Ant’s Amalgamation

Entry 1

7/26/2021

Light and dark co-exist, there’s very little argument for that. That’s how it’s been. For shadows to exist, you need light and vice versa. But if you think about it, the dark is eternal while light has its limit. When it is daytime, the sunlight will eventually go away after a certain time as the dark settles in, and even when it is bright outside, it is nighttime somewhere else. Take all the light away and all that is left is darkness. Can we really say that light and dark co-exist? Light has a limit, the sun will be gone in a couple of billion years and all there will be left is darkness. 

When you close your eyes, you return to the dark that is you. When you return to the dark, nothing happens. When nothing happens, it is confirmation of the best salvation. Peace of mind, at least that is what happens in most instances. However, when you shine the light to the dark that is you, you reveal secrets, uncover things and act on choices. The light can be interpreted as a sort of harbinger of what is good and what is bad. The light is one half of a duality that reveals a duality existing within the other half.

Shine your light into the dark to reveal treasures and monsters. Shine your light into the dark to unleash potential. Shine your light into the dark to uncover your apex. Shine your light to reveal the veil of the dark that is humanity. 

The light, the world, acts upon our darkness, our humanity. A villain can exist without a hero just like how darkness can exist without light. Yet without the definition of light, the definition of darkness cannot exist. 

What a weird thing to think about, at five in the morning on a Monday, in bed with a bowl of noodles in my hand. 

Entry 2

7/27/2021

It is currently 2:45 p.m., and as I write this, the rest of my family is at a temple for my grand-uncle who passed away last week. 

Last week, my mom walked into the room as I was working to tell me the news. She had told me a few days ago that my granduncle had very little time left. I never got a chance to say my goodbyes before his passing. I continued to work, distracting myself with the peer review and the drafting. It was hard to consume and once work was done, I simply stared at my screen.  As tears started to fall from my mourning, my composure broke. I buried my face into my elbow. I had let go. 

My grand-uncle and grand-aunt used to live in the same house as the rest of my family. They had moved a few years ago to another place to live out their days. As a kid, I used to play with them a lot, running up the stairs constantly, outside with my scooter and soccer. I was a free spirit, a dandelion in the wind that wanted to soar. My parents have always told me that as a kid, I matured much earlier than other kids my age. My youthful spirit fell back, not gone, just not on the front lines of me. Where has that gone now?

These days, my mom has told me how easily I can switch from two tones: a serious tone and a much more playful and joking tone. She told me I recognize when or when not to joke about things, being serious and my overall approach to things has improved. I always get compliments on how big I am, my shoulders, my muscles, but how big am I inside?

Today at the funeral home, when I walked to my grand-uncle’s casket, my grand aunt was beside him, like she always was. Behind her mask, she was mourning, grieving, I couldn’t help but hug her. Her face was accompanied by swollen eyes with bags under them. She was grieving the most. We both stood there, holding each other, she sunk her face into my neck, fresh tears. I guess she was reminded of the time I spent with the two of them. 

I was allowed to touch my grand-uncle’s hand. I placed my hand over his hands, they were cold as a rock. I closed my eyes, the memories flowed in again. I didn’t cry yet, I smiled under my mask. It was silent and I really needed that silence.

Two hours later, at the crematorium, I watched as his casket was pushed into the cremulator. I held my mom in my arms as we watched the cremulator close and with a few button presses, the casket was burning. He was gone. 

Those memories could never be burnt or buried, I left the crematorium keeping them with me. They reminded me of a time of freedom, a time of bliss. My grand-uncle reminded me of that, I had lost him, we had lost him. The breeze gently grazed against my skin as I stared up into the sky, there was nothing in the air but my uncle reminded me that:

There are both good and bad memories but each is a reminder that the other exists. 

As I was typing this, I felt tears forming but they had dried. It’s time to move on towards tomorrow, for my grand-uncle, my grand-aunt, and myself.

Entry 3

7/28/2021

I can’t stop laughing at this stuff, it hurts so bad. Oh my lord. 

If you think about it, cereal is a soup. Even though the official definition from Merriam Webster states that soup is “a liquid food especially with a meat, fish, or vegetable stock as a base and often containing pieces of solid food,” “especially” doesn’t necessarily mean it is a necessity. So cereal BY DEFINITION is a soup. It’s a liquid food, the milk and whatever the grains are, so it is soup.  To those that argue that soup also implies that it is hot, there are many examples of cold soups. So that argument is out of the picture but what makes hot cereal not a thing? I think it’s completely fine to boil your milk for your cereal. It’s just preference. Also, I never thought about it but how do you boil your milk safely? That’s something for another day. 

Then there’s mustard. I never understood why mustard was a thing in the beginning until I actually tried it. Mustard is really good. It is heat. I honestly think it may be a change of taste buds because I started to dislike ketchup, not to say I hate it, I just think it’s bland, overrated and if there is an alternative, I will take it and that was mustard. There was an idea to try mustard with watermelon. It sounds alright but whatever. I actually figured out that tomatoes are both fruits and vegetables. Weird right? Well apparently they are fruits treated like vegetables, so pick your poison.

What else is there to talk about? I don’t think I can boil milk or my grandma will kill me and I don’t think watermelon is available. Kind of ran out of mustard too. Oh well. 

Cereal is a soup. Hot cereal sounds fire. Mustard over ketchup.

Entry 4

7/29/2021

Yesterday, my best friend told me about her scrolling through Twitter and blushing at this picture she found. She didn’t describe it in detail but she didn’t know how to feel. For context, she is asexual. She asked me “how do I stop this” and told me I was the one with the experience. She clarified what she meant by that. 

I am a pretty short guy, at least in my former friend group. I am 5’5 at the moment while a lot of my former friends are 5′ 8 to 6 foot. Being short is whatever, you get teased, it is just how it is. I’m heterosexual like most of my former guy friends, but I have an interesting taste, as they described it, in women. I am into assertive and tall women, girls, whatever, just girls that have a lot of confidence in themselves. 

It was around middle school where girls just popped into my head, my interest in getting into a relationship nowadays, thinned but back to the blushing…

I remember a lot of girls approaching me in public when I was alone. There was this one time on the train during quarantine, where this tall girl pinned me to one of the train doors on the green line. I was leaning on the door while she had her left hand on the door, the right holding onto the handle we were both holding. I honestly could go on and on, and it did make me flustered when this stuff happened but today it’s just an empty bag. I feel like I have taken a role of reassurance, almost in a fatherlike way. I’m always happy to help out people and talk things out because I have been in most of their situations, but when it comes to relationships, it’s always hard.

Coaches never play so maybe that is why I have never been in a relationship but give advice on relationships. I’m just a coach. When I think about those memories, I’m not embarrassed at all, more so I just don’t care. I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, and I had looked at a post my old crush posted way back. I just shrugged and moved on. Yet I still get jealous of these relationships that are around me, and it doesn’t help that my friends, personalities online, and my parents tease me about having a girlfriend or not.  

After being rejected so many times, I think what I am just looking for in a girl is not independence but reassurance, because blushing doesn’t feel the same anymore.

Until that day I find that one person, I’ll be patient, all I know now is patience.

Eh. What a depressing note to end an entry.