magpie again

try to be okay with the fact that it is indeed twenty twenty five. um, excuse me, like, who gave time the goddamn right?

finish a half marathon on prefarably the better half of the gaussian curve. I'll take anything in the first standard deviation.

I hope this is a safe space for us to share our dreams, I'd like to think that it is, but I just want my local haunt to be able to predict my order, you know? I just want someone to know me, okay?

banish scrolling and do not let the Algorithm Overlords rule my life. seek books, newsletters, essays, movies, tv shows, and people who live like their life is art.

consume more intentionally, nutrition version. I think health is important for sanity at this point. and vanity. because it's nice to be hot.

write in my journal everyday about what I did because when someone asks what I did last night, I'd at least like to be able to pull up some documentation and provide some alibis!

find someone to share my 132 spotify playlists with.

try not to let chess make me cry.

create more. write a book, terrible first draft, slightly less terrible second draft. the work is the reward itself.

find people to laugh with.

find people to drink coffee with.

find people to drink wine with.

find people to drink whiskey with. they're all different btw, and if you find them all in the same person, you're a lucky sob.

find courage. daily. a practice you will need to hone like a craftsman.

drive more. be the kind of person who drives. (not change, we're not quite ready for that, but a car, preferably)

live your life like you're the screenwriter. drive plot.

rewrite painful histories with new chapters and new directions and new character arcs.

fall for emotional itimacy and not only the other superficial ego-driven stuff.

be kind even in conflict, especially in conflict.

practice loving action, compassionate discipline with yourself.

try new th- don't try any new things this year actually, we don't have the emotional budget for it. we can check in again in Q3

practice more playfulness in your life

take more friends to homecenter and pretend like you're a married couple

don't write placeholder points like this one.

I don't think I necessarily have a framework for learning my brain has always been a little so full of itself that it hasn't created space for something new, young, and flailing i've expected myself to only enter meadows i can sprint in and wobbly knees and tentative strides while being a little terrible at something have terribly terrified me so this has led to me never getting to witness far too many gardens which ask me to pay the hefty fee of ineptitude while the world watches with eager eyes and popcorn I realize now I have a baby deer in headlights for an inner child frozen, afraid, anxious of anything mildly uncertain my very own bambi learning how to walk and thudding back to the ground often, often, and then some and the wiser parts of me need to constantly reassure my bambi that the sprinting will be inevitable but so will the falling

yes, these days I've had to think too much to convince myself of what I want yes, I keep circling the same words in my brain and then scratching them out yes, I admit I've been writing poems that don't rhyme (or reason) yes, I admit I've been flirting with chaos and calling it courage yes, this is still a slice of real life in all of its messy action yes, of course, it's a phase but that doesn't mean it isn't important yes, yes, yes I've said yes to too many ideas and impulses that don't necessarily sound like me but they do sound like a plan to get myself out of whatever local mimima I've wedged myself into yes, I don't think you'll recognize me yes, you may have to meet me again yes, in a month, or two, or four yes, I may be free then yes, I'm making promises I can't keep yes, I'll be back on the other side

I place my hand on my heart and tell her, my love, we are understood. there's someone else out there who not only felt the things we did, but also created art about it. we're not alone. this is the experience of being completely and unequivocally accepted.

it's not easy, is it? with the several permutations of emotions that exist, for one piece of art to both resonate with you and find you when you precisely need it? must be an act of destiny.

everything clicks. the rhythm waxes and wanes with the intensity of your emotions, the bass holds you and creates a sense of safety, and a husky, seductive voice sent from god. a subliminal cocktail of pure unadulterated art that awakens your pulse. who cares if I'm sad, I'm so fucking alive.

that damned song. I submit entirely.

whether I was willing to take an international flight for them.

it's such a fun party opener "never have I ever taken an international flight just to see someone I wanted to date" and I'd see who drinks to that. I would evaluate and dissect the party into two groups, the romantics - the flight takers, the risk takers and the rationalists, the realists, the ones who see reality so clearly that they'd never want to commit the treason of ever predicting incorrectly. and for the rest of the party, I gravitate towards the romantics because I understand them a bit more. while I'm not social engineering dynamics at a party, I spend my free time thinking about what it really means. to catch a flight for someone.

it comes down to, the cost of sheer inconvenience. the inconvenience is outweighed by your emotions. to feel that deeply. and to show that deeply. only the brave can. and as they have said, bravery is indistinguishable from stupidity at times. they're not wrong. it's about knowing this and choosing to be brave anyway.

anyone can chase someone down an airport. move over romcoms there's a new standard. here's what I am proposing. you procrastinate on chasing them down the airport, think it over for 6 more weeks, weigh out the pros and cons, and finally realize that the sheer agony of living without them is unbearable. then you take time off for an impromptu trip, sheepishly explain your situation to your employers stating a personal emergency, clear up some savings, and if you're from a country like mine you also face the trudgeries of acquiring a valid visa. "confess undying love" is hardly seen as a valid reason.

you do all that. and you show up.

you pray they haven't found some other hot stud by then to canoodle with.

you show up, not even knowing if they'll say yes. not just yes to sharing a sweet kiss down at the bistro in a foreign country together, because that's not what this implies.

this means, hey look at all this inconvenience I went through for you. do you want to change our lives in drastic ways and make it logistic hell for both of us for a couple of months, because that's how much I want to see this through?! do you want to be with me as much as I have clearly shown you I want to?

that's the intention, anyway.

so whenever I start entertaining a crush I ask myself "is this someone I'd take a flight for?". the answer to that usually tells me how invested I should be.

because if the answer is yes...

then the journey becomes more important, more beautiful, more pure than the destination. the act of taking the flight, you have proven to have done your karma, you've been brave, you've honoured your emotions, strong emotions deserve to be respected.

taking the flight itself is self actualization. that's all you can control. and your duty as a romantic, ends there. your responsibility is to find joy in the act of trying. that's it my dude.

