unbecoming

manila | melbourne

[kosmogrl]

what doesn’t kill me leaves a pit in my stomach that never goes away

[maanl1cht]

life updates:

the typeset pages of my book has arrived & it is looking beautiful. in nine months i will be birthing this formed book into the world. life is kind to me this year, gentler. i am attending a class with garth greenwell & we discuss henry james & baldwin & hemingway & natalie diaz & i feel my brain expanding. & above all, above all, my god, i am in love. it has arrived surreptitiously, quietly, & i am now at its mercy. to find it again, to be found again, after all these years, how lucky. i look at sam & i understand why it took this long & how we utter the words to each other with full knowledge that we have been given second chances & it is luck, magic, whatever it is. my god. do i look at him with adoration & joy & stillness.

[spectrologie-deactivated2023041]

Creemore, Ontario // David Herzog

[maanl1cht]

it’s been nine months since i wrote my last update here. i feel older, which is both a visceral & a reality thing. i started writing on tumblr when i was 20? & now i’m 34. i am less melancholy but more in touch with the poetry of the world. less bogged down by sadness but still very intimate with it.

i am in melbourne permanently. my novel has moved from structural edits to copyediting. i think my editor is brilliant. i am scared of failure. but that is now new. i am also recalibrating my friendships. i think i am losing control of that. but what do i know? people have come & gone.

i have also been dating a painter for the last month & a half. it has been the most stable, most secure of relationships i’ve had since my first big breakup in 2019. i think i have little illusions now about relationships but i still think we are too human for love. but again, what do i know. perhaps only us, humans, could really understand the complexity & simplicity of that word — love. only us who could carve out time to ponder it all.

those are all my updates. life is busy. i am working a job i am good at & that pays well. i feel lost still. balance balance balance

[maanl1cht]

hello tumblr, my safe space since 2012—

i will be a published author with a book. forthcoming 2027. details soon. x

—A.

[maanl1cht]

i am taking a break from substack because j is there. i want to get away from it all - the push and pull, the urges, the obsession. last night after a phone call w B, i called J. his cold tone at the end of it. which meant to say, this is not what he wants. & so to continue with the journey. it was a misstep but i can forgive that. i can forgive myself for that. be a little kinder. stop admonishing myself. make room for the ways i yearn. i am in san antonio. tomorrow i will be in san francisco. will there be reprieve in the next four days? i am trying to be more disciplined about my heartbreak – and that in itself is probably the problem. heartbreak knows no discipline. only an animal-like ruin. but to act with grace. to act like i know my worth, even though half the time i am at loss. the matter is still the same, twenty years on.

[maanl1cht]

all my stuff are still in boxes packed outside on the deck. my books & notebooks & i am itching to write this down. people ask me how i am doing & i am struggling for an answer. am i doing okay? it seems like it. i find reasons to wake up every day, to play with the dogs, to read, to engage, to live. i slept with P twice & i have been blinded by the goodness of it & the kindness of him. there was B & J too, & a date with T. i have entered these situations claiming i am not wanting anything more. i am, like i say, in the era of ‘not-knowing’. embracing the in-between. i don’t know whether i’ll be here or the US or the Philippines. i don’t know what to do. is this another way to destroy myself? surely there is something beyond the self-destruction? a part of me commands myself to stay still in the face of uncertainty - P calls it ‘meditation’ because he is in the same journey - but i feel like i am carving out something essential in me & digging a deeper hole that would cement my belief that i am unlovable. there are so many ways, we do not run out of it, to fuck ourselves up. i still have to untangle how i feel about these situations. i have to fix my bedroom when my brother moves out. i have to figure out where i’ll be. in the midst of all these i have to forgive myself for not yet knowing.

[maanl1cht]

things:

showed up at j’s place on saturday night, which was so random after not being in contact with each other for three weeks. he laughed when he saw me at the door. he’s leaving for europe in the morning, he said. and there we were, together again for one night. i have been failing at language to encapsulate my experience with him. i feel so much, see so much for that human. and then i think about what it means inside myself to have this longing. i am exhausted of feeling things. i thought when he left that it would be easier. maybe it would be. what else do i need to squeeze out of this nothingness? j has left, and i am here, even though i might also leave, and there is only tenderness for a connection that has shifted and transformed now, more for him than for me, and why am i always late & slow to recovery?

