love, R ♡

🪷 Welcome to,,

my soft corner of writblr 💌

the shy Iotus blog <3

♯ writer & self-diagnosed sleepyhead :3

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🚃introduction !!!

🍥 name: Riri,,

~ my name's riri, so my signoffs are just my initial, R <3

fun fact! 'ri' is one of my nicknames; my favorite one

but u can just call me purrgatorii (purgatory, gato, tori) :3

🌷 occupation: student,,

~ i'm studying business, and mayhaps failing :3

🍰 gender: female,,

~ i'm afab, & i prefer fem-terms at all times (๑˃ᴗ˂)

🎹 pronouns: she / her,,

~ idm they/them, but my preferred pronouns are always she/her.

💐 hobbies: writing essays, poems, studying, gaming & sleeping,,

~ i am almost always doing one of these, tho sleep definitely takes up muuuch more time !!

🍓 faves: i love cats, mice, bunnies, pretty pink flowers, soft icecream, stickers, scrapbooking, pretty notes, crafting, origami, dance, piano, ghilbi films & anime movies, valorant, roblox, minecraft, dcu comics,, (≧◡≦)

☘️ fun facts: (more so random facts) i main clove & sage in valo. i enjoy studyin. i have a ginger cat named Finn, after Finn from adventure time, my baby sister's idea. i am a middle child. i am from south asia !! i am an INFJ–T. i've been writing since 7-ish, though i don't enjoy reading as much. my favorite color is blue, despite the soft pinks.

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i write soft, messy stuff that feel like journal entries and love letters at the same time :D

i post about love, grief, gentle spirals, fandoms, late-night thoughts, and poetic breakdowns (๑˘︶˘๑)

everything’s lowercase bc i am emotionally fragile and stylistically dramatic ♡ (can u tell i luv big words?)

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📌 my list of boundaries,, (つ≧▽≦)つ

♡ don't flirt with me if we’re not close

♡ don’t call me pet names (like babe, love, etc) unless i say it’s okay

♡ don’t trauma dump out of nowhere — ask first pls

♡ don’t make sexual jokes toward me, even as a “joke”

♡ don’t vent in my inbox without permission

♡ don’t repost or use my writing/art without credit

♡ don’t refer to me using masc terms (king, dude, bro, etc)

♡ don’t tone-police my posts — this is a soft space, not a debate zone

♡ don’t follow if you support harmful ideologies (see dni)

♡ if i say i’m uncomfortable, don’t argue — just respect it

💌 please dni if,, 人(_ _*)

♡ you're racist

♡ you're homophobic

♡ you're transphobic

♡ you're xenophobic

♡ you're sexist

♡ you're zionist

♡ you're ableist

♡ you're fatphobic

♡ you're anti-queer in any form

♡ you're a terf / swerf

♡ you're an aphobe or exclude aspec ppl

♡ you support apartheid, genocide, or ethnic cleansing in any form

♡ you support any military occupation of oppressed peoples

♡ you mock tone indicators or neurodivergent coping tools

♡ you romanticise eating disorders, self-harm, or mental illness

♡ you're pro-cop / pro-prison / pro-military industrial complex

♡ you don't respect neopronouns or xenogenders

♡ you're anti-feminist or think feminism is “too much”

♡ you're anti-BLM or pretend to be “neutral” about it

♡ you're against landback or indigenous sovereignty

♡ you're into lolicon / shotacon / “problematic” ship culture

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& u can find my other socials here ->🌸!!

cuz i love yapping, especially when i top frag in valo, which i do

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the inside joke.

it’s nearly universal, i think. not a specific joke, but the quiet, glowing fact of having one. it’s one of the softest kinds of magic people can make together. an inside joke isn’t a trend that someone missed, or a niche meme from a corner of the internet. it’s something else entirely. it’s a secret made of laughter, a tiny, shared world that only a few have the map to.

it always starts with a moment. a completely ordinary moment that, for reasons no one can ever fully explain, tips over into absurdity. maybe it was a misheard word, a facial expression made at the wrong time, a minor disaster that was too ridiculous to be upset about. the moment itself fleets away, as moments do. but the laughter it caused? that sticks. it’s too good to let go. so someone holds onto it. they cradle the memory of that shared, unexpected giggle, and they bring it out again, like a smooth stone from a pocket.

and they reference it. just a word. a raised eyebrow. a particular tone of voice. it’s a code, utterly meaningless to anyone else. to an outsider, it’s a non-sequitur, a baffling glance, a smile that seems to come from nowhere. they might question it with a polite, “what?” or simply ignore it, the signal flying right over their head. but for the ones who know? it’s a key turning in a lock.

the reaction is never a loud, performance laugh. it’s a quiet, physical understanding. it’s a giggle that gets bitten back, a snort disguised as a cough, a slow smile that spreads like warmth. it’s eyes meeting across a room, sparkling with a private history. it’s laughter that comes from the soul, not just the lungs—a deep, resonant joy that’s about so much more than the joke itself. it’s the joy of being known. of having been there. of sharing a brain, just for that second.

these jokes become a shorthand for entire chapters of a relationship. they are containers for feeling. that one phrase can hold the memory of a long road trip, a difficult time you survived together, a boring class you made bearable, the foundation of a friendship forged in silliness. repeating the joke isn’t just about being funny again. it’s an act of remembrance. it’s saying, i was there. i remember that light we found in that ordinary dark. i still have it.

they are living things. they evolve. the original moment births a reference, which births a variation, which becomes a whole layered language of nods and sighs and suppressed laughter. it’s a collaborative art project that only exists in the space between you. no one else can contribute, and no one else can take it away.

this is why losing someone you share an inside joke with aches in a specific way. it’s not just missing the person. it’s the haunting silence of a language that has suddenly become extinct. those references sit on your tongue, ready to be spoken, and with no one to hear them, they dissolve into a sweet, aching nothingness. the jokes become little tombs for a joy that was once shared.

so we collect them, these fragile, powerful things. we tuck them into the pockets of our friendships and our loves. they are proof that we haven’t been alone in our journey through time. that we have created something together that is utterly useless to the wider world, and therefore, infinitely precious. it’s a gentle conspiracy of joy. and in a loud, sprawling world, having a few people with whom you share a silent, smiling language feels like the most intimate kind of home.

