With that, there you go ladies and gentleman I’ve found myself in a strange sort of tug of war.

I am trying with all my strength lately to set a boundary. I am trying to learn how to express what I actually need without coming off as insufferable, or worse, blurting out the raw truth and hurting someone I care about.

Mercury in retrograde is always a good time to reassess how I communicate with myself and others. I think it's become increasingly important that I acknowledge what feels good for me instead of always doing what makes everyone else happy.

Sure, one could make a very eloquent speech about how you should set firm boundaries so that you can protect your time and energy, but when it comes to articulating exactly why I need someone to understand me a certain way, my heart turns to mush and my tongue ties itself in knots. I think the fear that we might say the wrong thing and hurt someone's feelings often stops us from ever expressing what we actually want and maybe that is the real lesson this transit is trying to teach me.

So I finally said the thing. I didn't deliver a grand, rehearsed speech; I just held my breath, spoke the truth of my needs, and allowed the uncomfortable silence to sit in the room. And the sky didn't fall. Then I realized a boundary isn’t something to be scared of, it’s a way to reinforce your worth.

Now, with Saturn retrograde in Pisces, there is no more room to hide from my own choices. It acts as a wake-up call, stripping away our excuses, asking us to fix past mistakes, and forcing us to face the truth.

Current Retrograde Rules

• Saying what you mean, even if cat got your tongue

• Allowing uncomfortable silences to exist instead of rushing to fill them

• Keep nascent thoughts to yourself

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And so we arrived in July 2026, where my Substack space had been empty, if Substack had a sleep mode, this was it. For all of my exclamations that a government position makes me work harder, faster, think bigger, that the energy pulsing through my veins fuels ambitions of stability and security... there you go. I was eaten by the system of operating on autopilot.

I write this while still under the flat, fluorescent hum of my desk in a Zoom capacity development training from a world-renowned organization, functioning on autopilot as the recent organizational reshuffle has put everyone on float and in transition mode.

For months, I have been functioning in zombie mode. I only know that at some point, I gave up living my life and began carrying it out.

I exchange my hours for efficiency. I reply to the emails. I construct the systems. I prepare the drafts. I am within the structure of my own discipline and come to the realization that I have built a very clean and very productive cage.

We grew up being taught to worship the grind until it bleeds us dry. As someone who feels intensely, one of my outlets was the online world, to create something nice to look at. But for the past few months, what I feel intensely has been narrated through my messy journal of thoughts.

Nowadays, however, I function on autopilot. My calendar is full, my days are organized, and my creative spirit lies in the corner of my chest like an old piano that has never been played and is now gathering dust.

I used to write from the gut. I miss chasing an idea just because it was beautiful.

I tell myself I am just busy. But the truth is more terrifying: I am afraid I have traded my softness for stability.

And that’s it for now… all words from my head dropped as I have to research health and epidemics. Leptospirosis calls.

Current Yes

• Unproductive hour-long naps

• Messy, unedited drafts written on the pages of a notebook

• Leaving messages on read until tomorrow

• Long-hour baths and washing my hair

• Remembering that “no” is a full conviction

Current No

• Measuring self-worth by a completed to-do list

• Waking up feeling lethargic

• Operating on caffeine and anxiety

• Apologizing for having boundaries

• Professional perfectionism

Journal Prompts

What was the last thing you did purely for the joy of it?

Seriously needing to ask myself this honestly…

I didn’t go looking for anything when I went out one Monday night in Base City.

Not a connection.

Not trouble.

Not the kind of late night rumination that makes you close your eyes, wondering what part of it was real, what part of it was just adrenaline… or serotonin.

But that’s the thing about cities that aren’t home.

You’re a stranger. And for a while, they let you become someone else.

Not a different person. Still you.

Just the version of you that doesn’t overthink everything.

The one who says yes, it’s okay to know new people, right?

The one who laughs and dances.

The one who lets a stranger make your heartbeat skip.

And suddenly, my backbone made of steel broke.

As we spoke.

It’s strange how I can remember everything.

Excitement at a six-letter word that spelled your name.

The way you looked good in blue.

The way your eyes sparkle when you spoke about what you do.

No questions. Just conversation.

You mentioned it was your second week here.

