WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

I watched Beyoncé's Homecoming on Netflix and it was brilliant. The marching band, her backup singers and dancers, Destiny's Child, the execution of everything was perfectly in sync and it blew my mind. She also talks about historically black colleges and universities, and how putting together her show for Coachella made her entire ensemble feel like a HBCU. I would highly recommend it.

I also watched Someone Great, from which came this monologue that Gina Rodriguez's character wrote down into a book:

Do you think I can have one more kiss? I'll find closure on your lips, and then I'll go. Maybe also one more breakfast, one more lunch, and one more dinner. I'll be full and happy and we can part. But in between meals, maybe we can lie in bed one more time. One more prolonged moment where time suspends indefinitely as I rest my head on your chest. My hope is if we add up the one mores, they will equal a lifetime, and I'll never have to get to the part where I let you go. But that's not real, is it? There are no more one mores. I met you when everything was new and exciting, and the possibilities of the world seemed endless. And they still are. For you, for me, but not for us. Somewhere between then and now, here and there, I guess we didn't just grow apart, we grew up. When something breaks, if the pieces are large enough, you can fix it. Unfortunately, sometimes things don't break, they shatter. But when you let the light in, shattered glass will glitter. And in those moments, when the pieces of what we were catch the sun, I'll remember just how beautiful it was. Just how beautiful it'll always be. And we were magic. 

It's one of those feel-good films, kinda? I mean, it did make me cry because it's about a nine-year relationship that ended and the sad, sad breakup but it's also about ending things amicably, and about the friends that have your back through such phases in life.

Yesterday I read a line that said "love shouldn't be a metric in relationships" and perhaps something I would identify closer with is that love shouldn't be the only metric in relationships. I also read today that just because your relationships end should not necessarily mean that they were or are failed relationships. If you've grown beyond each other, and you break up to allow each other to grow, then in many ways I think that's a success. Staying together when there is no personal growth nor growth in the partnership is a failure even if the relationship continues.

I think it's really quite hard to adopt such a mindset in Singapore, because a lot of the society here are either religious or conservative. The idea that you can break up and be alone and be healthier when you're alone while having had a successful ended relationship isn't a pervasive one, and moreover the community I come from is Muslim. The more "failed relationships" I've had and the more partners I've had in my life, the higher the likelihood is that the people I come home to are looking down on me like I'm "used goods" or that there is something wrong with me that no one wants to pick me, instead of the fact that maybe I just have not found real happiness and I'd rather date around and find out instead of settling.

I've grown so much, through all my relationships and dating experiences. I'm happy with myself, for trying time and again. I've learnt so much about people, about myself, etc etc. To be honest, I really think every time something gets me down, I just gotta keep watching and reading things to reframe my mindset.