the long way home.

i know the rules. i carry them in my body like a second skeleton. go straight there. be aware. keys between your fingers. don’t linger. as a woman, the walk home is not a stroll; it’s a transit, a vulnerable journey between points of safety. i know this. and yet, sometimes, a rebellion blooms in my chest, soft but stubborn. sometimes, i take the long way home.

it starts with a decision so quiet it’s almost not there. a passing of my usual turn. a choosing of the sidewalk that curves around the park instead of the one that cuts directly through it. it’s not logical. the light is leaching from the sky, painting it in washes of deep blue and bruised purple. the air is getting colder, a crispness that pinches at my nose and ears. i can feel the sensible version of me, the one who follows the rules, shaking her head in disbelief. but my feet keep moving on this new, longer path.

the world feels different on the long way. the familiar, hurried route is a tunnel; this is an expanse. i notice things i usually miss. the way the orange glow from a living room window falls in a perfect square on a frosty lawn. the intricate silhouette of bare branches against the fading sky, like cracks in a ceramic bowl. the scent of woodsmise from a kitchen window, sweet and gentle, cutting through the cold. these are not sights for the swift. they are rewards for the lingering, stolen though this lingering may be.

yes, my senses are heightened, but not only in fear. every flickering streetlamp causes my heart to skip, my steps to quicken for a second. a shadow detaches itself from a hedge, and my breath catches—it’s just a cat, its eyes flashing green before it disappears. the starless sky does seem to fog up the neighborhood, turning familiar houses into muted shapes, making the world feel both larger and more intimate. the cold wind isn’t just a nuisance; it’s a sharp, clarifying presence. it says, you are here, in your body, in this moment. even the fear is a kind of aliveness.

this is the paradox. in choosing the more vulnerable path, i feel, strangely, more in possession of myself. on the efficient route, my mind is already home, already worrying about the next thing. here, on the long way, i am nowhere but here. every sense is engaged. i am listening to the crunch of my own footsteps, feeling the exact temperature of the air, seeing the world in its evening details. it is a mindful, if anxious, meditation. i am reclaiming a slice of time and space that the rules say i shouldn’t have.

it’s a small act of claiming. the right to be outside, to be moving through the world not just as a target, but as a witness. to feel the melancholy beauty of an autumn evening, even if i have to feel the prickle of danger alongside it. it’s a whisper that says my experience of the world doesn’t have to be entirely defined by precaution. there can be a sliver of poetry in the commute, a fragment of wonder in the wary walk.

when i finally see my own door, its light a tiny, golden promise in the distance, the tension in my shoulders begins to melt. the long way is over. i am almost safe. but i am also more than i was when i started. i am filled with the cold air, the glimpsed gardens, the quiet courage of my own small defiance.

the windows i stare through to escape.

i think i have always been a person who needs windows. not just to see the weather, but to leave the room without moving a muscle. they are my portals, my gentle exits. when the weight of being here, in this reality, in this self, becomes a little too solid, i find a window and i stare through it to escape.

the most obvious is the ceiling-to-floor window in my bedroom. it frames a simple view: a tree, a slice of sky, the roof of the house next door. but it is never just that. on a difficult afternoon, it becomes a cinema screen. i watch the clouds rewrite themselves from dragons to mountains to wisps of nothing. i follow a single leaf’s long, spiraling fall, and for a moment, i am that leaf, unmoored and drifting. i track the slow crawl of sunlight across the floorboards, and my thoughts slow to match its pace. the glass becomes a barrier that softens the world, making it a silent film i can project my daydreams onto.

but windows aren’t always made of glass. the black rectangle of a turned-off device screen is a window, too. i catch my own ghostly reflection superimposed on the dark surface, and i stare past her, into a middle distance that exists nowhere but in that specific blankness. it’s a void that invites wandering. the car window, especially on a long journey, is a hypnotic scroll of passing landscapes. fences blur into rivers, fields melt into sky, and the steady rhythm of telephone poles becomes a metronome for my racing mind, lulling it into a trance where i am nowhere and everywhere at once.

even the frames that encase paintings are windows. i can lose myself in the brushstrokes of a distant horizon in a landscape, stepping into that painted world where the light is forever golden and the mood is forever still. i don’t think about the artist’s intent. i use it as a doorway into a quieter story, one where my own worries have no setting, no place to exist.

this staring isn’t passive. it’s an active form of retreat. it’s a conscious decision to let the focused, demanding part of my mind go soft at the edges. the window creates a necessary separation. on this side, is the me that has to answer emails, that replays conversations, that feels too much. on the other side, or within the frame, is a space of pure observation, where i am not required to participate, only to witness.

in these moments, i am not hoping to see anything in particular. i am hoping to see through. through the physical pane, through the immediate moment, through the clutter in my head. the window acts as a focusing lens for my dissociation, giving it a place to land that feels almost productive. it’s a dignified kind of zoning out. i am not neglecting my life; i am contemplating the tree, the sky, the blur of green, the texture of paint. it’s a socially acceptable way to be profoundly elsewhere.

and i always return. a sound breaks the spell, or my neck gets stiff, or the light changes. i blink, and i am back in the room, in the car, in front of the painting. the world on the other side of the glass snaps back into its literal self. but something has shifted. the internal pressure has been vented, quietly, out that window. my mind feels less crowded, as if i’ve sent some of its chaos out to drift with the clouds or get left behind on the highway.

so i will always seek out windows. i will always be grateful for these transparent boundaries that offer an escape without requiring a journey. they are my silent allies. in a world that often feels too close, too loud, too real, they give me the gift of a gentle distance, a soft place to rest my gaze while the rest of me goes quiet, and still, and wonderfully, temporarily, away.

the songs that play only in my head.

there is a private playlist that lives inside the quiet of my mind. you cannot access it. i cannot even play it out loud, not really. these are the songs that exist only in my head, unique recordings for an audience of one. you might know the originals—you could find them on a streaming service, their notes perfectly aligned, their production crisp. but you will never hear the versions i hold.

there is a song, from a movie i've never watched. if you searched the title, you’d find a particular singer with a clear, pretty voice accompanying herself on guitar. but that’s not the song i know. the song i know is slower, a little off-key, and the guitar is missing. it’s just my mother’s voice, thick with tiredness and a love so deep it sounded like comfort, in the afternoon dark of a childhood bedroom. her version has a catch in the second verse, a place where she always took a breath that wasn’t in the original melody. that breath is part of the song for me. the official recording feels empty without it.

