Of what I have left out

Few words: I didn’t have any post for 2015. So I would like you guys to pretend that this is a 2015 post, so I can still brag that I blog consistently every year.

My grammatical ignorance was on another level, I literally cringe when I read some of my earliest posts. But at least I realized them now, that’s a good start for 2017. Kudos to whoever that say/think my English is good.

I try my best to retain my half humor-half serious writing style, but today I might get a tad emotional judging on how long I have been away from casual writing. And maybe because I am listening to a sad song right now.

Just to fill you in, I still prefer casual writing – y o u c a n d o w h a t e v e r y o u w a n t. Like this! If I were to do that in a formal publication, prepare to resubmit.

Now, enough of nonsense, let’s go back to the part where I want to be emotional.

Four years ago when I made a decision to come out of my comfort zone to restart my ‘nerdy gigs’, it turned out to be one of the darkest moment in my life. Not knowing what to expect, I landed myself in a rather sticky position where I was literally being told to work like a Trojan for the next few years. Not wanting to slave away my next few years, I braced myself to fight for a change. But the level of bureaucracies and policies here are unreal, it make simple things complicated and worse yet my fight seems like going to waste.

When life takes you to the darkest place where you are surrounded by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and absolutely no control of your life direction, you struggle for some time but eventually give in whatever outcome life give you. On the verge of giving up, I met some inspiring and helpful people that dragged me out of this slump. I thought to myself that nothing could be any worse – if I were to be expelled, I can pretend this ‘gigs’ to be non-existence and so I forced myself to go through all the politics again, this time aggressively.

Thankfully, somehow somewhat my fight went through but it also upset several parties along with my fight. In a way, I was part thankful and part repentant of the fight that I forced through. I learned that it is the decision we are forced to make during our darkest moment that lay the foundation on which to build for the rest of our lives. 

But even to date, I still have that repentant feeling with me.

I will never forget the moment that I collapsed at the middle of the road when I knew I lost my best friend. I have absolutely no strength in my legs when I got to know about it, while my mum was crying on the phone. I was shocked, lost, sad and part of me was furious. We absolutely take life for granted but trying to end it somehow enraged me. I know there will be times in life where everything gets on top of us and we might be making a decision that is not healthy nor the best – but didn’t want to live on, somehow enraged me. I resented him for being selfish and not seeking help.

It was only a year later when I finally visited his grave. Upon seeing his gravestone, tears flowed down uncontrollably. Maybe it was the quiet moment in the cemetery or maybe I could no longer deny his departure – for the next 10 minutes I was weeping like a baby reminiscing all the good/bad times we had. I paid my respect and sat down to talk but nothing came out from my mouth. For the next 10 minutes, I just couldn’t carve a word for the silent audience of departed souls. Somehow, I have accepted that his departure was a foregone conclusion, and I have to be on good term with that. I truly believe that there are times in life that our mind has to breakdown, and only through this breakdown experience, we are able to let go of the bad and pick ourselves up to continue moving forward.

As I look back right now, it was these darkest moments that turned out to be most profound and empowered me to get through the smaller battles of today. Things might not be the best right now, but if you endure, you will find a job be alright. And I quote from my friend "you just have to get back up where you fall".