Friday, August 12, 2022

re:not dead yet & future self

oddly enough (or not), this realisation came to me in a dream. except it was no allegorical or metaphorical type of dream; it was one of those dreams i usually have where my mind forgets it's fallen asleep, and is just carrying about the day like normal (and not-minding the whimsical or fanciful aspects of it).

in the dream, my mind was chewing on the scene i was referring to in 'constantine' (the movie, not the comics), in 'still alive, not dead yet'.

and...in the dream, i was reminded (as i often thankfully am, whether awake or asleep) that it isn't the devil keeping me alive on this earth. and that i'm not...really the one who's fighting demons. i'm letting God (and his angel armies) do it for/ through/ around me. i succeed when i let him, and where i fail, it's because i wanted to step in and take over his job (of saving...everything and everyone, since, he is called Saviour after all).

in the dream, i was also reminded that...unlike the movie's clip, i am indeed better off dead than alive to satan. because good is just as infectious as bad, and so...i guess that's why the devil keeps wanting me to kill myself, so that i make it a lot easier for some of the people i influence to...er, well, if not go to hell (i now don't believe that's where most people will end up, and even if they do, i don't think they'll stay there forever either), then at least live with the vestiges of death in their defeated lives. (defeat itself is a vestige of a type of death i.e. damage and destruction of the mind, will, spirit, and its psychosomatic knock-on effects.)

it's just...been very, very difficult to continue staying resilient when god keeps allowing shit to fly into my face, ever since the hit-and-run that...only made my mother more controlling and micromanaging of my physical (and therefore social and mental-emotional) freedom, as well as throttled my efforts to literally work in a vocation (read: the arts) i've always, adamantly wanted to earn a living from.

i can't say i haven't learnt anything through the process, though. it's just that...this past month, i realised that i could be learning until the day i die and still not have learned it all. which is why i've started praying again for me to be free this year, even though...so far, every fucking year since dec 2014 has been like me stuck in one of those 'groundhog day' movies of perpetual time loops, that never move forward until the protagonist learns whatever-it-is they're supposed to learn out of life.

except...i'm getting increasingly worn down and...god, why does the creation of patience demand tests of having to be patient? (rhetorical question.) and when will this waking nightmare be over? i mean, every day, month and year, i've had to wake up to the same horrible-to-me woman and man i call my parents. 

at least they take turns being difficult, and thank god i can just 'mute' my brother online now, because...this house is already tiny and made-more-cramped-by-parents'-hoarding as it is, for me to handle other humans in the house...especially when i need to use the toilet, and...all i have is the no-ventilation-due-to-unfinished-renovation generic cubicle that every occupant, including visitors (some of which, i've finally had the post-brain-injury fearlessness to scold my parents to stop entertaining, because they keep fucking overstaying their welcome, to see the freak show that is post-accident me).

and every fucking day, i'm still not allowed to drive out, let alone move out and have the freedom to work yet, of this house unless i put up a big mothafucking argument for every single time i want peace and solitude (even if it's for just one hour...usually it's two, because i've found it a lot easier to mentally escape every time i bring a book along for an-excuse-to-have-a-quiet-meal-outside). this effort is so tedious on my brain (more so post-accident) that...i no longer rise up to the challenge every week, because it involves fuckloads of my mother complaining at, nagging and scolding me.

also, i now disagree with 'the four stages of life' (re:'note to future self'). i've realised life doesn't have to be a bitch, so long as the God of Hope is in the picture. and i disagree wholly with the notion that "the influence of one person...will eventually dissipate". one only has to look at history to see that...trends and vogues always go in and out of fashion. 

someone forgotten in the past starts getting remembered because someone 'influential' (in the eyes of the media) picked up on this previously-forgotten person or genre or fad or whatever. anyway, isn't jesus christ one person and still influential, through the ages (despite the debates about his deity or existence as a real man here on earth, instead of the mere stuff of legend)?

i disagree with a lotta things that younger, both pre- and post-accident me used to think. so i thank god for the eyes (of wisdom) to have at least made some progress in that area, while...my current circumstances seem to've come to a standstill ever since a hit-and-run that wasn't even my fault, to begin with.

am itching to say more, but i guess it's not the right time. i keep thinking every year post-accident will be the right time. but instead, i have to keep waiting. and getting crucified almost-daily by my mother in the process. (i thought jesus was crucified so that i no longer have to be. when are my breakthroughs going to happen?)

whatever it is, i'll keep hoping until i die. because i literally can't live without it. (i figured out several years ago, after oliver sacks gave up the ghost in 2015, that...without hope, one might as well just literally lie down and die. without hope, i might as well quit waiting for my life here to get better, might as well pass go and collect $200 in heaven. i mean, without hope, why waste my time assuming i'll be suffering all the way until i die, right?)

