Lukewarm

Title blank.

In Penang now with the family, snacking on grapes & cherries.

Just showered. Pa, mum & Jerry are sharing a bed. Sophia's sleeping on the extra bed in the living room. I'm sleeping on the sofa, because I expect to be up quite late & I don't want to wake anyone up.

I don't feel excited about anything yet. I don't expect to enjoy this vacation. I feel guilty & ungrateful. & I'll probably end up trying my best to be cheery & happy for my family's sake.

Penang's famous for the food. That is bad news for me, being on a diet. My problem is that I cannot find a balance. I either abstain from food totally, or indulge like a glutton. To really be moderate, my mood is often sacrificed.

Another thing about Penang is the night-life. Which I can forget about.

I don't know what made me change my mindset. Before this, I was scared- terrified, about turning twenty. I wanted to live in KK, to stay with my family & friends. I wanted to stay a teenager as long as I can & enjoy it.

Now, though. I find myself just wishing so hard that I were twenty one & living somewhere else, away from my family. I love them so much, but it makes me very uncomfortable to have to share a room with them, go everywhere with them- Especially my parents. I don't know, I just feel heavy inside. That is why I am expecting to not fully enjoy this vacation.

I guess it has something to do with the fact that I am suddenly yearning my independence. I can't help but draw a parallel between me & a wolf leaving it's pack. You might not be ready, the world outside might be & often is very cruel & harsh, & you might even get hurt or get killed, but the instinct is there.

I was such a good girl... But now I just feel like driving off late at nights & not coming home till dawn.

The things my c.o.r.e sisters said when I told them about my issues recently were very surprisingly. Not exactly reassuring, but I felt better because I knew they understood. Especially Kiren. She was the one who started crying during our conversation, not me. I know how difficult things have been for her, even more difficult than what I'm going through.

But I can't help but wonder if I'll end up going through worse than her.

Sonja immediately told me to be careful of living my mother's life for her. Tasha told me to fight for it, not by disobeying, but by trying to reason & making them see how important this is to me. Kiren warned me that whatever I said about being alright will be disproved once I do get to that stage. Kak Yee gave me some comforting words.

Sister Suk prayed for me today. & honestly, I was happy that she knew what my concerns were. Surprising, what she prayed for.

Mum's been very nice to me. Gave me RM100 to spend today. I don't plan to spend the money.

Sometimes I feel like the only thing keeping me from going wild is God. I dare not disobey Him, no, not outright, not blatantly so. I just cannot. Even though it's so difficult to be an obedient Christian, but I know being anything else by conscious choice is just stupid.

I'll get through this, sooner or later, so I tell people not to bother. They usually don't. The heartache comes & goes, my thoughts change every now & then, & I end up confusing myself.

Will ignoring situations cause them to sort themselves out?

Sometimes you have to take action, sometimes you don't. Which is what now?

I hate being so negatively emotional. I hate it. I want to be happy, to ignore bad thoughts, bad feelings, to trust in God & just do my part.

I will. I will. Carmelia, you will. Just shut up & do it.

Signed, Carmelia.


Feeling, happy.
Thinking, happy.

Leaving the title blank again.

I stayed up till three plus last night, reading my blog posts. The things I went through amazes me a little. Like the humiliating incident during the debate competition. I couldn't even bring myself to read my recount, so I can't imagine the level of embarrassment I must've felt at the time.

But I lived through it. And I remember, very clearly, that I even believed it to be a good thing, having something funny & incredulous to share with people. The worse the humiliation, the more entertaining the stories, I know.

Then there were cryptic posts. I couldn't make heads or tails of them, only that I was going through really depressing times. Romance related? But whoever were the guys/was the guy?

Ka Howe was one of them, probably. I don't remember being that pissed off at him, but apparently I was. Whatever for, I have no idea. I forget things too easily, a trait which is both a boon and a bane.

Have to sign off now. Instead of just saving this, I'm posting it up, untitled.

Signed, Carmelia.


Feeling, a little oppressed.
Thinking, go on.

