We accept the love we think we deserve

Useless metal is thrown at your feet. It laughs at you because it's only an illusion - lust that feels like love; iron that looks like silver if you delude yourself enough. But you pick it up and turn it over in your hands. it happened again today. he said he wants it. that must mean something. maybe he only wants it, but, well, maybe he wants me. maybe it's not a bad idea. it's a rare chance, after all.

At first, when you show it to me, worthless iron pretending to be silver, I say "don't accept it; it will only ruin you." I assume you know that you are gold, and the iron will only cheapen you. What I don't realise is that you don't understand what I'm saying, because you think you are iron, too. 

I don't think true silver exists, you say. I say of course it does. I list people we know who are in love, and who love with so much purity and wholeness. But you don't believe it will happen to you. True love is for other people, you say; true pure love is so precious and rare, and you are not pretty or attractive enough for it. I slowly begin to realise the real problem. You see yourself the same way I see myself: worthless.

I think I am ugly, and socially awkward, and too boring and annoying for people to want to be with. I think I am talentless and extremely, extremely weak, a pathetic dog that people adopt because they pity me (or because they're too nice to turn me away). But yesterday, I found the courage to reject these thoughts about myself. Baoyun told me that she knew I had the potential to be so much more, but it never shows because I keep desperately clinging on to one small thing and letting it determine all of me, making myself so little. And because she could look at my hopeless state and say I know you can be so much more, I decided to force myself to believe it. And so I told him. I said "I believe I am more, so stop it with the sighing, because it makes me feel like I am useless, and I am not."

Remember Emma Watson's character in Perks? "We accept the love we think we deserve." Is it possible for a beautiful person to think she isn't beautiful, and accept lousy things because that's all she thinks she's worth? My dear, I wish you knew the things I see in you. You have such a precious heart, so pure and loyal, with incredible capacity to love. You are so encouraging, so selfless, so full of beautiful qualities that are so rare these days. When I think about you I am literally reminded of precious jewels; I am not exaggerating. You have so much pressure on all sides telling you to give it up, give up your values they are useless, but you still believe they must be worth something; do you know how precious that is? You think so little of yourself, but when you are happy and confident, it shows, and you become so much more beautiful on the outside, too.

There are people we think of as good-looking and attractive, but upon closer scrutiny, you realise that you only think so because of their personality. They don't have a pretty face, but their cheerful smiles and huge personalities make them pretty. Our confidence and personality really do make up half our exterior image. Look at her. I think she's pretty, but when I think about it closely, if she didn't have that beautiful confident personality, she wouldn't be pretty at all. Look at him. He's downright ugly, but his personality makes him so charming. 

Remember the time I kept comparing myself to someone else, and felt inferior in every way? You said "That just doesn't make sense. You can't compare yourself to her. You are completely different people." And I ignored your words, but then a few days later you started doing it, too. You looked at someone and you felt like you were less than her. And I was like, "are you crazy? How can you see yourself as less than her? You are so beautiful, and your heart is dripping with loveliness. How could you even do that?" To me, it was so obvious that you were being ridiculous. And then I realised: you probably thought my comparisons were ridiculous, too.

Oh, by the way. A certain very pretty person told me that, once upon a time, she thought she was ugly. When I heard that I was like "-________- that's not possible lol lame", and tossed that aside. But then, if someone so beautiful could think she was ugly, doesn't that prove how blind we are to ourselves? If you, my dear, think you are worth so little, might it be that there is beauty in me that I am not seeing, too?

And so I am still trying to see myself through your eyes. I do that by reminding myself of how I see you: it's so bloody obvious that you are such a beautiful person, and it doesn't make sense that you don't see any of it. And then I remind myself that that's what you think about me, too. And then I tell myself that I am beautiful just like you are. I don't see it, but to you it's so obvious, just like how your beauty is so obvious to me, and so my beauty must be as true as yours is.

I also know from past experience that if I believe I am ugly, I will become ugly, and if I believe I am beautiful, others will see it, too. All I need to be beautiful is to believe it. 

