Reduced

Have you ever had that moment when you feel reduced to a smaller person?

The smaller person who happens to be awkward, helpless, incapable--someone you will not be proud of.

Well, I have. And in quite a number of occasions too. I can't really see a pattern, but that moment haunted me from time to time. In those moments, the dusty archive of memories are recollected. Memories of bad times, and that ancient pain of asking God, "why me?" Old thoughts of rationalizing that the bad times happened...

...because of me.

If something goes wrong, it must be all because of me. Maybe I'm too boring. Maybe I'm too stupid. Maybe I'm too uncool. Maybe I'm too fat. Maybe I'm just not good enough.

It's a depressing, crippling thought. Back then, every time I encounter these moments, I seek solace in vice. Vices that are well-stored in pastel-coloured drawers.  I remember the dusty-pink mattress on which I sprawled out that unpleasantness.

I thought I have come a long way from that pastel-coloured drawers and dusty-pink mattress, but turns out that I have mindlessly left some parts of me behind. Now I wonder how I can fetch them and return to my currently happy state, without losing myself in that old, moldy, ratty phase of life.

And then I come home to my loved one cooking stir-fried beef for me, knowing I had an evening class till 10pm without having dinner beforehand. Well, I suppose I don't have to go back and fetch that part of me---that part of me should be the one running forward.

:)