synonymsforjane

When I was younger, I was often confused because people were always confused by me.

I look asian, that was for sure, but because I didn’t look very chinese, nor did I look malay or eurasian, people around us were often puzzled and took it upon themselves to solve the mystery of the hour, “where does she come from?” “what race does she belong to?”

Why people behave like this is another topic altogether, but their actions and thoughts towards me and my brother often made me ask myself too – “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

These 2 questions have accompanied me, and I take it as my mind’s way of not letting me forget my eventual purpose in this life.

The awareness that a Self exists and might be different than how it’s presented was expounded when my cousins and I used to watch Disney shows and I would relate more to Ariel the Mermaid, than Mulan the only Chinese “princess” in Disney movies.

If I am not the sum of my interests, likes, dislikes, am I then the sum of my thoughts, words, and actions?

While continuing the journey to find this Self, many things have happened. I have “betrayed” her multiple times – the first time by going to university even though I didn’t want to, the second time when I chose to stay in Singapore to pursue a career I didn’t necessarily find interest in, and the third when I got married to someone I didn’t even like but knew I felt love for.

I used to think it was a betrayal when I made these decisions but I’ve recently realized these moments in my life weren’t failures – they were opportunities for me to experience the highs and lows in life in a much shorter amount of time than not.

The reactions and emotions I went through while experiencing these life events WERE the actual point of the events, not the fact that they happened. I needed to be brought back to intense emotions because before that, my life was a fucking grey piece of shit. There were no colours, only different versions of black mixed with white. It was terrifying, and life was giving me CPR to bring me back to life.

While I was going through the healing process, I remember realizing that the actual Self is the “third party” going through all of my memories of events, determining the cause and effect of those emotions/reacts. It was also the Self who then decided, what I was to make of them. How do I want to learn from the past? How do I want to move on into the future? It was when I was happy with both my answers that I was able to BE in the present.

Learning about the Human design, jung’s archetypes, and understanding that there is a distinct Self identity for all of us to eventually ‘remember’…..has been a huge turning point.

A big part of life has to be spent interrogating ourselves about the Self’s identity and purpose. If not, life will repeat itself until the lessons are learnt.

I remember when my father called.

            “Dead. They’re dead,” he said through sobs.

            “Who’s dead?” I whispered.

“They. 3 of them. I got back to the jetty and saw them lying there. All dead. I can’t find Uncle Jonathan. I lost him.” Dad continued.

There had been an accident. Their ferry had started sinking, barely 300 meters away from the jetty. None were wearing their life jackets. All their lives were risked. The captain had failed to warn them, then jumped over and swam to shore by himself, leaving his crew and passengers flailing about to save themselves.

A few days later, they found my uncle.

His body blue, swollen and dead. Very dead.

I didn’t feel like he was gone, although he must have been. His body was lifeless, but did life really begin in this body? I registered this thought as I stood by his coffin. “Where are you? I asked Uncle Jonathan. He didn’t reply. He was too busy being dead.

That night, as I lay in bed, I dug up all the photographs I had of and with him, and I pasted his photographs on my wall. I didn’t know that was a direct invitation for him to come to me.

It took a long time to fall into slumber, and once I did, I was transported into the other dimension. In this dimension, colours are more vibrant. And his body looked unnaturally blue, almost like a smurf.

He was still dead. But he must have crawled out of the coffin somehow because now he was right beside me, on my bed, wetting my pillow. I didn’t want to say anything, so I ignored my soaking wet pillow and sheets.

He didn’t say anything. His arms were crossed, and his hair was soft. His eyes gently closed, as if he were sleeping. He loved taking naps anyway, so I guess he came all this way to nap.

The years went by and I continued dreaming about him. It took a few years for him to stop sleeping wet in my bed. He finally woke up. I saw him in another recurring dream where we keep meeting each other in public. He doesn’t know I can see him. He looks lost and confused, unsure why no one can see or talk to him. But he is in no pain.

A few more years go by and now, he knows I can see him. We are standing across our family; he waves his hand at me to say hi. We both know he’s not ready to go yet, and so we go on our way, him doing his dead thing, me doing my dream thing.

Another few years go by and one day, I knew it was time. He walked confidently towards me. And gave me a big hug. It felt completely real to feel him, and know that we don’t just exist in our empty bodies. We didn’t talk. But in this world, talking isn’t needed.

