Hello world!
Getting back here 2 years later. I was sort of forced to come back here after Dayre failed me (still waiting for them to rectify my user access before I can type musings/reflections/inspirations on a daily basis but I guess this will do for now).
Sitting here on a cool, overcast day at my dining table reading through past entries evoked a nostalgic, bittersweet feeling of how much has happened and of where I am now. At this point of time in my life, I am currently into my 4th week of break after quitting UCS on 31 Jul. I'm currently waiting to sign my contract and start life in private practice - another exciting but also nerve-wrecking phase. My time in UCS, although short-lived, was something that I don't regret (having such supportive colleagues, almost like my time in UCS, being exposed to the student population and new ways of working through and processing their experiences, my portfolio work - where I really had to definitively work on my weaknesses, bringing in Jude and Val on the team, the reorganisation that took place and Agnes' resignation)..all these seemed like memories of a distant past, now that I have been spending a lot of me time in the 4 walls of my home.
In the beginning stages of my month-long break, I did wonder if I did the right thing to tender so quickly; suddenly I had all this free time to myself where I could do anything I want yet also finding that I'm not sure what to do with all this freedom. I also (surprisingly) felt isolated - from seeing 4 clients a day and going for lunch breaks (and cafe/museum visits) within campus with my colleagues to not talking to anyone throughout the day and eagerly anticipating hun to return home and to spend time with me. Don't get me wrong, I would still rather have this break than continue feeling empty and miserable working, I think I just needed to recalibrate my bearings and restructure my routine.
Looking back at how I spent the past few weeks: after recovering from Covid, I got to meet the Nettes, met Waltmanda for Rise buffet (to celebrate Bae and me officially ending work on the same date), met my future colleagues, met Rhyss and Steph (after 2 years!), lunched with Winston and got to see his office in Orchard (his sandplay figurine collection is astounding!), KTV-ed with Lou, met Dixon and gang (also after 2 years), visited the Google office with the Nettes, brunched with Jude. I also got to tie up loose errands (settling Dad's affairs, more on that later), whipped up meals that I've been wanting to do, did some housework, binge-watched The Rain and spent copious amounts of time on Youtube, not to mention finding our Air B&B accom for Copenhagen for the nth time(!).
In the remaining 2-3 weeks to come, I'm slated to facilitate ukulele sessions at my alma mater (SHSS) with Lynz, meeting the God's chatroom peeps and Cui, celebrate my birthday, meet Aunty Linda and Uncle KC and attend Lynz and Shane's gender reveal party.
Tbh, I've been struggling with the fact that I've not been as productive as I want to be during this break but am reminded by my friends to be kind to myself as I've been functioning at a fast pace, only to be slowing down at this point. I want to set my daily routine right, to rekindle my interests/passions (writing), to settle and prepare transiting to my new role as a therapist well, but find myself procrastinating.
For one, my major hurdle continues to be my sleeping patterns/preferences. I've been sleeping late and waking late. Ever since I was C+, or maybe even before that, my resolve to wake up at 6am to run before I head to work had slowly fizzled and came to a halt and I'm finding it challenging to get back to it again. I tried to overcome it by heading outdoors last week. I visited Tampines Library (the "new" one) at OTH and felt good wandering amongst the shelves. I borrowed a physical book and an e-book and was proud of myself for doing that (and learning to do that). I also bumped into moom at NTUC when I was grocery-shopping after that and it felt so nice to be able to spend time marketing with her, going to her place and trading groceries after that, before cooking dinner for hun and myself after. I guess I sort of got into the groove a little.
I'm aware that I'm slowly moving into creating that productive routine that I wanted for myself. I managed to wake up at 10am today, I tidied my study area yesterday, and I finally got down to writing again! Small wins ◡̈ Reading James Clear's Atomic Habits book gave me that extra incentive to start small. I resonate with his concepts of being 1% better everyday and it compounding to bigger effects in the future. The part that I'm struggling with would be figuring out my identity in order to effect a systems change and ultimately, achieve my goals. I have so many identities I want to be: a writer, an athlete, an excellent therapist, a practising Christian that can really be an impact to people around me, a good wife/daughter/sister and eventually a good mother but where do I start?
I shall continue to ponder on this while I move on to talking about Dad's death.
Death. Such a hard word to utter vs passing away or demise. But I've been intentionally saying that to help me come to terms with losing Dad. It gets easier as the days passed, after navigating all the other emotions that were initially there, that I unexpectedly had to go through - anger, pain, disappointment, numbness, sadness. Also, the traumatic things that my family and I had to go through post-death (i.e. the whole hullabaloo with the ash-scattering). Occasionally, I would be jolted to reality that he's not here with us anymore for eg when I quit my job and was excited about moving into private practice and I wanted to tell him but realised that he's not there, moments like this will get to me. Moom, maib and bro seemed to be doing ok but are they really ok? I'll never know their private thoughts, the moments they share grieving alone in their own ways. Ever since we lost Dad, Gonggong and Mama, all within the span of 3 mths, I've been having a sort of death anxiety; like a sudden keen awareness of my mortality and that I'll die soon. This was especially perpetuated when I was recovering from Covid and the cough was having an effect on my heart and lungs. I was hesitant to tell hun as I felt that by verbalising it, it might become reality but eventually I did but not at the right time - we were preparing to go to sleep.
Anyway, we shall see how things pan out...
