MAGIS day 3: prayer

So, after months of alternating between excitement and freaking out about it, I’m finally here at MAGIS 2016 in Poland. What is MAGIS exactly? I don’t quite have the words for it yet. Suffice to say for now that it’s a Jesuit-led experience of finding God outside of your comfort zone, a pre-World Youth Day gathering of young people from Jesuit communities all over the world. 

Today has been the best day so far. A really blessed day actually. When we were recollecting our day during MAGIS circle, I thought about it and I can’t really remember anything negative today. And I cried 3 times so that was awesome hahaha. 

One of the highlights of my day was recording a tutorial video for the item that our contingent is going to put up at the Festival of Nations a week from now. We basically did it in one take, start to finish, after practising it once through prior. And despite small mistakes from each of us here and there, it went so smoothly without a hitch, as if each of us were really dancing the words and soul of the song – a song that speaks of the many blessings that our small tiny island nation has received.

Watching that video really made me face a little bit certain insecurities or entrenched ways of thinking about myself – that I can’t dance, for example. The past 3 days have just been one giant mass dance, and it’s been crazy because I love music and I love the idea of dancing but it really doesn’t come naturally to me. So being out there, there’s been an intermittent jumble of “oh my God I really can’t do this” and “ooo I love this” and “argh stop saying you can’t do it and just do whatever” running through my brain. I’m grateful that for the most part I’ve been able to just enjoy myself and dance in whatever way I can. Probably cos there are 2 thousand people here, most of whom seem to be awesome natural dancers 🙂  

But yeah. Watching myself dance in the video is very disconcerting. It kind of forces me to stare at myself in reality, who I am in real life, and confront all the ways in which that picture is not adding up with the picture of myself that i have in my head. It’s… yeah. Disconcerting. 

There were lots of good things today. Great conversations with people I didn’t really know. Confiding-type conversations with my own group. So many things. I don’t have the capacity to write about them all tonight, as much as I love talking about myself and my day. 

What I really wanna write about though is prayer. I guess I should be/am grateful that I even feel a desire for prayer. That hasn’t happened in some time. But yes. In a sea of new faces and lots of activity etc, I’ve been left hungry for some form of prayer that I can just really go deeper into, and it’s been hard. 

Community prayer is hard, because the style of worship here is very different from what I’m used to back home. It’s really quite confusing to be in what should be a familiar situation – worship – and finding it so different and feeling so displaced. Which is one reason why I cried today – they sang 10,000 Reasons at mass, and it was such a blessed relief to be able to just sing and praise the way I know how. In terms of prayer just within our own contingent, we haven’t really had/made time for that either, and definitely not in the slow leisurely way I like haha. 
Personal prayer is hard too. Today I suddenly realized that I miss spending time with Jesus in adoration. I felt a sudden hunger, though mild, for Him. But so far there has not been any chance for adoration. I guess I will try to sit with the hunger and learn what God wants to teach me through this experience of hungering for Him. But it’s hard 😦

The other thing that’s been a challenge is the lack of easy access to silence and space. I feel a hunger for that too – just somewhere quiet where I can walk or sit and talk to Jesus or just be with Him. I hope this will change tomorrow, since we’ve just arrived at new accommodation tonight. We’re staying in a Jesuit dormitory so I’m feeling optimistic that they have beautiful spaces like a garden, made to encourage conversation with Jesus. 

Meanwhile, I guess I will try to journal a little, and maybe that will help. Goodnight world 🙂 #beMAGIS

Easy :)

Just wanted to pen a short note of thanksgiving because today was a really good day, a better day than I’ve had in some time.

Had lunch with a really old friend, which was easy, comfortable and made me think. Our conversation led to new ideas and new hopes for the future. And it’s always nice to have the advice and counsel of those who know me well and can give me some perspective on my own life. Very grateful for that.

