I left the office today at an untypical hour where the sun still shone. That perpetual guilt of “I could have done more” plagued me but I had to go. I wanted to spend the evening before my birthday with my family and I was adamant I didn’t usher in my birthday at my work desk.

Thanks to good ol’ Stars, my mood lifted a little as I plugged in and walked and I realised it’s been a while since I had this persistent sense of… unhappiness – if that’s the right way to describe it. You know, the feeling that you want more out of your life yet you know you may not entirely deserve it because you ain’t giving more anyway.

It’s probably a combination of factors. First, a relentless flu bug that threw me off track physically and professionally. From there, it was a downward spiral of feeling demoralised and in a state of isolation and self-disappointment. This whole journey is almost… expected. I’d been in a great place for months now and when I recognised its presence, I chuckled a little to myself. Life is all but a cycle, no?

Then when you ain’t feeling so invincible anymore, suddenly different sets of truth seem to make themselves more apparent. And that sense of “I could have done more” persists… I could have been a better friend, daughter, sister and aunt. I’m not caring enough. I don’t communicate enough. I’m not selfless enough. I don’t spend enough time with them. Hell, I’m not even a good enough yogi, what with just a weekly practice…

And as I witness some friendships and relationships die a slow death, I cry a little to myself as I debate between being a victim and a student. I tell myself nothing lasts forever and I can only be grateful they once were but it’s a hard pill to swallow…

I don’t mind all these pensiveness, really. And no, I don’t quite mind turning another year older either. I was telling KT last night that it’s hard to hate ageing when you love the lessons you’d learnt that could only come with age.

We all complain a little as the number scales up bit by bit, but will we really exchange what we have right now for where we were five years ago or even two years ago? I’d loved my life then but I love new lessons too much to wanna stay forever 25.

So, here I go… A happy little birthday to myself. :)

PS: Sorry if you’re expecting the usual uplifting post. I’m sure I’ll be back in no time. ;)

I’ve been saying this for months but sometimes I still want to pinch myself. I’m happy. I’m so truly happy right here and now that everything seems so perfect at the moment. (well, other than the impending deadlines that are scaring the hell outta me…) I’ve came a long way this year. I really have.

I may not have gotten married or pop yet another baby like some of my peers. And despite not having these generic milestones the past year, there are still so many things I’m grateful for. So many. Even the seemingly bad moments.

Right now, I’m grateful for:

