Muses

I've never believed that one person can stick to one style since trends changes throughout the season which is why I have never really settle myself on a style in particular when it comes to fashion. Because of my eclectic taste I always find myself wanting to get out of my comfort zone, try different things and dare myself to think outside of the box ( feather shorts, anyone?). Of course there's also another side of me that enjoys wearing flannel pjs all day and I couldn't care less of what is in and what is out. At the end of it all, it depends on my mood. Some days I feel like being an Audrina; rocking a leather jackets, wearing motorcycle boots and head out to the nearest bar for a beer. When I'm being Chloé, I'm more conservative, a hopeless romantic and a dreamer. Emma is all about my socializing side and my life in the city; being the "it" girl that everyone wants to be friends with. My inner Olivia depicts my serious side and how I picture myself in the near future: career oriented, professional and involved in the high fashion industry. She is ready to take over Vogue magazine (hehe)  

Rick Owen leather jacket, Helmut Lang asymmetrical tshirt, Victoria Beckham leather legging, Alexander Wang studded Diego bucket bag, John Galliano "Parlez-moi d'Amour" Eau de Parfum, Hermès Collier de Chien leather cuff, Surface to Air wedge leather boots.

Ralph Lauren navy cashmere sweater, Sandro pleaded silk maxi skirt, Mulberry thin leather belt, Cutler & Gross cat eye glasses, Michael Kors midsize runway gold watch, Yves Saint Lauren Rouge Pur Couture in Le Orange, Chloé Marcie bag, Stella McCartney Brocade ballet flats. 

Haute Hippie faux fur vest, Aubin&Wills stipped cotton tshirt, 7 For All Mankind jeans, Milly clutch, Deborah Lippman polish in Supermodel, Philippe Audibert studded cuff, Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes, Eugenia Kim suede fedora.   

Maison Martin Margiela silk tux blazer, Alexander McQueen wool jersey dress, Smythson Runway leather notebook, Linda Farrow Luxe D-frame sunglasses, Emilio Pucci beaded silk clutch, Chanel No.5 Parfum, Valentino suede and studded metal pumps. 

Embrace

For many writers the worst part of the writing experience is the very beginning, when they're sitting at the kitchen table staring at a blank sheet of paper or in front of that unblinking and perfectly empty computer monitor. "I have nothing to say," is the only thing that comes to mind. I would have to say that overcoming my writer's block for the past couple of months has been a harder process than I expected. For one I was lacking in the inspiration department. For the first time in years I truly felt uninspired. Nothing out there motivated me to write up a post whether it be about the things that I love or the things that I hate. There comes a time when I simply didn't feel like doing anything anymore. I just didn't see the purpose of it all, the purpose for everything that was going on. The concept of sharing my thoughts openly didn't seem too right anymore. Believe it or not, I have developed a fear of opening myself up again. That is until I met Mrs.C.

Known to be the "Anna Wintour" of all clients in the department store where I work, one can easily fall onto her black list if she had a bad experience with you. And when I say black list, I kid you not that she can make you lose your job at the end of the day if things don't go her way. I've always heard the staff talking about her and I was given proper instructions on how to behave if I were to encounter her. The first time that I met her, I felt a slight pang of confusion. This so-called Cruella De Vil was not only extremely nice to me, but her exact words before she left the store were: "Je sens que nous allons développer une bonne relation. (I feel like we will have a good relationship)".

I have realized in a very roundabout way, that kindness and compassion, in their purest forms, are harder to find these days. It's a disconcerting notion considering, I'd say, we are more in need of it now than ever before. Because if there's one thing I've learned about kindness or acts of kindness, it's that they are far more transformative than we may think. I remember being in a particularly fragile state one gloomy day. I was struggling with some matters of the heart (what else is new, right?) and I was at war with the new POS system being installed at work thinking to myself, 'This day can’t get any worse.' The next thing you know, the computer decided to crash on me.  

