U.O.E.N.O

i've replaced the pen with a needle. 

i cannot write because i think COVID broke my brain. 

Not the illness really but just those two years of stillness. Prior to that, i really thought i had my shit together (finally)...a job that i loved, a beautiful home (i miss so much) and the best body cuz i had been hitting the gym like an addiction.

Now...

i just can't write... i can't bring myself to write for a living anymore. It's strange and something i have never experienced before. It's no ordinary writer's block. 

Sidenote: where are the hipsters? It's like we emerged from the pandemic to find an entire subculture completely wiped out. But, i digresss...

i know that this blank page syndrome is pandemic-induced yet the lockdown remains one of the best times of my life. Could it be that i entered another dimension in my life where i am not a writer? But after relying on words for so long, i do not recognise who i am if i cannot write. 

(i am obsessed with this song, it consumes me.)

Words paid my bills, introduced me to the best of the human race, and frankly saved me from my self-saboteur teens and twenties. 

So, i am back here, forcing myself to churn out sentences, squeezing out every thought and feeling that pops into my gorgeously empty head.

What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.

-Sylvia Plath

i pierce bodies for a living. It was not a conscious decision...nothing in my life ever is. i started out loving it.

Different anatomies, different possibilities 

Some of my work

i thought i had found my true calling. i am not so sure anymore. 

Having never really planned anything, i am at a loss when there's no flow to go along with.

Sayonara 

Lady A

"I'm hosting a dinner for my husband's work colleagues."

This is a sentence i never thought would feature in my life. Ever. 

i am not this person; such a person is not me.

But adulting has brought me to my Mrs Dalloway era.

At least Mandem takes good candids while I'm losing my shit.

i am penning this post while taking a break from dusting, vacuum-cleaning and mopping my home because unlike Mrs Dalloway i do not have an army of helpers. And, i have another job apart from being the better half. That is a paying job but i digress. This is not a tirade against how overlooked the role of a house wife is.

This is a rant against the Mandem aka the husband, who constantly lands me in situations such as these because he's a nice person who cannot say no. i, on the other hand, am not. 

i am fully aware that we're not a traditional married couple that start playing some sort of stereotypical, societal roles after getting hitched. i mean, we had a pretty unconventional wedding without a single guest, no bachelor party/hen do and no honeymoon either. 

Why? Well, in our mind the fun doesn't end once you tie the knot, so there's no need to act like wedding is an apocalypse for fun. 

So, imagine my surprise when Mandem drops this bomb on me. The guests are a couple accompanied by their child. No, they aren't getting a babysitter. 

What can i possibly converse about?

A kid is a left-hook that you didn't see coming. Now, i am busy hiding my precious taxidermy art and vintage paintings, smoking paraphernalia, objectionable manga and anything NSFW. i hate it.

Socialising for the sake of socialising is so overrated. So, is networking. It's so mind-numbingly boring to try and converse with people with whom you have nothing in common.

The older i get, the more aware i am of how short life is to be wasted on moments that do not spark joy.

But i shall overcome. i mean, at the very least, i will have a story to tell at the end of it all about the time i almost died of boredom.

Sayonara 

Some feeling

Back again to shout in the dark... Actually just hum contentedly to myself.

My previous posts seem to be from a lifetime ago. They make me cringe... but I guess I really felt those emotions then. The Akemi who wrote those words is a stranger BUT i admire her s̶t̶r̶u̶g̶g̶l̶e̶ delusions.

To all the boys i've loved before... i'm your villain.

i recently went through my old mails, messages and chats in an unexpected (and unintended) act of introspection. Frankly, i was expecting it all to confirm the narrative that i have always held... that i was the one who was wronged. 

That i was too pure, too naive and more importantly, too much in love. However, my voyeuristic trip down memory lane stored in bits and bytes painted an entirely different picture. 

My selfishness and vanity were plain to see in every sentence I've ever typed out. A lack of empathy and a morbid pleasure in playing the victim...

I must add, that some m̶e̶n̶  boys deserved that repulsive version of me. For they have grown into older versions of their perverted younger  s̶e̶x̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶d̶a̶t̶o̶r̶s selves.

But one definitely did not. 

I think about him often after my recent realisation. We were both kids and then young adults trying to make sense of all the vollies that life was throwing at us while desperately trying to not let go of each other. 

As a much, much older Akemi, i realise that we were always supposed to let go. If i knew then what i know now, i would have done that. Then, w̶e̶ i could have avoided 13 years of wishing him the worst. 

Because, he was never my villain, i was. Well, as much as a 20 year-old girl can ever be because even though hindsight is a gift, i cannot expect younger Akemi to ever understand what he was going through. 

And, yet again, because hindsight is a gift, i can see we were never the happily ever after.

We were eachother's tough life lessons, the ones that stab your soul, rip your heart and leave you quite breathless with a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

For this, you need to open up your heart, trust blindly and surrender your soul, because you only learn this lesson once and never again. 

If only i had patience and a crystal ball, i would not have unleashed the hell that i did.

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.

- Sylvia Plath 

As i pray for our battle scars to fade away, i realise that there's nothing left for me to do but to sit with this epiphany. An apology means too little, comes too late and is probably not even required... because unlike my younger self, i realise that i am not the sun and the lives of others don't revolve around me. 

i pen this realisation and send the secret up in the sky as a star so that it can twinkle at you...

i hope you're as happy as i am.

Sayonara