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It makes me wonder if my mind is trying to tell me something, or if they’re just rooms built from memories I don’t even realise I’m carrying.

Either way it’s unsettling.

I'm already living one of the prayers I whispered years ago.

A good life.

Not a perfect one. Not a luxurious one. Just... a life where I no longer have to constantly worry about whether I can afford the little things.

There was a time when buying even a single slice of pizza felt impossible. A cold pineapple juice from a food stall was already considered a luxury, even a soda. I'd walk past restaurants and fast-food places, watching families laugh over meals or students my age casually buying snacks after school. They didn't know they were living what I wished I had.

I would shove my hands into my empty pockets and keep walking home, pretending it didn't bother me.

Some days we skipped breakfast but had lunch and dinner. Other days we'd have breakfast and lunch but nothing for dinner. Sometimes it was different altogether. There was never any certainty. Hunger became something ordinary; something you learned to ignore because there wasn't much else you could do.

Looking back, I think that's one of the reasons I struggled to make friends.

Friendships at that age often meant going out after class, celebrating birthdays, joining weekend trips, eating together, or simply having enough allowance to say yes when someone invited you somewhere. I rarely could.

Eventually, I stopped trying.

I'm the kid who sat in corners and went straight home after school.

It's strange because I wasn't doing badly in life. I did well in school. I joined extracurricular activities. On paper, I looked like someone who had everything going for them. But I never really belonged anywhere. I never had a friend group I could call my own.

There was another thing that always stayed with me.

Back then, I applied for scholarships whenever I could because I genuinely needed the financial assistance. But more than once, I was turned away because people assumed I came from a financially stable family. They looked at how I dressed, how well-groomed I was, and decided I didn't need the help as much as someone else.

I couldn't really blame them.

If I was applying for a scholarship, of course I was going to show up looking presentable. I wore my cleanest clothes, made sure I looked neat, smelled good, and carried myself with confidence. No one teaches you to show up looking defeated. You're told to present yourself well because first impressions matter.

What they didn't see was that being clean didn't mean we had money.

Looking put together didn't mean we weren't struggling.

They didn't see the empty refrigerator at home, the skipped meals, the constant calculations over every penny, or the quiet sacrifices my family made just to get through another week.

Poverty doesn't always have a face people recognize. Sometimes it wears freshly washed clothes, a polite smile, and does everything it can to hide how badly it's hurting.

I remember my mom telling me that she didn't really have friends either. She said she eventually realized that many people are only around during the good times. I don't know if I fully believed her back then. Maybe I wanted to think friendship was simpler than that.

Now that I'm older, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. There are genuine people out there, but they're rare. You have to choose wisely. Not everyone deserves access to your life, and not every friendship is meant to last forever.

But anyway...

Back to my answered prayer.

Today, if I crave pizza, I don't have to calculate whether buying a slice means sacrificing tomorrow's lunch. I can buy the whole box if I want to.

If I feel like getting the best milkshake in town, I can.

If I discover a new book that catches my attention, I don't have to spend weeks convincing myself not to buy it. Most of the time, I simply can.

These aren't extravagant things. To many people, they're ordinary.

To me, they're reminders.

Reminders of where I came from.

Reminders of every quiet walk home with empty pockets.

Reminders of every meal we skipped.

Sometimes we become so focused on what we still don't have that we forget to look at what we've already survived.

I'm not saying life is easy now. It isn't. I still have battles no one sees. I still carry wounds from my past. I still question myself more often than I'd like.

But younger me would probably look at my life today and think,

"We made it."

Maybe not all the way.

But far enough that the things we used to pray for have quietly become our normal.

And I think that's worth remembering.

Growing up, I never prayed for luxury. I never dreamed of mansions or expensive cars. I prayed for stability. For full meals. For the ability to buy something without feeling guilty. For the freedom to say "yes" once in a while instead of always saying, "Maybe next time."

Without realizing it, those prayers have slowly been answered.

So if you're reading this and you're in a season where life feels impossibly heavy, don't underestimate the quiet power of showing up every day. Keep believing in yourself, even when no one else does. Keep working. Keep learning. Keep standing back up after every setback.

