michelle teoh

the title is a play on words of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (which remains on my to-read list, no spoilers please).

of running

between 2007 and November 2024, i have never once went running out of my own volition. granted, i had only started maintaining a regular workout routine from 2022 onwards, still, running was not the first, nor the second, nor the third on my list of preferred activities for two whole years. my main motivation to start running could be chalked down to two factors: 1) credits for Classpass classes in Singapore were a lot higher than in Malaysia so i needed to find an alternative cheap/ free activity to do on days that i did not attend classes, and 2) running in public in the evenings/ nights was a very viable option in safe sunny Singapore.

so i bought a pair of cheap running shoes and explored my nearby park connector.

my first run was atrocious. everything hurt and i walked more than i ran. but i was forgiving to myself: i was trying something new and it didn’t matter if it ultimately did not stick.

i came back a few days later, coerced by the need to remain active while simultaneously curious as to how much i could push myself to improve over time. i don’t think i could say i liked it at first – i showed up out of self-obligation and discipline more than anything. but that’s the thing about forming habits; Saw once told me that if you can do anything for 10 weeks straight, it will naturally develop into a habit.

i did hit the 10-week mark at some point, and it did develop into a habit, although it remains a relatively new habit at this juncture. my perception of running changed the more i ran – i started noticing the subtle effects breathing in fresh air had on my mental wellbeing after being cooped up in the office or my room for nine hours a day, the improvement in my stamina and form by how much longer i could run without resting and having nothing hurt, and finally the desire to run just a little bit faster than i did previously.

physicality aside, running by myself without the constant presence of an instructor also cultivated a serene headspace prime for retrospection for the hour, in tandem with my fondness of taking time out of the day just to hang out with myself.

physicality and mentality aside, i also get to see a lot of dogs on my running route.

a couple of months down the road, i can say that i like running now. earlier this month, i was more excited to buy a pair of Hoka running shoes off Carousell than to go out on a date, because that meant my feet didn’t have to hurt anymore in the size 4 Nikes i previously had. whenever it rained on a scheduled running day, i would feel upset and often braved the downpour with a cap donned anyway.

of reading

as a child, i was an avid reader. you could not catch me going anywhere without a faithful paperback (sometimes even a hardcover) in tow. then everything changed when i went to law school.

English words were my best friends growing up. they were my primary medium/ vessel of expression. but when you start having to read thousands of words every day which, when strung together in mundane sentences in the form of case precedents, textbooks and legal essays, were remarkably tedious and banal, it is inevitable to refrain from spending your leisure time doing the exact same thing, albeit perhaps over less insipid materials.

consequently, i stopped reading leisurely for the subsequent 10 years.

after i quit practice last year and took up a job which allowed me to have substantially more time to myself, i told myself that this was the opportune time to pick up old hobbies again, especially reading.

the revival of this hobby did not properly take off until the beginning of this year, which, in typical new year fashion, offered the optimum justification to commence new habits. it did not exactly start out planned either – in the first week of January, Rachel invited me to a joint book signing/ screening event of Sister Snake/ Green Snake at Golden Mile Tower. not wanting to turn up at the event clueless, i downloaded an ebook version of Sister Snake and finished it within a week, right in time for the event.

Sister Snake is authored by Singaporean writer Amanda Lee Koe currently based in New York, and was my first read of the year. largely due to ALK’s witty, satirical prose, it was a very enjoyable read and i found myself rediscovering the joys of reading during the process – the absolute immersion in the events of the story, the rigorous analyses of characters to determine whether i rooted for them and if so, how much, the desire to ascertain how the narrative will ultimately unfurl, and most importantly for me, the strong urge and motivation to put pen to paper myself (metaphorically) in an attempt to unleash my own literary ideas.

Sister Snake is shelved as one of my favourites, and i gave it a 5 star out of 5.

upon finishing the book, i logged onto my dusty Goodreads account to leave a review, stared at my “Currently Reading” status (which listed books last added from 10 years ago…) for a solid minute, and told myself with utmost conviction that this is the year i will start reading again. and then i set the ambitious goal of reading 50 books this year for my 2025 Reading Challenge.

truth be told, i did that without really believing that i would stick to it, but at the same time i thought: why not? if i wanted to, i would. and it turned out that i did want to, because i am now on my 15th book in March.

my persistence to read is also largely contributed by the ease of accessing and downloading ebooks in this day and age. i think we all know there is only one right answer in the physical books vs ebooks debate (the answer is the former, it will always, always be the former) but due to certain financial and spatial constraints, i gradually learned to find the latter rather palatable.

this all ultimately tied in neatly with one of my 2025 “ins” of developing a habit to read rather than scroll on my daily commute, which not only precipitated my renewed reading habit but also greatly improved my mental health by curtailing the rate at which i was consuming doomerism content on social media.

i joked on twitter that spending all my time outside of work running and reading since the year started made my routine sound so incredibly boring, but truthfully what it has given me is peace, the type that compels me do everything within my power to preserve that and prevent anyone from remotely disrupting it. and while i undoubtedly love spending time with the people i care about, i have also come to revel in my own company and take respite in my own world, something both running and reading have allowed me to unabashedly do.

there is a meme going around on twitter (you will never be able to make me call it by its godforsakenly evil and severely uncool new name) where people upload a photo of something that brings them the simplest joy and captioning it “never kill yourself”.

the impact of those three words. never kill yourself, because of this fucking godly nasi lemak that singlehandedly makes life worth living. perhaps it sounds nonsensical, insensitive and tactless, even – how is a dish, no matter how tasty, a solution to suicidal ideation?

(disclaimer: it is not. self-harm is not a joke and here are some links that may be useful if you are struggling with such thoughts)

i have struggled with mental illness for almost half of my life and am no stranger to the all-encompassing feeling of dread that nothing will ever be good in life again. for me, thoughts and feelings of this nature have always felt very large and very heavy, like ginormous boulders that stand so tall and wide that they block any sliver of hopeful light from penetrating my brain fog and fear haze. because of that, i grew up thinking i needed a similarly large and heavy one-stop solution that can demolish these boulders to let the light in in full blast. an all-or-nothing approach.

but as i grew older, i realised that there is rarely a one-stop solution to this kind of things (one can argue that antidepressants are probably the largest and heaviest solution you can get, but care should be taken not to mistake them as magic wonder pills). as i grew older and gained more experience and confidence, i learned that the theoretical one-stop solution is no more important than paying attention to the myriad of little light slivers that manage to slip through the edges of the ginormous boulders and occasionally puncture the foggy haze. these, are the “never kys”s (alternatively its SFW version, the “life is worth living”s).

at the peak of the Arcane craze last year, i was averaging approximately 30 hours a week playing TFT with a friend for two months. it was entirely unremarkable, but it brought me so much joy. there are few things better than the muted anticipation of rushing home from work to consume a piece of media that i was obsessed with at that point in time. to have the AC on, my three screens in front of me with a gifted candle burnt to lend its aroma for maximum olfactory indulgence; it was like any other weekday night but it was sufficient for me to be happy and content with life – and really, is that not what life ultimately comprises of? a jigsaw puzzle of these little moments which make me grateful to be alive, to enjoy every sliver of happiness no matter how small or insignificant it may objectively appear to be. happiness does not need to be large and heavy for it to exist.