1. My job. A younger me took my previous jobs for granted but now, after a year of freelance writing (not that I didn’t love that year of freedom, haha), I know I must always be grateful that I have a job. And one that I absolutely love? I must be crazy not to be thankful. I marvel how everything had happened in the past year to allow me to land this great gig. Truly – every thing does happen for a reason.
   g
2. My boss and colleagues. Is it too fast for me to declare this? Things may change in the future but right now, thank you Life for putting me in a work environment where I just adore my boss and colleagues. Each of them and their idiosyncrasies amuse me to no end everyday and despite our multinational and multicultural backgrounds, we are all the same. I love exchanging knowing looks with a few kindred spirits among my colleagues and I love how they make me laugh my ass off just by being themselves. And the ex-colleagues that were never quite mine to start with – AS and MJ. Fast friendships do happen in real life!
    g
3. Fashion, art, photography and architecture. In my own little mind, I categorise this group as “beauty”. Beauty is everywhere around us – all day, every day. In good fashion, good art, good photography and of course, good architecture. I’m grateful that they’re such awesome sources of creativity and how they inspire me endlessly with their beauty. I love how my exposure to them makes me learn so much about history, sociology and psychology.
    g
4. New friends. The girl and boy friends I’d met through the course of yoga both locally and while I was travelling, thank you for being the epitomes that one is never too old to make new good friends. Regardless of our nationalities and backgrounds and whether you’re skyping or emailing from Toronto, Tokyo, Sydney, San Francisco, Beijing or Amsterdam, you are amazing examples that we’re, again, all the same.
    g
5. BADSPY. Our friendship is like an elastic band and I’m grateful that despite the fact that sometimes it stretches thin, it’ll always rebound to original form. Maybe cos I was the runaway child who left for two years and came back again, I feel the evolution of our friendship more. Nevertheless, I absolutely love us for who we are. I was rereading the Christmas cards we exchanged this year and as cheesy as it sounds, they warm my heart. :)
   g
6. My travels. Thank you for opening my eyes and mind and allowing them to rethink our so-called set of ethnics and morals. Who said we would always stay the same and never evolve? And of course, letting me realised I’m more independent than I let on and that I’m amazingly open to every possible experience Life may have to offer.
   g
7. My mistakes. Whether grave or trivial – you’ve opened a floodgate of lessons that I would have never learned if I’d never committed you. Thank you for the wealth of knowledge and teaching me that learning gracefully from mistakes are just like passing our school examinations with flying colours. Yes, even the ones that I’d made at the sake of losing some people from my life for good. It’s OK because they were meant to happen.
    g
8. My family. A father who relentlessly fetches me anywhere I wanna go and makes sure I have my dinners that there’s no such thing as “out of the way” when it comes to his daughter. A mother whom is generous and loving to a fault, and also ridiculously innocent yet endearing. A sister who’s ethereally unfazed by anything. She’s my role model at living a simple but loving life.  She embodies the saying “keep calm and carry on”. And the small little people she’s given birth to who love and adore me unconditionally and the best teachers for teaching one how to appreciate the little things in life. Candy is no longer just candy. They’re EVERYTHING.
    g
9. Music and movies – the perfect escapes and yet one that often allows me to connect to another. Sometimes they transport me to other worlds and sometimes they bring forth a whole slew of epiphanies. My creative little soul needs that outlet that ignites all my senses.
    g
10. My best friend who, somehow, seems to have mastered the perfect mix of goofiness and grace. Thank you for creating this friendship with me that’s so strong and effortless that it befuddles me to think of a situation that can possibly rock it.
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    and most of all,
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11. My Self for being relentlessly optimistic and hopelessly romantic. For continually surprising me at how strong I can be without going all girl power and feminist and I can walk my talk. For being able to always seek the lessons in every dire situation instead of blaming the world. And most importantly, for never taking myself and Life too seriously.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“Hi my dearest!

Let me begin with I love you.

I am taking the time to write to the profound people who have supported and impacted my life over this past year of growth and transformation!

In case I have not said it enough. Thank you.

Thank you for your spirit and energy and sharing the villa and your beautiful broken heart at that time with us last year. Thank you for wanting to continue to be a part of my life even though we are worlds away from one another. Thank you for providing me with so much soul and inspiration through your words. Thank you even if there is much time between our conversations, for always returning and asking me how I am. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for all of your support and encouragement and for relishing and accepting my deeply rooted sometimes wise ways along with my silly, playful goofy ways. Thank you for believing in me and sharing it with me often. Thank you for listening. I hold and provide space for a lot of people, so it means a lot to me when somebody just takes the time to listen.

I am so proud of your spiritual growth over this past year. I am so proud of your revelations and understanding about yourself in relationship. For your divine appreciation for your alone time. For your travels and romantic escapades. For your wisdom and yoga practice. For this beautiful job that you manifested for yourself as you merge your love for style, travel and professionalism with your gift for words and perspective in seeing this truly magnificent world and sharing all of your questions, emotions and details of your existence with so many of us through your blog. You are growing into this rooted calm woman. And although our time together was epically brief, it will forever charge through my spirit as a rush of excitement, honesty, playfulness and adventure. While it is true, I do not spend massive amounts of my time reminiscing in the effort of staying truly present, I can say that each and every part of my physical body, my mental body and my spiritual being remembers and is nourished by the names Yilian and Bali. The two will forever be connected in my sense memory and forever grateful for your generosity during this time of finding my way back to my feminine wild and the Divine Feminine as my roots!

