Changes

I always thought I was good with change. In fact, I thought I thrived under change. I would be wanting a new thing at work and just do different projects all the time. But in wanting to hop into different jobs was not actually me enjoying change, it was me wanting to have something stable, something I could control. The irony. Yet so subtle.

I was compelled to look at some old WhatsApp photos in my chat with my sister. I sent her lots of photos, sometimes screenshots of conversations and emails I’d write. Sometimes photos of flowers and clothes. Just sister things I guess. There was an email I sent to someone at work and oh my god I thought I was so diplomatic and looking back, yeh, I could have been less bitchy and more collaborative. But I really thought I was so good at handling conflict. But I wasn’t, now that I look back. I look back at a parcel pic I took for my sister. It was a coat I ordered from matches fashion. This shop went bust during the pandemic. It no longer exists. How times change. I read some convos I had with a bumble date once - total yikes. Would not respond like that anymore. Things change. Things do change. The only constant in life is change.

And it dawned on me that I resist change. I’m nostalgic because I want things to be the way they used to be. I cling on to the past because I don’t believe in a better future. I resist change so much that I feel like I’m in the past whilst everyone’s moving ahead. I sit in the present, thinking how I can have what I had in the past. Only then it dawned on me that I resist change so much. I learned change management at work and thought yeh big deal, change at work is easy. Ha! So funny that it turns out that the biggest resistor of change in my life is myself. I am resisting change so much. I feel thrown at how my sisters life has changed now she has two kids. Our relationship had changed and I feel uncomfortable with it. It’s ever evolving. Her priority is her kids now and of course, it will always be that way. And I’m just simply not in the same phase of life as she is and I can no longer relate with her very much. She does a lot of Mum things, whilst I’m doing the cool Aunt things - that type of dynamic. And I no longer feel as close as I was with her. She’s always busy and I will never understand - cause I’m not a mum right now. Home life circumstances changed too. All my grandparents who were ALL alive before the pandemic are now all dead. My tenants are moving after 9 years too. I thought they’d stay for a long time. Things are changing. So much. I’m fine with work changing but I realise I struggle when life changes. Like the car has broken down now. And that seemed to have triggered me. I want control so I control it via my work - it feels like the only way I can feel stable and I thought jumping jobs meant that i am dynamic in change but it was control masqueraded as change.

I always thought that I could accept the change of him not being in my life and the truth is I couldn’t. I just feel so sad about how the 2017 version of me would have never saw it coming. Maybe I am mourning what it was between us. And I hold on to it because it really was something beautiful. And it meant something to me. But it looks like Katie needs to stop resisting what is and just find a way to accept, yes, he’s gone! That’s just the way it is right now, he’s gone for good. How do I bless it for what it was and be ok with my sadness that it’s really gone?

Oh fuck me. what a realisation.

what it was.

I feel like I’ve finally emptied all the emotions that I had about what hurt me in the past that now I no longer really have anything left to say about it. Except, I realised that it’s no longer those negative emotions, but more so the positive emotions that linger.

If I strip everything back, what remains is a feeling that yeh, of course I miss him. How could I not miss him when we shared a lot of deep emotional experiences with each other, albeit via iMessage as the primary way of communication? I remember he once said that we effectively didn’t really know each other, since we only interacted that way for most of the time we were talking. And for a long time, I really thought he was right and I felt a bit stupid and foolish for thinking that it was anything more than just an online connection. But maybe the reason why I felt like it was significant for me, because that’s the thing, we had to communicate via messaging so communication was paramount. And that at times, is how you build intimacy, not simply through close proximity. I think about Ray, my first boyfriend. He lived 5 minutes away from me but I never got to that depth with him, despite being in relative close proximity with him. We went on trips too but in retrospect, I realised that despite our 4 year relationship, I never really knew him. Maybe it’s not these markers that define depth. Maybe the only real marker is how it makes you feel.

