Winnie Lim » journal

journal/

on-going mostly unedited stream of thoughts

May 11, 2025

one

With only a few days remaining, we made our way to the physical shop after ordering it a few times on uber eats. It is a greek yoghurt bowl, but it has a really dense consistency and a different texture compared to the greek-style yoghurt we are accustomed to. We have had this form of greek yoghurt in seoul before, but were pleasantly surprised to see it in taipei because we haven’t seen it anywhere else including singapore.

We headed there expecting to takeaway, but the shop had dine-in seats in open air. I approached the counter after having issues with payment. A very friendly person came to settle the problem, and asked us where we are from.

“Singapore!” she exclaimed excitedly in mandarin. We were both taken aback, because this is not a typical reaction we have had from travelling. She explained that it is her dream to open a branch in singapore. We said we would love to have the yoghurt in singapore. How nice would it be to enjoy this (hot and sunny) weather every day, she continued.

It is very strange to witness this enthusiasm for my home country especially when I have complicated feelings for it myself. She allowed me to open up a different perspective, and her enthusiasm lingers in my mind even till now.

two

Tired and hungry, we eagerly headed towards this dim sum restaurant in the rain after seeing that it has an alfresco dining area on google maps. To our disappointment upon reaching, the area was not in use. After deliberating and considering our options for a long while, we decided to ask if we could order take out and consume it in that alfresco area. Steeling herself up because we tend to get negative reactions from such requests, my partner went to the door host. 19 out of 20 times we would get rejected understandably, and the 20th time someone would concede albeit very reluctantly. But I’ve been conditioned by my partner that we should try anyway because there have been those few positive instances that were worth it.

Surprisingly, the door host said okay without batting an eyelid. I had to ask my partner several times if it was really okay – like was there some miscommunication or mistranslation?

During the ordering process the door host asked again if we would like to reconsider dining indoors as there was ample availability. I explained to her that we don’t take off our masks indoors, hence we don’t dine indoors. Again I prepared myself for the inevitable quizzical why are you so weird reaction on her face, but nope. She nodded her head and carried on with my order.

We got our food and proceeded to eat outdoors. There were no tables but they had a long bench. I was still preparing myself psychologically for the scenario that they may change their minds or realise what we truly wanted versus what we had communicated.

Minutes later the door hostess came out with a pot of piping hot tea, telling us that it was complimentary in exchange for not being able to provide us with tables outdoors. I dropped my jaw. This is the first time someone was actually nice to us about our unreasonable request even though it was an inconvenience for them. Their outdoor area was not connected to their main door, so she had to walk quite a bit in the unsheltered cold drizzle to serve us that tea in a glass pot. Furthermore I think her boss asked her what was going on. I hoped she did not get into trouble for us.

Is this taiwanese hospitality? I cannot tell you how many times we were told unpleasantly we cannot dine outdoors even when there were actual tables because nobody wants to service that area. This is an exceptional experience that I will always remember.

three

We had decided last minute to take an uber to the airport. It was estimated to be at least a 40-minute ride, so 5 minutes into the silent ride I spontaneously started asking the driver questions. I used to do this often years ago but stopped due to various reasons. I am usually quite awkward and introverted, but somehow I appreciated listening to the different stories the drivers can offer. There is almost never a boring driver. Offensive ones yes, occasionally.

I asked if he liked taking passengers to the airport. The journey is long, and depends on the existing regulations and location of the airport they may not be able to get passengers on the way back to the city. He answered yes, and started explaining to me the different types of commercial driving in Taipei. There are regular taxis, then ubers which are not allowed to pick up passengers from the airport, then there are cars who can offer to and fro airport trips on top of tourist-rental services but they cannot pick up ride-hailing passengers from the street. One can identify the type of vehicle from the license plate. I find it interesting to know the various regulations in different countries, and how different people approach offering ride-hailing as a service. This driver has a full-time job but he does this on the side, and also has a car that can be used to offer tourist services.

I told him about the car prices in singapore – as of writing the cheapest Honda Civic retails at about 160k SGD (123k usd) – and how we can only typically drive it for 10 years. If we want to extend an old car for another 10, we have to pay roughly 100k SGD now for another certificate of entitlement (COE). This almost never fails to boggle someone else’s mind, even when COE prices were 30k.