there is a pop song from years ago, all energetic synth and driving beat. but in my head, it is just the chorus, hummed absently by my brother while he put together jabba's lego palace. it’s his specific, toneless hum, the one that came from the back of his throat, accompanied by the soft click of lego pieces. it’s layered with the smell of cotton and cheap snacks. that hum is the true hook of the song for me, the part that stuck, not the singer’s polished voice.

there is a ballad that i once played on repeat during a long, grey car ride, watching rain streak the windows. now, when i think of that song, i don’t hear the singer’s crescendo. i hear the faint hiss of the cheap headphones, the rhythmic squeak of the bus’s wipers, the steady thump-thump-thump of the wheels over pavement seams. these aren’t mistakes in the audio. they are the emotional instrumentation of my memory, a whole new layer of percussion and atmosphere that the artist never intended, but that my heart mixed in anyway.

these private versions are fragile. they are made of time and feeling. they are the original track, filtered through a specific moment, a specific person’s imperfect voice, a specific crack in my own heart. they are souvenirs, but not of the song itself—souvenirs of the people and the places that the song happened to be playing for.

sometimes, i’m afraid i’ll lose them. if i listen to the official version too many times, will it overwrite the soft, wobbly recording of my grandmother singing in the kitchen? will the studio drums drown out the memory of my friend tapping the rhythm on a picnic table with their fingers? so i am careful. i often choose to just… let the internal version play. to sit with the ghost of a voice that is no longer in my daily life, or a version of myself that heard the song in a different key of feeling.

i think everyone must have this. a vault of lost, impossible mixtapes. the song that will always be the road trip version, full of wind noise and laughter. the song that is forever tied to the voice of a person who sang it just for you, once. these are not memories of music. they are music made of memory. they are the most personal soundtrack we have, written not by composers, but by the quiet collisions of life and melody.

so the songs play on, softly, in the background of my thoughts. a hum in a garage. a tired voice in the dark. the hiss of old headphones on a rainy day. they are mine. exclusively, entirely mine. and in a world where so little feels private anymore, i hold these flawed, perfect recordings close. they are the proof that some of the most beautiful things are not for sharing, but for keeping, a gentle, endless echo in the quiet rooms of the mind.

the dreams i fold away neatly.

i wanted to be an astronaut. it wasn't about science, really. it was about reaching the stars, about being so far away the whole world was just a blue-green marble in an infinite black velvet box. i was a toddler, with sticky fingers and a boundless sky in my eyes.

i wanted to be a princess. this was less about royalty and more about the permission. permission to wear puffy, ridiculous dresses in broad daylight, to have my hair elaborately braided, to live in a story where feelings were dramatic and important. i was a tween, feeling invisible, craving a costume that meant something.

i wanted to be a vet. my heart ached at every whimper from a furry friend. i believed i could learn the language of their pain and be their gentle translator, their quiet healer. i was a young teen, my empathy a raw and overwhelming thing, seeking a channel for all that softness.

i wanted to be a psychiatrist. this was after i realized how endlessly fascinating and terribly complicated people are, myself included. i wanted to understand the machinery of the mind, to sit in a quiet room and help untangle the knots of thought and feeling. i had just celebrated my sweet sixteen, and was deeply curious about the shadows inside.

i wanted to be a lawyer. it was a sudden, sharp desire to be dependable, formidable. to have words as my tools and justice as my goal. i wanted to seem smarter, to have a concrete answer for things, to wear a suit of competence. it was a dream born from a need for solid ground.

i wanted, not so long ago, to be a pastry chef. to work in the quiet, flour-dusted hours of the morning, to create delicate, temporary beauties that existed to bring a moment of sweet joy. it was a dream of quiet hands and tangible, edible art.

these were not phases. they were whole worlds. each one was a complete universe of possibility, a future self i tried on, lived in for a while, and learned from. they were true dreams, fervent and bright. and one by one, i have folded them away neatly.

folding a dream is not the same as throwing it out. it’s not a failure. it’s a gentle act of preservation. it’s taking the puffy dress of the princess and smoothing it out, laying it in a drawer with a sprig of lavender. it’s placing the astronaut’s star map carefully in a portfolio, knowing it taught me to look up. it’s storing the vet’s stethoscope, the psychiatrist’s notepad, the lawyer’s polished argument, the chef’s piping bag—each in its own tissue-papered box, labeled with the person i was when i held that dream.

they are not gone. they are archived. they are the building blocks of my becoming. the wanting to care shaped my compassion. the wanting to understand deepened my patience. the wanting to create taught me attention to detail. the wanting to be strong showed me my own resilience. each folded dream is a lesson absorbed, a facet of myself discovered and then integrated, so i no longer need the costume to access the feeling.

my heart has many drawers now, and they are full of these neatly folded possibilities. sometimes i open one, not with regret, but with a soft fondness for that former self, so earnest in her wanting. i trace the folds of those old dreams and see how their fabric has woven into the person i am now—a person who may not be any one of those things, but who carries a little bit of the astronaut’s wonder, the princess’s permission, the vet’s gentleness, the psychiatrist’s curiosity, the lawyer’s steadiness, and the chef’s desire to make something sweet.

the future is quieter now, less about a title and more about a texture. i don't know what i want to be, but i know, slowly, how i want to be. and that feels like enough. the dreams are folded, not abandoned. they are resting, and so am i, nestled in the person all those dreams helped me to become.

the language of love.

i used to believe love was a language of words. that it lived in the grand declarations, the poetic phrases whispered in the dark, the perfect sentiments found in cards. but i’ve come to understand that isn’t the language of love at all. those words are just the echo, the translation of something far more fundamental. the real language of love isn’t spoken. it’s acted. it’s a quiet, consistent grammar of doing.

this language has no dictionary. it’s understood in the space between people, in the small, physical truths of care. it’s the cup of tea made just before you realized you were thirsty. it’s the hand that finds yours under the table during a difficult conversation, not to fix it, but to say, i am here in this, too. it’s the silence that isn’t empty, but full of a comfortable, shared presence. it’s remembering how they take their coffee, or that they hate the sound of scraping metal, and moving through the world in a way that gently accommodates those things.