The fog really has lifted because I can only remember the very distinct moments we shared. I remember waking up at 4am in the morning to his message cause he told me he was gymming. In all honesty, I love to sleep. But I loved talking to him too, so I woke up to engage in some chat at that ungodly hour. I remember making him laugh with a comment I made at Te Papa whilst looking through the telescope. That was my crown achievement in humour because it was so effortless ahha. I used to think about these memories with ache and a lot of sadness. But I see them with a different colour now, it’s a warm shade. I used to want to resist the warm shade of these memories, cause I would think it was too painful to relive because it no longer existed. But now I can revisit these memories and see them for what they are and with the warmth of what it is. I really treasure those moments in my life and I’ve come to accept it that there is a real possibility that they’re just forever going to be memories and not a new experience again. I am really glad that I got to experience this unique relationship in my life and I am ready for whatever the future will bring.

travel

my favourite book…is my passport. lmao.

i don’t want to become one of those insufferable people who can’t stop thinking about her next travel trip - but i am. there are memes online about how people return to work, refreshed and ready to take on the world and then they write ‘no, i return to work with a fresh hatred and renewed enthusiasm for travelling’. that’s me, i return to work with renewed hatred of work and wanting to travel more.

I really want to do another trip but well, I do have to save a bit of money first. Lol. I want to go back to Sweden. When I was in Denmark or Sweden, forgot which one, I was messaging my friend and telling her that I was feeling so frustrated because the men there are so damn hot. I was getting so irritated because everyone is hot there and that’s not the case in Australia. If a guy is rated 6/10 in Scandinavia, they would totally be a 10/10 here and he’d do so well. But yeh, everywhere I went were just hot men and I was like oh my god, this is terrible. I was a bit flustered, hahahaahahahahah. So yeh, of course this is not why I want to go back to Scandinavia…sure…. LOL. Maybe I can go to Scandinavia and fall in love with a gorgeous man named Sven or Lars or Erik or whatever. JOKING. But maybe a Norwegian would be better cause they have the Norwegian oil fund which is FOR the people of Norway and it’s the people’s money. Lol, just kidding.

But I have really been wanting to pack my bags and go on another holiday. I recently discovered this theory of a non-place online which was coined by Marc Auge which talks about places lacking relational ties, history or identity… and so there’s this anonymity that you feel moving through that place. It’s really interesting - cause airports are really weird places for sure. I’ve written about how odd it is to be in one place and then a mere 24 hours later be on the other side of the world. It really is a bit of an existential thought. Maybe that’s why we feel a bit braver when we’re abroad - cause we’re an amplified version of ourselves, whether for better or for worse remains debatable. Travel makes me feel more part of the human fabric of existence. Like - we’re just like everyone else. I think it democratises everyone too, that we have more in common than differences. But then differences are amplified too - particularly culturally. But you realise, we all connect through shared joy, experiences and happiness. That’s why travel is so addictive and so liberating.

I do want to go on a trip where I can just take a week off, where I leave on the Friday and have two weekends to bookend the trip. That’ll give me ample time. So Japan again? I don’t want to do Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto. Been there too many times now so I would want to do those Japanese villages. I really want to take the road less travelled and go to places that are off the beaten track. I have been recommended to go to the Baltics by the osteopath who treats my jaw. He told me its a lot cheaper and it’s got amazing landscapes and you still get the very European feel. He told me that it’s incredibly beautiful there in Christmas too, despite it being super cold. I don’t know yet, but I’m itching to go travel again. And I love solo travel so much - it’s just so freeing and liberating.

Every teardrop is a waterfall - avicii tour mix

This me listening to this song

This song.

The Middle

The tropes of the middle child are so cliche. Ya know, the one that is sandwiched in the middle and therefore never heard. Lmao. Just kidding. But yeh, I do find middle child syndrome tropes pretty funny cause I do relate very well to them. One thing that has always been huge for me was fairness and equity and equality. I have a strong sense of fairness and get really angry and annoyed when things are perceived as unfair to me. That’s probably why I like working in healthcare because that’s a way I can bring equality and equity to people I care about. I get really sad when I see suffering too, especially in vulnerable populations. It breaks my heart when I see an animal that isn’t loved. And sometimes I just can’t bear to kill insects either - I actually just bagged a cockroach despite being freaking scared, and just flung it into the garden. I just didn’t feel like killing an insect that day. I perhaps have a bit too much empathy… but I get really sad when I put myself in their shoes and think that they’re just having a will to live. And it’s so unfair for me to take the life of an insect. But sometimes, I just had to kill a spider. I didn’t know how to bring it outside. I really wanted to but I was also really scared.