Thursday, August 11, 2022

freshness in consecrated things

hmm. my circumstances haven't changed (in fact, they threaten to get worse, but i'm not believing the bullshit), but there's just one...morsel of...hope that's definitely out-of-the-norm, that i can finally talk about (on here) and latch onto.

but first, the context to this is that my mother has been absolute hell to me, ever since...er, end of last month. and i've had less patience (than...the copious amounts i so badly need, in order to mentally cope with the prison-life of each day and night) than usual, because...it's still information i can't yet blog about, but basically, i thought i was finally going to be free from my parents (and free to live my own life, and do my own thing) last month.

i was so sure too because...the signs for this thing finally seemed to indicate the end of these arduous almost-8-yrs-of-suffering, directly in correlation with my hit-and-run. but alas, the bubble burst and...it was not to be.

so, to cut the long story short, my mother's been extra caustic, condemning, on short shrift, frequently guilt-tripping and blaming me (even for a hit-and-run that wasn't* even my fault).

*up until she had to formally 'fess up 3yrs ago, she'd always made me wrongly think i was stupidly standing in the middle of traffic to have gotten knocked down, instead of standing on the road shoulder (aka. the supposedly "safe" inner side of the road). before some asshole decided, "eh, let's beat the traffic by ignoring the woman waving tree branches away from the empty lane, and— oh shit, there's a car and a person on the road shoulder, hence the diversion of lanes?".

and then letting one side of his car's tyres drive along the ditch, while the other flung me like superman onto my own car's roof...at least that's we could logically deduce from the dent marks, bits of photographed (by my brother, not even the came-too-late and then tried-to-cover-it-up cops, hoping no or very-little justice would be served) skin and hair on the roof, shattered driver's seat window and cracked-but-withheld-my-weight windshield.

in the times she loves kicking the dog*-known-as-me when i'm down, i have often wished my skull had hit the gravel (and then cracked open on the road) instead of my car's roof, so i could just die and be free from my parents and suffering, once and for all.

*not-funny how every dog we've ever owned has an '-ee' ring to it, a lot like my hate-it-post-accdt familial sobriquet. (i hate it because the ppl who call me this, don't know shit about me and don't want to know more about me, other than the template of a person their childhoods knew. i still find it hard to believe i'm related to my relatives, let alone my nuclear family.)

they should be called 'unrelatives', because i really cannot relate to them, and have often been bullied by them when growing up, and often up-till-now been disadvantageously compared to their children who're...the typical chinese version of "success stories". 

i can't believe i'm chinese either, especially after having suffered at the hands of so many yellow supremacists in singapore (even post-accdt). oh my ptsd. had to reel myself in and return back to topic.

so...yeah, the context to last night is, she'd given me grief again, and her words kept repeating themselves over-and-over in my head (like everything basically does). (i mean, it is so much better to hear good things or music being repeated over-and-over in my head compared to bad. so...it's like, either i have to listen to good, god-affirming things, or suffer her nag-nag-nag-nag-nag going on repeat for the rest of my unsleepable even-more-so post-accdt night until i die sleep. and unfortch, i am not always that disciplined in wanting to listen to god's good stuff to combat the poisonous berating she keeps levelling at me, almost daily.)

which totally ruined my mood for the night, and...made it even more difficult to carry on with whatever personal-project plans i had (for the night). (an aside: i don't know what is it with both-here-and-across-the-pond bitches, but they seem to have this false impression that, just because i'm single, it means i have "nothing" to do. and even when i try to correct them that i always have something up my sleeve [i.e. i've always had a whole personal list of things to do or update, and there's never been enough time to complete them], they'll revert to grumbling about how their married-with-dogs-or-children lives leave them with no time...which always makes me silently wonder in irritation, then why the fuck'd you marry, if you can't even at-least find the beauty in married life?)

but the error is, i was so upset, that i'd neglected "the one thing" that (what-i-deem-as, despite-being-a-remote-viewer) my church reminds us is most needful (luke 10:42) i.e. communion with god, anchored by partaking of the holy communion. so much so that, by the time i finally got around to preparing the elements by my bedside, it was almost 5am.

ever since my accident, and me being stuck in this not-my-choice-not-to-work prison where my miserly mother still refuses let me out, i've often spent nights-to-days awake. for various reasons, all of them related to environmental stress (parents, too-bright-in-a-high-ceilinged-room ptsd, noisy swearing motorcyclists and/or 'kampung' scum here ranging from as tiny as 'bodek' or wannabe children that look like the age of six*).

