(MON)DAY #24: GROWING OLDER AND WISER

Maybe this is all part and parcel of growing old but I have been choosing to stay at home to read and watch what I would like to think, meaningful videos over going out and partying.

I still like to head out, drink myself silly, shake my bon-bon and get lost in music -- after all girls wanna have fun.  Of late however, there is a desire for or rather a sense of overwhelmingly YES-THAT-FEELS RIGHT kind of acceptance about introspection (or maybe it is just plain laziness). 

Read the three signs of my newly acquired wisdom. Hmmm..

YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM YOURSELF IN THE QUIET.

I meditate or I try to meditate now. I am using Headspace app; I even went for my first meditation class this year!  It felt strange hearing someone guiding you to connect to every part of your body and soul. When the teacher said, "Give thanks to your heart," I teared a little. 

Oh yes, my heart, you have been working very hard! I haven't thanked you enough for the love you have been giving and receiving. 

I'm also finally ready for a silent retreat known as Vipassana. A friend shared this with me a few years ago and I have been intrigued since. I thought about going for the retreat twice before. The first time was well, when I first heard about it and the second time was when I was nursing a heartbreak and I thought I needed a flushing mechanism. Yet, not talking for ten days straight still felt like an insane concept then. I didn't think I was ready to confront myself. 

This year, strangely, I feel like I am ready for it. This readiness is not confidence. To be honest, I'm not sure if I can survive the ten days. I think this has to do with the fact that I can accept whatever outcome the retreat brings me to. Hearing a good friend share her personal experience also helps to manage my expectations. 

While I can't articulate the benefits of Vipassana just yet, I can tell you meditation works wonders. I feel more at peace than I was before - less anxious and more forgiving. I'm still trying to get a spot in one of the Vipassana centres in the region! 

To explore from within, here are the few channels:

• Meditation app: https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app
• Vipassana: https://www.dhamma.org

PEOPLE CAN ONLY MEET YOU AS DEEPLY AS THEY HAVE MET THEMSELVES.

Watch this. 

I recently fell in love with a project called {THE AND}.  I've been advocating the content series in my own way via Whatsapp to my friends and family for the past few weeks. It started as a voyeuristic peek into a conversation between two exes, then it transformed into a sort of a mission for me. 

To quote the creative director of The Skin Deep, the team behind this project,

"A relationship is not you or I, him or her, Romeo or Juliet. It is about the "and" - you and I, him and her, Romeo and Juliet. It is {THE AND}, the space between. So what if we can take the user, the audience and put them in this space of all these other relationships?"

After watching some of these videos, I realise we are more connected than we think are to one another.

I often hear people around me avoiding difficult conversations with people they are in relationships with. Everything that I have heard from insecurities about finances, differences in parenting, infidelity to pure bliss of dating is echoed in the conversations of the featured couples that hail from the other side of the world. 

You will kind of feel that you are not alone in feeling what you are feeling. Next you will feel like it is ok to share, to talk it out and ask your loved one those questions you have been dying to ask. 

Being able to spend that uninterrupted time with your person and meet him or her as deeply as he or she wants to bring you there is really lovely. To me, that is intimacy. 

In an almost sweeping statement, a friend said that on our little island, people get together more for convenience and comfort rather than for connection and conversations. 

That is true, I remember thinking out loud, so true! This isn't anyone's fault though. We have been brought up in an environment and culture which has taught us that it is better to compromise and suck it up rather than to communicate and negotiate your differences with anyone you have a relationship with. 

While browsing Skin Deep Instagram, I saw a post that featured a Singaporean. {THE AND} is coming to our shores! Excitedly, I wrote to the producers, eager to be a part of this process. 

This is something that I believe in - I envision a world where people can freely communicate with their emotions. I spoke to the producers in Singapore and voila, they are looking for more participants. So here I am, trying to help. 

I know what you are thinking. 

Aren't we displaying our relationship in front of the whole wide world? What if I look ugly on camera? What if this tears the relationship apart? What if skeletons from the closet are being dug out? 

These are completely valid thoughts. 

The producers explained to me that {THE AND} is a shared experience; it is not an interview. It is akin to two people learning how to rock climb or preparing a meal together. You are having a conversation together, helmed by some questions that can help you and your person open up a little more than usual. And you always have a choice to keep quiet, to take more time to answer a question; you won't be put in a spot. You can be an inspiration to the rest of the world, just by being yourself and being honest. It is an experience that goes as deeply as you want it to be. 

If you are keen to have a {THE AND} experience with anyone you are in a relationship with, it can be your parent, sibling, child, colleague, friend, send me a Facebook/Whatsapp/IG/email message and I'll link you up. 

Some of my other favourite videos:

I GOT MOSS GROWING IN MY BEDROOM. 

This may seem like quite an off-beat sign of my "wisdom", but I am going to qualify it as one anyway.  I gave a story I wrote to InOut and briefed the terrarium maker to design something that he thinks fits the narrative. 

What I hope to learn from this process is to be able to commit to taking care of a living thing - serious wisdom coming from a twenty-eight year woman. 

It is a huge commitment for me. I hope it doesn't die. I really do! 

If you think terrariums technically can survive on their own, you have been deceived. My friend's terrarium died. 

This terrarium of mine has an independent streak, but my attention is still required from time to time. (Isn't that a perfect fit for me!) I've been advised to check the moistness of the moss and to clean the condensation and to water it whenever necessary.  

• To get a wonderful world of moss and plants that you can gaze at, hit up https://www.inoutatelier.com/. 

P.S. I really like how the terrarium maker is understanding of my whimsical brief and how he plays along with it. Thank you! :) 

If this is what it means to grow old, I must say I am liking it very much.