One thing about me not known to many people is that the s**ttier life is for me, the more selfies I take.
Most people take a selfie when they feel good, when they feel confident, when life is good and well.
I am the opposite.
I take selfies when life is tired, when life is exhausting, when certain aspects of life seem to run in a loop that never seem to end.
That don't mean I take pictures that have me look dowdy, haggard, unkempt, exhausted, or frumpy.
It just means that I take selfies of the warpaint that I have on despite the situation I am in.
Let's just say it is a self encouragement.
Or that it is a reminder that I still have resources and am still trying my best to not spiral, give up and go down.
I have to admit that it can be hard.
That life can make it hard to smile, even if it be at yourself, in your own camera, your own lens.
I have had many, many selfies taken in the first three and a half months this year. In three months the number of selfies I took almost rival the entire collection I took for the whole of last year.
That's how it has been.
All these pictures you see here now were taken after I'd gone to cut my hair.
Some I don't look as good, some I look better.
In all of them I tried my best.
Work goes on, life goes on, no matter how you feel, and better that one keep things moving forward- at least there is a feeling of hope (and faith)- than to stagnate.
Yet sometimes I have to quietly wonder.
It is a miracle, I tell you, that I look the way I look in these pictures.
The hair, especially.
For the longest time I have left it alone, just wash, comb and let it air dry. But now that it has been cut this style from a random salon downstairs- in a poufff way that the lady tells me I am supposed to blow dry- I've got to use one of them Lucido hair waxes to style the tresses.
Took me a bit of a while to figure out how wax is applied but eventually I got it that I wasn't supposed to run the wax through the strands using my fingers but to pull it straight down flat, with water to assist, before, and after.
The first picture I took when at an office tower in the CBD. We were there as sponsors for a sort of a cooking competition that would be screened online and maybe for TV as well.
The next few pictures are of a music showcase that I attended at Scape. What's funny is that all through the bus journey there I had attempted nonstop to take a selfie- natural light and all- but failed. It was only after I got to Scape, seated on a bench waiting for the doors to open, that I managed to take these lovely pictures.
Hair a little frizzy but I'm glad they turned out well.
There was a picture at the MRT station of Marine Parade.
And then another whole bunch of pictures that I took at the Coffee Bean of Bugis+ whilst waiting for a prospect to come.
I love the look of these few.
They were unexpected. Not only had the lights around Coffee Bean cast a beautiful purplish glow over my (greasy, post-caregiving) hair, they had illuminated my (made-up) face with a lovely, smooth glow, making me look prettier and fresher than I actually felt.
So thankful.
I'm glad the glitter eyeshadow brightened my look way more than what I felt.
I'm also glad the long-used concealer still served its purpose.
Sometimes life really does turn out better when unplanned.
People always say you should try and try and try until you get it.
But that hasn't always been the case for me.
On the contrary it is when I give up, stop trying, and do it again at a most unexpected time that the results actually show.
Maybe this whole selfie thing is a lesson.
A lesson on giving up, on letting go, on not trying to persevere over and over again when nothing's happening.
Of course, one never knows when the results will show.
Sometimes you might be in an environment with the same sort of light, but because you don't have the same makeup or the same sort of space, the desired results won't come.
Tuk Tuk Cha had the lights.
But I was trying to avoid the background of dishes and serving paraphernalia.
So yeah, same same but different.