And how funny that we unknowingly sat at the far end.

Eyes met once, and never let go.

I think I liked that.

Eyes on me, can you breathe?

Pull me close. Call me yours.

I crave your attention.

Base City was a detour.

Maybe it was the pause I didn’t know I needed.

Just to feel again.

Letters from the Dark is a series of buried emotions and untold stories in my head. Pieces I never had the courage to share before. Now spoken out loud, one letter at a time.

If you’ve ever found yourself caught between vulnerability and fear, let your strength speak the truth. I’m writing this to remind us both that even in the dark, beautiful parts still needs to be seen.

If it finds you, maybe you’ve lived a version of this, too.

I lost my phone, Friday night. One minute, it was there, warm from my hands, pulsing with notifications I would eventually put in my pocket. The next, gone. Vanished into the ether, like it had never belonged to me in the first place.

Panic took over when I couldn’t feel my phone in my pocket before logic had a chance to intervene. I was in an underground bar, standing in the middle of it all, easing my way through the crowd, trying to look for it, ignoring everyone trying to look for it on the floor. Ugh nothing. The music was loud, too loud. A heavy bassline pressing against my skull, voices blending into something chaotic, unbearable. The air felt thick, unfamiliar. For the first time, sound itself felt terrible.

I kept moving, kept searching, though I already knew the answers to. The kind of panic where your body is moving faster than your mind, where you’re running through all the wrong solutions just to feel like you’re doing something. I don’t want this feeling of going through the process of acquiring a new phone again. I know I can keep my number (I hope) coz its running on post paid plan on a phone company. Damn I just paid my phone bill yesterday.

Instead of fixing my life, I’m here typing hopelessness on my laptop like that makes up for anything. Like I didn’t spend the first few minutes reaching for something that isn’t there. Like I don’t already know I’ll have to replace it, start over, be responsible, function.

But maybe what if I can live without a phone. For a few days? Who am I kidding.?! Imagine no constant stream of reminders, no proof of existence outside of right here, right now.

I stare at the screen, fingers hovering over the keys. Maybe that’s fine. I don’t know. Get up and start over a new phone.

Then the digital age gave us access to truths (a.k.a Google) serving up an endless feast of knowledge with extra dessert on the side. But your perspective on truth, filtered through your search engine and smart device, inevitably becomes a carefully abridged version of past searches and belief. Almost saying goodbye to traditional media and libraries but not quite yet, as we spiral down Reddit threads and bookmarked everything.

And here I am, drowning in it. We demanded truths in abundance, and we got them more than our serotonin-dopamine-deprived brains could ever process. But somewhere between Instagram posts and TikTok think rants that random algorithms show me, our worlds shrank instead of expanding. Now I catch myself ordering the same genre of truths over and over again, like a person ordering the same Negroni drink at every bar in Poblacion or BGC.

In Manila, where I work in the government specifically in the health sector, truth overload feels almost tangible. My job revolves around implementing health promotion strategies into bite-sized, actionable messages. The kind of work that could save lives but demands navigating key areas: evidence-based strategies, community engagement, and marrying the art and science of telling people what they should do without sounding like a cult leader.

Often my days revolve around reading academic journals to Google slide decks refining messages to fit the audience, with very little room for challenging truths that don’t fit neatly into a hashtag.

It’s a balancing act. While the job demands swimming in data and insights (learned it the hard way trust me!!!), we’re also battling the rise of filter bubbles. The same tools that democratize knowledge also create curated realities, where alternative viewpoints are conveniently ignored. Well as Yuval Noah Harari wrote in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind:

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”

Harari’s insight resonates deeply in my line of work, where our campaign aren’t just about delivering facts, they’re about crafting narratives people adopt as their own truths.

Because if there’s anything my work has taught me, it’s this: you can’t afford to let existential rumination about truth paralyze you. You keep trying. You believe that the right words and the right timing, can break through.

So, in case you’re here to know what books I’ve been reading:

• Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind

• Bianca Sparcino - The Strength In Our Scars

Clearly, this is a sign I need to read more as my list is running embarrassingly short. Right?

