In all honesty
written: 9:14 p.m. on Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010

I haven't been in the best of moods the past few days. It is the time of the month when the hormones go out of whack, but notwithstanding that, I'm back to questioning the fundamentals.

What am I doing, why am I even here, what do I want.

Sometimes I think I know the answer, but surely it can't be a good one if it's largely, or primarily, borne out of what I don't want. It has to be something I want in and of itself, and I have to want it enough to give up luxury and fear for it. It's hard to say, but maybe it's not so difficult; maybe it doesn't require so much thought; maybe it's intuitive, something that you can just feel, a conviction whose strength is not erodible by the inevitable practical considerations.

I don't know what it is I dislike: the job, or working itself.

But I know that the ennui and the emptiness persist from the first half of the year. I know that the feeling of being lost at sea, deracinated, hasn't gone away. I know that, like before, I still have not found myself, perhaps the person that I lost so long ago that I'm not sure when it was, the exact period of time to pinpoint. And there's just something so incredibly sad about how I cling on to Wei Chuen, not wanting him to go, to leave me alone without my crutch to fall back on.

These past few days I've been feeling a little hard of breathing. It's because of the erratic weather, maybe. It's because I haven't much felt alive, perhaps.

On a tennis court it's a bit different: my shortness of breath makes me feel like I'm doing something for myself, and in those two hours I don't think of anything else but hitting the fuzzy yellow ball over the net and trying to keep it within the singles sidelines. Those two hours make me forget that real life exists, and in those two hours I can stop being this empty shell of a person for a while.

When it ends it's back to reality, and when Roger Federer finally retires I'm not going to have anyone to watch anymore.

It makes me realise that there are so many things I want to do before I run out of time. I want to watch Roger Federer play a competitive match in the flesh. I need to do that, and I haven't found anything that I'm passionate enough about that I'd give that up. All I can think of is the exit strategy, and it's simultaneously the only thing that keeps me going. And it's just so indescribably sad that, at the end of the day, I honestly, truly don't know any other way.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010