Christmas 2024 at home was really one of the most memorable and enjoyable periods of my life. Aunty Wendy and her family flew to Alor Setar for Christmas, and that week was chock-full of Chagee, scrumptious meals, and my favourite – soju and Mario Party with Caitlin, Ian and Mark. it was the first Christmas in a long, long time that i felt such camaraderie with my cousins whom i had recently reconnected with, which made me cherish the moment immensely.

and finally, the most unremarkable of all slivers – having good food in the company of even better friends. better than average Klang bak kut teh in Singapore? fucking love it. airy pancakes that feel like i’m biting into clouds? instant dopamine hit. eating tomato hotpot to my heart’s content while laughing over stupid shit? this is what it means to be alive. there is nothing more complex or deeper than that, beyond the simple joy and pleasure of indulging my taste buds in delectable food, desserts and drinks while hanging out with people whose presence i thoroughly enjoyed.

the message i am trying to convey at the end of the day is this: we can’t all have grand achievements of euphoria everyday, so why not be gracious with ourselves by taking a break every so often to let the light in? another meme progeny of twitter: “there are cathedrals everywhere for the eyes to see”. there is a line from Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: “Marx was fortunate because he saw everything as if it were a fortuitous bounty.” Hwang Bo-Reum wrote in her debut novel, Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, “(…) happiness is never beyond reach. It’s not in the distant past, nor on the horizon of the future. It’s right in front of me. Like that day’s beer, and today’s quince tea.” the happiness we contain in our heart, is the happiness we choose to acquire. and i choose to see cathedrals, accept fortuitous bounties and reach for that beer or tea everyday, in order to give my life the meaning it deserves.

one of my “2025 ins” (as i like to call them, rather than “resolutions”) is to write/ journal more. during the past weekend, i came up with thirty 25, a series of monthly posts where i write about anything i am immersed in at the particular time, thinking that i may feel more motivated under the guise of writing for a project, albeit a self-initiated one.

the rationale behind the nomenclature is rather self-explanatory – i am turning 30 this year, in the year of 2025. as far as milestones go, even though milestones by age are often arbitrary and a product of social construct, i am determined to make this 30-year milestone one filled with inspiration, contentment, self-realisation and gratitude. my four horsemen of joy, if you will. and if any of my similarly pushing-30 peers who are reading this feel the dread of stepping into a new decadal age bracket, i hope you are able to derive some form of optimism, however minimal, from these journals.

Bellyn was in town over the weekend, and one of the things that we talked about, while cosplaying as crazy rich asians having brunch at the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands, was the lack of spaces, or reasons, or incidents for adults to come together with the intention of meeting new people and making friends. this topic came up as she initiated a very Bellynesque idea of renting a hotel room in Singapore to throw a party and invite her friends and her friends’ friends as the fastest and most efficient way to make new friends in a brand new city. it reminded me of a tweet i had just seen on twitter griping about the proportionately dwindling rates of holding/ attending dinner parties the older we get. and this is true. never mind the foreign environment, the moment everyone hits adulthood, there seems to be an unspoken rule that meeting new people and making new friends (beyond networking for non-leisure purposes) is thrown to the backburner while seemingly more “important” aspects of life take over – career, romance, hobbies, family, children etc.

that is not to say that they are not important, but why should they take precedence over the magic of establishing new, genuine connections? from as young as when we were in kindergarten, up until the penultimate stage of college/ university before one formally enters adulthood, community has always been a common central theme in these stages of life. everyone starts out from the same starting point: befriending the person closest to you: your deskmate, then the rest of your classmates, and then social circles are expanded outwardly through sports teammates, club/ society members, friends of friends – the list is endless. but for some reason this burgeoning exercise comes to an abrupt end the moment one steps foot into the world of formal employment. connections become highly individualistic, transactional and purposive – what is the point of knowing new people if there is no benefit to be derived from it?

i doubt this occurrence is at all a mystery. adulthood brings with it a multitude of obligations and responsibilities which leave little energy and headspace for the self-indulgent (but healthy and necessary) pursuit of connections and community. i have heard many stories, both from my generation and my parents’ generation, of couples renouncing their social circles upon marriage, but i would argue that one’s craving for a sense of community is most dire upon achieving adulthood, which goes on to last for the rest of one’s life.

i watched an Instagram reel (the millennial version of “i watched a Tik Tok”) that said something along the lines of “you cannot expect friendship during adulthood”. in other words, triple the amount of effort is required to pursue new connections or maintain existing relationships as an adult in comparison to our younger counterparts. that is something important i have come to realise at this juncture of my life. i think there were many relationships i took for granted as a younger student, which was understandable (but not acceptable) because as a student, i was constantly surrounded by people doing the same thing as me i.e. studying, but the moment we were done with that phase of life, everyone scattered. all my closest friends are presently in at least four different countries and the most frequent i am able to spend time with them in person nowadays is a meagre 2-3 hours a year. this, in contrast to the guarantee of being able to see them on a daily basis and knowing they are a 5-minute walk or at most a 20-minute drive away when we were all in school. the juxtaposition is jarring.

which is why i think i am at a stage of my life where few things are more important to me than taking the initiative, being proactive and showing up for my friends. the scarcer the commodity, the more one learns to appreciate its preciousness.

when it comes to establishing new connections and relationships, the task is an uphill battle. in adulthood, most people are already comfortably settled within existing relationships and communities without the need to seek for more. so where are adults supposed to go to meet new people? there is no school to attend. not all work environments are genial and welcoming within a social context. this is where third spaces come in.

