The frail human spirit

When things are going well, we mistakenly believe we are invincible. We continue to push and push in the name of progress. We hear miraculous stories from everywhere and tell ourselves, if it can be done, why don't I do it? All it takes is a bit of reality check when you fall sick. I am not even talking about terminal illnesses. Just some fever and a bit of flu and your perspective changes instantly.

It's been so miserable lying on the sofa, not able to work out, feeling like a weakling. The world seems so cruel. Its like the level of fitness I've been working so hard on all year is slowly wasting away. Together with the compilation of a business plan that is taking longer than I would like is not helping matters or my mood.

However, like everything else, good or bad, it passes. I am slowly recovering and the business plan is looking more solid now. Circumstances happen that I can make a trip to test out some of the theories that I need to formulate for the business plan, so today I can start doing the logistics for it.

I think my point today is the hardest thing in life is not preventing falls. The hardest thing is having the energy and spirit to pick yourself up again. Having enough self confidence to tell yourself, that's fine. Even if progress has not been as fast as you would have liked it. It always starts from now on. You can pick up speed from today, from now. Keeping away from being 'disheartened' is the real challenge.

Some tips

1. Forgive yourself. You are only human and learning as you go along. Show some loving kindness to yourself.

2. Don't indulge in self bashing. Sounds like an oxymoron but we love to do that when things aren't going well. It's non productive and only seeps your self confidence. Admit it, we all do that sometimes, don't we?

3. Understand that comparing yourself with others is a futile exercise. There will always be people better off and people worst off than you. If you get caught up with the.. oh wow we all started off at the same place and now they are all doing so well and I'm .. well not so well .. it's the beginning of a downward spiral. You are given your particular perspective for a reason. So work with that.

4. Establish pillars in life. Mine is exercise, religion and enjoyment I get from parenting my child. Again, at any point in life, you can just stop and work from that point onwards. Your pillars will act as a crutch when you are particularly feeling low.

5. Lastly, allow yourself some joy in life, as that makes any struggle a lot more bearable.

Cheers!!

A food filled weekend

Insomnia has struck. The boy and I have just returned from a two night trip to Ipoh and whilst he is snoring in bed, I am here, looking at the clock and as alert as an owl.

We managed to cover quite a lot of good food in such a short trip. I was craving some good old popiah and was told by a reliable source that Gourmet Square in Ipoh Garden had some at night. The only good ones I knew were in Kong Heng and only available in the day. Drove to Gourmet Square in about 5 minutes.. (the beauty of Ipoh traffic) and the rain started.  By the time the goods were purchased, it was literally pouring cats and dogs. Still, the mark of a true Ipohite.. braving all kinds of weather for good food! To be honest, I still preferred Kong Heng's version, but it was satisfying enough for me that night.


Had my routine curry CCF the next morning after running around several wet markets to do groceries. I've never been inside Simee Market, but it looked fairly interesting. Perhaps one of these days I will venture in. We had this for lunch... We pretty much covered all the food groups with this.. chicken, fish, mutton, vegetarian... Was very yummy.

My tummy started rumbling again at about 5 and that set me off to search for more food... ended up in Ipoh Garden packing away Mee rebus from one of my favourite rojak stalls. Ok I shared it with my mom, but I still had half. Dinner was at Overseas Restaurant requested by the boy. I didn't enjoy dinner very much. The steamed minced pork was too porky for my liking. Can't they just go a bit heavier on the seasoning? *shrug*

This morning before we left Ipoh we managed to fit in some dry wanton noodles w excellent caramelised chunks of charsiew. Topped it off with a hot, flaky egg tart from Nam Heong and a good cuppa of hot ipoh kopi....

There you go... two days of pure gluttony... and at the rate tonight is going, gym does not look very likely tomorrow either..

Silver lining

And every so often, life gives us a break and reminds us how gratifying it is to be a parent. I've had one of the better nights with boy I haven't had for a long while. With the ending of school holidays and the starting of school, it's been a tad rocky.

Boy has in the last two days decided to learn how to cook. Nothing too fancy, just eggs. I was just wondering when the culinary bug would hit him and it has. I'm so proud to raise a budding gourmand. I'm still not allowed to watch him cook, but he does allow the helper to assist. Tonight he made scrambled eggs, pretty impressive ones too.

What I actually wanted to blog about tonight was when we watched an episode of Desperate Housewives where Lynette had separated from Tom and was having a hard time dealing with his new girlfriend. She was advised to play dirty and went on to influence her daughter against daddy's new girlfriend. I looked at Marcus and said, aren't you glad you are not subject to that? What really amazed me was what he picked up from that. He pointed out accurately the sly and snide facial expressions Lynette had when she was unduely influencing her daughter. I thought that was spot on and pretty cool. I mean, dealing with the fact that your ex has moved on with a new partner is never easy, and I can feel Lynette in here. Luckily she realises in the end that's not what she wanted to put her daughter through and came clean with her.

Boy also went on eventually to crack really adult insights and wound up the night by singing to me Josh Groban's song.. you raise me up... I was utterly shocked. Of course he did not mean that I had raised him up to great levels, more like don't complain about me, you raised me up to be like this.. See, this is what I love about him, he's got such a caustic wit.

Nights like these makes all the rest worthwhile... *content*

Insecurity

If there's one thing that marks us single parents, its insecurity. Society constantly tells us that we have already wronged our kids by allowing them to be in a single parent family... funny how they never say anything about kids in a dysfunctional marriage.

One of the things I would like to have would be another adult to bounce ideas and opinions off when I'm parenting. Because of my situation in that I separated when boy was very very young, it's not like I've had someone to bounce ideas off and then I lost him. It's all been a matter of picking it up as you go along. I've decided that will be my approach to parenting as well as other aspects of my life.

I doubt myself sometimes when I am parenting. But all that I need to fix that is to be in the company of a regular family and I'm instantly cured. I see that kids from ALL families act up. It's normal and different people have different approaches to making things work for them. That usually calms me down somewhat... and I regain confidence in my parenting.

That's really life isn't it? When you are not going down the beaten track in life, instead forging new paths and cutting down stray branches that get in your way, you really have to fly by the seat of your pants and go with your gut feel. As long as your inner compass and your priorities are in place, I'd say that whatever you decide would be just fine.

Here's to giving a break to yourself the next time you feel like flipping when things get tough. Have a breather and then come back recharged....

Remember, you need to fill your own cup before you can fill anyone else's.