Decisions

Decisions that I have to make- that would pale five years down the road and I will say to myself why did I spent so much time thinking about them.

But right now, they are of utmost importance and these things are the only things that occupy my mind. By brain is filled to it’s absolute brim and my heart is heavy. I want to do both things but I think, and I know that I can and should only choose one.

I’ll have many more of these things that will come my way. I’d rather decide on what to eat everyday and where to go for meals. It’s mindless but easier. Imagine the ethical and moral decision that I will have to make few years down the road. I am getting myself ready for that.

I am no tulip but I am me

Is it okay that sometimes, I feel empty inside and out. Like there is nothing within me, and that I feel so clean like a fresh and untainted being but at the same time, numb and emotionless just because.

I am nothing like her, but everything like her —

“The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free ——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salty, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.”

Tulips by Sylvia Plath.

Mind over soul soul over mind

I set expectations. So high. And this makes dreams come true. The unimaginable is now reality and everything feels so surreal. But at this same moment, everything is overwhelming. There seems to be no time to stop, pause, for a little breather because the clock is always ticking and there is so much to do. I fear that if I stop doing something, I would lose all of this. The dream that I long for. This unimaginable that has transformed into reality.

I expect a lot from the people around, and hence, am constantly dissapointed because no one can ever meet the expectations I have. And because of that, I have to expectations, because I don’t want to be dissapointed. But this is meaningless conversation because my heart and soul will bear the brunt of this internal turmoil that my mind takes control of. It feels like I am striving for perfection, for what I think is ideal. But what is perfection? What is an ideal? Most importantly, what is important to me?

What is important to me? This is the greatest question that I am perplexed by now because there is a huge amount of things that are very important and I don’t know which one outweighs the other. Doing so many things, it is killing me, slowly. I feel like I am losing myself day by day and with each passing day, a little part of me fade away as I become this self that I want to be, this self that I respect, this self that I long for. But it pains me because then, who am I? I still want to retain a great part of who I am. When I accomplish great things, I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be me. I want to be who I am. and with each passing day, a little part of me fade away as I become this self that I want to be, this self that I respect.

Some days, I feel that I am not good enough. Other days, I feel that I am at the top of the world. Some days, I feel that everyone else is better than me. Other days, I feel like I am better than anyone else in the world. And this confuses me deeply. The clash and incongruence of my values and beliefs. I always thought that I was at the top of the world, that I was the best, and if I wanted anything, I just had to work for it, ask for it, whatever, it would not be beyond my reach. But throughout the two years as a social work undergraduate, I learnt lessons, many many lessons. I learn values in class and as I come into acceptance and gradually integrate these values, I became a better person. I was humbled by the many people I met in the community. The capacity for hope, for change, the glimmer in people’s eyes, that spark, of those disenfranchised. And all these makes me feel that these people, they are better. They are stronger. They know more. They know better. And I took myself down from the pedestal I placed myself on.

But this change, it is not a comfortable one. It does not just affect my professional self. It affects my personal and private life. I found it very difficult to be blunt and brutal as I was before. I used to be a natural and I was good at what I did. I liked being insensitive and cared little of the people around me. But now, it is difficult. I wished that I didn’t have to change, but I’m a little glad I did. I need to find the congruence I long for…