2026

 Hello my dear friend,

I am sorry that I haven't been writing. I have been out there, living it up. I have done so much that scares me and makes me feel alive once again. I think you would be so proud of me when I tell you what I have been up to. 

The desperation to live has now filled my entire lungs where it is the air I breathe. We have come full circle now. I have spent so much of my life wanting life to end becasue it has grown so unbearable to even dream at times. Can you believe that the dreams of wanting to tell stories have now slowly come into focus and I am going after it?

2025 was a year where I tried and learned what to give up. 10 years ago, 2015 was a year where I crossed a personal milestone of falling in love for the first time. Can you believe that 2025 was the year where I fell in love with life? Funny how things will change if you give it time. Oh, my wrists now decorated with bone white scars. I almost forgot about them. I thank my past self for the pain because without it, I am not who I am today. I am proud of myself. 

I am now in the midst of writing scripts of stories that I have come up with, stories that are refined by people who I love and now coming alive line by line. Somehow screaming into the void has brought me here. All those years where I ached to be heard and be seen by just anyone. Now, I am seen world wide by different people. 

I have a tiktok account now and I am now at 13.2k followers. It was something that took a complete turn when I least expect it. Now I feel all the stories in me pouring out into the hope where I get to tell these stories. Tiktok has been a solace when I did not have anywhere to go. I have build this all on my own and I believe that this will be a place where I can be proud of myself for. I was not given this. I build this. 

And to my twenty two year old self, the world did not change that much when you stopped being sad. You are more than your pain, your loneliness and your scars. The world got brighter and it opened up into windows that you have not seen before. Oh, I love you. Thank you for all the times you were brave. Thank you for all the tears. You have made me brave. Now I jump without heasitation. Your sadness has become fuel. Your heart will ache for different reasons but you are not alone now.

Now we ride motorcycles in Thailand. We tallk in front of cameras about topics we love. Our pain lead us to great people because we jumped. Life has taken a turn and you would be so proud of me. I hope I did you proud and I did right by you. Your pain is not in vain. Your loneliness gave me strength. Things can only go up from here. I will update you again.

Trying times?

 Just when I feel all kinds of content, life decides to throw me a curveball and make me think that I am depressed again. I think that I once again have to make a list of things that I know to be true again.

ALSO, I dropped my New, less than two months old Macbook Air on the road today and it has DENTS on it now. It is infuriating because the only 2 times I dropped my laptop, the second time has to be a Macbook. Thank God, it was only cosmetic damage and nothing on my screen and my keyboard. Looks like I have to get a bag and a laptop bag to double bag it. Surprisingly, this did not break me because I am for sure having a meltdown. I think it is just paused now. I definitely believe it will continue on tomorrow.

Typical feelings of: want to die, know how I will want to die, no energy, stop talking to me, leave me alone here to die

Must I write only when I am sad?

 Turns out I only write when I am sad.

I don't feel as sad as I would like to be only because I am more occupied than I would like to be. I have less personal space than I did when I started this blog. When I say less, I mean wayy less in a way where I now share a bedroom with Joshua. I have never been left alone for at least 3 years now. I went from one extreme of having no one to suddenly never being left alone. 

I am now 31 and typing on a Macbook Air. When I first started this blog, I don't think the first iPhone existed. Now I am decked out in everything Apple because I genuinely believe their products last. I want to invest in tech things that will last me at least half a decade. With Apple products, they easily outlast andriod counterparts. I never thought I would be able to afford a Macbook Air anyway. Genuinely grateful at how things turn out because I would never guess what and where I ended up in. 

I guess I did not start this post to have a topic and also, stick with a topic. I would like to reintroduce myself to the initial honesty I craved when I started this blog. I am still someone who enjoys honesty but of course, the honesty i crave is much more different than what i wanted at 16. 

They say that your 30s are all about rediscovering your favorite things as a teenager. One of my great loves was writing. Reading perhaps plays a little bit of a different role now because we have moved to a digital era of globalization. I would like to read a bit more now but it is annoying how expensive books are now but who are we kidding, I don't think I will ever read as much as I did like last time. 

I am rediscovering what I did; right now, writing is one of the main things. I would like to write a lot more than I am. The writing now is actually nonexistent. I am way too occupied with garbage on my phone than to write. Maybe I should be left alone with my thoughts a bit more so that I can ponder. Thinking is different. Pondering is trying to figure out.

