Posts in category "Thoughts"

romantically vulnerable

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be tru­ly attract­ed to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­at­ed com­fort of famil­iar­i­ty and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten com­plete­ly.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­o­ry of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has giv­en up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sun­ny Spring days.

She nev­er under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I could­n’t give her a sol­id time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I should­n’t, cause it’d be unfair to the oth­er per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynam­ic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­at­ed with every rela­tion­ship and every part­ner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­plete­ly tak­en with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­al­ly I tru­ly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are impor­tant.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­al­ly be in con­tact again, which would assured­ly take even longer! [↩]

Arrows with no target

I don’t view my projects the same way any­more. I used to work towards a goal, an idea of what I want­ed to achieve. But more recent­ly I stopped car­ing about the end result, prob­a­bly due to this new per­spec­tive on…every­thing.

It’s a strange jux­ta­po­si­tion of know­ing that what you’re doing is ulti­mate­ly insignif­i­cant, and find­ing enjoy­ment in doing it any­way. Like a child stack­ing a pile of blocks, only to knock them down.

The wikipedia arti­cle on wu wei explains feel­ing this bet­ter than I can:

The goal for wu wei is to get out of your own way, so to speak. This is like when you are play­ing an instru­ment and if you start think­ing about play­ing the instru­ment, then you will get in your own way and inter­fere with your own play­ing. It is aim­less action, because if there was a goal that you need to aim at and hit, then you will devel­op anx­i­ety about this goal.

Zhuangzi made a point of this, where he writes about an archer who at first did­n’t have any­thing to aim at. When there was noth­ing to aim at, the archer was hap­py and con­tent with his being. He was prac­tic­ing wu wei. But, then he set up a tar­get and “got in his own way.” He was going against the Tao and the nat­ur­al course of things by hav­ing to hit that goal.

(This also reminds me of a verse from Leonard Cohen’s True Love Leaves No Traces: “Through win­dows in the dark/The chil­dren come, the chil­dren go/Like arrows with no tar­gets/Like shack­les made of snow.)

Nowadays, I do what I feel like doing and don’t stress out about not fin­ish­ing a project, cause I know I’ll feel like work­ing on it anoth­er day. It leaves me more loose ends, but I don’t mind. Luckily, I love cre­at­ing things. Trying dif­fer­ent medi­ums. New ways of express­ing myself.

29 6/12: The Arrival

I haven’t had much to say late­ly. Suffering has always been a pre­req­ui­site for my cre­ativ­i­ty, as I only need to write when unful­filled or unhap­py, and late­ly I haven’t felt either.

The real­iza­tion that I was hap­py only came when some­one asked how I was doing; I respond­ed with my usu­al, gener­ic, “I’m doing well, thanks”, and for the first time in as long as I could remem­ber, I did­n’t feel like I was lying.

Self portrait at 29 6/12

 

Not that the desire to write has left me com­plete­ly. I still want to, though only because it’s an enjoy­able exer­cise in itself, not because I need to get some­thing off my chest. The world final­ly makes sense, and I won­der if it’s nec­es­sary to have this blog a place to sort out my thoughts any­more.

I’m sat­is­fied with the per­son I’ve become. I’ve stopped try­ing to change, or con­stant­ly fig­ur­ing out how to improve. I like me.

The seren­i­ty is get­ting bet­ter still, almost to the point where it’s an uncon­scious state-of-mind. Things don’t both­er me the way they used to. I can dream with­out desire, I can live with­out bias, I can give with­out expect­ing, I can think with­out wor­ry, and I can enjoy with­out guilt.

I turn 30 in half a year, and I final­ly feel like I’m where I should be.

The Turning 30 Series

CITY AIRLINE FLIGHT STATUS

Whenever I trav­el to the States, I can’t help but won­der if I could live here. Or any­where out­side of Canada, for that mat­ter.

But I know it’s nev­er more than a pass­ing fan­cy. I’m always hap­pi­er to touch down at home, than any­where else.

flight status board

Never, ever, ever fly through Philly. I’m pret­ty sure the air­port is in cahoots with the restau­rants and hotels, and they delay you every time you fly in to get you to spend mon­ey.