When he finally let me go, he was there no more, barely a mist in the air.

My uncle took 6 years to go. And that was the year my therapy dog died.

I’ve been trying to write. But I find it hard. So instead, I’m reviving old thoughts and emotions, to set these in stone. To remember. To forget. To unravel.

July 2020 –            

I know I should let you go. I’ve been trying. Every day, I think about you and me and where we went wrong. Every day, I imagine you must go through the same thoughts. Every waking moment, I fight the urge to call you and ask, “do you know what happened? Are you still in there?” I deny my impulses for 29 days in a month but by the 30^th day, the thin thread holding me together breaks gently, and I pick up the phone with a sole intention to hear your voice again.

            I exist now in the phone calls you have with me during your coffee-runs. I imagine you sneaking out of the house, on pretext of doing a grocery run, waiting 10 minutes before calling me in the car. I’ve lost my privileges as your first woman and now I’m the ‘other woman’ you must bear with. Now, you’ve made me become the shadow crouching around the corner of your relationship.

            We talk about nothing. You tell me what a psycho she has been, but also tell me that you’ve no regrets. You tell me you feel sorry towards me, and that you will always love me, but not in the way I’m hoping. You want to remain as the good guy, and I let you. I let you because I love you. I don’t know why but I do.

            When the breaking dawn comes, I wrap a shawl around my shoulders. Shoulders I once wanted to show the world. I crave the smell of coffee floating around in our house. I crave the normality of our boring life. And I’ve lost that.

You’ve shriveled my dignity and confidence into a grain of sand – inconsequential. Undeserving. Nothing more than a thoughtless breath.

            And yet, there I bare my soul. Because even as sand, I matter. I would rather matter than be used by you again.

Inspired by a true story

That feeling…….of being desired. That high I get from being needed and wanted. 

I don’t necessarily like it. But it exists within me. 

I remember the way he rolled over to face me.  I remember waking up in a blur, feeling his lips hot on mine. His hands caressing my breasts with the sound of the ocean purring in the background. I remember all my senses heightened, how sensitive I became to his every movement and sound. How his moans would melt against my lips, how loud they seemed to be and yet only loud enough for me to feel on my skin. 

He was a family friend, a year older than me. Our families would go to this kelong. A kelong is an offshore platform primarily made from wood. This one was big enough to fit about 100 people. There was a restaurant that cooked all of our meals, bunk beds that lined up next to each other, and toilets that were basically a hole into the ocean. I loved growing up going on kelong trips. I loved sleeping under the stars, lying on a hammock trying to catch a breeze. There was nothing else to do on a kelong except eat, sleep, play mahjong, and fish. 

Most of the customers were men who brought their friends or families along. My uncle had brought my dad here first. Later, my dad would bring others. It was a recurring event for us to come here, and that’s probably why my idea of an escape is always to be close to the sea, or literally in the middle of the ocean. 

I first met him when I was 9. He was 10. 

We were children, and as children, all we cared about was fun and games. He taught me how to play ‘Big 2’ and for those few days that we spent together, each time our families went on holiday together, we were inseparable. 

From the moment we woke up, till we went to bed, he, his brother, me and my brother would spend all of our time together, except for when our brothers would go off to fish with our fathers, leaving him and I alone. 

We even needed to take our showers at the same time, splashing water over the divider onto each other. At night, we would all take our pillows out onto the platform, listen to the waves and talk. 

I didn’t see him again until I turned 16, and him 17. 

This time….we were older now. Teenagers in our prime years, just before we got old enough to know of consequences, yet not young enough to hold back on our impulses. 

When I first saw him get out of the car at the breakfast meeting point. My heart skipped a beat. He was so handsome. And much taller now. He had lost his baby fat and had a chiseled jaw. Immediately, I started feeling insecure whenever he would glance in my direction. Why did I wear my hair this way? Why did I not look more fair or feminine?

It took a while before we finally exchanged words. 

It was on the ferry that would take us from Mersing to the kelong. 

We sat next to each other, awkwardly glancing around to avoid eye-contact. I don’t remember who started the conversation but I remember feeling like nothing had changed between us in those 6 years of not meeting. 

Yet, everything had changed. 

