I perpetually feel that there’s never enough time for me to do anything joyful after I’m done taking care of those mandatory, non-negotiable matters first. The fridge is stocked, the dishes are done, the emails are read — and now it’s 10 PM, and instead of doing some Spanish or finishing my painting by numbers, I should get ready for bed because I have an early morning tomorrow.
What We Want Isn’t Always What We Need
For the past few summers, I haven’t missed a trip to the sea. I don’t have the luxury of living very close to it, but I make sure to find the time and the money to spend a few days at the seaside. I swim in the salty waters, look at the endless blues from the shore, journal and read while the waves come in and out. This year was going to be no exception.
It Was Scary. I Did It Anyway
This summer, I found myself at a large dinner table with 15 more people, celebrating my good friend’s 30th birthday. Never having met most of them until that night, I quietly clung to my friend’s wife — also a friend of mine — and was lucky to be seated next to her. The restaurant was buzzing with chatter, as was our table; the night promised to be long and full of festivities.
4 Things I’ve Stopped Apologizing For
For me, saying “sorry” often goes hand-in-hand with saying “no” — an observation that, once I became aware of it, made me question how confident I am in my decisions and judgments. Yet over the recent years, I have deliberately been working on owning my “nos” as much as my “sorrys” — and I’ve noticed the former become a bit more frequent and the latter less rare but more sincere.
Home Is Not a Country
It’s been almost a decade since I moved abroad. In this decade, I haven’t acquired a sense of home in the country I moved to, and the country I moved away from has lost any remaining sense of home as well. I’m not a person without a nation, but I am, as it stands, one without a national identity. There’s no country I can call home.
I Sold My Soul to SEO
In March 2025, I started a blog — this blog. 13 blog posts later, it hit me: I’ve lost my voice. I look at the stuff I’ve written on my blog — and I barely recognize myself in most of it. How did this happen? How could I let it happen?