I think journaling will be a bit different in my 30s since I don't think I have much to wonder and figure out. At 31, I pretty much have most of everything figured out. There is much less... Hope... So when you stop hoping for things to change, naturally, you stop looking for things to change. You stop looking at holes and seeing it as a window of opportunity. I think that is quite a sad way to see things. I wish I don't see my job as a way I will die in. I wish there was a lot more hope. 

I think I wrote last time as an escape and a way to dream. I think I must do the same. If not, how will I ever get off the ground? There is so much more to the sky than just this.

pen & paper

I am thirty years old

I am surrounded by pen and paper 

collected by the 17-year-old that had so much to say,

so much to echo to the world

I am now thirty and silenced by hands

that used to hold my hand because now,

they are choking my neck, 

daring me to say another word

I used to view the world in paragraphs, now

the world is a circulation of disrupted sentences, 

half-finished thoughts and half-eaten lunch conversations

in trains that cannot wait to get to the stop and the next stop and the next stop

So, I am thirty years old

I am surrounded by pen and paper 

that are colorful, eager and ready to be filled with stories

stories that no one will ever ready but me

Sometimes we need to write bad poems 

sometimes we need to write bad stories

maybe 17 year old me had it right

maybe these pen and paper is for thirty year old me afterall

Update as a 30 year old.

Turns out I made this space a space for poetry and my somberness, a place where my feelings come to die. I only left clues and riddles as what I am up to and sometimes I can't even remember what has gone on in my real life because I refuse to talk about it.

I cannot tell if this is because I refuse to talk about it or it's because I have a human outlet - Athena. It's much more difficult to feel loved when they are far away. Thank god for faith because without it, I would not be able to feel like I am capable of being loved the way that I am loved.

I still love to be here to write about my feelings and why I feel that way. I just needed practice to be as transparent as possible because I don't seem to have the space to be allowed to express my true thoughts on things anymore because when you turn 30, there are consequences and fallout that is really not worth honesty. 

So, I will just be on here to feel 17 again because I started this blog when I was feeling scared and there was nothing and no one else to allow me to talk the way I can talk here. Here, I learn how to capitalize my name and "I" because I remember reading somewhere that criticized people for capitalizing themselves because how dare they value themselves and it was arrogant. Here I learn that my own thoughts were valuable and it shaped my values and my sense of self. There is no place safer than the space you create for yourself. 

I feel honored to still have this space and to have entries from my teenage years right straight into all the challenges I have had throughout adulthood like breakups and jobs. I might want to maintain it a little bit more because this beats writing with my own hands even thought I do feel like these two outlets serve different purposes even if I have no idea what they are yet.

Things I know to be true:

1. I am much more comfortable with the unknown, much more comfortable being in the passenger seat and taking it as it comes by.

2. I turn out fine when people leave. I am able to create a life without them, a routine where they are not a part of,  an episode in the same season where the recurring character is suddenly gone. 

3. I do not beg for people to stay anymore. I will reach a point where I decide their chance for any reconciliation is over. 

4. My heart is getting tired from all these loving and betrayals. The locks seem to be getting more complicated with each break-in. 

5. I still love the same favorite food as I did a decade ago. I seem to hold on to these things a little tighter than I did last time. 

6. I look for routine and the mundane now. Everything that has happened in the past 365 days has ruined the word "excitement" for me and I just want to be left alone now.

7. While I remain a proud pessimist, I am open to the idea of "the best case scenario" and stopped looking for things to go wrong if it is not a life and death situation.

8. I still want a drum set badly. Except now, I am no longer sure if I will make time to play it because I no longer has the time or at least the space to not be interrupted.

9. I just want to be held by Athena and fall asleep.

10. I just want a period of time where I am allowed to just cry and cry about my feelings becasue I feel oh so exhasuted. 

Dreamer

I never fit the label of a dreamer

Never saw clouds as equals

and birds as neighbours

I see myself reading on a porch

in weather where leaves fall gently

and sunlight feel like a soft caress on the cheek

The rain soothes me with it pitter-patter on all surfaces

I clipped off my wings long before

the storms decided to make me one of them

The storms, they do not scare me.