Once we got to the kelong, a thought crossed my mind – would we be sleeping next to each other just like we did when we were young? My stomach turned over in nervousness at the thought but I brushed it aside. He’s already told me of a girlfriend he has. They’re in love – he says. He tells me that when they first met, they were enemies. He couldn’t stand her, she found him annoying. Soon after, they got to know each other more and have been together for a year or so now. Knowing he had a girlfriend didn’t quite affect me. He was a little more than a stranger to me now. Besides, I didn’t know him in “real life”. All my interactions with him were in this fantasy world where no pain exists – only peace and dreams yet to be fulfilled. 

After dinner, the few of us “kids” started playing cards. I observed his every move and facial expression. How his eyes would sparkle when he spoke about something he liked, how he would playfully nudge me with his shoulder every time I said something stupid. He would tell our younger brothers how to play a better strategy at the game too. 

The time came for everyone to take our night showers. 

On kelong, you had to fetch your own water. That meant lugging a 10-kilo barrel of fresh water into a pail, and then using a bucket to scoop water out. I couldn’t lift mine of course, and so he helped. Watching him lift the barrel so easily and smoothly, my eyes hungered over his strong arms and for a moment, I imagined his skin naked, his fair skin dripping wet…..beads of water dripping off his hair. With that image in my mind, I awkwardly thanked him for helping me and immediately realized my face was getting hot. We were in the same bath cubicle and it was all too much for me. I shoved him out of the cubicle and locked the door, pressing one hand to my chest, willing my heart to slow down. It was beating so loudly I feared he would hear it. 

All freshened up with damp hair, I step out of the cubicle in my pajamas and see that he’s just stepped out too, with no shirt on and a towel covering him waist-down. “Fuck me…..no,” was all I could think of then. 

I think he liked it – making me uncomfortable, watching me squirm about. I think it fed his ego. 

That night, the kids had all piled up into a row of beds side by side. Him and I took the bottom ones. We played cards with the others well into midnight. And that’s when things happened. 

We must have fallen asleep because I saw that I was still holding onto cards in my hand. The next thing I realized was his face so close to mine I could feel his breath. Were we kissing? He was kissing me so gently, it felt like a dream. My mind couldn’t react and I observed my body completely lean into his. I watched us from another universe, my hands combing through his hair, his right arm wrapped around my lower back. 

I don’t remember how long we were wrapped in this embrace, and I don’t remember how long it took for me to fall asleep again. But I remember lying on his chest, listening to his heart beating. I remember the scent of his neck, and him giving me forehead kisses. He was my first love, and I never even saw it coming. There was no way I wouldn’t have given him my heart if he had asked. 

—————–

I woke up with the sun shining in my face, my left arm outstretched on the bed as if I had been stretching it over something or someone – Him. 

I heard a familiar clanging sound on the pot and knew it was the call for breakfast. Sleepily, I got up and groped around on the mattress for my spectacles. 

The minute I put my spectacles on, his figure came into vision. I thought he would realize I had awakened, and come right over. I was wrong. Something about the tightness in his jaw and the way he was trying not to look over gave me a sense of dread. What happened? Did I do something wrong last night? 

On the way back to land, he ignored me throughout the whole ferry ride. I don’t know what I was expecting, but surely, not this? Where did that passion go? Where did that emotion I felt dissipate to? 

When we got back to Singapore, I tried contacting him but he said that he was going to forget about what happened. His emotions overcame him (more like hormones) and he made a mistake. He told me that he loved his girlfriend and requested for  me to forget about the incident. 

I was 16, and completely emotionally incapable of dealing with being used like that. He was an asshole and yet, my heart pined for him for the next few months. I replayed our kisses over and over again in my mind, trying to live through them if only for just a moment. 

You can imagine how I felt, when a few months later, my father told me we were going on holiday again with the same family. From the day I knew about the trip until the moment I saw him, my entire nervous system went haywired. My body felt so rejected but at the same time, my heart couldn’t stop hoping he had changed his mind. “Pick me! Why don’t you!” 

Once we reached the kelong, it became instantly obvious that he wasn’t interested in just “being friends.” He made several flirtatious comments, found my gaze on him several times and held eye contact with me in such a suggestive manner that I just lost all sense of morality. “He should be mine,” I told myself. After all, didn’t I meet him first?! 

