Never Grow Up

I miss the days of youthful innocence, the moments of carefree bouncing on the bed and of running barefoot in the grass.

I miss the days of naive optimism, the times when I could believe wholeheartedly that what was lost would be found, and when I could believe that people would change for the better.

I miss the days of sunshine laughter, when I could giggle as much as I wanted, and make everyone around me laugh along together.

I miss the days of childish wisdom, when I could easily tell right from wrong and knew nothing about the colour grey.

Growing up meant I couldn’t find these things any longer. Not in me, not in others.

I want to go out and play, away from the bags of burdens that crush me in my sleep.

I want to blindly believe in a grand adventure that awaits me after I overcome my obstacles.

I want to smile genuinely, not force one in the face of overwhelming expectations.

I want to have a discerning mind again, no wishy-washy justifications or lying to myself any longer.

I want my inner child to remain, but she’s slowly fading away with the whispers of the wind and the dissipating of raindrops in the air. I want her to stay, but she’s going off, she’s leaving me behind.

If growing up means losing her, then I never want to grow up.

Teens Tell Their Story #1: The Struggle with Security

I’m really glad to be a part of the “Teens Tell Their Story” project, initiated by the lovely Caitlin and Sherina. I think it’s a really great idea to inspire teen writers to blog. 🙂 I’m new at this blogging thing too, but I think it’s really just a fun way to get my thoughts out of my head and out… somewhere.

Click here to view the first TTTS post.

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Week #1: The Struggles of Being A Teen

Being a teenager is fun, but it isn’t easy.

It’s a season of life that involves exploration in life, love and relationships.

It’s a time when we wisely stumble and make clumsy, silly mistakes that we’ll laugh about in the future.

It’s a phase of innocence in our relationships, and bitter despair when fragments appear in them.

It’s a period of learning from both good and bad, and grappling with ‘grey’ choices.

There are just too many struggles that I’d love to discuss in this post, but I decided to choose the biggest struggle that I face as a teenager even now at times.

It’s the struggle of security. 

Physical security aside, I think our emotional security is one that is at great risk today. The media propagates the “ideal” body shape and effectively narrows our definition of beauty. In our adolescence, we are constantly trying to fit in with the crowd, to find friends whom we can click with and people who don’t mind our eccentricity at times. Sappy romance novels romanticise relationships to the point of being unrealistic at times, and they leave us hungry for a love and happy ending that is as complete as those in fictional stories. We try to look for things that we’re good at, to excel in a certain skill or area so we can earn approval from our parents.

We’re always looking for love, and for acceptance from others. Without it, it’s almost as if there’s a gaping hole in our chests which then drives us to do more things out of a need to be recognised and well-liked. This is why so many people resort to rejecting themselves and going to extremes just so they can conform to the popularity equation created by others who are nothing like them.

But I want to speak out against that, because we’re all different individuals in our own ways; we have strengths and weakness unique to us. I know it’s so much easier to say than to embrace it wholeheartedly, but there’s so much truth in it. I used to struggle with accepting myself for who I was before. It hurt whenever I got rejected by my friends, when I was told that I was “annoying” straight in the face, when my parents constantly compared me  to my cousins who were acing all their tests and being amazing elder sisters. It was the worst feeling when I looked at other girls and wished that I could be them, to have their faces or their slim figures. I had a floppy belly, I wasn’t exceptionally smart, I had pimples sprouting on my face, I wasn’t “cool” or funny enough to be friends with many people, or to get the guy I had a crush on to notice me.

I thought I could never be good enough.

But this has changed over the years. My hurts and insecurities faded away and the scars on my heart were healed, all thanks to Daddy God. Call me a preachy Christian, but this post is really about sharing my experiences in the hopes that it blesses someone who felt the same way or worse than I did when I was younger. God made me see that I was worthy of love and that He had already accepted me for who I was.

I learned to be content being myself, to be okay with being alone and to be okay with the fact that there will always be someone better than me be it in music skills, studies, art, sport and physical beauty. I embraced strengths that were unique to me and told myself every day that my worth isn’t just defined by my looks or my skills and smarts. Whenever feelings of rejection nagged at me, I shrugged them off and told myself the opposite, that I was fine the way I was.

You see, the ironic thing is that in the process of thinking that the world is hurting us with its rejection, most of our scars are self-inflicted by thoughts of worthlessness and thoughts of despair. Sometimes, we forget that we’re the ones who can do the most damage to ourselves.

Stepping out of a life fraught with insecurity isn’t easy at all; for me, it’s still a journey that I’m on. There’re many bumps along the way, times when I feel disgusted with myself for being so impatient with my siblings or judgmental towards people I barely know, or for not performing as well as my peers in school. Even so, I refuse to be trapped by what others think about me anymore; my focus now is on living a life that’s pleasing to God and a life that can bless others too.

I’m not perfect in any way, but that’s what makes me unique, that’s what makes me one of a kind.

I Am A Shadow

It’s dark in here; it’s dark living in a shadow.

