Somewhere beyond the sea...

Someone I love once said, "The brightest stars burn out the fastest." To which I so dashingly replied, "Well then YOU are a very dim star." She didn't understand this at first so I explained it as follows.

If the brightest stars burn out the fastest, then it would be logical to assume that the dim ones may burn a lot longer right? So, that being my logic, if you are a dim star, you will burn longer then all the bright ones. Sure you may not be as pretty or as impressive, but you're still a star. A celestial light that helps beautify the night sky. You may not be the star that people will look at and say, "That there star shall be named Awesome-o! Because it is so bright and awesome!" But you're still a star. And when "Awesome-o" and all the other bright stars have burned out, you will still be there, a dim, wonderful star, twinkling in the vast, dark void of space.

So yeah, stars.

Then why the title of this post referring to the sea? Well, therein lies another story, my friends.

Through life we may find ourselves infatuated with someone. I say infatuated because when we find someone we love, we don't let them go. We marry them. SO! That being the case I say infatuated with. SO yea, in life we may become infatuated with someone. We being the naive human fleshlings that we are, may say it's love, may justify why we are "made for" this person, but in the end, it's still infatuation.

I have been infatuated. Oohohoho, have I ever been infatuated! I remember back in 2005, I was "in love" with this girl. I thought she was my everything, my life, my baby. I tried to give her everything she wanted and make her happy. I never wanted to let her go. Infatuation has a way of messing with a guy's mind you see. Hormones and all that. SO, being the 15-16 year old nublet that I was, I thought this was it, this is the girl I'm gonna marry. But then I notice another girl, she seemed to be even bette then the girl I was with. She was closer, hotter, more sofisticated and more intellegent then my current girl. So, like a kid who got bored of his toy tractor and moved on to the toy Ferrari, I left the girl I was with with a lame excuse that I wasn't good enough for her and some other crap I can't remember (yeah, what a douchhe huh?) and went to this other girl. So, now I thought I had experience in the whole boyfirend thing and was ready to be the best I could for this new girl. Unfortunatly for me, she wasn't who I thought she was and I found myself thrown out after 4 months. So now my heart had felt the first cut of rejection. It's like a papercut: small, but stings like a bitch. I have since forgiven and made ammends with this girl, but at the time I was hurt and confused. I didn't bother looking for a girlfriend for a while after that. When I thought the wound had healed sufficiently, I decided to let a girl I like know how I felt. Again, my heart felt the sting of rejection.


A few more of these rejections and I had almost lost hope. I was insecure and wounded. I felt like the world was out to get me and love was something just not meant for Ian. This was a stage in my life where I was moping a lot, ranting on my old blogs, emo-ing and generally being a self-pitying sobstory. Yeah, I was pretty pathetic back then.

So eventually after all the rejections I became very cynical. I just told myself to forget about people. People suck. Life sucks. Deal with it you soft, weepy, pussy. It helped, but only for a while. Then worship rally came around and I got my... wake up call from God, lets call it that. I started to realize that things weren't all about me and that I had to live with my life centred around something else. I was currently centred around being loved by other people, when I should have centred it around loving the One who first loved me, Jesus. I was woken up. I needed to be shaken and told to snap out of my emo-ing ways and to shape up for God. And I am currently trying to do that.

So about the sea thing, I guess it's like that song, "La Mer". The singer is singing about his love that is somewhere out there, somewhere where he can't quiet reach right now, but he knows that one day he'll find her. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I'm not sure where my love is or when I'll meet her, but one thing I know is that she's out there somewhere. I may or may not already know her, but she's out there and God has an amazing future planned for the two of us.

So for now, I'm like one half of a styrofoam box floating in the sea of life, waiting for that day when I find the other piece of me, and we can be one again :)

Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waitin' for me
My lover stands on golden sand
And watches the ships that go sailin'

Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watchin' for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms I'd go sailin'

It's far beyond the star
It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be, beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailin'

La Mer/ Somewhere Beyond the Sea - Frank Sinatra

A night to remember

I won't soon forget what happened yesterday night :)

The things that were said, the things I found out. I'm so grateful :)

Disappearing act...

Ever seen a magician make something disappear so completely that you wonder if it ever existed at all? He makes it look so simple, yet you know there's more to it then just that, more then just an illusion. The messed up thing is, people think that life works that way. That it's simple like that. But it's not. You can't just say "Abracadabra" and wave your hands and make everything disappear. People do it in their own lives and it's a good thing sometimes. I mean, the ability to instantly act as if you’re the happiest person in the world, like everything is rainbows and unicorn and puppy dogs must be awesome. Good for you.

But you can't wave a magic wand at someone else's life. What's so often forgotten is that people aren't appliances. You can't just turn on the guy's happiness by saying "Stop being emo. Be happy." And you certainly can’t nag him into being happy. It's easy to berate a person for being down. It is. It's really easy to lose patience with someone who won't take your advice, who persists in feeling sorry for themselves. It's so easy to go off on them. The thing is, that doesn't really help things, does it? In the end, they'll pretend to be happy. Just for you. Just to get you off their back, just to get everyone else off their back. But the problem isn't gone, is it? It’s just repressed and hidden, but it’s still there.

