I've been feeling really lost. It all started last May really, when I graduated from university. This feeling intensified over the past year and culminated in what happened today, which I will brief over at the end of this post.

First on the list: my inability or more my unwillingness to find a job after graduation. It was too daunting of a task for me for some reason, to type out cover letters and to update my CV. I didn't believe I could find any decent job with my Psych degree, so I opted to work at Dagwoods for the summer, a Montreal-based sandwiches franchise, kinda like Subway. It was really just a temporary wallet filler for me at that time as I was hoping for a miracle or some sort of providence from God. #foreverwaiting However, this caused some serious point of contention between me and my parents. Like any parents I guess, they wanted me to get a stable job. However, I just feel like they didn't understand why it was so hard for me to find a job, anxiety obviously. Plus, I feel like they didn't get that it's goddamned hard to find a decent and personally gratifying job in our society nowadays. I particularly hated the way my mom would nag me, like she owns me or something. The things she said to me would always multiplied my repertoire of anxiety inducing items. At one point, I felt like I had no choice but to cut her out of my life just to have some peace of mind, which lasted for 6 months. And of course, I don't usually talk to my dad, so things stayed the same in that regard.

Alienation from parents. ✔

In September, this nice Chinese lady whose restaurant I used to volunteer at on campus asked me to help her out as a manager, a nice enticing title back then. Now that I think about it, even McDonalds have managers, so titles really don't mean much in life if you think about it. I accepted the offer because I got along real well with her previously. Even though it was a small fast food restaurant in a student caf, it was still a pretty challenging job as the hours were long. The name was Bamboo Bowl by the way. Despite all that, I felt really blessed to have a job, so I worked my butt off. For example, I'd stay in even after opening hours in order to design promos and stuff. On some days, I'd stay in the restaurant 12 hours straight; I even slept there once. However, the longer I frequented my boss, the more I realized how she sucked at emotional regulation. She was always bullying this older new employee because she was too slow in my boss's opinion. It is funny because that older lady had a MBA and my boss had a MD & PhD. #academiadrama How they both ended up in that restaurant is another story for another time. Furthermore, during rush hours, my boss would lash out on all the staff because of her own anxiety. It was unpleasant, but I stuck through because the job meant a lot to me. After a while, she decided to leave for China, so she hired two other young managers to help her overseeing the restaurant. Us three manageteers got to share ALL the profit, which I thought was amazing. Also, not having my boss on my back all the time was a nice breezer too. And her departure also meant that I could finally put in place some of the innovative ideas that I had in mind! The dark side, however, slowly creeped in. I slowly began to hate my job. There were many reasons but one of them was when this ex employee relayed horrible stories about how my boss cheated them of their salary by paying them less than what they deserved. Apparently, my boss used this one girl's salary to pay the commercial tax. I soon realized that she cheated off me too. I didn't catch on at first because I didn't care about money matters that much, plus I was very grateful that I even had a job. But the aftershock and the feeling of betrayal was greatly felt. I thought my boss cared more about me than about her precious profit, but I guess not. Finally I decided to quit in December because I was fast approaching a comet meltdown.

Good boss gone bad. ✔

While I was still working at Bamboo Bowl, my friend Kyle asked me this one time to join the McGill Christian Fellowship's (MCF) retreat for the weekend. I didn't really want to go at first because as I wasn't a student anymore, I didn't want to be a burden and take someone else's spot. However, Kyle told me they needed guys and that nobody would mind my presence. Since it was a prayer retreat, I thought I could use some of the peace and quietness to recharge and to reconnect with God. As I caved in, I got really excited about the idea of leaving for the weekend, so much that I donated an extra 100 bucks to aid some students with financial needs. Then, the night before the retreat, one of the staff rang me to meet up. He told me that his boss didn't want me to go to the retreat because they thought that if I went, I won't be able to move on from MCF. It was SO absurd for me to hear that because I worked ON campus and MCF peeps just naturally gravitate in front of my restaurant to chat and stuff. It's not like I was trying to entice MCF peeps to come. Anyway, that staff member told me that they wanted me to be more involved with my church. As I listened on, the conversation started to swerve into how I had to follow in God's steps and not to be stubborn, etc. A lot of unnecessary preaching if you asked me. I couldn't say anything back to him because my mind completely shut down. I just couldn't believe what I had just heard. At the end, he said he was going to reimburse my 100$, which he never did. I never pressed in for it because I just didn't want to bother with any of them anymore. Result: hurt and slow disintegration of trust.

