Claud

An avid collector of your hopes and worries, a romantic at heart.

She thanks her fairies, for blessing her with people who know compassion down to an art.

For accepting her for who she is, who never fails to turn up,

in times of need as well as happiness, or just there for a loving hug.

There's something that bothers me lately. And there's an sense of restlessness that I feel. I suppose I don't like the feeling of not being good at something, and it's fairly clear that we are not geniuses at everything. I suppose there has been nothing I had not done well before, should I choose to, and even when I do not do them well, I can choose to walk away from it and decide to conquer something else that is more important to me.

A case in point would be my dismal attempt at math.

However, lately I am learning something else about myself. I suck at relationships and dating. In fact, I suck so bad, it drives me absolutely nuts. Should I sleep with him? What questions should I ask? What is the right thing to say? Is kissing on the first day okay? Will I drive him away if I persist to have sex only after marriage? Will that hoax my chances?

I live so much in my head that I forget that I sort of have to also understand to live in the moment. All these questions make me draw up assumptions about people, and deep inside I know it's not fair to them that I do so. However, I think I have crossed my professional habits with my personal life. Reading someone is really what I do in my work, but in my life, reading people can have negative effects. I start putting words in people's mouths, writing them off, or even underestimate the kind of mind games they can play.

I don't suppose it's a matter of trust, or even dignity, but rather it's quite the opposite. I think I'm afraid to take the leap. True, that sometimes dating someone just means taking the leap of faith and going with the flow with things. However, I have my principles and they are strong. I think I should make up my mind inside before dictating terms on others. If I'm not clear what I want, it'll just drive people nuts because they'll be confused. It's no fair to them isn't it?

Things have become complicated, and it's really all my own doing because I wasn't clear in what I want. I have friends cautioning me, left-right-center and behind, to "protect myself", to not be "misled". However what does that actually mean? Everyone doesn't have a straightforward answer because they are also busy finding theirs. I suppose I can only learn from the mistakes of others, and myself. I am also stubborn and skeptical - pride perhaps - that I know what I want. Yet, my best friend says what I want is not what I need, and there is a reason for him saying that. Having said, I'm not 100% certain if he is right, or that one day I'll turn around and admit amongst a heartbreak tear that he was. I am not sure, and since this is a path I have to take, it is mine to walk and it learn.

I trust that we're hardy creatures, and can survive through life's toughest journeys. I have survived through so much worse, a lost of a mother, the only one person who will ever love me unconditionally. What more is there, if I don't have courage to take that leap of faith? It's not that I don't believe in the whole love needs courage big idea, it's that I don't know how to ask the right questions...for instance, how do you ask about the other party's ex, or why things don't work out etc. I don't know what is the right things to say in reply, I don't know how to be sweet in my smses, or know how to "keep" a guy. I think there are some things that I really need to learn. I hope I learn in time =(








Recently, I've been afraid to go to sleep. Afraid to face the dark, afraid to face the dark alone. I don't know why, but it seems like my demons cannot be vanquished.

Something is bothering me lately, and it's starting to become stronger. I hope it's just my imagination growing wild. If not...if not....



Recently, I have encountered, shall I saw, pleasurable surprises that I sort of guessed I had within me, but didn't have the opportunity to test. I also didn't know what became over me, to allow things to go far (but thankfully, not THAT far) and enjoy every single moment that beheld it.

I thought that by way of things progressing, and emotionally too, that things would see to its natural end: namely, two people who are interested in each other, get into a relationship. I was so happy, that everything in my life would work out now. However, I guess my counter-intution mechanism always saw fit to kick in: things will always happen the opposite the way it should. The more I want it, the more it will not happen.

So now I'm kinda bummed out, and bummed down to where I was. Sulking about my singlehood, and thinking about ways to get out there again. I am feeling bored, restless even, to get out there to meet new people and get into that "feeling" again. Is it natural to feel this way? Most certainly, is it healthy, perhaps not. I feel almost lonely, missing the fun times we had when we went out late nights, scandalous talks and even more scandalous actions. What do I miss more? The person, or the things that transpired? It's perhaps not as clear as I thought. I finally realised, that I miss the idea of this idea person, more than the person himself. I miss more of the pleasurable times, than the person I spent it with. He was a good person, an honest person, and I thought I'd finally find someone who could make me truly happy.

Perhaps, I was also blinded to my own insecurities. The pleasure and happiness, fed my insecurities and made them whole. Now removed, these insecurities crept back up to me again, they brought back old horrors and "what ifs", now, more than ever since I've had a taste of the somewhat-not-all-the-way-there-forbidden fruit. I used my self-righteousness to cover what was difficult to confront - my sense of self-worth. It is difficult, and I think I have been improving my leaps and bounds. However, like that day when I cried on my best friend's shoulder, what must be done for it to be enough? Why must I do to be happy?

