, but it was better the second time round. I told MH at the point of time - I just wanted to help S be a better person, and I don't know why S treated me that way when he never was like this. I dragged myself into a situation I should never have done, and it felt like at times like I stabbed myself. Perhaps I should have been nicer - perhaps that would have been better, but I had my heart to protect. He ended the entire thing after he said it was getting too difficult to talk to me, and wished me well.

I hope that was genuine, I really don't know. I asked myself whether I've did the right thing throughout, and I really doubted my judgement. I resorted later to showing some of my texts with S to a few other close friends (that don't know S); had our names blanked out and asked what they thought about it.

Many thought S was being a tool and a jerk. It was a bit jarring to hear that.

I'm not sure if S changed in this intervening period of four years, but nonetheless I still love S a lot as a friend. I hope he does well. The emotions still stings till this day, and writing this wasn't the smoothest emotional ride I've ever had. 

I wonder whether it's uncommon to love your friends, and to love them so hard. I do. I'm such a little sucker but that's who I am personally. I don't know whether I'll ever be close to S again in my entire life but S taught me before that "everything happens for a reason", and perhaps this did as well. Perhaps It's for learning and being better in dealing my future friends, perhaps it's about telling me that maybe I'm really a bit too sensitive about things and need to take a chill pill. Perhaps it is preparation for getting to know S all over again and that these chats were just with the right person at the wrong time. I don't know, but at least this experience made me stand on my own two feet and made me a much more independent person in nature. Rather than confiding in people, I have a blank sheet of paper to type on here. Similarly, I display a little less emotion and give people a little less information lest I get hurt again. They aren't good traits per se, but they are traits I need to have were I need to protect myself from the range and depth of my own emotions.

Anyway, this is probably the most complete thing I've ever written about S, and probably will be the only one. As much as this is cathartic, this is also for posterity. I hope to look back on this post in future and say confidently that I've moved on. I hope to dust the final pieces of metaphorical blood and scabs off my heart. It's really time I should - and I'm far overdue even despite the fact I tell myself it's the last time every single time.

Maybe I will never heal, and that's okay. I'll look back at the chats and time with S with fondness, but go on with life, and move forward. That's it. That's really what matters.

Braces off + short end of the stick

Yesterday was a great day.

My braces are finally off after two years, and it's so lovely not having to bother with the wires and see my teeth being so straight. My ortho has done an amazing job, and it can't be any better.

It's a good start, and it is a goodbye to a relic that harkens back to the era of my mandatory conscription, so that's even better. Hell, I even realised the exact day of the welcome ceremony in the university I'm going to head is on my birthday itself, so hurray.

I know I have a fetish for coincidences and dates. But there's something so serendipitous about it that intrigues me.

I digress, but I do wonder who is going to take the time to wish me on my birthday, but I guess I can think about it later.

Today I read kenn-do's blog again and there was a new entry about his ex and about how he cheated on him.

I was wondering why considerate nice people always happen to get the short end of the stick. I didn't expect today to be the day that I read about heartbreak, about people who don't cherish nice people and about people who bear the brunt of that.

I feel so helpless because I don't know what to say. I feel so helpless because it's not the first time this is happening to someone and I don't know what to do. MH was the receiving end of a girl who didn't cherish him. ID had his boyfriend cheat on him as well - and it's even disgustingly so when you know who they are. I could certainly continue and list out even more cases, but you get my drift. These people I've known are kind, considerate, caring beings. Why do people treat them in these ways? Are kind and considerate people easy to take advantage of, or are there just so many jerks around?

I know how it felt when S betrayed me, and he's just a goddamn friend. It must hurt ten times worse if the other party is your lover. S made me so worried about sharing stuff with other people because I feel they are going to get a hold at me, like S did. Now that I'm reflecting on it, I wasn't just manipulated, I was probably gaslighted on.

I really have little faith in things, but I think they are justified. I don't think I've any hope left in this mystical thing called love when everyone's having bad experiences with jerks left right and centre. You just can't escape them.

And honestly, this doesn't come at a better (worse?) timing. I found my parents' separation letter two days ago, dated from years past, nestled between other pretty important documents. I vividly remember those times, where I knew shit hit the fan and being an utterly young boy, didn't know what to do. I remember tales of cheating. I remember screams across phones, and the usually absent parent abroad being accused of something. I was wondering to ask one of them about the separation letter in my hand, but I decided against. My sister was just beside me and I decided to discreetly keep the documents rather than show her, and asking would have not been good for anyone. She doesn't remember a thing about the entire thing. Neither does the other one. They were far too young. If that's the case, the least I could do is to maintain a good impression of that parent than to shatter the image.

In light of that I'm wondering now if they're actually married; and if they are, is it in name and 'for the kids'? Nothing has changed about the periodic absence of the absent parent in the name of work. I've always been much closer with the present parent than the other, until this year where a couple of trips took us a bit closer.

Those documents have reopened it, and I'm not sure how to feel anymore. I remember the time a close friend told me and MH about her own failed relationship from years ago and her kids, and how her eldest always wants attention from his father - which never gave any after he left.

I was just wondering - would I have been in the same position as her son if things happened in that way?

Either way, I really have no faith in relationships anymore.

Does the perfect guy exist?