One day you'll catch yourself living a life that once existed only in your prayers.

And maybe, like me today, you'll stop for a moment and realize that some prayers don't arrive all at once.

Sometimes they arrive so gradually that you don't notice they've already been answered.

Today, I finally noticed.

I used to sing. Hell, I’d even say I was good. I don’t know how else to describe who I was except that I’ve always been an achiever. I competed with others, with myself, in academics, in music. I loved pushing my limits. I loved challenging myself to see how high I could reach.

Now, I just miss the version of me that could sing.

It didn’t happen overnight. My voice faded little by little, worn down over years by secondhand smoke. Now my speaking voice is permanently raspy, and the second I try to project, it squeaks. Singing is worse. The moment I try to hold a note, my voice breaks in all the wrong places.

The first time I realized I couldn't sing the way I used to, I just wanted to cry.

And now, DM1 is slowly taking a little more of what my body used to do without thinking. Genetics can be so unforgiving.

Some days, I don’t just miss singing.

I miss me.

You stop wondering if it’s "normal" and just lean into whatever catches your attention.

Maybe that means reading about shipwrecks at 2 AM, wandering through abandoned towns on Google Maps, or spending a whole Sunday reading up on extinct animals, medieval manuscripts, or obscure folklore. None of it needs to be useful. It doesn't need to be turned into a side hustle or put on a resume. Sometimes your brain just locks onto a random slice of the world and decides, yeah, I need to know everything about this.

Honestly, those random rabbit holes are a relief. They prove that adulthood hasn't completely squeezed the curiosity out of us.

It’s probably why I love Tumblr. It’s one of the few places where you can drop a 2,000-word essay on Victorian mourning jewelry, crow lore, or some forgotten video game from 2004, and instead of getting hit with a confused "why do you know that?", people actually ask for a part two.

I was initially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and I don’t want that diagnosis to define who I am. Sometimes I convince myself I’m okay. Sometimes I really am. But more often than I’d like to admit, I’m at war with my own thoughts. The ones I’ve spent years trying to bury somehow always find their way back to the surface.

The hardest part is that I don’t have anyone I can truly talk to about them. I’m left alone with my own mind, trying to untangle memories, regrets, shame, and versions of myself I still haven’t made peace with. I keep revisiting old decisions, wondering why I reacted the way I did, wishing I could forgive the person I used to be. I don’t think I have yet.

What makes everything heavier is that my therapist died. Cancer won.

I still can’t believe I have to say that. She was the one person who knew the parts of me I never showed anyone else. She knew my history, my fears, the things I couldn’t even say out loud without crying. Losing her felt like losing the only person who had a map of my mind.

People have encouraged me to find another therapist, and I know they mean well. But I’m not ready to start over. I don’t know if people understand what that actually means. It means reopening wounds I’ve spent years explaining. It means telling my story from the beginning again. It means trusting someone enough to hand them the ugliest parts of me and hoping they won’t look away.

I don’t know if I can do that yet.

I’ve also been trying to convince myself that maybe I should consider medication. Part of me wonders what it would feel like if my mind finally became quiet. If the constant noise stopped. If the intrusive thoughts, the self criticism, the endless conversations in my own head just… disappeared.

But that thought scares me too.

I’ve lived with this noise for so long that I don’t know who I am without it. If everything suddenly became silent, what happens next? Who am I when I’m not constantly fighting my own brain? Would I finally feel free, or would I feel like I’ve lost something that’s been part of me for years?

I don’t know.

And I think that’s what frightens me the most.

I’m scared of starting over. I’m scared of medication. I’m scared of staying the same. I’m scared of getting better because I don’t know what “better” even looks like anymore.

We talk a lot about big, dramatic heartbreaks... losing a loved one, moving across the world, or watching a relationship collapse. But we rarely talk about the quieter, subtle grief of losing a routine.

Sometimes you don't even miss the specific person or place. You just miss the rhythm. You miss the late-night phone call that used to anchor your day, or the simple "good morning" text you barely paid attention to until it stopped coming. You miss taking the same seat every Tuesday, waiting in the hallway, or driving home the exact same way after a family dinner. You miss the habit far more than the heartbreak.