this language is in the chores no one sees. the replacing of the empty toilet paper roll. the picking up of the favorite crackers at the store, just because. the washing of a single bowl left in the sink so they won’t have to face it in the morning. these are not romantic gestures. they are humble, mundane sentences in the daily dialogue of devotion. they say, i see the weight of your life, and i will lift a tiny piece of it, so you can breathe.

for me, love lives most honestly in the unattractive, unsexy moments. it’s sitting in a waiting room with them, not talking, just being a solid presence next to their anxiety. it’s listening to the same story for the third time with the same soft attention as the first. it’s the way their body relaxes when you walk into a room, a silent exhalation of safe. it’s cleaning up a mess without complaint, whether it’s spilled milk or a spilled feeling. these actions don’t seek applause. they seek nothing at all. that is what makes them fluent.

words can be beautiful. they can also be easy. they can be promises made in a moment of feeling that the future self is not equipped to keep. but actions are accountable. they require showing up, over and over. they are the proof. when someone says “i care about you,” it is a lovely sound. when someone listens to you, really listens, until you feel understood—that is the meaning of the sound made flesh.

this is why the love that moves me most is often the quietest. it doesn’t need to perform. it simply is, as steady and essential as a heartbeat. it’s in the shared glance across a crowded room that says, i see you, and i’m glad you’re here. it’s the blanket placed over you when you’ve fallen asleep on the couch. it’s the text that says, “saw this and thought of you,” attached to a silly picture of a oddly shaped vegetable. it’s the space held for your sadness without any urgent need to make it go away.

to speak this language, you have to pay attention. you have to learn the unique dialect of another person’s heart. what makes them feel secure? what small thing lifts a weight from their shoulders? then, you do that thing. again, and again. it is a practice of quiet observance and quieter service.

so i don’t trust the language of love that is only love. i trust the language of action. the one that makes a space warmer, a burden lighter, a day easier, without ever needing to name the reason why. it is the most honest thing i know. a love that is lived, not just said, is a love that has taken root. and that is the only kind that ever truly grows.

the heart half-full of sunlight.

let me be clear: i am not a morning person. the world at that hour feels too loud in its demands, too sharp at the edges. i am a creature of the in-between lights—the deep, forgiving night, the hushed promise of dawn, the quiet blush of sunrise. the full, brazen day with its hot sun and blaring rays is not for me. it feels like an interrogation. but there is a single, fleeting exception. a moment that slips in after sunrise but before the day hardens into itself. it’s the moment that leaves my heart half-full of sunlight.

it’s a different sun entirely. not the high, fierce ruler of midday, but a gentle friend. it’s low and golden, and its light comes in sideways, soft and forgiving. it doesn’t blaze; it pours, like warm honey over the world. it has a tactile quality, this early light. it feels less like something you see and more like something you wear—a light shawl draped over your shoulders, a quiet hug against the lingering chill of the night.

in this moment, the world is still holding its breath. the frantic energy of the day hasn’t quite sparked. everything is dipped in this liquid gold. the dust motes dancing in a window beam look like slow, sleepy fireflies. the leaves on the trees are translucent, glowing green from within. even the pavement seems softer, holding the light instead of glaring it back. this sun asks for nothing. it simply gives. it offers this gentle illumination as a gift, with no expectation of productivity in return.

this is when i can sometimes sit, often by a window, and simply soak. i don’t do anything with it. i don’t plan my day in this light. i just let it fill me. it seeps through my skin, past the layers of night-thoughts and residual sleep, and pools somewhere deep in my chest. it doesn’t fill me to bursting with a cheerful, overwhelming brightness. that would be too much. instead, it fills me exactly halfway. a heart half-full of sunlight is a perfect, peaceful measure.

it leaves room. room for the quiet melancholy i often carry, for the soft blue tones of my thoughts. the sunlight doesn’t scorch those away; it just warms them, takes the chill off. it’s a coexistence. it’s the understanding that a person can hold both light and shadow, and that the light, when it’s this gentle, can make the shadows feel less like voids and more like resting places.

this half-full feeling is profoundly hopeful, but in a quiet, undemanding way. it doesn’t scream about optimism. it whispers about possibility. it says the day ahead doesn’t have to be harsh. it can have this quality, too, if i look for the angles where the light is soft. it’s a renewable resource, this morning hug. i can store a little of it in that half-full heart, a reserve of gentleness to draw from when the world later turns too bright, too loud, too sharp.

it never lasts long. i can almost watch it happen, the moment the sun’s embrace tightens from a hug into a grip. the light shifts from gold to white, the shadows shrink and sharpen, and the world wakes up in earnest. the spell is broken. but the feeling lingers. a warmth in the center of my chest, a golden patch on the floor where i was sitting.

so i am not a morning person. but i am, secretly, a person of this single morning moment. it is my daily poetry, a few lines of soft light written across the floor and directly onto my heart. and for the rest of the day, i carry that half-fullness, a balanced, warm weight reminding me that even i, a lover of the dark and the dim, have a place that is tenderly, briefly, sunlit.

the paints i miss but never touch.

there’s a box in the back of a closet. i know exactly where it is, though i haven’t opened it in years. inside are tubes of paint, some swollen and stiff, others probably split and dried into brittle little bricks. they are the paints i miss but never touch. they belong to a version of me that moved through the world differently—a painter, once.

it wasn’t a hobby. it was a state of being. i lived in a gentle chaos of color. there was always a smear of cerulean blue on my wrist, a dusting of cadmium yellow under my fingernails. my clothes were dotted with permanent badges of honor—a fleck of alizarin crimson on a hem, a brushstroke of phthalo green on a sleeve. the floor around my easel was a galaxy of drips and drops, a map of my movements. i never tried to keep things spotless. the mess was part of the ritual, proof that i was in it, fully immersed.

and i was good at it. not in a technical, perfect way, but in a way that felt true. i knew how to mix a gray that held a memory of lavender, how to layer a wash so it looked like a breath on the paper. it was a silent, physical conversation between my hands and what i felt but couldn’t say. the brushes were just an extension of a need to push something out of my heart and onto a surface where i could look at it, understand it, even for just a moment.

