Amends

It’s 10 past 3 a.m and God only knows why I’m up at this odd hour.

My mind’s in a mess - taking me back and forth to a surprising string of memories I’ve stored away for ages. With those almost-forgotten memories were the strong feelings that came with it.

You.

I’ve always been a huge fan of poetry. There’s something magical about how a word can compliment another and be formed into a sentence that resonates so beautifully and hold a meaning so profound. Lang Leav’s ‘Lullabies’ was nothing short from it.

Hastily browsing from one book shelf to another at the bookstore the other day, my eyes somehow spotted the dark blue covered book and there was no turning back. I just had to get it! And on that same day, by bedtime, I’d finished reading the entire thing.

There were so many pages in there that pulled at my heart-strings, so many I dog-eared. But only one, I felt a need to express.

*takes a deep breath*

You.

I’ve read this particular poem over and over again, and two people to mind – perhaps one more often than the other but still two very constant images come to mind. Right at this moment, my mind’s not doing such a good job standing its ground. Instead it chooses to let my heart meddle.

• Half of my heart is still pretty hopeful, despite the distance and despite the fact our only encounters have been via social media network. Everything from the way we got in touch to our conversations was too good to be true… as things like these never do happen to me. NEVER. And in the end I realized that it was a little too good to be true. But the hopeless romantic in me still kept hoping for you to be, well, true. I mean, how can I not hope for that at the very least when you’ve given me so much ‘hope’, given our circumstances. I can’t really put my finger on it but when I think of you and my mind’s in shambles, all that resounds in my ears are the apologies you’ve said to me, our conversations via Whatsapp voice-notes or the recent craze, Snapchats. You may know who you are once you’ve read this (I hope you never do!) and I may never have the guts to ever meet you face-to-face after this, but since you’re far far away and I’m here, facing a blank page just waiting to be filled, I want you to know that I’ve never regretted getting to know you. You are unique, quirky and funny and I was blessed with the opportunity to cross ‘social-media-paths’ with you, even if it was short-lived. You fulfilled everything in my ‘list’, as cliché as that sounds and if that’s even remotely possible, you must be a good-catch for any girl out there. Even if we’re “brosters” and even if our friendship blossomed into something more, I’d await the day I get to meet the man on the other side of my phone screen.




• The other half of my heart is transgressing beyond bounds, so much so, it feels sinful. This part of my heart brings me back to the naïve and innocent age of thirteen – the first time I saw you, the first time I ever felt so strongly for anyone (teenage-girl hormones, what to do) You were my first everything – well, not everything, if you know what I mean, but first love, definitely) and although you have hurt me in the past and present, there somehow always is a soft-spot for you no matter how hard I try to erase you and the memories of you from my life. Each time I try and contemplate the possibility of forgiving you and rewinding to where we started off, my heart and mind team up and give out the loudest warning signals. This is how I know you are no good for me; that there’s ‘trouble’ written all over you. I have even resorted to mentally list out all the reasons why we’re no good together but the funny thing about your heart is that sometimes, it has a mind of its own and in the spur of the moment, it caves in. If there’s anything I’d like for you to know, it’s that I miss you. I miss our talks and the times we spent together, just hanging out. I miss it even more because I know we can never get it back. This is not about forgiveness as we’re way past all that. I guess this mainly has to do with myself, and how much trust I have in myself. You see, the thing is, I don’t trust myself with you. I’m afraid I’d cave-in one day and things would get so messy and that you’d break my heart again, like you did all those times before. And this time, I’d be the biggest fool – the shame would be on me. So this is where I draw the line. Whenever I see you on the street, I won’t hesitate to say ‘Hi’ and make small talk but other than that, our memories and what we used to have would be buried so deep in the recesses of my mind, not intending to be unraveled anytime soon.




Now that I've got this all out of my system, I'm slowly starting to regret this. God help me. 

Hi.

The thought of writing again must have crossed my mind a thousand times now ever since the last time I actually reveled in the bliss of running my fingers along the keyboard and watching the screen before me be filled with whatever that was in my mind - be it past or present. Oh, how I've missed the precious times I've spent filling up this page. Those times were indeed therapeutic. I still can't believe my last post was in the year 2012. That came as a shocker, given the fact that I used to be as much of an avid writer as I was an avid reader.

Anyway, as I'm still uncertain if this post marks my comeback to the blogsphere, I shall skip the apologetic hoohah (because I always find myself apologizing after having gone MIA) and avoid being devolved to a pathetic void of nostalgia. What I will do, however, is sum up all that has happened this past two years that I've been away - whatever I can recall off the top of my head, that is. 