Sweet Nothings and Silence

If you’re anything like me, a quiet observer, you know how heavy the silence can be in a world that demands too much gratification. I grew up in a small family, or more accurately, a family of five: my mom, dad, aunt, and grandma. My grandma raised me back in Iloilo, her presence a comforting constant. When my dad passed away ten years ago, I remember wishing on the moon that my grandma would stay much longer like forever? But life happens, it has other plans. She passed away two years ago, and my aunt soon after. The silence that followed wasn’t just the absence of sound, it became a companion. Now it’s just my mom and me.

Being an only child shaped me into someone who listens more than she speaks, someone who filters her words carefully, for fear that they cut too deep. My thoughts can be blunt most times, but I speak softly, and I only let a few people hear what’s really going on in my mind.

Finding people who feel safe enough to trust opening up is rare. I can count my closest friends on one hand. And each of them feels like a lifeline.

Nothing so sweet of being sick

Yesterday, I skipped work. Not because I wanted to, but because my body demanded it. Fever, allergies, a head that felt like it was about to split open, one of those days where you just want someone to care for you, to tuck you in bed. But you can’t have everything you want, so I dragged myself out of bed, did the chores, and showered.

Then, my phone rang. It was Momo, my best friend from the US. We met through a mutual friend years ago, but it feels like we’ve known each other forever. We’re “attached at the hip,” as she says, our birthdays are just two days apart. It’s been a while since we last talked, both of us caught up in the chaos of life. But today, the universe seemed to align.

Sweet Nothings and Listening to Quiet Connections

Momo was on the video call with me, sitting at her dining table with a plate of freshly cooked carbonara, courtesy of her boyfriend. I was there too, in a virtual way, my face on an iPad screen, a silent third wheel as they shared their day. They talked about laundry, breakfast plans, the kind of mundane details that shouldn’t matter but somehow do. Again, those are sweet nothings I could say.

Well aside from Je te laisserai des mots by Patrick Watson, the song Sweet Nothing by Taylor Swift has been playing constantly for two days randomly in my playlist so that somehow gave me the notion of relating what's happening to my reality to those two words I have been hearing. Sweet nothing. Two simple words that, when strung together, hold a quiet, profound weight. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t demand or expect, the kind that exists in the space between words.

It made me realize why I liked listening to them talk. It wasn’t about what they were saying, it was about how they said it. The comfort, the quiet reassurance that comes from liking someone for exactly who you are. In a world that constantly tells us to be more, to do more, this felt simple. To rest in the comfort of “sweet nothing.”

Sweet Nothings and Endings

By the end of the call, I felt better. We talked about everything and nothing at the same time, from how my hair color should be, new people that we met, new places to visit in Makati (proud one here since I’m finally going out, again), my impulsive decision to book a beach trip randomly, my small but significant choice to work on myself. We listened, encouraged, and reminded each other to grow and not spiral back to our old habits.

She’s always been my safe space, my constant in a world that often feels overwhelming. Yeah I have a few close friends, I can say, coz I will always be a ride or die friend. Connection doesn’t have to be grand, just have to be meaningful. Sometimes, it’s found in the quiet moments, in the sweet nothings that remind you you’re not alone.

Okay P.S. I can't wait for her to come home to the Philippines this January.

Another P.S. well lately I have been hovering around Ocean Vuong, and if you’re anything like me that is tragic romantic read this:

• “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong
  A poetic exploration of love, trauma, and the complexities of family. I can say he translates unpolished raw and intimate moments into words.

Old habits die hard, an idiom that suddenly came to me recently. It’s uncanny how old habits can resurface when you least expect them. For me, it exhibits overthinking where sometimes I can be intense, spiraling into thoughts about control and certainty especially heightened during the year of 2019. It’s the fear of things slipping away, of losing people I care about. Vulnerability, I’ve learned, is the antidote to fear. But it’s the scariest for me to embrace knowing my private tendencies.

When you’re trying to disprove the saying that no man is an island, that you’re okay being alone, and when you’re used to building fortresses, breaking them down terrifies me as it can feel like a betrayal of the walls that took years to be built. I’m afraid of what happens when I open up and care too much and what if they end up walking away. Though I learned that it’s keeping me trapped by losing qualities of who I am, that giving spirit and that “hey, nice to have you in my life” moments. Trusting someone isn’t easy, especially when you’ve been hurt or have a habit of shutting off when things get uncomfortable.