[maanl1cht]

is it time to write about life here now? things have changed when i got back from the US. ive left a job, i might leave Australia again, the chapter with S ended with finality, as in i think the moment i told him i was in love with him, i stopped being in love with him. i moved houses. i met J. i almost wanted to say i fell in love with J. i am not sure anymore. i was with him briefly. we were together briefly. for a very brief time i was possessed, & i called him mine & we were in something magical together & there are still nights when i sob out my pain & i am in need & i miss his face so much but nothing is mine again, i borrowed it & it was taken back righteously. i am so painfully myself. there will only be, there are only, very few people who know me, truly know me, inside & out, very few who get me, who see my world the way i see it & take part in it & look around & tell me that it is a great world i have built & it is beautiful & they don’t want to change it & they do want to be changed by it & they do like it & they do see how rich i am because of it. i don’t know where life is headed from here. i don’t know where i will be. i don’t know if i have a fight left in me. i am exhausted & i still have hope & to have hope is probably the most exhausting thing to do in the world because to have hope is to dream & to dream is to live & to live, well, we all know what that entails, don’t we

[maanl1cht]

i haven't been here for a while. time has passed. it's 2024, and yet for reasons i still feel as if i was still in five years ago & in yesterday at the same time. i have new friends. have a fourth job. i went to the writing residency in Vermont, which was the most beautiful experience i've had in the past two years. i'd told S i love him a week before i'd left for the US, & effectively ended the old dynamic between us. oh, S. what love i have for you. it endures. & now back with my old friends. working on the second draft of my manuscript. i am 32, turning 33 this year. i will be Jesus' age. i thought yesterday, that the feeling of wanting to die has long gone & left. i still want to love my friends & see my family & make memories. i am loved now, in that sweet way. i see myself better, with flaws, imperfections, but i am not monstrous. that is an old story i had told myself. i am not monstrous. i was only in pain. & don't all monsters cry out , when in pain like that? anyway. i record my life now on my phone notes, & in a journal. i have just wanted to type like this here. tumblr has been a safe space. as always.

[maanl1cht]

something definitely shifted between s & me after we’d slept together. the last three times we had a convo were such normal conversations, so casual & wholesome, that it felt mindboggling. the underlying intensity was still there but the desire has dampened a bit. i cannot pinpoint it. i am sceptical. idk the reason for talking to me abt my day etc without it turning sexual. idk why he still bothered. it was so unusual for us to just chat. i tried flirting with him last night while i was out with my friends at the clyde but he ended the convo quickly. i keep telling myself there is nothing to do here. there is just the story of what & how it is & it is just sitting here on the plane of my reality. i feel for him is the truth. whatever this is. whatever this is, changes nothing for how i am grateful i am for the extent of the story we lived

[maanl1cht]

deleted my ig from my phone, archived his messages on whatsapp. i realise, even though there is nothing to do with my connection with s, that i need my distance. he is processing things, whatever that means. & i think i have concluded that we are better as separate humans. this morning i woke up with a vague memory of dreaming abt j. a split second in that dream when i saw his face. i feel exhausted of men. of feeling tremendously for them. of loving them. i want my friendships. i want e & t & l, even. those uncomplicated friendships. once you fall in love with them, it’s like trying to forget how to breathe. you can’t.