May this year bring you much balance between this new found job and the delights in your desire to travel, explore, eat good food, meet quality friends whom you can share all of these spiritual revelations and your growth in person with! May your deepest desires, whatever they might be, however they likely are changing find their way to you effortlessly. And may you remind yourself oh so often that this is all just an experience. The goal is not one of happiness or sadness. It is simple a cycle. Constant cycles present in every area of your life. Ride the cycle. Enjoy. And know that at the end of the day, you want a FULL experience. It is the fullness and the reverence for the ups and the downs I am learning by which this acceptance, understanding, calm and peace for this crazy sensation that we call life is able to find its way to us!

Blessed be my kindred spirit!

Love Always,

Becca”

And it made me so, so happy. :D

Becca, me and my skeletal arm from one year ago

Merry Christmas guys!!! Hope you are winding down to the festive period. Meanwhile, I’m running around town like a headless chicken, trying to get the perfect gifts for the 20 people on my list. So tonight, I’m gonna do a final round with the best pal in town and order “HAM” (only close pals will get the joke on this…) before tomorrow, which is apparently the last day to order.

And at work, Feb 2012 issue is closed and immediately, I’m feeling the heat from our thick March 2012 issue! Hong Kong and Bali to look forward to next month!!!

I continued with my day in a hazy state. I felt disconnected. And while most of us unwind as the year comes to an end, I’m panicking inside about next year’s Feb and Mar issues (job hazard). Self-doubts sunk in.

When the work day ended, I didn’t even want to head to yoga, a first for me in a long time. I didn’t even have the patience I usually have with public transport. I had envisioned that little imaginary cave I’d dug and I wanted to be there right away.

And I am there now. Listening to music that feeds the soul. Barzin is hauntingly good:

The day does get better. It always does. This too shall pass. But while that we’re here, why not relish the moment for a bit? It’s all for good reasons.

XX

“Detours, challenges, and crisis, Yi Lian, are simply covers for miracles that had no other way of reaching you.

It’s all good,
The Universe”

So anyhow, by the end of the first week, I wasn’t exactly in a great place yet but at least I made the decision to stay on for the rest of the month, thanks to Wendy’s encouragement. Due to her cajoling, I also found myself in a yoga class called Venus Yoga.

Wendy loved the class. I didn’t.

I didn’t fancy putting my hands underneath my top to, well, get in touch with my femininity. I was, after all, a city girl, who was all about sweating it out during exercise. Why all these getting-to-know-yourself stuff? I didn’t enjoy that spiritual aspect of yoga and I didn’t pretend that I did. In fact, I remembered asking the receptionists at Yoga Barn if they offered Pilates instead. I wanted something straight forward without the yoga chatter.

And of course I didn’t know any better then that we should all question the things that make us uncomfortable in life.

But at least I was open to giving things and people a second chance. I’ve always been a huge advocate of second (or even third and fourth!) chances so I decided to walk the talk and turned up for another Venus Yoga class.

The beautiful space at Yoga Barn

I found myself loving it after the second class. Not because it was then I became an airy fairy but simply cos I love dancing and Venus Yoga combined free-form dancing with Hatha yoga. Also, I have a very curious nature and I LOVE finding out more about people because every one has a story to tell. And Shivani (the teacher and founder of Venus Yoga) always started her classes with a round of sharing.

It was also in the second class where we had a partners’ exercise where we had to look into a complete stranger’s eyes for one whole minute in silence. We can smile, we can cry but we have to maintain the eye contact.

It sounds simple but it’s daunting as hell. It was awkward initially but if you pushed at it, you find the walls we build around ourselves torn down. I had no idea meaningful eye contact could be that intimate.

And being held in the afternoons, I found myself wandering off to tea at Kafe or Clear Cafe on Hanuman Street with the other women in the classes. And from there onwards, I became a social butterfly of sorts in Ubud. It was completely hilarious. I found my schedule filled with social commitments. From not knowing a single soul to having company for every other meal, I suddenly found myself craving for solitude.

Which I took as a good thing. My yearning for solitude has always served as a measuring factor at emotional well-being. Even when I managed to sneak in time alone reading in a cafe, company, somehow, found their way to my table. I must had, thankfully, stopped looking so bloody depressive and off-putting by then. Random strangers would start striking up conversations with me and soon after, we became fast friends.