Perhaps the answer is easily given - make yourself happy. What does that mean? How does it work? Is there are program to attain that? I miss him or do I miss the times I had with him? I realise my answer is more of the latter. I don't necessarily have the wisdom to see through, and I don't necessary have enough pessimism to doubt what is essentially something I take to be "pure". Chris told me that loving yourself and dissociating, means that you have faith that you will find someone someday, and there will be others out there for you. I suppose he led by example, every heart-pain/relationship/break he has always managed to find someone after. That self-confidence and self-love seem to have paid off. Thought Catalog calls the self-victimising a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you are not deserving, you will be not deserving and others will pick on that.

I think I am better now, and while I do miss his smses and questions about my day (which honestly, got a bit tiring to answer after a while), I know that I'm capable to be loved and to love. Oh, and underneath I'm a slut. So I suppose I still miss the feeling of going out, and having a good time, I also know it was all smoke and no substance. He was right, we would not have lasted. I guess I'm more upset that I've been proven wrong, you know pride getting in the way since I'm always the one proving others wrong.

I think I have more confidence as well, because I know someone is waiting for me. I know that someone is waiting to date me. What happens if he too, is gone. Will I still be as confident? Will I still be as stable. I don't think so. I think I'd crumble, and go into that deep black hole of self-pity and self-doubt. It is my nature, it is something that I cannot escape. However, I now know the problem. Relationships is nothing personal, although it affects you personally. I think when it doesn't work out, it's neither party's fault - it's the heart, and there's nothing logical about it. One day, someone will come and love you for you you are, and cherish you for all your faults and strengths. One day, I will love me too, and in turn, be loved. I don't need a man to make me happy, when I am happy. I don't need people to fill that gap my mum has left, because I am my own person, who can make myself happy.

We all have off days, and depressing moments. However, this time, this depressing moment, is different. Something has changed within me, it has made me somewhat more aware, and stronger somewhat. It has built me confidence, now that I know that I can be loved, that I can be desirable. What now? Do I continue to find someone else who loves me in return? What if I don't? But those questions are quite pointless, what if I DO? It would seem my relationship life is getting better, at least better than the past. And since I've always been a slow starter, why should my relationship life be any different. If things can only get better, then it should. I should be patient, and wait it out. Wait for the right one to appear.

People can be so different, and not all of us are ready to settle. I can understand that. The thought of settling actually worries me too, I'm not sure if I have the capacity to care for someone, although I have a lot of love to give. However, being with someone, having a relationship is a 24/7 responsibility. I'm afraid and yet also excited. I have so much to share, both body and mind, and I wish to share with someone who is also unselfish about themselves. There will be someone who will come along, and I know he is out there. I hold on to that hope, and like the star, burn brighter and stronger as the light around it diminishes. I just hope...I don't burn out as well.

I will miss you, and I will miss the times I had with you. However, it will be your body and your touch that I miss, not you. It would be unfair and uncouth to say I liked you, because I really only liked your kisses. I wished, things would have been different. But you made me realise another side of me, and understood another side of my personality that I would never have thought possible. For that, I thank you, for preening me for the person who WILL share both mind and body, as well as heart. For that, I am grateful.

Now, it's left me hot and bothered, I hope I don't go and do something stupid in the near future. But thankfully, I have sensible friends and a strict upbringing. Thank goodness for that.



Today I offered someone a job. For all purposes, I was ready that the person might not want to take up the job. It's during term time, and of course our own studies take priority. I just wished he didn't have to be so rude about it, and take it as if it was owed to him. I was trying to make a "plan b" work, given how i might not get a grant to pay him for his future services, and also to get him connected to someone who might give him a boost in his future career.

It's sometimes risky to be risqué about offers like these. I mean the least you can do is be POLITE, and sound slightly grateful. After all, you really never know what more is lying BEHIND the open door.

Geez. Last warning ah!



This trip has been the most invigorating, in some ways, because I haven't always been able to do what I want to do. Personally, I thrive in being the most uncomfortable situations, mostly slightly toeing the line (like not paying for bus rides in both Florence and Rome*). I would very much prefer to engage in this whole romanticism, of telling my audience that I had inspiration while sitting at cafe, or gazing by the Seine. Alas, the inspiration for this post is really quite mediocre.  I was actually on the way to visit the Musee du Lourve. The culmination of almost 16 days of traveling 3 cities perhaps formulated the real insight to this "typology", rather that informed (or "informed") academic texts.



Recently, my emotional bout has passed, I was reading somewhere that keto diet increases estrogen. So I'm blaming my depressive mood swings to hysteria - the Greeks used to accord  PMS to the womb, and hence hysteria.
In any case I was getting restless recently, about thrusting my life forward in a big way by opening a business of my own. It's a fancy, and often easier in thought than in execution. It also takes a lot of sacrifice, coordination and planning. Perhaps it's because after you service what's "lacking".out there, I feel a need to cater to that market. Then again, how many times in a business when you simply don't know whether this will work unruly actually try it?
If it does happen, it might actually be awesome. I hope.