Sunday, March 4, 2018

because i'm still heathen

four years ago, i made the biggest decision of my life: i renounced the church.
funny how i said "church" and not "Christ".

honestly, if you would put a gun to my head today and threatened me to renounce Him (ok lah, i stole this reference from one of those "end of the days" movies that churches used to play to scare their congregation), i would rather die than renounce Him. weird right?

"oh but Cessa, you've been living as a heathen. how lah like that?"

four years ago, i told God in the most drama queen way that i could conjure at the moment: that i wanna discover my depravity. "open my eyes and show me how sinful i am!", i screamed into the dark ceiling and continued to travail in so much anger that i never knew i had. this whole idea of human depravity was a foreign concept to me, having grown up in the church all my life and taking on roles like "pastor's kid", "elder's daughter", etc.

but i was determined. enough of singing lies in church. enough of youth groups where all we did was waste time. enough of this holy huddle bullshit. i wanted the real thing. i wanted the thirst that Jim and Elisabeth Elliot had (a.k.a. the kind that could kill you). i wanted to be a well-watered garden. i wanted to be "young, radical, and reformed".
sure, i did an amazing job in showcasing my perfect self because i had an image to maintain but deep down, beneath all that cob webs, was a messed up young adult.

so i embarked on a journey of what "normal" young people do. sure the highs of alcohol were so amazing but the morning after sucked. the euphoria that came with burning the equivalent of four mars bars in one night (heh!) did not compare to the emptiness i felt the morning after. i allowed myself to feel all the negatives that Christians were not supposed to feel. and hell yeah, i felt like a normal human being. i was finally acquainted with brokenness. i loved it but extremely hated the fact that there was more to life than all these temporary highs. the nothingness was real. the void was real.

but i cannot deny that my thirst is still there. my thirst for redemption and what the classic reformers would call "sanctification". till today, i still hold on to what my favorite missionary couple left behind when they passed away:

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" - Jim Elliot.
"There is nothing worth living for unless it's worth dying for" - Elisabeth Elliot.

i still thirst for this yet my bigger self (the one that's preoccupied with depravity) so desperately wants to live the way i see fit. you know what's the weirdest part? a few years ago, i bought C.S. Lewis's "Surprised by Joy" and i've still not read it till this day. you know why? because i fear that it will change my life. i fear that it will force me to make decisions that will affect the rest of my life. i fear that i will lose control. aha! i guess that's the answer.

i still cannot. until the day comes when the scales from my eyes are removed (and only by His sovereignty and not because i said the sinner's prayer or because i spoke in tongues for 10 hours), i will still live life as i see fit.

may i live till the day i walk into the golden gates, only by grace and grace alone.


Friday, January 5, 2018

because i will do what i want

gone were the days when i used to feel so heavy with anxiety. i won't say that i don't worry at all but i think my anxiety has decreased by 60% in the last six months. it really feels good to know that at this point in my life, the person that i only have to think about when it comes to survival and the future is myself. 

i always thought that i was somewhat okay but apparently, people have recently remarked that i look "happier", "lighter and more "cheerful". so i started to wonder, was i not happy, light and cheerful prior to this recent transition in my life? 

i guess i know the answer. 

it's exciting and scary to know that my life is in my hands. 
i have so many things planned out for myself, adventures that i want to go on, milestones that i want to achieve and just being able to do what i want to do. someone once asked me, "what do you value the most?". i think, my answer is (and always has been) freedom. 

and when i say "freedom", i mean the kind of freedom that comes with consequences. what use is freedom if there are no repercussions, no lessons and no avenues for failure? 

i guess that's why, for the year 2018, i want to do what i want to do. i finally have the freedom that comes with being an adult. i finally have the freedom that comes with being a single woman and the only person that's gonna stop me is me. and i think, if i ever allow myself to stop myself (LOL), that will be the greatest tragedy of all. 

the other kind of freedom that i hope to achieve this year is the freedom to express. for so long, i made myself compartmentalize my emotions which only led to avoidance, which eventually leads to a day when the volcano erupts. and i know, as a psychology major and from experience, that this is not healthy. i know that i should address how i feel. i know that i should allow myself to feel but there are just instances when i feel like it's wrong to feel. but it's not. i have been a weakling all my life; i just gotta keep telling myself, "not today, Zurg!"



i want to go all out. i want to experience the full spectrum of being human, even if it means that there will be the possibility of failure. i don't want to be afraid. i want to be brave, i want to challenge myself. i want to maximize the time and strength that i have as a young adult. 

all my life, i've achieved the goals that i've set for myself. 
maybe this year, i don't want to achieve anything. perhaps all i want to do this year is to learn, to experience and to relish in the joy of just "being". 