He said he would really like to visit singapore, because he wants to experience singapore’s reputation as a prosperous city (his words, loosely translated from mandarin’s 繁華). Again, for me it is surreal listening to someone else talk about our country.

We exchanged a few more country and culture specific tidbits – he too was surprised to learn that we had found the people in taipei extremely warm. To him, the people from the south are much warmer. I guess it is all relative.

The long ride felt like breeze because of the conversation, with some laughter peppered along the way. I was glad we were wearing zimi headloop kn100 masks so we felt safe conversing. He was masked too, like at least 50% of taiwanese uber drivers.

It was a fitting end to our trip, the interaction with the driver left us feeling warm and fuzzy. It actually made me glad we took an uber instead of the airport train, because we could have this exchange.

I wrote this because I didn’t want to lose my memories, just like how many years later my written memory of an old taiwanese couple we met 7 years ago still evokes complex feelings. I wonder if any of you would find any of these interesting?

May 2, 2025

9 years together

To me, being in a relationship is like choosing to engage in a continuous power battle. I know it sounds unromantic but age has taught me that the way to truly sustain a relationship is to acknowledge the darker aspects first. This way it allows for a truly honest engagement between us, and it creates a space where we can be truly our selves with each other. I have learnt that sacrifice in a relationship can be toxic, and consciously participating in a mutual exchange can be healthier. We know what we’re exchanging, what we’re benefiting, and what we are giving up — for each other. A romantic relationship is still like any relationship: it has an invisible ledger, it is equally subject to deterioration if not carefully managed, and it is foolish to pretend otherwise.

It is with these considerations that I am celebrating our 9 years together. Love is an abstract word and concept. Anyone can say they love, but what does that truly mean? It is a miracle to me that we can successfully navigate 9 years together despite our stark differences in our personalities. If I say the reason that we are able to last till today is because of love, to me that is massively discounting the effort we have both put in to be together. Yet I do acknowledge the luck of meeting someone whose company we genuinely enjoy being in. I don’t know how we can both change radically as individuals throughout these 9 years and yet we still like each other.

Because of our fortunate and unusual circumstances for most of our relationship we spend almost all of our waking hours in each others’ company. We are hardly apart, so perhaps we’ve been together for 18 years relative to other people’s typical relationships. That makes it more incredible that we are able to tolerate each other for this long. It hasn’t been easy because in different ways we both have strong personalities and we both have an intense need for space to create and develop. To be honest, I am not sure how we’ve managed it.

But she is the only person in this world to see me, perhaps more than I am capable of seeing myself. She would probably say the same. What insane luck is this, to be able to meet such a person?

We have spent 5 out of the 9 years together in a pandemic. I have read of many couples who have to split up because of their different levels of precautions. Or they could be on the same page initially, and diverged as the pandemic wore on. Yet we managed to have the same beliefs and philosophy when it comes to our health. I don’t take this for granted just because we are a couple. I know of several covid cautious people whose partners don’t give a shit if they bring home a potentially disabling virus to their partner, even if the partner is immunocompromised.

For us the most important thing in our lives is to sustain a creative practice, and we are aware that creativity requires optimal health and cognizance. We are both people who don’t require a social life and are pretty immune to social pressure, so we feel incredibly lucky that we can be covid cautious together.

Maybe it is weird to devote a few paragraphs of text to our covid-cautiousness as a couple, but it has a very tangible impact on us in our daily lives and decisions. We both have to endure the hyper-vigilance and stress that comes with it, as well as the social judgement and jibes. It could affect our relationship negatively, so I truly appreciate we are united on this. I can count on her to do the risk calculus when we encounter different environments, because she is more cautious and rational than me. I tend to be swayed by the allure of delicious food, sadly.

Here is a nine-year photo retrospective of us. I think it has been an incredible journey to accumulate 9 years of various experiences together. Half or more of these 9 years I was actually pretty sick, and I of all people know it is not easy to be with a chronically ill person. Yet she has been there, witnessing, acknowledging, and nurturing. She has seen me through all those days of unyielding pain and vomitting. My inability to regulate myself. The darkness that hovers around me perpetually.