Incompetent

Leaving the title blank again until I finish this post.

Things to do during the next 28 days before school reopens:

1. General Studies' Project.
;; Have to collect two Bahasa articles a day, starting from 19th November, one Science-orientated, one Social, & write fifty-word commentaries.

Completion: 0% (Or maybe, 1%, since I got most of the newspapers needed already.)

2. Biology Project (Green Connection)
;; Have to match up the names, kingdom, family, genus, species- of the creatures we took pictures of at Green Connection.

Completion: 0% (Or maybe 10%, since I have the pictures & the information needed already.)

3. Biology Project (Insects)
;; Have to catch about ten more insects, get formalin from teammates to preserve the insects with, & stick them up on a neat, big piece of foam board, which will be placed in a wooden box-thing, which I am in charge of getting.

4. Biology Project (Plants)
;; Have to find the names & families of the 25 plant samples taken in school, dry them up properly, sew them onto papers & create a neat file.

5. Chemistry Revision
;; Up to Chapter 10 now. So far, has failed the school examinations. I don't even want to think about reading ahead now when my basics are as solid as apple crumble.

6. Mathematics Revision
;; I just want to pass.

But God's amazing. I tend to do better than I expect.

7. Biology Revision
;; Plan to finish studying the first volume, in addition to the five chapters in volume two.

8. General Studies Revision
;; Plan to finish studying the entire Paper One volume.

I'm printing all that out & putting it somewhere I can see it easily.

I did not include baking, outings, room-deco, youth, weight, music, art, sports-related goals, not because I won't try to pursue them, but because they're only second place now.

I really want to pull out from my youth co-leader position. I don't press for it with the adults, because I know they'll be saying things like, I can do all things through Christ. I really do want to help, but not as a leader, I don't lead well. They'll tell me to learn, that this is a good experience. I'm not coping well, I suck. They'll say they'll pray for me. And if they really let me off, I'll feel awesomely bad for letting them down.

I've been thinking about sleeping over at Pastor & Sister Suk's for a few nights, just be with them, sort myself out, get myself together, stay away from the worldly filth that I'm so attracted to. But I know they're really busy. And I don't want to draw attention to whatever problems I might be having unless I'm sure I'll be getting help.

Sometimes, we don't care what others think. Sometimes, we care too much. Some people do too much of the first, some people, the latter. I'm trying to find the balance between the two. Care, but not let it get to me too much. To make everything as beneficial & constructive as possible. It's difficult.

I love my mum. She's nice. & when she's happy & fun, her company is so, so enjoyable. But more often than not, she isn't. When I try to be nice & happy, she usually doesn't give any responses at all. Maybe even bite back a few times, & once it really hurt. I don't know where all that bitterness is coming from. Her children? She says that, sometimes. She's a slave at home, we're all just pigs, we never help. I'm sorry if your children have brought you nothing but misery, mum. Especially me. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you. I'll be gone after a year or so, don't worry. Meanwhile, I'm trying my best to not let your bitterness affect me negatively. It's good in that it teaches me patience, so much patience & meekness, so when I meet nasty people out there, I actually think they're quite alright. But I become bitter as well, sometimes, and often I find myself staring at my Facebook profile page, trying to think up words ugly enough to reflect what I feel inside. Then deleting & not posting them because I don't want that kind of an image, a moody girl who can't keep her feelings to herself. Also, you're making me scared of adults, particularly those who seem to be as strict as you are. You made me replace them with an image of you, of what you'd say or do if I tried to get close. I don't want to blame you, mum. But every time I have to grit my teeth and control myself from slamming the door, I feel the ugly, chaffed, tough spots on my heart. Not strong enough to withstand heartaches, but not soft enough to be innocently sincere.

Wow. I wonder what I'll be thinking when I come back here, in the future. In mere minutes, I felt like I was changing from one person to another. I think there were around three transitions. Moody, depressed, angry, bitter, resentful, alright, blessed-

No time for me to think further. Mum wants me off now.

Signed, Carmelia.