I need not be greater than them

I am not one of those who want to rise above the clouds

I do not need to be in the sky to see that it's beautiful

I can see it from where I am

I am seated on carpets of moss, juice in hand and book in another

I can see the sky from here

It is pink and orange

I never fit the label of a dreamer but

if I ever dare to dream again,

this would be my dream.

Nostalgic for the wrong things

I hold on to the simplest things in my life: the ice skating ticket with my first love, the boarding pass for my last flight home because I was moving back for good, the type of pen I use when I write in my diary, and my bracelet previous hospital stay for dengue. Somehow a part of me was afraid that if I had no memory of these things, it has never happened. 

I am too sentimental for my good, too sensitive to ignore what I read in between the lines, and too nostalgic for people and feelings that have passed. If I could tuck all these feelings into boxes and revisit them, I would. At least I know where they are and it would be up to me to decide when I want to feel these feelings. 

I hold on to personal rituals and stay loyal to rules that I made up for myself like I must write my diary with that pen. Nothing would change if I changed the pen but somehow, changing anything would feel like I am betraying the girl that needed to write because there was no one else. I am slowly asking myself for permission to change things up so that I can write better. 

I feel so much better than when I was 20. I can say I feel happier but I still sometimes miss trying to figure things out by writing. There's very little to write about when you are sure about something. You don't have paradoxes or contradictions. Can't turn facts into poems cause they are boring.

I feel changed and I feel myself embracing the new more. Maybe I'll develop a new way to write. I haven't figured it out yet. My current struggle and challenges are that I need to recreate the safe space that my 17-year-old was very good at doing. 

Like my therapist said, I am no longer in danger and I don't need to have that instinct to keep myself safe and be on high alert. So, that's just something entirely new to me since being on high alert is the only thing I know for the past decade. 

I'm excited for the change. I think I'll be okay. I wanted this piece to be a bit more sad but frankly, I don't feel as sad and it's different. Guess we will find out.

Love with anxiety

My love, 

My heart is racing, 

I feel like I must prepare myself because

ready, set, go and I can't catch up to you again.

My anxiety grips hold on me like a long lost friend.

It has caught hold of my wrist and is now twisting me into its hollow arms.

Dread fills me up like a ditch during rain season.

Each attempted crawl up only seems to sink me deeper until 

all that is left of me are scratch marks on the walls and gargled breathing.

My love,

Slow dance with me.

Hold me close until I hear the beating of your heart in your chest

Hold me close until your hand leaves an imprint on my waist

Breathe with me while we dance to nothing or your favorite song

Twirl me around and pull me back into you

Let me breathe in your perfume and revel in the joy of your laughter

Tell me you love me

Run your fingers through my hair and stroke my cheek

Tell me you love me

Interlace your fingers with mine and kiss me

Tell me you love me

Take me into your arms and lay down with me

Tell me you love me

Wrap your arms around me and calm my pounding heart

Whisper to me you love me

Show me you love me

J

You couldn't find anything about you in my life
No pictures on the wall, no old pair of shoes,

no old bedroom, no obituaries

No one could tell that you used to put your clothes above mine,

hung your towel next to mine, 

or that you kissed me after every picture.

I took a stroll in the garden today

My flowers were blooming, tomatoes are growing

I could still see you sitting next to it,

trimming the leaves and pulling petals off wild lilies,

"I love you, I love you not".

Then, you'd kiss me and laugh at how the wind messed up out hair.

I'd fall straight into those eyes that resemble sunsets

When I sleep at night, 

I close my eyes and let myself feel hollow.

I sleep in the middle now,

empty spaces covered by pillows and blankets. 

You couldn't tell that you used to fall asleep with your palm on my cheek,

lips close to my forehead

my arm draped over your body.

I write in my journal a lot. 

I document almost every pain and every joy because

one foot after the other in front.

There is an empty gap between dates unaccounted for now,

no words, no name but yet,

the empty pages sound louder than it should. 

When you left, 

I left your toothbrush in the cup, maybe if it stayed long enough, 

you'd still come back. 

When you made yourself comfortable at my place, 

you would take cold showers and plant yourself on top of me.

Your towel was still folded and tucked away just in case.

Just in case you changed your mind,

and I would be ready. 

I stopped talking about you after 3 months,

it was as if you disappeared.