there has been a lot of throwing about of this term lately, at least as far as i’ve seen on social media. i’ve understand it to mean a distinctive place/ setting outside of home (the “first” place) and work (the “second” place) where people gather to do literally anything. the oldest, longest-running and most established third space in the history of mankind is probably places of worship, but for the non-religious like me, the obvious activities everyone pivots to are hobbies. from my own experience living in Singapore for a year as a single millennial, i’ve noticed an uptick in run clubs, book clubs, trivia nights, social mixers, pickleball events; some more heavily marketed as matchmaking events, others not so much.

in August last year, i attended, all by myself, my first ever social mixer as an adult. Offline, only one of many similiar initiatives, was founded with the modern day substitute of “your friend’s friend’s house party in university” (my favourite third space of all time) in mind, and it was an interesting concept as an observer, but also lowkey a social nightmare for the introvert within me. still, there is rarely any new experience i would say no to nowadays, and i realised along the way that the most entertaining and stimulating cosplay i have done so far is that of an extrovert.

insofar as third spaces are concerned, however, it was not exactly the most conducive outlet for me in terms of establishing new connections. instead, the third spaces in which i have found solace and new friends are my incredibly serendipitous TTRPG friend group and the fortnightly badminton sessions with my colleagues which my line manager invited me to during my 6th month of working here.

and maybe one day, i will gather the gumption to pull a Bellyn and invite my friends and their friends all to one giant party in an effort to organise the best third space one could ask for as an adult in constant pursuit of friendships.

For me personally, 2024 has been a very special year. And how could it not be? It is the year that I found myself asserting utmost control over significant life decisions which would eventually lead to where I am today.

The genesis of my 2024 began with my momentous move to Singapore. When I brought this up during conversation, a person that I no longer talk to asked, “But how is moving to Singapore more important than the rest of your other moves throughout your life?” My answer came with no hesitation – because my other moves all felt like they formed part of a standard life blueprint which I was designated not to stray from, but this move to Singapore was a decision I had actively made of my own accord. If anything, it was a deviation from what was supposed to be, with no supporting precedents or corroborative backup plans for me to anticipate what would happen following the fruition of this decision.

I have written of the developments and changes that had transpired since my move countless times; some good, some bad, mostly uncertain. Unfortunately, the uncertainty has hardly wavered, and in fact has, ironically, gained a stronger foothold the more comfortable and at ease I feel living in Singapore. My hunger and curiosity for finding, experiencing and wanting more is always at awkward odds with my tendency and penchant to revel in the comfort and familiarity of what I know best. Just like how my most recent MBTI test results indicated a gradual progression towards ambiversion, I have long been saddled right in between of this conundrum for the past few months, to the point that anytime I am faced with the classic question of, “So do you see yourself staying in Singapore or moving back to Malaysia in the future?” I am only able to offer a meek, hesitant response of, “Ask me again in a year’s time.”

I often jest (maybe only half-heartedly) that my ultimate decision will likely rest on whether I am able to find a partner that I would be happy to live with either in Singapore or Malaysia, but deep down I truly believe that the real pushing force behind that decision lies with the actual reason of why I decided to leave KL and move to Singapore in the first place. The standard answer I always give is the truth, but, and this was (somewhat) an epiphany I arrived at when talking to a close friend, I really do think there must be something more than just stubbornness to proceed with a plan following a failed relationship which was impactful and significant enough to make me want to trade my comfortable KL life where I had everything I could ask for, for a brand new one in Singapore where I could lose everything at the ripe age of 29. I’ve run through a whole spinwheel of possible reasons: Perhaps it was out of spite. Perhaps it was just because it felt “right”, whatever that meant. Perhaps I had something to prove, if not to others then to myself. Perhaps I was just being impulsive with little regard for consequences. Perhaps it felt like I would lie in bed in regret every night if I did not try to do something which I felt was very much within my own capability to do, and do well. Perhaps there was no reason for me not to go. Perhaps mercury was in retrograde or whatever. Perhaps I believed in a better future for myself in a foreign land, whatever “better” entails (apart from the SGD – but I can firmly say money is definitely not a deciding factor in this).

I believe in all of the above. After all, if it has crossed my mind at least once during my decision-making process, it must have counted for something. All I know for sure is that the stars were aligned in ways that I could not say no to, at least not without feeling a strong sense of regret if I did.

The significance of this move lies not only with the reason behind it, but also the consequential outcomes derived from it. I have touched on these substantively in my previous posts, but in essence: my 10 months in Singapore since February 2024 have definitely shaped me into a different person from whom I was exactly a year ago.

A year ago, having left KL and anticipating a fresh start in Singapore, I had journalled an array of concerns and worries which largely looked like this:

• Are Singaporeans as unfriendly as everyone says they are?
• What if I have no friends? What if I have no support system in a foreign country?
• What if there are office politics at my new job? What if it is a bad working environment and I don’t like it?
• What if I don’t like the change in lifestyle? Especially when it comes to living arrangements/ routines
• What if there is nothing to do in Singapore? What if there are no cosplay events and the food sucks
• What if Singapore reminds me of my ex?

A year later, approaching the end of 2024, I am now able to look back at these questions and say (source: me):

• No. If I were to elaborate further – either I’ve been very, very lucky, or just very, very naive, but most, if not all of the people I’ve interacted with, from my work deskmate to the caifan uncle near my flat, have been so friendly and accommodating that this concern never once crossed my mind. If anything, I would say that the general public may come off as more aloof and less inviting because everyone is inclined to mind their business, and only their business. This distinction is maybe more palpably noticeable during public transport commutes or spin classes, but it has not hindered my ability to form genuine and authentic connections with local Singaporeans.
• I think the biggest sense of achievement I have from the move is the new connections I’ve made in Singapore, as well as reconnecting with old friends and family members. Some of these new connections I’d made through traditional long term exposure such as my colleagues, some through more serendipitous methods like joining a tabletop board game group through a dating app match. One of my wishes at the start of the year was to make new connections while preserving and maintaining my existing ones, and I think this is a promise to myself which I have managed to keep. Insofar as support systems go, I have them to keep me sane and grounded and I am immensely grateful for them.
• I actually have a 9-6 job where I can leave at 6pm on the dot. The biggest office politic I am aware of is that a lady that sits near us constantly scolds her team members (not us) in a loud and brazen way for everyone to hear.
• I actually think that the illusion of a fresh start and the safety and convenience of Singapore have allowed me to cultivate a healthier and more productive lifestyle and routine which I’ve always wanted. I started running and weight training, two things I never thought I’d ever do, ever. Started consciously eating clean and maintaining a regular supplement regime. Became more financially independent. These were all things that I may not have been able to learn within the same period of time had I not made the move.
• It’s actually kind of incredible that I reconnected with Rei who not only was well-versed in the Singaporean ACG and cosplay scene, but ended up convincing me to be her cosplay partner twice. Granted, I no longer cosplay as frequently as I did in KL, but there was never really any lack of activity during my downtimes. Sure, the food may not be as good as Malaysian food but honestly this has very little impact on my daily life. This is also compensated by my frequent travels back to AS/KL anyway.
• Lastly, I cannot deny that it did multiple times, especially during my first few weeks. But if there is anything that I have learned so far post-breakup, it’s that any memory can be, and sometimes should be, overriden and rewritten with better ones. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

