#34

on showing up for yourself

Feb 01, 2024

dear you,

happy love month! i hope january was kind.

something in these cold, sunny days has been so healing and the glow of its morning light and the way it has spilled over the winter landscapes has kept my heart soft and light. i heard the birds at dawn yesterday and saw some crocuses in the morning. soon enough it will be spring <3

this month, everything has felt so meaningful and heavy. i feel like getting older makes every interaction feel so sentimental. i turned a somewhat serious age on my birthday at the end of last year and it made me think a lot about who i am and who i want to be. about how i want to hold my life in my bare hands and express my love earnestly for people around me. we’ll never have these moments again or be these people again and i want to hold on to every moment forever.

this year i have wants rather than resolutions. i want to be kinder and speak gentler and do everything from love. i want to spend more time thinking and reading and writing. i want to be with the trees and by the water and with the people i love. i want to do things scared but do them. i want to take care of myself and set boundaries and advocate for myself. i want to spend my time doing things that bring me joy and make me who i am. i want to buy myself flowers and keep my heart open. i want to draw and paint and create and cook and bake and daydream. i want to let go of shame, be authentic to myself, and let my love of learning move me. i want to forgive myself and feel comfortable being unraveled.

i just want to embody someone that my younger self would have been in awe of.

i’ve been thinking about what louise glück once said, something along the lines of a necessity to be still sometimes and to just let life happen to you. i think that life is just about returning to yourself. there are endless times that we get lost in the world, in the motions of life but it’s about finding your way back to yourself every time. it’s difficult to know what that looks like and who that even is, especially in such a changing, despairing world, but sometimes, for even a moment, the image gets clearer and i feel a sense of understanding towards myself and the world i live in. and it’s beautiful. i find myself thinking of my younger self some days and i wonder if i still share things in common with her. i think i do since some of her dreams are still my dreams.

i’ve been prioritising slowness and rest this month. i saw the sun rise and i saw it set. i went for walks and spent time with friends. i saw beautiful things even when i was sad. i laughed a lot and cried a lot. i read and i was kind to myself. and i started over again and again and again.

i watched the boy and the heron at the beginning of the month. it was my first studio ghibli film at the cinema and it was so beautiful. mahito’s journey from despair and hopelessness to realising the world’s potential for beauty resounded infinitely. the film shows that ultimately it’s okay to forget, to let go and heal. there is no right way to live. some days you know and other days it’s as if you’re drowning. it’s human to have fears and doubts. in the end, love always remains and persists. things don’t last forever and that’s okay. there will be moments of sadness and pain, but alongside it will be moments of laughter and joy and hope will find you again. loss is inevitable. things are meant to end when they do and this is simply the way we exist. the universe is both wider and simpler than we think.

“this is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognized for what it is. sorrow is very real, and loss feels very final to us. life on earth is difficult and grave, and marvelous. our experience is fragmentary. its parts don’t add up. they don’t even belong in the same calculation. sometimes it is hard to believe they are all parts of one thing”
marilynne robinson, lila

i’ve found it incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that people can just come and go out of our lives and all we are left with is grief and loss. most of the people we meet in life are just passing moments. you’ll know them for a brief period before they are a stranger again and there’s nothing you can do about this. you don’t want to be a temporary moment or experience, you want to be with certain people forever. but you never really say the things you want to say to people or do what you want to do with them. in the end, you’re left with an aching heart clinging to the past so you don’t lose them forever.

i read something about how we only ever borrow people and i haven’t stopped thinking about it because truly, we only get to experience people in that current moment with no prior knowledge of the journey they have lived through to get to that point or the people they used to be, and where that journey will lead to, with or without us. it makes it all so much more real and meaningful. we are here and now and that matters so much.

interstellar (2014) dir. christopher nolan

i’m trying to be more present with myself these days. i know i need to just let myself exist in the moment, without consuming myself with worry and anticipation about the future or past. i have been reminding myself that discomfort, uncertainty, fear, and vulnerability are difficult but we have to feel these things to truly live. i’m also trying to be more at peace with how intense but fleeting emotions can be, whether it’s joy or sadness or anxiety. something that’s changed my life has been thinking about where my feelings exist in my body and noticing when they arise. i feel anxiety in my chest and my hands, guilt in my stomach and my throat, and joy in my cheeks.

this world can be a “bitter and complicated place” like paul says in ‘the holdovers’ (2023) but it can also be so kind and gentle. the smell of the rain at night. the sweetness of fruits. the laughter in our eyes. tables full of food. a warm hand to hold.

there’s something so peaceful about walking home at blue hour under a crescent moon and the bare winter trees. lately i have been going to places i haven’t been to in a long time and it’s been surreal to think about how life was the last time i was there and the feelings attached to that. i think i’m just the most nostalgic person in the world.