That night, our conversation became so much more serious than ever. We talked about where we wanted to go for school, what we would want to work as, whether we were going to have children etc. “I’m going to marry Andrea,” he told me. I looked down at my hands and looked away, feeling the pang of pain on my heart. We were under such a starry night, the breeze was strong, the ocean calm….but my body was experiencing such a cacophony of emotions, each demanding my attention that I switched off and started disassociating. 

We started talking about other things, and for some reason started talking about our sensitive body parts (don’t even, i have no idea why). I told him that my gut always felt like my most vulnerable part. I was facing one direction and he was facing the other. In one swift movement, he stepped closer to me, so close I could feel my goosebumps almost touch his arm. The heat from my body was radiating to the top of my head and I felt my ears burn. 

“You mean….like this?” He placed a warm hand on my stomach, looked me in the eyes, and that was it. I fell for that motherf*cking smooth-ass shit instantly and we locked lips again for the second time. 

We picked an empty bed, this time one that was on the upstairs bunk and lay beside each other. We made out for such a long time I had to pull away one second just to breathe. The moment my mind recognized that it was him I was kissing, I started tearing up. “Why are you with her?” I asked him. “Because she’s perfect for me. She has all of the qualities I know I’ll need in a wife. I love her.” “Then why are you with me now?” My voice croaked. I couldn’t believe how embarrassed I felt but I also needed to know. “I don’t know. I can’t help it.” He tells me. I start pushing him away, trying to get off the bed, unhappy with his stupid-ass answer but he pulls me close to his chest, close enough that I can hear his heart beat and he simply says, “stay here, you need me.” 

That was the first time I gave my power to a boy.

From: https://scottjeffrey.com/shadow-work/

A while ago, I had to stand in court for a crime I didn’t do. Someone who was really pissed off with me wanted to sue me for harassment. Having no justification and no proper claims or evidence for it, she was asked to withdraw her case and not waste taxpayers’ money. The entire court session was actually really good for me because I learned so much about myself during the entire process. I wanted to focus on my own actions, how I could pick out the bits of what I didn’t like of myself so I could regenerate and improve as a person.

My bully was a person with many insecurities. But she also played very dirty, with little conscience on her hands. Amongst many accusations she made about me in court, she took one of my blogposts and submitted it to the court as evidence that i have a “violent nature”. In that post, I was describing about the one time my triggers were on high alert, and I flung a glass against a wall while acting out infront of Marco and our friends. I also shared that after the incident, I broke down crying because I knew I had reacted in a manner that wasn’t reflective of my best self. As I was crying, Marco asked if I had scared myself. It was in that moment, that I felt he understood me. He could see my anger being played out because I had so much repressed anger, anger I should have displayed when I was being bullied in the first place. Anger from my childhood, teenage years that I didn’t work through.

I wanted to share that incident to show people that anger is a part of the grieving process and the more we suppress it, the more it comes out unexpectedly, especially when our emotions are on a high and we aren’t able to control ourselves. I wanted to show people that it’s necessary to understand our “dark side” and befriend it, so we can dispel it and move through it, instead of being afraid of it.

Now that I’ve been studying psychology and philosophy for a while, I also know this to be called Shadow work.

What is the Shadow?

(taken from another site)

The shadow is the “dark side” of our personality because it consists chiefly of primitive, negative human emotions and impulses like rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power.

All we deny in ourselves—whatever we perceive as inferior, evil, or unacceptable—become part of the shadow.

Anything incompatible with our chosen conscious attitude about ourselves relegates to this dark side.

The personal shadow is the disowned self. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own, including inherent positive qualities.

These unexamined or disowned parts of our personality don’t go anywhere. Although we deny them in our attempt to cast them out, we don’t get rid of them.

We repress them; they are part of our unconscious. Think of the unconscious as everything we are not conscious of.

We can’t eliminate the shadow. It stays with us as our dark brother or sister. Trouble arises when we fail to see it. For then, to be sure, it is standing right behind us.

Shadow work for me, was a game changer.

To actively seek out your shadow takes courage, and I hope to sow in you courage by proving to you that when you get past your fear of confront your shadow, you really do get a better idea of you are.

And knowing who you are…..is a superpower. Knowing exactly who you are – for all the things you think you should be ashamed of….things you are proud of….things you want to be grateful for…..is an ability we can ALL cultivate. Because it’s when we know ourselves, that we lose the idea that we need to be spectacular. We lose the concept of needing validation. We lost the fear of not being loved or wanted.

And of course, we are able to genuinely love ourselves.