Expectations pour down on me like acid rain,
eating away at my flesh and my brain.
In my chest flows a torrential flood, my eyes are the dams.

It’s lonely in here; it’s lonely living in a shadow.

They took a ruler to measure my worth,
bought a calculator to count my achievements
and decided that I deserved only a shadow.

It’s scary in here; it’s scary living in a shadow.

Fear towers over me. He strikes me on the head,
laughing because Hope has abandoned me.
Now for all eternity I’ll be sitting on the steps of this
quiet Hell, until I fade away,

and become one with the shadow. 

 

Tales of a Smile

A smile: it’s full of contradictions,

it’s a painting of red and blue,
a show of joyful despondence,
a pink mask with lips of a pallid hue.

It’s a master concealer,
for wrinkles, freckles and creases,
a sheep’s skin for wolves and
the sound of teeth grinding into pieces.

It cannot be trusted, yet it’s
the only indication of a genuine jewel
that endures the scorching heat and
is quick to cool.

Look carefully, and remember,

every smile holds a tale of real fiction.

 

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Inspiration: 

“Smile, because it confused people. Because it is easier than to explain what is killing you inside. “ – The Joker

Imperfect Love

 

What’s the most powerful force in the world?

The list of answers can continue forever: Guns, money, power, and more, but I think there is only thing that can outweigh all of these forces: love.

Love can make a terrorist drop his gun and fall to his knees in surrender and repentance.

Love can make money seem so insignificant in counting one’s wealth.

Love gives strength; it empowers people to change completely from the inside out.

In love, there is forgiveness, kindness, patience, selflessness, gentleness and humility.

Love is not selective. It doesn’t choose a white man over a black man, nor does it choose a Christian over a Buddhist. Love is simply love, a big, fluffy blanket to keep everyone warm, no matter who they are.

Love is giving love to those who don’t deserve it, to people when they are at their worst, so that they can change to become their best.

Love is about choice and risk; love doesn’t always come naturally, especially when it comes to loving people who have hurt us deeply emotionally or physically before. It’s a choice that we make to bury the past and look forward, even if we risk getting hurt by that person more than once.

You cannot sacrifice without first a heart of love. Choosing to prioritise another’s welfare over your instincts of self-preservation takes courage, and it takes true love to do that. That’s why people are willing to take grenades, get shot down by guns, all just to protect the people or things that they love.

However, while love is an all-encompassing virtue, it doesn’t guarantee perfection. People still make mistakes, even while their intentions are good. However, love guarantees a spirit of perseverance and determination to improve, the humility to ask for forgiveness, and the courage to step out of one’s comfort zone and change for the better.

Love is a work in progress.

The Final Apology

Her seventy-seventh apology rings like
a death-knell in my mind.

I reach out my palm to show her my heart.
It has seventy-seven stitches on it, still
torn and bleeding.

But I see the green monster of guilt
gnawing at her insides till there
is nothing left in her once
blue orbs that held the sky in them.

Then she flees, away from my open arms
and into the clutches of the shadows in
the night.

That night, the darkness swallowed her up
and I had to get a new heart.

 

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After so long of not having any inspiration for a poem, I was inspired by Jesus to write this. Written for a “Betrayed/Lost friendship” prompt on a contest at allpoetry.com. This is a reflection of an alternate ending of our friendship that could have very possibly become a reality if I hadn’t chosen to reject the guilt that had been haunting me for 5 long years because of sin. This was written from his perspective and the pain he felt for me was very real. I don’t think I can ever thank him enough for his forgiveness and his grace that saved me from the abyss that I nearly fell into for good, even though I had betrayed him way more than seventy-seven times hehe.

Conclusion? Jesus is the best friend I can ever have, and I’m immensely grateful for that.

Love: My Choice

Note: The ‘love’ I referred to throughout this post pertains strictly to romantic love.

In this post, I merely seek to express my subjective opinion on this issue. I do not expect others to share the same opinion as me, but I only hope to perhaps, offer one more perspective for others to see. I am a teenage heterosexual Christian living in a country made up mostly of religious residents and a country which is considered to be conservative by most other nations.

Homosexuality has been the pinnacle of debate over the past few years, with various groups of people coming together to fight for what they believe in. With the recent news of homosexual marriages being legalised all across the U.S., it got me thinking: What constitutes the freedom to love? Can love truly be a choice, with no boundaries at all? Is there a fundamental moral principle that should be adhered to when it comes to choosing the “right” person to love?

I do believe in love as a choice, but it is a choice that comes with certain boundaries. That’s why I don’t believe in complete “freedom” of love. There must be a balance to everything, and a fundamental moral principle at the bottom of every action. A lot of times people see freedom as something with no boundaries, but I dare say that freedom does need to have certain boundaries (ironic, I know).

For example, if we’re all free to do what we like, then why can’t we steal? Why can’t we kill people whom we don’t like? Why are these all wrong? Don’t I have the freedom to choose what I want to do?

