I cried in the office today

hello my dear, how are you? I miss you, a lot.

I have been having a busy week. I had a meeting at 9pm and then another at 11pm last night, then an 8:30am meeting again this morning. After that I had to head in the office for reviewing some samples.

I thought I felt relatively okay in the morning and I went out with IF for lunch. But after I finished my food, I suddenly felt a wave of emotions coming up from my stomach. It made me feel really really uncomfortable all of a sudden, I felt dizzy and also couldn’t breathe.

I was at the edge of having a mental breakdown, and all I wanted was to walk away from the environment and cry. But because I was with everyone else and I didn’t want to appear weird, I tried my best to keep it within myself while sitting there and waiting for everyone else to finish eating. I pretended that I was just being introverted and stayed quiet, but what I was actually doing was saving all my energy to try regulating my breath so that I wouldn’t start crying.

It was the longest 15 minutes of waiting others to finish their food I have experienced. Everyone went to the snack shop next to the office afterwards, and I sneaked out and went back to the office alone first. I immediately got into the toilet and I just sat there started crying. Even that, I had to do it quietly because I didn’t want anyone to notice.

At that moment, I don’t know why I was just feeling really overwhelmed, and all I wanted was to go back home and hug my pinky dog, so that I could feel safe.

I guess I have been a bit stressed in the past few days because of everything that is happening. Work has been quite stressful for me because I have to make a lot of product decisions, which I tell myself that I should follow a logical thought process, instead of just relying on “gut feeling”, but that mindset makes me question myself a lot while I have to keep that within myself.

And last night in between my two work meetings, I was trying to practice the few songs I will lead in the Vietnam kids camp. I realised my keyboard skills really have regressed over the years. I used to play by ear most of the time and I would be 80-90% accurate. But last night, I just felt really rusty on keyboards when I practiced. It’s even worse when I have to sing and lead (which is also more difficult than just performing), to a point where I think I will have to write my own chord sheets just in case. That realisation made me feel frustrated at myself and also even more nervous.

So I guess I have just been in a mood of self doubt again lately. And this morning I had a silly issue with an excel sheet, and Edison gave me a despised face when he was trying to help me. I don’t know if he did that as a “joke” or naturally, but I guess that also added to my bottled up emotions that was already overflowing.

At that moment, I really wanted to just stay in the toilet forever or go home straight away. But then what came to my mind that comforted me in the toilet was this Bible verse that I read this morning: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

It reminds me that God made me exactly who I am for a reason. Even though I am not perfect at all, he loves the way he has made me to be, that is sometimes a bit silly, a bit clumsy, a bit over-sensitive, but still, in his eyes I am perfect.

The bravest thing I did today was believing in that and myself, and choosing to walk out from the bathroom and continue on my day at work.

And right now, I could finally hug my pinky dog tight and let myself be as vulnerable as I need to be :’)

Miss you a lot today in the office especially when I was crying, dear Andy. I remember I used to cry at work from time to time, and you were always there to comfort me. You were my “pinky dog”.

This was me right after crying:

This was me feeling slightly better awhile after crying:

Pinky dog: