- A. A. Milne’s (author of Winnie-the-Pooh) little gem of a poem from children’s poetry book When We Were Very Young
Maybe it’s simpler than all of us have been led to believe.
At this point, it seems almost cliche to make a Year in Review post on the last day of the year. But New Years’ Eve tends to make me sentimental, and 2011 has been a year certainly worth reviewing.
I feel like I’m at the end of one of those grand rapturous movies that wrenches your heart and lifts your soul at the same time. There have been heroes and villains, the memorable quote here and there, and its fair share of startlingly difficult moments (or what screenwriters call “plot twists”, or more specifically, “obstacles the protagonist has to go through to achieve his dramatic need”). These moments have shifted the paradigm, they’ve said “There’s no turning back now.” And so I have moved forward, grudging and unsure, only to find myself here at the end of the triumphant third act, slightly bruised but completely and utterly alive.
So while there will be reminiscing here, this post will not focus on the “Best Of”s (because the low points cannot be discounted), but instead my 2011 will be told in a series of borrowed lines, unaccompanied by explanations because I hope the words will tell their own stories:
2011 in Summary, as borrowed from… Books
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiousity.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’
A sword rang as it was drawn. ‘Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.’
‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel.
‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.’”
- J.R.R. Tolkein, The Return of the King (The Battle of the Pelennor Fields)
She is clothed with strength and dignity; And she laughs without fear of the future.
- Proverbs 31:25
2011 in Summary, as borrowed from… Poems
“You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
Sarah Kay, If I Should Have a Daughter
“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
2011 in Summary, as borrowed from… Movie Scenes
I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing and when the man that is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds, until it returns, as it does, to all men.
She used to look at me… this way, like really look… and I just knew I was there… that I existed.
- Super 8
2011 in Summary, as borrowed from… Song Lyrics
There will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
- Mumford and Sons, After the Storm
I see the scars of searches everywhere I go
From hearts to wars to literature to radio
There’s a question like a shame no one will show
“What do I live for?”
- Brooke Fraser, Hosea’s Wife
2011 in Summary, as borrowed from… Other People
“A ship is safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for.”
- William Shedd
“It’s good to have something that is undiscoverable, which frankly, I think every human being has.”
- Meryl Streep
“It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.”
There’s thousands of songs about the moment of revelation. About the instance when perspective shifts, when the hidden becomes unveiled, when the darkness turns into light: Suddenly I see, this is what I wanna be…; And at last I see the light, and it’s like the fog has lifted…; I can see clearly now, the rain is gone… It all seems to be connected by this huge universal search where everyone, in their own individual and every day stories, is waiting for the fog to lift and the rain to go.
Before I wax too much poetic, I only say that because I spent a lot of this year in the fog. I wanted to find the light, but at the same time, I was still hiding under the covers. Most times, it’s easier to just stay hidden - to poke your eye out from underneath every now and then to squint at the light, then go back under until you think you’re ready to be awakened. But sometimes the world doesn’t wait for you to feel ready - it rips your safety blanket right off in one swift move.
Needless to say, in the past few weeks, things have happened that feel very much like my covers have been ripped away and the curtains have been pulled open for the light to come in. It’s like the feeling of being woken up by your parents on a Saturday morning when you want to sleep in. The first few seconds are confrontational and unbearable and you try to shut your eyes as tight as possible and hope you somehow find your way back to sleep.
But the sunlight streaming in niggles at you. The promise of the day beckons you and says, “Wake up now.”
And when you do… It’s an amazing day to be had, with not another second to be wasted.
I have been awakened. The fog has been lifted.
I’ve been getting a lot of “Are you okay?” questions the last few weeks. My answer has mostly been “Not really, but I’ll deal,” so it was great to finally say this and mean with all my heart: Yes. I am okay.
More than okay. I said that I felt light. Featherlight. I couldn’t think of any other term to describe it. I’ve felt like dancing for no reason for the last few days, and it’s a pretty amazing feeling. There are people that have let me down over the course of it all, and while part of me wants to blame and gripe and criticize, for the most part, all I want for them is to feel like dancing too.
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiney day…
I want to take them dancing in the light with all our eyes wide open.
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
Kitty Cat Macarons with Carrot Cake Icing
Has there been anything more perfect?
In the midst of winter…
On the bad days, and in the bad times. When it’s easier to just be spiteful, or to say “Enough is enough”. When it’s easier to be sorely disappointed with the differences between expectations and reality.
…I found there was within me an invincible summer.
My heart will still fight for hope. And it will find it.