When people asked, 

I said I was busy,

building a strong body, a career, a life for myself.

busy, 

looking past shadows that looked like you

ignoring perfume that smells like you

running right through restaurants, malls and places that remind me of you.

I am a smothered forest fire site,

my limbs, scorched marks and sooty smoke

you couldn't figure out the end of the place if you tried

You were long gone, 

took the bridge with you and set me ablaze

It felt like I haven't been breathing anyway

what else could I do except to sit here and rebuild?

April's first weeks are just not good to me

 She told me that she doesn't know if she still loves me. 

I don't know what else I can do to have people be sure of me. I feel defeated. I'm not sobbing my heart out but I just kind of sit here and listen to Paravi's version of Cloud 9 because that was the song that made me think of her a lot and it made me happy. 

I'm just heartbroken. 

It's different to feel heartbreak at 28 than at 22. It's a lot more heavier at 28. Less loud, less pleading, less begging, less bargaining. I just sort of put the broken part down, sit next to it and mourn. I mean what else can I do except to cry and kiss it good bye. 

Now I can't listen to the song without hearing my own heart break.

I really tried. 

Beach waves and filters

I saw my life, slow motion, and red-blue filters
Slow kisses and slow dances
Crashing beach waves and salty wind that tangles your hair

I went from walking next to you at the beach
to trying to follow your footprints
Then, my world turned grey as the skies darkened

I hear the wind howling, waves trying to drag me into the sea
You were on the shore, body facing me but head turned away
The storm drowned out me shouting for you, I wished it drowned me

Then the storm went away, left me choking on seawater on the shore
I knew you were long gone, the waves have washed away your footprints
So, I wandered in the same direction where you left

I still looked for you, sometimes in the beach houses or under a tree
I learned to build my own sandcastles or try to enjoy being at the beach
I looked at every face that resembled yours

I got a different filter now, everything is tinted orange
The beach looks brighter, the sun even brighter
I don't know if I am happy, it's hard to tell with this color

One day, I saw footprints again, exactly what yours were like
It took everything in me to not sit there and just miss you
How it felt miserable and wonderful to do so

I can't say I am happy, I no longer feel a purpose
I wait to hear your voice every year, that's why I allow myself to miss you
I realized when I did,  I can see in that red-blue filter again

First post for 2020: All my words are still yours.

It's been about 10 years or more since I started this blog.

This place, where I take it upon myself to make it a safe place, contains stories and poems of painful heartbreaks and fears that I may have never told anyone about. Some were scenarios I created to mirror how I was feeling, some were a cry or a prayer to beg for either the pain to end or for the worst to make sense.

If I was not marking myself to function, I was here hoping that my pain would turn into some sort of art that I would later appreciate when I am older. I am glad that I wrote about it here because where would I be if I didn't write it hoping that someone in the world, somewhere would read it.

Since I started working in 2016, I know I have written less and less with almost every post starting with "I know I haven't written in a long time...". Somehow I have found my way back here again. I feel like a different person compared to the hopeless romantic that poured her heart out on the keyboard. I can't say for sure if this is a better version of myself because I don't believe I feel things to its highest intensity anymore. There is definitely a romantic side of being so emotionally in tune with happenings. I don't dislike being as dismissive as I am now but I do miss being able to fall in love with everything generally.

I have suffered a few more heartbreaks that I didn't document here. I don't know if I wish I did or not. Even though I don't admit it but I still remember what that felt like. It was the last one that broke me. I wrote a few poems about it but I didn't dedicate anything to them. I usually dedicate out of love but for her, I excluded, out of spite.

I was so broken by the end of the two months.I genuinely just think that I was not ready to talk about it. I was also dealing with a situation at work and needed to focus on that while being broken about it. I remember having a panic attack that was so severe that I couldn't feel my hands and feet. I went and paid for an online therapist because I felt like I was toxic and going insane. My heartbreak with Cassandra was soul crushing with a gut wrenching scream and tight fists and elbows around your head. The kind that rips your heart right out of your chest and you feel like you can cry forever. This heartbreak, it left me hollow and empty. The hole in my chest feels like miles and miles of highway with only silence that seems to echo louder and louder. This one made me just sit on my bed in the dark and free fall all the way down to my stomach.

After that, everything in me just became different. Aside from rage and anger, I don't think my brain allows me to feel emotional pain anymore. Even just now, as I was trying to describe what I was feeling, half way freefalling, my brain stopped it. My feet feels like its on solid ground even though I know I am only standing on a platform above a never ending hole.