The hard part is sucking it in and saying, "No. I care about you. I love you. And I'm here in whatever capacity you need." Yeah, it's true that sometimes people need a good slap in the face. Sometimes they do need you to put it to them that "Hey, other people have it a lot worse than you." But if we're being honest with each other, how often is that? How often does berating a hurting person make them any happier? How often does nagging a person with an inferiority-complex make them feel any better about themselves? What people need, is solidarity. And something a lot of people don't get is, the people who draw away the most are usually the ones who need you the most. They’re the ones who you want to talk to the most, the ones you just wanna hear say,” Hey, I’m here for you. I got your back, I’ll help you get through this.” Maybe it’s a bit naïve to assume these people will actually know this, but the truth of the matter is this is how you feel.

I've known people to give up on another person because the other person drew away, because they "Wouldn't accept help." or "Didn't really want to feel better." Or “wanted to be emo.” Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG! What people don't see is that the strongest, most plaintive, most needy, most desperate cry for help is the silent one. The one where the person hides that part of themself from view behind layers of emotional masks, or "emoness." Think about it. A person who wants to commit suicide, they don't talk about doing it. They just do it. People who cut themselves don't tell you about it. They just do it. Why should it be any different? People who need you aren't going to say so. Sometimes, I doubt they even know it themselves. They just do. They need you fiercely.

Someone I know and respect once said, a smile covers the deepest hurts. See, what is hard to grasp for many, is that just because you haven't been through the worst situations in the world, just because your experiences aren't as bad as that other person's, doesn't mean your wounds are any less deep.

I want the people I care about, the people I LOVE, to be happy. That’s who I am and that’s who I’m gonna be for the rest of my life. The thing is, that doesn't mean I'm happy. It's easy to over-romanticize the process. It would be easy to say something like "I give and give and give, but they don’t appreciate me…" But that's not the point. The point is: I don't have a me.

I remember telling someone once, “I miss having someone who cares for me. Someone who will call me up randomly during the day and just say, hey Ian, I love you and I think you’re awesome.” Thing is, I try to do that to my friends. I’ll tell them without hesitation how much they mean to me and how much I love them and want only the best for them. Maybe they don’t wanna hear it from me in particular, that’s fine, but when the chips are down and their backs are to the wall, I will never leave them to suffer alone. I’ll be there to make them laugh when they feel like crying, and to feel loved when they feel betrayed or hurt. To listen to all the sob stories and comfort them to the best of my abilities.

And when my time comes? Who do I got? I've got people who are busy. People who are tired. People who can't stand my “emoness”. People who are hurting just like I am. People who don't care. People who can't be there. People who jump in with advice before I need it. I'm not complaining. Really. I love my friends. I love them. I would swim the oceans for them. I'd give my life thrice over, move heaven and earth to be there for them.

Honestly, I’m not an emo person, I’m actually pretty happy-go-lucky. Thing is "Some hurts go to deep, some wounds just won't heal." It's not something you carry around, it's not something you can throw away. It's something that's on you. IN you. Like a cut that you keep rubbing salt into. No matter how much you try to cover it up, no matter how much you want to move on and be happy, no matter how much you give of yourself, you can’t escape that feeling of emptiness that eats away at you when things are sucky and bollocksed up.

I have learned to tell God of my hurts and pains. Of my sorrow and sadness. Of my emptiness. I ask Him to come and fill it with His love. He does, and I know that people say He’s all that you need, but why would He put other people into our lives if He is all we need? What’s the point of having friends if you’re the only one who gives of yourself?

Think about it the next time someone asks if you’re free to talk or if you can listen to their problems. We aren’t all made for listening, but it doesn’t hurt to try? Believe me, your friends will appreciate it.

As for me, I want this hurt to leave

I want to be free

I want it to

DISAPPEAR…

Suppose that I missed you
Suppose that I cared.
And suppose that I've spent all my nights running scared
And suppose that I was never there.

And my eyes are screaming for the sight of you
And tonight I'm dreaming of all the things that we've been through
And I can't hold on to you.
So I guess I feel lonely, too.

Secondhand Serenade - Suppose

Credit to my awesome friend Jared Locke for the inspiration for this post and A LOT of the insight. You rock dude!

New Year, New Challenges

Aight y'all, a new year is here!

Well, I spent my New Year with Mark, Daniel, Timothy, Ka Weng, Sean, Matthias, Eunice and Christine. We bunked out at Mark's apartment and had a barbecue. I brought my Wii and we all took turns playing various games, mostly Wii sports though. It was pretty fun la, had communion and testimonies for 2008 and prayed together.

This new year 2009 holds a lot of mysteries for me. What does God have in store for me? Who will I meet? How will my resolve and strength be tested? Lots of uncertainties.

I'll be going on Dulous later on this year, in March. I hope that I will be able to grow closer to God through this trip. I hope I'll be able to learn things from the people I meet and become a more stable and self-strong person.

I have been rather insecure in the past. I have not had many friends because I was home schooled. This has caused me to treasure the ones I do have very much. Unfortunately it also causes me to become jealous when I see them favoring others a lot and ignoring me. But lately I have become more secure in myself. I no longer feel the need to be needed. I no longer need to have people ask me to do things with them. I can hold out on my own. I believe that this is a sign of maturity and of the awareness that people are just people, they fail.

But I also have learned that certain people need others to comfort them and help them through. I have learned that having close friends helps to take the pain away from certain situations and circumstances. Thanks you guys, you know who you are ;-)

2009

A new year

A new start

A new me