I would like a divorce... with stress. I am a doer, a lazy workaholic, and probably look like a person who knows how to keep her life in order. The truth is, I do not have everything figured out. In the midst of juggling everything, I am always trying to figure things out. I have reached the point of bone-tired, soul-tired, heart-tired kind if exhaustion — I am burnout. I am so overwhelmed with everything. I seek professional help. I had a talk therapy. I blurted out all my stories from adulthood to my past traumas, to my childhood. She asked: “How did you manage to do so many things?” I paused and thought:”I really don’t know.” She asked:”How did you go through such trauma and cope with it without PTSD?” Honestly, I also have no idea. I guess I just dealt with everything without thinking much, so many things accumulated up to this point. A person can only bear so much. Even the loveliest and strongest shoulders can bear but so much. Besides juggling everything, I realized that I have invisible responsibilities. In our Asian culture, setting boundaries when we are tired and do not have the capacity to deal with it, is called as selfish. I know I am strong, but I’m exhausted. After being agitated by every single tiny thing for few weeks, I decided to be me, be “selfish”. I have learned that it’s not merely being positive when you are feeling like 💩You got to dive deep, go into all the dark side, find and cure the root cause, to resurface with true positivity. Now, my own needs come first. Because when I am happy and healthy, I can be a better person, and serve better. PS: I am not diagnosed with any mental disorder. Just burnout😁

Ever since you came into our lives, things got messier, noisier & we’re always bone-tired at the end of each day. But Kayla, you also showed us what it truly meant by “heart bursting with love” & you brought so much joy to our lives. We’re so grateful to be your parents, we love you to the moon & back. #thehappykohs Photoshoot: @colight.co Kayla’s dress: @merry.kins

A quiet spot for quiet contemplation. I’d like to come back to this (soon, I hope), sit and study the paintings on the wall. Then spend the afternoon, walking (a coffee in hand), looking out for street art, thinking. When – and how – did we replace the oils and canvas, step out of halls and galleries, into the streets, dust and rain, to gaze upon beauty? Has it all changed? Over and over the masters replicated Christ crucified, soldiers marching into the Crusades – but turn the page now, turn the corner now, turn the phone screen now – and there’s Banksy with his spray can, protestors tossing bouquets in a flutter of hearts, politicians leering like imps and a WhatsApp message from your grandmother, hailing the miracle that is the entire Al-Fatihah discovered by a housewife slicing a tomato. For a moment, you think: nothing’s changed. There’s still much sorrow, injustice, disease and strife. We live in a world where drinking water is a commodity while Wifi is free (how messed up is that?), pre-pubescent daughters are offered into child marriages (how vile is that?) and rampant #fakenews swings the outcome of votes (how? just how?). Really, have we changed? Dejected, bone-tired, you walk out of the alley. But the moment you emerge from between the buildings, you step into a patch of sunlight. It’s blinding and you pause, enveloped in the warmth and brightness - an apostle surrounded by a golden halo. For a fleeting moment, you are exulted, beatific. And you realise something you’d known all along - you are divine.