write-reflect

[write-reflect]

1/17/25

Sometimes there’s so much I want to say but these words have been reiterated so many times that there’s nothing left - like the graphite tip of a pencil inscribing the same petroglyphs over and over until the tip penetrates through the paper and all that remains is a hole, a void. Nothing more can be written in that, nothing recoverable.

My therapist was right about my box. Now that I think about it, there’s always been stuff in the box, it just hadn’t reached the overfilling point to where I’d have to confront it. As I grew in college, learning to articulate and recognize shapes that used to only be murky shadows, I realized how sharp their edges can be. It’s almost like a paper cut or a cut I get while skating. Once, I had cut my finger on the blade during practice but didn’t notice until after my session, at which I realized it hurt, and I had tinted the boots red where my fingers grazed. Sometimes, I think that trauma looks the same - where once you recognize it, it begins to really hurt, and you see the trail of everything it has touched. You might ask, isn’t it better to not see it at all then? The price of neglect is that you risk bleeding out entirely, and only after we acknowledge that we have a wound can we start to care for it. Only after that, can we begin to heal.

I recently finished, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong. In the novel, the narrator is writing a letter - the entire book - to his mother, who he knows will never read it. Yet, he writes to free himself, he writes to process. I think I’m beginning to understand why simply vocalizing my thoughts is a fine enough starting point, regardless of who it reaches - if anyone.

Now, back to the box. I had been describing some resurfacing feelings over the last couple of months. “Why though? Why then? Nothing seems like it triggered it in particular,” I had asked my therapist. She turned to me and said, “Sometimes the box you’ve been stuffing things into begins to overflow, and especially with therapy, it can get worse before it gets better when we look at those things.”

All I can really say by now, as I write this paragraph, is that I’m exhausted. A calm steadiness has washed over me where the very act of feeling seems far too consuming. I felt some relief as I cried for a few minutes earlier, mostly from the fact that since I was crying at night, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with the migraine and congestion for the rest of the day. At least, I could sleep soon.

My parents wonder why I call less. Do they know how weary I am visiting during the holidays? Do they know how I practiced setting up boundaries during several sessions, and then had them utterly disrespected when at home? Do they know how I recounted to my therapist how we had one fight episode, but emphasized how thankfully it wasn’t on the magnitude of the 2023 meltdown? Do they know how I’ve discovered that I am uncomfortable with silence rather than the chaos and noise because in our household it meant something worse had just transpired? The way when a fire rages in all its fury, it will always warrant an effort to cool it down, to minimize the damage, but when the fire is gone and all is quiet, all that is left is a scorched wasteland? Do they know?

I swear mama that I see it’s your first time going through life too, and life has not always been kind to you. I see how you’ve tried your best for us. I see that -and- I also see how your deteriorating mental health has affected me and my sisters.

I’ve written some version of this too many times with no clarity in what to do with it, because what can I do with it?

Vocalization. That’s what this is.

[write-reflect]

At some point, I started seeing him differently. My past “crushes” were first-sight infatuations built on fantasies. This was different.

At some point, I started growing shy at holding eye contact for longer than 10 seconds. I started thinking about him more often. I started missing his presence, his voice, his smile.

I’m reminded of Romance 101- Yuyeon tells Bareum that liking someone is like slowly soaking it up in your heart till one day you like them.

I guess for me, it wasn’t infatuation at first sight. It was becoming friends and not thinking too much of us texting daily. At some point though, I started missing him, looking forward to seeing him, and …possibly liking him.

[write-reflect]

dreamt about the first person I ever really liked last night. we had become good friends again last year after reconnecting, and I was able to completely fall out of love. we haven’t talked in a month now though. It still feels a little bittersweet when your dream of them was so good, and you have to remind yourself that you were in love with this idea of them, this dream version you invented, which they are not going to ever be in reality.

a nostalgic wave of butterflies ripple through your stomach, your thumbs scatter across the screen, hover over the ‘send’ button

you catch yourself

delete delete delete

maybe one day I’ll have the courage to say this whole story to them. how I fell in love once upon a time, tried to connect for years, moved on, reconnected by chance, fell back into my feelings, then truly moved on, but still feel a twinge of something every once in a while.

[write-reflect]

it hurts when you find out what you thought was a mutual sincerity and respect turned out to be your one way delusion. When the small red flags that you had been dismissing as jokes or not a big deal, telling yourself that’s not what they meant, accumulate into a fight they start and all the flags become so obvious you can no longer ignore them. When they uttered unforgivables that meant your relationship would never be the same again. When they said things you have not and would never say to anyone, let alone someone who was supposedly one of your best friends.

All because you smiled when explaining yourself after they called you crazy, uncultured, and ridiculous for not wanting to share utensils when they had a mouth sore . All because you have always taken the step back and let them have the final word. All because they cannot stand you being right and them being unable to overshadow you for once.

You realize the language you speak, in love and in hate, is a language they don’t understand.

And now your pounding headache and psychogenic fever from crying dulls the sting of fresh wound into a static pain.

You feel a light sense of relief amid the tension knowing that this would’ve happened one way or another, and at least now, you’ve seen the worst of them and can move on.