[maanl1cht]

i will put this here as a record:

in a quick turn of events, s & i met up. three years later, i was at his doorstep in high st, facing him. we slept together. i remember his kiss better this time. i remember how good it was, how i melted in his arms, taking it in, for the first time again. i am putting it here, to remember once these feelings have faded into a film-like layer of a photograph. i will remember how awkward it was, how real this time, how for the first time, probably ever, i saw him clearly. his humanness that was not apparent to me three years ago. i told him, 'you're not perfect in my eyes anymore.' & he said, 'i know.' we were just two people in bed. no pedestal for him. he has come down from whatever heaven i imagined him in. the feel of him is different, we have grown physically & emotionally. he said i seem more confident. i told him he seemed warmer. we talked about things. we'd never talked like this before. we sat beside each other just revealing things about ourselves & about that time we had dated & about this time & the ramifications of this which is nothing. which is i love him, i do, because we have not yet invented a word for something that is close to love but not really. i see him humanness & i thought i would be disgusted by his reality, would feel nothing, but instead i feel more tenderness, more acceptance. i see him & i accept him. & what is that if not love? the ramification is that i have love for him, & it is inside me & there is nothing to do about it but let it sit inside me, in that special place & let whatever instances in the real world go. because what i hold inside is mine to carry. what i hold inside is mine & mine alone. & it is part of me & my journey. we learn/ed from each other, & that is already a gift. i will, for a very very very long time, will speak his name with colours. s. s. s. s. s. we circled back to each other over & over again. he'd hurt me, i had hurt him, & that history would now forever keep us attached. but my god i love him & i accept him & i let him go. & there is nothing to do but write it down & smile bittersweet smiles & cry bittersweet tears. here it is, i had dreamed of seeing him again & here it was, & i am okay with keeping this love in solitude.

[maanl1cht]

Vermont Studio Center!!!! end of the year !!!!! manifest !!!!!

[maanl1cht]

it is my third day of having the flu. this is the worst of all, even worse than covid. i had fever reaching 39, terrible cough & cold. it has peaked & now on to getting better. after already having a second round of covid for 10 days just a week or so ago. in the past year, i can’t remember the number of times i’ve been sick. every time i started in a childcare centre, i fell ill. so maybe 6-7 times in total now? that’s not normal. i don’t consider myself to be totally immunocompromised. but my god, ive been running this body to the ground. i pulled full-time studies & a writing course & writing a novel & stressing out about my residency & money & work & my heart & family. sometimes i can’t believe what ive been privileged with but also what are the consequences of my desire? i am alone now at home while my siblings go away for a planned trip where i was supposed to come but they left me because ive been sick. & idk. what else have i been thinking? to keep going this way? i still haven’t got my visa sorted. i need to move out. i cannot take a break. i want some peace. i want a normal life where i am not thinking of things. i want to remove some baggage. i want to breathe. i just want to slow down. take care of myself. not get sick like this.

[maanl1cht]

5 months. i miss j. when i feel inclined to think of him i bring up the memory of his words in the end; ‘i don’t see us getting back together again, ever.’ cold as ice. wakes me up. it doesn’t matter. i won’t speak of him again. sometimes i think of s & how it would be easy to do all that again. but what will i do with all that without love? i’d rather be alone. & guess what i am alone.

[maanl1cht]

okay so S and i have reconnected, and it's back again to the same old high-lust dynamic when we first met ofc but im trying not to reprimand myself. i havent felt desire in a while, bogged down by life etc etc trying to move on from j etc, & although i do recognise the precarity of this situation, i will always feel something for s, despite him being a lil stupid bless him, & despite everything else that had happened to us, he'll always be THAT GUY for me who broke my lil heart into pieces & had taken me 6 months + to recover from, but now this. i am exhausted, i am still not fully okay, i am still adamant abt being single for a bit, not having any male in my romantic life for a bit longer because i cannot imagine having my heart broken again or taking that kind of risk again because honestly why the fuck do we still want to do that? anyway as i type that a part of me screams: 'BECAUSE YOU ARE ALIVE!! YOU ARE ALIVE!!' i am a bit dizzy & hungover still from last night's dinner & drinks with the gals from faber & now just curing it by taking it slow. anyway, what is the point of this documentation? the point is, i am alive, and even though i am subsubming my hunger by devouring poison, i feel desired & desirous & to not demonise anyone is maybe a good thing right now. we're humans, we're okay, it's okay to stumble & make a few bad choices. anyway, to HUNGER. to feel that. to feel that & let the soft animal of my body loves what it loves. like what m oliver said. bless her.