Reading through my archives makes me realize what a sad, unhappy person I've become. I sound so fustrated and angry so much of the time. And it scares me how helpless I feel about the way I am now.

Is it me? That I just can't adapt to living with such a system? Or that I'm not good enough to meet the demands of the system? I don't have what it takes to teach in TJ? I'm just not a 'kiasu' and 'kiasi' Singaporean and so I can't get along? I'm not cut out to teach in Singapore? I don't know, I don't know. So much of the time I feel like I keep having to live up to people's demands, especially in school, that I find myself with no time to think of anything but how unhappy I am.

I'm tired of having to watch what I say all the time. I'm tired of having to meet the demands of others. Call it self pity if you want, but what about my needs? What about the time I need to continue growing as a person, as a musician? What about time I need to spend talking to the people who are important to me? I don't seem to be able to fit into any of this.

I often think back to my Uni days in London. I was sad then because I was so far from home, but I was given the space to think, to feel, to grow. I feel so stifled here, as if I've fallen into a pit of quicksand and those who offer one helping hand hold daggers in the other hand.

What can I do for myself? Do I march up and answer back to whatever I don't agree with? That isn't viable, I'd be making life more difficult for myself. Isn't that very sad though, when bosses tell you that they value people who can think, who can innovate, and yet society at large is intolerant of those who cannot conform?

I'm just very confused and very tired. I feel like a shell of whoever I was, whoever I want to be. Sometimes I don't know who I am anymore. In school I act a certain way, with certain people I act in different ways. I seem to be defined by how others perceive me and I act accordingly. If I strip away all the material things that I'm defined by, my music, my engagement ring, my usual way of dressing.. who am I really? I stare at myself in the mirror and try to read my own eyes. And it doesn't surprise me why so few know who I really am, because I don't even know who I am myself.

As Mahler's Adagietto (Symph No. 5) plays in the background, memories of time spent in lectures and reading about him flood my hollow self, images of myself at the Senate House library, buying mochas from the Starbucks across the street from Uni and wandering down the streets of Central London just watching people and places go by... Who am I?

I am lost to the world.

glittermissy @ 12:15 PM + + Permalink