25.

Cross-posted from my blog. The entry is a little bipolar, my emo and epic nerdy fangirling all rolled into one. You have been warned.

---

25.

Where do I even start? I'm glad to be alive.

It takes a lot of courage to put certain thoughts and feelings into words, too easy to be hurt for who we are, our heart's fragility can only withstand so much when it comes to our weaknesses, I think.

And so, I hadn't known how to write this, and I still don't exactly, not really. But last year -- getting over depression -- was surely the grandest achievement of me being 24 (and of course my doctor, who didn't even have to put me on antidepressants, thank you).

In many ways, I'd been afraid to write about it because I didn't want to jinx my recovery, it wasn't often I had something good like that. (Because you know, more than once, I'd thought that I was fine, just to find myself living in the very opposite of that the next months.)

It was a lot to take in, becoming… un-unhappy.

From my first memory of acute loneliness, to the first time I thought about death when I was four, a lifetime of problems to fix, all the normalcy I never knew and wondered about, that made me different, that nearly…

I hadn't known I suffered from traumatic stress, it went on for so long I'd accepted my feelings and nightmares as normalcy. So when I could see in my head, during my final session, the foundation blocks of my life and thoughts reslotting and rearranging, completely changing, I couldn't understand how it was possible. It was overwhelming and awe-inspiring. And terrifying.

It was as if I had become someone else, held in my hands the memories of someone I might have been, trying to understand it, feeling like an outsider; as if I were separated from that person's past by a wall of glass, I could look but not reach, nor feel.

It left me lost, like I'd finally emerged from the shadows into the sun, yet all that lay around me was vast indistinct land, and it didn't matter where I went. Until finally, and only because I was trying so hard to find something, anything at all, I felt the moment I left that dream place and came surface to air, and I realised with wonder, that I had healed.

If I could liken it to something, maybe, it's what a person's metamorphosis is like.


That was the most important thing that happened to me at 24.

Of course not discounting my move to New York, and the recent news that I was selected by Vogue Italia to be part of Photo Vogue's exhibition in Milan this June. And I saw Gundam Unicorn! Finally!! I haven't been able to lock away my closet nerdiness after that, because oh god, sick cockpit design is sick. I've been daydreaming about how to spend my first billion dollars (simulation room in my house!!), I even re-watched the series to take screenshots just so I can write a blog post about it. NERDY.

Also just finished Lymond Chronicles' book 4, it was SO emotionally brutal I nearly had a heart attack. Phillipa, my sixteen year old heroine. SO BRAVE. HOW?! She journeyed alone to find her friend's baby son in a foreign land, surrounded by dangers and traps and possible assassinations all the bloody way, and gave up her life to the seraglio just so she could protect the child's safety after she had found him. So freaking badass and so much courage! Why aren't there more people reading this together with me so we can fangirl and fanboy together!?!!

Don't judge me on the fangirling.

The secret to great personal work is being a fangirl. Only when I feel passionate can I create works passionately!


So 24 was an experience alright, here's hoping 25 will be even grander.

Thank you everyone for your encouragements and support and love, I hope I can continue to be a person you can be happy with and proud of. Happy birthday to me!

Jingna
May 4th, 2013

PS: Holy shit, 5 pages of birthday greetings, you guys are way too sweet. Love you dA