Ramblings

Belated Birthday Reflections 2015: Letting Go

Jamie Chan, Writer, blogger, Leica Photography, Polyglot, Traveller

Photo by: Damien

I was supposed to be done with this post last Thursday but my ‘free day’ ended up with 5 appointments while the days which followed had been nothing short of varying degrees of legal insanity.
So here is my belated thanks to everyone who messaged, called, thought of and fed me on my, according to Mathias, special day.

These days, when someone asks for my age, I ask them back, physically or mentally?
It is a strange feeling to be so young yet so old at the same time.
I understand how things work and have gotten better at reading people’s energy yet have trouble expressing myself.
There are days where English feels like a second language simply because it does not go deep enough. Then again, I speak four languages so get off my back.

Last year, I wrote about a cat which was barely alive; after which I struggled, fell and got hurt really badly in the subsequent months.

Things got better as I learnt to accept that I cannot control the outcome of everything and that if it makes me feel better, I can choose to embrace the chaos.
Then the cynic in me goes: sure, I accept it but it does not mean I have to like it.
Rather, I suppose there is just no point getting upset if it is beyond my control.
I guess for me, the tricky part is not acknowledging or accepting the way things are.
It comes when I feel so deeply for something that I struggle to keep my anxiety at bay.
Giving myself a bit of credit, I am getting better at managing it; baby steps I suppose. You can’t be good at everything.

I also revisited a piece of writing I did earlier this year, the main gist of it is:

When was the last time you took a photo of something you want to forget?

I am very selective with who I take my selfies/pictures with since photos/ images carry such powerful memories of emotion for me.
This caused me a lot of problems and frustration earlier this year as I could not start work on a certain album and was terrified of having my picture taken.
I had issues with my image as a person and was going through so many different emotions I never thought possibly existed.

I was fortunate. I had and found good people around me who supported, helped me understand, and overcome what I was going through.
When I finally found the courage to make my first self-portrait, I learnt how facing your fears could actually be rather therapeutic.
I then started work on an interesting series of self-portraits which will not be made public anytime soon; my point being, I’ve moved on and let go.

Having a part-time job at COVO is a bonus since I get to explore different types of hairstyles and should I truly desire, go crazy with my hair colour.

From left to right, a documentation of the different states of my hair this year all done by Asako of COVO:

As for the me of now, I chopped off quite a bit of hair and got a new colour, I’ll do another portrait once I make time for it.
Once again, thank you, you wonderful people in my life.
I am blessed.

Jamie Chan, iphone, laugh, leica, Singapore, Travel, photography, birthday

Short!

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