How nice to be able to stay frozen in this moment, staring out blankly at a sea of waves and nothing else, for all of time. Of course our minds would have to stop moving, otherwise Daniel would either get bored or fall asleep.Hence, the moment never lasts. I find one split-second of stillness (the state of tranquility people like to call "peace") and the next second I am awash again with the neverending cacophony of thoughts about my today, tomorrow, yesterday and what-next. No wonder it takes a few thousand life-times or more to get to nirvana - if I'll ever make it there.
In my 20s, I was gripped by periodic states of anxiety and anticipation, it was like I was dangling over a small cliff, trying to get up to safety, where there would be another cliff on which I would perch precariously for a while.
I learnt how to push out the noise and became much calmer and happier when I hit 29. I felt like I had reached my first plateau and I now wanted to be something more than just the blind and pointless "happy" that arrives like a big wave and recedes just as swiftly. That meant fixing a lot of stuff that had gone awry in the past few years of scrambling and battling. There are broken relationships that cost too much emotion to mend. But it is never too costly to mend a relationship with your parent, no matter how long it would take. I have been trying over the last 4 years to overcome the blame I put on certain people whom I believe had contributed to the breakdown of this relationship. I tried to focus on how I could mend the rift and take responsibility for my actions even though my indignation and pride protest against taking all of the blame.
It hasn't been easy. A human's sense of injustice and anger at events long past, and people long gone manifest in dreams of rage and recrimination. I believe it was the philosophy of the transience of all life that my mind was able to focus and not fall into a low-grade depression.
Meanwhile, the part of my mind that wasn't passively engaged in emotional damage-control worked overtime to achieve Balance. I call it Balance and not Happiness because I do not feel Happy. I feel better than that. I wake in the morning and Daniel is beside me, a reassurance that I am loved (for who I am and not what I have or what I can provide). The work I do and the satisfaction I feel at the end of the day attests to my competency as a member of society and the fact that I belong somewhere. The roof over our heads attests to our mutual committment to each other and a future of joint venture and parenthood. The options to move overseas and opportunities that come with this assures me that there is much more to learn and experience beyond our current existence.
I did not set out to achieve things to become "Happy". Don't get me wrong, I have many moments of happiness but I notice each one of them as they come along and ebb away again. Like when I am laughing with my colleagues at something, when I'm lazing in the pool with my friends, when I'm talking to my mother over dinner and when Daniel proposed.
I've learnt to respect the moments of calm nothing-states I experience nowadays as balance. It's no longer like the ennui of my youth and the resentment in my 20s. The unbearable lightness and heaviness are now in equal measure and sometimes, the stillness cancels each one out. Achievements, big and small, are thrilling, but equally transient. They make my day, but I want to work on this Balance thing now that the 30s are upon me and feel the pleasant state of stillness for more than a few moments each day.