Saturday, November 25, 2017

because i won't be shy anymore

so if you've known me for a while, i'm the type of person who apologizes constantly. i didn't realize this behavior until i joined my current company and my superiors (a bunch of them) pointed out that i don't have to be sorry for such silly things.

which then brought me to this realization: why am i so afraid? most of the time, i apologize because i'm always afraid of offending people even about situations where i was right and the other person was wrong.

a dear friend, who happened to be my previous senior manager, remarked to me before he left the company that if there's one thing i need to learn is to be confident. i took his advice to heart.

even if that meant that there will be times that i will fall flat on my face or if it meant that i risked looking like a fool in front of everyone. as long as i have tried and failed, at least i can get back up again, adjust my glasses and carry on with the new knowledge i gained from trying.


which also brought me to realize that i need to stop being shy and apologetic about things that make me feel alive. so here's what i'm not gonna be shy about in the next year:


#1: i set goals and i achieve them
i used to be so private about my goal setting habit because people around me used to remark that i was an overachiever or that i was kiasu. well, fuck them. i enjoy goal setting and i have an undying love of the journey towards reaching that goal. i can confidently say that i have achieved 80% of the goals that i've set over the course of my life and i'm not ashamed of it. i don't know why i was afraid to stick out like a sore thumb but if there's anything that achieving my goals have taught me about is that i can do anything i set my mind to do. and i won't be sorry about this anymore.



#2: i'm an early bird
yes, i'm part of the rare 5% of my generation that loves to wake up early. the only times when i wake up past 9am is when i'm hungover from partying all night or when i've pulled in a 50-hour workweek. i used to be so ashamed for being the odd one out in the group because it seemed to me that everyone just hated being alive before 7.30am. although i live 5 minutes away from office, i find myself waking up at 6.30am just because i wanna to chill or workout or just do whatever i want to do in the morning. call it upbringing or my natural body clock but i feel good when i wake up early. if there are two things i look forward to in the mornings, it is my healthy breakfast and my skincare routine.





#3: i can be candid
growing up, i've always felt the pressure to be a poster. maybe it's my personality type or early experiences of social rejection, but i always positioned myself as a reserved and proper individual who would never smoke a joint or would drop my jaw at four-letter words. growing up, i was never comfortable in my own skin. as i got to know the candid and silly person tucked deep inside all that apparent layers of fake lace (the girl with the silly jokes and the relatable nature), i began to truly express how i feel. beneath this somewhat clean exterior that i have spent years shaping, i realized that i'm happy when i'm in a state of organized chaos and that i'm okay being candid and imperfect. till this day, people still go wide-eyed whenever i do something that's out of the mask that i have put on all these years. but i honestly don't blame them because i put on that mask in the first place. this year, i've peeled off the mask bit by bit and omg, i have never felt so liberated!


#4: i'm cynical but romantic at heart
once upon a time, i was super cynical about relationships. throughout high school, i grew up on a steady diet of cynical fiction mixed with chic literature, so you can already guess that my view of the world was somewhat romantic yet laced with skepticism. then Josiah happened. i have honestly never loved a man so much that even till today when i look at him, i still get starry-eyed. yet, the reality of romantic relationships have showed me that those #feels are just not enough to carry a relationship. that there is so much effort that you need to put into a relationship in order to make it work. and if you can't put in that effort, perhaps it's better to just be alone. i have come out of coupled life laced with  so much realism that i don't think i will be able to fall in love again. but at the same time, romanticism lights up my heart. i guess i will learn to be okay with being both a cynic and a romantic (someone slap Robert Lowell's poems across my face, please).


