It's 5pm

It was 5pm, I was waiting for a bus to go home. Oh it must be one of the most favourite time/hour, I thought. It's when most people leave their work place for the day and head home. Everyone I came across had a glow of happiness on their face. I chouldn't stop wondering what's at home for them. I couldn't stop imagining the happiness they feel when they reach home to their partners, their children, their family. The hugs, the kisses, the laughters - given and returned; while the stress and troubles - subsided and left behind.

And suddenly, I felt alone and lonely in the crowd. Who do I go home to, I thought...well, who can I go home to?

Rain connects heaven to earth..

The rain makes me think of home. Or a home, once upon a time, where rain falls like translucent pearls, seeping underneath deep green grass, persistently pulling at loose soil, dredging up a strong earthy smell that pervades for hours afterwards. I like a good rain. The earth connected by strings of water all the way up to the sky, and suddenly heaven isn't so far out of reach.

Rainy days make people moody; greyness is a contagious state. But perhaps, it is simply because sunny days draw attention the brightness and vividness of the world external to us such that we forget ourselves, while rain — rain closes off that world with dull, relentless curtains of raindrops and we are forced to reconcile with the discomfort our own individual existences, shrouded by an eternity of wet.

Ignorant is bliss?..Not entirely.

I saw a protest today on my way home from work which triggered me think of couple of things, most of them related to the class I had yesterday. Every Wednesday I walk out of class having very mixed feelings. Part of me feels like I need to embrace my life more for how lucky I am, while a part of me, feels very bothered for the influenced individuals and this nagging voice in my head keeps repeating itself on how complicated and ironic life can be.

In life, we often have many issues to deal with, either personal ones or society related ones. But most of the time, we can only heave a sigh, move on with life and don't let things get to us. Most of us prefer not to think of the bad side of life and society in general, we try to suppress the dark side of society, and ignore the bad side of life if we can. To a certain extent, I guess it's a survival tool that we all have to possess but sometimes, I think this survival tool can cause us to become too...ignorant?

Think about this, there's approximately 18,000 Australian families out there with a stay-home disabled child who's in need of assistant. WA has no disability institutes, well, we used to have but it's closed down. Government is not providing enough funding. Most disabled individual is under the care of their parents, and when their parents are gone, they'll be put into old aged institute instead of a proper disability care centre. Most of us who come to know these, just though that's sad, and refused to think further. If thought further, if we put ourselves in their shoes, negative emotions will certainly be stirred up, most prefer not to come to terms with it. But if everyone thinks like that, who'll be left fighting for their rights? There are many things that can be done which are not done. Or perhaps most of us don't even realize there's such issues around but it's maybe also because most people who knows try to suppress that reality, hence, no one talks about it, no one gets heard, no one knows, eventually. People who know may just accept things as it is...because fighting and struggling for more may cause the person to end up bruised and cut. Or rather, some people may even choose to not know because yea maybe...ignorant is bliss.

Ignorant is bliss. Ignorant, being quite a negative behaviour is being worded into a nice quote, tempting mankind to be ignorant, to be...selfish. Don't you agree? Being ignorant is indeed being selfish at times - you will think, ok let's not think about it too much, just let it be..get on with life, tomorrow the sun still rises and sets in your world - no problem - and if think too much you'll end up being depressed yourself, why ask for it? But we never realize sometimes our ignorance can be a contributor or reinforcement to another individual's bad quality of life. And say if everyone is being ignorant, what's going to happen to the individuals out there who need assistants and alteration to their rights? Ignorant is a bliss to ourselves, but never a bliss to other individuals who needs attention.

Funny thing is, I think being a psychologist, you can never be ignorant because you just lose the ability to be ignorant!

When living is a fate worse than death

You know how sometimes we are egocentric and think when something bad happens to us, we wallow in chronic self-pity and depression, whinging on life.

