trisected

Tag: emotions

  • The Start of November

    Yesterday’s Deepvali break was very real. I enjoyed the rest at home, and especially spending time with Clarice the night before. It’s moments like these that remind me to cherish the random days and nights, where we could have a plan-less day, because baby still isn’t here yet.

    Today was a great day, because we had the morning to work together. Technically I worked a lot earlier, and by the time Clarice got up, I had done 60% of my work for the day. The other 40% involved calls and meeting people, so it was pretty much good to go.

    I had a meeting with a daughter of a friend, of whom is now my friend too, I think. We had a good time talking about art, and honestly there’s a lot more to hear about her and her art scene. There are so many things to talk in detail with other artists, and it always feels like there’s never enough time.

    After printing some stuff with her, I sat down to reflect on some things, and I was really emotional. I reflected on the war, and on the way we live in Singapore, in the midst of the world on fire. There are many things I don’t understand, and one of the deepest things I don’t understand is how we don’t really care much for anyone else but ourselves in Singapore. I feel that for myself too; I can easily forget there are other people with their own lives in the world, and just want to have my life perfect. But my time of reflection really made me feel so sad and small inside. What kind of person thinks that they are the most important in the world, and that they deserve praise and honor? We’re all really horrible people, and the more someone demands respect, the less likely they are to get it. And yet, in the modern day, everyone is asking to be respected for themselves, their rights, and everything with it.

    I don’t deserve any, because I think I have also asked to be respected for my rights and my actions. Therefore, my own logic on myself, I should not be.

    This philosophical musing went on for some time, and it’s still lingering somewhere in my head and heart.

    I had a burrito for dinner, with the attempts of weighing things down with some Tex Mex, but here we are, still writing about the feelings on the day. My personal small treat for myself was a bottle of Perrier. A green bottle of sparkly water would be a treat. And there are people still dying of thirst somewhere else in the world.

    Sometimes I really wonder where my brain goes to when I start writing these things.

    Anyway, the day hasn’t ended, but I might not remember to write later tonight. So here’s my thoughts for today, raw, unfiltered, and still very confused.

    Please don’t take me too seriously.

  • the new year: obligations away?

    I was having some trouble with my back end, so this look of the site is back again. I’ll probably edit it somewhere along the week, just for a fresh-er start. But back to this for now.

    It’s the first year I didn’t wish Q happy birthday. For the past eight to nine years, I’ve been wishing Q on their birthday because of a few reasons.

    • One: they don’t have that many friends, or at least not to my knowledge.
    • Two: I wanted to care because I honestly feel quite strongly that I should be someone who cares for people. It’s something I’m learning to deal with, especially after Brene Brown’s “Gifts of Imperfection” and I understand more about what I expect out of myself.
    • Three: It’s nice to celebrate someone’s birthday, and also to catch up with them for a short bit. It could extend into a full conversation, but a small start is great.

    But in the year end, there was no wishing.

    We had a falling out of sorts, Q and I. It was getting tiring having to work through differing opinions, and Q is not an easy person to talk to. To me at least. In our talks, I always felt like there were many defenses to work through, and it drained me to think through how I was saying things, because of how they would perceive it.

    In any case, the last time I texted Q, it was left unanswered, and I decided I would not want to wish them happy birthday this year.

    These are the two responses I am personally working through.

    • Why are you, Joel, being so petty about things like this? Just let it go and wish them happy birthday, and maybe that would ease the relationship again
    • Finally, you are letting go of these relationship obligations that no one holds you to. Good on you for not forcing yourself on other people.

    Both responses are part of me, and yet, I’m leaning towards the latter one still. I’m usually responding the first way, trying to be the nice guy, and looking past the frustrations, and I’ll just suck up my own pride and just talk through things. But another part of me is just very exhausted having to have Q and people like Q at the back of my head whenever I’m talking or interacting with people.

    Relationships, friendships, they take a lot of effort to maintain, and it doesn’t feel that great to be the only one maintaining it. Sure, it’s about committing to a friendship, but I think one of the key learning I had the year past was how important it is to draw some boundaries in accepting different kinds of people in their different ways. Especially for me, accepting Q means accepting that they would want me in their life, one way or another. I need to be okay with that, and accept the truth, really, that I’m usually the one to start the conversation or to find out things. It’s a painful truth to deal with, but I guess I’m learning how to be okay with that.

    It’s also a time for me to know that I’m no one’s savior. I do have a savior complex, feeling as if I can really be the one to solve the world’s problems. But that’s not true, at all. I’m just another guy, just doing my own thing. I can’t be the one to save Q, and I definitely am too far removed to make anything of that happen. It’s just how life works.

    At the same time, there’s always a part of me that feels like Q shits on my achievements because they either don’t care, or don’t understand the value of what I do. It’s humbling for sure, but more severely, it limits what I hope and expect of myself. It feels sad that nothing is ever good enough, including Q’s own work and their own successes. Q’s view of the world is objectively skewed different because of the mental health issues that they go through. I try to remind myself not to accept their lens of the world, because it is not healthy, but it still affects me anyway. Maybe I should have started with that explanation about Q to begin with.

    Anyway, just wanted to get all that off my chest, because it’s been weighing on me since December. Learning how to be myself, and not lose who I ought to be. And I should reclaim this space of the relationship to intentionally care for someone else, or to do work that I’m personally proud of.

