Home is where the Heart is…

What do you love about where you live?

When I think about the places I have lived nothing specific comes to mind. If someone want to ask me why I chose to stay in certain place, I really don’t have an answer to it.

It could be because I have never really given it a second thought. In most of the instances I ended up staying in a place because of the stage of life I was in.

As a child, I stayed with my parents, so where their jobs took them. We ended up setting up in those places. When I got older, I chose a place where I wanted to pursue my higher education and when I got even more older, I chose the place, but I got a job.

The one thing that I do know is that I might have chosen those places because of an underlying reason. However, overtime, I made my home in those places. I went out, explore things that I like found reasons to feel happy in the place that I was.

So, in short, what I love about the place where I live, is that I have my home there.

Happy

What positive emotion do you feel most often?

Saying that happiness is the most often emotion or more like positive emotion that I have may seem like a lie.

As a person who is living with depression, most days, I wake up weak and tired and just frustrated with life. However, when I see my mother gaze fondly at her grandchildren in that moment, I am happy. She had to leave my sister and me back in our hometown with our grandparents when we were babies because she couldn’t afford to take us along with her. She missed our childhood, but I’m glad that she gets to see the childhood of her grandchildren at least.

When I see the joy in my sisters eye, every time she shares with us, her achievement, her individual achievement, it makes me happy. She has gone through a lot to finally find something of a room and that she found it. It makes me feel like she can start to be happy for herself.

When I see my father bring back a fruit or a vegetable from his home garden and I see the pride with which she brings it. It makes me happy. He loves agriculture, and when he was healthier and younger, I think she dreamt of going back home and having a land filled with beautiful trees and plants. He gave it up because he had to provide for his family. It may not be a lot, but the small area in which he has planted the few household vegetables and fruits is cherished as a testament to his passion.

I think no matter how sad I am as long as my family is happy. That is a good memory for me. That is happiness for me. I wish I could be the reason for that happiness. Just like they are for me.

So to conclude, I stop focusing on myself, the emotion that I feel the most is happy.

Price Tag Taste

While I am not a stranger to having a costly meal at times, the second part of the prompt leaves me dumbfounded.

Daily writing prompt
What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

I have come to realize the cost of the meal does not really define the worth of the meal. Yes, I would choose a fancy place, but only to make memories with someone I care about. I took my best family on my first salary and since my parents made so many sacrifices to get me to the stage where I could earn the salary the bill did not matter to me.

On the other hand, I enjoy the food that we make at home. I love the craziness, the messy kitchen, the dirty clothes and the fun conversations during the cooking process. After all the hassle, we may end up with burnt food sometimes, but when we sit to eat together, the food always tastes better.

So in conclusion, maybe money is a factor but the memory behind it always will matter more.

Any Sort of Art

Which activities make you lose track of time?

I wouldn’t consider myself an artist, but I would consider myself as a person who loves art.

Whenever I am stressed out or just need a break from reality, I turn to artwork. I know that there are people better than me and who are much more advanced in terms of technique. And for a long time, I hesitated to make my own art out of fear that people will ridicule me.

But now I enjoy any form of art, I can sit making a painting or drawing up a new anime character and I would never realise the passage of time. Just this last weekend, I spent 14 hours on drawing my favourite Pokémon characters and after the whole ordeal I wasn’t exhausted but rather refreshed.

I have come to realise that art actually helps me calm down. It makes my mind stop with its multitasking and over brooding and just focus at the piece of paper in front of me.

Some would say that it’s a waste of time, but for me, it centres me. It is a form of therapy that I never thought I needed. Now that I have realised the value of it, I ain’t ever letting it go.

A Night to Remember

If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?

If I could invite anyone to dinner….

On first thought, I think maybe I would want to invite my favourite artist or writer or celebrity. Then I think again I don’t have anything common with them. I might not like them.

Maybe I wanna invite my old friends or teachers, but then again what if they have changed from the last time I met them. Or what if they see changing me which they don’t like?

I think to myself, maybe I am being a little shallow, and I should probably just invite my family, the people I love. But I have dinner with them every day.

