Last Post of 2020

Let's end 2020 with a Top 10 List!

Things/Matters I Am Grateful For:

1) My immediate family, In-Laws and I stayed safe during the Covid outbreak. 

2) People I know and around me (those I truly care for) had their jobs secured.

3) Charcoal remained in good health and didn't need her annual vet visit. 

4) Financially being still stable during the Covid-19 period, although my husband had to make do with lower income by switching to doing food deliveries instead.

5) Being able to explore more recipes to try out whilst being forced to cook at home more often due to the 'circuit breaker' period

6) Having constant winning streak in 4D luck

7) Still having a close bunch of friends around me to cheer me despite knowing my autoimmune condition. 

8) Managed to spruce up my home with some new furnitures and fixtures as planned (when we bought the house, hubs and I planned to change furnitures around the house once every 5yrs).

9) Finally untying a knot from the past and not harping on an apology which I have been enlightened that doesn't matter a difference now since I am happily married.

10) One step nearer to getting my promotion if I manage to handle all the stress and workload thrown upon me.

Songs That I Still Enjoy Listening:

1) Astromania 

2) 体面 

3) Goodbye My Lover 

4) Memories (Maroon 5)

5) 男人女人

6) Fix You

7) 爱自己更深

8) 2002

9) Bad Guy

10) Someone You Love

Things I Hope For in 2021:

1) Getting the promotion I deserve after so long

2) Better Health

3) Better Wealth

4) More peace and serenity in my life 

5) Family members and close friends to be safe and sound. Happy and blessed. 

6) The Pandemic to blow over and life can fully resumed back to where you used to be- No mask, self-serviced buffets, no need to safe entry check-ins, travelling whenever you want, no hassle of needing to book appointments or time slots of entry into tourist attractions.

7) House toilet renovation works to be completed without much hassle

8) More money (tell me who doesn't love money?) 

9) Charcoal to continue staying healthy 

10) Marital bliss to be continued or to be even better! 

领悟

Recently, I had a heart to heart talk with my 师傅. He suddenly ask me about the knot that I had been carrying for the past 8 years. He asked why have I not been able to 把你放下 and my replied was due to the fact that I have few unanswered questions as well as that I feel you owe me an apology for wasting my time and effort to make our marriage work.

He made me realized a few things:

1) my current life wouldn't change a bit now even if I had your answers to my question? So what if the answer was that indeed there was a 3rd party in our marriage? Does it matter to me now that our cracks started from the day that I confessed to you about my mistake of almost choosing someone else instead of you?

2) Even if you did apologize for the divorce that was the ending of our marriage, does it matter to the ending? We still would have head for the divorce anyway, we still would gone our own ways, we still would moved on with our lives without one another existing. Our 缘分 would have ended.

3) I mentioned that you wasted 12 years of my life and my efforts to make the relationship and marriage work. You also did spent the same amount of time with me. So indirectly, you also wasted 12 years of your life with me. That is 扯平.

4) I am being unfair and selfish towards to my current husband, who all 旁观者 can see that loves me a lot, with my constant 放不下 of you. I am depriving him back of the love he deserves due to my own holding back of giving him my all. I should love me as much as I did love you. Since I married him, I should let all my worries of history repeating itself go, I allow myself to love him as much as I did with you. The words used on me is '生在福中，不知福'. Those words were never said to me when I was married to you. Rather the words and questions asked to me while I was with you were why did I chose to hold on to you when the world could see that I was miserable being your wife and that I wasn't happily married to you. 

5) My current life is better and happier without you to hold me down, without restrictions that you had for me, without the expectations that you wanted of me as a wife repenting for my erroneous decision of briefly two-timing you when you were my bf. My current life is also more at peace and ease without the fear of you leaving, as you already did. I am more confident with myself and no longer the same person you know me to be. Hence, I shouldn't blame you anymore for our divorce.

With the above all said, you will always remain part of my memories but I no longer hold it against you for our divorce. I no longer need your apology. I am reminding myself to give my husband back his fairness of my full love without anything holding me back. 

Goodbye Jeff (unless you decided to change your English name again). Hope our fate will end here and this life. I don't wish to 亏欠 nor need you to 还我 anything if we have the next life. 

Behcet's 4th Month In...

Been slightly more than 4 months has past since I am dealing with Behcet's Disease and I am coping with whatever it has brought along: oral ulcers, skin lesions (acne & abscess), at times, nausea, and not to forget the side effects of medications that includes, diarrhoea and hair loss. 

So how am I doing? Honestly? I would say there are the good and bad periods of this disease to me. Eg:

1) there have been days whereby when my flare is real bad, when my ulcers hurts real bad and plagued with painful abscesses. Those are the days when I am unable to eat any solids without tearing up, when I feel unpretty due to the abscesses on body + facial acne, when psychologically I wonder why all these are happening to me. These are the days that I would end up crying to my husband and feel kind of defeated. These are the days whereby I would not have any appetite to eat and only drink liquids such as soy milk, Ribena and of course water to 'survive'. Let's not forget the fatigue that comes along that is akin to having flu, that no matter how much I want to rest yet can't seem to sleep properly. 

2) Then there are days, like now, I am coping fine. Not that I am really ulcer free or skin lesion free, just that they don't bother me that badly. In fact, since the day of diagnosis, I have forgotten how it feels to not have a single ulcer in my mouth or on my tongue. I don't remember what it feels like to have a normal sensation when eating or drinking. I have also forgotten what or how chew my food properly before swallowing, as I would chew my food a bit then swallow it as soon as possible to avoid much pain to discomfort from food being in my mouth too long. Stronger tasting food, like spicy or salty food tends to invoke a higher pain level when eating but that doesn't stop me from eating them though. Just that I avoid them when the ulcers get too many or big.