#5: i am constantly changing
if there's one thing i've noticed about myself is that i'm malleable, flexible and adaptable. not physically (or at least i'm still working on those mermaid poses and splits) but mentally. i am always enriched by ideas, concepts and experiments. i am always deriving new insights everyday and i seek to apply these to my personality and character as much as i can. in the last 2 years, i have changed so much. when i compare myself with myself 5 years ago, i'm shocked at the character evolution that has taken place. and i'm okay with changing. i'm okay with not being the same person i was last year. i am constantly looking at ways to improve myself . i am always moving and this is something that i will not apologize for anymore. i know that the people around me still view me the way they did when they first met me but when i really think about it, that's not my problem. i will constantly change and move and grow. that's just who i am.

i'm excited for my 26th year. so many changes and transitions have happened over 2017 which has shaped me into being the person that i am today.

honestly, without the love and support of my family and my inner circle, i would not have made it this far.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

smirking as i write this

i suhh-wear i was doing okay.

until that scene when Jane was bored on the dance floor (pardon my modern description despite this very old, Austenian nature of the setting) only to be surprised when Tom showed up. *cue all my feels and some tears*



it's been three months and i'm slowly dealing with the fact that 1) i'm gonna be falling asleep without a good night text - which is fine because i was starting to get bored of that and 2) i'm really alone.

like, wow.
i'm actually a single girl in Kuala Lumpur with this crazy job and a crazy study schedule while making time for family + after-work drinks + friendships and my receding social media presence. i honestly never saw this coming. i thought that i'd have a ring on my finger and be running around with wedding plans before tying the knot next year.

but no, in reality, i'm rolling my eyes at silly "client" requests and trying to understand the gist of Modernist Literature while desperately failing to do so. oh well, life doesn't always turn out the way we want it to, right?

i was scrolling through this blog and came across a line where i wrote that i'd "rather eat glass than go back to advertising" but...guess what i am doing now? LMAO. and then another line when i acknowledged (during a matcha latte conversation with my best friend) that i was ready to spend my whole, unadulterated life with him. DOUBLE LMAO (if that's such a thing).

ah, the sheer insanity that life bestows to youth who lack wisdom but possess the understanding of a mule!

it's tricky to readjust to a life that i once lived: where everything was just about friends, personal goals and moments of solitary solace (oohh...alliteration!). i had so much of an "us" mindset over the last few years that i forgot about what i really wanted. i sometimes struggle to know what i want but as of now, i'd like to be more independent that i already am and learn to let life take its course.

i'm tired of wanting everything to be perfect.
sure, i didn't make it into the women's lifestyle magazine industry and that's fine.
i didn't make it to walking down the aisle in my eggshell-nude vintage lace wedding dress ( i wasn't one of those who believed in a white dress, anyway) and that's fine.

so my next plan of action? trust the process and let go.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

i bid thee, adieu

isn't it ironic how the things that we don't want to happen end up happening? i'm not sure if it's one of those "the-gods-may-throw-the-dice" situations but oh well, c'est la vie! (la vie!) *brownie points for whoever gets the joke*

so, let's address the elephant in the room.
no, not the one about me getting caught smoking and then having to say the sinner's prayer.

the one about me having come to a point in life where i am without a male companion.
some of you (okay, most of you) know that i've been in a relationship over the last 8 years. it was the best and worst experience of my life. it made me realize how much people trivialize matters like love and sex like as though it was something you could get off an app. but in actual fact, those are matters of the heart that require so much care, attention, respect and humility.

he was amazing. and he will always be. whether he believes it or not, i still think he is amazing like when the entire population of GoT fans go gaga over Kit Harington's bare, lean bottom on screen.

but that's the thing about relationships.
it's about two amazing people getting together to join forces and to take over everyone's social media feeds on every platform.
it's about two amazing people coming together only to realize that maybe they are not amazing as how they thought they were because traits like respect, love and patience don't just fall out of the sky. it's about two amazing people realizing how imperfect they are and despite that, they choose to keep their love together through thick and thin.

so then i ask myself, "if we broke up, does that mean we don't love each other?"
and again, i ask myself "if we broke up, does that mean that everything we believed in were all wasted?"

when the news of our separation hit the word-of-mouth channel, i noticed that there were two camps. the first camp was the "yeah, i guess this is for the best and this will help both of you grow" and then there was the other camp "oh please, you guys will so get back together because you can't stand being away from each other".

i guess the beauty about this is that people can say whatever the fuck they wanna say but at the end of the day, to quote the great Olive Penderghast, "it is nobody's goddamn business". 

i'm glad we survived 8 years together (which is more than the average non-married couple in kuala lumpur). i'm glad that we respect each other.

and lastly, i'm glad that there is so much that we don't know about relationships.

and to you, my dear, you can. you always could <3

Saturday, April 29, 2017

okay, my life isn't exactly over

ehmagerd, i can be so melodramatic sometimes.

