Me, Processing Anger

In March 2024, one of my close friends Acha randomly texted me, saying that she was checking my old blog entries to take a trip down memory lane. She asked me to write again. In between endless reading and dissertation pressure, I said I could not do it then, but I would later in the year after master's. God knows I'm such a sloth; fast forward to today 10th October 2025, I only started writing 10 minutes ago.

Many months have passed since I returned home after a year living abroad. I still remember the feelings that I had post study. They were quite messy; it took some time to untangle and properly process them. I realised in the end that I was predominantly furious. Apparently, I still am. 

I have a love-hate relationship with London. Though it might sound like trouble, me being furious is not because of London, really. I do hate that everything is expensive and it feels like life is never enough there, and that I can never make peace with its gloomy weather, and that there are simply too many people in the streets. My frugal and homebody ass really can't.

But I sincerely cherish my London days. I love my quarterly morning trip to the Columbia Flower Market--picking out seasonal fresh blooms to arrange back home. I love that the life there rekindled me with an interest I thought I lost: books. I started reading again--mostly fiction, just to balance things out with pages of academic papers. I love all the walks, the city's extensive network of public transportation, and its free museums and galleries. My mundane routine was also a pure joy: taking the 91 bus to Holborn, looking at the King's Cross and St Pancras stations in awe, going for weekly groceries in Angel, finding secluded corners around campus for focus time, and zoning out at public parks. I often went to the Lincoln's Inn Garden whenever I had enough with my own dissertation (there was a lot of existential crisis there).

I started feeling angry as I approached the end of my postgrad journey, mainly because of three things.

The Jade Table for Two

There was this posh jade table for two at the front corner of my favourite joint. I loved to sit there and admire its artistic features; its perfectly round cut, semi-opaque (yet at the same time, rich) green colour, and rather coarse texture. It became a special spot to unwind whenever I visited. A safe haven, even, where no random friends could just sit across mine and listen to whatever things I had in mind. Just like any other sensible human beings on the planet, I chose my company carefully.

I went to the restaurant one day in a pretty bad shape. I felt like I was on the edge; the inside of my head tensed up from all the things that went south that week. All I could think about was giving myself an ample time to calm down in solitude. I guessed it simply made sense to do so. And so what happened next was totally out of my foresight.

"Meeru?" I heard someone called my name. "You okay?"

I lifted my face and found a man standing in front of my jade table. I knew him for quite a long time already, but as I traced down my memory, I realised that I hardly talked to him. It was not surprising that we stumbled upon each other there, though. I heard he often roamed around the area.

"Handa," I gave him a slight nod while flashing a polite smile. I must have been looking pretty ghastly that he could see through my emotional state at a glance. There was no point in hiding something that was so obvious, so I plainly replied comme ci comme ça.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

I would normally (and harshly) decline such a request, but there was this inexplicable gravity pulling me into saying that I did not mind. The next thing I knew, he took a seat across mine, and we talked for hours. 

A Simple Fire Pit

She spent one serene, rainy night sitting by a fire pit. It was on a whim. There was no expectation whatsoever from the agenda, except from being able to just stare blankly into the flame and let her body cradled by the swinging hammock. Her gaze might appear empty, but not the mind behind.

For some moments, she forgot that grieving was not only about mourning the deceased, but also about losing other things. Grief had been throwing her out of balance, engulfing her in a storm of countless (and often unrecognizable) emotions. Steve Garrigan said it took his soul and wiped it clean. Rumi exquisitely put it as a crowd of sorrows, violently sweeping your house empty of its furniture. They were true.

She had zero appetite for weeks, and food tasted bland when she ate. Although sunflowers and bouvardias bloomed during the day, she broke down the second she arrived home at night. She pushed herself to go out for an entire week only to find herself mentally and physically drained in the end. When she hit the sack, the viable option was either sleeping too late or waking up too early.

The scariest thing was that she never knew when all these would dissipate. The journey was unapologetically unpredictable, just like the fire she was staring at. It blazed and flickered every now and then in an erratic way.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophetrip

I was having a virtual catch up session with my college friends on a late April night when I mindlessly said that I really wanted to travel to Europe. The world has been slowly entering an endemic, so I thought I could have my annual overseas holiday again anytime soon, though I wasn't quite sure if it was already safe enough or not, and who the heck would be willing to accompany me anyway.

Until I realised that Amindari aka Cici was still in the Netherlands to pursue her master's degree -- in fact she's still there now that I'm publishing this story. Not to mention a couple of lecturers back from my uni days currently having their doctoral studies, and a few colleagues who just moved to work there. Solo travel to Europe suddenly felt highly possible. And so I bought flight tickets to Amsterdam a week after to depart in two months, with a mindset that I did this to mainly visit friends. 

Without me knowing, this would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I couldn't care less about the title

You slowly open your eyes. So much dazzle and vitality in the world around. Gardenias bloom. Planes take off. Thousands of cakes are bought to celebrate life today. All flies ever so swiftly that you are sure you must be missing something when you blink.

Life feels like a long drive to the sea. Up and down the mountains, through the tunnels, past the intersections. The music is good when you nod your head to the rhythm, but sometimes it sounds like a total crap that you just turn off the stereo. Funny and a bit ironic that it is in fact your own playlist, which you curate ever so carefully.

And sometimes you find yourself asking, to which sea are you heading again exactly?

How long have you been driving?

Isn't it about time you arrive?

Why haven't you arrived?

When you don't feel like turning on the stereo again, you know you are screwed.