Now that I'm back in Singapore, I'm less self-conscious than before going overseas partly because I had the chance to try out being me in a group of people I wasn't exactly close to, and I liked myself all the better for it. I was a child there and I know it, but it was great to be frivolous and to laugh again and again. But on my first day home faced with my family and the quarrels around me, I wanted to cry. I realised that my existence had been extremely peaceful over there, no personal remarks, or if they were personal, they were said in jest, and I could live with myself. 

I liked myself, and for someone who's spent the past 2 years trying to get a grip on my identity, learning to loosen up, learning to stick to a moral compass, disliking to an extreme the new, fearful, flawed person I'd come to recognise I'd become, liking myself was such a relief. And to be in a group of people who liked you back, that was even better haha.

But I find myself beginning to lapse back into old ways of laziness and forgetfulness, willing my days to pass in a haze, being afraid of the things ahead of me. When did I ever get so scared?? I was always cautious, but I doubt I was ever so fearful of people and new situations. Is this some evolutionary instinct?? But I can't see what it would help to be fearful. I'm so tired and fed up of being scared. 

Sometimes you just have to barge in and pray for the best.