to that kid.

it's been 1.75 years and i still miss you.

i wish you were here to make me laugh and hug me when i feel sad.

you are everywhere and no where at the same time.

if only you were still here.

i hate that you never understood how important you were to everyone.

but i hate most that i didn't try hard enough for you to.



i just really miss you.



  

And with a quivering lip he wound up the whole by adding, "Poor Fanny! she would not have forgotten him so soon!"

   "No," replied Anne, in a low, feeling voice, "that, I can easily believe."

   "It was not in her nature. She doated on him."

   "It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved."

   Captain Harville smiled, as much as to say, "Do you claim that for your sex?" and she answered the question, smiling also, "Yes. We certainly do not forget you so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions."

   "Granting your assertion that the world does all this so soon for men (which, however, I do not think I shall grant), it does not apply to Benwick. He has not been forced upon any exertion. The peace turned him on shore at the very moment, and he has been living with us, in our little family circle, ever since."

   "True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we say now, Captain Harville? If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick."

   "No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."

   "Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be too hard, indeed" (with a faltering voice), "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this."

- Persuasion, Jane Austen.

so maybe i'm an emotional sort of person

feeling like a massive girly-girl tonight.

i thought something bad had happened to someone who didn't reply to my text message. they replied and i feel angry and happy at the same time that i'm crying like a dork.

jimmy.

I have this friend that I used to be pretty tight with. I met him and his friends when I was 15, and they had all just graduated from high school. I used to hang out and go to gigs with them a lot despite being a bit younger, so we were all pretty close. He and I haven't really spoken that much in the last few years (nothing to blame but busy schedules and life), but I receive sporadic messages from him every 6 months or so if one of our favourite artists has released a new song/album/comes to town. It's really cool to have a friend that is into the same music that you are.

Anyway, the last time I heard from him was about Andrew McMahon's new album some months ago. I randomly received a message from him just then:

'At jimmy eat world.'
'What.'
'Are you?'
'No! D:  Dammit, I missed them again??'
'I'll call you for this heaven song. If they play it. It's futures 10 year anniversary.'
'Yes please! My faaave!'
'I knew it.'


It's interesting when you realise that some things never change.
Currently feeling really glad that this guy is (was?) a part of my life and for all those times we got together to dance like crazy or to stuff our faces with mexicrinkles.

And now people talk to me, I’m slipping out of reach now.

People talk to me, and all their faces blur.

But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison,

And I’m locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me.

I’m done with it.

snippets.

• this writer: i think she's fairly amazing. i can relate to both pieces a lot. some sentiments expressed in the second are just... perfect. those last two paragraphs.

1.  Hush.
2. I Will Never Love You As Much As I Love Books.

• exams this morning sucked.


• 10 days of almost complete isolation from the outside world has given me more inner peace and calm than i've felt in a really long time. i feel happy. 


• the moment when a friend smiles at you and you realise that they might just be the most beautiful person you've ever known.


• you can't pretend to be someone you're not. or you can, but it might lead to sporadic emotional breakdowns.


• that tea tree oil i've been sampling is to blame for the recently appearing funny lumps on my forehead. i think. reverted back to snail bee essence and they're going away. snail slime, i'll never doubt you again.


• attention does not equal friendship, but loyalty and emotional support do. thank you to that girl that loves me even when i don't deserve it. who realises when i'm a mess and doesn't judge but holds my hand instead. thank you for knowing what to say and do when i'm a step away from the tracks. thank you for the hugs. thanks for telling me i have a great butt. thank you for being an amazing source of emotional strength, even if you don't realise it. i'll never let anyone question you again. 


• 2014 was meant to be my year. academically it's been an absolute failure. but emotionally it's been an amazing adventure of self-discovery. still two months to go. 


• lies destroy friendships. simple.


• green tea mango mantra wasn't that great.


