2018

Hi

This is me sitting in 2019 reflecting on the last year. Now because i finally have the guts to look back and think about it - yea i’d admit i’ve had better years. But i appreciate it, really. I felt like 2018 gave me so much to learn and grow.

It’s like for every year that I reach my new high, I’ll have a year where i reach my record low. 2018 was one of those new lows. And since it’s the most the recent, it’s the lowest low. And amidst the unpleasant feelings i still have thinking of all the things that happened in 2018, I felt proud of myself having been strong enough to survive the year and being brave enough to face it now.

For such a low, it wouldn’t be fair if I don’t jot down the things I’ve learned, which were worth the pain going through. These didn’t happen overnight. All was a process, and they take some introspect and reflections to be acknowledged and understood, which is what im doing right now.

What changed

2018 was not without achievements, but somehow they didn’t feel that significant to be proud of. Maybe unlike my other previous achievements, it seems like these changes, though new to me, when compared to others around, aren’t new. Or maybe the fact that I felt like they rather came too easily for me to appreciate them. I know I have shredded way more sweat and tears for other things in life before. Anyways, I started a new internship and got a car and my driver’s license.

Solitude

I came to experience how being alone does not equate being lonely. Sometimes they do coincide, but truth is you can be in a room full of people and still feel lonely, while you can be only by yourself and still feel enough. It took a long time for me to get used to the dreaded empty feelings every following morning after a night full of rum and regrets (oops, that’s a song lyric!-but seriously, full of partying, noise and crowds). And once you get used to the blissfulness of solitude, you really don’t want to deal with people anymore..

Self-love

This is when I finally put an end to all the crazy fad diets and obsessive compulsive work-outs that I don’t even enjoy. It feels good now. I stopped fasting then binging to lose weight. And that’s when I started to lose weight and also the haunting thought of counting calories every time I eat. I actually feel more beautiful inside and out except for the certain occasions when insecurities kick in from time to time, but hey, baby steps! I’ll get there one day.

Pain

I was able to find my new strain limit. Ok I might want to explain this now, in case me in 10 years forget everything engineering.

So, imagine a rubber band. It’s brand new, you just got it from CVS cuz of some dumb school project or you just need to tie your bag of chips. It’s very elastic, now you can stretch it a bit, a bit more, and then the length of your arm. And then you let go. Great, it comes back to its natural length and shape, as if all the stretching never happened.

But now, for some stupid reason, you want to hang your phone on the rubber band using a hook, and the rubber loops around a wall hook in your bathroom. Then you forget about it for a month. (I know, it might sound implausible to just simply forget your phone in the bathroom for a month straight, but you’ve done dumber things so..).

Ok, it’s been a month, now come back there, find it hanging there and act surprised cuz you’ve been looking everywhere for it, you even called the vet you visited once 2 years ago to check. So, joyfully, you removed all the weight on your precious rubber band, and you held it up high to inspect. And you let out a loud cry in pain. Your rubber band is no longer the original length. It stretched to a new length. You got sad, threw it away and went to CVS to find a new one. The end.

Well, all of that was to illustrate my point that if you go through something that exceeds your current pain threshold, given that it does not kill you, you will develop a new pain threshold to go beyond the old one and to embrace all that mishaps.

So when you’re in pain, you feel shattered, destroyed, weak, defenseless, like a poor cat shivering in North Pole winter without shelter. You’re without hope thinking you’ll never get better, no one will save you. But then at one point, you’re not sure when, how or why, you got over the pain - like it evaporated magically even though a minute ago it was just right there, occupying every veins in your body.

And it felt marvelous. You’re this new, invincible person who is not afraid of loss and pain anymore. And that holds true, until the day you encounter a new pain that goes over your threshold again. And just like that, your threshold keeps stretching, and you become more resilient, and it seems like there’s really no limits to your strength.

All these unpleasant life experiences taught you something. That you are stronger, more resilient than you know. And you will always bounce back. You’ve done it once, of course you can do it again. (and if not, just go to CVS)

People

I don’t know whether it was learned or born but I just seemed to have unreasonably high expectations of others around. And of course, a cliche as it may be, I got disappointed time and time again. So what do I do? I have to lower my own expectations of course, because I cannot change other people. Easier said than done, I’m still learning to.

On the other hand, though I’ve never been a people pleaser, I have more than once tolerated things that I didn’t feel comfortable with. But I’m proud that I was finally able to say “Fuck it, I don’t care, I’d rather displease you than displease myself”. These boundary infringements really seemed innocent, but eventually I realized how they added up and affected my health and energy. Friends are cool, but if they are bad influences, they cannot come into my life. I’ve grown and if these friends are still in high school mentally, I’m not hanging out with high school kids.

“No one’s gonna take my soul away”

What I want

What I need

Escape

For the first time ever, this was the year I became that stupidly and stubbornly irresponsible. I felt detached to my own problems, ignored them knowing damn well they’re about to drown me. It literally felt like I was drowning, in my pool of problems, and yet, the more real that thought is, the more inertia on bed I have. But I guess everyone has to hit rock bottom at one point in their lives. I hope that was mine.

I had a song playlist at that time, one that was not very optimistic about life. And I know for a long time down the road, every time I listen to one of those songs in the playlist, I’ll be reminded of that dark period. And it will hurt for a while, until one day when it eventually doesn’t anymore.

That was the time when I questioned everything in my life whether it has meaning, and whether I even care about it, yet I never had the energy to figure out the answers. I felt like there was nobody in the world I could come to and be honest about it, I almost felt ashamed of it….

But eventually, through no help from outside, I pulled myself up. It was like one day, I just stood up and said, fuck this, I’m tired of this. I’m gonna get better. And I did.

In the end, I want to be ok, but I also make peace with the fact that I’m not gonna be okay all the time, and that’s totally fine too.

Conclusion: thanks 2018 and nice try, but I’m ecstatic that I’m over you. On to 2019...