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Happy Birthday, Iya (Whispered)

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     this year felt different. heavier. quieter. maybe this is what they call the birthday blues — that strange, hollow ache that settles inside your chest when the world expects you to be happy. maybe it’s more than that. maybe it’s something that’s been growing quietly inside me for years, patiently waiting for the right moment to rise to the surface. and today, it finally had enough space to breathe. no distractions. no noise to drown it out. just me, and the weight of everything i’ve kept tucked away.      at 4am, while the world slept peacefully, i found myself standing alone in a corridor. the floor was cold beneath my feet, grounding me in a reality i didn’t want to face. the walls were silent, but in that silence, every thought i’ve tried to bury echoed back louder than ever. i whispered a soft “happy birthday” to myself. no candles. no laughter. no warm embraces. just me and the air, the darkness holding my words like a fragile secret. i sang not b...
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Overbearing

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     Hello. It’s that time of the year again.      The kind that makes you feel a little softer, a little heavier, like your heart is remembering something your mind hasn’t quite caught up with.      I don’t know about you, but for me, this season has a way of bringing back old habits, old faces, old wounds that I thought I’d already grown out of. And sometimes, if I’m not careful, I find myself slipping into the same roles—roles I never signed up for but somehow keep getting cast in.      The friend who is always there when it’s easy to reach out. The comfort when no one else answers. The space-filler. The safe option. The “you’ll do for now.”      But I’ve been thinking: I’m not your convenience. I’m not the number you dial because everyone else is busy. I’m not the person you hold onto when your hands are too empty. I’m not here to be remembered only when remembering is simple.      I’m a p...
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If All I Can Do Is Stay

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        Hi. How are you?       Not in the rushed, polite kind of way people ask out of habit. I mean — how’s your heart lately? Have you been sleeping well? Have you been feeling like yourself lately, or just trying to make it through the days? If no one’s asked, then let me be the one to say it now: I hope you’re okay. And if you’re not, I hope you still know you’re allowed to be held even in the middle of your mess.        This isn’t a letter filled with advice. I don’t have a list of things to fix what you’re going through, and I won’t pretend to understand everything you feel. But I wanted to say this, because it’s something I’ve been learning too: sometimes, the best thing we can do for someone is to simply stay. No grand gestures. No perfect words. Just presence — quiet, constant, and real.      There were days I felt like I was just… there. Like a background character in my own life. Not someone people missed, ...
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Maybe the Red String Doesn’t Mean Forever

     They say an invisible red string connects those who are meant to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. It might stretch, tangle, or get caught in storms, but it will never break. At first, I thought this was just a romantic notion—something meant for lovers in stories or dreamy quotes shared on lonely nights. But for a while,I had a conversation about it, and somehow, I was enlightened. I realized the red string doesn’t just belong to people who fall in love. Sometimes, it binds souls meant to walk together through the chaos of life—as friends, as family we choose, as anchors we never saw coming.      Life doesn’t give you a map to the people you’re meant to keep. Sometimes, you stumble into them without realizing the universe just shifted a little to make space for something sacred. Sometimes, you meet someone on an ordinary day, in the most unremarkable way, and only later realize it was the start of a chapter you’d never want to end. ...
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The Weight of a Timeless Heart

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     There is a lyric that has lingered in my mind lately,  “My skin is very young, but my heart is very old.” It captures an uncanny feeling, as if someone has placed their finger on a truth I couldn’t articulate. How can you be so young, yet feel the weight of decades in your chest? How can you carry the wisdom of experience without having lived long enough to earn it? That lyric encapsulates the strange duality of my life—of many lives, I’d imagine.      I’ve spent countless days chasing after happiness, hoping that the next milestone or achievement would bring me the fulfillment I’ve been searching for. I believed that if I gathered enough—more success, more love, more validation—I would finally feel complete. And yet, here I am, surrounded by everything I once dreamed of, realizing that fulfillment was never hidden in these external things. It’s a sobering realization, one that’s both freeing and heavy.      We live in a world that...
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A Note for the Living

