No entry too short

It's been a good 2 months since the last update.

There's been a couple of changes in my life since, both good and bad.

Let's start with the good.

When I titled the last entry as "The month of Two",

I sort of meant it in a literal way.

By welcoming the month of Feb as part of a duo.

I haven't thought it'd be anytime soon that I got hitched so quickly

but things happen, and yeah, I did.

My prior incessant worrying 

(e.g. what if I can't get used to having a boyfriend again?

or what if I can't get used to holding someone's hands once more?) 

had been uncalled for (phew...), 

because I've been having quite a wonderful time so far.

Many thanks to le bf, of course,

who's nothing but accommodating 

and encouraging towards me, 

as work has been piling up sneakily behind me

like an unwelcome ninja.

Which brings me to the bad.

Work got hectic.

Or maybe of course,

I could just have serious time management issues.

Things become alright for awhile after roughing some days out, 

but I find myself struggling to stay afloat not too long after.

I hope I'm not just hopping onto the "busy bandwagon" 

for the sake of appearing like I have important things to do

like what many others are doing.

This has got to get better.

I mean, I don't want to go on getting just a few hours' worth of sleep nightly on weekdays.

Before it gets better though, work's made me 

appreciate the weekends so much more these days.

I can't wait to meet up with le friends and bf
over the weekends for a nice catching up mostly,

And also, not forgetting, 

my daily lunches packed lovingly by Mumsy.

Alright. No more whinging.

I look forward to sharing interesting things that's been happening

at work more regularly!

lessons from dating

It's the start of a new year and I'm tempted to talk about shiny new beginnings but I'm saving that for another entry (my backlog is only getting longer). 

For now, I'm just going to share something that offline/online dating's taught me in the past year:

You meet people whom you have sparks with,

you meet people whom you don't have sparks with,

and you also meet people whom you don't want to have sparks with.

Of course, this doesn't come entirely from me.

I'm speaking on behalf of some of the people I've met. So far.

四

A friend recently asked me, "How long have you been single now?" 

I stopped for a few moments to rummage through memories that I've been collecting in my mind over more recent times for the answer. When I finally did manage to find the answer, it somehow felt a little odd that I was surprised by it.

4 years - that's how long it's been since D. 

Wow. 

It just doesn't feel like it's been 4 years.
Times like that make me question my judgement of time; I can't decide if 4 years should feel much longer or slightly shorter than my current perception of 1461 days.

Happily tripping along (pun unintended), I've managed to get clearance for my uni course and, hey look, who's a full-fledged (beginning) teacher now? I couldn't have imagined myself visiting all the places that I've visited or doing all the wacky things that I've done 4 years ago too; much less do some of them solo. Meeting all the wonderful people along the way, it's been an amazing journey and I can't be more happy with how my life has been unfolding thus far.

Citing the main reasons for the break-up back then as a need for personal development and self-discovery, I would like to think that I've pretty much attained them, more than less. Not too long before I broke the bad news to D, I realized how terrible I was behaving as a person, daughter/sister, friend and girlfriend. It was then that I started thinking about how it was important for me to become a better person before I got into yet another relationship, after nearly 3 years of being in 2 relationships without any hiatus to reflect about things. And of course, it was also important to have my share of fun before things start getting slightly more serious.

Just a couple of things I'd done/am still doing since the big break:

I'd...
- learnt to love and define myself for who I am instead of getting addressed as the girlfriend of someone else,
- gotten out of my comfort zone and put myself in places and situations I never wanted to be in not too long ago just for the heck of it; though this is not to say that I don't regret some of them,
- started becoming way more appreciative of my family (especially) and friends who were always there,
- begun telling myself that it's alright to make mistakes (I'm trying very hard to convince my kids now),
- become more open to differences; be it in terms of ideals and beliefs, preferences, etc,
- and importantly, reflecting a lot about myself and some of the things happening around me.

I don't think it'd have been possible for me to have enjoyed life as much if I haven't been doing any of the above-mentioned things during this period, so yea, I believe that I'm a changed person (however slight) now... for the better, thank you very much.

Having drawn that new conclusion about myself, I now feel somewhat ready to continue growing, alongside another person this time round. I'm glad I was talked out of "waiting till I turned 30" sometime late last year, because it was only then that I started to go out on casual dates with new people. It's been a few interesting experiences so far... and they've all given me a much clearer idea of what my preferences are.

I'm obviously not ready to make any serious commitments right now, but if someone apt comes along... who knows what's going to happen?