I happened to be dragged into this conversation where they were talking about this friend/acquaintance of ours and someone described him as 'the perfect guy'. I do think he's truly approaching perfection in the way that physically he's really 'tall and handsome' (her words), pretty cute (my words); and he's kind, really bright, humble and has an amazing personality.

He (and in the past, S) are people that I really respect because of the traits they have and who they are as a person. To be honest it's been my goal to try to emulate them (and I've been trying hard to); but I know I can't reach that level so I'm stoked if I can reach a considerable level, be somewhat like them, and yet still not lose any bit of my individuality.

I digress though - so, 1) is it possible to be perfect, or is perfection an asymptote that people can approach but never reach? And 2) does the perfect guy exist?

--

I haven't said this but the last week has been kind to me. Although I've still been plagued by late morning starts and sleeping in, there are small little victories that made me feel better about life and things in general.

1. I managed to completely cut off social media for a day by accident - I happened to be busy dealing with some documents - but it made me feel really good in a sense that I managed to keep it off (even if it's just for a day!). That felt amazing partly because I found myself not subconsciously comparing my life with others (first world problems), and yet more time to myself - even if I was busy accomplishing something else. That's the problem though - I always need someone to keep me busy else I'd get bored.
   
2. I was on my Instagram feed (irony!) and I saw a bunch of grown-ups playing musical chairs. If I was younger and lost that game I think I might have just lose it. Yep, that's how competitive I am. Yet if I were to play the same thing today I don't think I'd care. I'm not sure whether subconsciously I know that there are bigger things to care about, or that I've just conceded to the fact that competition always whacks me in the balls so hard every time that I know better than to challenge it face on these days. Nonetheless my personal take on this is that I'm better at competing with people without sinking a bunch of friendships (and my own reputation), so, heh.
   
3. I'm finally starting to feel that if I do ever see S again, I'll be able to strike up a nice regular conversation without feeling a tad bit awkward. It's taken a long enough time, but I'm finally good and that's what matters. I happen to went back and read some of our chats and while much of it was nice, I'm glad I managed to back out when I started feeling manipulated and I managed to hold my ground during that disastrous attempt of him restarting conversation. I needed the rest, the time to reflect, recharge and recalibrate myself; and wean off my built-up reliance on him which managed to allowed him get a hold of me.
   
4. I've managed to got myself back in writing regularly enough?! That's just a feat in itself. I'm proud of ya, M.

I'm going to end this off with a comic from one of my favourite comic artists, Shen, whom you can find either as Owlturd or Bluechair on the interwebs. His comics tend to speak to people in really intimate ways. Here's one on "if you wanna be perfect you better get started NOWWWWW".

THIS APPLIES FOR EVERYTHING, PEOPLE.

D minus one month

August 14th.

Exactly a month left before I'm heading off to the UK. It's pretty daunting because I really don't know what to expect over there. Especially the competition academically.

I told L my concerns the other day and she was like "don't worry lah, they're all so un-bright - especially all the masters students I get in contact with." I'm not sure whether to take comfort in that - she's freaking bright and she might have had a much different experience dominating her competition compared to what I might feel. I mean - well, she lost a grand total of 40 points off the full score on the old SAT - that's just simply amazing.

If anything, I'm a much lesser version of her. So I get doubly worried when she faces obstacles in her time in London, because I know if she does, I'll just go through the same and end up much worse off.

I'm probably thinking too much. S used to tell me to have more confidence in myself. Even my mother was talking about how I shouldn't be viewing myself as one which is not as stellar as the rest. But when you're accustomed at performing badly at the back of the rat race it's not a fear one can let go easily.

My head hurts, and I'm still figuring how to learn LaTeX, so I'm going to end this entry early right here today.

Three things

I realised I shouldn't be writing in such utterly cryptic language and it doesn't really matter to divulge a little more since no one will probably read this, hah. I have zero urge to structure things properly today, so here goes the point forms.

1. S has left for Manchester and I'm really really glad I'm not in the same city with him for at least the next nine months. Things have been especially awkward since the incident, and it's not good that S was my go-to person to confide to and I still do feel exposed in front of him. It's somewhat a breather, until my own relocation puts him near to me again. 
2. I happen to find out from the grapevine that a junior of mine just got a government scholarship. The worst days of my insecurities of not being up to par with such people are long gone, but the scars are still there. It didn't help that all my peers in the executive committee in my pre-university society were either scholars or in Oxbridge/London. But whatevs. I'm used to trying to play catch-up - I'll just keep doing that. I've been thinking on how to one-up people, but I haven't had a clue except pursuing a masters at one of the London unis with the extra one year I'd save heading to the UK to study rather than staying here.
3. I've definitively decided not to go for my university's orientation (held for students based here) before I leave. While a classmate of mine from my pre-university years (let's call him MH) have decided to go despite earlier reservations, it seems that most of the locals going there are law students - and I have no intention to let a bunch of wannabe corporate lawyers colour my perception of the university that I'll spend the next three years of my life. It's freaking ironic since that city is effing Bohemian, and wannabe corporate lawyers just don't gel with that image at all.

I've been thinking of how to hit the ground running once I move over to the UK. I have a semblance of what I want and what I'm going to achieve in the first three months there. I know it seems neurotic for a fresh undergrad to do that, but in all honesty I know that I'm trying to overcompensate. I just hope I can take big enough strides to close that gap or even maintain it, lest it widens yet again.