In arriving at the above conclusions, there were paths consciously taken and decisions consciously made which progressively shaped me into someone different. I sometimes call this my (SG Version) because these paths and decisions were all taken and made with a very specific goal in mind – to become the ideal type of person that I want to be. While I struggled to do the same previously for various reasons, moving to Singapore with a brand new slate had the placebo effect of giving me reason and room to respond to things and situations differently than I would previously had without fear of judgment based on pre-existing notions of who I was. It is this paradigm shift triggered by the move that I often rely on to convince myself that moving to Singapore is not something that I regret doing.

The year has objectively been a good one purely based off the above, but there were also some bad apples in my basket of 2024 Wrapped:

• I had many, many health concerns this year, the most major obviously being my uterine fibroid diagnosis which required me to undergo a surgery under general anaesthesia. It went smoothly and I was on a 1-month MC after, but the events leading up to it were nothing short of stressful. Apart from this diagnosis, there was one time that I got hives all over my body for a week for reasons that are still unbeknownst to me, and also several other infections including Covid which contributed to –
• – many anxiety attack episodes and sleepless nights exacerbated by my being alone in a less than familiar environment. My anxiety has always been something that I constantly have to manage and live with, but this year has been especially difficult compared to the previous years.
• This year is the first time all my closest friends, who mostly used to be within reach, became long-distance. Obviously there are still many ways we keep in touch but in an ideal universe, I would love to be able to walk or drive to my best friends’ places whenever I feel like it, and vice versa.
• I started dating actively in Singapore and those who know, know the fine print details but suffice to say in a nutshell that I’ve really not had the best dating experiences so far. The amount of times I have said “we are so back” only to say “it is so over” merely a few days later is sitcom-levels of comical. I’ve always struggled to be publicly open about my thoughts in respect of my romantic experiences so I will just say this, modern dating in your late 20s in metropolitan Singapore can truly be a hellscape for a myriad of reasons, the fickleness and “convenience” of using dating apps, the incongruous dating intentions and expectations of men in their late 20s/ early 30s, and the unspoken but existent differences in thought processes and held principles cultivated by different upbringings. These are not even the worst of what I’ve experienced, but it is an exhausting process to risk being vulnerable again and again in the pursuit of human connection only to be disappointed and having to subsequently deploy damage control measures in order to protect myself from getting hurt again and again.
• My whole year since the move has been a constant internal tug-of-war in respect of the direction my life is heading towards. While most peers my age more or less already have a relatively fixed and stable plan for the next few years, it makes me anxious to even think about where I will be or what I will be doing in the next year. This makes any form of planning difficult to execute (e.g. buying a house, buying a car, even buying CNY flight tickets for 2026 because who knows where I’ll be in two years’ time) and it is the root cause of many of my anxieties. Sometimes I think it is wonderful and precious that I am able to live life excitingly where everyday presents a new challenge or opportunity, but sometimes I also wonder if my time for exploration should have been up years ago and there is a different goal that I should be aiming for rather than all of this.

Nonetheless, in true michelleteoh.com fashion, we always end a post laced with whining on an optimistic note, and for good reason too – because for every gripe in life that I have, there are more reasons to be thankful to be alive, safe and healthy. So this year, I am thankful for the numerous opportunities that came my way and for the courage to take each and everyone of them; for the fortification of my support systems both old and new in the form of family and friends irrespective of distance; for the discipline (albeit a work in progress) instilled in my daily routines and habits towards being healthier and stronger; and for the blessing of being able to survive the entire year of 2024 and maintain the tradition of writing this year end post.

Here’s to a better and wiser 2025 filled with even more love and joy for me, and also for you.

having lived 29 full years and going on to my 30th, my relationships with various aspects of my life have had some significant overhauls over the years. so i wanted to journal these thoughts down as a record of what has changed, and whether these are changes i am happy with.

i realise these are rather vulnerable thoughts and i am trying to remove the filter i have whenever i write publicly, because at the end of the day all i ever want to be is honest. especially to myself.

1. exercising and being physically active

with the exception of a very brief period in primary school, i was never a physically active person. neither were my family members. my mom is the biggest homebody i know and i had always preferred staying indoors.

but towards my mid-20s, i knew i had to do something about my sedentary lifestyle. since university until i started work, i tried all sorts of things to force myself into an exercise routine. i watched anime dance videos. signed up for a gym membership. hung up a calendar for me to cross out days that i exercised. tracked my weight and measurements on a weekly basis. bought a yoga mat and exercise band so that i could guilt trip myself into actually utilising exercise equipment that i had spent money on. but none of these were motivating (or rather, pressing) enough to give me the discipline i needed to start a routine. it was a very reluctant and inconsistent relationship that i had, because everything i did felt forced and i did not like any form of physical activity that i pushed myself to do.

it wasn’t until circa February 2023 that i decided i had to do something major about this for 2 reasons: 1) i did a blood test and found out my cholesterol level exceeded the healthy range, and 2) i wanted to lose weight to look better in cosplay.

hence it was a spontaneous decision to sign up for Classpass one day and to my own surprise, it remains a routine that i consistently maintain to this day. it started out with a spin class which i hated, so i tried yoga, pilates, aerial hoop and even dance but eventually found myself back at spinning again because i had friends to suffer together with which eventually became a routine which eventually even became something i liked. i liked being forced to turn off my brain for 45 minutes after a long work day and i liked seeing progress in real time in the form of weight loss, gaining muscles and more importantly, being able to ride in time with the beat and keep up with arm combos. there were even days when i would leave the studio feeling lighter and more energised than when i left the office.

during the transitional period between KL and SG, there was a period of 2 months where i had to pause my Classpass membership because there were no classes in AS, and i felt so entirely out of place and uneasy from the lack of activity that i had grown accustomed to through weekly spin classes. now, i feel quite contented and satisfied to have incorporated spinning into my weekly routine here, and to actually like doing it without feeling forced anymore.

