Unspeakable

I love going out with you. I can always tell that you're having a good day by the way you swing into my arm before leaving the house, and I always know when you're tired and down by the way you encircle those lifeless arms around me. I am with you everywhere you go and I witness every movement you make. It makes me feel special.

Special like knowing the way the corners of your mouth come up in that half smile of yours. The way your eyes squint in the sun. The way your gait is light and half rushed. The way the wind catches wisps of your hair. How the blood goes to your cheeks and lips when you run.

Yes, you're always running from one place to another, as if you cannot wait to see the next corner, the next flight of stairs, and what comes after this turn. It's like an adventure with you, you take me into the unknown, sharing with me new scenery, and taking in the new wonders by my side, all the time.

And it is during these times that I wonder to myself, if we could stay together forever like this. If eternity bliss was possible. You see, I don't just want to be here holding your arm. It is not enough. It is a different intimacy I crave, the kind that leaves you tremoring. The quivering that comes from two souls becoming too close to one another. If only I could let the words come out, I would tell you that my thoughts of you never stopped.

But you stopped. You stopped running. I was with you when it happened. It was at another corner you were about to turn. My arm was encircled with yours as usual, and I felt you slowing down. From the slight flutter of the tips of your lashes I knew. You have halted, because you have found what you were looking for. You have found the hand to hold your warmth and to share it. The eyes that look straight through yours. The eyes that reflected yours, and I could see two souls are shaking, resonating with the same rhythm. And both you and I know that you no longer have to run, because there is no more rush. Time stopped when you fell into his arms. And although you will still turn at corners, beat out new paths, and venture up flights of stairs into new heights, you don't really mind what happens next, because you found: together.

I will not and never will be part of your "together". This sad truth shatters me. When you let go of my arm I fell onto the ground, folded in despair, nothing more than an empty compartment. A leather heart stiffer and harder than before.

But I've never seen you this beautiful standing still.

RAGE: Hormones

My period came as suddenly as the autumn weather (seriously, the temperature dropped from 20 something degrees to 10 something in a day). And before I knew it the first thing in the morning I do is putting on some long sleeves and a grey cloud over my head.

PMS is a serious problem,  and especially so for someone who has already been born to amble along the neurotic edge. All it takes is one push from the hormones, and I am teetering/falling off the edge. I know a lot of nice people who get cramps and sore but still remain as nice and sweet like sugar. I, however, become extremely vulnerable and unnerving. The smallest remark from anyone could send me to depression or to anger management. And it seems to happen now more than before since I am in a country, confined to a desk or in a lab for hours just by myself. The more I am left alone, undistracted, the more easily I go on a rage.

Being 19 and close to that milestone 20, I try to be an adult and deal with these emotions in the old western way--lasso them up and throw them in the can (or the juvie, considering their immaturity). But being 19 and still growing pimples, I end up pulling lifelines: desperate phonecalls to close friends, chocolate, emailing my mom (skype is too much to handle), chocolate, an episode of Friends, and if all fails, more chocolate.

It's pathetic, irrational, and all natural. And when the phase ends, I always look back on it and say to myself: "Ahh..why was I all riled up for?" And have a laugh over how insignificant and little the problem was. That is until I stand and weigh myself on the scale...

Disappointment

I've gone through life thinking that I'd be a wiser and better me by the age of 20. That hasn't happened, and I have one year left to become that wiser and better person. I look at myself now, and I couldn't help but feel repulsion and disappointment. Instead of improving, I have degraded into someone that I no longer recognize. I have become a person who cringes at herself in the mirror. Who cannot wait to take a mercy stab at her own heart. If change was so difficult, then how is it that the degradation of morals was as easy and instant as a single hair snapping in between trembling fingers.

I look at myself and say there is nothing I am good at, there is nothing I want to be, and there is no future I see.

I am studying a major in which through studying, I have begun to hate. Learning more about the different possible careers didn't expand my horizon, but rather limited my choices...one by one. In fact, I look around and see that there is really nothing I want to do. There is no dream.

What happened to that little girl who felt she could be anything? The girl who believed that hard work paid off? The girl who was interested in living things and living at the same time? The girl who believed that she would be happy?

Time and the experiences in life has killed me.

For You

You have no idea how crucial this time is to your life. Maybe you do. And that is why it is most crucial that you stand and face it all. You've always been the better one-in emotional and physical strength, in speaking, in meeting new people, in grades, and in making people laugh-and so I want you to be the better one once again. I want you to look ahead without regrets and embrace the brightness and freshness of the future. I am sure you've witnessed my mistakes, my flailings, my weakness, and my dirt. One in the family is enough. And I know you are smarter than I ever was, so I want you to look upon the coming hills, mountains, and occasional deserts with that bright, unfaltering smile of yours. Because you will make it through.

Still there was a shade of fear in me.

