Work in Progress: My Shedding Season
It’s a brand new year now. We just ended the Year of the Snake, and many folks were saying that it came with some form of “shedding energy”. I’m not superstitious, but I have to admit… I felt the past year pending out this way deeply. Like there was this snake energy slithering around — shedding, shifting, forcing things out of me. And quite honestly, 2025 has been my breakthrough year in terms of my Becoming.
As we start 2026, I found myself thinking about my road signal project. This project was a series of paintings that was first materialised in early 2025, Back then, I didn’t fully realise what I was creating. I just painted as “I just felt like it”. I thought I was simply painting signs and looking back now, I realise I was painting my inner state.
Project Road Signals
I showed this series of paintings to a number of people who are close to me. The reactions were honestly somewhat funny — a lot of blank stares, some very obvious “MEGO-ed” faces. They told me the paintings looked modern (a nice way of putting it!) … but I could also tell they weren’t sure what to comment. Like… who would even like this kind of art? Maybe LTA (Land Transport Authority of Singapore)? Haha … Jokes aside, this series felt strangely real to me, like I painted it without trying to impress anyone.
It wasn’t just a quick experiment either. It took me at least 50 hours to complete this series.
Maybe I didn’t have the language to explain what I was going through back then… so I painted it instead. I am glad I did
Inner Thoughts behind each Signal:
Work in Progress
The “I am a WIP” theme has been stuck with me for a couple of years.
Somewhere along the way, life hit me with some form of adversity that it shook my sense of stability. I started questioning everything — the world, the people, and eventually myself.
Even the word caution on this painting felt like a warning, not just to myself, but also to others. Don’t come too close. I was a little much to handle at times.
I was impatient, eager to improve, almost frustrated. I wanted the day to come quickly, the day where I wouldn’t be a work in progress anymore. I thought it would take just days or months, while three years down the road, it still felt like I wasn’t making enough progress. And I kept asking myself: “When will I finally become the version of me that I want?”
Working on ourselves is tough. It takes effort, discipline, and a constant level of self-awareness to catch ourselves before we slip back into old habits. Before I could even feel like I was moving upwards, I found myself stuck in a loop — bad choices, repeated patterns, over and over again, even after I promised myself multiple times to stop.
But I didn’t know then… healing was never meant to be rushed.
It took me more than three years of working on myself, of slowly gathering the broken parts, learning my triggers, rebuilding my boundaries, and choosing better again and again, before i could understand (or at least accept) myself. Today, I finally arrived somewhere where I could face myself bare, as I am
the Roundabout
This roundabout sign was my reminder that Becoming isn’t linear.
I kept thinking I was moving forward but somehow I ended up looping back to the same place again. Same triggers - Same patterns - Same choices - Different day. The question is : “Why am I in a Loop and when can I get out?”
Until one day, I was finally ready to choose differently… and I finally “looped out.”
Stop
Even after I promised myself multiple times to stop, I still found myself repeating the same patterns.
The day came when I realised that not all cycles end because we understand them.
Some cycles end because we finally decide: Enough is Enough
This was the moment I stopped … and I chose differently.
This time, I meant it.