This sense of fairness has proliferated into all aspects of my life. Maybe that’s why I get so annoyed when I perceive bias. Like that one time when my colleague, who was on the same project as I was and also at the same level, was told that he could go for a promotion by my coach whilst my coach told me I didn’t have enough business development hours. I knew he didn’t either because he was on the same project as me and I knew where he spent his time. I resented my coach for a bit after that because I just felt like that was double standards. But perhaps the world is inherently unfair. I get so angry when I hear about the atrocities being committed against certain groups in the world (I don’t want to type the ethnicities because I don’t want those bots on my website). And it makes me so angry with how they’re not given food and water (you can deduce). I wish the world was fairer to people who are disadvantaged and those who have atrocities committed against them. It breaks my heart. I had to not follow the news so much because it was actually starting to get to me.

Fairness is perhaps a key value in my heart. And I realised how much I was still holding on in the name of fairness. One thing that I felt was really unfair was how I never got a say in how that situationship thing ended. One day he was here, the next day he never responded so I figured that was it, I was ghosted. It was unfair to be left to pick up the pieces, without even getting to say how it made me feel. It made me feel like I was worthless. Maybe the sense of unfairness kept simmering away for me. I felt confused when I could see that he just could simply move on with a relationship whilst I was just still reconciling with the feelings that I was left flung with. Maybe I hadn’t been able to face this sense of anger and frustration at the sheer unfairness to be treated this way. I don’t think I deserved it. But I admit, perhaps why I go around in circles with how I feel is because I cannot admit that I was treated really unfairly. I never wanted to label anyone as a villain because I just don’t want to do that. But maybe finding grace within myself is admitting that whatever happened was really unfair and I really didn’t deserve it.

The thing about life is that it is unfair. You can never control how people are. But perhaps the anger is actually not at him, but actually at me. I was probably angry at myself for never being able to voice how I truly felt about what happened because I then violated my self-worth. I didn’t stand up for myself and ironically, one of my biggest values is fairness. So no wonder I feel so strongly about fairness in everything - I haven’t even been fair to myself. But being fair to myself isn’t getting back at anyone, no. That only proliferates the pain and I think maybe I am past that now. Perhaps fairness is giving myself a life that I think I deserve. Fairness is respecting myself enough to love myself the way I want to be loved. Fairness is standing up for myself. It’s self-respect. And maybe that starts now.

Elliot

hi from me and elliot

taken from our new macbook pro m4

A little bit left.

There’s still a little bit left of my feelings that I haven’t sat with yet. It looks like the deepest ones don’t want to be felt or confronted. But I’m not going to hide from myself anymore, because doing that demeans myself.

I think the most plain truth that I haven’t been able to truly admit was this - It hurt. That’s the plain old truth of it. I actually wrote a paragraph, describing it in all different forms, recounting the pandemic and all and everything that transpired. But that actually doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I felt really hurt by what happened.

It was a really challenging time in my life.

I felt really disorientated.

I just didn’t know what I did wrong.

And that question plagued me for years.

What could I have done differently?

And the answer is clear - I couldn’t. I did what I thought was best.

Admitting that I was hurt actually feels validating. Perhaps I finally validated myself and acknowledged what I felt. That it was an emotional rollercoaster and I wanted to get off it. But I didn’t know how to so I remained there for a few years.

And now that I have validated myself - I feel so much better, so much lighter.

I did what I knew best at the time with whatever things I showed up with in life.

And I really need to stop blaming myself. I got to stop hating old versions of me. And I see that version of me, finally forgiven by me. I’m gonna let that version of me rest. She didn’t deserve all that blame that came from me. I’m sorry.

Favourite Souvenir

I bought quite a few souvenirs from my time in Scandinavia. Like the blue APC Grace Bag which is pretty cute and some Skandinavisk hand cream that I am completely obsessed with. It’s the best scent ever and it makes me feel to put together. I loved the scent so much I bought the eau de toilette and body cream. But my favourite souvenir has been the things I bought from the Avicii Experience - this Avicii Forever shirt and an Avicii cap.

