weird creaky elevator

joanne and i met up for our yearly dinner last night. it's the second and probably last yearly dinner in chicago. we meet up more in the states than in singapore even though we are both singaporeans. we met in church, when we were both youth ministry leaders. our first conversation was in a long car ride to the airport to send someone off. we hardly knew each other then. i don't remember why i was supposed to be in her car. but i'm glad.

she had a different energy about her that i had not seen before, a sort of joy and lightness of being. and it was refreshing being around someone whom emitted light and joy, and genuinity. we split an ahi tuna burger, and an umami burger. and also bomb af maple bacon fries. i was so excited for her to try the truffle ketchup cos it's so good. it had been a long day/couple of weeks, and somehow meeting with her was some sort of respite, as if everything stopped for a while. maybe it was the intentionality of presence in some sense. i've been trying to do that more. i feel like in the midst of busyness there's been a need to compartmentalize, and not be thinking about everything and everyone all at once, cos that's just hella overwhelming and it'll break you more than you're already broken. she obviously enjoyed the meal, cos i have the best food recommendations, and we were ready to go when our server was like "would yall like some pie" and i was like hell yes to some key lime from bang bang!!! we were so full but so satisfied.

i was bummed that she would have left by friday when the opening of shelby clare and my show was happening, then i realised i had the keys and could bring her to the space then. i laughed. we took the creaky weird elevator up. it's odd to think about space, and how it transforms with bodies. like the idea of an "opening" is a bunch of people, art, alcohol, talking. but bringing her in to a space that right now was just being set up, and incomplete, and just me and her -- there was some sort of intimacy that would be different from an opening. i told her about our work, and she asked questions, and it was nice to be in that space, with the windows facing the intersection at damen, and feeling like everything was kind of under or below us, but we were just there ya know? 

we headed back to mine after, and hung out the couch listening to the milk carton kids, and bon iver, and talked about faith/christianity/stuff. i feel like i havent had a decent conversation about where i am in my faith/belief in God in a way that didn't feel like people were trying to convince me that being a christian is the way to go in a while. she listened and shared her experience, and it was really nice. i love having people over so much. 

i finished the bfa proposal like 5 minutes before it was due, and was basically half asleep writing the last quarter of it, passed out on the couch at midnight, and the next time my eyes were open was 6.45am. i stayed on the couch for another 2 hours, and was late for class. 

mrpppp feelings about the internet while i use the internet jeez.

i just attempted to delete a bunch of crap from my facebook, also off my instagram. there's so much digital history it is insane. it is weird how scrolling through my timeline on facebook helps me remember things. like that just seems disturbing, how something as clinical and large and soulless as technology/the internet results in intense and poignant nostalgia - the reminders of people who have been important at some point in your life, but now are no longer friends, or people who used to be strangers are now your closest friends. that juxtaposition trips me up. i didnt really know what to do with my feelings, so i just sent shelby a bunch of screenshots, and vomited memories as text messages - stories of the boys i used to like, the ones i almost dated.. i laughed, but there was some sort of aching or longing for the past - not in a way that i want to relive them, but a realisation that those moments have happened and are over, and how many of them add up to how i am today. i recall the awkward encounters with new people, or being in new environments and think about how differently or more confidently i would respond now. but i also think about how in 20 years, i will look back to my present self and think similar thoughts.

i always wonder why my generation/people more and more feel the need to post things online, as if not posting it means it didnt actually happened. it's the affirmation is it not? from others, from strangers, putting it out there in the universe - like hi i'm here and i think i matter? tell me i matter. aren't i doing it now? how meta.

weird walk good but weird heavy night

shelby asked if i cared if she threw away big pieces of one of my works i asked her to help me cut up. i said nah i didnt wanna know what she did to them, just cut it up. i watched as this bulky obnoxious space-occupying thing became more hand-held manageable pieces of colour and line. are you bored i asked. nah, she said, i'm cutting up this piece. good. i heard the rain falling outside, it was coming down pretty hard. we grabbed drinks and chairs and hung out on the porch. i watched as the rain pooled into puddles, raindrops jumping off the surface of the puddles, light being reflected off the wet streets and sidewalks. i belt greenday. she laughed and took a video. we walked back to hers when the rain got a little lighter. i told her i love her, and she said to text when i reached home. i listened to the sound of the rain, and strolled home. i never stroll. i always know where i need to get to and how to get there. today, i didn't. each step seemed heavy, and exhausted, and anxious all at the same time. the shadow of the umbrella made me feel like someone was following me. it was merely the shadow of the umbrella. i turned around to check, and saw a guy walking his dog. i kept walking. i turned the keys to unlock the door to my apartment. i texted shelby that i was home and sent her a song on spotify.