And at the topic of dancing, I can’t forget my two favourite dance classes at Yoga Barn – Biodanza and Ecstatic Dance. The latter was a two-hour long class, which always have me completely drenched in sweat and grins after. I hate to say this but damnit, ecstatic dance is freaking beautiful. There’s no such classes in Singapore but one can hope someone will eventually introduce it to the thousands of yogis here…

It was at the former class where I met two gorgeous Canadian girls – Karla and Rebecca. Out of a class of 20, we somehow found ourselves keep flocking to each other during the 90-minute class. I kept wanting to dance with them. I didn’t realise then that they were travelling pals but somehow, it all came together. We headed off for dinner with Wendy at Bali Buddha and when I learnt they’d been travelling for two months and their funds were running a bit low, I insisted they came to stay with me at the villa. So suddenly, I found myself having roomies!

The three of us. :)

And the nights we spent at the villa made up one of my favourite memories of my month there. For the first week or so, I found myself returning to the eerily dark and quiet villa every night, which was rather depressing at that point of my life. But there were nights where Becca and Karla would return to the villa first (they were undergoing a month-long yoga teacher training course and found themselves drained at the end of the day) while I had my social obligations (hahaha). And the sight of them chilling in the living room as I stepped into the villa’s compound? Bliss.

We took turns at the bathroom and we had even established a routine. It was usually Karla, me then Becca. Then we would chill by my MacBook to watch an episode of Modern Family. I would laugh my hyena laughter, which in turn would make the girls laughed (albeit, it was directed at me…). There was a night of full moon so Karla led a little ritual where we confessed, cried, laughed and danced till 1am under the gorgeous moon and to Ingrid Michaelson on my iTunes. And there was that other night we got high on shisha in a bar and I found myself agreeing to go to the Gili Islands with a stranger since the two girls had already gone before they met me.

I would awake in the mornings to find them gone (since 6am actually!) and they would see me around 10am at Yoga Barn (where they also had their yoga teacher training course) running to my 10am class. I would throw them air kisses, kick off my flip flops and run upstairs for my classes. Sometimes, we’ll have dinners together but on Sundays when they had the day off, we’ll find ourselves shopping for jewellery, attending one of the many different workshops available in Ubud, gallery visiting or eating pastries at Kue on Main Street.

OK! Word count of 1,000. Time to end it here and till the next entry… Have a lovely week ahead!! <3

And it doesn’t help that I’ve just watched the latest episode of my all-time favourite TV series Grey’s Anatomy. Ahhh, that show always get me all emotional! But in a good way.  (Because, apparently, the word ‘emotional’ has earned quite a bad rep over the years…)

The episode started off with: “‘I had a terrible day,’ we say it all the time. A fight with the boss. Stomach flu. Traffic. That’s what we describe as terrible when nothing terrible is happening.”

Don’t we do that all the time?

We’re resistant to any thing, relationship or situation that is seemingly negative so when such things, relationships and situations happen against our will, we complain. We protest. We blame and blame. We become guarded. We assumed the worst of every one we meet for the first time and if they turn out to be even slightly better than our original expectations, we get surprised.

“He’s an asshole.”
“She’s psychotic.”

How many times have we heard ourselves saying that of our exes? So are all exes assholes and psychos? Then, doesn’t that make all of us assholes and psychos?

Maybe we were at some points of our lives but just like how time will always keep ticking, our psyches are also constantly evolving.

Or we continually believe that the future will be better than the present so we just put up with what we have to bear now in the hope that that future we envision will come soon.

But what if it doesn’t? It’s good to keep the faith that the future will always get better. But we gotta remember that the well-lived presence can ascertain that than just blind faith without being active in ensuring that.

It’s not just about positive thinking and feeding yourself positive affirmations. What good do they do if we don’t grasp the fundamentals of those so-called positive thinking?

Why don’t we not realise that right now is the best that we’ve got? That happiness is really not a destination. But it’s available right here and right now.

Those bad breakups or challenging work situations we’re now experiencing will only serve to teach us invaluable lessons about ourselves we can’t otherwise learn. So they’re all actually really really good things to happen right now!