People may think that photos are easy and cheap these days, but to me the opportunities to take photos are precious. Because we don’t know when we will lose the ability to stand casually and pose for one, or if the environment will still stay safe enough, or if we can even be alive to do so. To be alive for these entire 9 years, to still want to take these photos, to be able to somewhat see how time has passed for us — I hope I’ll never take this for granted.

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

April 27, 2025

textures and scenes from tainan

I love when I position my camera for a snap, the subject responds positively like this:

photo of a cyclist unexpectedly posing for me

My partner calls Tainan the most aesthetic city for our trip. It is filled with old things and textures, the opposite of our home country. Because Singapore is always changing, I end up craving for old things.

In most cities skyscrapers are everywhere, so it is rare to see the blue sky like this – it reminds me of San Francisco:

One night the winding roads led us to stumbling across two open-air activities: one a traditional opera, the other was playing Ip Man 3 on a projector screen. I couldn’t capture a wide enough angle, but behind me there were more people sitting on their motorbikes watching the movie, some shop owners were watching it even from a far distance.

We don’t experience these in Singapore anymore.

photo of people watching Ip Man 3 in open-air

Sometimes I notice an interesting scene so I raise my phone to take a very quick photo, only to realise much later that somebody was actually smiling at me:

photo of someone smiling at my camera when I took a photo of a doorway

I like stumbling upon unexpected scenes, things that remind me that the spectrum of human creativity is so wide.

photo of a window with a sign saying "cold beer here!"

We had only spent 2 nights in Tainan and had to leave because the accommodation prices for the approaching weekend were horrendous, but we were very glad to have made an unexpected stop here.

I find the camera such a wonderful tool, because it allows me to record and store snippets of my observations, and share them here with you.

April 20, 2025

random scenes and words from taichung

Taichung was an easy one hour high speed rail ride from Taipei. Again I have to mention that being from a country that is 50km wide, the idea that one can take a train and end up in a different city somehow still boggles my mind. I have chronic envy for people in europe who can travel to a different culture in less than an hour.

To my surprise while reviewing my photos I didn’t take many street photos. I took many more photos of food, but those would probably appear in a different post. We were less inclined to walk due to temperatures getting much warmer. I like Taichung: there were plenty of alfresco dining options (we only eat outdoors due to covid cautiousness), and we had fun browsing stationery shops. We even had dinner from the original inventor of bubble tea, and they had a ton of alfresco seating.

photo of a tea place that is supposedly the inventor of bubble tea

In Taiwan there are fixed timings for rubbish and recycling collection – they play this jingle and everyone lines up for their turn at the trucks. We think this may make people more mindful of their consumption:

photo of people lining up to give their recycling to a truck

We were dining at a restaurant during a weekend, and owner told us everyone would be at the square. It was such a wonderful sight to see people just playing and having fun:

This reminded us of Cheonggyecheon stream in south korea:

photo of people sitting around in a canal that has been landscaped into a park

Sometimes the moment happens too quickly so instead of my camera I take quick shots with my phone:

photo of a pair of children wearing purple helmets, staring at a food stall

We have been here 7 years ago, and I have almost zero collection of the place. It was meaningful to revisit it with a new consciousness, to see it through a different set of eyes. Both of us were not bullet journalling yet, so there wasn’t any documentation to refer to. However I had swarm checkins, and I kept getting surprised when the app tells me that we had visited certain places before. I appreciate that at least we have a set of photos, though again due to a heat wave back then we didn’t take that many photos.

I think the desire to remember is a form of hoarding life, the unwillingness to let go of what we’ve experienced. But similar to comparing differences between versions of texts, I like to contrast the textures and feelings between the versions of my selves, however vague those impressions may be. Some people may find it meaningless to visit the same place again, but for me the experience is always different and yet somewhat familiar, and that in itself is a form of travel.

Each city has a soul, and it can be a meditative experience to interact with it. I like Taichung’s soul, more than I had originally expected.

