[thoughtkick]

“Forgive yourself for accepting less than you deserved - but don’t do it again.”

— Unknown

[eymurn]

In your 20s, you'll feel like you're losing the race. It's important to understand that there is no race.

[perfectfeelings]

“Stop trying to figure it all out. Often the answers come to us when we least expect it.”

— Unknown

[petaltexturedskies]

Katherine Mansfield, in a diary entry dated 14 October 1922, from Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield

[sunrisedriven]

6/12

Today, I will do things I've always wanted to do.

Not that I have ever deprived myself of the fun or finer things in life....but it's nice. To do things just because I can - it's been a while.

It's been a while since I've sat down like this to reflect and have some quiet time - not that I never had those between now and the last time I've been up to something, but it's long overdue and I've been busy being predictable to make sure those in the periphery can feel somewhat in control and comfortable.

It's just that, having done that for a long time, I end up finding myself in these moments where I get confused about who I really am. Moments with friends help. Looking back in the past and talking about the things I've experienced all reminded me that I was indeed that bitch and that nerd. I had an ego growing up.

The road to humility was necessary and inevitable.

But I was always sincere.

I realized now that my early 20s weren't very kind to me, and I wasn't kind to myself either, but I always had help, and the fire in me may have gone dim at times, but it never blew out. And I've spent all these years revisiting everything that has influenced me, and I am so thankful to my younger self, for having taste and the discernment to consume things that were made with sincerity. The things that brought me joy then, continues to bring me joy now.

I am so grateful, and I am so blessed, and I can feel things getting challenging in my career, but I'm taking the step forward because that's something I've learned over the years - to keep going.

None of it may be picture perfect - heck, I say I'm having my quiet time right now, but there's construction right across the street, quite literally, but it's quiet enough for me to organize my thoughts and be more mindful of things. I have been blessed with the ability to wade through the noise. God has been patient with me.

I don't think I'm at the shore quite yet, but I can see it. I can swim and my boat floats. I recognize the wind. I guess, what's next is that I'm learning to row and set sail as I go.

[remanence-of-love]

[remanence-of-love]

[metamorphesque]

― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

[remanence-of-love]

[vexheart]

[sunrisedriven]

5/23

It's a strange feeling. I've lived on my own before, but this one's different. It's the beginning of something. There's no furniture. I can hear the gentle whirring coming from the refrigerator. My night light is the oven overhead light. I have work tomorrow. It's far from the city life I had imagined for myself, but having lived it for two years turned out to be more than enough for me...so, I'm content.

it all feels so foreign and familiar at the same time. It's exciting and nerve-wracking. Wrong and right. Rushed and just about time. It's humble and it's not. It's a start, and yet, it is wildly life-changing and a lot.

I didn't really know how exactly this life would pan out seven, eight years ago and if anyone had told me then that this is what my late 20s will actually look like, I would have kind of, sort of laughed it off.

This is supposed to be impossible. I'm barely off the nest and all the birds in the tree are so excited to watch the tree get chopped down. Some would say that I've taken flight, but frankly, there's wind holding me up. I don't think my wings alone can take me this far. This is God.

Why can't they accept it? It's not like we are aiming for a luxurious life, but somehow the mere idea of it, that we could have our own lives, is so grating and absurd to them.

I was supposed to lose. It very much felt like I missed my window of opportunity. I was supposed to be controlled by them. I was supposed be pitiful. I was supposed to fit the mold they created for me. I was supposed to exist for the sake of making them feel better.

Now, I'm here. We're here, and I still can't believe it. I really don't want to have to think about what they have to say about me anymore. I just want to take my mom away from them.

Is it too much to ask? That when they finally taste the ruin they so wish to bring upon others, that when they finally fall victim to their own pride, that after everything they've put us through, we would be somewhere much, much far away to lay witness, and that word of it would come to us gently like the caress of an early spring breeze, and go away as fast as the flash of lighning.

[vexheart]

[margindoodles2407]

ouagh lord of the rings really did say “it might be hopeless, it might be fatal, there may be no coming back— but it is always, always better to do something, to fight for what is good and true and beautiful, than to sit back and give into despair with an ‘it would have happened anyhow’”

[remanence-of-love]

[remanence-of-love]

[sunrisedriven]

5/16

Grateful. I cannot be joyful, even when I really am. But grateful, I can be grateful in front of everyone.

I've always wondered what it's like to have a place of my own.

God is so good. I still cannot fathom it, that I can still have moments like this. I feel like I have messed it up too many times, but I'm here now, God provides, and I'm reminded time and time again that even when I had it all wrong before, the message stands and the love remains.

It is never too late.

[thoughtkick]

“To have someone understand your mind is a different kind of intimacy.”

— Unknown