Also super grateful for time with family – my awesome sister made awesomely cool food and we all sat down to dinner together. Not being blessed with culinary skills, I took the job of cleaning the prawns hahaha but that was pretty satisfying in its own way.

And then some supper time with a brother from another mother. Again, just someone in whose presence it’s easy to be. So yeah. Just super grateful! Goodnight all 🙂

God’s prompts

It’s funny how these things work. A letter that prompted a blog post, a single word prompt that sparked off a theme. Underestimate. The first word that stared at me when I opened the wordpress website.  And suddenly I realised, that’s what I’ve been doing to God. I’ve underestimated all the things He can do and how great His love is and how His hand stretches across time to lay the path down for me.

So here’s where it began. I’m supposed to be packing the house today – I’m a hoarder, and my room is now filled with boxes of stuff from years ago. I have primary school (grade school) stuff in there.  I’ve been trying to go box by box over the past couple of weeks, since I’m not working at the moment.  This morning I don’t have much time, so I pulled out a small shoe box filled with cards and started reading them (of course).  And then I came across this letter which I wrote to God in 2005 (the date is an estimate based on the stuff I found with it, from a church camp that year):

You already know what I want to thank You for.

Thank You for love.

You’re always there 4 me, even when I deny You.

You’re in my family.  You’ve given me the most perfect family in the world.

Thank You.

There are too many things I seek.

Help me to be the one You send to others.

Is this pride? Perhaps. But I just wanna be You to others.

Maybe let me touch others, but deny me the knowledge & the reward. At least the earthly reward. Then I can keep my pride at bay and continue to do Your will.

Continue? I hope I’ve already begun.

Open my eyes Lord. And my ears, and my heart. To the pain & hurt of others. Let me be Christ to them.

Amen.

Reading this just stunned me. Yes, I was already 20 then, but what a lost 20 year old I was.  In fact, I can’t reconcile any of what I’ve read to the person I was back then.  I can’t tell you how many times in the past few years I’ve prayed so many of these words.  They are very much a reflection of where I am now.  And to read that so many years ago I already made this prayer… I’m starting to second guess my dating of this letter.

I could choose to see this as defeat – I’ve been praying the same damn prayer for so many years and asking God for the same damn thing, and where has it brought me? But instead I choose to see it as faithfulness – I made this prayer at a time in my life when I was lost, not even knowing what I was asking for.  But God heard me – He probably inspired me to pray it from the depths of who I could be, because God knows this wasn’t who I was consciously back then – and since then He has been faithful to His promise.  He has been answering my prayer every step of the way since then, even when I went so far off course, even when I totally forgot He existed. He never forgot His promise – ask and it shall be given unto you.  Somehow, in all my wanderings, He’s kept me on this same path – I’m still seeking today to serve without pride, and I’m still praying for that Sensus Christi.

It really makes me look at who I am today and the journey I’ve taken to get here with new eyes.  In a new light.  Every step as one that has been guided by the Spirit, who has sustained my own spirit and my own heart of worship and desire for God within me, despite everything I’ve done.  10 years is not too long to wait for God.  In fact, it is Him who has waited for me, all these long 10 years – waited for me to do my part to move in the direction that I asked for in the first place.

It’s also a gift of hope for me as I enter my silent retreat tomorrow.  5 days of just resting, journeying, reconnecting with God, and hopefully surfacing some stuff that needs to be dealt with in order to grow more.  In this season of my life, I think my experience will be very different from the one I had 3 years ago, so I’m looking forward to what will happen – not without trepidation though.  Pray for me, send me good energy, which soever you are inclined towards.  Thank you 🙂

voice

I realise that I seem to have lost my voice a bit. what is our voice, really? being a musician, you would think music is a big part of my voice. I think in some ways it is, but in other ways, music has never been able to give voice to who I am, the way I’m sure many other musicians feel it does for them.

over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been intermittently mourning the death of a part of my musical soul, wondering whether I should try to seek it out again. I haven’t made a decision yet. I think a part of me feels that my music really finds it’s meaning only when I use it for worship.