then, i stopped. there was no dramatic reason, no crisis of faith in my ability. it was like a stream that just… sank into the ground. one day i was painting, and then i wasn’t. i put the brushes in a jar of cloudy water that eventually evaporated. i closed the lid on the palette. i wiped my hands on a rag for the last time, not knowing it was the last time. i just walked away from that part of myself, and i never went back.

now, i miss it with a quiet, constant ache. i miss the weight of a palette knife in my hand, the scritch of bristle on textured paper. i miss the alchemy of mixing, the surprise of a new color born from two others. i miss the specific tiredness in my shoulders after standing for hours, lost in a world of my own making. i miss the person who wasn’t afraid to be messy, who trusted the process enough to make a glorious, beautiful wreck of things.

but i don’t touch them. opening that box feels like opening a tomb. those paints belong to her, that girl with color in her hair and conviction in her heart. to use them now, in this different life, with these different hands, feels like a performance. it would be me trying to play the role of my former self, and the disconnect would be a quiet agony. the desire is there, but the instinct, the fearless flow, is gone. it’s a language i’ve forgotten how to speak.

so i let them rest. i think of them sometimes, when i see a certain shade of twilight or the particular green of new leaves. a part of me still translates the world into pigments. a part of me still wants to reach for a brush to capture the way the light looks right now. but i don’t. i just let the feeling rise and then settle, like dust, back onto the closed lid of that box.

maybe missing something is its own form of honoring it. by not forcing it, by not turning that sacred, messy practice into a chore or a failed attempt at revival, i am keeping its memory pure. i am admitting that some chapters end, and the art we leave behind in them—both on the canvas and in the way we lived—is allowed to be complete. the paints are there, a silent, dried-up symphony. and i am here, listening to the echo. it is enough, for now, to remember what it felt like to have the world at my fingertips, and to have left my mark, however gently, all over everything.

the evenings i watch fade quietly.

i think i have watched every evening of my life fade on autopilot. while others speak of savoring sunsets, of stopping to breathe in the golden hour, i am usually already drifting. the evening doesn’t pull me into a moment of awe; it gently ushers me out of the day, into a soft, quiet space behind my own eyes. i am a passive witness to its decline.

the truth is, i prefer the sunrise. the sunrise is a beginning. it’s a shy, hopeful color creeping in, a slow inhale, a promise. the evening, by contrast, feels like a long, slow exhale that i didn’t realize i was holding. it’s the world letting go, and my mind, which so often feels tethered too tightly, seizes the cue to let go as well. the fading light is a permission slip to stop trying, to stop parsing details, to just… float.

so i zone out. constantly. it’s not always dramatic, not a full leaving of my body. it’s more like the volume of the world gets turned down, and the picture softens at the edges. i’ll be sitting by a window, or standing by the balcony next to the bed, and i’ll watch the blue deepen from a tired cerulean to a dusty indigo without really seeing it. the changes are registered in some distant part of my brain, like a silent film playing in an empty theater. i am the theater, and the film, and the only audience member, all at once, barely paying attention.

people talk about being present for these transitions. they take photos, they point, they share the view. i understand it intellectually—the beauty is undeniable. a streak of violent orange, a streak of tender pink. but to me, it feels like watching something deeply personal and melancholic. it’s the day’s private surrender. and my own private surrender is to match it, to let my thoughts blur and blend like the colors on the horizon, until they become a uniform, quiet gray inside.

there’s a loneliness to it, but it’s a familiar, almost comfortable one. it’s the loneliness of being a ghost in your own evening. the sounds of the world wrapping up—the last birds, the distant hum of traffic, the murmur of other people’s lives—they all seem to be happening behind a thick pane of glass. i am separate, not in a painful way, but in a necessary one. this autopilot is my mind’s way of resting, of processing the day without having to use words or make sense of anything.

by the time the last light is a thin, glowing line on the horizon, i am often deep inside myself. the transition to full dark feels less like an ending and more like a completion of this gentle dissociation. the outside world finally matches my inner one: quiet, dim, undefined. the pressure to perform, to engage, to be a person in the world, lifts with the last of the light.

i don’t think i’m missing the evening. i think i am experiencing it in the only way i know how. not with active savoring, but with a passive, profound acceptance. it is a time for my spirit to retreat, to watch the day’s movie on a dim screen, to let the plot dissolve into shadows. the sunrise asks something of me. the evening does not. it simply allows me to be still, to be quiet, to fade alongside it.

so i watch, every day, as the world turns away from the sun. and i turn away, too, not in rejection, but in a quiet, parallel ritual. the evening fades, and i fade with it, gratefully, into a peace that requires no watching, no naming, no beautiful words at all.

the flowers i notice but don't pick.

i walk the same paths most days, and part of my walking is a quiet search for flowers. not in a garden, where they are planted to be seen, but the ones that have made their home in the cracks. the ones pushing up through a broken sidewalk seam, or curling over a forgotten fence, or huddled in the shady, damp space beside a building's foundation. these are the flowers i notice, and love, and never pick.

there is a specific gentleness required to love something and not possess it. to admire it from its own level, kneeling on the concrete to see the way the morning light catches the delicate veins in a petal, but not casting a shadow over it. to smell its faint, spicy scent without leaning in so close you disturb the dew. picking it feels like interrupting a sentence it is in the middle of speaking to the sun. it feels like taking a word from a poem and expecting it to hold the same meaning alone in a vase on my table. it wouldn't.

so i let them be. i visit them. the cluster of tiny, star-like chamomile in the gravel. the bold, happy dandelion that has claimed a patch of bare dirt. the stubborn purple vinca weaving through a chain-link fence. my love for them is in the noticing, in the silent acknowledgment that they are there, doing their difficult, beautiful work of existing in an unlikely place. it is a quiet friendship with no demands. i don't need to own them to feel connected to their struggle and their triumph.

the only flowers i ever pick up are the ones that have already fallen. petals scattered on the pavement after a rainstorm, a whole blossom that has dropped cleanly from a branch overhead, lying perfectly intact on the grey sidewalk. these feel like gifts. they have already completed their work. to leave them there is to let them be swept away or crushed under the busy, uncaring feet of passersby. that feels like a different kind of neglect.

