(The title sounds like a Sunday School song! Lol... "I'm inright outright, upright, downright, happy all the time!" :P But there's a reason for the title as you'll find out if you keep reading *smile*)
It's been awhile since I've written a really random blog post. But we could all do with a little more spontaneity and randomness, no? :)
As you can probably tell if you've been following this blog for awhile now, the past few months (or the past year for that matter AND the entire first month of the new year) have been very reflective, soul-searching ones for me.
I told a couple of friends that I feel like I'm in a place and season where I have to grow inwards and not outwards - it's like I'm being forced to dig deep and strengthen my roots before I can even think about blossoming and growing outwards.
"There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin
And going inwards - confronting the person within and dealing with the issues hidden to everyone else - is hardly a pleasant thing to do. It's rewarding, worth it, fulfilling, yes. But it's also difficult, painful... and often, incredibly lonely and discouraging. It felt like I was facing the same struggles over and over again... and coming through them realizing I was going to be okay - and then moving on only to face the same struggle again. So many times, it felt like going around in circles.
But as a dear friend said: "sometimes it looks like we're going in circles... but really, we're spiralling, ever so slowly, upward... i hope anyway..."
And I couldn't agree more. So I may have to face the same struggles and confront the old familiar feelings over and over again - but every single time I get through it, and realize that I can get through it, I am stronger and better prepared for the next time I have to go through it again. And we move forward... upwards and onwards. :)
So as some of you know, I spent the weekend in Sabah, under the guise of work - doing a hotel review for the magazine I work at. It turned out that the thing I was dreading the most - the long hours of traveling - was the very thing I needed. Time. Time to do lots of reflecting, lots of soul-searching, lots of internal battling with different sides of myself, and lots of engaging inwardly and making lots of heart decisions and resolutions.
I'm a firm believer that a lot can change over a short period of time. A weekend can be life-changing. And this was no different. Not in the usual, I'm-so-hyped-up-for-the-rest-of-my-life kinda way, like church camps used to do when I was younger (*smile*), but in a welcome-to-the-rest-of-your-life,-baby kinda way. Life isn't always going to go the way I want it to. My plans for the future can change in the blink of an eye. I can either fight it or learn to live one day at a time, celebrating the good things life brings my way - I can either accept or deny the reality that life is all about learning and relearning that simple concept. Either way, my situation will be the same... the ride will be the same... the only difference is how much I am enjoying, experiencing, engaging in it.
Cleaning out dusty closets
So the past weekend has been spent cleaning out the dusty closets of my soul. And it's time to start cleaning out the dusty closets of my room. I am a big believer in getting rid of the old and unnecessary, to make way for the new and fresh. Don't get me wrong. I'm a terribly sentimental person. I have a special box full of notes from friends old and new, far and old, and lovers that never were that is more valuable to me than a box full of dollar notes. But I mean getting rid of junk we don't need - the kind we tell ourselves we might need someday but deep down we know is really unnecessary. Why tote the extra baggage around (I talk about physical baggage and emotional baggage as well here, by the way)?
"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.” -Jerome K. Jerome
Today is Day 2 of room spring cleaning. Cleaning out old stuff tends to remind me of how much I have grown. I flipped through torn out pages of an old diary (I was too embarrassed to keep the whole thing and threw away most of it the last time I spring-cleaned) I wrote when I was 16, and I am amazed at how much more confident and self-assured I sounded way back when. And I am reminded of the storms that have blown my way since then - that caused my to question everything, including my strength. I am reminded that through it all I was guided by a hand that never faltered or failed in guiding me through the darkest, most confused times of my life. And I realize as I go inwards, gathering together my strength, clearing out all the baggage that weighs me down and makes me weak in the face of storms... that old strength and confidence is coming back. :)
The good old-fashioned feeling called L-O-V-E
Other than spring cleaning and Sabah (that will take a whole other post if and when I feel like writing it :P), I was reading a VERY interesting article in The Star today - on the topic of none other than waiting for The One versus settling for second best. (I know, what blog post of Crystal's would be complete without some reflecting and philosophizing over this crazy little thing called love, right?)
So this author was writing her thoughts in response to a new book by American author Lori Gottlieb. In Gottlieb's opinion, women who have failed to find their perfect partner by 30 should give up searching for Mr. Right and settle for Mr Good Enough. A single 40-year-old mother, Gottlieb writes that she wishes she had settled for My Second Best instead of being alone and single in her 40s. Marriage, in her opinion, "isn't a passion-fest; it's a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring non-profit business."
Becky Pugh, author of The Very Interesting Article, thinks she is dead wrong. Pugh writes: "We are grown-up enough to know that while the perfect relationship does not exist, we can expect a lot more from marriage than just viability. The good news is, contrary to the gospel according to Lori Gottlieb, is that those things exist, and they CAN last a lifetime. Not to believe that is to resign onself to lifelong mediocrity and to the notion that it is all you deserve. We don't accept mediocrity from our government; we don't accept mediocrity in our careers; and we don't accept it in our friendships. Why should we accept it in marriage? I sure didn't when I said "I do" almost two years ago."
She also references another author, Maureen Waller, who says: "I didn't meet Mr Right until my 40s, and now I realise that he was definitely worth waiting for," while citing a single friend who recently hit 30: "You know what, maybe Mr Right won't come along, and maybe some of us will live out our years as spinsters. For some people, it doesn't happen at all. Is that thought so awful?"
Pugh continues her fight against the cynical notion that we are supposed to "settle" in marriage, saying: "Marriage is still the holy grail for many women... So it's easy to see how the temptation to skip down the aisle with Mr He'll Have To Do Because He Is The Only Impregnator Available is a strong one. But even so, Gottlieb's watershed age of 30 is fantastically mean. Each woman's needs and maturity differs from the next. There can be no single age at which Everywoman is ready to marry."