Feeling, stupid.
Thinking, I'm unworthy.

Something.

I've left the title blank for now. Maybe I'll put something in after I'm finished with this post. Maybe not. This isn't the best time for me to be blogging. Mum usually expects action now, like showers, dinner, and chores. I wanted to go jogging, but turned back midway because the skies were way too gray, despite it only being 5.30pm. Or maybe, I was feeling too gray.

Sophia and I watched the last two episodes of a drama series last night. Endings are the most special parts of a journey to me, but only if there has been a long, tedious stretch of something in front, bursting with incidents, emotions, words, meanings... The short moments of pensiveness I go through when I'm near the end of a novel are usually summed up with words along the lines of, all the things they've been through, to get here.

To get to somewhere.

2010 is the most eventful amongst the seventeen years that I've been through. Incidents usually get littered about in my life, important & influential, but never as blotchy and prominent as certain events were this year.

Or maybe, as your grow older, incidents will become objectively bigger, in comparison not with your own experiences, but with what the world thinks is huge. A major crush in Form One will seem like everything to the poor girl, and perhaps getting married is no big deal to that man, but throw the two events out into the world and I'm guessing the marriage will be deemed more worthy of attention.

Back in Form One, I was buying new clothes and doing up my hair and planning weeks before, before going to a school concert that I didn't watch more than half of. Now, I get my dress ready a few hours before, and go all impromptu as emcee for a posh Sixth Form promenade. I'm a big girl!

Well, I'm not, but I couldn't help but say that. Eighteen is such a lovely age to me, a bottle-neck where responsibilities start gushing in, but you're still young enough to be a teenager.

I'm already eighteen. Being able to enter that club by just flashing my IC- Well, not really. The bouncer decided to mess with me, and then the other bouncer at the back door also messed with me after that, by telling me that I couldn't go in. Why? Because I wasn't born in 1991. Being me, of course, I just felt all dazed up until the man laughed and patted my shoulder. "Masuk lah."

The day I turned eighteen, I felt as though a protective shield had just melted off me. Exposed is a word I'd use, in relation to the temptations of the world, but more to my own weaknesses and desires. I can drink, drive, smoke, work, go clubbing, get married, do an o.n.s, and they'll all be legal. The adults can only scold, lecture, disown me- But I can. It's not that I may, anymore. I can. I won't get thrown into jail, they can't have the police on me or lock me up.

And the older I get, the less scary the prospect of leaving my parents will be. So what can stop me from going crazy?

At that point, there's usually this mental image of me looking out into the future at someone else, only that person's still me. A Godless girl, doing whatever she wants, and only being disciplined for things that will cool her up. Writing, maybe, and getting involved in worldly music scenes. Learn to dance and devote herself to it. Still being nice by doing community work, being loyal to friends, sending money home. Have a boyfriend and love him with all her heart. Get a motorcycle. Become borderline anorexic. Go all Gothic, pierce her lips, but not tattooing anything because that ain't cool. Write some more.

Oh Lord. That's such a picture to paint. It won't sound bad at all to many out there, but that's because they don't know, the most important word amongst all that is Godless. I can't. I won't. I don't know if I'm deceiving myself or trying to sound all holy and great, but I do believe that the sad feeling inside when I think about how it'd be if I forsake Jesus is because I love Him. The feeling rarely grows, because I'd stop imagining things and start thinking about what I can do to not break His heart now.

I have not been through a lot. I think I'm glad I haven't, because being the stupid girl I was (am), I would've made so many mistakes. I haven't. I can't really think of anything that I regret now. It worries me, because some of them are sins, and if I don't regret sins then I don't think God would have forgiven me, would He? I don't regret them because I learn from them, I become better, stronger, wiser. They fill up my life, I'm not just a perfect little dolly who won't be able to be honest when she tells people that she knows what they're going through. Is that wrong, God? I'm just sad that they broke His heart, those sins. But I don't regret them. Is that wrong? Or maybe regret isn't the appropriate term to use.