Though sometimes, it feels safer to withhold a part of myself than to risk. But it’s self-sabotage, I’m not really protecting myself but I’m sabotaging the connection before it even has a chance to flourish.

And yet I realized, showing the raw, unfiltered parts of yourself will never be a weakness. I’ve had moments where I messed up, got scared and lied, where I keep at arm’s length tough conversation out of fear of rejection. I though by deflecting blame or hiding my mistakes I can protect myself, but all it did was create distance. It’s ironic how the act of self-preservation can sometimes lead to lack of empathy and push away connection you’re wanting to keep.

But I’m learning that communication, not avoidance is important. It’s isn’t just about opening up to people, it’s about opening up to myself. It’s about saying “I’m sorry, I messed up”, and meaning it. It’s about showing someone, not just with words but follow through it with actions, that you care, that you’re willing to grow and you’re trying. It’s about recognizing when I’m spiraling into old habits, and handling them head on.

Sometimes all it takes is one person to remind you what it feels like to be seen. To remind you that it’s okay to care, to feel, to trust again, a quiet push back toward the parts of you that you have forgotten it existed.

Having faith in the fact that welcoming people in is not foolish. The truth is shutting yourself off deprives you of the chance to create worthwhile memories, experience something real and that pain hurts even more.

Lately, I’ve immerse myself to reading books and articles and encountered Esther Perel again, a Belgian and American Psychologist, who captures this struggle so well:

"We have a new Olympus we all want to climb, but we don’t have the necessary tools to reach it. We yearn for meaningful, secure connections while simultaneously pulling away out of fear of rejection."

Her words remind me that trust and vulnerability are the tools we must pick up, again and again, as we navigate relationships with others and ourselves.

Ask yourself: 

• Where have I built walls that might be keeping love and connection from growing? 

• What would it feel like to let someone in? 

If this resonates with you, here are a few resources to explore:

• Esther Perel: Letters from Esther – A treasure trove of insights on love, trust, and emotional resilience.

• Rupi Kaur: Milk and Honey - collection of poetry about love and survival

• Mustafa: A folk troubadour of age– A poet who transforms loss, grief and poverty to spoken word poetry. 

Right now, I’m sitting at my office desk, trying to turn my thoughts into words again. It’s 5:30 p.m., and the familiar midweek chaos is buzzing around me, us rushing to meet deadlines, keyboards clicking, and the murmur of last-minute submissions. Through the window, I watch the sky fade from gray to dusk. The air carries the faint scent of freshly cleaned floors.

For the longest time, I’ve been stuck in procrastination. It’s a feeling I know too well, one that takes me back to when my days were filled with ideas, and stories waiting to be published online. But somewhere along the way, you know, life happened. The fire that once fueled my creativity started to fade, eventually dimming until it was barely there. What once came naturally, being creative through writing, creating photos, sharing became forgotten. 

I stopped writing, I stopped creating. I stopped being me. Retreating from the life I had built online, the stories I used to tell, as they vanished into thin air. Creating became harder, until it didn’t happen at all.

It’s been a slow journey for me to get my hands hovering over the keyboard typing my thoughts. But here I am, hoping to reignite that spark. It took a recommendation from a Parisian I met a few weeks ago, who encouraged me to read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, to finally get me to sit down and pour my thoughts onto the internet.

It’s inevitable how life continues to move forward, even when you feel stuck. It just goes on. And so did I, procrastinating myself into oblivion, avoiding the very things that made me feel alive. 

We’re not meant to live on the surface. As resistance took over me, I know that coming into terms on some parts of myself that I’ve been avoiding is where I’ll find answers.

This November, instead of running away from the discomfort, I’m going to sit with it. I’ll give myself permission to rest, to reflect, and to rediscover what it is that truly brings me joy. Maybe I’ll pick up the pieces I left behind, and rediscover the joy of creating, or maybe I’ll start fresh, just as I click publish on my first Substack blog. 

So if you’re anything like me, maybe here are some thoughts you could ponder to get yourself going to your rediscovery. 

• What parts of yourself have you been avoiding, and why?

• What brings you happiness, and how can you take action with it?

• What would it look like to create something beautiful?

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