We treat others the way we treat ourselves. When we don’t have love for ourselves, we won’t know how to project love for others. Love that they really desire and deserve.

What Happens When You Repress Your Shadow

So what happens to all the parts of ourselves we sweep out of view?

Whatever qualities we deny in ourselves, we see in others.

In psychology, this is called projection. We project onto others anything we bury within us.

If, for example, you get irritated when someone is rude to you, it’s a good bet you haven’t owned your own rudeness.

This doesn’t mean the person isn’t being rude to you. However, if rudeness wasn’t in your shadow self, someone else’s rudeness wouldn’t bother you so much.

This process doesn’t happen consciously. We aren’t aware of our projections.

Our egos use this mechanism to defend itself—to defend how it perceives itself. Our false identities of being “good” keep us from connecting to our shadow.

These psychological projections distort reality, creating a thick boundary between how we view ourselves and how we behave in reality.

Integrating our shadow into the concepts of ourselves is imperative if we want to fully grow into who we can be.

Understanding our Shadow is Understanding our Strength

You know what true strength is?

True strength is when you know you have the power to impact someone in a huge way, like the way you have power over a child……but you use it wisely. You control your own emotions by not letting them project unto them.

And how can you stop your projections from happening if you’re not in control of your emotions? Being in control means having a strong relationship with your body (the body often responds before your mind does) and being able to feel the wrath….feel all of that fire in your body, but snuffing it out so you don’t light someone else on fire.

That takes true courage, something that your bullies don’t have, which is why they hide in the dark, they fear people’s judgment of them.

Next time you’re being bullied, stand up for yourself with courage, and give them exactly what they deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. Show them the consequence of their actions, but pardon them the rest of your fury. Leave them be……and work on conquering your own Shadow.

many things to pen down.

oof i haven’t done this in a while. and just yesterday, while writing the scooter home, i thought about the many times i wrote about my anger. and told myself to pen down my feelings of boredom too.

for what felt like an agonizingly long amount of time, i remember feeling so angry, hurt and depressed.

i remember feeling that heavy block of burden slowly lifting too. i penned down that moment of transition.

i’ve always wanted to show you the raw, un-edited parts of my journey. my journey towards healing inner child wounds, healing from a toxic divorce , healing from generations of anxiety/depression/oppression. i’ve always wanted you to see me as a part of you, and feel supported by my progress.

so it’s only right that i show you what boredom now feels like.

i don’t know of which stage this is – but boredom feels very much like indifference.

it’s like when you open your high school/secondary school year book and you remember the people you crossed paths with then. bestfriends you had. the kind of hair styles you wore, clothing you dressed yourself in, and attitudes/perspectives you picked up as a result of peer pressure. you remember the You that lived through that, you even remember how stressed you were while preparing for exams, how heartbroken you were when you first got betrayed, how vulnerable you felt when you first got bullied. but you feel indifferent to it now, because you know you’re not the same person anymore. you’re not the you…..some 15 years ago.

i’m at that stage now.

able to look back at the last few years and heartily laugh at the funny things, able to appreciate how hard it was for me to drag myself through the healing process and succeed, able to view myself and all of my past mistakes/regrets with compassion and say “you’ve learned from them, they don’t define who you are”

sure, i am still grieving for some things, grieving for a few friendships i’ve lost. grieving for some of the people whose feelings i absorbed and carry with me. but i’ve come to realize that having this heightened sense of empathy is a part of who i am. it feels very much like if i had a past life – that i was a village leader, or a healer, or a nurturer of some sorts. coming to care for people regardless of what they’ve done comes really natural to me that i feel it’s almost impossible for me to shut my empathy off. i see people and even without them speaking, i sense their pain, whatever the cause of it. it’s so natural for me to pick up the cues, their body language, the way certain words hang off their lips, the way their eyes dart to a zone of denial – as if they’re trying to shove that memory into oblivion.

i’ve come to accept that like every one else, i have a set of gifts that i have denied exploring. a set of gifts i didn’t feel was so special, because i never felt special.

the point is – no singular person is special. none of us really are – but if you look at us as a species or an individual. collectively, we can do wondrous things, and collectively as energy, we’ve made amazing things happen – all to experience life better.

the realization that i am not more or less special than the next person gave me some comfort. and so now i’m free to focus on how my gifts can be of help to someone else, just as their gifts are helpful towards me.

