disparais

[disparais]

感谢你温暖了我的每一天。自从我和你变成了我们，你让我世界变得更美好。

院里的花草，墙外的夕阳，食堂的咸蛋黄鸡饭 - 这些珍藏的琐碎，我都想一一与你分享。漆黑的清晨，奔波的白昼，安静的深夜 - 无论时刻，我都会不由自主地想起你。

请你等我们好吗，我好怕我们有一天会在幸福的路上走散 - 我还想为你撑好几生世的伞呢。

[disparais]

倒塌

果然，这份痛苦，只有亲身经历的人才能体会。

这次考的，不仅是学识，更是感情。

原来我们也终究逃不过熟悉的情节。

当你说，如果故事不同，我们不会走到永远时 殊不知，我心里的某处震碎了。

我眼睁睁地看着白纸染上墨痕 看着结局的开头逐渐成形。

原来我们如此不堪一击 原来二十二天，足以动摇三年。

明明我们如此相爱 怎会变得如此狼狈。

这一切是否我想多了 请原谅脸皮薄如我 不敢揣着碎了一地的心去问你 我多害怕你的答案啊。

如果你有一天读到这里 请记得意志坚定的我 在放纵自己爱上你的那一天 就下了决心陪你走完余生。

你仍一样吗？

-

真的好糟心，深夜泪流满面，无处诉说。 也不懂几时能再次与你敞开心扉倾诉这些 毕竟你也真心难过，毕竟也许是我敏感了 毕竟形影单只的日子 还是我最熟悉的生活方式。

-

睡不着，怎么办。

[disparais]

信念感

这日子真的不分昼夜，还剩一个月的长跑我已开始疲倦了。昨晚任���地玩了几场手游，今天又在地铁上放空，时间似乎时长时短，我晃神了。

其实，学习本身原本不是痛苦的事情，原来脱离了师长与同学的压力，我也是愿意尝试探索医学的。只是敏感脆弱的性格施加了好多压力与抗拒吧。看着努力了几个星期的成果，我其实很欣慰，这已经超乎了我的想象了。

今日的血泪，总有一天会换来未来的大放异彩。也许不是一两个星期的事，也许契机十年后才会姗姗到来，但我相信命运就掌握在自己手中。

不忘初心，方得始终。

[disparais]

妳

无论如何，生活仍有值得珍惜的东西

比如夕阳沉入浩海时散发的余光

比如淅沥小雨的温柔洗礼

比如初夏第一根雪糕

比如深夜的宁静

比如妳。

[disparais]

双北，入股不亏

跌进了双北坑，两位老师都很优秀，我乐于观赏他们的互动。如此轻松舒服，两位如此般配的人，即使无法成为恋人，也是值得羡慕的神仙友谊了。看何老师提到最默契的人莫过谢娜，黄老师与撒老师，便知撒在他心中的地位。从撒老师霸气十足说何老师是他事业上唯一个假想敌，便知他是如何钦佩何。二人录完一整天之后还在工作日深夜喝酒，只为一叙，可见他们彼此有多注重这段友谊。

虽然撒老师在明侦经常避开双北炒作，但是在明侦内外的节目都有些谜之操作啊。 好多人说提气，撒尼都是更伟大深刻的友谊，但我认为cp间是不能做出这样的比较。双北的默契不仅停留于两位顶峰主持人过硬的业务能力；他们互相的惺惺相惜与肢体语言很自然地流露出了他们的感情。也许算不上高山流水，算不上温暖岁月，更算不上 轰轰烈烈 ，但拥有这种灵魂碰撞擦出的火花，便是百年不遇，求之不得的缘分。讲了这么多，其实无需替他们定义这段感情，只能远远由衷祝福他们。

我一直坚信人无论做什么时都应该追求自我反省与进步，追星亦是。 因为他们，我正在努力变成自己期待的样子。撒老师大概也是enneagram 1吧，在他身上看到了自己的锋芒，正义感与洁身自好。同时，何老师的温柔细腻却又有些悲观的内心世界更能与我引起共鸣。两位既是极其认真努力的人，又是童心未泯幽默无比的人，我也想在生活中端平这两种心态。

大概就是近几天追offer并深入了解大陆观众多方面对双北的看法，综合了一下我的感想吧。最喜欢两位老师的默契，喜欢他俩为每档节目带来的正能量，真心希望两人能有更多的合作机会。感谢两位老师，让自己与生活更美好。

[disparais]