My daily tablets including my Colchicine three times a day, probiotic once a day and multi-vit Gummies once a day. If my flare is bad, then painkillers are taken to help me sleep and oral gargle to numb my mouth before I brush teeth.

All and in all, I am still very much trying to catch the flare cycles and learning how to deal with this disease. It is going to be a lifelong thing that I have cope with. I have to keep an open-mind that it may bring along other issues in future. Just like any other Autoimmune disease, there isn't any cure. Medications are just for symptomatic relief and helps to control the number of times of flare.

But one important lesson this disease has taught me would be to put myself first rather to force myself to do stuff that I feel unwilling. I have learnt to rest when tired, to reject things that makes me uncomfortable and to listen to my body cues. I have learnt to prioritise myself first, no more do I fight fatigue to head out to meet people or force myself to go all out at work when I feel unwell. So those who know that I am down with this autoimmune problem have to understand and those who don't, I also am not much bothered to explain myself to them. 

Finally, I am grateful that my husband has been quite on the ball with me throughout this journey so far. Although he doesn't fully understand what I go through, but he is empathetic enough to respect my decisions to not eat out, when I want to sleep early, not in the mood to cook or eat anything solid and when I have my breakdowns due to the discomforts. The above mentioned are good enough for me coming from him...

Coming Clean

Been diagnosed with Behçets Disease after all the recurrent abscesses, oral ulcers and skin lesions that I had been experiencing since 2019. Not sure how to say this but, yes, I am officially an autoimmune patient. 

For the past 2-3 months since the diagnosis, I have suffered hair loss due to medications, in constant discomfort and pain due to the multiple oral ulcers, having skin lesions like acne with scarring, and lastly feeling easily tired-out. 

So far only my husband and 3 of my close friends know of this diagnosis. Even I, myself, is still in a bad place or mental state to announce it as a form of my identity. Having an autoimmune condition is akin to cancer, the only difference is with cancer you know that it would be fatal when you are diagnosed at the last stage and there are ways a doctor can stage of it to inform you how serious it is. With an autoimmune condition, you are exposed to repeated flares of it, making your life a living drag and you are left dangling wondering how to deal with each flares comfortably, waiting for time (days/weeks) to past for the flare to subside. You would be able to gauge the cycle of when to expect the flare, yet, nothing can cushion you fully from the discomfort, inconvenience and pain of the flare. You would never be fully well and without reminder symptoms of the autoimmune condition.

As a female, losing hair and having scars fm the skin lesions is affecting my self-image and body-image. 

Ending my post on a bitter-sweet note, hoping that moving forward, I would be an inspiration for those diagnosed with Behcet's Disease. You may not know me but just know that you are not alone and there are also other females out there, suffering the same rare condition as you do. 

其实 - I Loved You More Than You Did Love Me

不需要借口

爱淡了就放手

我不想听

你也没说平静的交错

随便找个理由

决定了就别回头

不爱你的人

说什么都没用

分开时难过不能说

谁没谁不能好好过

那天我们走了很久没有争吵过

分开时难过不要说

如果被你一笑而过

还不如让你选择想要的生活

分开后我会笑着说

当朋友问你关于我

我都会轻描淡写仿佛没爱过

其实我根本没人说

其实我没你不能活

其实我给你的爱比你想的多

算了 - I Never Really Mattered to You Anyway

只能怪这屋子太陈旧
还留着我们喝一半的红酒
就像那个时候我们一口一口
的聊聊曾经和以后
竟然感觉你也走了没多久

难免会相遇在老街口
还是并肩走只除了没牵手
你语气像是朋友自然的对我问候
我只是敷衍著点头
分开的时候勉强说一句保重

你的一句算了不代表我会忘了
你不曾在意的我还一直都记得
有些事越闪躲越说明了爱过
以为自己放了眼眶却又湿了

你的一句算了不代表我会忘了
你的拥抱曾是最温暖的角落
牵着的手放了走着的人散了
也许越用心的越能感觉痛了
只好算了

你的一句算了不代表我会忘了
你的拥抱曾是最温暖的角落
推开怀中的我像是某种解脱
心被回忆困着爱在心中铭刻
怎么算了

有为我的过去流泪了

Watched a YouTuber post-divorce video cum interview. Somehow felt their sadness, reluctance, pain and yet they still have some sort of love for each other despite the divorce. However, their love for each other is no longer the romance type of love but rather more of deep friendship type of love. During the interview, the male was more emotional than the female. Although, he didn't said much during the interview and the female was more dominant in speaking as well as answering the questions posted by fans, his tears were sufficient to see his hurt, raw emotions and how he truly felt of the divorce. Their divorce was nothing to do with 3rd party, it was due to they married too young, only to realized that they had matured seperately into two different paths targeting the same goal.

As watched the such shows or videos relating to divorce-matters or break-up, I can't help to be a little affected as well as reminded of my own wounds from a failed marriage. Perhaps also we got ourselves committed to each other too young, or maybe we also did move on to have different goals in life and pursued our own goals apart from one another, losing the initial spark in the relationship. Like the female said, once the spark the is lost, it is hard to find it back. The male added on to say that once you still procrastinating to honour any form of anniversary or Valentine's day celebrations, that is where the marriage will spiral downhill.

I also realized that marriage and divorce are getting more common in our society, it is like the value of a lifelong marriage is getting lesser than our parents' generation. I also believe that no one who truly loves each other would get married with intentions of planning on a divorce much later. Yet, the mention of divorce is so loosely used...

Anyway, I hope I am not the only one who would feels the same sentimentals and emotional whenever watching or coming across break-ups or divorces stories and shows or videos... Sigh.