you know what i like about the idea of helping?

when done with true intention, it’s a beautiful act that comes from a “conscious” decision. the act of it reminds us that truly, we are just made up of energy, all equal perhaps just divided into seemingly unequal bodies to host the same source of spirit.

i used to think i was crazy for feeling like that but our 20th century world gifted us Carl Gustav Jung, who has shaken us with his views of the human mind that are in perfect agreement with the discoveries of Quantum Physics. and now i don’t think i’m alone in my way of feeling any more.

when we lead with thoughts, we’re limited by the knowledge we’ve accumulated (painfully lame and limited) but when we lead each step with how we FEEL (connected with our knowing, that feeling in your gut, that awareness of how it makes you feel at peace)…things are different. the veil is slowly lifted bit by bit

so anyway, the difference between being depressed and being bored is great. for one, i don’t have thoughts of un-aliving myself any more. i’m aware that my existence is what it is. no pressure to figure out “the point of existence”. the realization that the identities we give ourselves are up to us to accept. we don’t need to be any one we don’t feel comfortable being. we don’t have to give ourselves any labels that don’t appropriately describe us. we get to choose….who we want to be and to whom we want to matter.

it feels like i’m on a train….or am playing a game/simulation, and i’m not quite sure where the end goal is. and then i look across the space and see people enjoying themselves, doing fun things, and i say “hey that looks fun! i wanna try that”

it feels like that now. chasing what’s beautiful and joyful in life. chasing what can help me grow inwards. chasing no “right” path just whichever path i’m more curious about, more interested in. like when you’re picking a netflix show, and your choice is dependent on how your day went, how tired you are, who you’re with, and whether you even want to watch something or just have background noise.

life feels like that now.

i read the other day, a good way to deal with worry.

and if we just ask ourselves 2 questions, we’ll find ourselves immediately less worried.

1. Is our worry justified? Is the matter at hand truly happening or are we making conclusions or assumptions based on our anxiety?
2. If our worry is justified, can we do anything about it? If so, after having done that, is there anything more that we can do?

More often than not, many of us are plagued with worries that are neither truly happening or/and are out of our control. Sometimes, when we do have a legit cause of worry, just do all you can to fight the fire, and then after, practice saying to yourself “the outcome of this event is out of my control”

I know that the anxiety doesn’t just magically poof! go away after saying this, but that knowledge alone should bring some peace. After that, you’ll have to find a list of things to do that can help with your anxiety.

For me, breathwork, meditation, long walks, a chat with my therapist, or doing art, usually works wonders.

---

Sometimes, people do write to me on Instagram or email, telling me about their marital problems and/or their desire to become a digital nomad.

I find that most people don’t actually want to be nomads, they just want to escape from whatever reality they find themselves in (that’s hard to face at the moment) and nomading feels like the next best thing to do. I know that for me, traveling was definitely a form of finding space to heal and my reasons for nomading have little to do with my healing process.

I had coffee with someone recently. Her marriage is suffering because after 14 years and 2 children, her husband has decided that he doesn’t love her any more. He had recently switched industries and is now constantly surrounded by attractive women, and she suspects that he’s cheating on her, which is why he wanted an out from the marriage.

Another lady I met told me that after 8 years of being in a relationship, she realized she and her boyfriend are just too different, and broke off their engagement before deciding to pursue her dreams of traveling around the world.

I’ve heard so many different stories of heartbreaks and break ups but they share common strands.

The one who’s left behind is usually left with a question of “what did I do to deserve this?”

The one who leaves usually says “i decided i didn’t love them anymore”

But the outcome is usually that the breakup was better for both parties.

The issue is the lack of communication. That’s what many couples lack. It’s not surprising when all of their communication has been leading to misunderstandings, fights, and these things can drain people very fast. It often leads to either party/both parties setting up boundaries against each other, slowly emotionally retreating from the relationship, leading them to wonder why they deserve such emotional distance.

I think any relationship deserves accountability and some sort of closure. But life is unfair, because who decides what fairness is? And for whom can it be fair? If it’s fair for one party, it’s usually unfair to the other. Unless both people can clearly see that a breakup is ultimately a good outcome for everyone. Sometimes we will never find the reason why someone suddenly changed tune or perspective. Did we know 5 years ago, that we would be where we are now?