I know I approach relationships differently now. I approach friendships differently. I even approach the topics of my own emotions with myself differently. In the past year and a half of this, I learn how to be my own disruptive thoughts especially when I am pining for her. It made me really good at being in control of my own misery. Now I know how to allow or disallow wallowing. I mean, I had to figure out how to function. I had no one else.

With that being said, I miss being in love. I miss how my walls crumble when I am in love. Right now, I am too practical, too pragmatic. I keep to myself now after that heartbreak. I was never the type to be terrified of letting people in but now it seems that I may have developed the fear and this times the walls are concrete and steel. I know the vulnerability is still there because I still feel it when I think of Cassandra. I feel it when I remember what it felt like to fall in love with her. I don't think I have ever been this terrified to fall in love or to feel anything as intense as love.

I also believe that when I lock that part of myself up, I lose that sense of creativity. I no longer have poems or stories in me. The last time I felt it come back for a while was after close to two months of that breakup. I called Cassandra to wish her happy birthday after 2 years of not hearing her voice. I think I can write a story about that because when she said hello, I feel all the poems and stories I have ever wanted to write spill out of me. And I felt my heart go "There you are, I've been looking for you in everyone that I meet and everywhere that I go."

I hope this place remains to be a space where I am not judged. The reason I think that I don't share anymore is that I don't feel safe. The last time I tried to share that heartbreak, I was broken down even more. After that, I couldn't bring myself to be emotional with someone anymore. I don't talk about me being sad anymore, or depressed or heartbroken. I only talk about being angry because this was the only emotion that people somehow want to relate to either one way or another.

I am in the mood to slow dance with her. I think it always goes back to Cassandra because she was the only person I felt truly safe with. Or maybe it's because she was the first person I gave my entire heart to. Sometimes when I reply her messages, I would write out what I wanted to write to her before deleting it all and writing an appropriate response. Most of these messages were just different paraphrases of "Come back to me. I love you." Though a huge part of me has accepted that she is gone, it doesn't stop that 22 year old girl that fell in love from sitting on the front porch and waiting for her love to come back. Sometimes I would wait on the porch with her because I would miss holding her hand and having her asleep at the nook of my neck. Maybe if I wait long enough, she might actually come back to me.

26/11/2015

So keep your head down and make it to me.

2 months till the end of 2019.

1. I am home. I like being home.
2. This blog is one of the most consistent thing I have in my life that is entirely my own.
3. I have done quite a bit of part time editing gigs. Now, I am writing articles about food. Exactly what I would have wanted as a kid after saying that I want to be a "cooker" at about 5.

Starting over

I remember writing about not wanting to feel any sort of emotion.
I remember that being the reason why I don't write anymore.
That reluctance to feel raw emotion stopped me from creating
stories because strong emotions were my muse.
In hindsight, I have muted myself by suppressing the weight of every emotion I have felt.
There were stories in my head as emotions arise.
I still remember telling myself that these would be good stories.
To my current dismay,
I don't recall any of them.
It should be time to give myself that allowance to feel again.
I leaned on writing for a reason and I knew I would want to read all of these someday.

I know it's not too late to continue writing
because I did write the important feelings on here.
It's okay if I didn't write daily.
I need to rededicate writing to myself again.
Without writing,
I'd probably have lost my mind and implode.

Honestly,
if anyone were to ever read this blog,
they would know almost everything about me.
This blog has my thoughts that I have not shared with anyone,
or thoughts that were shared to people who no longer want to be a part of my life.
It has my desires, pain, wants and hopes.
It also contains my darkest thoughts on death, my own death and my desperate attempts to keep myself alive.

I think internally, I enjoy being that 16 year old that talks to their diary.
At least, I have somewhere to go.
This blog comforts me.
It has for the last decade.
I intend to keep this blog up and running for me.
Who know what will happen.
If I ever publish a short story book,
some will definitely be from here.
I know I have dedicated a lot of words to other people
but I know they will never read it.
So, it's okay, I still wrote it for me.

3 days after turning 26.

I took a little time off to be busy, to "reclaim myself". I'd like to think that I did it well. I have made a few changes in my life and I would also like to think that it was changes that I needed and an attempt to make myself feel save again. To top it off, I believe it gave me great confidence and made me even more determined to be who I am and not feel that pressure to change it.

