the optimistic pessimist maria

how much time do we have left?

[mariacheri]

Was clearing out my photos when I came across this. I can’t remember where I might’ve left it, but I hope I find this note again someday.

Don’t worry still. I’ve got you :)

[mariacheri]

People have no idea what it cost me to still be standing here. They do not know how many nights I spent digging through wounds I stitched shut with my own bleeding hands, peeling them open again so others could rest peacefully atop the ruins left behind. I never longed for revenge, nor for them to taste even a fraction of what they handed me. Still, there is a particular cruelty in having to heal from wounds you never deserved in the first place.

I learned to hold my breath before every revelation, terrified that certainty would merely put a name to what I had been trying not to believe. And when it does, I cannot even find gratitude in being right. There is no comfort in having your worst fears validated.

Perhaps what frightens me most is the possibility that this never leaves me. I have become fluent in disappointment, practiced in receiving half-truths dressed as honesty. Somewhere along the way, I learned how to settle. Not for what I wanted, but for whatever fragments remained after everyone else had taken their share.

[litsnaps]

[mariacheri]

Thank you for making me feel like I could win prizes simply for existing (and smiling... like you would always say).

Thank you for listening... the kind that makes me feel safe and secure, like knowing someone will stay on my side no matter how loud the world becomes.

I don’t know if you realize how much that means to me.

To love another is a kind of gamble, as if placing fragile things into uncertain hands and trusting the future not to break them. But somehow, with you, the risk feels softer. The fall does not frighten me when it is toward you.

I immediately forget all the day’s wrongs when you drape the world and make me see through rose-colored lenses every single time.

And lately, I think my favorite thing has simply been this quiet act of loving you.

I love you

22 May 2026 | 1215H

[mariacheri]

And I woke up. But last night I was praying just to fall asleep. I didn’t want to feel that empty drifting again. At least not without something to help me rest.

I said sorry for that day and for everything before it. And quietly, I also wished that maybe I wouldn’t have to wake up.

[mariacheri]

I've always been convenience disguised as choice. And for the longest time, I settled for it. It felt like happiness or at least something close enough that I convinced myself it was. I took it as it came and quietly accepted that consequences would follow, as they always do.

Still, I chose myself a thousand times over, even if it never appeared that way from the outside. I did. I truly did. But somewhere in between those choices, I built a life out of quiet deceptions tucked into corners I hoped no one, not even I, would ever uncover. I carry them silently, with the quiet wish that they all someday die with me.

Beneath all of these, there was always a truth I could never fully escape. Deep within, I knew. I had never really known what love was.

forgive the scattered thoughts lol. i can’t seem to find the right headspace to gather them.

[mariacheri]

FML

[nuttybarzz]

Let me know all of you

[mariacheri]

This day a year ago drew a line so precise that my life now feels split in two: everything that came before it and everything that followed after. I know with a certainty that still unsettles me, that I would not be here as I am today had it not happened. But I still stand in the wake of that single, impulsive decision. Was it good? Was it right? I cannot say. It gave me both the gentlest highs and the heaviest days I have ever known, the kind that stay long after they’ve passed. It reshaped me in ways I am still learning to understand.

And still, I return to the quiet question that lingers beneath it all. If even one small thing had been different, would everything else have followed?

09 April 2025

09 April 2026 | 347 days since

Entry #16 | Filed under I just want to sweep everything else under the rug so I can hold on to this part of you, just for me

[mariacheri]

Happy birthday to the one who turns almost everything into something we can hold. To the one who would always pick out the best jeans that fit me, and who would always, first and quietly, point out my posture, my nail biting, the way I laugh too loudly, even the smallest furrow of my brows. Thank you for keeping my writings and articles. The ones that nearly scattered with every passing thought I had growing up. For holding onto my medals, in moments you believed in even more than I did. And thank you for always finding a way, for every sacrifice, in ways I may never fully know. I love you more than words could ever fully express.

[mariacheri]

i think ive gotten used in tiptoeing, being careful around people. thinking through everything i say, replaying it in my head just to make sure i dont hurt anyone. and yet, i still get it wrong sometimes. i still end up saying things they might not like.

what i dont understand is how easily others can just say what comes to mind. no second guessing, no filtering. and i wonder if it’s because they think ill always understand or that i wont take it personally. like im somehow always less affected.

:)

[mariacheri]

I don’t write about people right away. I let them settle like silts at the bottom until they quiet down or seem like they no longer matter. Only when they rise again, unbidden, do I understand… It mattered. It stayed.

It takes me a while to write or even to speak. Even with the people I trust most, I still hold back. I think more than I say. I measure and sift every word. There are so many thoughts I keep to myself, so many feelings I push down until they’re too heavy to carry, I'll carry them and let them die with me.

And still, I try to be here. I come around to the ones who remain, to the ones who hold my hand without me having to explain what I feel.  To the ones who hold my hand and read what I cannot say, feel the quiet tremor in my cold, clammy palms. And when I show up, I do so honestly with whatever I have, even if it isn’t everything.

If I’m going to be hurt, I’d rather it be swift… clean and certain than the slow unraveling of something I gave in good faith.

[mariacheri]

Let nothing disturb you, let nothing ever frighten you. All things are passing away.

St. Teresa of Avila

[mariacheri]

I am easily shaken. The faintest tremor, a hint of bad news, and my hands turn cold, trembling beneath the surface. No one sees. I hide the quiver, the near-fall of tears, the quiet unraveling. I get shaken, but I do not fall.

Perhaps this is what I become, this careful sentinel, trained in the art of expecting the worst. There is little joy in it, little to gain. Yet when all is said and done, and what I feared never comes to pass, there is a strange relief in knowing I had prepared for the storm that never came. A quiet victory, uncelebrated, yet mine.

[litsnaps]

[mariacheri]

This time, it was given freely... Just a few minutes slipped out before the day ends, quietly stolen for the simple privilege of seeing their smile. And it was worth it. In that brief hush of borrowed time, it felt as though I had once saved a nation in another life, and this was the universe’s gentle recompense.

[mariacheri]

I love flowers, but I never liked picking them. Once they’re taken, they feel closer to dying than blooming. I love flowers, yet I never ask for them. I’ve always been the same with what I want. I never ask for it.

But today, I was given a flower. Someone remembered my favorite color. Bright and sun-colored. Some things do not survive in their original form; they press themselves into memory instead. Flattened between pages. Altered. No longer alive in the way they once were, yet carrying the same warmth when you find them again.

The happy days came quietly, in a place I never thought to look. In a parking lot, spent with someone who could lighten every burden simply by being there. Safe, in the quiet relief that follows.

05 Feb 2026, Thursday