I know that healing is hard. And the road has many bumps and holes, sometimes even a simple pothole can disrupt your healing process. I know.

I won’t even lie and say it gets easier, because maybe it’s only gonna get tougher.

What I feel nowadays, is that an object, a memory, a person or even our own lives, will only have meaning when we give it meaning. We are the ones who get to attach identities/purpose/meaning to objects, people, and life. Why do we call anyone anything that doesn’t really exist? Our blood relatives aside, any one else is just a person to us. Our boss suddenly doesn’t become our boss anymore when we quit our jobs. Our best friend changes when we shift through phases in life. Our enemies change when we no longer disagree/ are indifferent to each other. Our spouses can become strangers when the marriage is over. Our own identities are all kind of chosen by ourselves. Who we want to be, what we want to do.

If I started yelling at you in a language you don’t understand, you wouldn’t be offended by my words.

If one of us is colour blind and the other is not, they wouldn’t be able to communicate in terms of colour. How one perceives Truth is completely personal and subjective.

You can either see your suffering as a type of pain that is determined to hurt you, or you can see pain as growing pains, meant to elevate you.

*This doesn’t apply to people suffering from mental illnesses.

I know this writing is not structually logical. But nowadays, I don’t see things the same way anymore. Sometimes, everything makes sense. Sometimes, nothing does. That’s the thing isn’t it? Once you realize that so many things are just social constructs, it fucks with your mind. And you have to start from scratch again, to find your own truth in the midst of the crazy messy world.

Nowadays, when my triggers are alerted and my trauma-beaten mind is fired up, I remember all the things my ex did to me and all of my pain soars up to the back of my throat again.

I open up my drafts and write and write and write, viciously pinning down detail after detail of what he did to me, letting myself feel all of the rage.

Then when I’m done, I read through it calmly, and I shove it into the drafts folder.

Our mind, when traumatized, brings us back to the crime scene to investigate every single little detail, so we can ultimately solve the big question – who is at fault? who is to blame for this crime?

What healing does, is peel away layers and layers of expectations and hurt until we start finding peace with the way things went. To say, ah well, the starting point was all wrong, the direction was set in the wrong way, and so of course, things had to go south. To realize, every small action leads to a consequence, either big or small, and neither one of us are the ultimate culprits because we are both 100% at fault. When 2 people get together, it’s 200% of our energy/actions/thoughts that we’re responsible of, and when things fall apart, we’re equally responsible for the way things happened.

When my ex and I got married, I wasn’t the person I am now.

I used to be very reactive to things out of my control. Because of childhood trauma, when placed in a situation that happened outside of my parameters, I would quickly get into a fight/flight mode and start solving problems that may or may not have been mine to solve.

The burden of needing to fix everything was inbuilt in me since young and it definitely tore at our marriage. I know there were other better ways I could have handled our arguments. I think deep down, beneath his words and actions, he too feels like he could have handled our separation better.

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These days, I don’t feel the rage so strongly like I did before. These days, I find myself in boredom, kind of numb actually.

It feels like I went on a candy tasting spree, tried every flavour from bitter, sour, sweet, vicious, vile, anger, embarrassment, sadness, depression, joy, gratitude, and now my tongue is all numbed out.

I’ve experienced enough to know that they’re all on the same spectrum of feeling something. And now I’m indifferent to literally so many feelings/thoughts. What’s the point any way? There’s nothing to do about anything. Nothing would change the past, even the deep past.

All we can do it look around the bend, flip the page over, and start a new page. Collect new highs and lows. Experience adrenaline. Do stuff. Make stuff. Cry more, feel more….just live.

Not as a new person, but as a me who has spent the last few years dedicated to peeling away layers that weren’t me.

I find myself wanting to empathise more. Not to trauma bond, or to overly depend on people for comfort or positive energy any more, but just really empathise (i remember a younger me always saying i don’t understand how they feel, i can sympathise but not emphatize). In a funny way, going through trauma dropped me to such depths of despair I now recognize pain and so can emphatise.

I find myself practising how to let go of control. Not to wanna control the outcomes of a bad situation, but to hold space for people around me, including myself and realize that people’s actions and thoughts are wholly theirs. We are only responsible for our own.

I find myself excited and curious to learn new things.

I feel like someone who’s been given a new set of eyes, a fresh pair of legs, and a brand new attitude in life. I feel like the caterpillar has emerged out of the coccoon, and now that the growing pains have lessened to a minimum, we can now fly.

