A lot of love

hello my dear, miss you 🤍

I have been trying to recover from all the birthday activities and celebrations during the weekend. But I still want to share that yesterday (Sunday), my second day of turning 28, I made another big step.

Remember I shared with you that I bumped into a church friend whom I haven’t met for years and he invited me to join his care group? He told me earlier last week that they were gathering on Sunday afternoon and asked me if I wanted to join. I actually already had afternoon plans with when he asked, but then I also felt like I don’t want pass this invitation again, so I moved around my schedule and joined the care group for around 2 hours.

I was quite very nervous when I was getting to the place (it’s in another room of the same building where my church is). Obviously it’s because I am such an introvert, and I am also actually not close with this uni friend who invited me at all. But I was also nervous that I wouldn’t be mentally ready to open up and share anything about myself when they ask.

Turns out, they are super friendly and welcoming in such a natural way. There were 5-6 of them in the group, and they were so good at asking me questions to get to know me while not making me feel too much like I am on the spotlight.

But what’s even more surprising to me, is that when I got asked all these different questions, whether it’s just casual ones or the slightly deeper ones, I was more comfortable and confident than I thought to answer them. And towards the end, I didn’t really get that draining feeling that I sometimes get, in fact I wanted to stay longer but I had to go.

I am so proud of myself for making this first step of meeting some new people at church. I am not 100% sure I’ll keep joining, but it was still not an easy step for me, as someone who has gotten so comfortable with being invisible at church for years and is so used to isolating herself.

After that, I went to meet my therapist friend and another friend. They prepared birthday gift for me, but they were also surprised that I prepared some christmas gifts for them - it’s my psyduck and banana bread.

They took this photo of me, haha.

Christmas has always been said by the world to be a time to give. But what I learnt this year is the only way to be able to give wholeheartedly is that you also have gratefully received the gifts and blessings from people around and God. And let gratitude be the reason to give.

I am really grateful for my friends, especially they two and Vienna. Not because they got me gifts or anything, but because they always use their own language to make me feel cared and loved. I know the best response I can give to that is to simply accept their love, which is something that I know I still need to learn.

The pound cake that Vienna baked for me

They also recorded me unboxing their gift for me :)

The same goes to you, my dearest Andy.

I hope you know that you are also very loved by me. I am willing to use every single love language in this world to make you feel loved, as much as I can. And all I want from you is that you’ll receive this love, because it is yours (& only yours) 😊

Me in this old old outfit for you: