“You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.”

-Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.

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Guide To Self Resentment:

1. observe yourself

2. judge yourself harshly

3. generalize it into something permanent (this is my nature)

4. detach from yourself

5. want to be saved / understood

6. reject that possibility

7. land on a simple solution

8. don’t act on it

9. → repeat

⊰═══════════════════════⊱

𝓘𝓷 life, there are givers and takers. Winners and losers. Main characters and side characters. Regrets and fond memories. Nightmares and dreams. Beware, you are about to witness the account of someone who hasn’t gotten up. People look at sad things and pity them. Does the pitied pity themself? Of course, otherwise they wouldn’t be a source to evoke such feelings.

I remember, a time during my mid-adolescence, rinsing sudsy white bubbles out of my hair as i reflected on my actions. Why do i act like this? Unsure still. It may just be the pathetic skeleton of human nature, where everything is never enough, where loyalty cannot deny betrayal, where perfection is strived for but never achieved. I berate myself every time i return to that shell of myself, yet i will never lose it. It is the foundational base of my existence, how can i deny it? Even so, seeing righteousness in action will pierce my walls and evoke an ache in my heart. So it is possible. Yet i cannot attain it. That isnt the fault of any other, but mine. I cant, despite how hard i try to. If this doesnt evidence my nature, what else will. You cannot deny patterns, they define everything.

As i lathered conditioner into my too-thin hair, i took a deep breath. And thought a thought ive never forgotten.

They hate me, but little do they know, they’re not alone.

I think that was the start of everything.

Its so easy to run away from dealing with consequences by stepping out of your body. Separating your soul from your experiences and then berating the body you’re in. Giving up on improvement and using data from every rejection around you to fuel yourself

This places one in a special predicament. How can one be selfish while brimmed with contempt for the vessel they command? It turns them into a sentient being out of body, with little respect for reality. Compartmentalizing everything into neat little boxes of experiences, as they battle themselves for salvation. Searching endlessly for a neat and clean person to organize their thoughts for them. For someone to look at their body and soul and run their hand up the vessel with care. To caress the face you’ve looked at with contempt for so long. For someone to say its okay.

It may seem like hope in the mind of someone so far gone, but the outsiders’ perspective is shaking its head with a somber expression. Dressed in too dark hues at the funeral of the child who might have deserved to be loved. At the pathetic person in limbo waiting for that angel. Do they know they are human?

Do you know that the mere possession of consciousness makes you precious? That you could be useful to the world you so desperately pity for having to house you?

When the sun sets, everyone sets for home to their own neat little box. How can you be someone to anyone when you don’t allow yourself to be? How can you make the moon shine brighter if you don’t let yourself reflect good in the world?

Dry yourself of thoughts and do the most mindless good deeds imaginable. Create the evidence you’re looking for to prove you’re human. Soon enough, ill see you on the other side.

I was a bright, silly girl once. I imagined my future with girls I knew I could call forever. I imagined best friends and hearty laughs and undisputed boundaries with no barriers that made me feel seen and respected all at once. Then, with the people that are just right for you, you explore the world in the comfort of knowing you belong with someone out there. Exploration seems much safer when you have a compass leading home. Alas, I have to ask myself where I’d found such aspirations for myself. It all leads to media. Media: cinema, literature, stories passed down through kind words and full hearts. I imagined if ‘found family’ and such aspirational values were present in so many kinds of media– it must be true. It must be waiting for me somewhere. Now, at sixteen, I still feel like I’m waiting for the right people to get started. It sucks.

It never took me long, after watching cartoons about friendship being magic and everyone deserves a katie, that people around you that enrich you, are the real treasures of life. Of course, I was mesmerized by the stories, the adventures, the seasons and series and books and movies that quenched that thirst for more. That there’s more to life. That, when you’re around the right people, you live the right story that is only yours. Never had it occurred to me that you could have that on your own. Still, I don’t. Even if I were to thrive independently, I know there would be a part of me somewhere waiting for the universes to overlap and for that one star to cross mine. To feel love, to feel tragedy, to feel contentment, to feel. That was the point of the media. To make me feel fulfilled. And I do. So when I ask myself what fulfilled me in the past week, it is not that I have reached a mundane goal or got a good grade on a test or made a new friend.

It is that I was able to watch Hilda and Malthus yearn helplessly for each other and feel exactly the way they felt when they were brought close enough to each other, just to be ripped away when things felt right. I felt fulfilled that love exists, whether fictional, or decades ago—this beauty of love that I felt in my soul is concrete and dusted and polished and tucked away in a little corner of the internet or library as a secret whisper in my ear, ‘love could be beautiful, look at them, their eyes, their story’. My fulfillment lies in the contentment I feel when Mr Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth, where two hearts intertwined are able to express themselves verbosely in the heat of their tensions. Laying yourself bare to another, vulnerable in your emotions, to have a home in someone. A compass.

Watching others find their own compasses never feels less than perfect. It feels like warmth, like proof that love could exist– that it could be as beautiful as it is portrayed, like hope that I too, could one day grasp it.

The worst part is that I don’t feel emptiness when the screen goes black or the covers meet each other again. I feel it all. It feels delightful, and yet illogical. My love for media seems more and more like a vice, each day that I continue delighting in the pleasures of stories. It is a contrast to my own life, and the bleary line between romance and reality starts to blur. How can I witness something so beautiful and stop before wanting it for myself? This burning, eating, decaying desire in my soul to be a part of my own story– it kills me. It prevents me from living. I dare for too much that I cannot control. As they say, you have to wait for the right person to come along. And so I wait, I watch, I read… I yearn and I desire and I wait and wait and wait as the sight of myself consolidates into a statue waiting for a tear of true love to thaw my aching muscles that cannot flex, instead solid like stone.

This leads me to a crossroads: Do I abandon the promise of something wonderful, the feeling of fulfillment even if it is not mine? Or, do I accept the reality that the beauty of a good story cannot be recognized until the last line? I was told, once, that the protagonists of stories do not feel fulfilled during the long span of those tortured days which fade into the montage. They are not yet resolute until they complete their own number of bleary and boring days. More than anything, they don’t see romance when they are working hard. The most important thing I have to recognize, is that feeling fulfilled, as good as it is, does not do anything for me. In fact, I have to see that the fulfillment from others may be the exact thing keeping me from reaching higher to find my own. It’s almost like eating small snacks when you could be cooking a full meal.

I feel I know the more romantic option is–ironically–to give up romance in my own life. I know stories happen when things happen, actions are taken, and time goes by. Yet the thirst inside of me continues to dry out my skin and parch my lips and I know for the remainders of my time, I will never forget the drought of despair that consumes me at the ache of not reaching a resolution. Of having a story that doesn’t exist. Of being a filler of a life.

goodbye was never closure

~~~~~~~~~

To the one who taught me about connection,
To the one who broke my heart,
To the one that lives in the shoebox in my closet;
And collects dust I’ll never blow out.

To the winner of indifference.
To the loser of the tie in.
How many times will I look back
With a burn in my heart
Accompanying my smile?

I mourn the plans I made with you, 
The lost dreams we shared, 
The connection, the way you’ve swayed my life
How we'd be lost, and together find direction

I hate how you could find yourself in someone else over me.
I hate how much I miss the bond I found in you.

My screams echo a sorry, an insult, a plea
Only audible to me.
In the cave of my own memories,
My vision burred like the lines of clarity

All I do is put the halo on your head,
Just to snatch it away;
Never knowing if it belonged to you,
Or if your glow was cast from me.

I’ll never know reality.
A lifetime has passed,
I have never seen you since, 
and never will again.

And I say you’re dead to me;
But the memories are still warm.
Yet to be frozen dead by the sharp tears
That run from the burn of hatred in my soul

But the door is closed shut,
tall and smug and locked.
I will stare and stand and bang,
but I will never knock.

I am just to observe the light
seeping from the small crack underneath,
The glow beneath the ashes
of a smoldered ember

And I will cry to have lost you,
But I never did have you.

Hey lovelies.

Here’s some ripe teenage angst for you.

xx, ria

Hey guys! Welcome to my first ever post!!

Last weekend, I was looking through my Spotify for a fall playlist to work to, since the season’s changed and all. Instead, I found an old playlist from a year ago and suddenly remembered someone I used to know. It was a shared playlist with a detailed name, describing the scene we’d imagine the music to be the background to. The playlist brought back memories, and encapsulated exactly how I never imagined the friendship to end, how connected we were. Yet, suddenly I felt like I was hit by a train, because my life no longer followed that reality.

Today's episode is a lot about nostalgia and reminiscing. Something I hate about being a teen is the fact that every few months I feel like a completely new person. Different experiences, people, and places take a toll on your identity- and whether you like it or not- you bring a piece of them with you wherever you go.

I've left and lost many people, and it's taken me forever to really understand that friendships are like this: no matter how long you know a person or how much you like them... if your core values and paths don't align, your friendship is just a crossroads rather than a shared path. And that's okay. It's okay to have shared a time of growth and enjoyment with someone that you connect with, and for it to be over.

Sometimes people change, and we stay because we miss the old them—but they won’t come back. People don't owe us the old version of themselves. We either accept their evolutions or move on, and that's the bittersweet taste of any kind of relationship. You can be hurt and they can be unable to understand. You can hurt them and be unable to understand why they're hurt. Life keeps on moving, and eventually, you’ll realize it doesn’t run on fulfillment.

The important part is to take a step back and realize that everything happens for a reason. You spend a radiant time together, you learned, you loved, and you lost. It’s okay.

Sometimes, though, a connection can be cut loose and you'll feel devastated. Personally, I have letters sitting in my drafts for every person I've ever cared about. 100% recommend. This is the best way to find closure for me. You don't need the other person to dig any hole of pain deeper by responding, or even reading it. Rather, let your feelings free on paper and feel the weight lifted off your chest.

This is a real draft of a letter I wrote a while ago... it took me a while to take out the anger, hurt, and confusion from my heart and transform it into something tender and real. I debated sharing it because it’s personal, but I think it captures something a lot of us feel when losses happen. So here it is.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Dear (redacted),

It feels like forever ago when I knew you as a constant in my life, but the weight of the memories is still heavy as ever. At some moments in my life they anchored me, some they burdened me, but now they’re buried deep in my memories and my heart.

I do hope that you reflect on the time we shared as something positive. It took me a while to realize not every anchor can hold down a ship, and that I can sail farther without the heaviest anchor.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you, and it was great knowing you; for so long, you were my person. Though I can’t promise I’ll experience your highs or lows with you, I am most ardently looking forward to the masterpieces you create. My support is on the sidelines now, rather than on the field beside you.

I’m not sorry I couldn’t be an anchor to your ship, keeping you grounded, but I pray our memories can blow wind in your sails on an adrift day. I hope it’s a beautiful day and the sun is always shining.

Take care,
Ria

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

After a lot of denial, I wrote this draft at the dawn of my acceptance. As I signed my name on it, all I was thinking was, ‘so it is over, huh’. Sitting down with your feelings, and reality, can help you reach closure. Acceptance.

As you can see, it was a really really long time ago. My best life hack in writing these opposite-of-lara-jean-esque letters is to really summon your taylor-swift-while-writing-red-era. Honestly, I process a lot of my feelings during it, and I like seeing how insults and anger can turn into grace and moving on.

Closure depends on the nature of your relationship, and how it affected your life. But it's important to let go when the time is due. I love this line from TGG (yes I enjoyed it, so what)

"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

As a little context, the main protagonist of the book, Nick; is reflecting on how it feels to be in the windows of the apartments he usually looks into from below. People will enchant and repel you in life; but Fitzgerald put the prose down beautifully. The 'inexhaustible variety of life' is the key to moving forward. There are infinite opportunities, people, relationships, and doors open for those privileged enough to be focusing on people and not their own survival. Next time you miss someone, or feel regret for something ending- remind yourself of the inexhaustible variety of life. Whether it’s a friendship or another kind of relationship, endings hurt- but they also remind us of the rest of the world that opens up when your vision stops tunneling on them. It's okay to move on, some anchors will hold you back and some will keep you from grounding yourself. Don't be the one to hold yourself back.

I'd love to hear about you guys' experience on losing/leaving relationships. Were they doomed from the start, or did you grow out of them? Do you reminisce on old memories, or have you buried them away and wish they were dead?

Thanks for reading this post, I'll see you soon.

End of episode 001.

xx,

Ria

P.S: pleaseeeeeeeuhhhhhh try writing these letters!! I promise they help so much.

September 4th, 2025

If you found this blog somehow… congratulations! You’ve found my digital diary. Welcome! I’m Ria and I’m not sure exactly how to go about this. I’ve had a notes app full of thoughts for years, and figured it’s time to air them out. This is where I post random thoughts, drop a few playlists, and short stories/poems.

Get to know me!

❀ Who am I?

• I’m a desi teen living in North America.

• I’m very right-brained and love reading, writing stories, poetry, photography, and occasional clothing projects.

• I have a lot of stuff that I need to process. I’m hoping that doing virtual journaling/writing is a cool way to document my writing journey.

• I have a LOT of feelings and ambitions- which will be reflected in my future posts!

❀ My likes/interests:

• I appreciate all kinds of literature and would like to switch up from absorbing to sharing with others (NOT declaring to share any proper writing here, expect grammar, mechanic, and spelling errors:) )

• I love reading , specifically like books I can deep dive into but also appreciate during the first read

• I’m musically ambiguous, but i tend to appreciate ballads the most

• I feel like I’m moving into a new era with pop music artists like Bella Kay, Phoebe Bridgers, Taylor, lots of pop girls and also appreciate classic/soft rock. (I’m basic, sue me)

• The songs I have on repeat right now are: More Than a Feeling by Boston and No Surprises by Radiohead (hm: Best by Gracie Abrams).

• My favorite color is purple and I loooveeeee flowers of all kind, specifically lilies

What to expect:

❀ Expect future episodes to include:

1. Thoughts and personal reflections

2. Occasional poetry or short stories

3. Story times

4. Tips and tutorials about everything; ranging from writing to my favorite places to shop from.

I might surprise you guys with something new too. Let me know if there’s anything you guys would like to read about. Posts every Saturday!

(update: who was I kidding with that schedule omg)

𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡𓎢𓎠𓎟𓎠𓎡

This space is mostly for me, but if you relate to anything I write – that’s a bonus. Anyway, that’s enough of me oversharing on the internet. See you soon.

I don’t expect anyone to find this, but if you do- welcome. Stay tuned for my inner thoughts and writing journey.

Episode 000 ends here. Stay tuned for the next one.

xx,

Ria