• i'm sorry if you got even a tiny bit emotionally attached. it wasn't meant to be like this. it was meant to be nothing or everything, and if anyone ended up hurt and/or confused it was supposed to be me. it's unfortunate that other parties became involved. you sported my favourite look (though the red was a bit much), and i couldn't stop staring, but your scathing glances hurt every time we made eye contact. i hope you don't think i'm a terrible person, and that you ignore what they say. you barely know me. it's just been confusing. i wish it wasn't like this. i wish we knew each other better. i wish it was more than just expected courtesies in the corridor. i'm really sorry. i hope you'll still take me away with you when this is all over. you promised.


• sometimes you have to be selfish for your own health.


• i need to try a magic next time at vincents.


• i guess i like affection, but all those kisses were a bit overwhelming.


• to the champ who understands what i need to hear when my outlook is stained. there's a reason why i feel you're a kindred spirit. thank you for holding me even though you hate doing it. i was surprised by your strength, warmth and profound understanding. i love you more than i can understand. we'll definitely try the mysterious pineapple next time.

epiphany!

regardless of what illusions i find myself under,

the reality is:

some people just aren't fun.

and that's okay.

because that means i don't have to waste my time on them.

see ya. :)

1989

just wanted to say: i didn't like her. like, seriously.

until now.

taylor swift's new album is absolute pop perfection.

she doesn't break any new ground musically, but that's the point. she's managed to put together a record that's so simple that it's genius.

sometimes you need a break from the music that makes you question everything (i'm looking at you fka twigs) and blows your mind with its composition. it's all brilliant and is really my favourite type of record but, as i said, sometimes you need to take a step back.

enter 1989.

it is mindless pure pop music at its best. the lyrics are simple and the themes relatable for fellow 24 year old females. it's just fun.

musically, the record borrows from lorde, lana del rey, haim and even the chromatics. miss swift does nothing groundbreaking. she's really just reused the blueprint of those breakthrough artists and given them a shiny pop-sheen. but it works. oh, how it works.

admittedly, the album loses steam as it chugs along. pre-2008, i'd be happy for my ipod to only have enough storage space on it for the first half of the record. out of the woods has that chorus that you will one day find yourself chanting along with your closest girlfriends. blank space is your unrealised life goal to be a femme fatale in song form. the easy favourite (at this point anyway) is style. with synths pumping reminding you of symmetry's 2012 release, it stands out musically on the album. maybe even a bit too much. but it has resulted in my repeat button getting a major workout today.

if my summer can be half as fun as 1989 is, i'll be a happy girl.



now, no more procrastinating. back to it.

*clicks repeat*

To Santa Claus and little sister.

There are times for mindless writing such as tonight. Because that poem makes so much sense right now and it disturbs me that it does.
It gets bad when you can't smile and you can't concentrate long enough to participate in a conversation. When the noise outside contributes to the endless wails internally instead of blocking it out.  And you just want to cover your ears and scream so that maybe everything will fade out.

It hurts to tell someone you love that something inside doesn't feel okay and for them to say that you should just try to ignore it. I was so scared to say it, but having it brushed off hurts more than any embarrassment that I could've anticipated. Because it doesn't go away. And it gets to a point where you'll do anything to try to block it out.

I'm not hearing any voices but my own. It tells me that something isn't right.

away.

Something must be wrong when home is the last place you want to be. You go to sleep early with the intention of waking up earlier, because that means you can do whatever you need to do while everyone else sleeps. No one bothers you at that hour.

You find any excuse to not come home.  Staying back at uni has never been more desirable.  Dinner out with friends? Sure. Aimlessly walk around the city? Sure. Anything.

Your room is being invaded while you're at uni during the day. What ever happened to privacy?  It feels like it's not even my space anymore.

The moment I step through the front door, I begin to feel the air slip from my lungs.

I'm suffocating.

it's my body?

I find it interesting to think about how much our childhood shapes who we are.  More specifically, of late I've realised that the things I got told as a child still affect me today. It has a much stronger hold on me than I would like.