That time I was walking back from the hill, and my abdomen hurt so, so much, all I could think of was every step I have taken. People tell us to look ahead in times of pain, to focus on the goal and the sunlight. But I didn't then, I was pushing on by telling myself, you know what, you've already come so far. So far. One more step, and that's one more painful step you're leaving behind. The distance you've overcome is awesome.

Perhaps that's why I place so much importance on the time it'll take for a friendship to blossom into romance. The longer it is, the better. The more storms would have been weathered, the deeper the commitment, the murkier the line between romance and love.

No. It isn't better because the time taken is longer, expanded over months and years. I think I know that now. Because I've known people for ages and the strength of the friendships I share with them is barely a tenth of the friendship I share with certain characters I've met mere months ago. The quantity of the time spent together is really nothing compared to the quality, yeah?

I might prove myself wrong, again, but that's what I think for now.

Back then, maybe because I was inexperienced, maybe because I'd jumped into things so fast I immediately knew something was wrong and was choking myself to death trying to resurface as quickly as possible, I told myself that two years would be the prerequisite for any romance to be acceptable in a friendship. Two years, a long enough time for enough storms to be weathered. Maybe four or five good, solid chapters, before the main characters finally get together. I do love endings that come after tedious, beautifully stuffed journeys. In every story plot I've penned, the boy only gets the girl after everything's done. I don't remember any one time where I've let the hero & heroine become an item before the fifth chapter.

Funny. If there's anyone who can frustrate me and make me dizzy with confusion, it's myself.

Mum comes in close as first runner-up. That lady is seriously driving me nuts.

Everything that has happened.


Signed, Carmelia.


Feeling, melancholic.
Thinking, journey ahead looks like an adventure, darling! It's going to be alright.

Lyric

Unstable

Well, I don't claim to be ultimately selfless.

As objectively as possible, I try to figure out, why I react the way I react to certain situations. I try to because sometimes, my reactions bring about immediate results that I am not happy about. So to avoid getting those immediate results the next time a similar situation arises, I will have to react in a different manner. To react differently, I will have to know why I react thus, so I can consciously control the way I respond.

-I don't think I can control the way I react, not unless it's through gradual conformation. You can't control the sudden surge of unhappiness, or anger, or joy in your heart when something happens. But you can control the way you respond, if you are conscious of it.

So I'd been burned before. There are a few times when I'd cared so much about people that I messed myself up.

-I do know the difference between caring about people, and caring about what people think about me. Both causes me to be a nice human being, the only difference is that for the first, you're definitely nice inside, the variable's the outside niceness. For the second, you're definitely nice outside, but the niceness inside is questionable.

My thinking-too-much pattern concerning this goes a little like...:

I want that person to be happy. What can I do to make that person happy? Will it be enough? Or will it make things worse? What if that person becomes happy, but only for a short while? What if what I do causes long term harm? How would I know what is truly good and truly bad? What if what I see as harm is actually good? I am thinking too much; I'm not God. Maybe I should just let go. But then it'll seem as though I don't care. People won't like knowing that others don't care about them. That won't be a good thing. But if I hang on too much, people won't like it either. Where's the balance?

Where is the balance, for crying out loud.

-I feel so pathetic at times, and reaching a threshold, so that I don't descend into absolute misery, my mentality does a rebound and I find myself being, in short, narcissistic. This doesn't take long to fizzle out, and around here, when I'm blessed enough, I reach a state of equilibrium. This doesn't take long to fizzle out either. Something happens, someone says something, or doesn't say something, or maybe just a weird chemical imbalance inside the brain, and I'm back to the adjective pathetic.

I pride myself, or perhaps I used to, on being able to let go.

If you ask me if I need you, the answer is, no. You can walk out of my life tomorrow, find someone new and my life would go on. I won’t die without you. But if you’re asking if I want you to be a part of my life, the answer is, yes. I can’t even deny it.

(via sierraa)

Let go, life goes on, life happens, keep hold on, move forwards, we all know the drill. A very useful drill, especially in keeping us alive, literally.