towards the end of August, right before my scheduled surgery, a combination of factors (needing to use up my Classpass credits before i pause my membership for 2 months post-surgery, wanting to push myself actively to see how far i could go and to compensate for the lost time post-surgery) brought about my self-proclaimed Fitness Week where i challenged myself every single day for a week to a different physical activity. day 1 saw me running voluntarily for the first time ever in my life at the nearby park connector. on day 2, i went to my second ever reformer pilates class and girl let me tell you that shit was tough as hell. day 3 was a spin class. day 4 was my first ever HIIT class with Eileen despite not really knowing how it would go. on day 5, i went to ActiveSG with Eileen again where our former intern Dinesh tutored us on using gym equipment. day 6 was a huge eye-opener: i went to a strength training class for the first time. honestly i’d booked the class upon impulse because never in a million years would i think that i wanted to lift weights but you know what guys, i get it now. i think it’s the satisfaction derived from realising how strong you can be, and wanting to train that strength while looking more toned and fit at the same time. it also helped immensely that my instructor had saint-like patience even though i was terrified at the thought of even doing a single bench press. but i did do it. 8 full sets of it too. the achievement felt exhilarating. i wanted to try more, push myself more to see what else i was capable of, but that would have to wait for now in the wake of my surgery. and then i finally ended Fitness Week with my last spin class on day 7.

it is a good feeling to have, to feel happy in my own skin and to know that i want to work towards that even further.

2. eating

not too sure if this topic might need to come with a content warning, but ok here is a content warning because i might touch on some matters associated with eating disorders.

i’ve been listening to Charli xcx’s brat on repeat lately and there’s this part in “Rewind” that goes:

obviously Charli sings from the perspective of being someone famous who is constantly scrutinised for her appearance but i am honestly also always thinking about my weight. nothing too surprising considering i just mentioned in point 1 above that i had the goal of losing weight but i only really gave this more serious thought lately as i realised i’ve had a complicated relationship with eating for quite some time now.

honestly my eating habits are strongly intertwined with my relationship with money ever since i moved to SG, but i’ll talk more on that later.

i think i am currently the thinnest i’ve been since primary school (or maybe since a-levels but i’m not really keeping track) and right now, after having developed a consistent workout routine, i am (ironically) deathly afraid of gaining weight. gradually over the past year, i have associated weight loss and being fitter with progress and consequently, confidence. which it is, but what then registers in my mind is that the moment i gain weight, that would mean that i have lost all the progress i made, and thus the confidence i gained. i don’t think this line of thinking is new or revolutionary – it really is the product of societal standards and expectations of what “beauty” is. and look, i am not immune to it. particularly in a day and age where one’s physical appearance can mean everything.

and i’m just gonna come right out and say it – i did not care so much about my weight when i was still in a relationship. i wasn’t even exercising then, and i remember consistently eating three meals a day without a second thought. but now, apart from lunch, i would think twice, thrice before deciding whether to eat. an ideal dinner for me used to be just fruits. sometimes i got way too hungry, so i’d add two slices of bread. an ideal dinner was one where i got hungry at night, then i’d know that i probably won’t gain weight. it was usually dinner when i struggle to decide whether i should eat. on one hand, if i didn’t eat enough, i might feel miserable or get a gastric attack. on the other, if i ate until i was full, i might be consumed with regret. so my thought process about eating dinner became very transactional: did i eat a lot during lunch? if yes, then just eat fruits for dinner. if not, and if i had just worked out, or if i was on my period, then okay i deserve to eat a proper meal. but no rice or noodles. preferably something healthy so i don’t feel guilty but also not too healthy because then it would be too expensive. if it’s the weekend or some other special occasion, then fine shut up brain go take a walk i’ll treat myself to a proper meal. goddamn writing all this down makes it sound so heinous.

i think all these was exacerbated by the fact that i have lived alone for many years and never really had a constant and readily available supply of meals. that is not to say that i don’t know how to take care of myself and look for food when i need to eat, but (and again this is something i will discuss in further detail below) without this constant supply, eating becomes more than just a freshly prepared meal on the dinner table waiting for me to come back. eating became a fixed, nagging thought at the back of my head that i had to think about while taking into consideration nutrition, volume, frequency and costs.

and i truly hated all this, because i actually love eating. i don’t know when it happened but somewhere along the way, i became someone who really looked forward to eating (as opposed to my younger self where i had a different kind of relationship with food/eating, some days i just really hated the notion of eating). so it just felt absolutely miserable when evenings rolled around and i had to play the “should i eat” game. and then the “what should i eat” game. but not in a “haha i can’t make up my mind” way but in a “what will make me not feel regret at the end of the night” way.

so, my relationship with eating. not exactly the greatest.

at some point in August i felt like i needed to do something about this because this shit did not feel healthy at all. coincidentally, a friend had just started PT and a calorie-counting diet so after hearing him explain the intricacies of maintaining a consistent calorie deficit to trigger weight loss, it sent me down a deep rabbit hole of watching and reading content that would make me understand this better. this feeling also prompted me to look up meal preps, try a bunch of new exercises (as evidenced by Fitness Week) and track my meals on a designated app.

and at first i thought, here we go again, another one of my antics when it comes to my relationship with eating and my weight, but as i learned to track the calories and nutrition values of my meals, it taught me to unlearn many things that i used to think were true about food. i learned that it was oftentimes more important to manage what i eat, rather than how much. so no, eating less is not the same as eating clean. skipping meals and starving myself was unnecessary if i knew what and how much i was consuming, all while being able to keep within an ideal weight range. pairing this newfound knowledge with the newfound desire to be more physically active made me feel more in control of my body, and ultimately my life.