This quote defines so much of what this year has been for me. Heck, it defines what today has been for me. But it is on wintry days like these (metaphorically wintry, literally 37°C, thank you Australian summer), I will find in myself so much more strength than I thought I could muster. All it takes is a deep breath, and then that smile I’ve been faking for too long will get a little less harder to force out.
(via themorninglight)
I do not believe in random strokes of good luck, or in flukes of good fortune.
And most of all, I do not believe in simple coincidence. I think that there is always a reason for when certain things happen and when they don’t, and more so, in the timing in which these things happen. That there is a source to thank every time there seems to be a rainbow for me to smile at on the bus home after a crappy day at work (there are more stories here, but will be saved for another time).
Why I say that I do not believe in coincidence or chance is this:
That on a night when I am feeling much inadequacy and unnecessary worry, that I would get the most well-timed email from a stranger, with words that spoke life into what was lacking. To remind me to keep yearning and hoping, even when life points me in the direction of cynicism.
I am quoting parts of the email here, not as a way of drawing attention to myself, but because this person - with this Tumblr being the only thing connecting us - managed to sum up and describe me as a person in a way that I could never see for myself, but that I knew to be profoundly true the moment I read it.
Recently, in your posts you’ve been writing a lot about fear, about faith and courage in yourself, about accepting love and been unafraid to give it. You’ve always written/posted with unabashed optimism and sentimentality, but something that I’ve also noticed consistently is an accompanying undercurrent of yearning, of groping hope and desperate love for the world and its disparate realities - you know that the world, the souls that populate it, and the structures that we abide in and by can and will disappoint, they will let us down - but you also believe, and refuse to accept otherwise, that the world can be beautiful, uplifting, transcendent.
So this is what I have - a light that will never go out.
And on such a night as this, I am reminded of these things even in the midst of doubt, and will therefore remind you as well: To keep believing in the good. To remember your own significance even in the mundanity of 9-5 days. To find little joys in the every day but to stay hungry for more. To remember that you are so beloved, even by me as I think of you reading this. And above all, to keep that light in you burning, and to light a fire in someone else as well.
Much love,
Stef
Ever noticed how the longer you put something off, the scarier that thing becomes? That during the build-up to it, you get more and more nervous at how impossible it is, even if it isn’t really that terrifying in the first place.
This happened to me when it came to driving. I let other people scare me into thinking I was terrible at it, so I stopped trying to learn. Weeks became months, and the thought of ever getting behind the wheel again became so daunting. I wasn’t even bad at it (how can you be bad at something you’ve barely done?), but I thought that I was, so I told other people I was. I made jokes about it - that I was the combination of the two stereotypes that both Asians and women can’t drive.
I didn’t allow myself room to fail - I didn’t even allow myself room to try, or to discover what I could be at it. And the more I put it off, I’d just imagine increasingly disastrous scenarios of what would happen when I actually started driving again.
All I needed was to give it one more shot. I don’t know what exactly convinced me to do it, but something in me probably must have had enough, but I did.
And of course, there wasn’t anything scary at all about it. In fact, what seemed scary was actually fun. Plus it turned out I wasn’t even bad at it, cause having a lot to learn isn’t the same as sucking. In fact, waddya know, I actually LIKED doing it.
The build-up of not doing it for so long was what was scaring me so much, when there was nothing to fear.
Of course, all this story-telling is simply an excuse for me to try to console myself about a blood test that I’ll be taking this Thursday.
I know, what kind of wimp is afraid of a BLOOD TEST? The same wimp who let driving scare her, of course.
It isn’t even needles that I’m afraid of — I’m pretty sure all the kitchen knife accidents I’ve sustained in the last year has prepared me somewhat for sharp objects. Rather, it’s the fact that I haven’t had an injection in more than ten years that has me freaking out. I’m almost kicking myself now for always shrugging off the need for the yearly flu jab come winter - not that I ever fell sick from the flu, just that with every passing year, the thought of getting one just got scarier and scarier. (As a sidenote, it’s because of this very phenomenon that I’ve put off getting my ears pierced. I am twenty-two and I’ve never known the joy of earrings)
Right now I’m hoping, praying, crossing all my fingers and toes, that Thursday won’t be as scary and painful as I’m making it out to be. At the back of my mind, I think I already know that it won’t be at all. But right now… Right now, the build-up of it makes it so much bigger and terrifying than it is.
An afternoon spent making cupcakes is a good afternoon spent.
1. Slightly uneven vanilla sponge cupcakes
2. Filling the centres with custard
3. Still trying to master the Hummingbird Bakery way of frosting - no piping bag involved
4. Customisation!
I had a conversation a few days ago that revolved around listing our respective criteria for boyfriends and husbands. People have different names for this List (“Husband shopping list”, “Wish list for Mr. Right”, etc etc) and scoff if you will, but I’m pretty sure everyone - even guys - has an idea of the characteristics and personality traits and must-loves and must-hates that they want to find in another person.
