Per Ardua Ad Astra – Through Adversity to the Stars

The Parisian sky lit up as bright as day as the music sounded and fireworks burst into life behind the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. The enormous digital countdown screen that I had intermittently caught glimpses of over the past few days finally reached its destination accompanied by the song and celebration of the hundreds of thousands of Parisians and tourists alike gathered in one huge party in the city. Couples kissed under the fireworks spectacle – caught in the moment of the turn of the millennium, friends huddled and hugged excitedly, singing at the top of their lungs, random strangers wished one another ‘Bonne Année!!’ in drunken greetings… It was a beautiful sight.

That was 10 years ago, when I witnessed the most magnificent fireworks display that New Year’s Eve at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the atmosphere, the sights, the memory of the way the entire sky was brought alive still sends shivers down my spine. I entered the 21st century with no particular thoughts or expectations of what lay ahead…I was only 10 years old.

Wow…words fail me as I attempt to express what the past 10 years have brought. Spanning the most crucial years of my life from age 10 to 20, my life experiences have shaped me as a person.

Since the start of the millenium, as well as having grown considerably in both height and weight…

My parents have split up…

My family life has broken down…

I have since gained a new half-sibling who is young enough to be my own child…

My best friend’s suicide attempts have shaken me to my very core…

I have been bulimic…

I have aced my high school exams…

I have gained entry into the (joint) second best University in the world…

I have been given a taste of freedom in the student lifestyle…

I have made a few lifelong friends…

I have forgotten countless acquaintances…

I have had mild depression…

I have had a pregnancy scare…

…but the experience that stands out the most…

I have fallen in love…

…and I have had my heart broken.

Looking back on the most defining memories of the decade, if I had known what was waiting for me, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so carefree that New Year’s Eve 10 years ago…

A new Decade, a new Start?

Who said resolutions were made to be broken? Especially as we enter a new decade – that’s 10x the reason to stick to the resolution, right?

I look at the beauty around me, my friends, my family, and feel ashamed for being so ungrateful. Today, I tidy up for the first time in as long as I can remember and haul a sack the size (and weight) of a large check-in suitcase to the local charity shop – a bag filled with memories, with things I have so far been reluctant to let go of, with luggage that has been weighing me down. I turn and face 2010 with New Year’s Resolution 1: Be more Optimistic!!

Life is about being happy, and observing those around me, there are those who let failures slide off their backs, move on and see the bright side of things, their positive attitude gets them through the toughest situations, makes them strong and a pleasure to be around. On the other hand, there are those who get overly caught up in their setbacks and let these minor blips deeply affect them, they fail to see the good in their world and appreciate the privileges they unknowingly harbour. Such people are never happy, and are the most depressing and unpleasant to be around. As a natural pessimist, it seems that I am doomed to be constantly unhappy no matter my circumstances. I know it’s an integral part of my personality that will be difficult to change, but my happiness is on the line – I have to start seeing the bright side of things that I know is all around me, even if it feels forced and unnatural at first.

One month later…

It still hurts

You still haunt my dreams

I still want to see you

I still long to hear your voice

I would still kill to feel you next to me

The memory of your kiss still sends tears streaming down my face

I still can’t see an end to my torture

I still can’t stop thinking about you

I still hold onto every memory we share

The tears still haven’t stopped pouring for you

I still miss you

…I still love you

Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

From the ‘if I hadn’t gone on holiday to Singapore I wouldn’t have met you’, the ‘that train I just missed derailed’ to the ”had I not walked the long way back today I wouldn’t have seen that necklace on sale’.

What do you think?

Lessons from Love

1. It is possible to give everything and be afraid of nothing.
2. There is no upper limit to the quantity of tears your eyes can hold, and if you do feel your tear ducts tire, sleep, and the tears will flow again upon waking.
3. Nothing else matters, the rest of the world pales in comparison when they are beside you. If they are not there, your thoughts are with them nonetheless – so you still cannot see the rest of the world.
4. No detail is too small to be overlooked when you are together.
5. You become willing to get up at 5am to wake them up, walk for an hour to see them for half that time and work early into the morning so you can spend more time together.
6. Money is just a number.

 

…feel free to add your own…

Love is…when you hold out your hand to another knowing it may get bitten off…

It’s over…

Heart is not only broken, but ripped out, stepped on, crushed to a pulp and lies absolutely shattered in a ditch somewhere, the me you see in front of you is but a heartless shell.

How could he do this to me…quite easily apparently…

So this is how it feels to be physically unable to cry having exhausted the seemingly never-ending resevoir of tears.

To see him around campus is the most difficult… To see him laughing, and happy – his world unchanged, tears me apart.

Time, people say, you need time… yet I don’t feel that time can solve anything. Plus, time takes so long to come and take the pain away…time…

I can’t imagine myself with anyone else, I can’t imagine myself happy, hopefully, it’s just the phase…

It’s in his nature

“We begin with a couple who were less-than happily married.

One night, the wife stayed out all night.

The morning after, her husband asked her where she had been. She told him that she had stayed over at her female friend’s house. The husband was sceptical and called her 10 closest girlfriends and asked them whether she had stayed over the night before. None of them said that they had seen her.

Days later, the husband stayed out all night. When asked for his whereabouts the morning after, he answered that he stayed over at his male friend’s house. Suspicious, the wife called his 10 best buddies to ask whether they had seen him the night before. Of the 10, 8 claimed that her husband had stayed over the night before…another 2 claimed that he was still there now.”