3. money

no surprises here. everything is always inevitably connected to money.

i have always lived a relatively comfortable and privileged life where i am very, very fortunate enough to never have money as a major problem at any one point in my life. after moving to SG, money has become one of the more, if not the most, prevalent thought i have at the forefront of my mind in everything that i do.

and i think it ultimately boils down to living alone in a foreign country, with one of the main reasons of moving to said foreign country being to earn more money than where i was residing at previously.

i will preface this by saying that my current pay in SG is more than adequate to sustain my monthly expenses, with savings to spare. but there is heavy surveillance on how i spend. again, transactional in the sense that, in an effort to keep my daily expenditure below a certain amount, i had better skip a meal. or constantly doing mental calculations to decide whether to buy something here or in MY.

and maybe, this is all actually very normal to some. there are hundreds of thousands of Malaysians working in SG. this is not a special or unique struggle to have.

on a macro level, money concerns feel even heavier when it comes to thoughts about investments, buying properties, saving for retirement and all that comes before that (a family, medical bills etc). for the financially savvy, i’m sure all this presents a stimulating challenge and necessity, so i am aware i sound like a brat for saying – i never did like having this kind of relationship with money.

but despite my aforementioned feelings, i cannot deny that coming to SG has instilled a very different sense of responsibility within myself when it comes to financial independence and freedom. in a way, starting afresh and possessing a clean slate helped, like creating a new sims character and choosing what traits she should have. so i chose to want to learn what i previously had little care about (i am sure no matter what i say here, people will probably still judge so there is no point to sugarcoat any of it) and while i may be an amateur at 29 when my peers were probably a lot more educated at a way younger age, i do not consider this to be a competition with anyone else, and am contented with the same as long as i know i am working towards building the life that i would ideally like to have.

4. anxiety and mental illness

the last time i wrote about my mental health was 8 years ago.

sometime last month, i revealed to my colleagues my past struggles with my mental health, especially when dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. i had narrated my experiences rather factually, without sounding as emotionally charged as i used to be.

my first time telling my friends about my anxiety was in secondary school, where i had felt afraid of being judged. then i went to college for a-levels and again, disclosed this to my friends with the fear that they might want to distance themselves from me once they knew of my anxiety. same thing repeated in university.

but i realise each time was easier than the last, and no one ever left just because i told them about my mental illness. and i think my current comfort of being able to tell my colleagues about my past without fear of judgment can be chalked up to several factors: 1) it’s 2024. everyone probably has had some form of similar experience at some point in their lives, 2) past experiences dictated a favourable pattern in the responses i received, and 3) i feel confident and comfortable enough in my own skin, anxiety and all, to worry about what other people may think of my mental illness.

the difference and growth felt even more palpable when i was home for a month last month recovering from my surgery. at this point, it was almost a ritual to go through my old journals dating back to primary school just to mentally measure how far i’d come since i was a child. it was not news to me how incredibly unhappy and miserable i was with myself since i was, i would say, 15 up to at least 23 years old for various reasons mainly attributed to self-esteem issues, but reading the woeful entries i’d written probably while tears were streaming down my face made me feel like i was finally taking care of the girl who should have known how much love she had, and deserved, all the time. all the self-hatred i had for myself had gradually dissipated over the years of growing older, and i’d written in a recent entry this year, almost like an older sibling watching over the back of her youngest sister, that past me really did not have to think the worst of herself for a good portion of my life growing up. i called her That Girl. and although i no longer emotionally associated with nor wanted to be That Girl anymore, i also did not blame or hate That Girl for thinking and acting the way she did. i think That Girl had to go through all the shit she did in order to arrive at who i am today. i am certain that i would not be where i am today if not for That Girl and the tribulations she had faced.

i wanted to hug That Girl and tell her that everything will be alright, and that she will eventually learn to love herself in a way she had never even thought possible. and it really was the most at ease and at peace i’d ever felt with myself.

5. relationships (friendships and dating)

finally, my relationship with my relationships.

in a manner that is absolutely intertwined and aligned with my self-loathing and people-pleasing tendencies, i grew up with frequent nagging paranoia that people around me, including my friends, really actually disliked me even though my friends, god bless them, have shown nothing but patience and kindness by constantly reassuring me otherwise. and i think it definitely took a lot of time and work for me to finally, truly, absolutely believe them and offer the same intensity of love in return.

again, this progress was something that i had realised most tangibly in the following recent situations:

1) after my breakup with Oliver, i had depended a lot on my friends at the time in KL, especially since i was living alone. perhaps desperation and emotional vulnerability are to be blamed, but i had no hesitation reaching out to everyone i considered myself close to to help me through those arduous and distressing times. i joked that my friends were taking turns to babysit me, but they really were there for me every step of the way. it was one of the lowest points of my life but my friends had my back and lifted me up from the grimy crevices of grief and heartache when i literally could not do the same for myself. i trust my friends with my whole life, and i vowed to spend the rest of my life devoting myself to being present for my friends come hell or high water in the same way they had for me.

2) i knew coming to a foreign land and making new friends was no easy feat, but i surprised myself not just by making several new genuine and authentic connections, but more importantly by trusting in them in a way i struggled to do so throughout my adolescence. that is not to say that i don’t occasionally feel the uneasy tendrils of doubt and paranoia sprout up at the back of my head when something remotely untoward occurs, but swinging them away with adequate force to banish them from my mind feels almost like an automatic reflex now, as opposed to how laborious it used to feel.

hence, while matters relating to the romantic department may appear rather lacklustre in comparison at this juncture of my life, many epiphanic (lol) discoveries were made. the first obviously being that: the love people often rave about desiring from a romantic partner is not something only a significant other can exclusively provide; the love i receive from family, friends and even myself was not lacking in any way to make my life a desolate one. in the same vein, i have learned (am still am learning) to break free from the notion of tethering my own self-worth to the opinions of others, because at the end of the day, all that matters is how much i enjoy my own company, how comfortable i feel in my own skin, how greatly i value my own thoughts, perceptions and principles, and how much love i feel for myself.

and i hope many, many years down the road, the me in the distant future will be able to read this entry with as much fondness as i had reading That Girl’s entries, and celebrate the realisation of how far That Girl has finally come.

1: feinsod, jane [@janefeinsod], “this graffiti is bringing tears to my eyes” X, 15 June 2024, https://x.com/janefeinsod/status/1801662409276592279

2: caption of “I LOVE THIS TOWN!! AND MY FRIENDS!” edited over a photograph of kuala lumpur federal highway, 18 June 2024, 6:14PM

since my move to SG, i’ve travelled back to KL twice. the first time was purely because i missed my friends and there was a labour day holiday, and the second time was for my birthday.

both times, i took a coach from Novena which dropped me off at Bangsar. everytime the coach exited the toll bringing us into KL, the familiar sight of KL’s city skyline never fails to evoke feelings of excitement, comfort and relief. the first thought that popped up during my first return to KL was, “i feel safe now”, which is ironic considering i had just come from SG.

but it wasn’t actual safety that i was thinking about, but rather the security that came with knowing the inside out of a city like the back of my hand, knowing where to go and who to find in the city i had lived in for 5 years. there was a certain feeling of freedom, autonomy and mobility that i had felt upon being back – again, another irony given i was without a vehicle and had to travel everywhere by Grab.

