New York 2012

New York was somewhat planned for the fall of 2012 - for my birthday actually. I had great hopes and dreams and plans, new places to go, new things to try. Flights and accommodation have even been booked. I don’t know what’s going to happen with those tickets and perhaps I might not stay at the Sheraton by Central Park, but I’m hoping and planning to be in New York this September, to celebrate my birthday. It might be slightly different from what I envisioned but I’m determined to make it there.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt at home in New York. I never worried about getting lost and while I always had friends there, either living there or travelling through.

Dearest New York, one day I will wake up to your sunrises and jog along the East River. I will drink in bars on the Lower East Side and ice skate in Central Park. Dearest New York, I will work towards my dreams and one day they will come true.

New beginnings

Life for me, was thrown upside down about 7 weeks ago. Short of going into the painful details, I’ve been struggling. And my struggle has turned into a downward spiral of depression. Yesterday, I was admitted to hospital for observation. I sat on the ledge of my (parents’) 9th storey apartment. I don’t know if I would have hurled myself off. I wasn’t afraid but in the eyes of the doctors, this was a dangerous act.

I struggle with the feeling that life isn’t worth it (anymore). If I am really honest with myself, I probably needed help a long time ago. I probably should not have stopped the meds that I was on in 2010/2011 but at one point things (the situation) seemed alright, really. I don’t know medically what’s going on in my brain but maybe I should have stuck on with them even when I wasn’t sure. But enough is enough and I need to take responsibility for my life now. Last night, I was admitted to the Singapore General Hopsital for observation. Tonight, I swallowed my 2nd cocktail of Fluvoxamine & Diazepam - which should help with my depression & anxiety disorder, and insomnia.

Today, I teared once, just once. And only when I talked about It. So much has happened and I feel as if all my hopes and dreams have been ripped out from under me and I can’t see any way out of the humungous chasm I’ve fallen into. What makes it worse - I don’t know which part of the chasm I’m in. I don’t know if I’ve hit rock bottom yet or if there’s still a distance to go. They say that the meds help clear the fog. It doesn’t change the situation, but if there’s a chance that I might be able to view the situation in a different light that might possibly help me, I’m jumping at the chance.

Besides my parents, I had a few visitors today. My favourite grandma came. An old friend from Sunday School a long time ago came for a bit. And Emily (Paper Tiger Press) dropped by with a chocolate treat from Canelé and her deck of Tarot cards. And Emily was really kind and did a reading for me as she’s sorta known that I’ve been out of sorts lately.

I guess what I have come to believe in terms of “the future,” be it Tarot cards or fortune telling or faith in God or the Universe is that there is something (much) bigger than me out there and it is connected to me in some way. I believe that we know subconsciously much more than we do consciously - what’s good for us, what we want, what we need to do.

When It happened and I fled to Malaysia to be with Ling who shared her Goddess Oracle cards with me. I calculated the probability of drawing any given card to be about 2.27%. But it feels that there is something bigger than me guiding me, telling me in the cards time and time again, that this is what I need to do: take some [I don’t know how much] time out, learn who I am again, be happy with who I am. Focus on being me.

Emily’s cards today said that I may have taken a wrong turn in life but this seeming wrong turn was something that I needed to do. There are journeys left to be taken, paths to charter, roads that may take me to foreign lands. There will be money, money related to something foreign and/or travel. Even though right now, my core is full of anxiety and worry, it will not stay forever as the Sun card trumps the Owl card. My travels or journeys or movement are key in my growth and abundance.

While this doesn’t explicitly say that I need to take time out, Emily’s cards were also very about myself. Emily said that she’d done a reading for a friend whose cards were very social and friendship related and mine was definitely the opposite of that. At the moment too, there are no relationships. I guess for me, this really reinforces the Goddess cards. There are new beginnings. But for something new to come, the old must make way. And I need to chart the waters independently and strong.

Today I sit in the hospital and hope that I’m strong enough to leave the old behind and embrace newer things, better things, believe that I’m leaving rock bottom. I wonder if the meds will help clear the fog. I wonder if I can once again, believe in myself that I can achieve great things and fulfil my dreams, of which I have many.

I was at Brian Ferry’s blog today and he linked to an interview with Mikael Kennedy and the words that resonated with me were “Every moment in my past has brought me to where I am today, to this moment, what ever it may be” and “I realized I could make my life into anything I wanted, that I could choose my reality. That was when I put myself fully into this, that I decided to just go and see what happened, nothing else mattered.”

After having neglected this blog forever, I finally found words that came from a place in my heart that wasn’t a sad, angry, depressed place. I finally feel that perhaps, just perhaps, my life might not be a closed book after all. Tomorrow, I’ve asked my dad to bring me my camera with my fave 25mm lens and for starters, I’m doing the Feb photo a day challenge.

Jeanne and Mia are doing it with me. I think Emily might too. Since we all met at Pooja’s bookmaking class, I think I’d like to bind mine and turn it into a book. I’m also going to attempt this with my Lumix GF1. Oh and might I say that I’m very thankful for new people I’ve met since coming back to Singapore. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the artsy meetup tomorrow (I don’t know if I have yet a “get out of jail free” card but if I do and have the energy to, I will try. New beginnings afterall. It’s time to learn to love me.

Dark days

I’ve been diagnosed with depression.