#becomingat35

In the wizarding world, The Daily Prophet controlled the narrative. It decided who was praised.Who was feared.Who was seen—and who was erased. And isn’t that familiar? Because sometimes in this life, it feels like someone else has been writing our headlines.Someone louder.Someone harsher.Someone who doesn’t understand the full story—but prints it anyway. Continue reading Day 22 (Late Post –…

When Harry stood at Platform 9¾ for the first time,he had no proof it would work. No map.No instructions.Just a trolley, a ticket, and trust. He ran toward a wall that might break him—and somehow, it became the doorway to everything. That moment lives inside me, too.Because so many times in my life, I stood in front of the unknownwith nothing but hope and trembling belief. And I almost turned…

In the wizarding world, the term “half-blood” carried weight.It meant belonging to two worlds.Walking between them.Not quite one. Not quite the other. Both—and neither. And for so long, I felt like that too. • Both brave and deeply anxious• Both capable and exhausted• Both independent and longing for home• Both a Filipina through and through, and someone shaped by years away• Both a healer and…

Another entry from this overdue little vault of reflections. I’ve posted a few of these entries all in one go—not because I lost interest, but because life, in all its real and raw complexity, demanded my presence elsewhere. But there’s something poetic about posting them now—after the dust has settled, after the candles have been blown out, after the silence that follows celebration. Because…

Before anything else, a little honesty… Yes, I know—I’m posting several entries all at once today.Life lately has been moving faster than my ability to write in real time. Between work, caring responsibilities, and making space for personal quiet, these posts ended up living in my drafts longer than I hoped. But I also know this:I don’t always get to choose when I’m free. So while I have the…

In Hogwarts, there were two magical places I often return to in my imagination—not because of their power, but because of their intimacy. The Room of Requirement appeared only when someone truly needed it. And the Mirror of Erised revealed not who you were, but what your soul silently ached for. In the world outside fiction, I’ve learned that we carry both within us. We build rooms out of…

(Hogwarts Letters Arrive Late for a Reason) When I was young, I waited every year for an owl that never came. I searched the skies on July 7th, half-joking but half-hoping that maybe this time, my Hogwarts letter was simply delayed—caught in the wrong postal vortex, perhaps misdelivered to a more “chosen” Maria somewhere else in the world. I held onto that flicker of fantasy because deep…