But we can’t, simply because it’s wrong. There’s a moral bottom-line to everything, so even if we’re free to express ourselves in any way we want, it still wrong for us to “freely” make crude remarks against people of other races/religions. (And by the way, being able to make rude comments about other people without getting punished for it doesn’t make it acceptable or right.)

I know it can be argued, “The example you raised doesn’t make sense. Homosexuality doesn’t hurt anyone.”

I won’t go too deep into it, but I do think that legalising homosexual marriages and making it legal for homosexual partners to raise children robs these children to their fundamental rights to being raised by two biological, heterosexual parents. No parent, father or mother, can be replaced by a second father or second mother, because the absence of one parent can really hurt these children in the long run. But, that’s an argument for another day, and by more knowledgeable researchers and scholars.

Even if you still don’t agree with that example, it’s fine. My point is, everyone has a different moral bottom-line, which should be respected. Just because someone feels homosexuality goes against their moral boundaries, doesn’t mean they should be ridiculed for being “overly conservative”. Likewise, a person who thinks having homosexual relationships with another is well within their moral boundaries should never be discriminated against for their actions. It’s simply a difference in opinion, culture and values.

“But, I was born a homosexual. I can’t help liking people of the same sex. Are you saying that it’s my fault?”

Firstly, I don’t believe in love as something innately defined in your biological makeup or DNA. There’s no “soul mate” predestined for us in the stars, nor is there an eternal romance for a specific other half in this world. All of us have a choice in picking our “other half” to journey with for the rest of our lives.

I have seen many posts online and heard people tell me that “homosexuals don’t have a choice” in choosing the sex that they are attracted to. Some argue that it is a part of their biological makeup/DNA, although that argument is not backed up by scientific evidence.

As I have said, I believe love to be a choice, hence I believe that homosexuals do, in fact, have a choice in choosing who they want to love romantically. Whoever you choose to see as a potential romantic partner will ultimately influence you to be attracted to that person. I say this only based on personal experience, because I believe it to be a matter of mindset. I have a friend who is rather tomboyish, and there have been instances when I began to see her as a guy rather than a girl, and if I didn’t have a boundary for myself to say that, “Hey, she’s not someone who can be viewed as a potential romantic partner,” then I think I would probably have ended up feeling attracted to her in that sort of way.

You have a choice in pursuing those initial feelings of infatuation for another person. For me, I chose not to pursue those feelings, and since infatuation is but a temporary thing, I got over it rather quickly. (And both of us are still very good friends to this day.)

So if you’re someone who believes that you don’t have a choice in the sex that you’re attracted to, believe me, you do. No one else can make that decision for you. Do not ever delude yourself into thinking that you were made that way simply because it’s the commonly accepted “truth” by the majority and whatnot. I have experienced it firsthand, and this is my story. Maybe others have a different story to tell, but this is what I believe in and I want to let you know that you have a choice in who they choose to pursue romantically, because I know that I had the chance to make that decision for myself.

So at the end of the day, the choice to love is yours, and yours alone.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Remembering the Past, Cherishing the Present & Hoping for the Future

Looking back on old photos, it amazes and saddens me how much can change within 365 days all at the same time. The people you once held dear in one moment can walk out the door in the next. The people you once treated as your closest confidant becomes nothing more than a distant stranger.

It’s easy to wish to get a time machine and go back in time in the hopes of reliving those once happy days. I wish I could go back, fix things so maybe the present wouldn’t be so painful.

But maybe there’s a reason for the present. It’s a gift, and maybe we don’t see now, but in time, perhaps we’ll be able to catch a glimpse of those days sprawled out on the grass on a warm summer’s day, laughing without a care in the world.

So for now, I’ll just make a wish, look forward and wait for the change.

“Catholic, Gay and Feeling Just Fine.”

“Catholic, Gay and Feeling Just Fine.” http://www.strangenotions.com/catholic-gay/

Just found this article that practically captured every single thing I’m feeling right now. Unfortunately, my writing simply isn’t up to par and I am unable to express myself as beautifully and elegantly as this man can. 🙂

I don’t support the LGBT movement in any way, but I have homosexual friends as well and I love them just the same. I just wish people on this earth would be more open-minded.

An apology without the apology

A pretty strange concept, but one I’ve seen some truth in. 

Maybe it’s that you’re too scared to face that person again, too guilty to move your legs to where he/she is, or too uncertain of how things will change (if they even do) if you move your lips and utter that single word.

Is it wrong?

I’m not sure. But I know that I’ve apologised and made the same mistake countless times, and I’m not sure if apologising this time will change anything for the better. 

So this time, I’m keeping silent. I’m not going to do anything. Nothing at all.

Maybe this way, I won’t cause any more hurt, or do more harm than I already have.

Maybe this way, the tightness I feel in my chest will be my chain, binding me in place, and keeping me from repeating that mistake again.

Maybe this way, it will finally be a true apology. An apology without words, that is.

An apology, without the apology.

The only thing is, the moment I put the brakes on and build a wall around me, there won’t be a door for him any longer.

Perhaps then, I’d have to apologise for that too. 

A silent one, that is.