so i will stoop and scoop up a fallen magnolia petal, thick as cream and soft as a glove. i will pocket a tiny, blue forget-me-not that has let go of its stem. i will cradle a bruised rose petal in my palm for a block or two before setting it gently in the grass. this is a form of mourning, and of rescue. it is paying respects. it is saying, i see that you were here, and you were beautiful, and i will carry you for a little while so you are not just trash under a shoe.

it creates a strange, sweet collection. a dried pansy face in the pages of a book. a brittle lavender stem on my windowsill. a velvety red petal, now dark as wine, resting on my desk. these are the fallen, the already-gone. i can hold them without guilt, because i am not the one who ended their story. i am just a curator of soft landings.

perhaps it is all about understanding my own place. i am a passerby, a witness, not a curator of nature. my role is not to arrange, but to appreciate. not to take, but to thank. in a world that so often shouts about possession and consumption, this feels like a tiny, silent rebellion of admiration. it is loving something purely for what it is, where it is, without needing to make it mine.

so i will keep walking my paths. i will nod to the brave blossoms in the cracks, celebrating their tenacity with my attention alone. and i will gather the fallen ones, the little casualties of time and gravity, and give them a gentle conclusion. it is a small, quiet practice. but it teaches me, over and over, that the purest form of love is sometimes just to notice, to admire, and to let go.

the weather inside my chest.

people talk about butterflies in the stomach, a fluttering of nerves or excitement. they talk about bugs under the skin, a crawling sense of unease. but for me, my feelings don’t live in my stomach or on my skin. they happen deeper, in the cavern of my ribs, and they feel like weather. the weather inside my chest is its own complex, shifting system, complete with calm fronts and sudden storms.

most of the time, i hope for clear skies. this is a soft, wide-open feeling. my breath comes easy, like a gentle breeze moving through an empty field. my thoughts are light, like harmless clouds drifting by. this is the weather of contentment, of a quiet afternoon with a book, of feeling present and unburdened. it’s not a dramatic happiness, just a clean, sun-drenched peace that warms me from the inside out.

but then, a low pressure can roll in without warning. this is the thunder in my chest. it starts as a distant rumble, a vibration of dread or deep anxiety that i feel more than i hear. it’s heavy and atmospheric, pressing down on my lungs, making each breath feel thicker. the air inside feels charged, waiting. this isn’t a thought; it’s a physical presence, a gathering storm of something i can’t yet name. it turns my chest into a echo chamber for every worry.

and when the storm breaks, it’s lightning in my veins. this isn’t the quick, sharp zap of anger. it’s a brilliant, terrifying flash that illuminates everything at once—all my fears, my regrets, my frantic thoughts—before plunging me back into the dark rumble. it’s a surge of pure, electric feeling, too fast to control, lighting up my nervous system with a jolt of panic or profound sadness. it races along my arms, down to my fingertips, leaving a static hum in its wake. it’s overwhelming, and it leaves me breathless in its aftermath.

there’s a gentler precipitation, too. this is the slow, quiet rain. it’s a steady, melancholic drip of feeling that wells up behind my eyes and falls softly into my heart. it’s the weather of a gentle grief, of nostalgia, of a soft, persistent longing for something i can’t quite reach. it doesn’t drown me. it just soaks everything, making the world look softer, blurrier, through the inner veil of its fall. it’s a cleansing rain, sometimes, one that leaves everything feeling washed and tender, but new.

learning to live with this internal climate is a practice. i can’t stop the storms from forming. but i can learn the signs. i can feel the pressure drop, notice the first distant rumble, and know to be gentle with myself. i can find shelter—in a quiet corner, in a breath held for four counts, in the imagined warmth of a sun that will, eventually, come out again. i have to remember that the lightning, while frightening, is just a part of the system. it passes. it always passes.

and after the storm, there’s a different kind of quiet. the air feels scrubbed clean, ionized. my chest is sore, like a landscape after a downpour, but it’s open. the light seems sharper. this is the weather of release, of fragile calm. it’s the most hopeful weather of all, because it proves my inner sky can change. it is not a permanent storm.

so this is how i feel. not with insects, but with atmospheres. it’s vast and sometimes uncontrollable, but it’s also beautiful in its own raw way. it’s a private, elemental drama, happening just beneath the surface. and on the days when the weather inside my chest is clear and calm, i lie back in that wide-open internal sky, and i am so deeply, quietly grateful

the shade of pink that only exists for a minute.

it’s not the deep, rosy pink of a flower, or the loud, salmon pink of a summer drink. it’s not a color you can find in a tube of paint or on a wall. it’s a color that only the sky can mix, and only when it feels like being incredibly generous. it’s that specific, baby-soft pink that sometimes appears just as the sun is about to break the horizon, a color so gentle it feels like a secret.

i find myself waking up for it, not with an alarm, but with a quiet pull. the world is still all muted blues and grays, and the air has that hushed, waiting quality. i’ll make a cup of tea just to have something warm to hold, and i’ll sit by the window, or if i’m brave enough, step outside onto the cool grass. it’s not about doing anything. it’s just about being present for a moment that asks for nothing in return.

and then it starts. it begins as a faint blush, like the sky is shy. it’s so delicate at first you almost doubt it’s there. but then it deepens, not into something bold, but into something more… certain. this pink is the color of a whispered promise. it’s the color of a feeling so tender you’re almost afraid to name it, for fear it might disappear. it has no edges, no harsh lines; it bleeds into the lingering indigo of the night, softening it, telling it that it’s okay to go now.

this pink doesn’t last. that’s the whole point, i think. if it stayed for an hour, it would just be the color of the sky. its magic is in its fleeting nature. it’s a transient guest, and its brief visit is what makes it so precious. for that one minute, the entire world is washed in this soft, glowing light. the edges of buildings seem softer, the leaves on the trees seem to hold their breath, and everything feels possible. it’s a moment of pure potential, a clean slate painted in the most forgiving color imaginable.

i used to try and capture it. i’d fumble for my phone, my hands still clumsy with sleep, desperate to take a picture. but the photos were always a disappointment. they’d either turn out too purple, or too gray, or just… flat. they never held the feeling of the cool air, the quiet, the internal shift that happens when you witness something so quietly magnificent. the camera couldn’t see the vulnerability in it. it just saw a wavelength of light.