But then, I give it a little more thought. Do I really want to have dinner with someone specifically? No, not really. Just imagine the work it would take to make the dinner, set the table, make pleasant conversation, and the cleanup after!

If I were to ever have the opportunity to invite someone, and they could not refuse. I probably would want to go to an art gallery or a museum. This way I would enjoy the time and I would not have to stress about making the evening perfect.

Me

What do you think gets better with age?

A little too cliche? I could say something like wine or cheese or any other thing. However, I’ve come to realise that the best version of me is always the tomorrow version of me.

Throughout my life, I’ve always had someone trying to advise me or teach me what is right and wrong. They do it to protect me to not make the same mistakes they did, but I have come to realise that my mistakes are the ones that teach me the best.

I have fallen into the most worst situations after not listening to the advice of my elders and notice that I end up, making the same mistakes over and over again. Till I finally draw the line myself,

I have learnt to work hard, even when everything feels like it’s crashing down on me. I have learnt not to hurt others just because I am hurting, I learnt that some days are filled with hopelessness, but you still keep fighting for that one day or one moment of happiness.

I think time has taught me to accept and move on. It has taught me that today is wrong, may just be tomorrow’s right.

I am grateful for what the years have taught me, and I am grateful for the years I may have left. I hope that everyone hold on and get to see the better version of themselves like I have.

Whenever Possible

What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?

I wish I could say that I have a proper sleep regiment. However, like most adults I sleep when I have the time to sleep.

When I was a kid, I remember crying and throwing a tantrum any time, my parents told me that it was time to sleep. Little did I know that when I grow up sleep would be the one thing that I crave the most.

During university days, late night parties, and midnight plans was something that was considered ritual. But now that I have started working and the reality of life has hit me, even when I am exhausted. I sometimes end up, sacrificing sleep to study or work.

I did try to stick to schedule where I woke up early and went to bed early, but that lasted about two weeks, so now I do not look at the clock anymore, the moment I feel drowsy, I whatever it is that I am working on and go to sleep.

And to wake up like most independent individuals, I keep about 8 to 10 alarms, which I snooze over 10 to 15 times before finally giving up and waking up to my day.

Pride but not Honor

As a woman, I was always taught that we must sacrifice things for my family’s sake. To maintain the peace in the family.

It took me some time to figure out the difference between the two. I realized that pride is to feel superior to the others. And in most cases pride destroys everything. You tend to loose yourself in the battle to assert yourself as being better. The moment you let go of that pride you learn to accept things and people. Letting go of the pride needs to come from within it does not come from another’s advice. It happens when you realize that there is something more valuable that you will gain and letting go of your pride feels like freedom.

On the other hand, I also realized that not everything considered pride tends to be pride. Protecting your honor is not wrong. Honoring yourself is the truest form of self-love and though it is quite difficult to do, one must always try. Giving up your honor today, may not rock the boat today, but for the rest of your life you would have no harmony within yourself.

Choose what you need to let go to find peace. Take your time and make the right choices.

Daily writing prompt
What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

It’s Over Now

Standing at crossroads
Where did we go wrong?
Things were all mayhem
But we promised we’d stay strong
Everything that ever happened
Seems like a haze of a time long forgotten.

Every step is breaking us down
Life is charting a path that we hate
What was, is not what is anymore
Things that made us smile bring now despair.

Missing you is something I never wanted to know
Cause being with you was my forever story
The choices we made and the chances we took
Made us reach where we are today

A destiny that was never imagined
A future apart
With solitude and a broken heart.

Small Gestures

Not a big fan of the world-altering romance. I think something like that would just overwhelm me.

I believe in the small actions that people do.

Like pretending to look at the phone just to give you time to catch up and walk together. Or switching the restaurant to one of your favorites.

Even though they seem like small insignificant things I think they have profound meaning. They are not done to be appreciated instead they are done out of habit. As if it’s the most normal thing for them to do.

I believe being part of someone’s normal is my kind of romantic. It almost feels like you share a world of your own with that person even though there are a billion people around you.

And that to me, is just beautiful.

Daily writing prompt
What’s your definition of romantic?