Really. It’s really not that bad. ;)

Tonight, after an awesome yoga class and dinner with a good pal and her boyfriend whom I’d finally met for the first time, I’m grinning to myself as I wonder which movie I should watch next in the cinemas (yesterday was I Don’t Know How She Does It, Captain America: The First Avenger and Beginners – don’t you love the range of movie genres I watch? I’m a movie carnivore who watches everything but horror. I’ll hate you forever and ever if you force me to sit through a horror film).

One short year. One long ride of rollercoaster.

I realised I’d never quite wrote about the one month I spent in Bali on my own last November. In fact, I’d never quite told anyone the details of my trip.

It was one of those trips that was a game changer.

I spent the first week of that month crying to sleep every night, wondering what the f*** was I doing to myself, booking this two-bedroom villa in the middle of nowhere in Ubud. Eat, Pray, Love my ass. I wanted my ex-boyfriend. I wanted my mommy. I wanted my friends. I wanted to go home. I went with no plans. I didn’t know what to do. As I fell asleep every night to the incessant dog barking, rooster crowing and toads croaking, I wished I would never wake up the next morning.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sleep forever so for the first two days, I sat idle in my villa, not sure what to do. I sorted myself out. I got a local SIM card, I chatted to the lovely villa helpers – one of whom, Cuk, I’m eternally grateful to. He became my daily chauffeur and butler. Sorting out any teeny weeny problem I had. If I ran out of gas for my hot water, he was there. If I wanted to change my daily breakfast time (yeah, the sweet ladies come to my villa’s kitchen to make me breakie every day!), he would take care of it. If I was rushing for a yoga class at the awesome Yoga Barn, he would speed me there (while I feared for my life without a helmet).

Me on Cuk's bike

And the first group of lone travellers I met consisted of a spirited Belgian girl in her early 30s, a hippie Aussie boy in his mid 30s and the most wonderful Aussie lady (Wendy) in her late 50s. I was quiet and keeping to myself in a crystal healing class (don’t judge me!). Later on, I had to pair up with the above-mentioned two ladies and we hit it off like fire.

The four of us went for dinner at one of those lovely restaurants along Monkey Forest Road and we were one of the last to leave. We shared the stories of my lives, bawled our eyes out (read: me) and chatted like old friends. A few days later, the Belgian girl and Aussie boy took off to explore the rest of Bali individually and Wendy, like me, was gonna spend another three weeks in Bali so we became yoga buddies.

The four of us

There were two nights when Wendy, hippie Aussie (sorry, I don’t remember his name!) and I went for kirtan (a call-and-response chanting performed in India’s devotional traditions) and a movie called You Can Change Your Live. It was my first exposure to kirtan and that was the most beautiful thing ever. 150 people in the room and singing and dancing in a language (Sanskrit) that I have no idea about. But somehow, everyone seemed connected. I was so resistant towards these airy fairy hippie crack but having nothing better to do alone in Ubud, I tagged along with my newfound friends. And there’s no turning back.

Cos I totally became an airy fairy hippie chick. Hahahaha. Gawd, I’m so predictable that I wanna claw my eyes out right now.

I don’t wanna go into the whole spiritual talk right now (because I still wanna keep the, erm, 10 blog readers I have) but I was converted simply because I knew I felt much much better emotionally and mentally when I allowed those airy fairy stuff into my life. I didn’t want to resist nor succumb to any new agey lifestyle. I just wanted to feel better. And that made me feel better. If that’s not the best judge then what is?

The progress after a week in Ubud? From insisting on cutting my trip to just a week, I decided to be brave and continue with my original plan of a month and see where Life would take me… It helped I had Cuk and Wendy. So hopefully the next three weeks would be manageable… But seriously, “manageable”? The rest of the month was more than I could wish for.

I remember telling Sue that I was so worried Bali would do nothing for me and I would just go home the same with much emptier pockets.

Hmmm OK. I can definitely not fit the rest of the month within an entry. Watch this space for the next three weeks! Now, Melancholia or Page One: Inside The New York Times awaits!