So in no chronological or alphabetical order whatsoever, here goes: I have...

• Traveled to 3 different countries in the span of one month. 
• Tagged along on an all-expense paid trip to Penang for a week. 
• Visited Paris - and all its' wonders and even spent a few days in the suburbs. 
• Fired a read gun (and hit the target!)
• Watched a show at the Dewan Filharmonic Petronas - Ramli Ibrahim & The MPO.
• Read the whole Divergent blockbuster in the span of 3 days - 4 books. 
• Babysat my cousin, Zara, ho happens to be the coolest 11 year old I know. 
• Re-watched the Disney movies I grew up watching- everything from The Lion King to The Little Mermaid. 
• Hiked up a hill. 
• Spent alone time at a little cafe to write and enjoy a cup of coffee (I don't drink coffee)
• Cafe-hopped - 5 different cafes in a day. 
• Ordered pancakes for dinner (First of all, I don't EVER eat pancakes and second, having it for dinner is a big no-no)
• Had way too many cheat meals, I feel like I've committed some great sin. 
• Stopped the pace of writing I usually keep at - obviously!
• Tried different workouts to switch things up - HIIT, Heat Yoga, crazy-intense circuits. 
• Worked for a Team Building event. 
• Went out to meet people for the first time and had a good time. 
• Did a photoshoot, all thanks to a dear friend. 
• Fell in love with someone online, someone I haven't even met. 
• Dated a classmate and left because I lost interest. 
• Went out, had lots of fun in the company of good friends and came home at 6am. 
• Had a big surprised 21st birthday, put together by my siblings.
• Lost a few people I loved to death.
• Picked up a few new hobbies and dropped them. 
• Screwed up in an exam. 
• Decided to quit being the one always initiating meetups when the other party doesn't even bother to meet me halfway. 
• Attended my first rave - Tiesto and also went for Avicii. 
• Worked for a rave concert. 
• Walked around the KLCC park for 5 times because I wanted a conversation to go on. 
• Met my dad's ex-girlfriend. 
• Had a feud with my grandma and aunt, over a stupid misunderstanding. 
• Attended a wedding, a funeral, birthdays and a Christening.
• Went on an impromptu escapade to Genting just to lay under a starry sky and have Starbucks coffee. 
• Changed my first tyre.
• Attended a Varsity Camp. 
• Went on a food-hunting trip with buddies to Melaka. 

I wish I had listed it all down before I decided to write this post. There's still a lot more I'm sure I haven't mentioned but this is good enough for the spontaneity I opted no? Heh. 

Perhaps the next post will be slightly more in detailed than this one and hopefully, I'll have something worth writing - something I won't hesitate to post, something that will revive this blog. 

Until next time, tata! 

For starters, 'Hello.'

Hi. You must not remember me, let alone remember my name. But that is okay – there will be time for re-introductions in the near future. Hopefully.  As for now, you just need to know my name. My name is Kristen Alyssa Sylvanmani and I turned nineteen on the 11^th of April. I am a Malaysian and have been born and bred in this little tiny red dot on the World Map, known as Malaysia but unfortunately, which can hardly be seen with the naked eye.

I don’t intend to come off as too formal but I am afraid I have already given you that impression. Anyhow, I should probably proceed with this – letter? note? – anyway. Time has a knack of dragging on too long when we are caught in situations which don’t tickle our fancies and it passes by at the speed of light when we are doing what we absolutely, passionately love to do. I, as you might have already guessed, found myself trapped in-between the two. Instead of responsibly taking matters into my own hands and doing what a normal living, breathing person would do while caught in such a situation – try to turn matters around – I had allowed myself to be drowned in my own self-pity and had allowed myself to manifest on pathetic excuses which were solely lead by my over-empowering laziness – the ‘I’ll-do-it-tomorrow’ syndrome. At the other end of this tug-of-war, instead of basking in my God-given gifts to do the things I love, I consciously allowed myself to fall from the pedestal , holding on to the fact that there will always be another day for me to shine. Both roads of which I’d stumbled upon – although tip-toeing my way through – lead me to where I am today. This very day. (I am sensing that I might have unintentionally related my situation to that of the character in The Road Not Taken, a poem I studied during my lower-forms in high school.)