That’s probably why returning to old places years later feels so surreal. You walk into an old classroom and the desks are still there, but the air is completely different. The hallways where you shared a hundred inside jokes are now filled with people who have no idea you ever existed there.

Traditions fade in much the same way. Nobody ever holds a press conference to announce that family gatherings or school get-togethers are over. They just slow down. Someone gets married, someone moves away, someone passes away. One year everyone is in the same room, and then suddenly five years have slipped by without another gathering. When you're younger, it feels like there will always be another event, another holiday party, another ordinary Monday. You don't get a warning light telling you that you’re living through a "last time" while it’s actually happening.

As you grow, that changing tide shifts how you view staying connected, too. We hear constantly about the fear of missing out, but there’s a quiet relief in missing out, as well. Sometimes staying home isn't about being anti-social; it’s just giving yourself what you actually need. Skipping the party or saying no to an invitation isn't always a loss. It’s choosing peace over obligation, comfort over performance, and quiet over noise.

Maybe that’s just part of getting older: realizing that not every ending needs to be chased down or salvaged, and not every old habit needs to be revived. Some routines simply serve their purpose and leave. You can cherish what they brought into your life without feeling the pull to bring them back.

I still find myself nostalgic for certain chapters, but it’s rarely because I actually want to rewind the clock. I just miss the version of the world where those routines were completely normal, back when school calendars, regular therapy sessions, or frequent family dinners were just the baseline of my week. I don't miss living in those moments so much as I miss the innocence of never realizing they were temporary.

In the end, that's the strange, invisible grief no one really prepares you for. Life doesn't always break your heart with a sudden crash. More often, it just quietly removes the ordinary, one daily routine at a time, until you look back and realize that what you miss most was never just a person or a place.

I was lying here staring at the ceiling, trying to remember to drink water, and for some reason... I started thinking about thirteen-year-old me.

God. What would she even think if she saw me right now? Sitting on the floor in sweatpants, waiting for advil to kick in, eating dry toast.

She’d probably fire off a million questions before I could even get a word in.

“So... do we have tons of friends now?”

Nah. Not really.

“Wait, do people like us yet??”

Some do, some don't. Honestly? I stopped staying up at night stressing about it.

“Do we ever stop feeling weird and out of place?”

Not totally. But you figure out that fitting in is overrated anyway. You just find a couple places where you can drop the act and be a weirdo in peace.

Back then, I really thought adults had it all locked down. I pictured myself with a cool apartment, a glamorous job, an immaculate social life, and this total, unflappable confidence where I never doubted a single choice. I thought one day you just poof~~arrive.

What a joke.

Adulthood is mostly just being tired. It’s making coffee while your eyes are still half-shut. Dragging yourself through emails. Realizing literally everyone around you is just faking it till they make it. It’s grocery lists, half-read books on the nightstand, and staring into the fridge at 7 PM wondering what the hell to make for dinner. It’s learning that getting your act together isn't a finish line. It's just a thing you practice every day.

Little me would probably be pretty bummed about a few things.

I definitely don't have my life figured out. I’m still scared of stuff. I still second-guess myself constantly, and yeah, there are dreams I had to quietly throw in the trash.

But I think she’d be pretty shocked by the good stuff, too.

She’d see my bookshelf crammed full and realize we never lost our love for stories. She’d see that we actually like hanging out by ourselves now instead of being terrified of being alone. And she’d realize we survived some heavy shit she couldn't even fathom yet.

She'd probably laugh at how I still cry over stupid things, overthink dumb text messages, and still have no idea who I am half the time.

She thought adulthood was the final chapter of the book. Turns out it's just endless page-turning while you try not to spill coffee on the paper.

I kinda miss how sure she was about everything, though. She really thought life was a straight line from A to B. She had zero clue about the massive detours. No idea that some dreams dry up, that people walk out of your life, or that you end up leaving old versions of yourself behind along the way.

If I could sit her down right now, and if my head would stop spinning for two seconds I wouldn't tell her "everything works out fine." That's a cliché anyway.

I’d just tell her:

You’re not gonna become the person you think you’re gonna be.

You’re gonna turn into someone you can’t even fathom right now.