In fact, I had a really great conversation about worship tonight. Had a super blessed chance to hang out with 2 people who are big musical presences in my worship life at the moment – Val who is our lovely, beautiful, talented pianist and John who is my bestie, the writer of incredible psalms, one of my favourite people to harmonize with and one of the best worship leaders I know.  We were talking about how leading in worship, whether through voice or instrument, can make anyone supremely attractive.  I think it’s just that vulnerability of that heart of worship, that barefaced declaration of love and devotion to God, never mind how unpopular a notion that might be, or how weak it might make one seem to admit that they have to lean on God.  (Weirdly enough though, I haven’t fallen in love with any worship leaders yet haha)

But yeah, I think I haven’t been able to connect to my own heart of worship in a long time. Just been too obscured by so many other distractions and burdens that my heart is hidden under piles of rubble.  I’m hoping to re-locate it though. It’s very tiring, trying to get through life actively ignoring God.

In other news… well actually, this week wasn’t a particularly good week. It was the first week, I think, since I’ve quit my job, that I did absolutely nothing at all, and not because I was feeling unwell or anything like that. This week I was just completely unmotivated to do anything, to leave the house at all. It was a terrible feeling, and I’m not quite sure why too. One of my friends asked whether it’s because I’m the type of person who can’t do nothing, but I don’t think that’s it at all. Generally I’m extreme when it comes to this – I’m either crazy crazy busy, or absolutely refusing to do anything, and usually I’m comfortable at both of those extremes – not healthy in terms of reaching a balance, but it also means that the idea of doing nothing for a whole week shouldn’t bother me per se.  So I’m not really sure what’s wrong, but it just felt really… not right.

we played for a special mass last week… i think it was celebrating vocations? because it was Good Shepherd Sunday, and so the Archbishop was here to celebrate mass and we had holy hour before that to pray for vocations and everything. And I was talking to one of my seniors who is now in the seminary – yay! I feel so blessed that random people I met in earlier life are now exploring religious life! – and he suggested that I go for a retreat.

And it made me realise that I haven’t thought about going back for a retreat in a long time, because I’m just so far away right now.  In fact, I promised one of our spiritual directors last year that I would attend a retreat before the year was out, and then I went into a terrible spiral and never followed through on it.  So even though I don’t really feel like it, I think I should try and go.  It’s time to explore various avenues of jump starting my spiritual life again. I’ve had quite a few false starts in the last couple of months, and while I’m very grateful for all of them – because even if I haven’t moved forward that much, at least I haven’t been moving backwards much either 🙂 – I feel very tired taking 3 steps forwards and then sometimes 2, sometimes even 4 steps back.  Really want to gain some momentum and make a break for some clearer skies.

don’t get me wrong though. I am a firm believer that to a certain extent, life will always be a struggle. partly because there will always be that longing and that thirst for that missing part of us that can only be completed by God, after we leave this life. So in that sense, I hope that I’m being realistic when I say I’m looking to be in a better place. I’m not looking for a magic pill that will make everything suddenly right. But I do know from experience that when I’m in closer communion with Jesus, everything does seem better. So yeah… haha I’m getting away from myself. Hopefully you guys know what I mean.

Alrights that’s all for tonight. Just when I’m getting into in too! I have to be up early though, and have a very full day to contrast my very empty week, so I best get some sleep soon. Nights all 🙂 push on!

 

 

easter prayer/avoidance

wow, it’s been a long time! Actually I’ve been meaning to write for a really long time, and one night I did actually write out a post, but then had some login problems and the whole thing was lost. But here I finally am.

what is it that I really wanna say though? I’m not super sure. I think when I don’t write, there are so many things I think of writing, but then when I actually get down to it… and now I’ve used the word “actually” 3 times in the last 75 words.