Growing up, I was constantly compared to my cousins. They were slim and petite... feminine.  I was always a bit heavier with a round chubby face.  Every function had to include at least one family member suggesting that I should stop eating for the night. I used to laugh it off and continue stuffing my face.

Everyone looked at me with pity, like: 'It's a shame the genes went so wrong with this one.' The general consensus was that, while I was taller than the others, they would all overtake me at some point, because look at how long and slim their legs are! And they are all still growing!  How were my short and chubby legs to compete?  I was naturally curvier, with a fuller bust and hips, which everyone attributed to my 'weight issues'.

At some point every early on, I think these comments become a part of your thinking.  It wasn't until very recently that I realised the reason why I don't like people touching me was because I felt like they would be able to feel how 'overweight' and 'fat' I was and would then dislike me for it.  I don't like showing my shoulders, arms or legs for the same reason.  I don't really feel comfortable showing a lot of skin at all.  I used to think that it was because I didn't want people to perceive me as 'promiscuous', but its become obvious lately that I associate it more with body-shame than anything else.

I'm trying really hard to love myself a bit more these days, and to feel okay in my own skin.  I can wear dresses with tights without feeling overly embarrassed or shameful about the shape of my legs these days, and I guess that's a step in the right direction.

I grew up dressing like a boy

Because they said I could never be as pretty

As the others that share my blood.

Mercilessly teased at every attempt, 

it seemed pointless to try.

But one day, I woke up and thought:

Maybe my legs are not so embarrassing,

and my shoulders are not something to be ashamed of.

I looked in the mirror and found myself asking,

'Why did I spend so many years covering up?

Why did I let them all get to me?'

the game

The poems and movies tell you that it’ll all just click and fall into place as soon as you feel those butterflies.  Your best friend uncontrollably crying in your arms after another boy breaks her heart tells you otherwise.  It tells you that this game hurts, that there is no way to play without taking damage.  People will say and do nice things in the spur of the moment, little knowing how long it will haunt the person on the receiving end.  And yes, nice things can haunt you.  They torture you in those quiet moments before you fall asleep.  It gets worse because there are no answers to the countless questions you formulate in the darkness.  You can yearn for those moments but they are long gone. You can’t have them back. 

Don’t try to replicate them.  It won’t work.  Don’t let your imagination build new ones.  That will do nothing but lay the brick foundation of your new internal prison. 

Just get through it with the faith that the click is still to come.

cough cough cough

Gah!

I'm sick again! Curse you, weak immune system! *shakes angry fist*
Yeah, so, I've been basically bedridden for 3 days but it's all blurred together and feels like only half a day. It's very odd. I'm dizzy after standing up or walking around for short periods of time. My abdominals really hurt from coughing so much. I've had two proper meals in the last 72 hours because eating seems so repulsive right now. It's been fun.

I thought I'd quickly put something together while waiting for season 2 of Skins to download.

The ball was really fun last week! I was tipsy for most of the thing and then pretty drunk for the after party. Not my proudest night ever, but I was going to stay in the city anyway so it was very much a 'let's just go all out' mentality. I'm glad my friend and I let loose because we had a lot of fun. Maybe it's because I'm a bit older now, but I can understand why people find it so addictive to go out every weekend. I never really got my head around it when I was younger, or maybe I was just hanging out with the wrong people. If it weren't for the exhaustion the next day, I'd probably be out there more often because I really did have a fun time with the uni kids.

I never used to understand why my friend enjoyed the shallow compliments and caresses of men she had just met. I had always attributed it to her low self-esteem, which I still believe. One night we were travelling, and she suddenly turned to me and asked if we could go clubbing. I've never been a fan of it (it's really too loud, everyone is all sweaty, strangers touch me; it's just not a good environment) but I didn't want to disappoint her, so I agreed to go. She was really pleased and told me that she wanted to go out and have boys tell her that she was pretty. This was really puzzling to me, as I'd never really had such a desire. Sure, it's nice when someone tells you that you're cute or pretty, but surely she knows that these guys in clubs are only after one thing and they'll express a lot of compliments they don't mean to get it, right? I don't think getting compliments from men are that big of a deal. Because when you really think about it, what's so flattering about being told a bunch of lies? I don't understand.