1. I moved. I love my room now. I have always enjoyed the idea of compartmentalizing areas of my room to specific needs that I have. For example, I have always wanted a big study table and basically make it my own space to do work and play games on. Now I have it. Kao Kao gave it to me for free because his office was throwing it away. This is an executive table with another smaller side table on it. Basically everything I have ever wanted as a kid. I have only started cleaning up my table because I finally have time and I am also procrastinating.

2. I started bullet-journaling. I am not great with design and templates and all that but I found great joy in lists, diagrams and charts to process all the information that I currently have in my life. It is a very new way for me to record down my life and frankly I don't know if I would be keeping up with it or not. I am enjoying it so far but the only thing is that I don't really have time? I will try to make time. I have a bad habit of just lying in bed and not doing anything. Now that I am sitting here in front of my computer, I am very productive. I really just enjoy having a computer.

3. I have a computer now. I basically looked up the specs I want and researched and scouted for everything with the help and opinions of other people. It was definitely something exciting that happened in October because I made this decision on the spot and got the PC in a week. So it was just a week of intense research and ordering and BAM, computer! Still very proud of myself. I don't remember too much of my specs because I didn't really understand everything since I only researched for what I wanted only. Still very proud of myself. I didn't think I will ever understand it and buy my own PC but I did it! I think it's something impressive for me to keep celebrating.

4. I became very private. Even more private than before. I made this choice because I didn't see a point to keep entertaining my need to be heard? After the whole thing, I fought very hard with myself to really understand "People will not listen if they are not ready to listen. It is irregardless of your feelings most of the time" and "You can love someone but sometimes it will not make a difference". I think it was a very huge lesson. I think it was a lesson that I was always trying to learn. Now that I have learn it. It has made a huge difference. It allowed me to be selfish if I need to be. With that, I am very private with what I share because I now get it when people say "Not everyone you share things with, cares about you". Basically no one knows anything about me unless I tell you. I think mainly it's cause I got the idea from Sonia. She is quite private but I see the power in that decision.

5. I tried FD. I put a small amount of money in it to try and basically to see if it will really stop me from taking the money out and using it. It works so I will continue to keep that amount in the bank. I don't really care about the interest really, I just want somewhere that I can put my money in and not allow it to be taken out.

6. I started to get part time video editing gigs. I really need to work on it. Been procrastinating the whole day. I'll edit first and write when I am done.

1/1/19

I started going to the gym 3 months ago.
I tried to reclaim what little of myself that I had left.

16/8/18

I fell in love.
Her name is Julie.
She has big eyes,
eyes that squint into a straight line when she smiles.
Her voice, her words smooth as jazz on a Tuesday night.
I love sleeping next to her.
She smells like flowers,
smells like the best dream ever.

We spoke different languages when things were tough
Emotions were bottled up and spilling
on every surface, every experience, every wound.
She screamed into eternal abyss with her silence
while I hurled words into nothingness like broken plates that shattered on old walls.

I take it back.
She did not speak at all.
She only spoke at the end.
Her words, caked with an underlying anger that only came with years of unresolved rage.
Pointed all her fingers at me and deemed me the culprit,
Said I was the one that stomped on the flowers that she planted
Said I was the one, the smudge in the printer that ruined the pretty photos

22/10/18
It's been more than two months.
I stopped staring at the grey head that once held your picture in my phone.
My thoughts are no longer for you, no longer you.
Dreams are just dreams, no longer a looping film of losing you.
Got a heart, ready to have your name on it.
Now all that's left is a plaque, missing the rest of your name after J.
Still got that knife wound in my chest.
You missed, got a piece of my heart but not all of it.
My poem was unfinished because I was hurt.
I didn't know how to finish it.
I think I don't think I want to finish it.
She has all my words, and you get none.

Loss.

I think when you lose someone, you never really stop losing someone. You lose them again when you think of them because who you remember is sure to be a different reflection of who they are now. You lose them again when you miss them. You lose them every time you imagine their reflection next to yours in the mirror, when you try to remember how their body fits into you. I feel that the more you see the change, the more you lose them. I can’t pin point it.

I’m in quite a lot of pain. I don’t quite know how else to say it anymore.