Interestingly today, when I stepped up onto the stage and attempted to deliver my speech, there wasn't any trace of nervousness at all. I was feeling all confident and prepared to deliver the presentation my team had planned. Somehow, just into a few sentences into the introduction, my mind went blank. It was totally indescribable. Like something froze my chain of thoughts, immobilizing, paralyzing and petrifying me. The breakdown process was catastrophic. It was like how a chain of dominos would fall with just one small force applied at one end of the domino. A butterfly effect like that. What triggered that small force, I don’t know nor can I ever hope to fathom. That is why I choose to pen my thoughts down because I want to remember.
I do not believe it has to do with a lack of self esteem and confidence at all. However, I suspect that it has to do with something rooted much more deeply inside my being. It is like a denial from a previous experience; an absenteeism from reality.
It might have to do with something which on the surface appears really insignificant but has considerable impact upon myself. Something like how breaking a vase may trigger tremendous fear in someone who associates such noise to the shattering of a window in a car accident previously encountered.
The feelings I felt was like a riddle wrapped in an enigma. There isn’t a definite answer to it. It is like how a stranger would call out to me with deafening silence --
Where I am walking aimlessly in the middle of a huge crowd and out of nowhere, I hear someone desperately crying out to me. I look around, but don't see any familiar faces. So I ask the people around me if they heard anything at all but all I get in return are strange stares. Even if it is a lie, I would prefer it if they would standby me in quiet acquiescence. Because I can’t find the answer I seek, I have lost the momentum to move on. I’m feeling lost because I know what I heard is real. I’m all alone in this empty world; alone in this cold, dark, damp and lonely place.
As I sink deeper and further into depression, I hear another voice reaching out to me from the darkness. It is a very different voice from the 1st. It soothes and embraces me and is determined to keep me from myself. I slip out from my nothingness and I see warm familiar faces and events around me:
A serene smile from a particular girl
A simple word of encouragement
The encouragement I got from Eileen, Alvin, Pamela and Christina
The support I got from Celia,
I understood everything that happened today. I understood what the 2 voices I heard today was. I understood what Dorianne Laux was trying to express in her poem “For the Sake Of Strangers.” It hit me with stunning clarity what Emily Dickinson was trying to convey in her poem “God Gave a Loaf to Every Bird.”
More importantly, I realized that even though failures may happen many times in a lifetime, friends like you all only happen once in a lifetime.
No comments:
Post a Comment