掐灭

爱不上这世界，该如何爱自己呀。

幸好爱上了她。

-

阳光不是不存在，只是洒落在似乎触不可及的地方，只是我好像忘记了阳光亲吻肌肤的感觉了。行尸走肉的日子，何时会有尽头？

在某个雨天躲进一间安静的咖啡厅， 循环带着淡淡忧伤的歌曲， 看着雨滴在玻璃上互相追逐赛跑，品着焙茶品着歌 --

-- 我想要的一切好卑微，却又如此奢侈。

[disparais]

断断续续

最近心里堵得慌，仿佛有什么心事卡在笔尖，又不懂如何表达。天气开始转凉了，还是出去溜达一趟吧，去海边看个日落也好，去逛个街也不错。

夜色渐渐降临，霓虹灯把路人匆匆的形影照得扑簌迷离，竟产生了几分梦境般的错觉。

在大街的喧哗中缓缓穿行，偶尔打量着擦身而过的路人，想象着他们此刻的心情，背后的故事。

城市的繁华固然美，但随着岁月的增长与对社会的认知，总觉很难平息脑里无刻不在的喧哗，褪去时刻包围着自己的世俗味。呆久了，它就如一座大染缸，让奔波劳碌的人们染上疲惫，让曾经意气风发的少年染上岁月的尘埃。

在川流不息的人海里，我隐约看到了自己的身影。

形影单只的我，因迷茫而伫立。

有点开始厌倦这样的自己了。

[disparais]

dear ma-ma,

where do i even start?

i didn’t know it, but you are one of the most important people in my life - one of my constants that accompanied me from childhood through young adulthood. i know you will be with me for the rest of my life.

there are so many golden memories we have shared. i wish there had been someone to capture them all - your primness and fussiness, your faux annoyance, your doting smile.

you were here before my memories even began, holding chubby little me and looking at me like i was the most precious thing you had ever seen. i take pride in being able to squeeze a proper smile out of you on camera, because of the prim barely-there smiles you favour.

in my early childhood, you came over just about every other day. you’d drive your manual nissan sunny carefully, wearing your sunglasses and looking more chic than i could ever hope to. you always had fisherman’s peppermints and fox sweets in your handbag, and always slipped me a sweet treat before afternoon naps on my dreamy blue mattress. afternoons with you were the best, where you’d close the heavy curtains and turn on the air-conditioner, and pat-pat me to sleep.

i remember fighting with you over the channels on every single television available to us. you always wanted to watch teletext, astute investor that you were, and i always wanted to watch little bear (but also i just wanted to annoy you sometimes because it was hilarious getting you riled up). that’s how you became mama bear to me. (and yes, you more or less always gave in to me. i know you enjoyed these little fights too.)

yes, i also definitely deliberately aimed the fan at your hair occasionally, delighting in your ruffled feathers as you crossly patted your hair back into place.

thursday lunches with you and kong-kong were the best. i felt like a little princess going out with you both to the hotel, eating my favourite dim-sum and scampering around the hotel between courses. some days we’d eat at jack’s place too - it will always have a special place in my heart because of how much you enjoyed the experience of eating there.

whether at thursday lunches or sunday dinners, you always checked to make sure i was enjoying the food, and that i had eaten enough. you always advocated to order the dishes i really loved, and made sure to take note of what i liked so that you could remember to order it again the next time round. you always gave me the last coveted piece of food.

i definitely get my love for ice-cream and grocery shopping from you. perhaps my favourite memories are the golden afternoons where we’d share a 25-cent vanilla cone, then go to ntuc where i’d push your trolley around and take pride in carrying your groceries. i still do this for amy all the time, even though she complains that i’m too obsessive about keeping the trolley neat.

on the drives home, you’d always complain about everything under the sun. i have no idea why, but your complaining is the funniest thing ever and you’d always ask me faux-sternly what i was laughing at. i don’t know if you knew that sometimes i’d tell you a triggering detail just to provoke another mini-rant, just for my entertainment.

your home was more or less my second home. so many of my sun-tinged memories were forged here. i’d delight in digging up your tiny garden, only to hit the paving of gravel perhaps 20 centimeters into the ground. i certainly felt like a little adult, wielding the little trowel and thinking i was helping the plants flourish by “turning the soil”.

somehow, you’d allow me back into your spotless house (i always tell people i’d be willing to eat an entire meal off your floor, it was that clean), sternly instructing me to scrub my hands and feet clean before continuing to run amok.

you allowed me to drape a mattress and your comforter over the clothes rack in the spare room, where i loved to build my own blanket fort and hide out. even though you probably thought it was silly, you indulged me anyway, just like you did my soft toy show-and-tells. i am so glad some of my soft toys got to meet you; i loved shocking you with fog, and i am sure he will remember you always too. fatty will probably remember you, since he remembers anyone who calls him out for being fat.