Before I could throw the computer on the floor and fling myself into a full-blown public temper tantrum, I heard a voice: “It's ok Sisi. Just breathe. Embrace it. Just breathe.” I looked up to discover Mrs. C walking into the store. She was picking up her alterations and she clearly saw the distress and confused look on my face when I saw her. When I asked her what she meant by 'embrace' she simply told me that it was ok to feel shitty and to feel like God granted my life with bad luck, but if I took two second to pause and take up things the way they are, the rest will follow accordingly and in some odd way, everything will feel right again.

It was a stranger comforting me in a moment when I needed comfort the most. A moment where I was at my lowest, and someone who had nothing gave me the only thing she could: compassion and kindness. It was all I was looking for. It was a moment that helped change my outlook on life and how I was conducting my own. It’s easy to forget about the importance of embrace because it's so basic. With the holiday season upon us really soon, it's so easy to get lost in ourselves and our needs and wants, but imagine how much better we'd all feel, how much more profoundly we'd appreciate all we have, if we just took that extra time to look out for one another.  Think about it: How much better off would we all be if, in a moment when we needed it the most, a stranger were to tap us on the shoulder and whisper: “Just breathe. Embrace it. Just breathe.”

January to August had mostly been recuperating months for me. I felt like I had to detach myself from a lot of things (and people) in order to reevaluate the goals that I have in my life. Truth to be told, I'm still far from finding the comfortable zone where I can genuinely feel happy about my life right now, but I'm slowly taking baby steps embracing everything that is about to come my way.

And indeed, up to this day Mrs. C has been my most loyal client ever and our relationship have developed considerably. So much that I can probably write her entire biography and she would do so for mine. Because of her, for me she gave a whole new meaning to the word embrace. 

What Moving On Is Like

"Moving on is not like a birthday, you can’t count down the hours ‘til it arrives and you can’t mark it on a calendar and you can’t call up your friends to help you celebrate. You can’t plan for it and you can’t conclude it by blowing out a candle. When moving on happens there will be no announcements, no notifications, no congratulations. There will be no parade; only you will know. Moving on is like aging that way, if aging happened backward. If the passing of days made you new and young, if your condition only had room to improve. Instead of a throbbing pain in your right knee forcefully, increasingly making its presence known, first with a whisper and then with a mumble and then with a shout, ‘til you can’t move, ‘til you can’t walk; moving on is gradual like that except when it’s over, you can walk just fine. You can run, even.

Moving on is like this: one day you forget the taste. The next, you forget the smell. Then the touch. Then the laugh. Then the smile. Then the jokes. Then the eyes, the hair, the hands, the feet. You forget the socks. You forget the fingers, the toes, the sex. You forget the pulses, the beats, the rhythms and how you sometimes felt like they all belonged to you. You forget the words; finally, you forget the voice that spoke them. Moving on is like one day, you’re walking or reading or drinking the sun and one of those footprints, one of those artifacts will creep into your consciousness, “already seen,” the French call this, déjà vu, and you won’t know where it belongs or how it got there. All it takes is a familiar laugh, a recognizable word and you are transported to who knows where. You are a confused paleontologist now, scrambling to make sense of things left behind, trying to reunite the right dinosaur with the right bones. The scar from his burst appendix goes here, the part of his leg that doesn’t grow hair belongs there, I think this is his morning breath but maybe it belongs to someone who came before him; some other ghost, some other relic. His taste is an aftertaste now, his crow’s feet a souvenir with no place to call home. That’s what moving on is like.

Moving on is not like beginning a new chapter, it’s like beginning a new book — with each turned page, the last story you read fades into the background. A fairy tale that becomes just another book on a shelf; folded corners and underlined words the only reminder of how you used to touch and hold and love it. Moving on is when you begin to forget the intricacies of a character you knew intimately, you forget what he did for a living and the way he prepared grilled cheese and the nickname he had for his first girlfriend. You forget how he lost his virginity, you forget his middle name.