Ok let’s start with what I’m listening to at the moment – easy, small talk topic haha. I suddenly felt very nostalgic about/for this LaserDisc (!!!) that I watched, like, every day for a month or something – it was of Chicago live in concert. Before that, I’d only known them for their popular ballads, but that LD changed my life.  I liked their non-ballady songs so much more.  The horns section – wow!  But unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a DVD version of it… well I’ve just managed to find it on YouTube, and so I think it’s time for me to restart the search for a legit version that I can own.  Love it.  Just a snippet for you – did you know that this is how the ballad Hard To Say I’m Sorry ends? This is why they always fade it out when they play it on the radio…

It just brought back memories of how music used to really play a larger role in my life… I mean, music is still important in my life now, but it’s really restricted to the role that it plays in respect to prayer and worship. Music in the secular sense… it doesn’t exist in my life anymore.  And I’m not sure how I feel about that.  I went through a period of time last year when I felt, maybe I really should stop for a while and pursue this music thing… but it seems that the feeling has since gone, and now I’m just back in a place of uncertainty, nostalgia, and just general wistfulness about it.

aiyoh, what happened to safe and easy small talk? 😦  I guess I’m in a rather weird space right now. I’m actually very grateful to God that I managed to get into a much better place in my relationship with him in the last 2 weeks before Easter.  A big part of that was a Lenten reflection we had in our worship ministry.  It was a really small session with just 6 people, but it really marked a turning point for me where I decided on a small and concrete step to help me u-turn and start moving towards God instead of away from Him – just pray one decade of the rosary every day.

It worked like a charm, because part of my avoidance of God stemmed from not wanting to talk to Him in an intimate and open way, and I felt that praying the Rosary would allow me to follow my desire to pray, without myself freaking out because it got too vulnerable too fast.  So I did that, and before I knew it, I was spending a little bit of time in ado here and there, and then a few daily masses here and there, and then I managed to have the way paved for me to go for confession, and I had a really great recon session which I’m really grateful for.

But here’s where it gets a bit complicated.  It’s kinda like yoga – hear me out.  I used to go for Bikram yoga pretty regularly, like every week.  Bikram is standard – you do the same 26 poses every time.  So after a while, you start to really know your body, and whether you’re improving or having a bad day.  Then after 4 months of practising, I suddenly stopped because of stuff that happened.  When I came back to yoga about a year after that, I kept having this problem of pushing too far, too fast.  My mind remembered that I should be able to stretch to a certain distance, or hold a pose for a certain amount of time, and so it charged ahead and tried to do it, but my body was in a very different place – it had reverted to pre-yoga days, and in fact even worse than that because I had put on weight in the intervening 1 year and also gotten older and more unfit haha.  So I would happily charge ahead, and then totally crash when my body finally managed to communicate to my brain that something wasn’t right.

I feel that that’s exactly where I’ve been in my prayer life over the past 2 weeks.  I was so happy to come back to God that I wanted to go straight back to where our relationship was when it was at its peak, forgetting that I have spent the last 1 plus year in a really bad place, and have in some ways become even further from Him than I have ever been in my life.  So I find myself sometimes charging forward with enthusiasm, and then suddenly realising that I’m not ready for this, and then retreating really quickly.  It takes time to build back a rhythm, trust, familiarity and warmth, all that stuff, when there has been hurt in a relationship, and mine with God is no exception.  A certain chemistry still lingers, and it’s hard for me to realise that I’m still a long way away, though facing the correct direction now, and that I should take baby steps, or else I’ll quickly crash.

So yeah… it’s kinda hard right now to know which way to move, and I’ve kinda come to a standstill.  I’m thinking of going back to the Rosary for now… my worship head was sharing about how he’s come to really treasure the Rosary, and the intercession of our Mother Mary, and if I think back to where I was when I first started to grow closer to God, it began with an inexplicable draw towards praying the Rosary – previously considered by myself to be a rather boring and pointless repetitive prayer.  Let’s see how it goes 🙂

Happy Easter guys!  Born again = baby = baby steps 🙂

OJ day 4

ouch. yoga. pain. can’t climb stairs. ouch.