I wish you could see how freaking beautiful you are, dear. But since you can't see it, I want you to remember the way you think about me - how you keep trying to convince me that I am a beautiful person - and tell yourself that that is exactly how I see you, too. The beauty in me that is so obvious to you, is just like your own beauty. I wish you could see it. I wish you could. Because then you would realise that you are worth so much more than what you let yourself believe in. You are precious gold, and scraps of iron are not even worth your attention.

Identity

I was looking at something I wrote a couple months back about identity, and I remember Peiyun telling me in her room that we are who God has created us to be, individually and uniquely. And I probably wasn't in the right frame of mind to understand that at that time, and I was wondering how we could base our identity on God's since He created us all to be in His image but that isn't exactly very specific or unique, but I called that the third level of self-perception:

1) "i am my job, my various roles, my abilities, my friendships"
2) "i am my personality, my thoughts and emotions"
3) "in Him i am."

I guess what Peiyun was probably trying to say was that I am who God created me to be, as a person - good in some things, bad at others (maybe bad at a lot of things), with my unique personality, and I’m okay with that. I was born very average-looking and I wasn’t nurtured to be all that witty or talented in stuff, and I’m okay with that, because God doesn’t shortchange in the grander scheme of things. It’s okay that I have weaknesses in my character that I need God’s help with, and that sometimes I screw up. But He lives in me, and I have the capacity to become a better me, which is basically to let Him be more and more of me. And He doesn’t change my talents or weaknesses or personality, because He meant for me to be like that, but enhanced - with greater bouts of love, joy, peace, gentleness, etc.

Maybe?

I guess at that point in time I wrote that identity post, I was struggling a lot to find a place for myself because of various things too complicated to talk about right now. I felt like I was just a shadow, a mere bland inferior copy of someone else, like I had nothing unique about myself to make me me. And I was able to find a resolution only when I realised that I was not only "her, but less" - I also had a few qualities of my own, like being unashamedly annoying and hyper. Perhaps more of a Venn diagram’s circle than a subset, then. I had to dig within myself to find parts of my personality that were different, not just less.

It was probably just the stress of that period. Now I look back and I’m able to understand it much clearer. Like, so I’m like that. So God created me to be this person. But I am my own person, and it has nothing to do with someone else, whether or not that person is everything I am and everything I want to be but far better in all points. I am me with my own stronger and weaker aspects, with my struggles, and the point of my life is to get through those things and attain that unshakeable strength, of faith and dependency on Him.

(maybe the reason that is called a ‘foundation’ is that it’s the basics for heaven-living. DAYUM)


Wow. It's so important to look back once in a while, eh?

(oh man c, now i look back and i was just so immature and blinded. i am so so so sorry to have dragged you into all of it T______T look at what boxing yourself up into a building day and night does to you; it makes you feel like that is your whole world

AH THAT'S IT THAT'S WHY EVERYTHING IS INTENSIFIED

BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S ALL THERE IS)

Spending the last day of the year

looking through all my Facebook photos.

I realised my life has actually been pretty eventful. Scroll past the recent 1AH Taiwan trip and CCAAB and Exco camwhoring sessions and other Council pictures and I'm reminded of little events that made me happy - 6B's gatherings (and one 1J one!), Bailamos with AC Dance, National Day at Marina Barrage with the two awesome people I'll be seeing later, Fun-O-Rama and random school stuff like that awesome Lit lesson with Amelia and Elgyn and our non-math-kids' Antoinette graph, Investiture and Exco Retreat, last year's New Year celebration with my childhood friends at the beach, fun times with my maternal cousins, my Channel Newsasia trip to Hong Kong with Jollin, Grad Nite and the last day of secondary school, Crescent Dance, J4M times (Gosh we need to sing together again soon, I miss the acapella jam), Crescent Dance.

There were a lot of times in Crescent where I wished I belonged. I was pretty closed-up in Crescent, had very few close friends, made a lot, a lot of mistakes. Crescent was four years of stumbling and learning to pick myself up. Lower Secondary was an emotional roller-coaster - Sec 2 was an epic year.