so i thought that i'd write a little update post, not that any of you are interested in my life but i just feel like writing about it so that i am aware of the updates in my life (ha!). here's what has happened between my last post and today:

i started school
decided to pursue my masters and settled on english literature. honestly, i'm surprised that i was even given a place seeing that my american degree was in psychology and i have no official background in english literature except for an SPM subject and one elective in college.

i became a regular contributor for Career Girl Daily! 
so stoked that i've been writing empowering articles for women - mostly on personal branding, lifestyle and health. i've always been a fan of CGD and for them to take me in as a contributor was just really amaaaazing. you can find my articles here and if you do like them, please share it on your social feeds (help a starving writer!).

i lost my grandfather
honestly, i've never felt grief in my twenty five years of existence and to suddenly lose my grandfather to cancer + heart attack was really a big blow. it was very hard for me and my family and till today, i get weird flashbacks at random moments which eventually leads to crying or trying not to cry. it's worse when i'm in his car (i inherited his car) and suddenly all the childhood memories come flashing back.

i got a job! 
so yeah, after that melodramatic blog post about my life being over (lmao), i did eventually get a job as a senior social media executive with the Dentsu Aegis Network. idk why but i seem to have been given challenging accounts but i'm learning and observing along the way. the office is lovely and so international, just like how i always imagined my working life to be. it's hectic because i'm also juggling my studies but i don't regret it. i have moments of emotional breakdowns but at least i don't go to work feeling like a loser

i'm moving out! 
and finally, i'm embracing the crucial leg of adulthood by moving out of my parents' house. i still can't believe that i'm doing this but i just had to do it. i love my parents but staying so far away from office and school was just taking a toll on me. i found a simple, basic room just 6 minutes away from office and 10 minutes away from school. i can't believe that i can actually sleep in a little, walk to work and finally do all these meal prepping, morning routine stuff that i didn't get to do.


that's pretty much of what i wanted to write about. i hope i will be able to churn out some content for this blog instead of constantly churning out content for clients + school but i do believe that this transition in life might inspire some creative juices (and more time!) to create content for this blog, my social media feeds and maybe continue writing for more magazines.


and now, i shall jump into my boyfriend's arms and enjoy the long weekend.
till then!




Sunday, February 12, 2017

I didn't get the gig and now my life is officially over

so here's an update: i didn't get the job(s). oh and that classes begin on tuesday.

honestly, i was pretty crushed and when i received the dreaded email, i felt like a pool of limp fries waiting to be tossed in the trash. seriously, is it so fucking hard to achieve your dreams? i keep asking myself, "what have i not done?" or "maybe i'm not cut out to work for magazines". 

yeah, maybe the fact is that there are trillions of starving writers out there looking to get their bylines out and i'm just typically one of them. wow weee, what a way to feel like a unique individual *eye roll*

so i'm back to square one: what am i going to do with my life? i worked hard to do whatever i could to achieve this dream but it feels like all the doors are closing.
"but it's just two interviews!", you may say.

no, it's not just two interviews. i went for a bunch. nobody knows (except my boyfriend) the amount of applying for positions, dressing-up-for-interviews, pitch rejections, portfolio website tweaks, editor stalking, etc etc that i've done in the last 3 years.
oh whatever.

so really, what on earth am i going to do with my life? i'd rather eat glass than go into advertising but that might just be my last resort if nothing else opens up. i enjoy crafting things and styling but i have no such portfolio (and Instagram doesn't count). i don't see a future in PR or broadcasting or psychology or math or anything else. at this point, i'm stuck. i'm really stuck and i'm not sure which path to walk on.

sure, there's Career Girl Daily, but as of now, i need something that also pays. i've always wanted to be a voice in the women's fiction literary department but i'm scared. i'm scared to write that book. I'm not Jane Austen, Candace Bushnell or Ann Brashares. i'm not as gutsy as i used to be when i was 14 and so incredibly sure that I WAS GONNA MAKE IT (at that time). and yes, i do know that being scared won't get me anywhere but just let me be absolutely terrified for now.

and now, to feel that i did not make it, to actually look at my face in the mirror and admit that i did not make it, well it just sucks. my problem-solver instinct is already coming up with a 5-plan solution index and an alternative career, but for now, i just want to absorb this feeling of defeat.




that's okay, right?
whether that's okay or not, i will just let it slide. for now.