march did what it does best: it almost seemed to fly by.
i had to consult my journal to write this because i couldn’t recall details of march beyond the last few days, and it was interesting to see how my thoughts and feelings would be every day. the inside of my head is an interesting place. my mind is a palace with many rooms and bright sunlight (and spots that the light doesn’t touch). the exercise made me reach for some of my older journals and i felt nothing but love as i read entries from eighteen-year-old me. she deserves so much love, and one day an older me will think about me now with more love and affection than i feel for me now. even if i feel alone, i will always have me. the past and future versions of me depend on me now.
my mother’s birthday ushered in the third month of the year, filled with flowers and family and friends. we made silly little potatoes and ate cake and sang, i spent a ridiculously long amount of time finding the perfect origami bouquet to make for her.
i had several crises about being stuck in corporate hell. it’ll be okay. i still have the art i make and the music i make and the words i write: but having creativity bottled up inside you when you have to work feels like someone is clawing your arms and leaving you bleeding. i’m getting better at balancing. one could even say i don’t work nearly enough as i should, but i’ll only be in my early twenties once. if there’s ever a time to shirk from work, it’s now. i’m filling my life with things i love.
i wrote many, many lists; one of my favorite coping mechanisms. some of them include a guide to dating me, things i’m going to do with my life, places in italy to visit, cameras that are cool, books to read, how to not go insane in your room and endless to-do lists of misc things.
i’ve documented all the songs i obsessed over during the month, which covered a surprisingly vast array of artists: cover me by skz, ‘tis the damn season by taylor swift, TEXAS HOLD ‘EM by beyonce, kitsch by IVE, love me or leave me and time of our life by day6, drowning by woodz, smart by lesserafim, and dorothea by taylor swift.
i had a huge poirot kick (if goodreads had a wrapped like spotify does, agatha christie would sit at the top) and read the god of small things, which has become an all-time favourite, with themes of love and loss and a surpirising amount of jokes that are extra funny because they coincide with inside jokes within my family of my dad growing up in post-colonial sri lanka.
march realizations always hit hard: i realized i hate instagram because it makes me feel like my life isn’t mine, and that it forces me to feel like i’m performing for an imaginary audience. a myriad of march emotions: i got really mad and felt left out, i met people from school that i hadn’t seen in years, i felt melancholy seeping into my bones at twilight, i felt unbelievable joy sitting across from my best friend. i had a crisis about my feelings for people, felt accomplished when i made bead rings, and told myself that it’s going to be okay.
this month, i hung out with my best friends. dennis and i played stupid games and died laughing over "fuel" by taylor swift and GAE the new movie genre and xiping the new hogwarts student. we ate cake and played the piano and listened to music. there is peace in being around someone who knows you inside out. leo and i ate laksa (well. i did. she watched) and drunk called nick and guessed the song title and laughed at old photos and went shopping and sang till my fretboard fingers hurt. we sat in coffee shops for way too long and watched movies and ate good cheesecake together.
it’s nice to let people into your life. to do things you normally do alone with someone: like going grocery shopping and egg hunting and watching movies and listening to music. it’s okay to talk to people about the things you’re going through, because friends make things feel better. i’m trying to do that more.
i think i was happier this month. i cried, yes, i dealt with things by ignoring them instead of facing them dead on, yes, but i’m trying to make peace with myself. i'm trying to allow myself to be a person again. as mary oliver said:
sometimes i feel like i’m not allowing myself to feel, to be. every time i do something that makes me feel alive i feel fear creeping back into my chest. i’m scared the rug will get pulled from under my feet so it’s easier to be in the dark than to have seen it and be shoved back in again. it’s strange, the inside of my head, but it makes sense when i’m justifying it to myself.
but that’s not what being alive is about. it’s about allowing yourself to feel. letting yourself do things. to have loved and to have lost.
Our little lives, so brief. But oh, the bloom.
Barbara Crooker, “Red Amaryllis”
my life is going to be beautiful. scratch that—it is beautiful. i will do the things i love everyday. i am where i’m supposed to be, even if my brain hasn’t caught up to that yet. i’m not giving up. life is like that: you think you know what you’re doing and things come crashing down. it’s going to be okay, because i’ll be having fun the whole way through. i love my friends and my family and my baby cousins and my books and my art and my music and laughing drunk on a tuesday night and watching the birds sing in my garden. i am the love of my own life, and life loves me.
“I will enjoy this life. I will open it
like a peach in season, suck the juice
from every finger, run my tongue over
my chin. I will not worry about clichés
or uninvited guests peering in my windows.
I will love and be loved. Save and be saved
a thousand times. I will let the want into
my body, bless the heat under my skin.
My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life."
idea by Kate Baer
love is at the center of the universe. i will be alright.
"I am being joyful in this very instant because I refuse to be defeated: so I love. As an answer. Impersonal love, it love, is love: even the love that doesn't work out, even the love that ends."
Água Viva, by Clarice Lispector