2007. That year I had a best friend, and a group of friends I was very lively and outspoken around, and then I suddenly left her with no best friend to lean on - I called it a virus taking over my system, and I still do, because she was the kindest sweetest most amazing friend and I suddenly couldn't stand being near her anymore. I hated myself for that, even at that time, because she was such a fantastic friend and she never deserved any of it. And then through all that chaos, I found another girl who had been going through a sea of friendship problems, and we just stuck. Found comfort in each other. A very interesting friendship. She wrote lyrics; I composed tunes to them. 失恋的滋味 - does anyone still remember that song? I can still play it on the piano. I can still sing it.

But from then on, I started to become much less vocal about my feelings, although I've been one to write to express my emotions all along. I used to be very hyperactive, and then I closed up. Most of my Sec 3 and 4 life was lonely, just me and Cuixiao. Sometimes I preferred to eat alone in the canteen. Sometimes I preferred to stay in the classroom - an excuse not to have to be around people during recess.

Prom.

There were times in upper secondary that I wished I could fit in with certain people. They seemed to be a bit more accepting of me at times - common experiences, maybe - and I wanted to be friends with them. It had nothing to do with the thrill of 'hanging with the cool kids' or whatever - I mean, I never went out with them or anything - I just wanted to get to know them better, maybe, because I knew they understood what I was going through when nobody else did. When nobody else wanted to listen, or found it revolting. They knew, because they were going through it too. The last night of our Nacli camp, when we just sat and talked - it was a very open conversation, and I was thankful that at that moment, with those people, I was able to participate in a discussion like that - it would never happen with anyone else I knew. It helped me feel more human that I wasn't as alone as I had felt.

It helped so much.

Annie Lim, Mingxuan, Jenna - people I'm not close to, but who were there to talk to me and pick me up when it really, really counted. Just once, really, but it really counted.

But I was never meant to be close to people like that. Maybe the change in appearance from lower to upper secondary was huge - I looked like a freak in Sec 2 - but I was still the same person. And after I had left Crescent, after Prom, I realised that. I realised that I had to stay true to myself. There were people I wish I could be better friends with, but I'm just not their kind of friend, and they weren't mine either. And I shouldn't try to be someone I'm not.

Introducing me:

I'm not rich, for one.

I don't look good in a lot of clothes, don't drink don't club, don't know a hell lot of Western songs because I spent almost my whole secondary school life listening to Mandarin music (I went back to English only after my relationship ended in July last year and I couldn't take listening to anything that would bring memories back or evoke emotions), don't stay out late at night, don't like to swear, don't wear havaianas because they're not comfortable and non-comfortable slippers aren't meant to cost fifty bucks, don't have anything from Fred Perry or Kate Spade or Shu Uemura M.A.C. or Marc Jacobs. Yet.

That's who I am. I'm not a cool kid. My wardrobe is full of Forever 21 and Zara, and that's about it. I love F21 and Zara. I own one pair of shades - the plain black pair I bought in Taiwan. I got my iPhone off eBay. I live in a HDB flat. My mum learnt how to drive so that she could fetch Mark and I to school last year because of his PSLE and my O's. I love JJ Lin - okay I haven't bought his new album that came out early this month, but still - and I hate rap music. My favourite music genre is alternative rock. I hate bitching, I hate gossip. I trust people very easily, almost blindly. I'm a Starbucks addict. I think the Chinese language is immensely beautiful, very emotive, and I wish I could write well in Chinese, because English is pretty non-expressive.

I think singers should be people who can sing.

I think going out with friends more often is what's making me perpetually broke, whether it's for a movie with the Exco or dinner with a friend for some heart-to-heart talk time. But is it a bad thing?

I'm not that used to going out with friends, probably because I was always with my ex in Sec 3 and 4 - gosh, I wasn't used to having friends I can feel so comfortable and happy around, Karen the emo loner - but things are changing now, and I have friends I love being around. People who are willing to spend their time with me, who really spare a thought for me. It's something I'm not used to (I don't mean to sound like an emo loner, but it's true), but it's what I'm getting in AC, and I really treasure everything God has given me here.