April 11, 2025

taipei after 7 years

The last time we’ve been to taiwan was in 2018, just a couple years fresh into our relationship. 7 years later we’re both radically different people with different interests: back then she was not into fabric art, and I did not have a camera.

photo of my partner and me taken in front of a mirror

I try not to be intrusive and take quick snaps, but sometimes they just happen to look up at the same time. Street photography can be controversial – being shy and awkward myself I don’t go into people’s faces, but I still want to take photos that represent the slices of life I experience. To me, there is so much beauty in the mundane.

photo of a steamed bun restaurant with the vendor looking up at me

photo of some potted plants by the street

photo of some laundry hanging in front of a house

The thing with getting used to a place is that you stop seeing beauty everywhere. I love travelling because the stark contrast between the foreign place and my home country makes me drunk in the pleasure of constant marvel.

photo of a someone carrying a broom, being ferried on a bicycle

photo of people lining up for food, a common sight in taipei

photo of someone pruning the flowers in the center divider of a road

I think what I like about growing 7 years older compared to my 2018 self is that I appreciate a whole lot more of things, and I have expanded my awareness of beauty.

photo of people lining up to enter a restaurant

photo of another food vendor looking up at me

I browsed the photos I took from 2018 and the subjects were quite different. This is why I like making art, taking photos and even writing. They are basically impressions of my different selves. Behind these things lie an interior world that would only exist in that moment, and to browse these things again it is like time travelling back into those selves, except it is like a dream: hazy, vague, and yet the impressions are still there.

My writing from then shows a snapshot of my psyche. That self feels so familiar and yet so foreign. My partner remembered that I was very depressed during that trip, which I don’t consciously remember myself. But I do fondly remember a very warm old couple, and thinking about them now provokes a lump in my throat.

Travelling really makes me less of a misanthrope.

April 6, 2025

44

I read last year’s post before writing this. Writing is a strange phenomenon. Though I am reading my own writing, it feels like I am reading the writing of another person. Perhaps a self one year younger is as good as a different person. I can feel her struggle, sadness and loneliness as though she is right before me now. But I don’t feel like I am the same person anymore, though I still struggle, and I am still sad and lonely mostly. Last year I wrote:

If I can have a birthday wish, I wish for more emotional strength. To just be the way I am. To truly be able to accept my self, not just an intellectual acceptance, but with the whole of my body.

I wouldn’t say I have fully accepted myself for the way I am, if full acceptance was even possible. But comparatively to that self last year, I feel a lot more at ease with myself. So much of it is associated to the contemplation that I may be autistic. I’ve always felt different, and I wish it wasn’t the case – but knowing that my brain may be structurally different makes me feel that the world and my self makes so much more sense to me now. I have always found it difficult to exist simply because this world is not made for people like me. This reminds me of a quote by a zen master: that sometimes knowing a situation is entirely irredeemable gives us permission to stop struggling. Why struggle when it makes no difference?

Previously I’ve always believed it was something about me that was deeply flawed, so it felt as though I didn’t and couldn’t try harder. I felt like trash. This was how this society has always made me feel. I was never fitting in, never compliant, always not resilient enough, always disappointing, always weak.

How ridiculous it is to live in a way that was always trying to meet people’s hidden and visible expectations of me. It feels entirely ridiculous to me now, but I was so, so, imprisoned. Perhaps I still am. I don’t have full control of how my body instinctively reacts to certain stimuli or provocations, but there is an intellectual awareness that so much of what I used to be imprisoned by are simply social constructs.

I am a lot more comfortable with who I am and where I am. I can say that I am becoming more of my self, and I am progressively dropping more of the masks I’ve worn throughout my life. It helps that I’ve lost my respect for this society as a whole – a society that collectively deludes itself into believing a disabling virus is harmless.

Refusing to expose myself to catching covid repeatedly has made me more socially isolated that I was already, and it has forced me to become more resilient against societal pressure than I was willing to be. I am very unwilling to risk my health frivolously so it has made it easier to give up my social ties, because I have already experienced the loneliness of being chronically ill. I know that nobody (except my partner) would truly care if I develop long covid, and people in general will take every opportunity to dismiss our suffering from a chronic illness – because it is always about their uncomfortable feelings, not ours.

I am very much a person that is an outcome of my personal history, and my personal history is full of disability, pain and medical bills. In the past I saw that as tragic, now I am at the age when I am grateful for the lessons it taught me early, so I don’t squander the rest of my time away. Perhaps more important than my physical health is my psychological health, and I see it as a positive sign of my psychological health that I know with certainty what is truly important to me, and what is no longer worth pandering to. I feel less and less disappointed with people, because the more I accept where I am, the more I understand where they are. I don’t expect much out of people anymore. Maybe people would see that has a positive evolution, but for me it is in tangent with the reality that expectations only develop when there is enough care.