I’ve been using Apple Music for its lossless and dolby atmos features because music sounds better now on my Macbook Pro M4. Spotify sound quality pales in comparison. Apple has Avicii’s Live from Osaka, Japan Jun 4 2016 DJ mix and I’ve just been listening to that. I’ve also been listening to some really awesome electronic music which I discovered whilst going to Bloc Party last week - Floating Points. My favourites by Floating Points include Fast Forward and Birth4000. Such intense pulsating beats that just get me in the mood to lock in - as they say these days. But yeh, Avicii’s live set again has allowed me to discover some remixes that I’ve never heard before. Avicii made so much music that even 7 years after his passing, I’m still discovering new music from him. His spirit and legacy really lives on through the gift of his music. I really don’t know why lately I’ve just been thinking about Avicii so much. Maybe it’s the tragedy of it all - he was only 28. He had so much more life to live. Sigh.

I’m just an EDM enthusiast - but mostly progressive house. I just cannot describe the euphoria I feel when I listen to those melodies that just transport you to another dimension, it’s like you’re floating.

Also, I seriously don’t know how I used to learn before ChatGPT - I find myself actually understanding concepts more because it’s able to rectify my cognitive oversight. For example, I’m learning about all these machine learning terms and how to apply different mathematical algorithms to the data. Machine Learning is applied mathematics so it’s good that I did 4 unit mathematics in my HSC which means I understand the algebra behind it. It’s really just about the terminology and not getting mixed up in the notations that it uses. We’re going through polynomial equations which can be applied to data - kinda like calculus but except for calculating things just for the sake of it, there is an objective there. AI is all about maths. I didn’t realise that but it’s obvious now that I think of it. Everything is powered by an algorithm, aggregating all the data out there to help make sense of it. Huh, makes sense why they call functions ‘Data and AI’ in companies…right? LOL. And why PowerBi is so important too. IT IS ALL MAKING SENSE TO ME NOW. But I really don’t know how I learned anything without ChatGPT. It would have been SO USEFUL if I had ChatGPT when learning physiotherapy. I could have just put scenarios in and then it would be able to help do differential diagnosis and it would help to either confirm or deny my hypothesis. I WOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER STUDENT BRO. MAYBE I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN HIGHER MARKS IN PHYSIO LOL. Oh man students have it so easy but then I do wonder if students will be able to develop the ability to critically examine their thoughts - because I find AI really useful for me when I can have an intellectual sparring partner. But if I didn’t know how to question the logic and find the patterns, then it would not be that useful. That’s such a fine line. The basis of cognition still needs to be laid. AI would make students stupider if they aren’t able to question things to elucidate a wider understanding of the subject matter.

20 degrees

We had so many days of rain and today was a rare day where we got sunshine. It was slightly warmer than usual, 20 degrees and the sun was shining. It felt like the beginning of spring, I could smell it in the air. I usually love the transition months - like September and October, cause we’re finally out of the deep cold that was June and July and into warmer weather and later sunsets. There’s a sense of aliveness after deep hibernation. I was driving home from work and I was just letting thoughts flow in and out of my head. I had this feeling of being ok with the past; like the past didn’t feel like such a heavy weight anymore. I genuinely felt a sense of excitement for the great unknown. I no longer feared it, in fact, it seemed like a blessing. I was thinking about how time is so weird because things that happened 8 years ago felt like yesterday but things from a year ago, like my redundancy, felt like ages ago. Time feels like a spiral - maybe the time is actually felt rather than linear. Who knows. Time is a weird thing. But I got to a point of feeling genuinely calm and looking forward to the unknown, the next chapter. I think this must be a result of facing what I couldn’t put down and facing my pain. And no longer hiding behind the words I wrote. I could never admit I was hurt. Perhaps I bought into the belief that my feelings were wrong. But I was then denying my humanity not acknowledging myself as a person. My feelings are just that, feelings. They’re not wrong nor they are right, they just exist as they are, as part of this experience of being a human being. I just needed to be a human. That’s all I ever needed.

Also, learning Python right now. Can’t believe my lecturer wants me to write Python code WHEN HE DIDNT EVEN TEACH THE CODE. Thank god for GenAI cause if it wasn’t for that I would NOT understand code.

Solo Travelling

I wrote a lot about the things I loved about solo travelling. But there are downsides.

• You don’t have someone to mind your stuff when you go to the toilet. So you gotta haul everything into the cubicle with you.