Over the past 6 months I’ve managed to become incredibly unfit.  It’s terrible, but I find it very hard to motivate myself to exercise when I’m not, well, happy.  I know, people say that when you’re unhappy, the best way to vent all that negative energy is to go for a run, or kickboxing, or whatever.  But it just doesn’t work for me, or rather, hasn’t worked since I was in school and the (basketball) courts were my refuge.  It seems that only positive energy gets turned into food for exercise.  Negative energy just… is depressing.

This is all just a prelude to saying that yoga today was a world of pain.  And I’m pretty sure that’s going to continue tomorrow.  And yet I’m making plans to go back next week, because 1. I have a package I really need to not waste, and 2. I really need to get off my arse and do something (fairly) active, and 3. yoga addresses all my issues – bad posture, lack of flexibility, strength, weak core… I could go on, unfortunately.

Other than that… nothing’s really happened today, haha.  I guess the most significant thing is sort of another step towards “normal” life, as normal as being jobless can be I guess.  I got up at a decent hour, got out of the house, took the bus like a normal person, went shopping around, got CNY clothes (whew), ate, ate some more, ate yet again… why do we have to eat so much?! Oh wait, we don’t have to.  All in all, I feel incredibly normal… which is quite unusual for me, but I guess that’s good cos there’s an element of novelty (omg my brain – it took me almost 10 minutes to get that word, and finally I had to ask my sister because I didn’t know how to google it -.-) which makes life more interesting.

Ok but on a slightly more serious note – had more conversations with different people (including parents) about what I plan to do, why I quit before I got a new job, what I could study that could make me more employable, which means I have to think of what I actually want to do with my life (difficult!) as opposed to just what I would like to study (so easy).  I’m no closer to the answer today than I was yesterday, but as I said, I’m trying to commit to not stressing about it until after CNY… it’s just that apparently, no one else has got the memo >.<

and that’s it!  Time to sleep.  If I can continue going to bed before midnight, maybe I can continue getting up at a fairly decent time in the morning 🙂 sleep guys, sleep!

officially jobless day 3: productive

things are off to a fairly good start! I woke up slightly earlier today – 10am haha.  Later than I had hoped for, but still enough time to spend the morning making ngoh hiang for the first time!

deveining those prawns… seriously not fun.  chopping water chestnuts… pretty fun actually! Haha.  I have to say, these are the ugliest ngoh hiang I have ever seen, and some of them ended up totally breaking up, and then frying them afterwards was a whole other thing… but all in all, a really fun adventure, and I’m proud that I managed to be involved in almost all parts of the process.  🙂

Cooking is something I haven’t done in a really long time.  I think it’s partly cos I need to be in a fairly good place in order to cook – it really is a labour of love, and I’m not particularly gifted at it, so if I don’t have the heart, it’s really impossible.  So I’m happy that today I managed to help my mum prepare dinner, and have a hand in all the dishes, but yet not need to plan anything.  Basically I just had to do whatever I was instructed to do.  And that’s a good compromise for now.  I don’t think I have the bandwidth to plan meals the way I used to, not yet.

the other thing I managed to do today that I’m really happy about – book my flight to Melbourne!  Yes, I know I just got back to Singapore after a really long trip overseas, but I have a voucher from a cancelled flight last year that is expiring soon, and since I’m jobless now, I wanna take the opportunity to use the flight and visit my cousin’s family there.  I’ve been sitting on it for some time, so I’m happy that I finally just got down to doing it.  Melbourne here I come!  I’m not much of a researcher, so if anyone has any favourite must-see, must-do or must-eat items you want to suggest, I’m all ears.  I’ll be there for just about a week, and then I come back just in time for Holy Week, which I’m both excited and apprehensive about.