Like a photo in portrait mode once we blur out the background we can truly focus on the subject, I can now focus more on what I truly care about instead of always being hampered by all that noise. My partner and I will celebrate 9 years together soon, and that’s 9 years of birthdays she has been by my side. She has taught me that just to have one person sincerely celebrating another year I am alive is more than enough. I can feel and notice a lot more in my days now because I am no longer drowning so much because I lacked existential boundaries.

Instead of letting society define that events that would supposedly make us happy and fulfilled – I guess it made sense that I felt like I could never be happy and fulfilled because I was expecting happiness and fulfilment from the wrong things – these days, just looking at my partner and knowing she exists in the same moment makes me happy. Noticing the shade of green on a building. Being able to eat food that I like. Noticing that I am not in chronic pain at the moment. Hot showers. Buying stickers. Observing the cuteness of some human beings. Having just one close friend who is willing to act as my will executor. Experiencing cold. Receiving warmth. Experiencing a different culture. Seeing art. Having clean clothes. Collecting train stamps. Being clear-headed enough to write. Having a sense of my own preferences and values. Books. Having pain-free teeth. Being mobile. Lifting weights. Being kind when the moment strikes me. Telling my partner cold jokes. Hearing her laughter. When logistics work out. Walking 20,000 steps a day. Breathing without a blocked nose. Running without feeling breathless. Listening to music. Seeing what my partner makes. Witnessing her happiness when she fixes something that was broken in the house. Having a place that I can call home. Etc.

Being aware of the richness that exists in these moments and awareness, knowing that a ton of things have to be in place before they can exist – this is what happiness looks like to me at age 44. Happiness is being capable of noticing the potential and richness of our own lives, it is knowing that we can now determine what makes our lives, it is being able to discern what is actually noise and extraneous. It is finally knowing who we are as a person, and being able to live as we are.

I know I go through ups and downs, but today, this is what I contain.

I write one of these every year.

March 30, 2025

ringfencing my self

I remember reading somewhere that just few decades ago we lived in small communities, unconnected by the internet. We would only need to cope with the happenings of this small community, and the occasional news we read on the newspaper. Nowadays we are bombarded non-stop with all the terrible things happening in this world. Now of all people I really hate escapism and denialism, but I can also recognise that our psychological and neurological capacities are not meant to cope with this non-stop deluge of events.

I am a lot more affected by this bombardment by the average person. Most people have a natural filter, but I don’t. I am saddened and pained by anything and everything. I have spent days, weeks, months, years in perpetual grief because of all the sadness and terror that exist in this world, and that did nothing except make me want to quit living in it. Is there a way my existence can feel sustainable to me?

I found it helpful to visualise my self being protected by some form of a barrier that acts as a filter for my life. I have to ask myself repeatedly what do I truly want to get out of this life, and how can I sustain my existence with some level of integrity? This makes it much clearer what are the things that I should keep within my sphere of existence, what I should regard as noise.

This is not easy for me at all because I have no filter by default. To artificially construct this virtual barrier, I have to maintain a consistent practice with my mind. Each time my mind veers too far out of this sphere, I have to consciously bring it back. Refocus it on the things that truly matter to me. I think this is only possible at this point because of the cumulative effect of the daily practices I have in my life for the past decade or so. Admittedly this is probably not a state I can maintain in times of fatigue and stress. A lot of things in my life have to be in place before I can be in a mental state focused enough to do this.

But I sense a change in my inner state in the past few weeks, which probably coincided with the time I decided to quit browsing reddit in the day. I was tired of being tired, of living in a certain way, of feeling totally helpless in a world determined to bombard our senses, and I kept thinking that I wish to be more intentional with my life, but I just couldn’t till then. I cannot really explain why I couldn’t, and then suddenly I could. I can only say that that once we set an intention there is a lot of unconscious work that happens, and the brain does respond to repetition. Summoning the will to quit browsing reddit gave me the inkling that I could probably try doing more, and it also recovered the mental energy I had lost because of doomscrolling.