It could be the day you decided to wake up for morning yoga and met someone you would have never met if you hadn’t gone. Or it could be the day you missed your usual 8am train and bumped into an old friend who became your bestie for the rest of your life.

I caught the movie One Day, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, in the cinemas two weeks ago and it roused up a feeling I hadn’t felt for a long time.

After a mentally and emotionally satisfying movie that I’d just watched for the first time, I would become a recluse, retreating into my own little space – albeit imaginary, as more often than not, I would have company. And don’t mind me, it’s not a bad kinda retreat. I’m often just spotted in silence, smiling to myself. I just need to further relish in the afterglow of a good story alone. Because… no matter how much you and I enjoy the same film, we take different things away from a story and I’m a little bit of an oddball…

The last times I felt that way were with Big Fish, Finding Neverland, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Blueberry Nights, Lost in Translation, 2046, Closer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Revolutionary Road, Amelie and of course, my all-time favourite Before Sunrise. If you’re a movie buff, you’ll know the most current film on my list is three years old so it’s been a long time since I felt this way.

So when I walked out of the theatre after One Day, this feeling came rushing back into me and it was a little like, “Oh hello old friend, it’s been a while!” It was a Friday night but I kinda wanna soak in that moment alone so I parted from my movie companions and plugged into my happy tunes.

From then on, I wasn’t quite in this world. I hopped onto my bus which took me past our city’s beautiful landscape and I felt like such a kid, marvelling at the breathtaking architecture of the ArtScience Museum, Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, Double Helix Bridge. Stars, Kate Nash and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart got me grinning and tapping to their music. I felt like such a kid again, suddenly seeing all the beauty that surrounded me.

I know One Day doesn’t necessarily have the happiest ending but as you can tell from my list above, it’s apparent my preferred movie genre is, fundamentally, love stories with, more often than not, unhappy or open endings. They always have a touch of whimsy and surreality. I like them that way because that’s how real life is to me.

Most people have a black-and-white and right-and-wrong view of seeing the world but I’m afraid sometimes Life is not so straightforward. I’m OK that the world is more grey than black or white. And I’m OK that our actions are not always right or wrong. I’ve accepted that nothing lasts forever and neither does every one stays the same forever so now, I see the immense beauty in the restraint and short-lived.

And that explains my love for movies of such genre. Why pray for forever when sometimes, a touchstone of something temporary changes your life for good more than something of permanence?

And that’s how I currently see the relationships in my life. Instead of brushing each other off as someone “unsuitable”, I see that you’re meant to be in my life for a few days or weeks, providing me with a few good conversations. Then we part. That’s it. Is it sad? Of course not. How can something so pure and beautiful be sad? Just because it’s fleeting doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing.

Who knows whatever will happen to us the next moment? That’s the beauty of being alive.

You can change the ending of this chapter and decide how you want to start the next. Amazing, ain't it? :D

“To be fair, there was a lot going on last week!” I’m getting defensive… “Within the last week, I had caught a cold, lost my voice, went for two full-day shoots (OK, I lied. More like one-and-half. But it happens when you are defending yourself. You tend to exaggerate…), finished seven articles and one marketing campaign proposal!”

Then I decide to play the work-life balance card. “Yeah, I still managed to go for four yoga classes, had dinner with a good friend who moved to Australia, birthday dinner with another close friend, a movie date to ‘One Day’ (did you love the film as much as I did?!) and erm, maybe another eight episodes of my fave TV shows while all cuddled up in bed.”

“Can you blame me for not writing in here?”

Silence.

“And and and, this week, I have a musical, a play, an anniversary party, kirtan, dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen for a year, a massage and facial for work reviews and four articles to finish,” I rattle on. “Can you fault me?”

And this is what happens when you start to have a wee bit too much on your plate, you start talking to your blog and think it’ll reply.

Insane much?

I wanted to find a photo of me pretending to look like Superman and this is the closest I've got. More like reverse Superman... But at least I got the red part down pat?

Though I do wonder how different would life be if I’d gone ahead with my Nepal plans instead… Instead of hunching over my work desk right now, I may just be in a ‘Happy Baby’ pose somewhere in Kathmandu…