A man showed his wife the above story that he received in an email. Intrigued, the wife decided to try it out for herself. She called up her husband’s 10 best friends and asked whether they had seen him the night before. Astounded, she found that not only was the above scenario confirmed, 1 friend even went so far as to say that her husband was asleep on the sofa after drinking too much the night before and offered to wake him up to come to the phone! Immediately after she put down the phone, her husband’s mobile phone started ringing, it was the friend:

‘Hey, where the hell are you?! Your wife is looking for you, but don’t worry, I told her that you were passed out at mine so make sure you drink something before going back!’

‘A woman in love has an IQ of 0′

Translated from a popular Chinese quote: 恋爱中的女人IQ为零. It is so true…

A woman in love loses the ability to make informed judgements, she loses all of her logic, she even loses her facilities for common sense.

Otherwise known as being ‘lovesick’, it’s like a constant state of intoxication – you don’t think you are drunk, though others can clearly see your stupor. One can never count on the actions of a woman in love, her sheer inability to function has earned her an IQ of zero. She can only pray for her sanity to return, hopefully in the form of a stable and loving relationship, the alternative – to fall out of her infatuation with a rude awakening is unthinkable, although in reality is it still preferable compared to her previous trance-like state.

I used to look at other transfixed women and think: ‘Poor girl, he has all of her and she is left with nothing’. But it is only when I myself fall, that I realise truly, this phenomenon cannot be translated coherently into words, emotions well and words fail me. I can almost feel my IQ ebb away, finally I realise why 99/100 songs are about love…God help me

Ambition vs. Pessimism – the constant uphill struggle

The time has finally come when I have to start thinking about building the foundations of a career for myself. I have now spent many hours combing through the results of a million and one employment search engines (thank you Google) and toiling through site after site of potential employers, all offering what seems to be the best job in the world.

I used to be a very ambitious teen, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve in my professional life. Now when I look back, my mind was a hazy mess, a juvenile daydream of being the career woman in the sharp business suit, looking incredibly busy and in-demand as she navigates through the maze of the London Underground, yet the keystone – what my job title actually would be, I never knew. Now, it seems once again I have rediscovered that hunger and energy to strive for the top. Aim for the city, the Holborn, the Chancery lane, the Mayfair….yes, why not? So I hit the books, and quickly hone in on Management Consultancy, reading the job description, I realise excitedly that never have I been so close to answering the question ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

My eyes fatigue with staring at the computer all day as I gather information about the key players in the industry, their strengths and roles in this elite professional services sector, but most importantly, how to get my feet through their door. My conclusion? By overcoming a vast amount of competition. Overwhelmingly, the way into the corporation is through a penultimate year internship, and the competition for places are fierce. My education has set me in good stead for an application, but I’ve always been more at ease fulfilling the familiar and straightforward demands of academia. Interviews/networking/applications/cover letters/assessment centres/presentations, even the through of manipulating CV’s make my chest tighten with dread. I seem never to have been able to impress with these dynamic (and more useful) skills a potential employer would value. I can read through all the career/job hunt prep books I have time for, but will it be nearly enough to beat off the never-ending avalanche of excellent candidates recruiters are swamped with…should I even bother?

There are the woes of a natural pessimist. The goal in my mind is set…the challenge is formidable and one that I am statistically unlikely to succeed in… All the prep I am doing now is likely to be only the basics that other candidates do automatically, perhaps I should lower my standards. But why? I know that this is what I want and I should work towards it, the fear of failure is intense, but so will the regret at wasting a potential opportunity, no matter how small the chances of success are. The lure of the city and a professional career is undeniably tempting, but like all good things in life, I have to work for it, to admit defeat even before I start is not an option, companies these days go on about how they like people to be pro-active… I guess this is one instance in life when good things do not come to those who wait!

My heart is calling, can you hear me?

It’s been torture, 5 days of crying myself to sleep, 5 days of worrying, my mind wanders – what is he doing, who is he with…but most importantly – does he miss me?

I know I miss him, I miss him, I miss him…

Everything reminds me of him – I’m going crazy, it’s at times like this that I once again doubt my own sanity. I naturally pessimistic, but around him I seemed to lighten up and see the world once again in colour. Now that he’s 11000km away, that effect seems to be waning. My friend who I haven’t seen while I’ve been away at uni said she’s definitely noticed a change in me since I got back – I’m in a better mood, I’m more confident, I’m more light-hearted.

Guess what honey, I think I may be in love.

But for him to be so far away is so, so hard on me. I wander if he realises what I’m going through. He’s so calm all the time, he can’t be missing me nearly as much as I miss him. He hasn’t been online for days, no doubt going to all the welcome parties and heading out, my insecurities eat me when I think of this. As much as I love him, I still don’t trust him not to flirt or lead on other girls… Like I said in an earlier post, the thought of a girlfriend at home is far far away right now. It’s only been 5 days, theres still another over 90 to go, it scares me how I can’t imagine reaching the finish line hand-in-hand together, my sleep has been ridden wth nightmares and my days have been ridden with tears. Pathetic I know, but this is punishment enough for my weakness, please, how much more can I take…

I never knew that when the heart aches, there really is physical pain, enough to make me punch the pillow and curl up wishing it all away. I wander if he can feel the pain, my heart is calling, can he hear me?