With all my might and strength, I willed myself to open up Microsoft Word today, place all my 10 fingers on the keyboard, to simply type. I realized that I have not done this in the longest time as while I was preparing my mindset to write with the guidance of my creative juices, an over-whelming splash of emotion hit me like a tidal wave, as if to say, “Welcome Home!” As comforting as that split-second feeling was, I know I still owe you an explanation. Somehow or rather, knowing that I have to do what I have to do, I feel like a little kid who is being punished by her mother for something she did wrong. It is the feeling of knowing that even after all the scolding you are going to get, along with perhaps a few strokes from the rattan and even after apologizing a gazillion times, there would still be an explanation expected by your mother for your absurd behavior. Sigh, mothers…

An explanation? I don’t have any. I know too well that it is not something you want to hear but at this point, taking into account our unfortunate circumstance, I’d rather be blatantly honest than concoct sugar-coated, flowery lies to soothe your soul.

And now I’m stuck again as apologizing is another strenuous task.

To sum up all that I have written above and to reach the intention of this supposedly letter of apology, I want to firstly say that I am sorry.

I am sorry for abandoning this little nook of mine in the blogsphere.

I am sorry for allowing myself to get so lazy and brain-dead.

I am sorry for abandoning and disregarding my passion for writing.

I am sorry for giving up so easily when I couldn’t think of anything that was worth penning down.

I am sorry for taking for granted the gifts God has given me.

I am so sorry for not sticking to the end of my bargain by writing every happening in my life.

I am just so sorry.

I may not know who I am apologizing to or whether there is even a need for me to apologize to begin with but I hope you – whoever is reading this – would forgive me anyway. Despite all that I have apologized for, I hang on to the thought that maybe the joke’s on me. Maybe I owe myself an apology. After all, isn’t it similar to the overrated truth that ‘you’ve got to love yourself first before you can love another’?

If it is, well then maybe that’s the price I’ve got to repay some other day.

As for today, and hopefully in the all the days that follow, I am home. 

It feels like the first time

I must have done this a million times now - clicking on the 'New Post' button and opening a new tab, only to stare at it blankly for seconds that turn into minutes, and then upon realizing that I might not get any writing done by simply staring, I give up entirely and click on the 'X' button of that tab to get it out of my sight.

I don't know how I let it get to this. I don't know how I'd allowed myself to become so distant with what I once loved doing on a daily basis. I just don't. But what I do know and what I'm choosing to believe is that despite the laziness and constant acts of 'surrender' I'm beginning to incultivate in my daily routine, the few months right before I sat for my A2 exams which I spent drilling and disciplining myself to concentrate only on my books and nothing else did much more harm than I imagined possible.

It may have only been a mere month and a half since my last post but in truth and in all honesty, it has never felt longer. At least my old self would think so - the girl whom would religiously make sure that she has something to write every other given day, if not everyday. Days and weeks have flown by unproductively and as I continue to dig deeper and reach within myself in search to find the girl I used to know so well, I seem to failing as not even a trace of her presence in my life can be found, although a mere reflection of my inner-self she is.

Fullstop. Maybe this time, I don't want to justify my actions nor do I want to explain for my misbehavior in abandoning my little nook despite the oaths, promises and vows that were taken against it. Maybe this time, I don't even want to apologize. So, with the aforementioned, I'm letting myself off the hook and this means... we may very well proceed onto greener pastures, per se. 

In my last blog entry - the blog entry I posted approximately a month and a half ago - I had typed out an exceptionally long list of 'tasks' to do, given the fact that my A2 exams have been dealt with. It was somewhat a 'Bucket List'; yes you could call it that. But as dormant as I've been in my writing, the same issue happened when it came to completing the tasks on my list and striking them off. Despite the handful of tasks I'd managed to complete, it still wasn't enough to satisfy me. There are a lot of things I could have done with the ample time I had on my hands, maximizing the hours of each day to it's full capacity. Unfortunately, it was just my luck to have various events occur, preventing me from carrying out those tasks.

I didn't register myself for any of the courses my college was offering for the Summer School Programme. I didn't take up a part-time job to earn that little pocket money on the side. The trip to Perhentian with my college girlfriends didn't happen either, as one or the other was either working or too caught-up with the hectic schedules in their lives. I didn't get to tag along with Daddy to Australia/L.A as the re-formating of his new timetable made it difficult to plan ahead for when to apply for my visas. I also didn't make use of my free time to take up playing the guitar as it recently got returned back to me after being repaired. I neither made it point to pick up a new language nor did I go rock-climbing as according to plan.

Although I did not get to do the whole list of things above, and although I'm still so agitated with myself for not getting to do those things, I have decided to let it go because in the period of time those things were not accomplished, others were.

I have spent more time in the kitchen, working on my culinary skills, baking and learning how to cook the dishes Nanny is famous for. I passed my A-levels and would now be moving on to do my LLB (UKT, hopefully). I caught up with long-lost, good-old friends and spent ample time basking in the comforts of the easiness and closeness of our relationship, making up for the weeks - and for some, months - we've spent apart. I resumed doing covers again and have been diligently practicing my vocal range as well as straining my vocal chords. I have spent every morning, 5 days a week, running/jogging and working on my stamina and am still at it religiously. I have read an exceptional variety of good books, ranging from romantic novels, chick-lits to fictionally inspirational. Heh! As for the shopping, I did a whole lot of that too.