-And I think I'd been drilled to death. I didn't have it bad, but I didn't have it too good either, back in the days. My memory of myself when I was a kid consists largely of lonely wanderings. I never resented this, but being alone for too long makes you lose touch, y'know? Makes you behave inappropriately when you actually have to start interacting with other human beings. I had been a hermit enough to make many mistakes when dealing with people, but not isolated enough to be unaffected.

Who likes being unhappy? Naturally, I allowed myself to be drilled into staying happy. Miseries incubate, hatch and thanks to inspiring songs, happy messages, food and love, these things die pretty soon after. At least, some of them do; I suspect that some are still lurking about in there.

And so I am, or I think I am, this girl who has the amazing ability to let regrets, grudges and unhappiness slide off her back. The side-effects are that I tend to forget things too easily, and also I have been accused of being unconcerned about things.

Not to mention the emotional stress I get as a by-product of compressing every slab of negativity into practically nothingness. These processes are extremely tiring. I won't be able to get through them by my willpower alone (God knows how weak this girl's willpower is). I get through them because I believe I have to, much like a defense mechanism. When someone slaps you, your eyes automatically shuts. I have to make conscious efforts, but in a sense these efforts are automatic because I don't know where else I can go to avoid spiraling downwards to stupidity and doom.




xxx

I feel like I'm dramatizing everything. A moment ago it felt so real, and now I'm thinking, what a drama queen. See this? See how unpredictable, unreliable I am? I don't trust myself, I barely do. So I have to let go, or I know I'll crash. I don't even know for sure if I'll crash if I don't let things go, that's how ridiculously insecure I am.

I'd crashed four times this year. I simply did not have the strength to overcome myself. And part of the blame I thrust on music. I shouldn't have allowed myself to listen too much to that. It lifts spirits, it breaks them too.



So far, what I see above are lines of uncertainty, contradiction, justification. I dislike myself so much right now. I don't know.

I don't know. I really don't. What don't I know? Too many things. So maybe, instead, I should be asking, what do I really, truly know?

I know God loves me.

That's about it.

Scenarios run through my head. Not a lot; they can't, remember what kind of a girl I am? I throw them out quickly, but they come back again and again, I know. Bad scenarios.

Scenarios that make me remind myself, hey, you're a strong girl, remember? If that happens, you'll get through it. You have God. You'll be able to treasure & at the same time, release. Sure, it'll hurt like hell for the first few days, but time heals, God heals, you'll be alright.

The thing is, you can apply principles you're used to and put into practice the drills you'd went through only on situations that are similar. A seasoned firefighter would still be utterly lost in the battlefield; fighting fires are dissimilar to flying bullets and sentient enemies. Train a thousand times at something and be perfect at it; it still might be useless in a different setting.

So, again, I don't know how I'd react or respond if certain things get flung my way. Life would go on? I wouldn't die? Statements like those are magnets for irony.

A sudden burst of... something positive, just calmed me down. Time to do that compression thingy, Carmelia. Stop overthinking, for heaven's sake, this is complicated enough.

Gladly. It's nice to get direct commands when all suggestions are going in stupid different directions.




Signed, Carmelia.


Feeling, tired.
Thinking, everything will be fine.

Independence

Independent is one word my parents would never use to describe me. I have a messy room, I forget things like locking the grill doors & switching off the lights, I misplace important documents & wallets. Therefore, I am not independent.

***

Back in primary school, back when girls needed an entire parade with them to visit the loo, I was pretty independent. Or at least I am in my own mind. I did not think so at the time, but after I met Melissa and Pearl, and we became best friends, I realized how different the life I used to live was from the life after I made best friends.

I didn't know that you were supposed to get a girlfriend to be with you wherever and whenever. I didn't know that standing alone, waiting for your transport, while your friends are only a few feet away, means you're a loner. I didn't understand why you must have a friend with you before you join a club or society.