However, I'm slowly coming to understand the physical side of things. Or maybe I've just been away from the game too long and couldn't remember what it felt like. If I'm honest with myself, the last guys I dated (who seem like an eternity ago anyway) were not the best choices, and my feelings for them were lukewarm at most.  But there's something almost addictive about being held in someone's arms. A feeling of calm and security. Maybe it felt that way because I was tipsy, or because I've been attracted to the involved party for a while, but there's something about it I can't explain. I'm not the type to let men touch me unless they're good friends, but I suppose my partiality for this one made him an exception. It wasn't quite the same as being hugged by a male friend. It felt different and I don't know how to put it into words. It felt safe, like if I could've melted into one with this person at that moment then I would have done so gladly. And it was a simple combination of my arms around his neck, his arms wrapped around my waist and our bodies close together, but something strangely felt right. Now I can sort of understand why my friend goes out every weekend looking for some stranger to take her home and hold her through the night. I think it's for that comfort of knowing there's this other person here with you, so closely entwined, in a moment where the world around you seems so irrelevant and obsolete.

And I'm thinking I'd prefer not to be rescued.

I feel like I owe the world an explanation.

And I'm procrastinating on doing this treatment planning case for tomorrow.

But I DO feel like I need to explain myself.


Life has its high and low points. The high times are sweet to taste and warm to touch.  They say that every moment can be enjoyed if you choose to see it that way.

But sometimes the world around you crumbles. You wake up one day and you realise that everything is in the wrong place.  The trigger is unknown, but it just hits you.

At the relatively tender age of 24, I'd like to think that I've lived through a wide spectrum of emotions.  For the most part, I stay high because life is too short to stay grounded for anything beyond a moment. But when I have my low points, they are well and truly low.  The past 10 days have been the lowest I've felt in a long time. I'll liken it to trudging through an abyss with weights strapped to your limbs.

My limbs feel borrowed. My thoughts are fuzzy. My eyelids are fighting a losing battle against gravity.  Talking feels like a cheap trick to mask how sunken I feel, so I just stop.  I can't bring myself to smile because it all feels like a lie.  Any form of escapism is a welcome relief from my own thoughts.

I don't want to talk to anyone, because I don't have the energy to put up a facade. I'm exhausted from nothing.  My chest feels like it wants to sink through the floor.  It's hard to tell whether my heart or my thoughts feel heavier.

I can't have a still moment, or else the tears overwhelm. My hands won't stop shaking.

Sleep is my only friend, because in its company everything goes dark, quiet and blank.

I wake up every day feeling disappointed that everything didn't just end.

I miss people who are gone. I miss Anh Huy. I wish I knew what you were going through. I wish you had said something. How did you bear getting me through my dark times, when you suffering through your own?  I miss you a lot. I wish you were still around.

But sometimes something small will happen. Andrew McMahon has saved me more times than I can remember. A friend that I hadn't spoken to for the longest time randomly sent me a link to Andrew's new song. I had no idea he was about to release any new work. But hearing his voice calmed my nerves.  His songs have always felt like a soothing warm embrace.  I guess I've just missed his music.  Thank you, Andy, for holding my hand through tough times since 2006.

I still don't feel okay. But I know I will at some point.  Please forgive me for pushing you and everyone else away. You didn't do anything wrong.  No one did.  


I'll come back soon, I promise.

It's just that I need to find the light in this abyss on my own.

once a writer

Hi all!

Gosh, it really has been a while since I sat down and really tried to write something down. Use of ‘tried’ simply shows that the words don’t flow as effortlessly as they used do. And this really fracking breaks my heart. But hey, maybe it’ll just come back some day? So I apologise in advance for the horrific syntax that follows…

I haven’t written or ranted in so long that I have so much I want to say! I’m kind of excited about it!