Christian falloutship. ✔

After I quit Bamboo Bowl, I was back to point zero, anxious and jobless. My friend Antoine referred me to this finance-related job with a company called Primerica. They asked me to pay a 100$ subscription fee, which I did without giving many thoughts. I had some doubts of course, but I was so desperate for a job that I stayed on. Plus, they were really convincing and I fell hard for their promises of accumulative passive income aka money flowing in without working and all that jazz. So at this point, I started to talk to my mom again. She obviously wanted me to quit, which I complied this time. However, each time I brought up the issue with my boss, he would try everything to convince me to stay and of course I fell prey to his convincing arguments over and over. One time, even though I said I would quit, the guy kept calling me and just wouldn't leave me alone. After a month, I realized I wasn't making a cent because all I did all day was calling my friends to ask them to work for us. (Sorry if you experienced any of that. I take full responsibility for it.) After mustering some courage, I finally decided to quit. Lesson learnt: people will manipulate you to do their bidding.

Scam involvement. ✔

During this whole time, I was living with a Chinese brother from my church. I looked up to him, A LOT. He was two years older than me and I just thought he was really cool being a Chinese Christian just like me. Plus, we had some similar interests like singing, fashion, Chinese food (duh) and movies. I was obsessed with downloading movies and he was addicted in watching them. We started off the wrong foot though. Initially, I felt like he was always busy and never had time for me (da bro got a gf back in the days). As a result, I started to ignore and avoid him. After a while, he asked me to meet up to talk. I obviously hated conflicts, so it went horribly. After that, the more he'd try to reach out to me, the more I'd ignore him. He got really hurt by that for obvious reasons, but I felt completely justified back then. I just wanted him to leave me alone you know. Coming to January, it was so tense between us that he asked me to consider moving out. This was also when he broke up with his gf. I obviously didn't want to move out in the middle of the winter, so I dared talking back to him for the first time. We got into a pretty big argument. Fortunately though, we reconciled through that. In that fight, he broke down in front of me, and I realized just how much crap he also went through. From that point forward, I decided to take better care of him, like real brothers would do to each other. #singlechildwish I tried my best but my efforts always fell through for some reason. After a while, I just felt like that he took me for granted. That really hurt me, but I couldn't confront him directly because well let's face it, I suck at that. Thus, my frustration came out as passive aggressive remarks and oh boy how he got annoyed. Funnily, the more he got annoyed, the more I got hurt and the more I would continue in my passive aggressive track. Result: A LOT of conflicts. After most conflicts, he would stop interacting with me for days and weeks even, because I think he just couldn't handle the stress on top of everything he was going through. I can empathize with that...now. Despite the constant conflicts, we were able to reconcile each time and talk through some stuff. Even now, when I reminisce about our rooming experience, I still think we had some pretty cool bro bonding moments. But eventually, the grace tank ran out of fuel and the last conflict just killed everything. It was intense enough that we stopped talking to each other. When we saw each other, we'd ignore each other. The sad part is I don't even recall what we fought about. And now he has left for China. Well at least I won't have to deal with him for a while, which is good for both of us I think. Still, a lot of hurt remained and my trust towards people was then completely shattered. I mean how can I ever trust again?

Clash of roommates. ✔

At that point, I stopped going to church all together. I just couldn't stand all the shallow (at least from my perception) conversations that people engaged in and the continual talk about how God is loving and graceful. BULLSHIT. I hated God. I mean why did he allow so much crap to happen to me in such a short amount of time? I was angry with God and just people in general. Everyone appeared hypocritical in my eyes. My conclusion from all this: humans are not able to love, including myself. Everyday, I kept it to myself and I didn't want to see anyone. It was a burden for me to even engage with people, especially those more challenging ones.

Complete isolation. ✔

And that brings everything back to today. Yes today. Like right now. (Check the date of the post if you want to know when "right now" is or was). I stumbled across a website called "Kingdom Journey" and I read a blog post this Korean brother wrote. I perused his testimony before that too.

http://kingdomjourneys.org/sunohchoe/reflection-at-the-grotto/

I don't know how to explain it but I just felt God was speaking to me through his post. I felt he was telling me that he fully loves and accepts me. For some reason, that was all I wanted and needed to hear. I broke down in tears instantly. How can I bring myself to hate a God who loves me so much and who is constantly providing for me in ways that I might not even realize. I totally take God and the blessings in my life for granted, like all the time. I want to be more grateful and I want to be able to love and trust again. I need God, here and now. He is the only one who can fulfill me and give me a sense of purpose in life. I am lost without Him. I want to be a better person for my God because he deserves it. And I need healing in my heart so that hopefully, one day, I could be of use in helping his people.

God is good. ✔

Anyway, thank you brothers and sisters for reading up this far. Thank you for those who always tune in to my blog to read a piece of my mind. This blog really helped me a lot in terms of self-expression this past year, so I am really glad that you guys could accompany me through that, even if it is just through reading. I do put in a lot of efforts in my writing, at least in terms of editing (this post was edited 5 times lol, now 6, now 7, okay I'll stop adding new numbers now), so hopefully you guys can appreciate the results. It's comforting to know that every time I write a post, at least one person will read it haha. Well the view count doesn't lie eh. Anyway, I shall write to you more again.

Catharsis. ✔