perhaps the adult in my life who was the most supportive of my sweet tooth, you always offered me chocolates from your fridge. fearful of my mother’s reproach, i started to decline when i grew a bit older, but looking back, i wish i had accepted every one. it’s not like i didn’t sneak a truffle or two sometimes, when my cravings overcame my ability to resist.

you were always so happy when i slept over. only upon looking back that i realize your half-jokes about when i would sleep over again were not as much jokes as much as they were your way of expressing that you love and miss tiny me. i’m so sorry i didn’t realize before it was too late.

you’d complain that i was a “lazy pig” who was hard to rouse from bed and loved to nap, but you did so with a smile - and you were the one who would always turn your air-con on on full blast and ask me to sleep, you totally set me up! somehow, sharing a room with you, sleep was never far from me, even though the same cannot be said about the mosquitoes.

but my favourite memories of you have to be family dinners. not the sunday dinners, where i had to dress up in stiff frocks and be on my best behaviour as the littlest hotel heiress. just the regular dinners at your house, where you captured my heart with your food, which has always been and likely will always be the best home-cooked food to me. where dinner always started at 6pm, and being the playful kid that i was, it’d take multiple shouts to tear a reluctant little me away from my blanket fort and trot down the stairs.

i used to clamour to eat at your place all the time. i probably upset my mom because i said nowhere else had food like yours, especially the food at our own house which was way worse. (this is objective and i still stand by it - you’re the only person that consistently cooks vegetables so delicious you have me scrambling to finish the entire plate.) she commented that you probably added msg to your dishes, but i always believe you didn’t - your dishes were always delicious in a way that no artificial flavouring could achieve.

i promise i will learn the recipes that are close to our hearts. it is so fortunate that you passed a few on to my helpers - much as you disliked them, i know you wanted me to be able to enjoy the dishes i loved so much. i regret that you never got to try food i personally prepared, but i will always vividly remember the taste of your cooking, and strive to recreate our dinner classics. please excuse me while i list them:

- finely chopped chinese cabbage / phuay leng with sukiyaki beef stir-fry - phuay leng and garlic stir-fry - prawns in tomato sauce with white onions - sausage or scallion omelette - chicken abalone chinese cabbage button mushroom soup - crab meat ball and bamboo shoot soup

there is no price i would not pay to get to eat a dinner together one last time, and perhaps even be the one to cook it for you.

you are so inspirational. i do not know any other person who truly started with hardly anything, lived through the horrors of the japanese occupation, then turned their lives around to become so wildly successful. amy says during your first job as a cashier, you began dabbling in investments, and subsequently ended up fired because you were checking stock indices and planning investments on the job. she says you have the midas touch, and i definitely believe that - everything you touched is cast with a golden hue in the halls of my mind. you got to fall in love with kong-kong, and travel europe and america, and have two beautiful daughters who love and care for you like no other. i wonder how ruby feels about this loss - surely your broker had to be close to you in some way, given how often i saw you calling her.

despite starting with nothing, you worked and saved and invested to build up your reserves. you even kindly offered to sponsor my school fees, knowing that my brother is such a financial stressor on my family. i dearly wish you had been able to see me graduate - i wanted to tell my parents to give up one of their tickets to you at my graduation, because i know it was such a dream for you to see me become a fully-fledged doctor. i will study hard and strive to be a good doctor in the years to come. i will do my best by all my patients, and strive to have a heart for them and their family just like your doctors did for you and ours.

in spite of your family turmoil, you were the only one who had the heart to check in on aunty betty, calling her daily to engage her, even when her own children had disowned her because of what she had done to them. you made amends with your other remaining siblings in your later years, and i hope that was healing in some way.

you definitely have a place in the hearts of the old ladies in church, who always ask after you. even though church may not mean the same thing to you that it does to amy, pauline or even myself, i know it was special to you, because you made time for it - and you were never the kind to spend a moment frivolously (well, besides watching those awful channel 8 dramas. not that i will ever admit i would be riveted to the terrible acting whenever i was sprawled out on the sofa after dinner).

i have no idea how i missed all the signs that you were getting older. perhaps i didn’t want to see them.

when you fell in january 2019, i thought that might be the end of the road. i am so grateful to the surgeons for bringing you back from the brink that time. it was touch and go, but you were always such a fighter. i admire your zest for life and your willingness to cling on for dear life to any chance to survive. i am so thankful that you were able to get discharged last july/august, and that we had almost a full year more where we could still spend time with you, and bring food to you.

