Endless Hours

 Not sure how many can relate but recently it just seems that hours, days, weeks and even months tend to merge and blur into something else. Something total non-existent all together. Sounds weird I know, and may not make total sense. But it's the feeling of blurriness that just makes everything feel off. Like floating through life, time and space....

Not sure if there is any logic to this but there is to me. It's more a feeling then a word though. A feeling of tiredness and nothingness all at the same time. Fulfillment and emptiness living together in the same space in harmony with each other. Is that what contentment feels like? I always thought of it being satisfaction, but that doesn't seem like the right word.

Living life appreciating the little things! This is the only way I have found the ability to find joy and happiness in anything! It was so much easier when I was younger but the olde I get, the harder i find being able to find these little things to appreciate. Everyone tells me it's reversed, you take this for granted when you are young and only appreciate everything when you're older. That seems to be the opposite for me. Maybe because there are fewer little and simple things around me? Being cooped up at home pretty much 24/7 maybe affected my ability to appreciate the world and all that is in it?

Maybe i just need to slow down, and slow things down around me to be able to better take the time to be in the moment. Live and enjoy the moment, fully and whole-heartedly. It's been a while since anything was slow. Work is insane right now and will be until after July. All my weekends and holidays are burnt working. The time zones are killing me, I don't know how people do this. Maybe I have yet to find my niche. Maybe it's because there are too many expectations on what it means to be a working from home mom. It honestly gives some free time and flexibility but not much. Not as much as everyone thinks.

Yes, I can be mobile and available to take them for check-ups and possibly do the school runs - but overall. No I don't always have time to cook for them. I do make time to ensure I play with them, bath them and put them to bed. I hope it's quality of time over quantity of time with them.

I pray that for them, time is moving slower, and they are able to better embrace each day and what it has to offer. I pray that I can slow down and learn to not feel guilty over it, not feel guilty for taking time for myself most importantly. I never once hesitated for my family and others but i do for myself. Maybe that's why everything feels surreal and weird. I'm present and absent at the same time. Co-existing through physical presence and mental absence. 

Story-Teller

 Recently I have noticed that whenever I need to tell someone something like an event or something said or done - I tend to really tell a story. As though I'm writing a novel it seems. Guess this is something I have always done but in recent days, yes days, I have actually noticed the signs of impatience or disconnect when I speak. The other is when I am verbally told yes you already told me this. Because of this, I have now started to shorten my story-telling to the bare minimum. It does feel weird though. Like something is missing or 'naked' if that makes sense at all. 

I hate that feeling of nakedness. It creates this void like space within me that makes me super restless and uncomfortable. Making me become super on edge, till I can actually get it out of my system. Making my closest friends the only ones who get it and get me. 

If I start rambling and retelling stories or events they will immediately know I didn't get to tell the "full" story and will let me tell it just to respond - so who cut you off?

Am I weird? Unusual? Rather not place labels on it but at the same time need to acknowledge that I am different. Honestly, being different isn't so bad. Being different can be very eye-opening and also refreshing - and this is coming from someone who dislikes change. But to be fair, abrupt change is the worst. Gradual change is something that is easier to deal with I guess. able to mentally and physically prepare oneself for the change, brace for it. Sudden changes always get to me, it does take a while to accept the reason and rationale. Unless the change is logical and understandably necessary - these I can accept whole-heartedly. 

Maybe, besides this blog and my poems, I could start writing short stories again. workload may be high and I guess this could convert into a journal/blog post/short-story page - but again it just all feels very off to me somehow, somewhere in my soul.

I use to journal and write everything down that happened in my day. Then somewhere along the way I just stopped, guess I do know actually, privacy reasons. Fear of my older sister or parents reading it. Blogs were introduced to me much later on and it was something that was like an online, public journal that I did with my friends. Now this space has been reclaimed back as a place for my thoughts and feelings and ranting and raving.

I should be working but today is Friday and there is no motivation in me to even look at my to-do list! Meeting free Friday's has now forced my other 4 days to be packed with meetings and calls. Again, not a bad thing I just prefer having gaps between calls for the simple pleasures of life - using the bathroom and eating. 

Work beckons and respond so I shall! Till next time my brain wants to pen something random down!

The Help

 Picked up my new helper today, can't believe how long we managed without any help. To some this may sound odd but here it is very common to have a helper to take care of the cooking and cleaning which frees up time for those of us who are working to have more time looking after and spending time with our families/children and being able to provide our fullest attention at work.