Fly through new lands and over seas, fly beneath clouds and over mountains. I’m excited to know what my inner child wants to do, the person she wanted to be. And I’m gonna take her all over the world now that she’s set free.

Free…..to be me.

I started this year being really traumatised.

I was haunted by the memories I had with my ex-husband, confronted with the truth that he never loved me, and only married me because of his narcissistic tendencies. It explained all of his behaviour towards me before, during, and after our marriage.

I don’t know how I got through the entire relationship. And I don’t know how his ex girlfriends retained their sanity after dating him. It’s funny because the person he ended up with shows exactly the kind of person he is.

After Marianne brought me to court, in a feeble attempt to victimise herself, I thought about the lesson I needed to learn from the entire affair.

The easiest thing to do would be to do what Marianne did. Compile over 300 pages worth of “evidence” to try and prove to court she did nothing wrong and that the whole world conspired to do ill to her. I don’t remember the name of the judges who helped us in our court mediation, but I will forever be grateful for how they dealt with Marianne for me. It was painfully obvious that both of them were appalled with marianne’s audacity to paint herself as the victim. And I don’t understand how she smiled through the shame and embarrassment. Her manupulative actions were truly terrifying to witness. No wonder Gideon is so controlled by her. She’s a mistress of manipulation. And I will never be manipulated by her again.

For someone with such deep insecurities and a weak sense of self, the easy thing would be to blame other people for shit she did to herself. Never mind that Gideon wasn’t even the first married man she dated. Never mind that she betrayed her friend in court by naming her and her entire family, Marianne is a great example of who I never want to become. And I’ve gone to great lengths to try and weed out all of the toxicity she tried to spread to me.

I have to admit, the anger she gave me helped give birth to Jane 2.0. The anger she helped me feeeeeeel……and own has ignited a deep source of strength that is ancient and powerful. In truth, the encounter I had with Marianne was necessary in order for me to awaken to my destiny. I had been begging for this awakening my entire life. I had felt so lost. And I wanted so much to know myself.

I do now.

I had never met anyone like her before. Anyone so weak and easily affected by her inability to detach her worth from how others treat her. I dont know her life, but it sounds like she was mistreated and unloved, and her reaction was to manifest hatred instead of love within herself. When you choose hate, you choose weakness. Her weakness is like a virus, and it’s infecting many people in this virus-ridden world. Sometimes, I think that humanity IS the virus upon our earth, and all the calamities that happen are the consequences of our selfishness and greed.

If 2022 taught me anything, it is that mankind is incredibly suffocating as a species and even after hundreds of thousands of years, Homo sapiens have not learned to live in harmony with the rest of earth, not even with each other. Even after so trials and tribulations, our species has remained so unconscious and so dumb witted. We didn’t learn from our mistakes, and we are moving backwards instead of forwards. The polarising effects are scary. But if you don’t fear death, you don’t fear living. If you fear death, you also fear living

We hang on to material things of this world and forget that the beginning and end of this existence will affect where our souls go to after this life.

We put money on a pedestal and use God and religion to justify greed and war. And we treat women like objects and prisoners.

I don’t have hope for the dystopian future.

I have a clearer understanding now, that the soul is ever lasting, and this existence on earth is only temporary.

We were meant to learn some lessons on this earth. And the life here was meant to help us experience life as a human being. The point is to experience as much as possible. Both the positive and negative. Because they fall on the same spectrum. So does love and hate.

We weren’t meant to remember where our souls came from or know where we are going after, because we’re meant to live in this present reality.

In 2023, I am living life as Jane 2.0. Here on out, I have my guides and ancestors standing strong by me.

Gone are the days where I give more than a morsel of a shit to people and things that don’t matter in my path moving forward.

I aim to help other souls on their earthly paths. I aim to hold space for people who deserve my love. I aim to do my part as humanity tries to evolve as much as possible so that at least some of us manage to beat the coming final death.

I am not just Jane. I am of Jinger, Jana, and Jeremiah. I am a unity of trinity.

And I don’t stand alone. We are of many. And we are strong. I aim to find my people even more. And together, we will fit together like puzzle pieces, merging greater into a bright beam of light so that some of humanity can be saved. Saved from our own foolish devices. So that hopefully, we can avoid becoming like Maldek – the impoded planet.