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.
- 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.
michelle teoh 