I am particularly annoyed when well meaning people around me try to define what intimacy should mean, objectively, universally. and try to push me into wanting those things.

"it's breakfast in bed."

"it's the little things. like making coffee for you everyday the way you like it in the same cup"

"it's sitting in silence and still not being bored"

well and good. that might be.

I have slightly different ideas. my idea of intimacy is you cracking the spine open of your favourite book and showing me the exact passage that sent a thrill down your spine.

it is you, speaking a language I don't quite know, and finding a song that moves the tectonic plates of your inner world a little bit, sliding over to me and handing me the other earphone as you explain every sentence, every verse, and everything it made you feel.

it is you, taking me to that place which only you know. a secret you've kept for years before you knew me. swearing this is where you'd take her. a place that made you even want to find her. and now you've found me.

it is me, giving up the chance to actually go to rio alone, to simply stay on the couch and dream of rio with you as we watch our favourite travel food show together.

it is holding hands after a fight with tears in our eyes, but still, holding hands, not letting go.

it's when you say "you gave me the courage to do this. I would have never done it without you."

intimacy is inimitable.

it's not even symmetric.

I understand you when you tell me why 'whiplash' made you cry

and

i must tell you how swept I get with the fantasy of walking into a place where everybody knows your name. the allure of belonging somewhere, the gravitational pull of stepping into a life that feels like it was designed for you. somewhere you can completely embody the version of you that you like very much, a very true version or you, even if all you're doing is drinking iced mocha with a wholesome serving of scrambled eggs on toast.

I don't get to be a regular too often and that is a truth I am unable to bear these days. I have a butterfly for a brain that flits through so many dreams I have, so standing still somewhere used to feel terrifying. but these days, not standing still feels even more so.

I live by the beach, because this is where life has brought me right now. I adore my sweet little town, I've gotten to know every inch its bones by now. while I'm here, I've tried to retrace my steps the same way everyday, to leave a small imperceptible dent to show I was once here. I take the same running route. I take the same hiking trail, and go the same pub afterwards to get the same celebratory pint. I go to the same cafe and order the same coffee, a very unoriginal iced mocha as you may have guessed. I go to the same bookstore to feed my addiction of collecting books at a faster pace than I can devour them. and yet, each experience isn't like the other. each run, each coffee, each greeting to my favourite barista, each hike has felt different.

I take the same running route on the promenade quite so often. but I'm never rewarded with stunning sunset landscapes all the time. some runs are tedious, boring, even the clouds turn away to not want to bear witness. the sea is dead grey and utterly unromantic, on some days. yet I show up. I show up. I keep showing up. the same route. and on other days, the rewards shower upon you like a bountiful god. panoramic explosions of colour. blessings that are unpredictable, but also unbridled.

I write sometimes, when I'm in my these spots, and each thing I've written is so unlike anything else. on these hikes I go on, each one has felt different because I discover something else that shifts worlds inside me in some different configuration. the first time I walked into this cafe where I'm writing this, I was nervous, shy, and barely made eye contact with the barista as I was just exhausted from a run. and each greeting since then has gotten more confident, I smile more, I care more. I ask them about their day, their plans, and whether they are truly well today. and I do an inner somersault when they tell me they added extra espresso and held the sugar just like I liked it. the exact way I liked it. the perfect configuration.

it is a quiet intimacy, to be known. even if it is for your coffee order.

I love it when a message has my name in it. it means you didn't just fling it into space, I was not one of many. I was one. you took that extra 10 seconds for.

the sheer delight.

in making someone's day a little bit better.

I wanted to be that for someone. I wanted to be that 10 seconds of joy for someone. a fleeting moment, a carrier pigeon with a little love etched between its beak, hand delivering it, like god intended.

I didn't have a lot of luck this year. to say that things didn't work out as planned would be an understatement.

but none of it mattered because even when I had nothing, I had my people.

everyone.

the friendships that have now lasted a solid 15 years. the ones I get 500 word essay updates on the smallest of trials and tribulations. the ones I've only met once at a party and know which song they like and where they'd like to travel to next.

I don't have the best memory so I looked through my text messages of everyone I'd connected with over the year.

I used to delete all my whatsapp messages periodically, every time I clean-slated my life, it's almost like I scrubbed off all evidence of my past self from the archives. like I'm almost embarrassed of who I used to be. as if, growing up and evolving meant abandoning and severing ties with the very thing that got you there.

I hadn't done it this year. I'd kept them all. I'd celebrated it all.

one of my resolutions is to use my phone much much much less. screen time is a bane. but it was worth it to completely disregard it and send that personalized text message to everyone I'd messaged over the year. and the 24m it took me to craft this piece.

happy new year. your name. a small detail I remember about something you possibly wanted this year. and a sincere hope that you get it.