speaking of today, 2011

I am entering the last year of my twenties. A lot of my slightly younger friends perceive this as the last year they have before registering for geriatric wards, but age is gracious enough to prepare you for more age, if you get what I mean. It doesn't help that I'm a December kid. In Malaysia, everyone asks you for your age by the year, so it felt that I was twenty eight for all of one month, before being obliged to tell people that I was 'turning twenty nine this year'.

But I digress slightly.

Most of my friends know that I put in a birthday post as kind of a tradition. Part of me thinks how wankerly it is; another part considers it as a favor I do for myself, a checkpoint to reflect on my life, just in case I'm subconsciously slipping bribes to my synapses.

I think this year, I've been operating cleanly. Or could that be the 'donation' speaking?

Two thousand eleven was one big rush, and I have not sat down yet. Today is a day like any other. I got to work late because I got stuck at home trying to trace a misplaced phone; I slept 4 hours in distress of a damaged hard drive containing years of work and memories; tonight I am performing the preview for a brand new murder mystery called 'Klue Doh!', a Malaysian-Australian collaboration that will be staged until 17th December. As a no-downtime milestone, Klue Doh! will be the third and final theatre project I will be engaged in this year. Knowing me, there would have been a fourth if the year lasted a tad longer.

It's a huge leap from my humble 4-month recluse in Burma. In fact, I now do recall stepping fresh off the plane in February and heading straight into the first script reading of Klue Doh.

Burma was amazing. I can say without blinking that She Changed My Life. I wanted to write an epilogue of my stint there, but I could not find the right words. I haven't even shared all my pictures of Her, because it was that intimate of a relationship. Devastatingly, I might not ever will now that my hard drive is dead. But if any one of my friends have intentions of visiting, I say go. Now. Keep your your mind open to understand, your heart open to appreciate, and She will sweep you off your feet, rest your head on Her bountiful lap and need you with grapes. Or even better, the fermented liquid manifestation of it. (As a non-drinker, I confess I took a sip from a glass of cheap-as-chips local honey wine; it was humble and glorious.)

I've had many moments this year where I have had to swallow my pride, cry even, in fear that I was not able to accomplish what I had set myself up to do. Dancing next to trained dancers, conversing and singing in languages that don't come naturally to me, being treated unprofessionally, maintaining an LDR, loosening principles to save my ass in a foreign country, re-homing an animal... And still finding greatness in all of it. Making myself small has made life appear so much bigger.

"Should prosperity befall thee, rejoice not and should abasement come upon thee, grieve not, for both shall pass away and be no more."

- from The Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh

I started off my birthday passage last year with a Baha'i quote, which ever more represents what I have experienced this year. I've earned big jobs, I've lost big jobs. I've been sneered at, I've been cheered at. I've taken amazing pictures, I've lost an entire bank of memories. People have given birth; people have died. The cosmos has this amazing sense of balance, and I am constantly learning to honor that. A couple of weeks ago, I took a 2-day retreat to Bali. The evening before my flight home, I sat on the beach by myself, and watched the colors of the sky mingle and dim, and I remembered all this, and I took in the world, and I cried.

Sometimes it takes knowing someone else to know yourself better. I've spent the most part of the last three years on my own, constructing and de-constructing whenever, and I figured that self-accountability was something I could get used to. I have had moments where I've mistakenly assumed that my own principles ran the status quo. Thanks to friends and family, my joyrides to Doucheville have always been shortlived.

I've started hanging out with a guy. Our paths crossed in a peculiar way, but I think he's neat, he thinks I'm neat too, and together we have found a steady state of neatness. I haven't clicked so well with someone in a long time. Once I managed to translate my 'fear of commitment' to a 'fear of re-learning me', everything became so simple. Any opportunity to evolve is golden, and more so when it involves an utter stud muffin.

I have not felt so 'centred' in my life... it feels really dope. I'm itching to bloom and love and create. Growing 'old' is not a bane as much as it is the privilege of making each day as amazing as it can be, and as important as you are to yourself. Today I grieve my losses but I know I will be better. I am grateful and proud to be where, who and how I am. I am grateful for my ups, my downs, my body, my family, my dog, my work, my friends, my community, my partner, my dreams, my breath… on a day like any other.

Off to the theatre! Thank you for reading, thank you for your wishes, and may you continue to create this day.

Your fellow inventor,

Davina