• Sometimes when you get scared, you don’t have someone to turn to… like, sometimes I freak myself being in a big hotel room on my own. But I’m like, fuck it, embrace it, it’ll be ok.

• You can’t just hog a table to go get stuff at buffet. You have to strategically leave something there like a jacket to show people that you’re still sitting there.

• Can’t order a lot of food to try because you can’t finish it, so you won’t get to try a lot of different dishes.

• It costs more to travel alone because you’re not splitting the costs of things like a hotel room. It’s gonna cost the same if you sleep alone or share the room with someone.

• Sometimes you do wonder what the hell you’re doing alone, all across the world.

• It can get a bit lonely, I did at times feel like striking up conversations because I was getting so bored of talking to myself.

• You have to sit next to random people on flights

• There is no one else to rely on, so you really have to rely on yourself or actually go ask people (which is an adventure in itself)

• There’s no one else to share your joy with; or your reflections with. Which is why I wrote on my blog a lot. Also no one to share funny experiences with.

• You’re limited in the things that you discover because when you’re travelling with other people, they have other interests which can potentially expand your worldview too.

• You’re the only one navigating, there’s no one to rely on for navigation.

• Australia goes to sleep when its afternoon in Europe, so it’s hard to communicate and share things in real time.

• No one else to remember the trip with. I only have myself to remember the trip with.

• You’re limited to selfies lol.

• If you’re sick, you’re on your own. Like how I was in Dubai and Copenhagen.

Still can’t believe I went to Scandinavia. It feels like such a long time ago now. I’d do it all over 1000%. But I think I would actually instead go for longer and actually buy one of those DJI cameras so I could take more videos of the places I went to rather than just rely on myself for taking photos. I have a total of 1246 photos from Scandinavia, but I felt like I didn’t take enough. I have also looked at these photos again and again, they’re my favourite. I think I’ll print them out soon so I can have a physical memory. It really is my favourite memory and truly a highlight of my life. I feel so lucky to have gone.

I don’t miss this part tho

Avicii Forever.

Can you actually miss someone you’ve never met? I think about Avicii a lot. When I went to the Avicii Experience, I spent almost 2 hours there. I wanted to see all the videos and be at the exhibit thoroughly. Truth to be told, the only reason why I went to Stockholm was because I wanted to see the Avicii Experience. Maybe that’s when the seed was planted about going to Stockholm. When I got to Stockholm, it felt like the perfect place to listen to Avicii, given that this is the city that shaped him. Somewhere in Stockholm is that song, a tribute to where he grew up.

I think the reason why Avicii’s death still hurts is because his music was truly the soundtrack of my uni days to young adulthood. So when he passed, it like it was the death of a certain period of time in my life. I struggled a lot in 2015, working as a first year graduate physiotherapist. I hated the job because I hated the physio department I worked in. I swear they were bullies. I really wanted to quit but I persisted and finished my contract. I figured that I will just get that year of experience under my belt and explore other things if I wanted to. I remember feeling the sunday scaries every week, cause I just didn’t want to go to work and face the people there. I loved the patients, I loved the wards, but I hated working with the physios. I also didn’t like the drive down there, because it was like 50kms away from home, and I was a young 22 year old. So a bit green. I discovered The Nights by Avicii and it gave me perspective. And I felt like that my life isn’t just this and that there is possibility and hope to really live a beautiful life after this. I played this song on repeat as I drove down the highway to and from work, it kept me going when I just wanted to quit. It was me and Avicii on repeat. So he really got me through that year.

And I don’t think it’s just that he was the soundtrack to my life in my 20s. It was really because he truly was a musical genius. His flair for melody was unsurpassed and he kept innovating and bringing new ideas to music. I remember hearing wake me up for the first time and I was so taken aback, kinda confused, It wasn’t love at first listen at all, but obviously, it’s now one of my favourite songs that still stops me on my tracks. I miss Avicii because I love his music and I just love how he poured his heart and soul into his music. You can feel the melancholy hopefulness in his music. It’s like he just wove his soul into the melodies and you can hear it. His music makes you feel - in the sense that you just wanna close your eyes and feel into it.

But maybe he was really in so much pain and he couldn’t go on any longer. I really hope Avicii has found the peace that he was looking for. The world misses him so much. I miss him so much.