"In an age where divorce is alarmingly common, it can't possibly be right to settle down with on of Gottlieb's "reliable life companions" when you know the relationship is not underpinned by genuine love. What on earth will bind you when things go wrong is there isn't any love, with all its powerful tentacles, in evidence? ...Marriage shouldn't be about bagging the type of man you always thought you'd end up with. Neither should it be based on a checklist of credentials. It should be born of a good, old-fashioned feeling, which tells you both that you simply can't be without each other."
I can hardly disagree with her opinion. Some may call holding out for such a feeling foolish and too idealistic. Gottlieb certainly thinks so. She says: "We grew up idealising marriage, but if we'd had a more realistic understanding of its cold, hard benefits, we might have done things differently. So we walked away from uninspiring relationships that MIGHT HAVE made us happy."
To me, that "MIGHT HAVE" right there... is too big a might have to accept. I'd rather live a lifetime hoping for and holding out for the one meant for me... and never meeting him - than to "settle" for practical reasons. I believe marriage needs to be practical, definitely. As a friend said, "If married people were madly in love with each other all the time, it would be impossible to go to work and behave like a normal human being." But it cannot be ALL practical and no feeling. There must be a balance.
I find some of Josh Harris' writings hard to swallow and accept, but there is one thing he wrote that I really like: "The relationship between wisdom and romance is like the one between a string and a kite. Romantic love is the kite that catches the wind and tenaciously heads for the sky; wisdom is the string that tugs downward holding it back. The tension is real, but healthy."
Yes, sensible, good old-fashioned practical wisdom is necessary. But so is that "good, old-fashioned feeling, which tells you both that you simply can't be without each other."
A feeling that makes you more, not less. Like the love described by Nicholas Sparks in Nights in Rodanthe: "There’s a different kind of love, a kind of love where it makes you better than you are – not less. Where you open up to the possibilities – your possibilities."
Writer Rori Raye sums up the movie: "What she was describing is a relationship that lasted in person only for a weekend, and then for many months by handwritten letter – and straight from the beginning – she and the man (Diane Lane and Richard Gere) open up to each other. They tell their stories, and they tell the truth. They challenge each other to not fall back into their old patterns, and after the weekend, each becomes MORE. And Better."
"He is less ego-centric. Less defensive of himself and open to feeling who other people actually are, their feelings. He becomes more human. And she stops putting herself last. She rediscovers her strength, her art, and feels free to express herself instead of stuffing everything down in order to cope and be “good.”"
Or, to cite a more local example, the kind of feeling that made local columnist and author Xandria Ooi write in May last year: "I’ve written numerous articles on love and marriage because I have always been very curious about these two subject matters. People fall in and out of love and marriages so easily that I do wonder how it is supposed to last forever.
Love, according to my boyfriend, isn’t defined by a feeling. “I love you even during the days when I don’t feel it so much,” he once told me.
“What? You mean you don’t love me on certain days?!”
“No, I do love you very much. There are times when I feel it more, like when we’re both happy. Feeling in love is important, but what we do and the action we take when we’re upset with each other and not in the ‘in love’ mode is more important.”
I not only understood what he meant, but I have seen him love me wholeheartedly even when he’s not feeling so in love with me on many, occasions.
It takes a strong man to let his love overcome his anger, his sadness and his hurt to try to make a situation better. It’s not hard to envision spending the rest of my life with someone like that.
“How do you know that he’s the one?”
I know I am ready because I know that marriage isn’t a guarantee that two people will stand by each other forever but is a hope and a vow that we try our best to keep and live by.
I know I am ready because I have met a man who is as strong as he is tender, as intelligent as he is silly, as honest as he is cheeky and as confident as he is hesitant.
I know he is the one because I feel that I can achieve the impossible with him in my life and I can’t imagine spending the days and nights without him.
I know he is the one because I too, love him absolutely even when the feeling of love isn’t so apparent at times.
So when he, Yuri Wong, proposed (on the set of my TV show!) last week, the reply was a very happy and teary “YES”."
So, to all the single ladies out there, "STICK TO THE QUEST", as Pugh's article title in The Star urges. I know this single girl is. :)
***
I'm Not Surprised
Not Everything Lasts
I've Broken My Heart So Many Times,
I Stop Keeping Track.
Talk Myself In
I Talk Myself Out
I Get All Worked Up
And Then I Let Myself Down.
I Tried So Very Hard Not To Loose It
I Came Up With A Million Excuses
I Thought I Thought Of Every Possibility
And I Know Someday That It'll All Turn Out
You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid That I'll Give So Much More Than I Get
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Mmmmm ....
I Might Have To Wait
I'll Never Give Up
I Guess It's Half Timing
And The Other Half's Luck
Wherever You Are
Whenever It's Right
You Come Out Of Nowhere And Into My Life
And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing
And Baby Your Love Is Gonna Change Me
And Now I Can See Every Possibility
Mmmmm ......
And Somehow I Know That It Will All Turn Out
And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid I'll Give So Much More Than I Get
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
They Say All's Fair
And In Love And War
But I Won't Need To Fight It
We'll Get It Right
And We'll Be United
And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing
And Being In Your Life Is Gonna Change Me
And Now I Can See Every Single Possibility
Mmmm .....
And Someday I Know It'll All Turn Out
And I'll Work To Work It Out
Promise You Kid I'll Give More Than I Get
Than I Get Than I Get Than I Get
Oh You Know It'll All Turn Out
And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid To Give So Much More Than I Get
Yeah I Just Haven't Met You Yet
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Oh Promise You Kid
To Give So Much More Than I Get
I Said Love Love Love Love Love Love Love .....
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Love Love Love .....
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
-Michael Buble