I had a class today, it is about neonatal death, put in simple terms - miscarridge for women who's pregnant from 6 months and above. Before watching that video and talking about it, I've never realized how bad a miscarridge can impact on a family. So in this video, a woman who had had 2 times of miscarridge had another one. She had to go through the process of giving birth, giving birth to a dead baby, like a normal labour. And after that, she had to deal with the griefing process, having to cuddle and hold the dead baby in her arms. The hospital encourages this kind of grief process to avoid delayed and chronic grief, in another words - face the death at that moment, rather than not having to see the dead child at all and suppresing the reality. So the hospital psychology department arranged to have the dead child dressed up in tiny little clothes they made especially for neonatal death babies, put them in the baby craddle...show the parents, let them name the child, hold it in the arms, spend some time with it, take photos with it and having the dead child's hand and feet printed and put it into a little scrapbook. Their idea is it's always better to be acknowledging the existence of a dead child and deal with the grief instead of running away from it. That video brought most of us tears. My nose went sour and tears welled up a bit having to see that video and how the couples were dealing with the whole process.

Then we were showed another video where a baby who's about 6 months old having to let to die. She was a beautiful girl with multiple brain damage and physical disability. She has been constantly on medication, suffering every day since the day she was born. The hospital told her parents that this girl will not survive, it is just the matter of time. The parents were given two choice - either terminate her medication then and just let her die or put her on medication until one day she dies. Termination of medication can shorten her pain and suffering. The parents made a very tough choice thinking that letting the child "go" is better for her, because for a child like that, living can be worse than death. Hence, they stopped all medication and see their baby die. She died 8 weeks after. My heart sank.

I walked out of the lecture thinking...what is there to whinge about in my life? There are so many people out there who's so much more unfortunate, my problems compared to theirs is nothing. Instead of wallowing myself in self-pity, I should see a bigger picture of how fortunate I actually am. What else can I have to complain about my life?

A walking contradiction..

Recovery or denial? I still haven't got a clear vision.

This whole week I still managed to gather myself and hang that smile on my face. People who have not read this blog, probably wouldn't expect me to be this depressed. I appeared to be handling things well.

Initially, I thought flushing him out of my system wouldn't be that difficult, but reality bites. Haha, so what if I've thrown away all the gifts he gave, deleted his contact, cleared all the photos that have him? How far can I run?

Sometimes, I amused myself with the things I do. I am a walking contradiction.

Certain places in this city, remind a lot of him; Walking behind a guy who used his perfume made me think of him; I still catch myself spotting his favourite tidbits or food and having the automatic respond of wanting to buy some for him, only to realize that I..can't...; I find myself listening to particular songs having a burst of memories swarming into my conciousness; I still find myself wanting to talk about him and feeling proud of him; I still find myself holding up some strikingly nice guys clothes which I am sure he would like, only to be able to heave a sigh, put it back and walk away. I still find myself having the slip of the tongue addressing him, "My boyf(riend)..erm my ex".

Today I spotted him from far. However much I hate to admit this, however well I seemed to be able to control my feelings, my initial automatic respond was to run up to him. He was laughing, he seemed happy. I pulled myself back, turned to the opposite direction and walked away. I bruised my heart again.

Final goodbye...

"I don't see myself with you. I am not happy. I don't want a relationship now. Don't try to convince me to come back to you. I will have no regrets in this decision and I think it's the best for me. Nothing will change my mind. You will not change my mind. I am going to hang up now, you take care, bye."

Those are his last words. Tears trickled down my cheeks uncontrollably, I felt like a part of me has wilted off. I sat there, head spinning, chocking with tears. Memories of us rushed back to me, each and everyone of them suffocated me. I dragged myself out of my bed, scanned through my room for sign of memories, and dropped onto the floor. Reaching out for my phone, I typed him one last sms with my trembling fingers:

"I'll cater to your need then. From this moment onwards, you'll be out of my system. The 4 years of you shall be out of my memory. You'll be a stranger who I've never known and never loved before. Don't worry, I won't come back this time. Bye."

It actually shattered my heart having to send that message, tears streamed down my face continuously, I actually felt like he's taken my soul with him the moment he left. I looked through my phone book and deleted his contact. Forced myself up, took down all the photos of us on the wall, and every notes he wrote, I tore them away. I scanned through my computer hard disk, deleted all the photos that have him inside. It was really heart-wrecking and tremendously painful. I gathered the gifts that he gave me, all of them are my favourite - a country road handbag, a whole perfume set, a country road bathrobe, pearl earrings and threw them into the bin.

I cried my heart out.