Reflections

it has been said that you know you're in trouble when you look in the mirror and you cannot stand to see your own reflection.

i tried that last night and i could. but i still knew i was in trouble because i didn't see who i feel i am. i saw an outwardly chirpy with what can be passed off as confident, reflection. yet i was trembling with great fear and vulnerability as the reflection looked back at me.

"you're not very nice anymore," a dear friend told me last night. "you bite. and you bite hard." i agree whole-heartedly that i bite hard these days. and it sickens me. but i disagree that i'm not very nice anymore. in the midst of feeling this sharp stab of pain in my heart, the question arose in my mind, "how can there be this disparity?"

how can i know that i am still a nice person but also recognise that i bite hard these days? oh well, one more step forward to regain Lost Self.

Life is such an irony. and it sometimes seems that Irony exists just to prove that you are totally blinded when you think you are most clear-sighted; and also to show that your efforts are futile beyond comprehension and there only for you to have a jeer at yourself.

i had thought that i finally knew who i was after 24 years of my life. for i found myself in a state of grace where there was always a lingering peace within me that lifted me beyond mere human emotions. THAT was real. but i basked in it too long and refused to grow along with it.

in holding on to that invulnerability so tightly, i had somehow exchanged that state of grace for a cheap cloak for protection. and i didn't even know a switch had been made!

how stupid, how foolish... how utterly selfish and inexcusable!

it really isn't a very pleasant feeling to uncover lousy traits about yourself that you cannot even make excuses for. and it took a dear friend to point out these flaws.

the vulnerability i feel now is incredibly suffocating and hurting. but i embrace it because it means i have managed to unravel the misguided notions i had enshrouded myself in and led me to become who i am today.

in the last week, i learnt that being independent and strong does not require me to be aggressive. i need only be persevering and let God do the rest.

although it only took one week to discard that filthy, cheap cloak, it's going to take a longer time to put together a new one with better values and more honest means... and then to don it.

and sometimes, it really takes an old friend or one brutally honest enough to help you make that change. if your ugliness hasn't chased them away yet.