have you ever hated mirrors because they reflected your existence? it's easy to pick out flaws when you look at something long enough. i know that, because i felt compelled to point mine out every time i see myself. i'm aware of the location of each flaw in every inch of my body.
the confidence i possessed vapourised, my good days too fleeting. and on normal days like today, i wake up filled with disgust at myself. i don't put on make up because i can't stand looking in the mirror. the moment i do, i start sobbing uncontrollably.
i don't want to be left alone. the voices charge at me when i'm alone. i've never been good at dealing with failures, much less resisting the deafening, pernicious whispers. they are reiterating, "you'll never be good enough." i'm on the verge of losing it, my world is crumbling.
i'm drowning i'm not going to be ok
please save me please stay please
i'm gonna cry
just how hard is it to...
When you're young you don't worry about anything before jumping into a relationship. Love was simple and pure back then; you like someone, you get together if the feeling is mutual. When you're young you just love.
There's never a love quite like your first. You're reckless with your heart because you have a lot to give. You didn't know that someday, you'll run out of love and start doubting everyone's intentions because it's part of growing up. Once you've been broken and shattered, you lose that innocent part of you and hard as you try, you can't possibly piece it back.
As an adult, it seems, relationships are built on several factors. Whether you share the same family background, cultural background, religious beliefs, his short term and long term plans for his future. You watch his habits, whether you can accept it if they're a little quirky. You learn about his past, whether it's something you can live with. You bring him to meet your family and friends because you know now that relationships don't revolve around just two people.
Ironically, none of it is love. Nowadays, you can even be in a relationship without love because we are creatures of habits and sometimes it's just easier staying in a loveless relationship than to go out, look for someone new and risk getting hurt again.
-
Wrote the above some years back, about a relationship I was afraid to get out of because I didn't want the trouble of starting anew and getting to know someone all over again. My friend sharing her boyfriend troubles last week reminded me of how relevant this still is.
分开以后的痛苦 并不是怕不幸福
只是两个人太久 我不习惯孤独
躲在回忆的仓库 快乐的屈指可数
也怕自己走不出给自己的埋伏
There's never a love quite like your first. You're reckless with your heart because you have a lot to give. You didn't know that someday, you'll run out of love and start doubting everyone's intentions because it's part of growing up. Once you've been broken and shattered, you lose that innocent part of you and hard as you try, you can't possibly piece it back.
As an adult, it seems, relationships are built on several factors. Whether you share the same family background, cultural background, religious beliefs, his short term and long term plans for his future. You watch his habits, whether you can accept it if they're a little quirky. You learn about his past, whether it's something you can live with. You bring him to meet your family and friends because you know now that relationships don't revolve around just two people.
Ironically, none of it is love. Nowadays, you can even be in a relationship without love because we are creatures of habits and sometimes it's just easier staying in a loveless relationship than to go out, look for someone new and risk getting hurt again.
-
Wrote the above some years back, about a relationship I was afraid to get out of because I didn't want the trouble of starting anew and getting to know someone all over again. My friend sharing her boyfriend troubles last week reminded me of how relevant this still is.
分开以后的痛苦 并不是怕不幸福
只是两个人太久 我不习惯孤独
躲在回忆的仓库 快乐的屈指可数
也怕自己走不出给自己的埋伏
A mixture of gnawing indignation and waning stoicism left me with an inexplicable urge to pen something. I might be a little better at making peace with myself when I'm intoxicated but alcohol only fortifies my growing disillusion — I don't need that tonight. I'm blessed with enough cynicism to last me another a decade.
Funny how, for once in 2017, I longed for someone to prove me and my darned scepticism wrong. My bad, I was so desperate to be wrong, I made an erroneous assessment, a fallacious assumption that it was safe to tear down my walls. To my chagrin, my unerring sense of intuition hit the nail on the head. Again. "You should've listened," the staccato murmurings that flooded my mind reiterated. Yes, I should have listened my injudicious self. The irony.
You court spontaneity — one that's on a brink of recklessness — as ardently as I once did. We're identical to a fault. In a parallel universe, we would have been kindred spirits. Soulmates. Better halves of each other. But in this, our rapacious thirst for success only pulls us apart.
Behind the towering walls I erected — the same ones I allowed you, a stranger, to tear down — I have long forgotten how dismay tasted; how disappointment is an obstinate refusal to leave until it shatters you over and over; how despondency comes in willful, unyielding waves. In the face of calamity, I reverted to my 15-year-old self — a meek, timorous adolescent who was eager to please.
I don't know what's expected of me now. Should I keep up my sardonic humour? Am I supposed to glow with misplaced pride and laugh your caprices off? Or impersonate the role of an impassive mortal? What can I do to eradicate the swirl of rueful remarks — my defence mechanism — that are threatening to whittle me down?
My ostentatious display of defiant fortitude continues to conceal my proliferating despair. Maybe that's enough. Perhaps one day, we'll find our place in this world.
My plan for Tainan was easy — find a hostel near the train station. Since I was arriving in Tainan at night, I didn't want to get lost in a foreign city after dark. Old Man Captain Hostel happens to be the old office of Tainan Train Station so naturally, it was located within walking distance of the train station.
Note: if you key 'Old Man Captain Hostel' into Google Maps, it'll lead you somewhere 10 minutes away, which is NOT where the hostel is.
The hostel, identifiable by its bright orange doors, is at the doorstep of Tainan Train Station.
Knowing how inconvenient the public transport in Taitung is, I decided to book a room in Summer Guest House, a hostel nearby the attractions I wanted to visit, namely Tiehua Rural Village, Taitung Railway Art Village and Liyushan Park. Summer Guest House was the cheapest option available so I went ahead with my booking despite the hostel not being near Taitung Train Station.
The opposite of light is not darkness, the opposite of love is not hatred. In fact, I would even compare love to hatred — they are both intense feelings towards someone and they can fill you up, for the better or worse.
Just like how darkness is just the absence of light, the opposite of love, I came to realise, is indifference. The absence of all feelings.
Just like how darkness is just the absence of light, the opposite of love, I came to realise, is indifference. The absence of all feelings.