And trust me... that’s not a bad thing. That’s kind of the whole point.

not over things you lost, but over all the almosts.

i was just thinking about all the versions of myself that never got to exist. like the career paths i scrapped the second fear or practicality kicked in. the person i’d be if i’d taken that other offer, or if i’d just believed in myself for like five minutes longer.

or those friendships that almost were. you click with someone so fast, exchange the classic "we have to hang out soon," and then... life just quietly drifts you apart. in some parallel universe, we’re probably best friends, but here they're just living a whole life i'll never see.

same with the cities i almost moved to. the apartments i spent hours daydreaming about decorating, the coffee shops that almost became "my spot." it feels so weird to miss places that were never actually mine.

and don't even get me started on the almost-relationships. not the exes, but the ones that just never started. the texts you deleted, the timing that was totally off, the confessions you swallowed down. those whole hypothetical love stories that only exist because you occasionally catch yourself asking what if?

none of it was ever real, but i still miss it. maybe just because it carried so much possibility.

it’s kind of wild to realize your life could’ve gone in a hundred different directions, but you only get to live out one. sometimes i wonder if another version of me is out there writing novels, or living in a town where no one knows her, or surrounded by people she never has to second-guess. maybe she isn't even happier... just different.

i don't think there's a "right" path anymore. every time you pick one door, a hundred others slam shut, and that's just how it goes. i love my life, i really do. but every now and then, i still like to go peek through the unopened doors.

That was today for me.

I spent part of it re-reading the first couple chapters of Not Quite Dead Yet because the first time around, my brain completely checked out. I was reading the words, but none of it stuck. I feel like I've been doing that a lot lately; physically here, but mentally somewhere else.

I did manage to finish a quick review for another book, though. It’s wild how one good line can sum up a book better than three paragraphs ever could.

As for work? Standard stuff. Emails, calls, fixing problems that aren't mine. Customer service really forces you to play a few different characters especially the calm, overly polite version of yourself that says "I totally understand" while someone yells at you for something you didn't even do.

Clocked out. No big revelations, no dramatic moments. Just a normal day ending normally.

Maybe that's okay, though. Life isn't always about the big milestones. Most of it is just these random, forgettable weekdays that quietly add up in the background.

None of them are wrong.

None of them know the whole person.

In elementary school, I was the foreigner. The new kid whose accent sounded different, whose background was different, whose existence alone made her stand out. I was also a little star. Teachers adored me. I did well in class. I won competitions. I was the student people expected things from.

But being noticed isn’t the same as belonging.

I was still isolated. Still eating by myself. Still watching friendships form from a distance, wondering why they seemed to happen so naturally for everyone else.

Then came high school.

I think that was the first time I genuinely wanted to belong.

I tried. I joined conversations. I laughed when everyone else laughed. I adjusted pieces of myself hoping they’d fit somewhere. I convinced myself that maybe if I became quieter, friendlier, funnier, more interesting, less awkward... something would finally click.

It never really did.

Not because people were cruel all the time. Sometimes rejection isn’t loud. Sometimes it’s subtle. It’s not being chosen for the group project. It’s conversations that stop when you arrive. It’s realizing you’re always the one trying to keep a friendship alive.

Looking back, I spent so much of high school trying to earn a place that I forgot to ask whether that place was meant for me in the first place.

College was different.

I stopped trying so hard to become someone people would like.

Instead, I became curious about myself.

College was my experimental period.

I figured out what worked for me and what didn’t. I discovered that I actually enjoyed spending time alone. I realized I loved bookstores more than crowded parties. I learned that I didn’t have to force myself into friendships that felt exhausting. I could leave conversations that drained me. I could say no without feeling guilty.

For the first time, I wasn’t trying to become someone else’s idea of enough.

I was quietly becoming my own.

Now, people know me in different ways.

To my coworkers, I’m dependable. Patient. The person who figures things out.

To my family, I’m a daughter. A sister. Sometimes the responsible one. Sometimes the stubborn one.

To strangers, I’m just another woman sitting alone at a café with a book, and they’ll probably assume I’m waiting for someone.

I’m not.

I’m exactly where I want to be.