The discussion started off mostly as a joke, but as I thought of my own so-called “list”, I realized how much that image of what I wanted in a person had changed over the years.
When I was a kid, this list was simple: my only criteria for the person I wanted to marry was that they would understand taxes and insurance policies and banking.
This list was gradually changing to include other grown-up things that my parents seemed to intuitively know, and that I worried I would never get. How to drive stick shift. How to select the good apples and broccoli from the bad. How to tie a tie or sew a button. Which was the best part of a fish to pick for yourself.
As I got slightly older but remained mostly naive, the list started to include things that were based on what I’d seen in the movies. Name any of my favourite films, and I’d be able to pinpoint a certain moment involving the lead romantic characters that I would base my hopes on. (Of course, it was only much later that I realized that real life is not a Disney or John Hughes movie, and for the most part, real boys will not hold a boombox to your window John Cusack style.)
After that was the period of time where my image of the person I wanted was based on having the same interests and liking the same stuff: the same music or food or movies or books or the thousand other things that human beings like. It took a while for me to learn that though this is great and all, compatibility can’t just be about this. I think 500 Days of Summer states the truth here well: “Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate.“
For a long while after that, the list was too wishful and romantic and full of intimidating characteristics summed into singular bold words. Integrity. Humility. Sensitivity. There’s nothing wrong with being starry-eyed once in a while (it beats cynicism any other day) - but it’s easy to go over-board, and you run the risk of waiting forever for Superman who, heads up ladies, doesn’t actually exist.
I am slowly becoming less focused on these things - trivialities like having a guy that likes the same music as me or one with artistic abilities or one who’ll leave cute notes on Post-Its for me to find. It’s difficult for expectations to align with reality when you’re so focused on little stuff like that, and for too long, I was setting myself up for disappointments.
If you ask me about my list now, I will give you a different answer from all the ones I’ve had before. I will name you a few must-haves and some essential qualities, but I will also tell you that I do not want him to be Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect is boring, and Mr. Perfect also does not exist. I will tell you that I don’t expect him to be straight out of a chick flick. That I don’t really care whether he likes or doesn’t like or has or hasn’t watched Star Wars or the Before Sunrise/Sunset Movies or the Princess Bride. That while he must be passionate about something in his life, it doesn’t have to be a something that has already been pre-chosen in particular by me.
And while I still hope for a man who’ll drive stick shift like a pro, and has the looks and charm to level with one of Ryan Gosling’s characters (or Ryan Gosling himself), this isn’t an expectation for these things any more. In the meantime, while I continue whittling down my list, I’m going to master getting my own taxes done, learn how to sew a button so well that you can’t tell where the thread begins and ends, work on loving with both my head and my heart, and becoming the kind of girl that a guy will throw out all his pre-conceived ideals and notions and lists for.
Future project.
(via aninvitation)
No other date make me panic more about the year coming to an end than 25 October.
It’s the “Guys, can you believe that it’s only two months till Christmas?!” date. Suddenly, you feel less bad about listening to Christmas carols for no reason. The fairy lights are starting to emerge, and the lovely white and golden gift wrapping paper that you can only use for holidays and weddings is already being sold at your average grocery store (I don’t understand why people would start gift wrapping in October, but okay.)
25 October isn’t as close to the end of the year as say, Christmas itself - when the next year inevitably thunders towards you, and is there in a flash after a few days of fireworks and champagne. Even 25 November gives you a different sort of feeling - by then, your mind might already be too pre-occupied by thoughts of the holidays and turkey and log cake to do any grand dissection of the year that has passed and the time you have left to make it better.
But 25 October is close enough to the year end for it to be the right time to think about all the things you said you would do this year, versus the things you actually did. To think about everything you have left to do, and even any new feats you want to tackle. 25 October is pretty sly cause even though it’s close to the end, it affords you a good two months to actually make things happen.
I know we’re close to 2012, and that it would be so much easier to just tell yourself that fine, you’ll just leave that one thing you really wanted to do or say or write or finish or accomplish this year till the next, since there’s so little time left in this one anyway, but hold up there - You still have approximately 67 days left to make this year a great one. 2011 still has so much more in store for us all - adventures and realizations and growth.
I hope you spend (or spent) your 25 October making big plans for this year. Fill those 67 days left with as much ambition and hope and motivation as you do when you write your resolutions on New Year’s Day, and good things will happen, because you’ve set your mind to it. And by the end of this year, you won’t believe all the amazing stuff you’ve managed to do in the last two months, and then you’ll really have something worth celebrating with fireworks and champagne.
