a timely reminder

this morning i woke up with such promise and that turned into hope
which then transformed into understanding
and then into faith.
have you ever had that feeling?

a deep seated knowledge that it’s okay to be unsure, afraid, overwhelmed and lost.

only because there is someone higher than you, bigger than you, with more authority than you and One who loves you more than any other human being on earth.

the One who loves you so much that He gave up his life for you.

the One, the Only, the Marvellous, the Magnificent, the Wondrous, the Creator, the Almighty….

oh Lord God, there are days when I feel unworthy of your love, and moments when I feel guilty of not trusting you more. But I know that you love me and you have plans for me. My life is in your hands Lord. I praise you and thank you for the place I’m in. I might not understand it completely but I know it is going to be all right.

thank you for reminding me Lord.

it is amazing how the most unassuming means of communication can ignite a sudden gush of pure faith. this is what they mean when they say that God works in mysterious ways. like so:

“…faith is exactly what it takes to get through uncertainty…Faith is not necessary when you know how things are going to work out, – that’s knowledge. It’s in the time of unknowing that having faith is what sees you through to the other side. Faith is what gives you strength. Faith is that light in your heart that keeps on shining even when it’s all darkness outside. Now is the time to keep that faith alive.” – somewhere on someone’s Facebook updates. She had a ‘what God wants you to know” application.

a stark and hopeful reminder indeed.

Praise you God.

life as i know it will be different from here on.

you’re always moving in a direction in your life and you begin to understand the direction as you move through it – Thomas Keller, American chef, restaurateur and cookbook writer, owner of The French Laundry.

it sure as hell freaks me out in random spurts but i know i have to put it together.

random pieces,

broken pieces,

when pieced together,

they make sense

they reveal

what was meant to be.

i will trust in the Lord at all times.

the one thing that i am most afraid to lose

is

myself.

the future

“We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future as if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. Future is the home of our deepest fears. And our wildest hopes. But one thing is certain – when it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.” – Grey’s Anatomy, Season Five Finale

they couldn’t have written it any better.

i wish i didn’t have so many doubts

i hate it when i am so unsure

of myself especially.

it has got to stop.

no more overthinking.

what i seek…

is a love like this:

yes it does exist. i will find it, some day.

i am afterall, a natural born optimist.

and i have hope.

whirled in.

too many thoughts, too little baskets to sort them in.

sometimes i wish i wasn’t so random.

sometimes i wish i didn’t feel too much.

and sometimes i just wish i knew EXACTLY what i want.

messing up

in my life,

in the past 24 years of my life,

there were times when i messed up.

at 15, i went through a crisis. i got out of it.

i gradually fared better from 17 onwards.

19 to 21 was pretty okay, with slight bumps along the way.

22 and 23 were safe. then at 24, it happened again.

i

messed

up.

i was lost,  i was down.

i felt defeated. i was traumatised.

thrown into uncertainty, i felt small, miniscule, tiny. i wanted to disappear.

it probably isn’t such a big deal. but for me, it was huge, only because of the person that i am – ambitious, passionate, driven. i cannot stand the thought of messing up.

and the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy painted a similar scenario. and as always, there’s the ultimate starting and ending quotable narration; this time voiced by Karev:

“Surgeons are all messed up; we’re butchers, messed up, knife-happy butchers. We cut people up, we move on. Patients die on our watch; we move on. We cause trauma, we suffer trauma. We don’t have time to worry about all the blood and death and crap really makes us feel. It doesn’t matter how tough we are. Trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives. Trauma messes everybody up. But maybe that’s the point – all the pain and the fear and the crap. Maybe going through all of that is what keeps us moving forward. It’s what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up before we can step up.”

- Alex Karev, ‘Elevator Love Letter’, Grey’s Anatomy Season 5.

 

All the pain, fear and the crap. It really does make us push forward. I know for me it does. I might not be a surgeon. I might not be able to hold a scalpel but that does not mean I cannot relate to what Karev’s saying. The gist is clear. The over-arching message is obvious. Yes, the more mistakes I make, the more shitty I feel about myself but that makes me want to NOT be shitty. It makes me NOT want to be messed up. It makes me want to soar above it all. It makes me realise how necessary it was for me to mess up and how I needed that downtime. I needed to know that I’m not all that great after all. Experiences like that humble you. It’s one big lesson in humility and it shoves you a large dose of reality, which although not picture perfect 100% of the time, can be just what we need when the time comes.

Of course the fixing up part hurts . The recovery process does hurt.  But it hurts only because it is in the process. We need to get our egos crushed at times, to be able to resculpt the person we are, so that not only can we grin and bear and learn from our previous mistakes, but also mould ourself into the bright promising individual that we all strive to be. Only difference is that when the time comes, there strife has done most of the work.

So yes, there is a point to it all.

there is a reason why we all have to mess up at some point in life. mess-ups have a purpose. they scar for a reason.

the scars are there because we need to be reminded. we need to realise. we need to get a grip and

clean up the mess.

that’s really what matters most.

a week of surprises

i really like surprises.

and i have had my fair share last week.

one was really sweet, delicious and magical,

and the other,

let’s just say it was out-of-the-ordinary.

both were pleasant but i did prefer one over the other.

but that’s because the context was completely different.

i’m glad for both. let’s see where things go from here.

growing up and growing old

all of a sudden, during my bus ride home yesterday, i felt

grown up.

i cannot describe it.

i only know that the feeling wasn’t so dreadful.

it was as though i was at the movies, watching myself,

my present 24+ year old self.

perhaps it’s the fatigue,

the late nights,

the espresso filled veins of mine.

and they say grown ups don’t have fun – they work themselves to death.

i used to shudder at that precise thought.

am i that obsessive? am i that old?

no

i beg to differ.

there is a difference between growing up and growing old.

sorry but i would like to think that i’m just growing into the next season of my life. i am not ageing, not in the mental sense. my body might soon show signs of old age, in the next few decades or so. i might lose that glow and that spring in my step. i might i might i might. but i won’t focus on that.

i’m very happy in fact. happy with my current place in life. seated comfortably in my mid-2os. maybe i will think differently next year. or maybe i don’t want to think about it at all.

maybe i don’t really want to grow up. maybe i don’t want to be jaded and i don’t want to stop hoping for the best that life has to offer. correct me if i’m wrong but i just cannot help but notice tiny streaks of resignation in the voices of the elder and senior. it’s as though they regret not living life when they could, not being as hopeful as they should have been.

well, as Meredith from Grey’s Anatomy once said,

 ”I’ve heard that it’s possible to grow up, I’ve just never met anyone who’s actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don’t go our way. We whisper secrets with our best friend, in the dark. We look for comfort where we can find it. And we hope against all logic, against all experience, like children, we never give up hope.”

i don’t suppose that we ever really grow up.

and i think the latest movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button proves that point.

I for one, cannot stop thinking about this quote – it’s from the postcard Button wrote to his daughter:

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

what we need, really,

is pure courage to run forth towards our goals and dreams,

not matter how hard it seems. to grow upwards, forwards, as we go through life.

if Benjamin Button can grow younger as the days go by,

why can’t we?

age, is afterall, just a bloody

number.