Trial By Fire

It’s been a really trying week, actually, one of the most trying I’ve had yet and I’ve spent the whole week questioning others and doubting myself.

This is disturbing because about 95% of the time, I am a paragon of Socratic virtue. I almost always understand myself completely. I am fully aware of why I do what I do and where I stand on my beliefs.

But every now and then, I go through a cleansing, a mid-life crisis if you will, where all things unshakeable are torn from their foundations and tossed up into the air. Suddenly, all the things I once believed are made into caricatures like the psychadelic flamingos that line the backdrop of Alice’s Wonderland.

Then, I am forced to take them into my hands like shards of glass, crushing them between metacarpals and cleaving my palms just so the bright lines of blood can verify my reality.


So my life came crashing down on me this week.

People I trusted undermined that trust, my family swarmed me with the duty and responsibility of the eldest born child twice-affirmed and work still poured in. And I struggled for days, trying to understand the funk that I was descending into, trying to figure out why I seemed weighted down. My mind tore itself between wondering if I would ever be able to trust anyone again and whether I would be able to live up to the expectations that everyone seemed to have of me.

Worst of all, I couldn’t fathom my own actions and the fact that I seemed to have lost control of all my faculties.

I couldn’t explain myself away.

Being me is like being two people trapped in one skin. I am the person I hate and I care for the most, the person I know and who mystifies me the most, the person who I most like and most loathe being alone with. I am my own greatest enemy, my own coach and mentor.

Most of the time, I ride this acid-trip like a pro; after all, I’ve been on it for twenty one years. Sometimes though, it takes twists and turns that frighten even the most foolhardy adventurer.
On the worst day of all, I had to leave my desk and sit in the dark just so I could breathe and remind myself that I had to pull myself together and function. I tried to hold it all in as best I could.

Now and then, there were chinks in my armour and I’m not proud of it. But I learnt something. Each time I neared breaking point, there was someone there for me, someone to belay me. Like a heaven-sent miracle, there were friends to pull me through.

Rebecca came to sit next to me at work and talked to me, asking me if I was okay and holding my hand with her words. She made it okay for me to admit my weakness and for me to say things that I hadn’t managed to choke out for a long time. And who listened. Just listened.

Then there was Do, who bought me tickets to a play so that I could get my mind off everything else.

And then there was M on the phone every night, her voice like a beacon lighting the rocks of a safe harbour, towing me home. She reminded of what I was living for and why I was working so hard. She held a steady course while I cried over the silliest things; the inconsequential death of my pet fish, my old hamster’s eyes going blind. And all the time, she never flinched from being there no matter how quiet or subdued I seemed to be.


It’s the strangest dichotomy. I know that I have to rely on myself to get through the toughest moments. But there are people in my corner. And all these wonderful friends in my life hold fort when I’m too weak to, when I need some time to gather the ends that unravel.

So really, all I want to say is thank you. Thank you for being my safety net and for thinking of me. Thank you for understanding that I can’t be everybody all the time. Thank you for understanding why I need to do this and why I want to work. Thank you for letting me enter chaos to renew my definitions and refresh my ideas.

Most of all, thank you for making it okay for me to lose my mind every now and then.

I suppose it is true that you have to lose yourself before you can be found.