There is a huge amount of psychological noise that exists in this world. There is too much of what other people are saying, what they are judging, what we perceive people to be thinking, all the chatter about trending events, all the rush to do something because everyone else is doing it. It is very easy to get swept into these tides without a strong sense of self and a strong sense of how we truly want to live. Everyone is using AI, so we all should – without giving any thought to whether we truly want to or not. What do we want, versus what are we conditioned to want? Do we know the difference?

When I was younger I had a very weak sense of self, if at all. I too would get swept into these things, even though I tend to be a little more rebellious than the average person. But it is much clearer to me now when I know something is not worth my attention.

Still it is not easy overcoming a lifetime history of being a doormat. But I have learnt in life that almost everything is a muscle and can be practiced. I get swayed and lost frequently like everyone else, but what matters is how long it takes for me to refocus my self, can I shorten the gap that exists between my negative spiralling and the realisation that I can break out of most of these spirals by reminding myself what is truly important?

This website is a time capsule of all ups and downs I have gone through. Sometimes the tone of my writing is extremely negative, other times I seem to have these inner-breakthroughs out of nowhere. I feel like in general the development of the personality is not a linear process, but I have this suspicion that as long as we have the courage to grow, we will always face periods of spirals because once we get a breakthrough we are again preparing to face a deeper, darker part of our selves. Or it is just part of life to get distracted and lost, especially the world is designed to press on us to conform. The journey of coming back to our selves never ends.

I wrote and rewrote this post several times because the concept I am trying to express feels very abstract to me and it was difficult to articulate in words. In this society we are either conditioned to have narcissistic and materialistic desires or we are pressured to give up our selves for the “greater good”. Then, there is this other end where people pursue spirituality so much that they unknowingly venture into a dimension that is not grounded into this reality, or they enter a dissociative state.

I personally think knowing what we truly want out of our lives, constantly asking our selves the same question because we will change as we age, then refocusing our present and priorities to match that – will go a long way into providing clarity and stability to our sense of self. Everything we perceive, think and decide is based on this sense of self. If our selves are all over the place, our lives will also inevitably feel all over the place. Our relationships will be fragile, because people are interacting with this unstable self too. What can the outcomes possibly be when all parties of the relationships are unstable?

People think that such focus on our selves is narcissistic. I argue that we seem self-absorbed precisely because we have no sense of self, so we are misled to pursue societal achievements and peer recognition thinking that they will prop up our sense of self. We are vain only because we believe we will only be recognised through our external performances.

I offer a suggestion that there is a sense of self that exists that doesn’t require an external gaze to feel more whole. It is possible to cherish our selves so much that we seek to protect our selves from external forces instead. To wish to maintain that integrity so much that external measurements cease to matter, because what matters more is living a life congruent to our inner-selves.

I have had glimpses of that, hence I wrote this post.

March 23, 2025

the art at our home

It is just so easy to take things for granted, especially if they surround us every day and we’re so used to experiencing them. My partner started on an art journey shortly after we have gotten together, and for the past almost 9 years there was not a moment when she was not making something, except when she is not feeling well.

We bought our home roughly one year into our relationship when we were still relatively a new couple, so we had to negotiate how we wanted to manage the space. One of the terms I agreed to was that all the wall space belonged to her, so she could hang her art however she wanted. It was something that I felt I had to concede at that point, but now I am filled with gratitude every time I see them.

Only after 8 years I had the idea to document them, so I randomly took a camera and shot most of these photos yesterday (some of them are from my partner). I wanted to share them as they are in our daily life and setting, so there was zero effort to clean up the space or stage anything. I edited them minimally in lightroom, mostly because it has been raining and the natural lighting in our home was not optimal.

These are some of the earliest paintings she had done:

photo of my partner's art. left to right: painting of birds, abstract yarn art, painting of unicorn.

I just really admire the way she has been so creative:

photo of my partner's mixed media art: a unicorn made with embroidery floss, yarn and painting

Even our printer is so pretty – she made it this way because I like pixel art:

photo of a crocheted printer cover by my partner. credit to @launshae for the photo.

Yes, showing you the mess at our door in its full glory:

photo of my partner's watercolour paintings even in the most unlikely of places.