  • Dealing with Separation

    It’s been a very emotional past few days for me. I’m finally at a point where I think I’m ready with my feelings, and I can actually say something that makes sense. If you’ve been following my Instagram, or read a few posts back, I’ve said briefly that I’ve been fostering two kittens. It’s been a good month since, and now we’re at the start of June, and the kittens have been adopted.

    Fostering Kittens:

    involves availing your home to be a safe space for kittens to stay in. This means cat proofing your house where appropriate. My windows had a simple mesh placed over it, where the cats would not be allowed to climb through. Later, we also found out that there should have been better ways to manage the kittens climbing through our cutlery and crockery.

    As this is going on in your house, a listing for adoption goes up, and the kittens can be legally adopted into your home. I don’t know what the full process of that is, and would probably be an adoption post on its own, but all I did this time was fostering. The foster family is given priority to decide if it wants to keep the kittens and adopt them. Unfortunately for us, we’re in the middle of too many things for us to take on a pair of kittens that would grow into full size cats.

    Then comes separation

    And so, the time comes when potential adopters come by to visit, and to check out the kittens. It’s a simple process, they just see if they like the kittens, and if they’re okay to take on the ownership of the kittens in the long run. If they’re okay, then they will have to start the process of cat proofing their house, and getting all the necessary parts in place.

    This process takes about a week or so on the quick side, and for us, it took about two weeks for the adoption family to confirm that their house was ready for the kittens to come.

    Emotions

    It wasn’t always easy taking care of the kittens, in fact, it was really quite a challenge. At the first week, they couldn’t jump too high, so we could prepare their meals easily, and they would just wait somewhere for us to get their food ready. Then after some time, they could jump higher, and get in the way of preparing food.

    I remember one morning, I was preparing the meal, and they jumped on the plate as I was weighing it, so I basically grabbed one of the kittens and the plate of food, and put them into a corner and sort of left the other kitten to struggle to eat whatever was left of the food. Probably a spoonful or less. I was really upset. The kitten with less food kept whining cause it was hungry, but it was because the other kitten had taken all the food, I wanted them to learn. The whining continued but my logical brain took over and realised cats cannot reason the same way. I took the kitten that ate more food, and put him into a locked room, then I fed the other kitten a full bowl of food. It was a very angry morning, but it forced me to think very creatively how to feed the kittens in a way that would be fair. Great lesson on how to think creatively.

    By the last week, we couldn’t eat at home, because the kittens would jump into our food, or try to stick their hands into anything. i wasn’t cooking anything, but just eating out before rushing back to take care of the kittens. It was really quite a mess of a schedule.

    There were good emotions too. The kittens were quite afraid of the rain and thunder, and during one of the nights, they were hidden away into corners of my house, trying to hide out. So I sat in the middle of my home, and they came out to sit near me. I placed them on my lap or around me, and pat them to sleep slowly. That really made me grow to love them, and want to protect them.

    And then there were deep sadness that overwhelmed, especially when they left and were leaving. The night before they left, we tried to sleep outside with them, but instead they were just running all over and having the zoomies. I still spent some time to hug them to sleep, or to just hold their paws through the day. I did this thing one with of them, where I would wrap the kitten with my tshirt, and pouch her up, like a little baby, then walk around the house. This gave her some sense of comfort, and I walked around the house like this for quite some time.

    And the moment they left, I cried, so hard. I missed them being around, hiding in the different corners. I missed having a little one to pat to sleep at night, or to carry around the day. I missed the hassles of having to feed them, or the frustration that came around our lifestyles. It felt real, and something bigger than ourselves, Clarice and me.

    The next day, I came back to the house alone, and I said “Hi Kittens, I miss you” to no kittens being around. Then I just walked around the house bawling my eyes out. Just plain and simple wailing, as if someone died. Because at that point, someone did leave me, and it was the kittens.

    I searched out how to deal with the loss of a pet, and I just kept looking for help. Recommendations were things like writing memorials (like this one), or to share with people who understood it. So I wrote a really sad post on Instagram, and cried profusely as I wrote it. I just missed them so much at that time.

    It was really a mix of the little things, having to close the door slow, or having to watch my feet. Paying attention to what time it was and what food was needed to be prepared. Closing the door quick enough at times as well, to prevent them from going in and out of places, or the weird visits while I was on the toilet. It was really a mix of all these things.

    In terms of lifestyle, it was a lot of coordination. Both Clarice and my own schedules needed to be aligned to see who needed to be feeding at which time slots. We were running around often, trying to settle our work timings, our free slots, and just trying to get by alive. It was a really crazy thing.

    And all these things were things I missed. I really cherished my time with the kittens and learning from all these things. I miss them so much, but they’re really just too much for me to handle in my life, at this time.

    But now

    Now they’re in a good place. They’re relaxed a lot more, and I think they’re really having a great space of their own to grow more, and become the kittens they could really be. I hope that all of the time we spent together was good for them, and I’m glad that they’ve survived us well. We were just trying to make sure they were staying alive at some point, but I think we really loved them deeply. I know I definitely did.

    I’ll do a few more posts coming up soon about some moments with them, but I’ll stop it here for now. I’m really tired, and I’m just putting my thoughts out before I forget them.

    I miss you kittens, hope you both are surviving well.