“Do you not give yourself some time to get over it?” she asked.
“One day. Just one day. My life used to be so sad, I don’t wish to dwell on things anymore.”
When in truth, I am still quite sad, 24 hours later.
Category: Uncategorized
Protected: The Ring.
New Beginnings
2016 was a year of many significant deaths. Death of a loved one. Death of many icons. Death of my long term relationship. ‘Long’ is subjective, I know. It was long to me, my longest relationship.
We had six challenging years together – cancer, business challenges, family disruptions, industry malice, and dealing with our character differences.
The loss of it all, at the very heart of it, was deeply painful. Regardless of the situation we were in, no matter how bad things were, the end of our lives together was one of the hardest things to come to terms with. This was the man I chose to be with regardless of what we went through, I always stuck by his side.
I remember the early days of our split, my heart was in so much pain physically. Some days, I could hardly breathe. Most times, the tears just flowed liked rivers. I could feel myself being sucked into the pits of darkness and depression. Every once in a while, I would try to fight it and let some light in. But all I really wanted to do was curl up in a dark hole and hope that I could just melt away into nothingness. I did not want to feel anymore.
I gave myself the month of December to come to terms with my reality. I struggled, I really struggled.
When 2017 rolled along, I got off my ass and started running. The old saying about getting endorphins when you run – yes, I needed that. I was then challenged by my friend’s dad to complete 200 runs this year. That gave me something to work towards to. And it took my mind off things. Another good friend suggested that I go for kettlebell class for a more holistic fitness experience. I also signed up for yoga package.
In a month, I felt changes that I’ve never felt before in my life. My mind felt different, I felt better equipped to handle anything. It used to be a battle to not spin out of control. I’m grounded now.
I moved out into a rental. I bought an apartment. I quit my job. I lost weight and toned up. I made many new friends, and reaffirmed old ones.
I was gaining control of my life back. I could make decisions on my own, trust in myself, and slowly rebuilt my confidence. I always knew I am the best person to have around in a crisis, because I am the fixer. I fix things for others. I never thought I’d be able to survive my own crisis and come out relatively unscathed. Of course, this was not possible without my tribe.
Life is good now. I am more at peace. I am no longer saddled by worries and frustrations. I am back to being my own person.
Cry, Heart, but do not Break
It has been such a heavy year. We opened the year mourning the loss of some of our entertainment greats, who all mostly died at the young age of 60-something. Then I had a fall that turned into a freak accident in which my left hand smashed a nearby vase and sliced my nerve and artery which required microsurgery to fix.
Soon after I got my heart broken by my partner who was crumbling from the stress of the other parts of his life. I was left questioning the value of our relationship and whether staying or going would be the right thing.
Then I had a personal crisis of my own which had me questioning: my identity, my self-worth, my work, my very existence.
In between all that, my ex-mother-in-law passed away suddenly. That shook the entire family, and while I wasn’t close to her, I’ve always had the deepest respect for her for the woman she was – she loved my child, her granddaughter, with all her heart and more; she loved her family and protected them and looked after them fiercely; she was a really good woman. Two weeks after her passing, her older brother passed away from a long-standing illness.
My dog collapsed, wasn’t eating and looked like he was going through his final hour. We realised after all the blood tests, that he was depressed. My ex-mother-in-law’s lack of presence was clearly felt through the household.
When I was 21, I attempted suicide. I was going through a lot of emotional pain, that my heart literally, physically ached. I questioned the value of life if we had to go so much pain, and I didn’t want anymore of it if that was what life was about. This year, feels like the very reason why I wanted to sleep forever – the pain.
I sometimes feel like a coward for wanting to escape heartbreak and the associated pain. I don’t know why, it’s particularly unbearable.
I miss spending quiet moments with myself, deep in my thoughts, without having to worry about time, appointments and responsibilities.
I miss reading, crafting, writing, designing, coding, in my own time, without having to worry about deadlines that require budgets, presentations, schedules, contracts and client management.
I miss me.
Version 2.0
I’ve had my website hosted on my server for decades now. I loved how it made me feel more like a geek, because I was coding and customising the hard/traditional way.
In a freak accident in December 2015, I accidentally deleted my entire blog’s directory on my website, and did not realise my error till recent times. My service provider only keeps back-ups for three days, and needless to say, my memories have been wiped clean, never to be seen again. Thank goodness I had the good sense to register for this account 10 years ago, to retain my long used online name.
While I am sad at the demise of my blog, which has been my voice through the years that charted my ups and downs, my growths and my thoughts, I guess I can also say that I am glad I am able to start with a clean slate. No more embarrassing moments of the past; the many faux pas I made; or even that one blog entry that I refused to take down of a certain cleaning company and their lack of service which earned me the proud honour of being one of the many bloggers being served up a letter claiming defamation (they went away).
I started blogging when I was 19, just entering university. My idea of a holiday was reading the ‘Dummies Guide to HTML’ by the beach in Phuket. I was hooked to the internet, loving the fact that a bunch of letters and numbers could make beautiful designs on a computer screen.
Blogging followed me through depression, suicide, recovering, getting married, having a baby, divorce, photography, … life.
I turned 36 two weeks ago. I feel like I’ve just embarked on yet another phase of life, with better understanding of myself, and a clearer idea of the person I want to grow older as.
Version 2.0 – to new beginnings and moving ahead!
As My Life Is 