We had a camp in school. I ended up in the same group as Pearl, but I don't remember actually spending a lot of time with her much. She stuck by me, but most of the time she was talking to some of the other members of the group, including the group leader, who was a popular girl from another class. Otherwise, when translocating, she'd be right beside me. But I don't remember a lot of talking. Perhaps it was because I kept quiet.

At night, while the other girls were worrying about who they were going to wake to accompany them to the loo in the middle of the night, I was already setting up my sleeping bag. I remember enjoying their conversations, because I felt superior, not being afraid of the dark and of being alone. They soon found out that I wasn't scared at all, so instead of struggling to figure out the chain reactions (they're rather strange. if this girl goes, then this other girl must go, but then that girl will have to go too for goodness knows why, & there was a limit on the number of girls per loo-visit group), they started asking my permission to wake me up.

It has been many, many times, people asking me what I am doing alone. I can go to the movies alone, wander about town alone, study alone, stay back at school alone, play basketball alone. If I can play badminton alone, I would.

It's not so much that I am so capable, I can be alone, than the fact that I like being alone. I don't need a companion in most of the things I do- scratch that. I don't feel like I need. Perhaps spending my childhood days alone in school, being alone in crowds, conditioned me to feel very comfortable when no one is with me. Maybe it's because, when no one is with me, then I don't have to answer to anyone. I can do my own thing.

And when I get so accustomed to doing my own thing, I seclude myself from the other things around me. So I don't learn. When I am forced to step out, I fumble. Therefore it seems as though I am horribly incapable. I can't cross the road properly, I can't make the right decisions, I can't buy the right things at the right price, I am naive & trust strangers too easily, I fail at frying nuggets, I don't know how to manage my time.

So certain people, seeing all that, limit me to protect me. They don't want me to get hurt. They show me how to do this, they tell me what to do. They set boundaries. They scold me and again, tell me what to do. In fact, they tell me that they are sick of having to tell me what to do over and over again.

The thing is, I didn't ask them to.

I argue with myself. Hey, if they don't do all that, you might end up in very, very bad situations. They love you. That's why they do all that, even though you say you need your own space to learn, to think for yourself, to figure out what's right and what's wrong for yourself. By the time you figure things out, you might already have made some very bad, irreversible decisions.

They'd rather you live a mediocre, but safe life, than let you try to get a more wonderful, exciting, fuller life by risking your everything.

***

I suppose my parents are doing a pretty good job. They trust me, but to a certain extent. I am thankful for that. A lot of the rules they'd set unconsciously are negligible, and I know better than to push it. Or at least, I knew.

Recently I'd been asking my parents to let me take up this part-time job, teaching at a home tuition center nearby. Mum isn't very happy about the whole thing. She keeps on about why I want to quit my prefect duties, and at the same time, take up another commitment. On, and on. Not saying no, but making it very clear that she doesn't want to say yes at the same time. Finally, just now, she lashed out, "So you think you're very independent already lah?"

I think it's an issue for the both of my rents, my independence, ever since I got my P license. They don't talk about it, not in front of me and not with me, but I can feel it. Dad is being more lenient with my outings, bedtimes and curfews, but his short lectures are becoming more frequent as well. Mum, on the other hand, lets dad make most of the decisions, but lets out her worry and concern by nagging and putting me down.

"Why can't I go?"

"Why must you go, hah?"

"I really don't get it, it's an event, on a Saturday."

"You have to teach at 12, then go straight at 4, then come home at 8? You're wasting the whole day away! I thought you resigned as a prefect because you wanted to focus on your studies? What are you doing now?"

"I already told you, I canceled my classes for this Saturday! I'm only going out at 4, then coming back at 8!"

"...Why must you go? Hah?"

I felt like cursing right then. "Why must I go? I don't have to go, but I want to!"

"Oh, so now it's because you WANT to."

Of course because I WANT to, it's not a responsibility, it's because I WANT to, for fun, for myself. She can't think of a reason to say no, because the only reason she doesn't want me going out, she doesn't want to tell me; she'll make herself sound as biased as she really is. She'd let slip a few times, so I know.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that they don't trust me, because I don't even trust myself.