Down, down the river of life...

I’m sure every one of you has had their share of ups and downs. It is the very rhythm of our lives.

"Kabi kushi kabi gham,"

I’ve noticed that I experience a rather lengthy period of feeling down from time to time, ranging from a year to at least 4 months and most commonly at the end of a year. This is one of those times. The cycle is indeterminate with the shortest being a year apart. Most of my acquaintances nowadays won’t be able to tell the difference or even care. Those who can tell, now have their own lives and worries to think about.

The first of my major down periods began when I was in Form 1. Part of what I was experiencing was the feeling of being so worthless, uncared for and unloved. I stayed up late into the night. Some of my dorm mates thought I was crazy. It lasted the whole year but I eventually managed to shake it off.

The next happened after SRP (yes, it was still called SRP back then, and yes, I am that old!). The one after that is during SPM itself. That was quite a bad one. Not only had my hostel mates thought that I was crazy, I thought that I was crazy too and had even considered that suicide might, mind you, just might be the best solution for it. Then the following one happened at the end of my two years matriculation. You see the pattern? It was happening a year apart back then and each was horrible in its own unique way.

But the worst happened at the end of the second year of doing my degree. I could hardly think back then. All I did and all the decisions I made had the wrong effect and consequences. Everything that I touched turned to ‘shit’. I lost four of my best friends that year. I even managed to get everyone in my social group seriously angry with me. They even made the decision to oust me out of the group because I had turned into a solo player. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like Survivor in a way. My name got written down one time too many and Jeff Probst finally got to extinguish my torch.

I got better after that. The major down periods thankfully came further apart. My last one before this current one was during my industrial training year. That happened after a two year rest period and so does this current one.

Hopefully, farther on in life, I’ll be able to hack down these major down periods into smaller more manageable pieces. But until then, I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hope that I won’t be doing anything too crazy or unmentionable in the near future. This is Ri, signing off for now. Have a great week!