Tommy's Neverland

Ruby moved in with Sam after living here for almost three years today, and I decided to visit Sam after work for dinner. While driving there, I suddenly realised I’ve been eating at home more than eating out in the past few weeks. At that moment, I realised that without noticing, my life has completely changed—both in the outside world and within myself.

The title of my final Toastmasters speech for this year is “Challenging and Rewarding”. Reflecting on all the changes and opportunities this year, even though I didn’t plan for them or expect them, this year has brought the biggest changes of my adult life in every aspect. I don’t need to mention the obvious changes, like going back to university, making great strides in my professional development, and strengthening my community connections through work, volunteering, and internships. But it’s the changes within me—my relationship with the outside world and the way I connect with others—that have truly transformed.

In the second half of the year, the relationships I have with my family, close friends, and people in the community have shifted significantly. And, on top of all that, I got into a relationship—a milestone that feels like a defining moment in my life. This relationship, along with the changes in how I relate to others and how I approach my mental health, has taken my life into a completely new stage. It feels entirely different from previous relationships. Without even realising it, I’ve been adjusting to this new chapter. I’ve developed a deeper understanding of human connection and come to appreciate just how important certain people are to me. I want to care for, love, and be loved by the most important people in my life.

Even the way I socialise has changed. Everything seems to have happened at the right time. I met this person at the best time in my life—when I felt everything was going better than ever. I’m the most confident I’ve ever been (even at my heaviest weight, haha). Most importantly, I felt ready for something new. Years of practice and effort in building interpersonal and communication skills through meeting people and working hard finally paid off. When I was ready, meeting this person naturally pushed my life into the next stage.

I’ve also started cooking, partly because Ruby moving out increased my financial responsibilities. But I’ve discovered the benefits of cooking at home—it saves time, is healthier, gives me control over what I eat, and allows me to enjoy meals whenever I want. Cooking has become more than just a task for myself. I can share meals with my partner or bring food to friends. It’s a small reflection of the broader changes in my life, including my outlook on life, my sense of self, and my connection to the world around me.

Importantly, my mental health has taken a huge step forward. In September, I started learning about my attachment issues, and by October and November, I began addressing the challenges that came up in my relationship. In December, I decided to prioritise my mental health above all else. I’ve gained a profound understanding of myself, started self-therapy with various techniques, and sought professional help with support from loved ones. The change has been remarkable. I feel more emotionally stable than ever, more secure in my relationships, and better equipped to handle different situations.

The reason everything still feels familiar despite these changes might be because what I want to do hasn’t changed. In the short term, I still focus on studying languages (English, Spanish, and Japanese) every day, working out to become healthier and more confident, spending time with friends, and planning my next trip while enjoying nature and art. Long-term goals remain the same too. Even though life is less predictable now that I’m not entirely on my own, I still aim to experience different cultures and lifestyles by living in various countries for short periods, while developing a career I love. I’m working on exchanges, the NCP, volunteering for a world cruise, and exploring global opportunities—all while improving my skills and abilities.

My mindfulness practice has also come a long way. I’ve stopped living in the future, which has been the biggest change for me this year. By focusing on the present moment, I’ve tackled mental health challenges like relationship anxiety and ADHD tendencies. It’s been a lot of hard work to get here, but I have so much to celebrate. Life feels like the best it’s ever been, every single day.

So, the best thing I can do now is to enjoy today as much as possible and do my best to make tomorrow even better. While my goals remain the same, everything else has changed. More development and changes will likely come next year, but for now—welcome to the next stage of life, Tommy. Take a deep breath, celebrate, stay calm, and focus.

I don’t have much experience in maintaining a relationship, but this one is completely different to my previous two, I think the goal is simply different. It’s not about how much love or attention I get, it’s about creating lasting mutual happiness, it’s about making sure he’s happy while I’m happy. So I’ve never asked questions like did you miss me or did you love me, and I don’t think I ever will. I always asked if you had fun and if I had fun.

The relationship goes very fast, basically I mentioned the intention after our first meeting, so on the second day, when we went out for dinner for the first time, we already kissed in the restaurant. The way we spent time together was more like a married couple than young lovers. I didn’t get to fuck him in the first few days either, the whole thing isn’t driven or accelerated by sex at all. A friend wondered if the L-word was said, and yes, I said it when I bred him for the first time, that was after we had spent quite a lot of time together and introduced him to all my friends.  We’ve done so many things when we’ve been together, I can’t imagine how many things we’ve done, how many places we’ve been in just 2 weeks, apart from working, and I’ve already got so many more ideas for the future.