Moving on is waking up without a sour feeling in your stomach, looking at a familiar menu and ordering something different, taking the direct route to a destination and not the one that crosses a path you once set in stone. Moving on is when you think about him and don’t punish yourself for it, when he begins to evoke more of a scientific response than an emotional one, like “This is a 6’0” blonde-haired person who exists,” and not “This is a person I wish I’d never met; this is a person who has made me less of one.” Moving on is not to destroy or to combust or to set ablaze, it is simply to move, to advance through space and time, to leave behind the familiar dull of heartbreak for the new, the unknown, the strange. Moving on is a bird flying south for the winter who decides maybe the warmth isn’t so bad, who decides maybe he’ll stay there for awhile; moving on is like freedom, is what moving on is like." - Stephanie Georgopulos, thoughtcatalog.com

In an odd unspeakable way, I found myself letting this article triggered everything I have bottled up inside. There is truly nothing more nostalgic than reminiscing about the past and replaying the beautiful memories in my head like an old VHS I have not touched in years. When it happens I resort myself to be able to feel a small sting of happiness instead of turning it into a lethal weapon. I don't know what is in store for me in the future. But what I do know is that I still have a very long way to go.

Thank you twinnie for showing me this. You really got me this time.

As Soon As Possible

Want & Resent

Excerpt

“Have you ever felt like dying because of having a broken heart?” I asked breaking the cold silence around us.

He turns and looks at me, both of his hands still on the steering wheel. He doesn’t say a word, but I can feel that he’s eager to know. Tension was building up.

“Then I’ll let you know. Not being able to sleep and not eating are just the basics. Sleeping but waking up becomes excruciating torture because you don’t know how to separate yourself from reality and from the person you loved. You can’t even tell anyone else because you’re too afraid that they’ll think badly of this person because deep down you know they did nothing wrong. And so, you cry all by yourself, for minutes, for hours. You’re trying to show yourself that there’s still something there even though you know it’s over.

From time to time faint memories of good times would pop up. Certain things will remind you of the love you both used to share. The more you try to erase these memories, the longer the days get. Its feel like you’re breaking up with this person all over again for the next 365 days.

But the thing that hurts the most is that you don’t think they’re even thinking about you. You’re alone and you’re going through this by yourself. That person has already forgotten about you, moved on and is now happy. You sometimes wish you were dead, but you don’t have the courage all because you’re scared –” I paused midway through my sentence and slowly turn to look at him.

His eyes extracted for a minute. His lips parted in surprise. Gradually, his face softened from resentment to something more apologetic. I knew he wasn't expecting to see the droplets of tears rolling down my cheeks.

“– I’m scared that I won’t be able to see you anymore and that you’re permanently gone from my existence.” I managed to say in a soft whisper.

One Day

Undoubtedly one of the most intense books I’ve read in a while. I was expecting a heartfelt love story, and while I got that, I also got so much more: heartbreak, anxiety, familiarity, sadness, happiness, madness...and so many other things that I just couldn’t put it down, and when I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even when I finished it, it ended on such a note that I carried the book with me for weeks just to go over my favourite parts whenever I wanted.

It left me with a knot in my stomach more than once, and there were times I just wanted to pull a "Joey Tribbiani" and put the book to rest in the freezer - to give me time to think and absorb what had just happened. I can’t imagine anyone reading this and not feeling like they know Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew. At a certain point near the end I had to put it down and take a breath and leave it there for a couple of hours because I was so mad - and also because I wanted to not know the end for a little while (like I did with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I only read the Epilogue twelve hours after I had read the end because I wanted to drag it out for as long as I could).