Other than that… I’m feeling pretty exhausted.  So far, it’s a good kind of exhaustion – the kind that comes from achieving stuff.  I have a lunch, a tea and a yoga session planned for tomorrow – simply thinking of it makes me tired!  Not so much physically, but, you know, being around people… it’s simply draining.  That’s so stereotypical introvert I guess, but it’s so, so true for me.  But yeah, I need to get my social game back on, so tomorrow it’s 2 appointments and Friday another 2.  Friday’s lunch is with bestie though!  Yay!  Super excited for that, because we almost never hang out – I think our average is one meal a year, not kidding.

So things are going pretty ok, even if my mom has already begun to ask me what my plans are.  As if she doesn’t spend every hour of every day with me, and doesn’t know full well that I haven’t started doing any research yet haha.  But I’m not going to stress about it until after CNY.  In the meantime I’m just going to enjoy the rest of this week and the beginning of next.  Yay 🙂 I love feeling positive about stuff 🙂

officially jobless: day 2

my greatest fear is doing nothing.  it was a long time ago, but I remember the last time I was jobless.  I did nothing.  All the time.  And I was bloody good at it.  And the more I did nothing, the better I got at doing it.

I refuse to do that this time around.  Every morning I shall wake up (while it’s still morning), get out of bed (preferably while it’s still morning), and at least achieve something that day.

Today I only got up at 11.30am.  Got a shock.  I’d gotten so used to being jet lagged and waking up and avoiding looking at my phone for as long as possible, praying that it was closer to 7am instead of 3am.  Suddenly, instead of cooking eggs for breakfast before my sister goes off to school, I’m waking up to the question “what shall we cook for lunch?”  It’s unacceptable.

In a sure sign of lingering Swiss-ness, I had slices of bread and Swiss cheese for lunch, plus some chocolate.  I’m proud to say I managed to attempt to book some flights (which are now $150 more expensive than they were this afternoon – should’ve booked straight away), take in the laundry, do more laundry, cook some dinner, and peel prawns for tomorrow.  Tomorrow we’re going to attempt ngoh hiang – excites, and it also means that my productivity is assured, at least for the morning.

Being jobless is f***ing scary.  I haven’t looked at my bank balanced yet, haven’t figured out how many months’ buffer I have if I live what kind of lifestyle.  But I’m trying not to sweat it.  I’m gonna just take things one day at a time, at least for the next week and a half.  After CNY, when Lent begins… then we’ll start worrying and being all serious.

On the bright side, if I can call it that, I now suddenly have time to schedule in all the friends I have been neglecting for the past 2 months.  So if you’re one of those friends… my calendar is still fairly open, and I’m not yet allergic to socializing.  Offer stands while stock lasts.

goodbye, January.

I’m not sure how this happened. One minute I was excitedly plunging into a long break away, and the next, I’m back home and it’s 1.5 hours to February.  The year is moving into its second month, but I haven’t even realised that 2016 has begun.

How has January been? I need to write a little, to make me think a little, because the past month has pretty much been an exercise in escaping.  In pretending that I don’t have a life, a family, responsibilities etc.  Existential crisis of sorts I guess – in a sense, I don’t really have financial responsibilities, my family can take care of itself, and what else is there to life really?

Well to a certain extent, if I really think of it, the answer is community.  Which is pretty much non-existent right now, because I’ve spent the past 2 months trying to be as uncontactable as possible, and succeeding quite well.  It means that I haven’t been present and available to any friends, I don’t know what’s been happening in the community, nothing.  But honestly, I don’t really want to talk about community right now, because talking about community means talking about God, and I’m not ready for that just yet.

In fact, I don’t really feel like writing about anything, and yet I feel compelled to write.  Why?  Frustrating.