Where we keep our art materials – she crocheted a dress for that doll:

Some of the stuff dropped off over the years. The door handle was one of the first items that started her crochet journey:

photo of a corner of our home with our art corner and a collage of picture frames filled with art

Even the kitchen is not spared:

photo of my partner's art in the kitchen

We see this painting while we poop – it is even hung at the correct height:

photo of my partner's art in front of the bathroom

I know how much my partner loves me just by looking at this wall:

photo of my partner's art in our bedroom

Everywhere is an opportunity to display more art:

photo of my partner's mended blanket on our bed

photo of my partner's art pictured hanging above our hair dryer

She doesn’t paint as much anymore so I cherish them even more. I am glad that the person I am now is capable of possessing the awareness to appreciate them every single day. What a wonderful thing to be surrounded by a person’s expressions of her expansive interior world.

March 16, 2025

chiang mai’s sketchbook

I had only managed to complete roughly one-third of the sketchbook during the trip, and didn’t work on it when we first got back. This happened to both my sketchbooks last year for hong kong and korea, so it didn’t bode well. Could my japan sketchbook would be my only completed sketchbook in this lifetime? I tend to do things only once for the novelty.

But I started picking it up again end Jan. Slowly page by page I completed them. Again I didn’t care what I actually drew or if it was aesthetically pleasing. I drew mostly food items – because they are memorable for me and usually consist of simple-enough shapes – except for a couple of pages.

scanned cover of my chiang mai sketchbook

We visited plenty of matcha cafes and it shows. They are actually arguably cooler than the ones in Singapore:

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook with a watercolour painting of the matcha items at Magokoro Teahouse

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: undo studio, right: chic ruedoo

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook with a watercolour painting of the matcha items at Chaseki

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: a card taken from Graph Coffee. right: a watercolor painting of a matcha latte from Taste Cafe

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: koff & things. right: kaiyoi

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: @kaptor. right: Homm Wan

In case you were wondering why I drew Totoro I included a picture of the actual mural:

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook with a watercolour painting of Khao So-i's mural and paperbag.

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: lady & the fox. right: retail display at jing jai market

photo fo retail display at jing jai market

This time I didn’t keep the pages chronological. I just worked on whatever that jumped out to me at that point in time.

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: proud phu fah. right: coco mango

scanned spread of my chiang mai sketchbook. left: klay right: abstract painting of mae rim

Is there a point in completing a sketchbook so much later than the actual trip? Maybe it is different for everyone. Even though it was 1-2 months later I still felt like I could relive my fond memories of the trip. I appreciated having a targeted range of subjects for practice. It is also meaningful for me to have a little book with a theme instead of random pieces of art. This makes me want to go complete my other travel sketchbooks.

Because I ran out of food items to draw and I really wanted to complete it, I attempted to do an abstract painting of a view of a mountainous area on the very last page which is a little out of my own typical range. It turned out to be enjoyable, which is not something I usually feel about my art.

Ultimately art is not something I wish to consciously improve upon in terms of technical skills, though I am sure I’ll probably enjoy it more if I am more skilled. Art for me is just a way to understand and express myself, to see what comes out of my motor-skill-impaired hands. But as I worked through this sketchbook I realised I was gradually getting more and more relaxed, instead of the frustration I usually feel whenever I try to do something I am not good at. It is a meditative practice for me: to keep bringing myself back to the task at hand despite the discomfort and unease. I feel like practicing art makes me slightly more equanimous with other areas of my life, because this equanimity is required when there are always mistakes, smudges, unexpected outcomes – in the process of making art.

I am bad at it, that is why I keep doing it. As I keep doing it, I realise I like doing something I am bad at. I know I am bad at it, I don’t expect much out of it, so therein lies the freedom to do whatever I want, and that is such a freeing experience when doing almost everything else in life comes with constraints, rules and expectations.

March 9, 2025

choosing health over social ties

Being covid cautious is a very socially-isolating endeavour. Most people think we have some psychological disorder, and that’s putting it very nicely. I feel alone and lonely for continuously writing about this, since this is a topic that is not being acknowledged by most bloggers.

I am used to writing about socially-isolating and taboo topics. I write about my chronic illnesses, passive suicidality, queerness, rage against this world. I have been writing about these things for much more than a decade, back at a time when people were still hiding in various closets. But none of them has made me feel more socially isolated than being covid cautious.

But I continue to write on despite my discomfort, because I would like to live as authentically as possible, and that includes expressing my reality in writing. Being covid cautious takes up a lot of my energy in my day to day life, and it would be weird to write about everything else in my life except for that one thing that defines a lot of how I live. I am upset at society for denying covid’s impact on us, and I don’t want to contribute to that denial.