hole in the ground

i've been making maps of my thoughts. linear paragraphs just don't seem to work lately. 

i woke up to a text from shelby "are you awake"

i am now. i replied. it's been comforting having one of my best friends be 10 minutes away. it's been three years, i look back on the three years, and it is kinda crazy how much i've changed - grown, regressed in some areas maybe, just learnt how to exist more independently in this world. holding the keys to my own apartment always feels a little surreal. like it's "my place", unless you move out in singapore, youll never be able to say that.

i remember when i was like 8, i made a sign for the door to me and my sister's room, i think i almost asked my parents for the keys to the room, maybe i did, just to demarcate a space that was "mine". i know that to my parents that room is mine but there was something in actual possession, that was enticing. isn't that a human thing though, or an animalistic thing - to want, to desire, to chase, to finally have. then when we have, don't we always want more? hm. there are so many things that aren't ours to have - it could be ours to borrow, or hold for a while, but sometimes it's just not ours to have. it kinda sucks. but also, it would be boring if we could have everything we desired. that seems too much.

ugh i wanna curl up into a ball and roll into a hole in the ground.

demogorgon come get me.

walked to shelby's for four quarters

i miss my sister a lot, i think we have grown closer in recent years, and it feels just kinda sad that we are each sort of missing a part of the other's life after growing up together for so many years. i think instead of reaching out and making contact i have a tendency to distance myself because it is easier to be numb than to be constantly missing. but i think we are going to skype soon. im looking forward to it.

it's been a few days of being incredibly grateful for the friends around me. 5 of them helped move me and two of my roommates in yesterday in 3.5 hours. it was such record time and we had a great time too. i don't know. something i have been processing lately is the way we accept love, or receive love. there were moments that i just felt bad that i needed so much help to move, if i could i would do it myself. but there were points that we were laughing so hard, and enjoying each other's presence. and they were just helping me unconditionally. it was something truly humbling, i think to receive love not because you deserve it, nor because you are a good person but simply because you are loved. 

on another note, it has been more than a month since i have had more than 2 hours to myself i think. the ireland trip was in very close proximity to 19 other students, and 3 faculty/staff; at oxbow we were constantly around others, living with others too. and there is just a deep sense of loneliness - some sort of forgetting how to exist by myself. i know i will eventually love it again but right now it just feels odd and kind of unsettling. 

the new place has been such a treat though - to finally have a place to call home. not being in the loop is so great. i feel like i can breathe again - and being so close to shelby too, is lovely. i walked over to her place just now just to exchange a dollar for 4 quarters for laundry just like that. it used to take close to an hour to get to hers from mine. shelby also drove me to target and helped me carry a bunch of crap into my place earlier today. we desperately needed a microwave - which i wanted to buy from the target in the loop and carry it back to my place. she insisted it was too heavy and said she'd drive me. it was fun house shopping. 

there's been so much to process. i doubt any of it is gonna make it to the internet, but it has been both a challenging, yet incredibly incredibly beautiful summer of great growth and understanding myself better, loving myself and others more - with many questions of existentialism, faith and also much sass in between. 

i hope your summer is going wonderfully :)

waiting around to go to the airport

everything is back in boxes, or stashed away in some part of shelby's room. it's been a crazy two and a half weeks back in chicago and i've loved most of it. i'm surprised at how much i enjoy being alone lately - from longer commutes, to going to the park, to just cooking in the apartment, with music playing. i think about how so much of my younger self was trying to be someone else, i feel like it's such a cliche though, but we all kinda go through it somehow, before we realise we don't need to be anything but ourselves. and i mean then it's the question of what the self is, which is a whole other rabbit hole to go down. but, it's been nice to leave a party when i get tired, and retreat under my sheets to watch a movie with a cup of hot honey lemon green tea, and not feel like i am missing out on anything. i wonder if fear of missing out is something that is more part of our generation that anything else, because of social media, and constantly knowing what everyone else is up to, but a more polished, curated version of other people's lives. and you just sit around feeling bummed out that maybe you're not making the most of things. i wonder if we do need to make the most of things. sometimes, making the most of things just makes me even more tired and unable to enjoy the most of whatever it is that im trying to make the most of.