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     As you read this, I honestly don’t know where I am right now. Maybe I’m lying in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as the weight of my thoughts pins me down. Maybe I’m forcing a smile for someone, trying to convince them—and myself—that I’m okay. Or maybe I’m somewhere in between, lost in that fragile space where hope flickers but doesn’t quite take hold.      Or, I might not even be breathing anymore, and this will be my last words.      I know how heavy life can feel. The kind of heavy that makes you question if taking another breath is worth it. I’ve been there. Some nights, the silence in my room feels deafening, and my mind becomes a battlefield I’m too tired to fight in. I lie awake, haunted by thoughts of everything I’ve done wrong and everything I’ll never be. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? To carry all this pain and pretend you’re fine. To feel like you’re screaming for help, but no one can hear you.      That’s why...
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Profanities in my Cradles

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     Do you ever feel like you're living on autopilot? Like you're just going through the motions, stuck in the same routine, but deep down, something inside you is screaming for more? I’ve felt that. I still feel it sometimes—a strange tension between the life I’m living and the life I truly want. We get so comfortable with the rhythm of the world around us that we forget to question it. We forget to ask ourselves if this is really our rhythm or just the one we’ve been handed.      For me, the song "Cradles" by Sub Urban perfectly captures that feeling—the haunting lull of routine mixed with an almost desperate urge to break free. It’s about waking up from the dream we’ve been living in and deciding to take control. And for the longest time, I didn’t realize I was asleep.     We're almost in the last quarter of 2024 and  now, I’m wide awake.         Sometimes, life feels like a strange lullaby. The rhythm of everyda...
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Self-Love Odyssey

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     For years, I tried to mold myself into someone I thought others would love. I believed that if I could just become what everyone expected of me, I would finally find acceptance. I hid my quirks, downplayed my strengths, and constantly compared myself to others. But deep down, I felt empty and lost.      It's almost the end of the month. How have you been? Life can be tough, but I hope you continue to see its beauty and stay strong. Keep pushing forward—you're doing great!      My life right now feels wonderful, peaceful, and healthy, but like everyone else, I've had times when I felt insecure about myself—how I look, speak, or see the world. I used to wish I could be like others or even be them.     The turning point came when I hit rock bottom. I was exhausted from pretending to be someone I wasn't. One day, I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the person staring back at me. I realized that I had been denying my true se...
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Soulful Smiles

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    Do I really feel happy? Honestly, I'm not sure how or what to say in response to the question, "What makes me happy?" So maybe just let me tell you a tale. It's April of 2024, almost a year since the last time I published something out of here.         Three years ago, I was a really happy and upbeat person who was driven to make the most of everything in my environment. I recall that I used to frequently do podcasts in order to ask strangers for a favor—that is, to please smile for me. Although it seems unusual that a complete stranger would ask you that, but as they smile for my favor, it makes me happy. And the moment they asked me why, I always answered, "Because you deserve to be truly happy." Even though happiness and smiling may not go hand in hand, we were able to find calm through smiling for even a brief moment in our lives. Even for brief moments, we are usually happy when we laugh or smile.       Performing tha...
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Cutting Spree

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      Sometimes I just wish I could read your mind to find out how you really feel about me.       It's me, again. What are you doing? Though lately, things have been difficult, they will ultimately pass.       May 17, 2023, 7:51 p.m. I'm writing this post from my feelings and thoughts.      I said at the beginning of this post that I wished I could just read your thoughts to see how you truly feel about me because I wanted to know whether that emotion was so fleeting that it would be simple for you to sever our relationship. From that, let me leave you a question.       Do I genuinely accept and adore myself as I am? Or am I simply pretending to be fine at everything because I'm surrounded by people?      I'll tell you a tale. I kept viewing movies about tarot cards on my social media accounts last December 2022, and eventually, I developed a curiosity for the subject. Despite ...
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Vita Nostra Sugit (Our Life Sucks)

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     April 2023 will conclude in less than two weeks.      How are you doing? I'm not sure what you're going through right now, but I'm hoping that life will be kinder to you.      You might be wondering why our title is different right now. Let me begin by telling you a story. We have been learning several Latin concepts at school for the past few months that are related to the church and the life of Jesus Christ. Vita means "life," Nostra means "our," and Sugit means "sucks." But how did I end up penning an article about "Vita Nostra Sugit"?       For the past month, a buddy of mine has simply vanished. There is no message, no update, no reason, nothing, and the phone is not available. I have no further connection with this individual other than through that account, yet no matter what I do, the phone or account never rings again as it used to.      And, to be honest, I can't stop thinking about what happe...
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