still, the feeling of belonging was present, even though i had left. and this feeling was especially pronounced when i find myself performing routines that i used to find mundane in my past life – walking in Publika where i had worked at for 3 years, getting a fresh manicure at my favourite manicurist in Kepong, visiting the Herbaline Hartamas branch that i always frequented for facial appointments, spinning at Club Aloha where i used to go every week – these were all activities i barely batted an eyelid at previously, yet feel so much nostalgia for now that they no longer form part of my current routine. now, i find myself pausing in the midst of these former routines, gears slowing down in my brain just a bit as i realise how much i miss the life that came with these familiar habits. it always felt like i was trying to mould my headspace back into the one i had half a year ago, until i shake myself awake to come to terms with the rude awakening that i am now just a mere visitor in this city i now long for so much.

this all may sound very dramatic, but i cannot help the strong Yearning™ that surfaces from the aforementioned familiarity and comfort, the alluring, repeated calls of my friends to “just come back” and finally, the involuntary and subconscious pondering of what my life could have looked like had i not chosen to leave KL.

the two weeks i had spent in KL over the past two months (coupled with a myriad of other reasons, some of which i prefer not to disclose here) were enough to wage an internal war within myself as i boarded the coach back to SG just last week. it was enough to push me into a decision-making corner where i toyed with firming up the idea of coming back after a two-year tenure in SG. in that moment, it felt like the most natural and correct decision to make. most importantly, it felt like a decision that i wanted to make.

now here’s the thing – it would not have been a war had it not been for the fact that i do not dislike my life in SG. in fact, i wrote a whole ass post just three weeks ago that i had no regrets moving to SG. looking inwards from a pair of objective lens, i was cognisant of what i was feeling – longing, yearning, missing of what felt familiar and comfortable to me. but wasn’t that precisely the reason why i made the decision to move, so that i could leave my then comfort zone?

during the initial stages when i was deliberating altering the course of my life path, one of the reasons i told myself in support of this decision was that i wanted a change of environment, wanted to explore what else there was out there beyond what i had already known. there were friends around me who were also moving overseas for work or to pursue a master’s, so it had made sense in my mind to do something similar. to test my own boundaries and see what i was capable of and how much more i could grow. i had no commitments tying me down to any one place anyway, it was the perfect window of opportunity to explore. i gave myself the standard self pep talk and believed in it.

but i also cannot deny that i have in recent times been repeatedly reminded that peers of my age range now have different priorities in mind, building up their support systems and choosing to settle down and start the next phase of their lives in a place of their choice. it is that time of my life and it has been since last year, when my social media feed was filled with nothing but updates about engagements, weddings, housebuying and even childbirths. and while if you ask me now if that is what i want at this juncture of my life i can answer negatively with no hesitation, there is still this nagging feeling at the back of my head activated by societal expectations and pressure that – maybe i am not doing life the right way. as a child, i never doubted that my future blueprint would not stray all that much from the typical adulting experience. being different was not characteristic of me. and now while i do not fear being different, i do fear the objective correctness of how my life is panning out.

that is to say, i struggle between feeling too young to stay stagnant and not continue exploring, and too old to not begin any plans of settling down. and i often feel like i can’t say for sure what i want, because i always feel like a different person depending on where i am, in this case KL and SG. and for each time in SG that i feel like the best version of myself by being hyper independent, constantly chasing after self growth and building an ideal identity for myself, i return to KL feeling like i no longer need or want such a bragging right, and often wish to give all of that up just to have a comfortable and relatively stable life back.

still, i know there is no correct answer to any of this. perhaps i am jumping the gun by feeling pressured to make a decision now, having only been in SG for four months, but i sometimes wonder if each day i spend not having a concrete future plan in place is a day wasted towards building an ideal future for myself, whether it’s in KL or SG.

***

the coach ride back to SG that Tuesday was painful and took a whole 7 hours. by the time i reached Tuas Checkpoint, i was tired, sticky and hungry. but funnily enough, as i pushed my luggage through the white autogates and was greeted with more English signs rather than BM ones, i could feel a literal shift in my psyche. remember how i said i feel like two different people in both cities? apparently all it took was physically crossing the border to evoke that shift. i was thinking about work the next day but not in a bad way, nestling down into my sheets in my rented room at Redhill, and restarting my spinning routine at Revolution. i was so caught up with missing my KL routines that i’d forgotten i had also developed routines in SG which, although not familiar or nostalgic, felt mine.

this sense of belonging (SG Version) intensified further on my first day back at the office, where i slowly regained a feeling of purpose. my purpose. fulfilling my role in the company. attending pilates with my colleagues and having satay dinner with some beer after. for someone who dreaded returning to SG less than 24 hours ago, i was certainly settling in well in the routine i have (present tense), feeling happy and contented. that weekend, Caitlin, Ian, Mark and i organised a game night where we spent 5 chaotic hours playing Mario Kart and Overcooked at Caitlin and Mark’s new flat, which made me feel so fulfilled and warm inside. even when i spent the rest of that weekend doing nothing but binge watch Netflix on my iPad in bed after my weekly spin class, it felt homely.

and yet (this post is filled with self-inflicted contradictions), i still don’t know if i can see a long term future by staying in SG, given how stifling it feels to even just learn about the rigid and fixed family planning system this nanny state has drawn up for its residents.

now do you understand my present dilemma? how can i simultaneously feel at home in two different places yet like a nomad with no specific anchor to any one place, all at once? the internal war within me rages on.

it is almost a rite of passage for people i meet in different phases of my life to chance upon this blog. i remember feeling some form of vulnerability when i was younger during a-levels or uni, since i used to be fairly generous in the extent of emotions i allowed myself to pour into my writing, but i generally welcomed it, since reading my blog allowed others treasured insight into my thoughts and emotions which were greatly reserved for the written word only.

so when one of my colleagues messaged me on Teams one evening last week to tell me that he had discovered my blog and found himself resonating with posts i had written about two michelle eras ago, i felt a strong sense of deja vu. but this time, i did not feel the familiar self-consciousness that often arose with the fear of being known and perceived by somebody new. maybe it’s because i hardly write here anymore to warrant any strong feelings of reticence, or maybe i am approaching a point in my life where i am happy and comfortable with every bit that makes me who i am, even the parts that i used to hide away from the world. regardless, it made me feel nostalgic and somewhat… proud.

there used to be a gaping chasm between the Person I Was, and the Person I Wanted to Be, and i think i spent a good deal of my youth constantly beating myself up and urgently chasing something in order to close this sickening gap. this gap then manifested in a difference between a portrayal of the self via my online persona and in real life, which prompted me to write this piece for a friend’s zine back in 2016 which started off as follows:

and that is one of the things that makes my dramatic move to SG worth it – having the opportunity to rebrand myself. building a life routine for myself which i actually like. it is true when they say a change in one’s physical surroundings can cause as impactful a change in one’s psyche. i don’t think i am drastically a different person from who i was when i left MY, but there have been multiple occasions since i moved here when i subconsciously found myself looking at myself from a third person’s point of view and realised that the person i am today is very close to who i had been striving to be for most of my teenage and early adult years. i cannot begin to describe how exhilarating and surreal it feels to finally feel happy in my own skin.