After a while into the book you stop wishing for the end to come, when you will see the outcome of all the complications of the connections linking these two souls, and start hoping to see more of their friendship and how they are never on the same track but are always there for each other regardless, how their minds are so different but they can put ideas and controversies aside for the sake of their relationship (well, most of the time anyway). I was surprised by how real they felt to me and how they reminded me so much of myself. I feel like David Nicholls have written down my very own story and my future in this book. I'm not going to lie, I was scared. I may not be in the best state of mind with all the conflicting feelings that i have right now, but when I believe that my life, in some odd way, will turn exactly like in the book my gut feeling had never failed to prove me wrong.

There’s a quote from Tony Parsons, author of Man and Boy, on the back of the book that says, “The best weird love story since The Time Traveler’s Wife.” While I don’t think Emma and Dex’s story is as weird as Clare and Henry’s, I definitely agree that it is just as remarkable. I have made this book my bible for life.

----

And yes, for all you non-bookworm people the movie just came out in theater. Saw it. Did not hate it. Jim Sturgess was toohotforwords. I cried for a good 5 min because seeing the scenes on screen brought back so many memories. It highlighted major events from the book but I still strongly recommend that you should get a copy yourself and read. Hollywood always end up butchering novels anyway.

Blended Colours

"To You:

If you cannot piece together broken glass, why did you try to when he left? If you cannot continue to draw with a broken crayon, why did you try to when she left? If you had sworn your loyalty to me, why did you go and hold hands with the Devil? If you had sworn your heart to me, why did you eat from that box of chocolate? If you had sworn yourself to me, then why did you kiss that soul?

Now, I am picking up the shattered glass that had ravaged the floor. Now, I am trying to murder a blank piece of paper with the broken crayon. Now, I am reaching out for Devil to end my misery. Now, I am purging up all that chocolate I had eaten after you left.

But, I have no soul to kiss.

Because you took mine.

It is neither a fond or hated memory. Yet, on the good days, I don't remember. And on bad days, I do. I remember all of it in its entirety tightly pinned behind a picture frame permanently nailed to the walls of my mind. I should erase the pieces, but I choose to let it live inside because I will be able to play, replay, and pause those moments at my will."

I don't normally read the same book/stories twice but Solangel's classics on Soompi will always be one of those undying stories that I would read over and over again and still feel like it was the first time. Re-reading CBU and BP has a new different meaning to me now. It hits home.

자신에게도 축복받지 못한

I'm falling in love with Alex Chu all over again. His new album is simply wonderful...

He'll Complete Me

It's not like I won't find someone new, you know.

We both know it's not exactly a question about lack of choice. It's only a matter of time before I stumble across that person who will somehow make my world magic again. Just by looking at me he'll put a hundred different feelings in my body and my head will go completely blank when he smiles. My heart will skip a beat from the slightest sound of my phone, and everything I do when he's not around will be colored by his absence.

I will meet someone who doesn't have that need of playing games and instead of following all kinds of rules, simply follows his heart. Someone who makes me wanna look past all the times I've been hurt and feel like it's actually worth risking everything again. Someone who makes me wanna fight my fears of opening up so I can let him in, because the thought of him not knowing me completely is far worse than my fear of rejection.

He will sigh at my stupid jokes and the way I tend to forget stuff and mess everything up, but deep down he'll love it because love's not about accepting each others flaws, it's about loving them because they make us who we are. I will find somebody for whom I am prepared to show not just the strong, independent side of me that the rest of the world know, but also the insecurities that make me wake up in the middle in the night crying because I'm sick of hurting.

He will not give me my confidence back or make me love myself again. I have no need for a fairytale prince who lifts me up on his white horse and saves me. He will make me complete though, in a way no one has ever done before, and together we will get struck by love so hard that nothing will ever be the same again. You see, I know he's out there and I won't stop until I find him. Cause I deserve nothing less than to love someone who loves me back and this I know. So there's really no need for you to worry. He could be right around the corner when I walk out this door today.

The thing is, deep down with all my heart and with all i have, I want him to be you.

Ai Mei

"I cannot bear the fact that we can't write out a happy ending."

Letting Go