And then there’s the version only I know.

The one who overthinks conversations long after they’ve ended.

The one who fills her shelves with books because stories have always made the world feel a little less lonely.

The one who still wonders what it feels like to belong somewhere without having to earn it.

The one who has spent years collecting pieces of herself after leaving fragments behind in every stage of life.

Maybe that’s what growing up really is.

Not becoming a different person.

Just slowly meeting the person who was there all along.

Because every person I’ve ever met carries a different version of me in their memory.

The foreigner.

The little star.

The girl trying desperately to belong.

The woman quietly choosing herself.

They’re all me.

Some days are meant for big stories, and some days are just meant for passing through. Today was the latter.

Nothing remarkable happened. I woke up, went through the usual motions, and let the day unfold without expecting too much from it. I think I used to mistake these kinds of quiet, ordinary days for loneliness, or a lack of productivity. I used to think that if a day didn’t have a specific highlight or a major interaction, it was somehow wasted.

But today felt different. It felt like a gentle reminder that there is a lot of peace to be found in the mundane.

I spent a chunk of the afternoon just listening to a song on repeat, watching the way the light shifted across the room, and taking my time with everything. No rush, no heavy expectations, no trying to outrun my own thoughts. Just a calm, predictable baseline.

She transferred to our school in Grade 7, and apparently she was voted the most hated person in our batch. I had absolutely no idea. As usual, I was too busy minding my own business. I was the quiet kid who sat in corners, ate lunch alone, and spent more time observing people than actually talking to them. High school drama happened around me, not to me.

Then came Grade 9.

She and my seatmate were like Tom and Jerry every single day. They would argue over the smallest things, shove each other’s chairs, mess up the seating arrangements, and act like they couldn’t stand being within five feet of each other. Everyone, including me, thought they genuinely hated one another.

Turns out… they eventually started dating.

That plot twist was the first of many.

By Grade 10, she became the new girlfriend of my ex. The same ex who dumped me over text during summer break. At the time, I remember thinking, “Well… wasn’t expecting that.”

Then college happened.

Once again, somehow, my ex became her boyfriend. Again.

I don’t even know how to explain the timeline anymore.

Ironically, that was also around the time she and I actually became friends. We studied different degrees, but we’d occasionally hang out between classes, grab food, and catch up. It wasn’t some deep, inseparable friendship. It just… happened. Life has a weird way of putting people together after throwing them into the strangest situations.

A few years later, another twist.

The guy she dated back in Grade 9, the one she fought with like they were mortal enemies before becoming a couple, eventually became my boyfriend.

We didn’t last.

And after the relationship ended, I realized every story I had heard about him from her years ago was true.

Funny enough, she and I are still friends today.

We’re not especially close. We don’t text every day or know every detail about each other’s lives. But every now and then, we catch up as if no time has passed.

Sometimes I think it’s hilarious that our lives have kept intersecting through the same people over and over again. We’ve somehow shared the same exes at different points in time, witnessed each other’s weird relationship lore unfold, and survived all of it.

I don’t really know what to call that kind of friendship.

Maybe we’re just connected by the world’s strangest common denominator.

Life is weird.

For a long time, I thought being single was simply the space between relationships. Something temporary. Something to outgrow. But somewhere along the way, it became a life I genuinely enjoy. I love waking up without negotiating my day around someone else’s schedule. I love disappearing into a book for hours without apologizing for being unavailable. I love the stillness of rainy mornings, the rituals I’ve built for myself, and the freedom to choose solitude without it feeling like punishment. So when someone asked to be part of that life, I expected to feel excitement. Instead, I felt resistance. Not because he was unkind. Not because there was something wrong with him. But because I realized I wasn’t looking for someone to complete what I already feel is complete.

When he said, “I love you,” on our first date, I didn’t feel butterflies. I felt the weight of expectations I hadn’t agreed to carry. It wasn’t love that frightened me. It was the realization that someone was already imagining a future while I was still deciding whether I wanted to invite anyone into the life I’d worked so hard to make peaceful.

There is nothing wrong with wanting companionship and there is nothing wrong with not wanting it, either. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is, “I like my life the way it is.”