This relationship with him is a big step in my life as it’s the first one after I settled in my new home Australia, it’s like my new exploration with all the relationships between me and the outside world. My relationship between Ruby, Hansen, Sam, Mr Su got a huge boost from my side, and even between me and my mum, we finally broke through the semi-sheer paper wall between us, that she finally told me everything in her mind. This is really the first time I’ve ever really loved someone instead of playing a relationship as a game, and even if we didn’t end up together, I think it would be the most important thing in my whole life, a monument moment for me.

From the first night we never slept under the same blanket, I’m totally okay with that because I’m not a cuddling person all night long, I need genuine nice undisturbed sleep, and I’m becoming so tolerant, so nice and gentle with everything, so kind to everyone. I’ve developed the intention to help everyone and make everyone happy since I met him, so I’m really grateful for all these things that have happened in my life, it’s completely changed me in just ten days, but there’s so much more to come in the future. 

Thanks to my ADHD, I have already thought about so much and have so many ideas that I can use in the future. We have been chatting a lot and the other night I was thinking about the wedding and we were chatting about that too. The wedding post I made is the reason why my mum decided to open her heart to me (by saying no). 

Now I get to know him more and I like him more too, I met his friend too, I finally found out something that I have to compromise on is that he doesn’t like avocados, so I can’t share yummy guacamole with him in the future, but that’s fine because we can enjoy what we like and then share some common things together, exactly like everything else in life, he played his games with friends, I do my studies, then we can spend time together. Other than that, I couldn’t even think of anything bad, but Zhenyu reminded me today lol, what if his parents don’t like me, haha, I don’t know? What should I do? Haha.

So it actually makes me think a lot when I’m experiencing different things without the distraction of social media, so I’ve got some new perspectives on my life.

So apparently my whole new life is just beginning, which is so different from the previous stage, but this is the result, the accumulation, of all the little changes that happened in my past life, but I’m still undergoing a huge transition, for example, English is becoming the predominant language for information acquisition and communication, even self-speaking, This is the new medium for me to convey my thoughts and feelings to the world, so I definitely need to put some effort into the transition, which will definitely help me to develop a better personality and good manners, my new knowledge base will form the new image when I’m interacting with other people, so I should put extra effort into it at this moment until the full transition settles down. That is, to increase my ability of inputting to the average level, so that we can stop spending time on it in the near future, because after reaching a certain level, I will train my ability throughout my life. So I’m going to try my best to improve my listening and reading comprehension this year, so that next year I can focus on the output and localisation part of my communication behaviour, after I’ve accumulated enough language.

I also got to see some children in a group with their parents around, which made me think about my identity by pointing out the differences between them and me. One thing I realised is that even though we’re all people living in this country with similar social norms and values, they grew up as Australians but I grew up as Chinese. So for them, they’re Australian first, then they have their Vietnamese or Chinese or blah blah blah heritage. I’m different because I’m Chinese first and then I’m Australian. We have the same components but in a different depth and order, that is the uniqueness and also my speciality, I could have the same Australian factors as them but the Chinese part of me will give me something different, I can have both vision and judge the best ways of doing things in two different cultures. I should definitely be proud of myself and make the most of my abilities, but I need to work a lot harder to make myself an average Australian, like everyone else around me, I’m sure I have a long way to go, but I’ll be there as long as I put in the effort, so do it.

Also the two days completely away from any kind of telecommunication and social media brings a very different way of living that maximises my productivity and also my mental health is well taken care of. So we need to adjust my lifestyle to the changing situation for the best of my personal interests. Therefore I should minimise the use of social media in my life and change my way of using the internet at this stage until I reach the level of knowledge and skill development. We will try to find out soon, but definitely social media use will be minimised once we are ashore. Trying to concentrate the time spent with friends, but with higher quality would also be great, while washing off the habitual use of social media for low quality information acquisition. We will find the way.

Yes, I think I really have some new insights and ideas lately due to different circumstances and experiences in my life. As I said, I’m on the verge of my new life, which is completely different from my point of view and my socially constructed “identity”. But I’m still in my own transition, so I really need to spend my precious time on the most important things, from which I can benefit the most. I’m glad that I have a clear goal and now I have the motivation and much more maturity and self-discipline for it. I will definitely try to do the defence work as an essential part of my identity formation and personality development. We’re going to try to get the army officer position, we’re preparing for it in many ways, my professional skills, my communication skills and also my interpersonal skills. And even if we don’t get it, we can still be a sailor, a linguist, all over the world. There’s a bright future waiting for me and I need to equip myself for it.

Tommy C Z
31 March 2024