A relationship may end, but does love? If they were friends before, does it vanish? Even if they can’t be together, do they stop caring?

I think that’s the hardest part. Learning to live a life that no longer contains the person who brought colour into it even before the shades turned into the sweet-red of romantic devotion. When it was still just the soft-warm yellows of shared memories and companionship and electric-blue hues of late night laughter and a life lived in parallel lines.

I’d like to think the bond perseveres. When it runs deep like an ocean, not a stream.

When it’s a bond that says: as long as I’m alive to love, I will love you. In whatever way I can.

Sleeping At Last’s lyrics are poetry with a beat. “It all spills out, reckless and honest words leave my mouth, like kerosene on the flames of doubt, and I couldn’t make it right.”

“I will love you without a single string attached”… “Astronomy in reverse, it was me who was discovered”… “how rare and beautiful it is to even exist”… “you are more loved than you know, I hereby pledge all my days to prove it so”… “if I had felt the warmth within your touch, I k had seen how you smile when you blush, or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough, I would have known what I was living for all along”… “what if we already are who we’ve been dying to become, in certain light I can plainly see a reflection of magnificence hidden in you, maybe even in me”

Just the prettiest words.

Push and pull can be several things. It can be someone trying to break out of the friend zone by dropping hints, flirting, teasing, while the other pulls away because they’re scared.

It can be two friends too in love not to let it slip between the cracks sometimes but too afraid to lose what they have to risk it, so there are moments of overt love but they’re always followed by a curtain draw over their feelings to keep things in the status quo.

Maybe it’s thinking their feelings aren’t reciprocated so they pull away while the other tries to push closer, confused by their behaviour, a little hurt.

Sometimes it’s just the natural process of the change in a relationship. All those little moments that add up to the inevitable shift.

Pull me closer, push me off, come on, I dare you. Come on, I beg you. Do it. Please. Won’t you do it?

Yes! I worried about it a lot growing up, actually. It was such a source of angst for me. I was always a good student but I had no motivation or any idea of what I “wanted to be.”

I think it’s easier for people who have a clear “dream” in some ways because it removes some of the stress and certainly most of the doubt. But it’s also okay to not have one.

I kind of fell into the career I have now and I’ve learned to appreciate it.

What I’ve realised over the years is that what I want out of my professional life is work that allows me to make a living but also affords me time to do the things I love. Time to live, to enjoy my life. To take up hobbies. It’s very important to me to finish work and still have time to swing by the beach in the late afternoon if I want to. If that means I’ll never be rich? So be it. It’s not a priority.

Some people love their jobs and that’s great! I see my job as the thing I do in order to go home and do the things I love.

I don’t think you have to despair over finding the perfect career. Sometimes it takes time to find something that suits you and that’s okay. It’s a lot of trial and error. There will be good jobs and bad jobs throughout your life but the thing is that you don’t have to commit to a single life forever. You can and should try different ones.

Your abilities will grow with time and effort. Nobody’s perfect at anything when they’re just starting out. What I think is importantly to understand is that while our jobs are important parts of our life because they allow us to sustain ourselves, it’s critical that you build your life around other things as well, things that bring you joy no matter what you do for a living because your career doesn’t have to the the single defining factor of your personality.