because depth is universal.

my mind keeps swirling back to this spur of conversation that happened yesterday as i had had dinner with friends and then K loosely speaks about how he feels as if people don't completely understand his emotional fluctuations and use his personality as an excuse. ohhh, but you're so this and that already, so you don't need to be an emotional wreck. almost as if the persona he sets for the world becomes a justification, therefore he is not entitled to feeling heavy weights and experiencing turmoils.


i have come to know K on my own terms in the past year and he's a swell friend, truly. and i've never underestimated his ability of feeling, so if anything, i never saw his hilarious personality as vindication for when he is experiencing ultimate emotional swings.


i remember feeling and saying how much i related,
because definitely, the persona i project in real life and in many situations is one who is 70% of the time happy, participating in conversation, looking on the bright side, finding things to laugh about. i like to portray myself as simple, and i'm pretty sure it's a success in most eyes. and i figured that a big part of me that has not changed since a child is my inability of speaking of things from the heart. i think i am much better at writing them down like now, obviously or just leaving them swimming in pools in my head. also, i only feel more like my serious boring self when i am with the friends and loved ones who have known me and seen me grow in the past couple of years. and sometimes, i don't know if that is a good thing. because once i get accustomed to people, i let them into the most quiet, bland corners of my black and white soul. and then i start wondering if they could ever misintepret that.


i suppose my mind is also constantly going back to specific moments in my past that perhaps was not directed at me but being the person i am, i tend to feel for things that weren't even meant for me. the things loved ones have said, how do we ever forget the bitter pains of when words are let out?


i keep on,
remembering.


all these things that were once said to me, whether or not intentional or unintentional. because if it manages to escape a person's mouth so easily, then it must mean that those thoughts have crossed their mind to a certain degree, doesn't it?


i don't like to dwell in my wallows because i don't like showing it. i don't like the idea that i am being a negative ball of energy when the world is already full of that. hence, my persona of simplicity. i hate to appear heavy weighted in real life because life is already too heavy, i think. so i hide it all or let it all go. just because i don't show my blue colours, doesn't mean i don't have any. just because i let things go easily, doesn't mean i don't take things heavily. and just because i don't talk about it that much, does not mean that i am too lighthearted to feel the unbearable weight of being.


what i have learned, in this continuous but broken fragments of thoughts, is to never assume a person's capacity of feeling just because we think we are our deepest wells. everyone has a deep well, whether or not they have thoroughly explored it.

because i miss it. i do.

'juyi and i used to dance together back a long time ago in HELP; she was one of the first few who started this thing you know, one of the firsts who started this club! you should do it again, juyi. why don't you dance anymore?'

because i got hit hard.

as some may have known and that's if there are people still reading this page, i was ultimately sick the past week. the can't-get-out-of-bed-because-the-world-feels-like-it's-spinning-thus-making-me-go-on-a-vomiting-spree kind of sick, which i really loathe because there was a point in time when i was much younger, or maybe not much younger, that i had been a hospital regular. i don't know what made me so prone to being sick then, and i still don't know what plagued me last week. whatever it was, i hated it. tremendously.


one thing that cliche'ly, changes me when i am down for a long period of time
is my level of appreciation towards people.


not to say that i'm an unappreciative one; i think with time, we lose grip on appreciation. it becomes such a norm, the act of appreciating, that as it slowly slips from our minds the way you would imagine a palm of sand gets slowly blown by the wind, we just forget. we get so comfortable with living, accommodating, climbing the slow but sure steps of woman and manhood, the more we have and the more we achieve in our ever-grandiose lives, the more we forget. we forget to appreciate the little things and the very little details that people mark in our life. because we get comfortable.


wow, that hospital stay really kicked me in the head, didn't it.


my point is, after and as i got better, i begun to see my family and friends in a... not to say bright light, i've always had my loved ones in a bright light, but a more so... different light. to illustrate, my mother is a mithali one; sending me to the hospital, staying with me there, ensuring i took my medication and going out of all odds to make sure i get on the road to recovery. my aunt had been cooking for me lots of hearty soups and taking me to other doctors as well to get second and third opinions. the friends that took the effort to check in on me as i might have worried some of them. and not to forget, the only one whose efforts and TLC i tend to butcher because i can nyeheheh, the lovely companion who also stayed with me in the hospital, took time to be with me because i got so emotionally intertwined with my biological downfall.


ironically, it took me a dreadful sickness to revive me.
i feel like i have been talking more since i found it tiring to talk when i was sick, i have took more opportunities to go out when i should and when i get to because fresh air outside beats the deceptively comfortable bedsheets of my often gloomy room, and last but not least, i have took more effort in being happy. and that in itself, as much as it might sound more cliche to believe, has helped me in my recovery in more ways than my medication has.


now i'm not going to begin a thesis-long post on happiness.
what i mean is that i have been feeling like happiness is not something that comes to you. it's something that you have to practice to be. the very effort of laughter. laughter doesn't come to you, no does it? there has to be something that needs to trigger you to laugh. a funny show, talking to friends, getting tickled... we need to practice being happy. because it's much easier to succumb to negativity, to give in to the devilish thoughts that we so often have in our crazy little heads. happiness is an effort. and i didn't have that when i was sick, thus throwing me into a momentary depressive state. i think it's too easy to succumb to negativity when your body has given up on you. so what complains do we have with our healthy and perfect bodies to be unhappy? that, to me, is unappreciative. unappreciative of the simple things in life, like being healthy.


today, i went to visit an aunt in the hospital. she was one of the aunts who generously homed me during my two month travel holiday in the UK and today, she's back in KL because she caught a stroke. this woman whom i got to know two years ago was a vibrant, bouncy middle-aged lady. she was energetic, vivacious, colourful and lively. being with her was like being with a lightbulb, she just lights up your day because she definitely lit up mine many times then. today, it broke my heart as i saw her lying on the bed, half-body paralyzed from the stroke that hit her, barely able to speak, barely able to move, barely able to shift her eyes. she needed to be fed, wear diapers, and needed help if she wanted to move.


i had to suck in the tears that welled up in my eyes.
she made an effort to smile as she saw me, and that simultaneously killed me and warmed me inside. and i spent most of the time holding her hand, singing to some really cheesy 80s songs on the little radio next to her bed and talking about random little things before i kissed her on both cheeks goodbye.

'it's depressing, isn't it?' - my mother said to me.

it was. it really was. 

i couldn't think of anything harder in life than still maintaining the spirit to live, when your body has ultimately failed you. it's like being trapped in a body you can no longer control, a body that has loss its functional state. you are alive, but at the same time, you are not. even after studying Sociology of Aging last semester, reading through all the definitions and facts about old people did not hit me as hard as seeing a dear loved one lying in a hospital bed. this was life, a life that happens to many of us and will happen to many of us as we go on 40, 50 years down the road. this was, a very sad fact of life.

how does one still find the effort to be happy? 

it boggles me.

it still does.