so i stopped trying to keep it. i learned that some things aren’t meant to be possessed. they’re meant to be experienced, fully and completely, in the moment they are given to you. this pink is a lesson in letting go. it’s a practice in paying attention to the small, beautiful things that arrive and depart without fanfare. it’s a reminder that not all joy has to be loud and lasting. some of the most profound joy is quiet and leaves as quickly as it comes, leaving only a memory of its warmth.

when the minute is over, it dissolves so gracefully. the gold and orange of the sun begin to push through, and the pink doesn’t fight it. it just recedes, fading back into the blue of the day, as if it was never there. the world wakes up properly, the colors become solid and defined, and the ordinary sounds of the morning begin.

but i feel different. i feel like i’ve been let in on a secret. that soft pink lingers in the back of my mind for the rest of the day, a little pocket of calm. on days that feel too sharp, too loud, or too demanding, i can close my eyes and try to remember it. i can’t quite picture the exact shade—it’s too elusive for that—but i can remember the feeling it gave me. a feeling of gentle hope, of quiet awe, of being small in a vast and beautiful world, and being completely okay with that.

it’s just a color, i know. but to me, it’s more like a mood. a feeling. it’s the visual equivalent of a deep, calming breath. it’s the sky’s way of offering a moment of pure, uncomplicated gentleness before the day begins in earnest. and i feel so lucky, every single time, to have been there to receive it.

the songs i hum under my breath.

i don’t always notice i’m doing it. it’s a soft, breathy sound that starts without my permission, a little melody escaping like a quiet sigh. while i’m washing dishes, staring out a rainy window, or walking to the corner store, a tune will surface. it’s never a full song with all the words, just a fragment of the chorus, or a particular instrumental line that got stuck in my heart. these aren’t always the songs i love the most in a conscious way, but they are the ones my subconscious chooses to keep on a gentle loop.

the curious thing is that if you asked me to sit down and sing one of these songs properly, i might stumble over the lyrics. the words aren’t the point. the meaning has been stripped away, leaving only the pure, melodic feeling. the hum is the essence of the song, its emotional fingerprint. it’s the part that bypassed my brain and went straight to my muscles, to the rhythm of my breath and the beat of my heart.

sometimes, the tune is a ghost from a long time ago. a children’s television theme i haven’t heard in ten years, or a pop song that was everywhere one summer, now reduced to a five-note pattern. it’s funny how the mind holds onto these things, how it polishes a forgotten memory into a simple, hummable stone and presents it back to me during a quiet moment. it feels like a message from a past version of myself, a soft echo saying, "remember this feeling?"

other times, it’s the soundtrack to a recent emotion. after a difficult, tearful conversation, i might find myself humming a slow, melancholic ballad, my breath giving sound to the ache i can’t quite articulate. or after a moment of quiet joy, a light, skipping tune will bubble up, a private celebration for a happiness that felt too fragile to share out loud. my hum becomes a barometer for my inner weather, a more honest one than the expression i might wear on my face.

there’s a deep comfort in this private ritual. singing out loud feels like a performance, even if i’m alone. it requires intention, pitch, breath control. but humming… humming is just for me. it’s a self-soothing sound, a vocal nest i’m building for my own spirit. the vibration in my chest is a gentle massage for my anxieties, a way of reminding my body that it can still make something soft, something harmless and beautiful, even on a hard day.

i think these hummed songs are a map of my inner life. if someone could ever record them all, they would have a collection of my most unguarded moments. they would see the landscape of my nostalgia, the shape of my sadness, the color of my small, secret joys. it’s a playlist curated not by choice, but by feeling, and it’s far more honest than any i could ever make on purpose.

so i let the hum continue. i don’t try to trace its origin every time, or force it into a full performance. it’s enough that it’s there, a quiet, tuneless tune under my breath, a little thread of music stitching my ordinary moments together. it’s my spirit’s way of whispering to itself, a constant, gentle reminder that even in the silence, there is still a song.

the sky that blushes for no one but me.

i stood on the sidewalk once, utterly arrested by the sky. it was that brief, magical hour after sunset, when the world is dipped in ink and the horizon holds onto the last light. that night, it was a perfect, dusty lilac, a color so tender it made my heart ache. i whispered, "look," to the person beside me. they glanced up, gave a small nod, and said, "it’s nice. i’ve always preferred a clear blue, though."

it was a simple moment, harmless. but it stayed with me. it wasn’t that they were wrong. it was the quiet revelation that the sky i was falling in love with, the sky that felt like a secret just for my soul, was, to them, just a "nice" prelude to a different color entirely. it was then i understood: the sky that blushes a perfect lilac blushes for no one but me.

we all walk under the same vastness. the same sun heats our skin, the same clouds drift past. but we each carry a different lens, polished by a lifetime of invisible things. the memories we attach to a clear blue day, the songs we heard during a storm, the people we watched the clouds with, or wished we could. these are the filters through which we see the world, and they tint everything, especially something as boundless as the sky.

my favorite lilac isn’t just a wavelength of light. it’s the color of a specific quiet, a specific peace that settled in me on a long-ago drive home. it’s the shade of a feeling i can’t quite name, one that mixes nostalgia with hope. for someone else, that same lilac might be the color of a forgotten childhood bedroom, or the hue of a bruise, or simply a sign that night is coming and the day is done. it’s not their sky. it’s mine.

this realization felt lonely for a second. but then, it felt incredibly spacious. it meant that my private marvels were allowed to be exactly that—private. i didn’t have to justify why a certain gray moved me, or why a particular formation of clouds looked like a promise. my intricate perspective was my own to cherish, no consensus needed.

it also made me wonder about everyone else’s skies. the person who loves the harsh, flat white of a midday summer sky—what does that brightness mean to them? what history is written in that blinding blue my friend prefers? what stormy, dramatic purple does someone else see as the most beautiful climax? we are all having such different, deeply personal relationships with the same immense thing above us.

now, when i see a color that stops my breath, i hold it a little differently. i don’t just see a pretty sky. i see my sky. i feel a wave of gratitude for the unique collection of experiences, losses, loves, and quiet moments that came together to make this particular hue feel like a gift specifically for my eyes. it’s an intimate exchange between the universe and my own intricate heart.

and when someone shares their sky with me—when they point out a sharp, winter blue or a fiery, riotous sunset and their face softens with awe—i try to see it through their eyes. i might not feel the same stir in my soul, but i can appreciate the profound fact that they do. i can bear witness to their personal blush of the atmosphere.