For despite the fact you are darkskinned, I am pale; you are always running out to play, when I am always indoors hiding in my room; your sweettooth for chocolate, my dislike for the overly saccharine; you are the tallest in the family, and I am the shortest; you are quick with repartee, but I stutter just to make a sentence. Despite all that makes us such polar opposites in our temperaments, we are so alike in many ways. That spot on the sofa which is so perfect for curling up and so spinally challenging, only you love it like I do. We were always secretly impressed by one another's choice of music no matter how much we make fun and scoff at each other's taste. Our shared imaginary world of our childhood.The shape of our chins...

The impatience you show towards parental rants was not too different from mine.

We are alike in as many ways as we are different. And that was why I could not help becoming worried during such a crucial time. I will be broken if you But now, that fear isn't worth a damn of my care. With all my heart, I wish for your future and the best decisions to be made in regards to it. With all my heart, I pray for you, I make wishes for you, I dream for you, and I believe in you. With all my heart, there is no more room for doubt but all the hopes for happiness for you.

You are the better one and I want you to deserve the best. You are the one I dreamed of flying with. You were the one to pick up my emotional shards. You are the smile that brings a smile to me, the arm to pull punches with, the shoe on my shoe, my best friend, and my only, irreplaceable brother.

I Can't Write

My life has been a series of paradoxes.

I want success, but I love to live lazy and easy.

I want love and friendship, but I am all armed against anything possible of hurting me.

I dream of writing, but my penmanship limits my expressions.

I might as well live in this cage.

Or maybe there never was any butterfly dust in the first place. Afterall, I am no Scott Fitzgerald.

My life has been and probably will be a series of paradoxes.

Attention Please!

 "I want to fly."

Spoken with conviction mixed with passion, Misaki Yoko's voice was trembling as much as the light in her eyes. This was also my favorite line in the entire Jdrama, Attention Please, a short but enjoyable 12 episodes of a tom boy's struggle and pursuit of her dream: becoming a flight attendant (and a top notch one).

Like a lot of good Jdramas, Attention Please has the quirky characters, the recycled jokes, and the unrelentless pursuit of a dream, which always makes my blood boil with envy and admiration. What made this drama unique was the emphasis on the growth of Misaki, instead of on the romance, which to my surprise was only lightly touched on. Another trait that made this drama stand out right off the bat was Misaki's personality, her complete disregard of the usual Japanese demureness found in most heroines. She is loud and overly optimistic, and her carelessness and her lack of common social etiquette sometimes borders on offensive. However, that's what makes me love her (and thus finishing the drama in two days), cringe for her, and worry about her despite knowing that this comedy is definitely leading to a happy ending. The fact that the ending could be so easily guessed didn't stop me at all. I enjoyed the flight.

2012

Recently my mother has been watching a lot of talk shows on television, and one of the most frequent topics is 2012, the prophesied year when mankind's reign comes to an end. I don't know what's going to happen. Will Earth be engulfed in a major solar storm? Or will bizarre freak natural disasters such as those exhibited in The Day After Tomorrow wipe out the mass population?

I have never been fond of morbid fascinations in the end of the world. It puzzles me that people get so caught up in movies like Armageddon and in ancient Mayan fortunetelling. I never really bothered to think about the end of existence except that of my own and the people I love and even just thinking that kills me.

So that day when my mother turned from a scene of a killer tornado and asked me, "What do you think?", my shell of denial and comfortable ignorance was cracked, and I was forced to ponder the possibility of the light that seeped in.

I imagined what it would be like if 2012 was the end of the world. I would be a junior in college, most likely just about to dive into a hellish amount of work. I guess I wouldn't mind the thought of being swallowed by the sun, but my brother would be a freshman, just about to experience all the wonders of college life. It wouldn't be fair.

Then I thought about the meaning of existence and the meaning I want to ascribe to my own existence. If I were to complete the book I wanted to write all my life before 2012, would I be happy? Would I describe my short existence as complete?

No.

I realized that other than having a purposeful existence, I wanted a memorable one. I haven't watched the aurora with my family. I haven't gone to Japan on my own. There's the Buckingham palace, the streets of London, the expanse of the great wall of China, and the migration of the wildebeest in Africa that I have yet to witness. I haven't experienced graduate school, the first day of work, and the excitement that comes with purchasing my own home. I haven't met a man that could make my heart beat as they say it should. I haven't gone to the Maldives for my honeymoon. I haven't had the one boy and one girl I always wanted to have. Then there are the things I still want. I still want to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with friends and family. I still want to read the books I love and listen to the music that make me swallow my heart. I still want to meet new people along with their idiosyncracies, virtues, and flaws. And the list of desires just went on and on.

The joie de vivre is not only found in the light brush of the Hsinchu breeze on a scorching summer day but also in the want coursing through our veins. Life itself is just one desire after another manifested into action and form.

I am not afraid of the coming of 2012. I'm more afraid of how I'm living, in the present.

I took this picture on our quad. Although the winter snow was still melting, these flowers have blossomed.

Also to my happy surprise, I have gained two followers on this blog. Just seeing that on my dashboard has given me some motivation to write more. EEEEEEEEEE thank you S.Y.!! : '3