I feel that working mom's tend to be underappreciated, speaking as one myself. It's harder to be a mother, especially when the kids are toddlers/young children. They require more attention and more guidance because this is the stage of learning, they are literal sponges. Monkey see, monkey do - literally!

In these formative years, are the times most mom's are working and also at an age of the either make it or break it stage. Being young enough to put in the effort and time to reap the benefits through promotions and expanded roles and other opportunities. Many times, women either miss these opportunities or fully grasp them but become less involved in their children's/family's life. Most opting to be more involved then anything else. Children trump all else!

It's hard, I do admit. However, these days it is getting easier and better. Overall everyone is more aware of the struggle and men are becoming more involved as well - not to say they weren't in the past, they did but in a different way. They were the breadwinners, that's just how life was. Nowadays, things are shifting and for the better. The load of struggles is shared between both partners, all the good and bad is experienced by both and both make sacrifices for their families. And that includes their wives, not just the children.

I will say that I am very blessed to have a very supportive husband who is willing, not happily, but willing to do all the housework, cooking and looking after the kids while I work or take my late night or even over night calls. He understands these opportunities are good for me and my career and fully supports me. In return I do that same. It's a give and take and it works, at least for us. I do believe it will and does for many others but I rather not speak on behalf of anyone other than myself.

There are many more thoughts in my head but I shall leave those for another post and for now, sign off, bath and have a nice cold beer while catching up on my show.

Mind, Body and Soul

I had written a long post just now and deleted the whole thing. For some reason, I feel like my mind just isn't in the right space right now. I'm actually in a call right now as I type this, 10.30pm my time. 

It just seems that while I want to pen my thoughts, other thoughts start flooding my brain. Now this does happen on a daily basis and I always thought I was weird when I was younger and unable to stay focused. Not sure if this is a focus issue or just my mind walking it's own path because it's what my mind and soul needs. Mind, body and soul.

My mind wanders, my body aches and my soul feels heavy. I remember when I use to feel like this and I remember at what exact point in my life it changed. And I know at exactly what stage and point in my life it reverted back!

May 2004 - my mind wandered, my body ached but my soul became light.
Jan 2008 - my mind wandered (but creatively this time), my body still ached and my soul remained light.
Nov 2014 - my mind wandered less, my body ached less and my soul was light.
Aug 2016 - my mind became forgetful, my body ached terribly and my soul was still light.
Sep 2017 - my mind wandered again, my body ached and my soul became heavy.
May 2018 - mind wandered more, body still ached and soul became heavier.

Each is a significant milestone in my life and I know exactly when and why each change happened or why it reverted. Will I go back and change anything, no not ever! These milestones, good or bad, are mine and mine alone that I needed to go through and still go through for a few reasons.

Personal development, mental stability, spiritual strength 

Right now, my mind wanders to many topics that I want to think over, discuss or talk them over with someone. My body aches more since covid because all I do is sit here at my desk for hours in meetings, trainings, replying emails and getting daily tasks done. Yes, I can make time to get up and stretch but honestly, my schedule is pretty packed for like 9-10hrs daily! My current movements and stretching is to get a drink since I now stopped using my 2L water bottle because I would just end up sitting down and not getting up. Spiritually, I do feel stagnant, not heavy, just stationary.

Which to me is a very interesting phase to be in, and yes I call it a phase because I believe all of these are phases in life that we go through. They can vary for each individual, some may never even experience some and some may experience some or all. But I believe just as there are variations of us there are phases we go through during different parts of our lives. Not to get all psychological here, just my thoughts streaming out of my wandering mind, and non linked thoughts.

Maybe things will improve, maybe they won't till some time, but either way, may my mind, body and soul - in whatever varying way it may be, be in tune with each other and balanced within me.

I don't know what to say

 I just don't know what to say - this is one of the most common phrases my elder son uses whenever I ask him to talk to his grandmothers over the phone at any time. At the moment he speaks this sentence, I get extremely frustrated with him, but at the same time, after the conversation has ended, it makes me reflect on how true this statement really is.

As adults, we get forced into situations that force us to interact and mingle with others. Even to the point of making us very uncomfortable. It has happened many times to me, I am an introvert so this will make complete sense to other introverts, but maybe not so much extroverts.

Either way, be it for work or personal, I find it very unsettling when forced to speak or interact with people. Now these people don't have to be strangers, I can know them very well, like colleagues at work or acquaintances I know through friends or family. Still very awkward and uncomfortable. Sometimes to the point there is nothing to say. 

