Oh, the good riddance of 2020. 

The experience of a strenuous year makes me want to turn new leaves yet bookmark some kindred memories, it is much like having a hard time with parting something that is suffocatingly toxic for you, at least it felt like that for me. 

Unlike many, I find it hard to abandon a lot of things, feelings, people and thoughts. 

Even the unnecessary ones. 

It is a lot harder when you are a person who constantly wants to find the good in the worst but can’t help judging the bigger picture headfirst. 2020 was much like a tight rope, and uncalled changes constantly had me reflecting over little details. After all, time and space were plenty during the quarantine. 

There were days when I would find myself useless. While ‘productivity’ was a top goal on people’s list during the lockdown, there is only so much and so far, you can push yourself into. Slowly, days started to feel mundane and the stormiest clouds hung over my head. 

I cannot simplify what exactly diagnosed me with such heartaches if it was the four walls that I caved in for months, the supreme flooding on awareness of unjust all-over social media, or the uncertainty of when life would just be normal. 

So, I decided to step back, but a day of truly not acknowledging the obvious issues before my eyes felt like a decade of inhuman obstruct. Fearful and blind-sighted, like most humans, my mind held onto a defence rifle loaded with bullets of strength, waiting to shoot down upcoming frightful news against anything that may break my dimming faith.  

Normally, I like to believe that it is my overthinking that is misleading me half the time. However, it is that type of drug that keeps me awake and alive, without having to consume it. A strong substance which enhances my imagination and zooms me to utopia, however faster than a pulse to release me back into reality and leave me on the edge of anxiety. 

Reflecting on this year, there was more than enough room for all the thinking I had to do. I dared not to question my grim life as I was afraid to face the nightmares of what it may consequence to. It only seems as it were yesterday that I was running around in my tutu and wishing school would officially shut down so I could have more teatime with my dolls. 

No child ever saw growth and expectations as such a burden, so they creatively dreamt of all the possibilities they could achieve when they would be an “Adult” 

Little does 6-year-old Aku know that in another 10 years, she would imprison at her own abode, counting her leftover hopes due to an outbreak of a deadly virus. 

It is most important to make peace with a lot of your flaws because drowning in an ocean of thoughts is a lot bleaker than floating in it.