you fought so hard to get this second operation. i will always think of the what-ifs and wonder how long more you could have had with us, had you not gone - but deep down inside i know this is exactly what you wanted. you always were so bold and proactive about wanting to get the best out of life, and i know that given a second chance you would still have gotten the operation. you were hopeful almost all the way, and it breaks my heart that while you were still conscious at the end, you were aware that the surgical outcome was not as we had hoped for. it breaks my heart that your last days were spent in the hospital, not in the comfort of your warm and cosy home that you had worked so hard to maintain.

you are so loved. i’m so sorry i never had the courage to tell you this while you were still awake. i wish i had known that last weekend was the last time your eyes would be open. yesterday, i told you all the things i never dared to say while you were still awake. i wept over the seeming unfairness of it all, and how fast it all happened. i begged for another dinner together. i told you it was okay to let go; you had to be tired - if not in spirit, at least in body.

at the time, i wasn’t sure if you could hear me, but after steven and joel went, i am sure you were there. amy told me that your blood pressure was fluctuating but still holding up when gemma left 10 minutes prior to their arrival. by the time they entered the room, the blood pressure dropped to 50/30, and your heart rate had slowed from your usual tachycardic state to 55. joel said a prayer over you, and then amy watched as your vitals dropped to zero. amy said it took less than 5 minutes. the timing is nothing short of miraculous. i knew then that even when the time was up, you fought so hard to stay, just to say goodbye to steven and joel. your spirit and tenacity always astound me.

i miss you so much already. you loved me so much and so well and i’m so sorry i never made enough time to show you how much you mattered to me as well. but you have fought the good fight, and finished the race. you spent your whole life working and striving for a better life. you deserve eternal rest and peace.

i hope you are somewhere better now. somewhere where you get to eat everything you wanted to, somewhere sparkling clean and comfortable, somewhere nice and fancy, where the breeze is gentle and won’t mess up your hair. i hope you’re able to walk arm in arm with kong-kong again, and embrace eternity with him.

in time, i too will join you. one day we will have sunday dinners again. until then, safe travels and rest well. i love you.

love, isabel

p.s. don’t be a worrywart. we will be fine, i promise.

[disparais]

apple crumble

steadily becoming the worst thing in your life you need distraction from. i embody the disappointment of unmet expectations. the one who brings you more pain than can share your burdens.

when others become the highlights, and i the constant source of pain-

the light is fading, slowly but surely. it slips from my grasp soon enough i will forget the incomparable feeling of your sweet warmth kissing my skin.

-

i cannot help but laugh helplessly at the childish optimism and blind confidence in my previous post. i should have known - when has life ever been so kind to me?

[disparais]

a day of things that have never been

starting 2020 off with a good, bright, happy feeling in my heart.

i resolve to hold on to this happiness amidst the chaos that this year will bring. 2020-2022 will possibly be the most tumultuous, stressful and scary years of my life, but if i/we can get through this, i/we can get through anything. and i believe in us, wholeheartedly - so i leave my heart in your hands, unreservedly, where it has always been and will always belong.

just 75 minutes of reconnection, and my world has been brought back into alignment. casual chatter fills the air (along with an unhealthy dose of stress), but the love flows sure and easy between the lines. it soothes every nook and cranny of my anxious heart, stills my shaking hands, reminds me that what we have is so precious and priceless and my world can really be condensed to this: the pillowy softness of your cheek, the dizzying comfort of your scent, the healing warmth of your embrace.

these few years ahead of us may or may not be kind to us, but this i know to be true - we will always be kind to each other. i’m with you every step of the way. i love you 💜

[disparais]

