Ever Since The Wedding Last Summer
All The Secrets I’ve Been Keeping
I hope you still read blogs.
Because regardless of the trend, I arrived at the conclusion that blogging is what I will obstinately continue. Whether it is a piece of travelogue penned in awe of Machapuchare or spilling the best beauty secrets I’ve spent not less dinero to discover, my absence online over the past 6 months made me realize I’d be burying stories in my grave if I don’t explode to death with all the information I know in the meantime.
If only we could escape forever, we’d be migrating birds.
After almost half a year of neglecting the 1 thing I used to care for the most, I decided to take a deep, deep breath, visit my own blog, & come to admit that I’ve become a pretty shitty blogger.
On average, I published 1 post in 3 months; skipping the annual series like how I celebrated my birthday, ‘2018 in Review’ or ’12 Lessons I Learned in 2018′ – all supposedly in charge of keeping me in touch with myself, & not to mention, keeping secrets from you, Cin Citizens.
When it comes to accepting clients, I became extremely selective & have rejected a handful of sponsored trips. This space is supposed to be my main source of income – look what I’ve done to it; treating it as a ‘middle child’.
But somewhere along the road, I learned that becoming a woman means accepting your limits. Life, adulthood, marriage & self-love happened. You don’t always get to choose what you wish to prioritize. If something needs your attention, you gotta give. Nothing is to blame.
Thank you to the kind souls who often question where in the world I am or what I have actually been up to – I might not be 1% of Michelle Phan that the world would notice my absence, but your checking on me makes me believe that sometimes you’d rather listen than stumble upon just another girl’s highlight reel on Instagram. I read every single one of your DMs. <3
Coming clean, here’s the timeline of transitions that’s been happening since April last year:
Backtrack to exactly where I was a year ago, my time & focus went into planning my wedding with a disastrous planner. A story worth reading if you dig dramas.
July was officially our wedding month in Portugal, therefore naturally also dedicated to showing my family around the second country I now call home.
August definitely approves of my M.I.A. status as it was our honeymoon month in Greece. Ain’t a blogaholic! On 17th August, Chinese Valentine’s Day 2018, É bought us a house to call our own. We also received good news that he got a job to bring us back to Malaysia. And so the story goes . . .
September was dedicated to unpacking giant suitcases & packing up an entire house.
Things took a turn for the worse when we paid a professional cleaner TWICE, which we didn’t have to, to ensure that the apartment we rented is in its top condition upon returning the keys. Despite the effort, our ex-landlord made a petty list (the most ridiculous being there’s dust on the edge of a plug) & refused to return our deposit of SGD2500 right after we left Cingapore! #咸家鏟
{Cinga’s first international road trip}
By the end of October, we finally & officially moved back to Malaysia, unannounced.
November 2018 to January 2019 was the renovation period of our dream home, which I ‘project managed’ & babysat. The moment I’m not with the workers, something goes wrong. You have NO IDEA what I’ve gone through to make the wrongs, right.
In between, I celebrated the most low-key birthday of the decade. É celebrated his saddest Christmas ever amongst boxes at our temporary rental place. New Year didn’t feel new at the slightest because, in December, our contractor wasn’t showing up half the time – we didn’t know when we could ‘start living’.
{a fucking mess: our transitory rental place was only fun for @furrylilfucker}
24/7 sticky kitchen, a flooding bathroom, fluorescent lights & no internet – This window of our life is definitely one I’d love to forget.
As a true all-or-nothing person not by choice, living at a temporary site between 2 crawling transitions for me was like . . . laying a fish at the shore & expecting it to swim.
Surrounding me was zero inspirations; there was no way I could write. Instead, I studied – a lot. On becoming a Certified Fitness Practitioner throughout never-ending November & a depressing December.
Exactly mid-January, alas! a good thing happened. I earned the title of ‘ACE Certified Personal Trainer’. By the end of the month, we moved into our own home despite it being far from ready.
Right after Chinese New Year in February, I began my 3-month focused journey to get proper fit. In exactly a week’s time, I’d have completed an 8-week challenge! Note: If you want to start anything, start with fixing/loving/improving yourself. Only by first filling your own cup, can you have something to give.
Our walls are still missing a final coating of paint, 1/4 of the apartment are converted into impermanent storerooms behind closed doors (or some missing doors), we sit on assorted chairs which I move around every day between dining room & dressing table, ALL our built-in cabinets are fucked up by an incompetent furniture design company at TTDI (story to be released after I settle those cunts in court) but . . .
We managed.
We learned.
We started living
in our dream (home).
I’ve arrived.
I’m awakened.
I’ll stay
here.