It appears that I need not be so agitated with myself after all.

The month of August is flying by, moving at the speed of light. The month of fasting for the Muslims would be ending in a few more days and by Saturday, it'll be time to go back to their hometowns to celebrate. The Bazaar Ramadhans along every possible lorong in K.L would be packing-up and closing stall as well - oh how my aunt and I have enjoyed the vast variety of mouth-watering delicacies that can only be found during the fasting month. The Kuih Pelita and Kuih Cara have always been my favorite!

As for me, well... my days of lazing around the house and hitting the malls at every chance I get would be ending soon too. But since the month of September is still a few weeks away, I would have until then.


Selmat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, folks! 

Laziness vs. Believing

It's been approximately three months since I have taken the time to construct my thoughts, string them into sentences and allow my fingertips to be guided by my heart's rhythm. Or to be precise, I allowed my thoughts and writings to take the backseat; not prioritizing them the way I normally would. The primary reason for my actions was due to the fact that my exams were so closely around the corner, and I felt it necessary to drop everything and just concentrate on doing what I was supposed to do - study for my A2 exams. This went on from the beginning of April right up to the day I had my last paper, which was on the 15th of June. I made a mental deal with myself which was sort of like this: Once my exams are over, I'd start writing again. And I'd kept this deal diligently, however, it did not only last until the day of my last paper but throughout the many weeks that followed.

Instead of transitioning my sedentary lifestyle of studying and eating to doing the list of things I had planned to do once my exams were over, all I'd accomplish from that list was gallivanting, bombarding shopping malls and the most productive one of all, reading the books that having been so patiently sitting on my bookshelf just waiting for their turn to be picked-up and read. Apart from these, there's nothing much I've gotten done, really.

I still have a long way to go to be completely and utterly satisfied in knowing that my weeks of liberation have been well-spent, as you can see for yourself:

• Join the Summer School programe my college is so enthusiastically advertising. 
• Take up a part-time job, for a little pocket money on the side. 
• The trip to Perhentian with my college group of hooligans. 
• Australia/L.A - or maybe even both, hopefully - with Dad. 
• Learn how to play the guitar or maybe just get back to learning how to play the piano. 
• Learn a new, foreign language. 
• Rock-climbing. 
• Learning how to cook and start playing an important role in the kitchen.
• Catch-up like the good ol' days with friends. 
• Continue making covers. 
• Performing. 
• Shopping. 
• Getting in shape, strengthening my core, and making sure that I'm bursting with energy.
• Reading. 

etcetera, etcetera... 

It takes a lot of hard work trying to convince myself that there are just not enough hours in a day but the truth is that the months of moulding and limiting myself to doing only so much as eat, study and sleep during my exam period have awakened the devil of laziness inside of me, making it a constant struggle to stay determined and get my list of tasks done. I've become somewhat a very infamous procrastinator, allowing the devil of laziness inside me to feed on whatever is left of the ounces of determination and energy that used to overflow bountifully, leaving me adamant and sinfully lazy. 

Before I decided to jump out of bed and tell myself that "Today, I am going to start writing again." , I was so close to believing that maybe, just maybe, I've lost all my sense, passion and ability to write. And that maybe, writing just isn't for me. Trying to convince myself, my mind swirled and I was thinking along the lines of "maybe God decided that I should just stick to singing", "maybe I should stop writing because I'm not as good as all those brilliant and smart writers out there" and even "maybe I should just give up and accept the fact that it's not my gift."

But by believing and having faith, this post is proof that I still have it in me. I still have not certified if whether 'writing' is what I'm called to do or even 'singing', for that matter, but what I do know is that they both wash over me a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that I never get tired of feeling. I love that I can write and express my thoughts. I love that I can sing in tune and hit high notes. I just love it. 

During my talk with God in the wee hours of last night, I'd asked him to help me nurture the gifts he had blessed me with, and with those gifts, help me find my calling. I also asked him to please allow me to write again. I prayed for will and determination as well, to get it done. 

I woke up today, feeling thankful and blessed. I went for my morning run and did some cardio. I ate a hearty breakfast. I showered. Once I did what was of a necessity, I willed myself to sit down and write. 

Today, for the first time in a long time, I wrote.



P.S - I have absolutely no clue as to whether this makes up for my months away but all I need you guys to know is that I'm truly sorry.