Now many of you may feel that, well if there is nothing to say, then say nothing and walk away. You should always be in a comfortable situation and never otherwise. However, I disagree! If I went for a work function and the aim is team building and getting to know your colleagues from other departments that you do work with and need to work closely with - collaboration!! By walking away and not engaging you are now seen as someone who is rude, unfriendly and unsociable. Which may not be true at all! You could be the nicest, most friendliest person that ever lived, you just prefer a tight circle of friends, your ride or die crew.

Sadly, society does dictate who and how we are, to a certain degree it does force us into situations were all we want to say is, "Í don't know what to say" or "Ï don't want to talk to you right now, or anyone for that matter". 

But as adults, this is seen as rude. Now there are times where I would just be like, heck with everything and everyone but there really are certain situations where this just cannot be done. Those are the ones I'm talking about here. To be able to live a life with the simplicity and matter-of-factness of a child is just the absolute ideal, but not practical. People are always judging and no matter what we tell ourselves or others that people's opinions of us don't matter, they do. Because those opinions may be formed by potential bosses, clients, customers and so on. There are times we just need to put our best foot forward and trudge through. 

The only relief I feel we truly have is knowing that ultimately we are who we are and we need to stay true to ourselves. This means, people are going to see various versions of us, we just need to make sure that the most common version they see if the our true self. There are moments when I will be angry, upset, sad or just emotional and have a complete breakdown. Now these are all me, but they are versions of me based on external and internal situations, the 'normal' me, will be the version that I am most of the time, in general and when comfortable. 

The only issues is, people need to be true and not fake. Honestly though, I'm not sure about others but in my mind, it looks really tough to always be someone different then your true self. It's just too much work, hard work! And effort, I don't have the time or the capacity to keep up with that. Bad enough I don't want to deal with people when I'm in my calm state let alone alter my whole personality and way of thinking and feeling, so not worth the time and effort. 

Anyway, this wasn't suppose to end up as a rant, it was just more of an appreciation of a child's innocence. Offensive, maybe but innocent and true. Because when they say "I don't know what to say", they mean it literally, no ill intentions, no malice or rudeness - just pure innocence and truth!

May all be well

 Ever been stuck between decided whether to just stop everything and take care of yourself or continue taking care of everyone else instead?

I have been in such a state for about a month now, debating between getting work done, housework and taking care of the kids. All while enduring a very odd, and random localized pain in my finger joint. 

May not sound like much but let me tell you, it truly does hurt. Hurts to the point that I have broken plates and bowls because the pain was too much to bear trying to lift or carry these dishes to wash, or place on the dishrack to dry or even to put away after dry. The only funny part of this whole thing I see, is that it is my middle finger. As I go about my daily routine, my middle finger of my left hand will be straight to prevent any further pain. I must be careful though, especially when I am out to ensure that although it remains straight to prevent pain, it shall not be in any weird or awkward position so as to not be unintentionally flipping people off! 

Not to get off topic, today I finally caved and went to see the doctor to find out what is wrong and now need to have it x-rayed. Both my boys aren't too thrilled for me to go for an x-ray, they believe that if I go to the hospital for any reason I will have to stay there and not be with them. They fear that the most I believe, and it breaks my heart to see their sad faces as they say this. 

but that is just it, maybe if I had taken better care earlier, seen a doctor earlier, done something, anything maybe this will have a different outcome, however, every time I think back, I highly doubt I would have done anything different because I need to work to earn money, I need to help with housework now that we have no helper and I need to take care of my boys because that's what they need from their parents.

My husband does his fair share of things around the house, work and taking care of the kids. Honestly, he has way more stamina and capability than me, I get so tired so quickly. Being more active is definitely something that I need to start doing but it is so hard to get motivated. Finding this motivation always seems so fleeting. Here today or this week and then gone the next. Too tired, too lazy, too sore or too much work to get done and not enough rest. A never-ending cycle that only I can break but need motivation to break first. 

Though at times I feel that once this pain in my finger is addressed, and my neck/back is too, I will be more motivated and more energetic, but again, these may all just be excuses I am conjuring in my head to justify my actions of laziness.

