My depression is at an ebb, and I have had almost three good and happy weeks. I must acknowledge it, lengthened periods of happy times don't come too naturally nor easily for me, so when they're here, I recognize and appreciate them. Today I went to collect my new identity card. While re-registering for it, I had to fill in my religion, and now it's stated as "no religion". When I posted it on Instagram, a friend replied that I had guts and strength. This is because the conflation of race and religion in Singapore is extremely strong, and unrightly encouraged by the government. If you're born Malay, you are automatically assumed to be Muslim and that is your identity. Being a vocally ex-Muslim Malay is not easy here, to this day I have acquaintances who don't understand that I can be Malay without being Muslim. They think that as long as my identity card states my race as Malay, I immediately cannot consume pork. Also, I am shunned, sort of on the down low, by some of the Muslim community. I think my mother feels more ashamed to admit to anyone else that I am no longer Muslim than she would feel at anything else.
Anyway, besides collecting my card and going to work today, I had dinner with some ex-colleagues and very lovely friends from Lush. We laughed so loud we were told by the café staff to lower our voices. Amazing. After that dinner, some girls from lululemon were having KBBQ and so I joined them for that. We shared embarrassing stories and I told them about the French guy from Tinder who was very rude to me (one day when I'm in Canada I may talk about the implied prostitution but not while I still live in this household). It was a good, good, good, good night. Tomorrow I start my day off with therapy, then a work shift, followed by a yoga session (I finally managed to book a mat at Hom Yoga!), ending the night off with two friends from my high school. This Saturday, I have three Zoom sessions, two with the mental health collective subgroups and one with a healing feminist circle. I'm not sure why I've been overbooking myself so much that I don't even have time to do any actual work, but that's life. I'm happy and I'm happy to be happy.
