#personal journal

sometimes it feels like you’re going nowhere — just turning in the same spot over and over again, until you’re dizzy with doubt, confusion, and overwhelm. but all this spinning is a part of the process. the way clay doesn’t resist the wheel and trusts the motion, you can, too. so when life puts you in a loop, be gentle with yourself, and remember that even the clay spins in circles before it becomes 🌀🥣💌🫧

During that time I lived out of about 2 backpacks.

Eventually, I started renting a room in a woman's house, boardinghouse style. This went on for a year.

During that year, I never unpacked. Never accumulated things to decorate my space, or even just to add to the space. Didn't buy any furniture or clothes. Money was tight enough that food was an issue, but even so the real reason I didn't buy anything was the same as when I was homeless.

It was just easier to be able to pack everything into two bags, since I never knew when I'd need to get up and GO. I never wanted to add the friction of inconveniencing someone who might otherwise give me a place to stay by having something bulky - or heaven forbid unnecessary - that I needed to take with me. It was just me, my clothes, and my laptop.

It's been 8 or so years since I've had uncertainty about where I was going to live, and I still find it hard to accumulate stuff. To buy furniture. To buy decorations.

I don't even think about it, it's just instinctive.

I'm only writing about it now because I was cleaning today, the beautiful apartment I share with my partner - and it's full of stuff. Stuff I love, but stuff that will inconvenience us when it's time to move.

And I realized it still makes me anxious. It's still the reason why I hesitate to buy 'stuff'. Even if I don't consciously.

But after life happened, that quiet dream was long forgotten.

And yet, here I am.

Sometimes I feel discouraged. I feel like things are not what I expected them to be. This is not what I once dreamed of. I feel like I should have written a book by now.

But little by little, I’ve grown an audience. It’s not much, but it’s there.

Just because there aren’t thousands or millions of people reading my work doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. If a piece of my writing touches even one person’s heart, in whatever form it may be, it still matters.

In whatever form or way, it will always matter to me.

That is the reason I started writing, even without experience or formal knowledge of writing. I write because I have a story to tell the world.

If one person reads something I wrote and it means something to them, in whatever way it may be, then that is already enough for me.

I don’t need applause to prove that what I have is worthy.

What I write always comes from my heart.