THE BEACH

This morning has been a little bit of a struggle. I feel like it’s finally time to make use of the fact that my workplace is only ten minutes away from the beach and head there after work tonight. I would like to see the stars and feel the sand and maybe I could use a short cry. If anyone reads this and is open tonight and would also like to be at the beach, lemme know. Otherwise, I’ll go on my own, that’s truly fine.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

There are things I witness in my everyday life that do not sit very well with the things I value in my brain and heart and soul. Every time my mum or grandma tells me that my clothes are not what “a sweet girl” would wear, I think maybe I deserved all those times I was mistreated by men, maybe I am giving off the vibes that I am not “a nice girl” and all I want is to be toyed with. Perhaps it is growing up in a household with only girls, but I have never heard my family say to the boys that regardless what a person wears, he is not to touch her if she does not want to, that only yes means yes, that a girl who stays out with him past midnight can still be a good girl, that even as a man, he is not simply reduced to “boys will be boys”, that it is not on the girl, it is never on the girl, for a man who chooses to do something. A few months ago, a Malay Muslim woman was elected as Singapore’s president (although there were no votes, but that’s a whole notha story), and all I can remember is my uncle, with whom I grew up in the same household, saying “is this what we have come to? Is this what we were taught? That women can lead just the same as men?” and that’s when I realised the women’s activist groups I’d been in have been right for so long, that sometimes it is your very own flesh and blood that can be the most toxic, and the fact that you want to distance yourself from people whose values pervade your mental health, is not a bad thing. It is in the fact that the woman who raised me to believe that god makes you a better and more accepting person, then turned around to tell me I have made a grievous, shameful mistake, only because the same god said so, and not based on any logical proof, that I think “when will this fucking end?” If a person’s love for you is conditional upon whether you are a Muslim or share the same religious belief whichever it may be, then is that love, actually?

WHAT DO YOU MEANTHIS HAPPENED TO ME?

I’LL WRITE MY WAY OUT(WAIT FOR IT)

This morning (or was it last night, I can’t tell) I saw A post on Instagram that he was putting together the band and recording a demo of the song that he wrote, something he’d been wanting to do for years. I feel very proud of and excited for him. He also really looks like a qtpie in the photo. Ah, I miss him. Today I was whiling away time during my break at work and missing the times we’d talk about the everyday and the extraordinary to each other. It is a good thing his social media is all about as public as my own, so if I see a girlfriend on the horizon I can shut the hell up, lolol. I tried to do the 28 days without looking at his social media, and I managed to do it, but then I went right back to looking at it. He has no girlfriend and his profile is public, it is my prerogative to do whatever I want. Right? We launched Valentine’s items last weekend and I just want to ramble to him re: how pretty they are and how delicious they smell because: I dunno, I just do, I guess.

maybe she’s wrong
and just maybe I’m right