_________________________________________________

Okay. So I just wrote about a page and hated it so much that I deleted it all.

And now this sudden fear is rushing through me. Why can’t I do this anymore…? Why is it so hard?  How can something I love so much be slipping away from me?

I had a chat with my brother not too long ago about how he will soon finally step into his dream career.  He told me that since he was very young, he was always fascinated by doctors and how they could use their knowledge of medicine to help those around them.  I told him that I never felt that way about doctors or any health professional.  He has always had a natural interest in people and science that I lacked, even though I’m currently in my 6^th year of science-based university education.  So he asked me if I ever felt in awe of a profession.  I initially said no, but a few minutes later I reflected on how much I love the effect of words on paper.  That someone far, far away that I’ve never met can make me feel emotions of great depth just by stringing the right words together for me to read.  Without any sound or image but some ink on a page, it can make me feel something.  Isn’t that amazing?  I told my brother this, and he looked at me sadly, saying that my dream career would probably be as a writer.  I couldn't disagree.  If I could choose any career, I’d choose to be a writer.  There’s just something magical in the idea that maybe the words I string together can affect people out there too. 

So, it’s not like I haven’t always known this. It’s all I wanted to do during high school.  I could read and write all day and not feel tired, not even for a minute.  I remember the look of despair on my year 12 literature teacher’s face when I said I was aiming to get into a science degree.  Wide eyed with shock, she asked: ‘But why?’  I tried to casually shrug it off, said something about it leading to a more stable career, but I was crumbling inside.  Maybe I should’ve known then that it would never really feel right.

So I got into my science degree at the same university as my brothers before me.  Second year blues came right on cue.  I hated every second of every science class.  Anatomy, physiology and biochemistry.  The thought of them actually makes me feel sick inside.  In the latter half of the year, I decided to do only half a load of science as I needed to fulfill my breadth subject requirements anyway.  It was the best semester I ever had.  It wasn’t the grades that made it great (I have always been a very average student at university), but I actually enjoyed all my subjects.  I stepped away a bit from all the medicine-related science subjects and chose two that actually sounded interesting: biotechnology and pharmacology.  I surprisingly enjoyed them both, the former more so than the latter.  But what made the biggest difference were my breadth choices.  I chose ‘Media, Politics and Society’ and ‘Human Rights and Global Justice’.  I knew I wanted to explore political theory, as I had completed a political science subject during first year and really couldn’t get enough of it.  It was just a matter of which subject to choose.  MPS was really fascinating and we had a fabulous tutor who made everything even better.  Human Rights was amazing too, as I had a long standing interest in the topic from its heavy emphasis in my high school education.  Maybe it was here that I should’ve realized my long term ‘career’ goals may need some adjusting…

I trudged through undergrad (I’m sure you can scroll through my older posts about it) and now here I am.  A year and a bit short of becoming a health professional, and I am well and truly spent.  I have no motivation left.  It took me long enough, but I had an epiphany quite recently: I really don’t like what I’m doing.  There’s no interest.  I hate that I have to force myself to learn the content, and even then I’m only just passing my subjects.  I hate not doing well and not getting good results, but I just can’t bring myself to work for it.  And I can’t suddenly quit either.

I spoke to my brother about this the other day.  He just looked at me and said that he always wondered why I decided to jump into health science when it was so obviously not the right fit for me.  Why did you never say anything?

Maybe I should’ve realized when writing practice exam essays for literature for hours at a time was fun.  Or when a teacher decided last minute that I wasn’t allowed to use half the references I had prepared, but I ended up with a mark of 38/40 anyway.  Or when the grades of my arts subjects eclipsed those of my science ones, even though I hardly studied for them.  Or when I read the Dorian Grey for the first time and almost started crying on the first page because Oscar Wilde’s writing is just perfection.

Or maybe it’s when I have those days where I just miss writing so much that I wonder how I ever managed to walk away from it to begin with.