*yesterday's pre-sundown was an example as a child shouted out the malay swearword i.e. 'pig' while trying to show off to his elder brother that he was just as big as asshole as him. (omg...i never knew 'bodek' literally means 'penis'. because, as far back as i can remember, the term 'bodek' is always used upon people to love to kiss ass.)

and even when she does, she complains if i ever ask her for pocket money, let alone scolds me for using my own set-aside-by-the-supernatural-provision-of-god savings on matters-to-me (in terms of personal significance) such as my birthday, and gets suspicious as to the source of my wealth. 

this, despite me already declaring to her countless times as to where my not-regular, minimal sources of income are. i think it's pretty legit to want to treat myself to comfort food on my birthday after an entire miserable year being locked up against my will (partly due to the pandemic, and then later on reverting to a norm this year even after lockdown rules were gone), no?

i mean, in the past, i'd often disappear on my birthday (so that, at the very least, i could have peace and quiet on the day-to-night reflecting on the time i was born, and whether my life has made any progress-in-character, or if i felt i didn't improve much, what i could better work on). so, whatever much i spent, she never knew.

but this past year, i was not allowed to disappear (because lockdown was still in place). so i had to take her along i.e. let her drive the car that's supposedly in my name (and the one i finally signed up for, just the year before my hit-and-run, all because that controlling bitch has always refused to let me use our other cars and complained whenever i rented cars, to the point i had to keep parking and hiding them at richer friends' houses, and then cabbing there when i next woke up).

and so, hands down, last year was the utmost Worst birthday i've ever experienced in my entire filled-with-a-lotta-misfortune-so-far life, hands down. (to be fair, after my father heard of me expressing this and why, it wasn't long after my mother reluctantly apologized about being jealous of pressing me about how and why i was "suddenly" spending on ice cream and donuts, that i myself was treating my parents to, instead of merely hoarding everything for myself.

it's like...i am so unimportant that she can't even deem the day she gave birth to me as remotely significant in any way. many times, i wish i could go back in time in her womb and strangle myself with her umbilical cord, to save me decades and counting, of having to suffer her repeatedly calling me "a burden", "ungrateful", "condemning" and ironically, all the things that she herself is guilty of inflicting onto me. talk about her not being able to see the log in her own eye, while trying to remove the speck in mine.)

i was so...exhausted, mentally and emotionally, that it was taking a toll on me physically as well (and spiritually, i'll bet). that i told god, i was going to go to sleep, and continue partaking the elements (in remembrance of him, and what it means for me and those i care about, and our families) after i'd at least had one short spell of sleep.

next thing i knew, i awoke when the sun was already fully up at 8am. and...i felt so refreshed (and had even forgotten i went to bed weary and depressed and stressed-out and agitated, all by my mother's knows-how-to-push-my-buttons-and-does-that-often words). reminds me of the verse, "he gives to his beloved, sleep" (psalm 127:2b).

so i started by talking to god in bed, before partaking. and now, this is the (literal) morsel-of-hope part that i was referring to, at the start of this post: when i reached for the (biscuits in place of literal) 'bread', the usually-soft-within-an-hr (of being laid out within this a-c room), literally broken (like jesus' body, for me) bits of biscuits were as crisp, dry and as fresh as if i'd just-only popped open the already-separated-and-stored-in-ikea's-'korken'-jar to take it out and set it on the plastic deep-plate (plate bowl?) by the table.

and then i felt the words formulate in my mind (more or less): "everything you've suffered and lost all this while, will be restored to you with this same freshness and newness as what My broken body's bought you, as if no time has passed at all [unlike how things in-the-natural-process tend to grow stale over the passage of time]."

and with that, i finished up with communion, applied the anointing 'oil' (i've substituted it with perfume because...we do bear the 'aroma of christ' anyway), and slept for a few more hours (till half past noon when...i had an on-and-off stomachache, that lasted till dinnertime earlier, which i now believe to be food-left-out-for-too-many-hrs that was reheated from the night before, in the first place).

i haven't slept since. but i feel so much better, and my mother's not been a pain in the...(let's see, for post-accdt, brain-injured me, it's been) head, stomach, and/or uterus, today. and no noisy motorbike nor swearing child lingered past this house today. so it's been a good day (and night) despite the relative heat (as in, not as extreme as last mth or mth before). praise the lord for small mercies such as this.

when i remember, i make it a point to consecrate everything (and everyone) god's given me (to steward, not to own), especially in tithing, btw. so...it's not just communion that's consecrated. it's my whole life (and everyone else's, who's connected to me, in one way or another).