(hence why when people tell me all good things end in your 20s, i strongly disagree with them. i spent my 20s figuring out who exactly it is i wanted to be, and i will happily spend my 30s being exactly the person i wanted to be.)

so despite the doubts and anxieties i had prior to my move here, i think i made the right choice to move. there are many things i still lament about (the comfort and familiarity of MY, for example), but i do feel the small bouts of regret which occasionally rear their ugly heads dissipating day by day. another colleague told me how much she appreciated my presence since i joined the company, and sometimes that in itself makes me feel like the move was already worth it.

i do believe that change in any way, shape or form is not only a crucial building block towards growth, but it is also highly valuable in that not many people are lucky enough to be afforded the opportunity to leave their comfort zones in the pursuit of something more. i wrote before that i was envious of peers who had the fortune to stay, but maybe the real fortuity lies in being able to leave.

i do not regret taking this leap of faith despite the myriad of events leading up to this decision, but whether SG is a place i see myself calling home – that is a different story for another time.

• change, part ii

it’s been 15 days since i landed in Singapore. i have a list of preliminary observations which i keep on my notes app just so i can remember to talk about them.

1. i can literally walk anywhere. coming from KL where getting anywhere is nigh impossible without a car, my first few days (up until now still, tbh) in Singapore was spent walking around central area, in awe that i could literally get anywhere without having to worry about traffic and parking. maybe this will be a con later on (as i cannot deny that travelling times have doubled precisely because i have to get everywhere by foot/ public transport), but as it stands now, having everything be so accessible feels super easy and convenient.
2. this is a perfect segway to the next point i.e. the convenience of everything. especially in respect of meals, i never have to worry about not having cheap food to eat because there seems to always be a food centre within walking distance no matter where i am. it made me remember a time when i was still staying in Arte on a weekend and wanted to have lunch but didn’t want to have to a) drive out to eat b) spend RM40-50 for cafe food downstairs or c) spend a similar RM20-30 for food delivery. but here, going anywhere feels very accessible and convenient. the downside being, of course, the time trade off. a car journey of ~20 mins is now about an hour by public transport. but i’ve not met any instances where i had to rush yet, so this trade off does not appear to be substantial at the moment.
3. it feels very safe everywhere. this is a given, Singapore being known for being a low-crime city with heavy and comprehensive surveillance, but i never really felt the practical consequences of living within such an environment until after moving from KL to SG. it’s so safe that people here appears to just have their front doors open the whole day. related observation: there are no mosquitoes that enter the house even with the front door open at night. what’s up with that
4. i’m not going to lie, before coming here, i consulted a fair number of people familiar with the city on how living in Singapore is like. the main two things i heard were: a) the food is not as good and b) the people are not as friendly. for point a, ok fair, but i’ve never been a big foodie (except where Real BKT is concerned) so i’ve never really thought of this as an issue during my whole two weeks here. for point b, which was actually my greatest source of anxiety, i actually sort of geared myself up to anticipate being treated in an unfriendly manner by locals upon my arrival but – everyone i’ve met here so far have been nothing but super friendly. from my colleagues to the aunties and uncles at food centres to some random uncle on the bus during my morning commute. then again i’ve only been here for two weeks so one can argue that my perception of SG is derived from a limited scope of experience, but so far my initial expectations of the food and people here have been greatly exceeded.
5. this one is a minor one that amuses me quite a bit. there’s no denying that Singlish and Manglish are greatly similar. i’ve been told a few times by Singaporeans i’ve met that i don’t “sound Malaysian” or that they can’t tell that i’m not a local. not that it means anything because i feel like conversationally, i see no great distinction between how Malaysians and Singaporeans speak. but there were two differences i noticed in the words/ pronunciations deployed by people from these two countries – where Malaysians often say “got”, Singaporeans say “have” instead. the other one is a pronunciation-related one, where Malaysians pronounce “us” as “uhs” whereas Singaporeans seem to pronounce as “ahs”.

okay now that we’ve got the good/ funny stuff out of the way and most people would’ve stopped reading by now; despite having been here for two weeks, i still feel like an impostor in this country. many bouts of “wtf am i doing here” often arise. it’s not even a work-related thing, even though i had some struggles initially, but more of a “i can’t believe i made myself come here to this foreign city alone, was it even a good idea”.

again, i am not exactly suffering here. whenever anyone asks me how’s SG i always answer positively, which is the truth. it’s also not like life here is tremendously objectively different from my old life in KL. in fact, i was incredibly excited during my first week here, always wanting to go out and explore and i still do, fascinated by skyscraper views as well as the myriad of new activities i could do, but at the very end of my first week here, while lying down in bed in a room that i was crashing at a relative’s friend’s place, i missed the feeling of belonging and familiarity which i have appeared to have left behind in my old life in KL. now that that’s gone, something i had voluntarily discarded by up and leaving my comfortable life of five years in KL, i felt a bit like a floating nomad with no anchor to any particular foundation just yet. i trust this is normal, having only moved to a new city for two weeks, but it’s an insidious kind of anxiety that creeps up in the dead of the night when i am no longer preoccupied by the busyness of a new routine and newness of a new life. and it is not a great feeling to have, as it often leads to strong feelings of yearning, nostalgia and melancholy.

there are many things i miss in this bubble of solitude – the routine i had, the assurance i felt about my life, and the friends that i could reach out to easily.

(it also doesn’t help that i still see multiple phantom memories in several familiar locations here which exacerbates the melancholy, but my first instinct whenever encountering these spurts of flashbacks is the desire to overwrite them with new memories.)

so this is my Two Weeks in SG Wrapped. hopefully the next time i return for a subsequent update it will have a more positive tone to it.