Quenched in the depths

Unspoken--

Ipoh has been so hot that it hurts and burns. I walk on the streets for just the mere few seconds to get into a coffee shop, or back into my car and I can already feel the sun scalding my skin. It's hot, hot, hot and (according to the rules of pathetic fallacy), heat stirs up anger and all forms of irritability and temper. Maybe just for me. The heat is my scapegoat.

Despite the heat, the bad drivers who can't understand that a one way street is meant to really be a one way street and the crazy number of potholes I have no choice but to drive over on these Malaysian roads, I am beyond grateful to be home. Not the geography, but the people, the hearts.

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I go back home feeling the lowest. And my family never fail to bring me back up. A bowl of mom's hot soup. Real bear hugs, the tightest ones. Dad's weird theories on how ice-cream (food, basically) is food for the heavyhearted. A younger sister who makes you see truths, knocks some sense into you. Now that is what I missed about being at home. And now that I'm home, I'm happiest.

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Mildly depressed. Very depressed. Deeply pressed.
Today I spend some alone time, I decide to hide my phone away from me.
Epiphany: The phone is a whole good thing, and a whole bad thing.
It becomes cotton candy, it becomes our comfort, it becomes a dagger that slices through your soul.
It sucks you dry, it spares no time, it tempts no matter how you resist, however much you try. A medium for butterflies-in-the-tummy kind of days, on others for tear-you-apart kind of days. On other days, the in betweens.


We need time alone-- to think because most of the time, we think too little.

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Things I want my children to know:

Our lives are measured by the quality of relationships we have with people and the lives we touch. The quality of our relationships is measured by how much the two parties work at making each other grow, making each other find themselves. Once it holds people back and away from what they love and their passion, it only strains and drains.

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It can be beautiful, but can it also not be?