so i will keep collecting my skies. the lilac, the mournful gray, the cheerful baby pink. i will let them be mine alone, these silent, fleeting relationships. because the beautiful, liberating truth is this: the world is endlessly detailed, and we are each given our own unique set of eyes to love it with. my sky, in all its perfect, fleeting color, blushes for no one but me. and yours, in all its glory, does the same for you.

the color of quiet things.

i’ve always thought that quiet isn’t just an absence of sound. it’s a presence all its own. it’s a texture, a temperature, a space you can move through. and for as long as i can remember, these different kinds of quiet have always had colors in my mind. they come to me not as loud, shouting hues, but as gentle, whispering ones. they are the colors of the in-between moments, the feelings that are too soft to name.

the quiet of early morning, for instance, is a soft, dusty blue. it’s the color of the light just before the sun truly arrives, when the world is all cool sheets and held breath. this blue is patient. it’s the hush that cradles the last of the night’s dreams, the gentle canvas waiting for the day’s first sounds. it’s not a sad blue, but a hopeful one, tinged with the palest silver of potential. it’s the color of a mind that is peacefully empty, not yet filled with the day’s lists and worries.

then there is the quiet of deep contentment. the quiet that settles in after a long talk with a friend where everything felt understood, or after finishing a book that left your heart full. that quiet is a warm, muted gold. it’s the color of honey in sunlight, of lamplight on wood in a still room. it glows from the inside out. it’s a heavy, sweet color that wraps around you like a blanket, a quiet that feels earned and deep and utterly still.

the quiet of loneliness, though, is a different shade. it’s a soft, pale gray, like the color of a dove’s feather or the sky on an overcast afternoon. it’s not a harsh or angry gray; it’s a color blurred at the edges, blurring the world outside the window, too. it’s a hollow, expansive color, one that makes rooms feel bigger and footsteps sound farther away. this gray-quiet is tender. it asks for kindness, not for noise to shatter it, but perhaps for a cup of tea, something warm to hold against its coolness.

and the quiet of concentration, of being so lost in a task that the world falls away, is a deep, mossy green. it’s the color of a forest floor, dappled with light, where all you can hear is your own breath and the faint rustle of your own thoughts. this green is alive, but it’s a focused, thriving life. it’s the color of growth that happens unseen, of roots digging deep. it’s a productive, peaceful color that feels like a sanctuary built just for one.

these colors don’t shout. they live in the corners of perception. they are the background hues of an emotional life. to notice them, you have to be still yourself. you have to listen with your eyes, to feel the quality of the air and the light around a feeling. giving quiet a color makes it feel less empty, less like something missing, and more like something palpable and real.

it comforts me, this secret palette. on a day when the world is too bright and too loud, all sharp reds and blinding yellows, i can seek out a gray-quiet corner and let it cool my mind. when i’m restless, i can try to find that mossy green focus. and when i’m lucky enough to feel that warm gold quiet, i can sink into it, knowing it’s a temporary, precious gift.

so i move through my days painting with these quiet colors. they are the gentle hues of my inner world, the subtle shades of peace, of longing, of thought, and of calm. they remind me that even in silence, there is a spectrum. there is a whole, beautiful world of feeling that exists in whispers, and it is every bit as real as the noise.

the art of being gentle in a loud world.

it feels like the world is built on volume. the sharp ping of notifications, the frantic rush of traffic, the loud opinions that seem to shout each other down. there’s a constant pressure to be louder, faster, sharper, just to be heard above the noise. and for a long time, i thought that’s what i had to become. i thought gentleness was a weakness, a quiet voice that would inevitably be drowned out.

but i’ve been learning that gentleness isn’t a lack of strength. it’s a different kind of strength altogether. it’s the strength of a deep root, not a loud branch. it’s a conscious choice, a quiet rebellion against the harshness that seems to be the default. practicing this art feels like tending to a small, delicate flame in the wind, making sure it doesn’t go out.

for me, it starts internally, in the conversations i have with myself. my own mind can be such a loud, critical place. the art of gentleness means noticing when that inner voice becomes sharp and unforgiving, and consciously softening its edges. it’s replacing “you should have done better” with “you did the best you could with what you had at the time.” it’s allowing myself to be tired, to be imperfect, to not have all the answers. this isn’t about making excuses; it’s about offering myself the same basic kindness i would so easily offer a friend.

this internal practice then, very slowly, begins to extend outward. it’s in the small, almost invisible choices. it’s speaking in a tone that doesn’t add to the background noise. it’s listening to understand, not just to reply. it’s noticing the subtle shift in a friend’s expression and asking a quiet “are you okay?” instead of assuming. it’s holding a door open for a stranger, not for recognition, but as a small, silent signal that says “i see you, and i offer you this minor ease.”

being gentle in a loud world also means curating my own space. it means knowing when to step away from the endless scroll of opinions and outrage, when to put my phone in another room and just exist in the quiet. it’s filling my surroundings with soft textures, with warm light, with music that feels like a balm rather than a stimulant. it’s protecting that small, quiet part of myself from being constantly overstimulated. it’s not about hiding from the world, but about building a sanctuary i can return to, so i don’t become the noise itself.

of course, it’s a practice, not a permanent state. there are days when the world feels too abrasive, and my own gentleness feels thin and fragile. i snap at someone i love. i get swept up in the rush. i become the harsh noise i’m trying to avoid. but the art isn’t about perfection. it’s about returning. it’s about noticing the harshness, without judging myself for it, and gently guiding myself back to a softer way of being.

i’ve come to see that this gentleness is its own form of communication. a loud voice can force attention, but a gentle presence can invite connection. it creates a space where others feel safe enough to be a little less guarded, a little more themselves. it’s a quiet signal that says it’s okay to be vulnerable here, it’s okay to not be okay.

in a world that often rewards sharp edges, choosing softness can feel counterintuitive. but i think it’s one of the most resilient things a person can be. it doesn’t break easily, because it knows how to bend. it doesn’t shout, because it doesn’t need to. it simply is, a quiet, persistent force that believes in the power of a whisper to eventually be more impactful than a scream. and in my small corner of the world, i’m trying to learn that art, one soft breath at a time.