an unfiltered mess of thoughts i know i will be ashamed to look back upon even in the next few hours as i reflect upon the scale and depth of my failure i write through a blur of tears and my fingers are trembling too badly but i dont care anymore this is what it has come to that no matter how i empty myself for everyone around me it ends in this being left to grieve my circumstances and navigate the storms around me alone, all alone. everyone else gets to act out and be emotional and i have to always be the stoic one that is rational and understanding and sorry, always sorry it’s always my fault after all i wasn’t good enough i didn’t do well enough i thought the knowledge that suffering was transient would be enough but it is not, as it turns out. turns out nothing i do is enough to prove my love and i have no idea how many more hoops i can jump through. utopia ruined us, of course it is easy for me to show you love in every breath and gesture because i do, i love you so much it pours out from every part of me, i walk past things and think of you, i wish you were by my side every day so i could show you just how much i still love you, if only if only if only i didn’t have my reality to contend with, that i am but a broke student dragging my bruised and battered heart towards the finish line for the sake of our future. dying would solve all my problems i would never cry or ache for a minute again it is so bright and tempting, the best future is one where i don’t have to wake up and deal with everyone around me. school parents real life and now escaping the knowledge of my failure. that in spite of all my sacrifices and my attempts to please everybody it doesnt work it never worked after all it was a lie and i am nothing but a failure. the world is better without me after all i am a disappointment of a daughter and a doctor and even a partner im worthless really. there it hurts but i said it, i know now i am good for nothing and maybe one day i will have the courage to say this is goodbye, goodbye to the nights of tears and headaches and stress that always lay unspoken. it was so greedy thinking i could love her the way she needed to be loved and still survive in my life, with my schooling and my parenting i knew it was going to be hard and i thought i could bear it all but i cannot, i am torn apart at the seams and soon there will be no love, just blood pouring forth where there is nothing but my life slowly being bled from me. im sorry i wish i could be gone i dont regret us but i just wish i didnt exist ever, life could have been so brilliant if only one thing was different, if my mom was tolerant or if i wasnt in this fuckhole of a major or if just if we were strong enough to bear this without buckling the way we are right now and when my existence comes with expectations i just want my breathing to stop, if i close my eyes will this pain finally end. hahahahahha hahahahha i cant help but laugh at myself, i was so foolish thinking i could ever be enough, who could ever want me just because i am/trying

[disparais]

a pile of carrion, waiting for starving vultures to rip into me in a flurry of razor-sharp talons and beaks / filled with impotent rage and grief and unjustifiable suffering, a pain i do not even have the right to claim / too cowardly to act, yet still fascinated by the possibilities of no tomorrow / and yet, the next right thing

[disparais]

四分五裂

这世界有哪个角落 真的容得下我

given everything away and now nothing remains

[disparais]

derealization

i find myself once again in this curious space between reality and fantasy, thoughts ricocheting through my mind and uncharacteristically going nowhere at all. i feel my mind splintering, slowly and silently, sending sluggish showers of glitter shining through its crevices. everything looks brilliant and beautiful amidst the haze and yet i feel as though none of it belongs to me.

of late i find myself experiencing life from two extremes - sometimes with insurmountable indifference, like a beleaguered traveler passing through a sleepy town, and sometimes with sensitivity that overflows like rain swelling a lake. sometimes it feels as though my very soul has taken leave of me and embarked upon an unspoken journey of its own, fulfilling the undesirable wanderlust that so consumes me. as of this moment it feels as if my soul is hurtling away on a victorian train.

there are so many places i wish i could be, things i wish i had done, opportunities i passed up due to fear. i loathe myself for my weakness, my indolence, my incompetence, and most of all for recognizing some of the reasons why i am in this dreadful state and yet doing nothing to rectify the situation at all. the very nature of scorpio is to crave true power and i cannot lie, i miss the heady sense of power that came with true assurance in competence and fulfillment via my pursuits. she was right, i am a shell of my former self and i resent myself for allowing this degeneration to happen and persist.

scarcely anyone around me can hope to understand this, that i would give all the virtual fame and glory up in a heartbeat to not feel this all-encompassing ennui. i wake up in the morning and i only wish to fall back into an endless dreamless sleep. when will i next wake up for a purpose apart from avoiding disappointing everyone who loves me?

[disparais]

stocktake

a commitment to keep improving myself, to be a better student and doctor and girlfriend and daughter and person.

change is afoot.

谢谢你一直陪伴在我身边，聆听我的埋怨与不开心，用心解开我繁乱的心结。谢谢你的耐心，你的鼓励，你的叮咛。因为你，我知道这段长跑会有美好的风景、温暖的陪伴。因为你，我期待未来。

[disparais]

fibrillation

some days i’m treading on thin ice and i have to monitor whatever i say/do to avoid shattering the fragile peace.

there’s a long long way to fall.

only you could reduce me to a nervous, insecure mess, setting off all the nasty triggers buried in me from many a friendship gone wrong. i never thought i would find unhappiness like this again.

august and september will be the worst months of my life. these lectures are thieves, stealing life and joy and sleep and fragile peace from me. it’s not like these are relevant to the immediate curriculum, so now i have far less time than before to study.

it would be a different story if we were stronger, of course. some things i wonder if i can ever tell anyone.

cold heavy silence settles if i so much as toe an invisible mine.

i am so, so alone.

[disparais]

the name of the wind

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.” 

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

there are a thousand words i want to say but in the face of stony silence i wait and bleed do you, too, miss a time when we thought we were forever?