It is tempting though. To not address the elephant in the room. With family and friends they can pretend the mask on my face doesn’t exist and we can talk about everything else under the sun except that one thing. If I never ever broach this topic again they are probably willing to put up with my strange behaviour, and our relationship can probably largely be maintained over some form of pretense. I can even talk about my suicidal tendencies and it would be empathised and accepted. Just not this one thing.

It is the same for this blog, or any of my social media accounts. If only I would stop. posting. about. covid. I would probably have a lot more genial relationships, and feel a lot more socially integrated.

I have not unmasked with any other person apart from my partner and dentist for maybe around 3 years? That means no warm family dinners, no coffees with friends. I am mostly antisocial at my baseline, but even I miss hanging out with people sometimes. Sometimes old friends fly in to Singapore and I haven’t seen them in a decade, but still I choose not to meet them.

Why?

I guess we’re the sum of our accumulated life experiences. I have been chronically ill before being afraid of viruses was a thing. I have spent the last decade doing nothing much except recovering. Even now I have to be careful with what I choose to do in order to avoid a relapse of my chronic illnesses.

My previous experience with an invisible chronic illness had already familiarised me with what it feels like to be socially abandoned. Co-incidentally today I came across someone’s else writing on this:

“The experience of finding the world isn’t set up for you anymore (or not set up for you in ways that are new to you) is difficult and emotional, and made much, much harder because you are also dealing with changes, which we often experience as loss—loss of ability (in that you can no longer do things you used to be able to do), future plans or dreams, and of social status and social relations that themselves come from those other changes. We may also lose friends—and social status—because of people’s attitudes toward chronically ill/disabled people. Because they don’t have a frame of reference for chronic illness—and illness/disability is regarded as tragic—people who aren’t chronically ill aren’t entirely sure what to do with us, which is scary and uncomfortable for them.”
– source

I cannot describe the chronic trauma I’ve been through for the past decade and how much it has negatively impacted me and my outlook on this world and its people. People avoided talking about my chronic illnesses as much as they now avoid talking about covid. I received almost no support, no questions of “how are you coping”, no acknowledgement of my struggle. I had to spend a lot of money over the years in order to receive the treatment I needed. Money is one thing, but the sheer trauma of having no end in sight for years and years while being in perpetual pain is not something I can accurately articulate in words.

At my worst – which lasted years – I had no relief. There was no good days. None. When I got better, I could enjoy one good week every month. During this long period most people didn’t bother to find out how ill I was, how much I was struggling. I had to put up with people close to me insinuating that my symptoms were all in my head. The problem is could be me. I was in a dark place so I couldn’t reach out, but nobody reached out to me either.

There was one shining light. My partner. The only person who witnessed all the times I laid helplessly in bed in between violent bouts of regurgitating my food and knife-like pain. I am convinced that without her I wouldn’t be alive today. What is the point of such an unacknowledged and disconnected existence?

So. To be honest. I am not willing to risk my health over social relationships. Because I know if and when I am ill again I would be facing this fight mostly alone with my partner. No matter how close people can be, they will not be co-paying my medical bills. I was fortunate enough that I was still able to afford my treatments, and I shudder to imagine alternative outcomes.

I know this is a very depressing view of human ties. But this is my reality. Maybe there are some fortunate people out there with strong social support, but if we trawl around the online communities for the chronically ill we will know that being socially abandoned is the norm, not the exception. I haven’t even started on what it feels like to have doctors gaslighting you too (thankfully for me, traditional chinese medicine has a long-established framework to treat chronic illnesses).

Maybe to most other human beings it is unsustainable to live without a social life. But I have experienced what it is like to live without my health and I fear that way more than having questionable ties with family and friends. I have navigated most of my life alone anyway. My partner can give me as much emotional support as she can, but I am still alone in experiencing my pain.

I value being able to write, to lift weights, to run, to draw, to eat, to poop, to sleep. I don’t want to risk all of that hard-earned capacity in order to feel less socially alone, especially when I know one of the worst forms of loneliness one can feel is being chronically ill – not only we’re being abandoned by our social circles, we are also being abandoned by our body and our mind.