Self-care or selflessness for others, the ones around me. This is a hard one to debate. We should take care of ourselves first before being able to take care of others, but honestly, wives and mothers out there, please do let me know if it is actually supposed to be this way or a selflessness towards your family and children. I truly believe that no matter what is taught or said when it comes down to it, we will first settle and ensure our kids are safe and take care of before we do anything for ourselves. Pain will be endured for this sake, it is hard to say it depends on the circumstances because I feel it does not. Whether dire or basic, mothers, no parents, in general will always put the needs of their children and families before themselves. Well, I have endured, for about a month before caving because it went from dull and irritating to painful and hard to get daily tasks done to unbearable pain that caused my plates and bowls to break. This is a sad reality of life.

I did get a pretty long nagging from both my mom and mother in-law, but it fell on deaf ears because I still did what I could with only my right hand - which by the way is my non-dominant hand. Guess we shall wait to see what the x-ray reveals, hopefully nothing serious and all I need is some rest for it to heal.

May all be well!

I'm back with a Dell

 It's been a while since I last posted anything here. Honestly, it's nice to be able to log in and just type all my thoughts and feelings here. Oddly enough though, one reason for my hiatus was actually because I did not have a PC of my own. I know right? But hear me out, okay. 

I got my first laptop, a Toshiba, back in 2003 and I used it for school and my complete social life, at the time. Once it decided enough was enough, it kind of died on me forcing me to look for another one. Now bear in mind this is still the late 2000's. After my Toshiba completely died, I decided to give into the hype and got myself a Mac Pro, it was a pretty big deal at the time. Honestly though, and not to offend any Apple lovers here, but I never really loved nor understood that Mac book. I struggled to use it, but it did allow me to write post here but to really utilize it the way I did my Toshiba - I just couldn't! My Toshiba was with me for about 8-9years. Now for a laptop, that is fantastic life and usage!! But it was different with the Mac. Now don't get me wrong, there wasn't anything wrong with the laptop itself, it's just that I'm not much of an Apple consumer. I missed Windows and everything familiar to me.

My Mac didn't last that long with me, maybe about 4-5years? My sister's laptop, also a Mac book Pro, exact same model as mine, crashed and her display wasn't working or anything. So, my husband asked if I would mind swapping over her hard drive into my laptop since I wasn't really using it anymore. It was a no brainer for me. By that time, I was so busy with work and everything that I spent most of my time on my office laptop and didn't even touch my Mac anymore, so yeah gave it to my sister. She is still an Apple user till today, Mac book, iPad but I did get her a Samsung as a handphone and so far, no complaints from here, seeing that it was free.

Back to the main topic, I noticed throughout the years I was only using and reaching for my office laptop. Which never did bother me until recently. Cyber-security and all that stuff now, Single Sign On and USB restrictions. Now these three made it really hard to use the office laptop as a person laptop. Doesn't mean I didn't use it, I was just more cautious when I did use it for anything person because of the Single Sign On (SSO) via Okta, it truly did make logging into my personal accounts really hard. So, I caved and told my husband this year will be the year that I buy myself a laptop! My very own after close to 10years, thereabout.

There was an IT Fair recently, just this past weekend and we went down, and I bought myself a brand-new Dell laptop! Now this is hilarious to me because my work laptops have all been Dell, been with my company for 16years and have used Dell throughout, so to get a Dell as a personal laptop, just made me laugh. But there is no denying the service support and capabilities are good - to me!

So here I am, typing away on my new laptop, it feels kind of surreal to be honest, but I am still enjoying the whole setting it up and having everything personalized again. Haven't had a personalized laptop in so long because my company does restrict all those settings. Meaning the background and color schemes are fixed and locked, worse is the screen's background picture changes every month so whatever the company wants to advertise' that month, but sometimes the colors just don't work out. 

There is this one background that is basically all white, ALL WHITE, and not the font color of the files on my desktop don't get changed they remain WHITE as well. How am I supposed to read any of my file names??!! It is atrocious if I may provide my very honest feedback and opinion. I rather it remains a single solid color if that is the case and not do all this fancy stuff which just makes everything so messy and uncomfortable to the eyes. The worst part is, I have to rearrange the icons on my desktop because of these backgrounds!

I feel like now with my very own laptop and being able to customize the color schemes and all that just makes me feel nice about being on the laptop again. Logging into here and typing out a post. This may seem like an odd thing to write about but like I said, this is all about my penning down my thoughts and feelings and right now my thoughts and feelings are pure joy that this laptop has given me. Such joy from such a mundane thing in life. Guess it is true, you never truly understand the value of something till you lose it. I am just thankful I finally got it back, makes me rethink certain aspects of life just because. That shall be for another post, for now, I shall go back to customizing this to my liking. Slowly it will take shape of something fantastic!!