anyway, back to packing, unpacking, repacking. and moving! oh my moving. i love helping people move, but moving in myself is another thing. i'm excited though, to be placed again. and settled somewhere instead of living out of a box. though that has had it's own merits too. being able to quickly pack up and move is such a romanticised concept that i theoretically enjoy.

i wrote these thoughts a month ago:

I think about conversations to process other conversations,
I've taken so long to learn how to slowly ease into myself
I watched a show recently that says society trains us to hate ourselves because it's more profitable when we exist like that
I think about the church and how so much of the time it's antithetical to what Jesus preached
I think about joy and happiness and our pursuit of it, and wonder if suffering contributes to joy. Not that I'm saying I want to suffer or want people to suffer but I wonder if being happy 100% of the time is ideal
I think about our ideals and if they are really ideal
I think about being single forever and that it'll be okay, I'd travel and live in different parts of the world and have occasionally really good sex and have conversations both the mundane and the great
I think I just saw a bat

so what are you really going to do?

at uptown climbing with jun. it makes me feel weird sometimes. i think just the association of being watched by people/having had anxiety attacks before when i was not in a good place. finding apartments has been challenging. i have a good feeling about the one on belmont. but i don't know. hm. we'll see. aunty joyce i think prayed about God having set aside an apartment for us. that was comforting.

i think i'm happy? i just had that realisation a moment ago. it's not like i have not been, you just don't really think about that much, like kindof definitively ya know? i think i'm happy. Jun, hope and me sat on the balcony last night for dinner. it was beautiful, watching the light change as the sun set. i had whipped up two simple dishes with jun and hope's help from what jun had in the fridge and we talked over dinner and virgin mimosas. lol we only had sprite, no champagne. conversations lately have been geared towards the future mostly. what people our age are "doing" now i guess - varying from us (being in college), to those who are already working, making loads of money or having their own businesses, to those with kids and husbands. i thought, looking at the city before me, all the buildings - the offices, homes. lights flickered on and off as people left their offices for home, and arrived home from offices after a day's work. i thought about all the lives in those windows. the vastness of the sheer number of people living in the city before my eyes was kind of comforting. like i'm just one in the many you know? i turned back to face hope and jun. the conversation was about what we see ourselves "doing" i guess, and the frequent questions we get from friends and family, 

so what are you really gonna do? 

how is your degree going to practically contribute to your life? 

how are you going to make money? 

we laughed and joked, but also acknowledged the reality that those questions sometimes pose - like we have/should be out there finding jobs that pay. i think we each make art for different reasons, but we each feel the need to make, to create. for some of us, it's something we love and express ourselves through, others - a coping mechanism, a way to critique society, or some - we simply feel the need to make.

artists sometimes, more often than not, have to work twice as hard to get half as far, but far in which direction is what i have been wondering lately. where are we trying to go? what do practicality and success and happiness mean? doesnt it all differ from person to person? why does society feel the need to have set criteria that people tick off or feel the need to meet? i dont think there was really a conclusion to the conversation. i mean we each kind of had inklings of perhaps where our hearts are drawn to, with the considered realities of practicalities like cash and paying the bills, and i mean, we're just taking it day by day i guess. it's as if art school taught us both that hard work is key, but just when you almost let hard work consume you, you realise that that isn't all it is, and continually striving isn't the way to go, you get lost easily in the hustle. i mean that's why we are artists, no? there's always the thought/need to get into shows/galleries, to be known, to make social change, to make a difference, leave a mark. but also havent i always made work that notices the mundane, that pleads for our steps to slow down, our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hearts to be softened to the everyday, to people we love, people we don't yet know, to remember we are human, and flawed and messy and kind of all over the place, but maybe that's beautiful? or maybe it's not beautiful but it is who we are? the lights from the ships on the horizon flickered apprehensively.

there and then though, it was enough for me to know that my heart was full. to be on the balcony with friends i love having dinner, with the city beneath us.