This song has just come on, and I think it’s perfect for what I’m feeling right now:

Ever since I’ve come back, I’ve felt very unsettled.  For the first time ever, I suddenly feel the need to leave, to live somewhere else, to see if a different existence can be found somewhere.  I love Singapore.  I’ve always loved this place.  I love almost everything about it, almost blindly.  But suddenly, I realise that life could be really different elsewhere.  I could be really different elsewhere.  And I’m suddenly curious.  Curious about who I could be.  Who I could be free to be.

It’s terribly unsettling.  Where do I want to go?  I have no idea.  I’m terrified of meeting new people.  Going somewhere where I would know absolutely no one is simply paralyzing.  I don’t trust myself around people, honestly.  So preferably, I want to go somewhere where I already know some people at least, or where there’s already some sort of structure that compels me to know people – and no, work doesn’t count.  You never can tell what your co-workers will be – I have worked jobs where my colleagues are now close friends, and also jobs where I never had anything to say to any of my colleagues, and never contacted any of them after I left.

What am I saying. That could be true of any setting – church, dorm, school, etc.  DISASTER haha.  I don’t know what I want.  I guess deep down I’m still just a kid.  Today’s second reading had that passage which I feel more and more allergic to – about how when we were children, we had childish ways and thinking, but when we are adults we must put our childish ways behind us.  So not doing that.  😦

January was spent running away, pretending that I could escape real life forever.  Tomorrow is February, and time to start getting back to reality, to routine, to responsibility.  Reality is partly controlled by my decisions though, and I can choose what the next step is.  What do I want it to be?

(At this point I feel compelled to point out to myself that no matter what conclusion I manage to come to, I’ll never feel comfortable or at peace with it until I consult God, and the more I put off doing that, the worse it’ll be.  Sometimes it really sucks to know that God is God.)

alonely adventures day 2: indescribable

I thought for a long time what to name this post, but I can’t find the right word for it. How to describe the way the community here has just taken me into their fold without hesitation? They’ve been so generous and loving, it’s been overwhelming. Already just within 2 days of meeting them, I’ve sat with them at a church function, attended mass together, gone caroling at a nursing home, been driven many miles to 2 vantage points to see the NYC skyline, crashed a birthday party, sung an impromptu solo, met or heard about countless children, and today will be brought around NYC by a couple from their group. All this friendship and love just flowing from them… it’s indescribable.

Anyway, I usually blog at night but I think the jet lag is still upon me. Was so exhausted that I fell asleep at 9pm, tablet in hand open to this page, and hence woke up at 5.30am, tablet on the floor under the bed.

I’m a little hesitant about going out today. How does a cold, awkward child like me know how to respond appropriately to such a wealth of warmth and goodwill? I feel extremely inadequate and out of my depth. My greatest fear is to take advantage because I fail to recognize what kindness is being shown, and mistake it for a deserved privilege. That’s on top of all the other various awkward fears – how can I let them pay for everything? Which is ruder, insisting to pay, or letting them? How do I be genuinely interested in them? How do I know when I’ve outstayed my welcome?

I really need to stop over-thinking, but it’s hard because this kind of warmth and hospitality is so foreign to me. I’ve often wished that we were that sort of people. Not in a very regretful way, cos I do think my family is pretty awesome, but you know, it would be awesome in a different way to be that kind of family. I’m sure it might come with it’s own set of resentments and complications, so I’m not too hung up. But the point is, being very not like that leaves me at a loss for how to respond to being treated like this. I have no gifts or anything 😦

I also want to be less afraid and more open to new experiences, and just less full of myself in general, which is, I feel, the root of my over-thinking. Just get over myself and live. It’s likely though that that might be a disaster haha. “Be yourself” is somehow not advice I would give myself.

Ok yikes, it’s almost 6.30am already! Still have to wash up, pack room, choose clothes – WHAT TO WEAR to NYC that balances fashion and warmth?!, get breakfast, try to catch mass at 8am then I’m being picked up for a new adventure at 8.30am. Wish me luck!