cool

and collected.

who knew i could be that? even for just one day.

i achieved so much today by not being my usual frantic self.

i am too paranoid and it eats me up.

giving it up to god, being calm, sauntering into things - certainly has their benefits.

this doesn't mean i become lazy and leave it up to fate, oh no, it just means i trust The One Who Knows All fully, and i'm okay with it. i still do what i'm supposed to, minus the me being at wit's end. and when i find myself being in a tizzy again (probably sometime soon) i will pray. i used to tell people that worrying doesn't change a thing, when i should tell myself that more.

it's so hard not to be my paranoid self sometimes - i think i rather enjoy being paranoid. it gives me a sense of control in a weird way, it keeps me busy, deluding myself that i'm doing ''something''. see, this goes back to this issue of trust between god and i, of not letting go the fact that sometimes i can do nothing at all and only he can.

sometimes being worried is a good push, it makes me perform well in whatever i put my hands on, i do well under pressure and that adrenaline makes me give my all. oftentimes it sends me over the edge and even if the results are more than satisfactory, i don't think it's necessary i put myself in a stew everytime. maybe just occassionally i will let myself have a little adrenaline rush, we all need it sometimes (the keyword being sometimes).

i'm loosening up

within limits
and it's a good feeling.
so very liberating.

and before you clamber into making anything of what i mean - i'm just loosening up in terms of freeing my thoughts while not giving up my values, listening to ''simple'' music that means what it says (like the awesome band Passion Pit) instead of the usual crazy indie stuff i like that has ten layers of meaning sometimes, using the word ''awesome'' more - not like me, bracing the fact that i cannot know what lies ahead next week and being totally alright with that, reading strange books i normally wouldn't (well it's been awhile since i've read absolutely anything including the papers. *snort*).

mind you, this is not loosening up to the point where i lose a sense of who i am and what i stand for.

this is simply taking myself off the hook i always seem to put myself on. i truly am harsh on myself, it's so tiring. well before i was this harsh, i was too liberal and i don't want to be that either. that would be me going backwards in my books, and we don't want that.

i think *gasp* i'm evolving (whew) and i love it *grin*.

oh hey and look, i just wrote without a single capital letter.

I just like to be left alone

while jogging/taking a hike/working out -when I do, like once a year. I'm that lazy.

I like to blast music in my ears when I do work out though, and hope you don't talk to me if you see me. And if you do I'll either just ignore you (oh please don't take it personally. *smile*) or remove one of my earphones off and utter a non-committed ''huh, what did you just say to me'' without really wanting to know what you just said to me.

Because this is when I like to think, or just spend some quiet time with myself. And when you talk to me, it disturbs my... equilibrium. Haha. If you could just wave and smile then carry on without initiating a conversation, I would be ever so delighted. Perhaps you can do that after I work out, not during?

And no, this is to no one particular, just a general musing, I assure ye readers. Surely I'm not alone in liking to be left alone while working out...?

Disclaimer

Now if you know me, you will know that some of what I write is laden with (attempted) witty irony and unnecessary drama - aka poetic license. So please don't take every post I write too seriously, maybe just half of them. Yes, that's a good rule of thumb.

Mean Detour

So after settling down to the fact that I won't see the one I love for a year and after that maybe we'll only have a few full days before parting ways for another year, I get news from New York to come down for a final interview (it's a job I went to an interview for before I left). It looks like I may get the job and was told to come in right away, with the person signing off as "the sooner the better for us''.

Wow, what a mean detour. One decision to make that'll determine a lot of things. And all the while I'm screaming ''I'm not ready, I'm not ready to make a decision, I'm not ready to pack again, I just got here! I just accepted the fact so painstakingly to go to the UK, what is this?''

I panic (in both the positive and negative sense) as I go away to a corner and figure out what God wants me to learn from all this.

P/S: Screaming softly (how do you scream softly anyway) because here's a chance to see the one I love again, and we can be merry, happy, gay and go ''yay'' everyday together again. Panicking in the negative sense because I'd be losing a great opportunity to advance academically - and I can kinda only have one or the other, for now (I'll save you the logistic details of it, which I promise will just bore you).

An Issue of Trust

Ever kicked, screamed, wallowed and feared so hard that you have trouble breathing?; all-consuming worries that pain you, takes so much out of you that it exhausts you entirely, your airways restricted and your chest so tight, literally - you feel you cannot take one more step in this journey that have only just begun (I imagine this was how Frodo must've felt at some point carrying the ring the Mordor). And you finally give up, every limb of you dies as you cry "God, take over. I trust you".

At that moment your own heart stops beating, and you come out alive, somehow stronger, wafting in the stream of God's doing, nothing of yourself to give or do or be, you're God's, and His alone. 

You're nothing but putty in his hands at this point, nothing really, a speck of dust, previously demanding all sorts of things from that Great Being. Now this speck of dust turns quiet, partly because she's so tired. But mostly quiet in acquiescence and trust that the Great Being who inhabits her is greater, and knows things she hasn't even dreamt of existing.

As I embark on this journey of going to a new land (once again for the 4th time in my life), I felt a lot of pain leaving the one I love in New York. As it happens, this is an issue of trust between God and I - to give every bone in your body up so completely, so vulnerably, and yet, so fruitfully.

Submitting and trusting God completely is harder said than done, sometimes you think you are but you really aren't. The title of this blog is taken from Psalm 20:7 (which is quickly becoming one of my new favorite verse). It'll serve as a reminder for these 3 years that I'm away in Great Britain of where to put my trust.  I'll leave with Psalm 3: 5-6 which says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight''.