I know.

This is actually not the topic I wanted to write about for August.

I had a completely different piece in mind.

I had ideas. Notes. A direction. Something I thought would be much easier to write.

But then again, life happened. And apparently, my heart had other plans.

So, here we are.

If you’ve been around here long enough, you already know something about me:

I write from the heart.

Sometimes that means I write what I planned.

And other times, it means I sit down with my coffee, stare at the screen for a while, and think,

Well… fuck it. I guess we’re talking about this now.

So, hello.

It’s me, again.

And this month, we’re talking about forgiveness.

But also: about betrayal. About knowing the truth. About being lied to while someone is looking you directly in the face. And about what happens when you know you could fight back— but you choose peace instead.

Have you ever had that experience?

That strange feeling when you know something isn’t right, even before you have the words for it?

You have a hunch. Something doesn’t seem to add up.

A tiny detail here. A strange explanation there. A story that doesn’t quite fit with the story you were told yesterday.

Then, you don’t investigate.

You don’t interrogate anymore.

You don’t go looking for evidence.

You don’t turn yourself into a detective.

You simply keep living.

It’s not that you went looking for it or that you demanded answers.

It just…appears.

And then eventually, you start picking up the pieces.

This one fits here. That one fits there.

Oh. That’s why that happened.

Then suddenly, the story you’ve been given starts falling apart.

It’s not that you imagined something or you were paranoid or the universe forbid, you wanted to believe the worst.

It’s just that, the pieces were never meant to fit together in the first place.

And then you realize:

It was all a fabricated narrative. Or at least, enough of it was.

Yeah okay— let’s put it this way: a fucking lie.

I think the first instinct most of us have is:

I need to prove that I’m right. I need to show you that I know.

I need to show you that I figured it out. I need to put every piece on the table.

Every message. Every inconsistency. Every contradiction.

Every little thing you thought I didn’t notice.

I know. I’ve been there, too.

“Look. I actually, know.”

And maybe there is something deeply human about that urge.

Maybe when someone lies to your face, you want them to know that they didn’t fool you.

You want the satisfaction of watching their face change when they realize you know.

Me? I would.

I would want the confession. I would want the truth spoken out loud. I would want to be vindicated. I mean, who doesn’t? And I understand that. Oh… I understand that very well.

But what happens when you don’t?

What happens when you have every reason to confront them…

and instead, you choose not to?

What happens when you could interrogate, but you don’t?

When you could expose, but you don’t?

When you could prove every single point and say,

“See? I told you. I knew it.”

…but you decide that being right isn’t actually the prize you thought it was?

What happens when, instead of fighting back,

you do the exact opposite?

That’s exactly what I did.

I got quiet. I stepped back. I watched. I set a boundary.

And then, I let the truth be the truth.

I decided that I don’t have to destroy someone just because they tried to deceive me.

That is where I found myself.

Because yes. A significant person in my current life lied to my face and fabricated a story for reasons I don’t know, yet at that time. And I don’t intend to know anymore.

I knew. And what I did with that knowledge surprised even me.

Read more

The week I arrived in Frankfurt with a heavy heart, a tired soul, and found my way back to myself.

I believe that some chapters of our lives cannot be captured in a few paragraphs.

Some moments need more space.

They need honesty.

They need room for the grief, the confusion, the gratitude, and the quiet realizations that come when we finally allow ourselves to sit with what happened.

So consider this my July letter.

A reflection of a week that surprised me.

A week that started with a heavy heart and ended with a deeper understanding of who I am.

Because sometimes, the biggest transformations happen quietly.

Sometimes, we do not find ourselves by searching.

Sometimes, we find ourselves by finally stopping long enough to listen.

The Week I Chose to Show Up

I did not arrive in Germany for the first time this week.

Germany has been my home since March 2025.

I know what it feels like to leave behind a familiar country, rebuild routines, adjust to a new language, a new culture, and a new way of living.

I know what it feels like to start again.

But this week in Frankfurt was different.

I came here with a plan.

I came here because there were things I wanted to do, places I wanted to see, and moments I had imagined.

But life has a way of changing the shape of our plans.

Things did not unfold the way I expected.

And suddenly, I found myself in Frankfurt alone.

With a heavy heart.

With a tired soul.

With a heart aching for something that I knew needed to come to an end.

Maybe you know this feeling too?

That moment when you are standing in the middle of a transition and you realize that something you once hoped for is no longer the thing you are walking toward.

For a long time, I believed that endings meant something was broken.

I thought if something mattered enough, it needed fixing.

It needed saving.

It needed redemption.

It needed one more conversation, one more effort, one more attempt to make everything okay.

But sitting here in Frankfurt, I started to understand something different.

Maybe not everything that hurts needs to be fixed.

Maybe some things need to be accepted.

Because acceptance does not mean I stop caring.

Acceptance does not mean something was not important.

Acceptance does not erase the love, the memories, or the meaning something carried.

Acceptance means I can hold the ache without allowing the ache to consume me.

I can acknowledge that something mattered deeply and still allow myself to move forward.

The Moment I Stopped Abandoning Myself

I have spent so much of my life becoming familiar with abandonment.

Abandoning parts of myself.

Abandoning my own needs.

Trying to hold onto things because I was afraid of losing them.

Trying to save things because I was afraid of what would happen if they ended.

But this time, I chose something different.

This time, I did not abandon myself.

I held myself.

I showed up for myself.

I offered myself the compassion and kindness that I had spent so much time giving to others.

And something beautiful happened.

When I learned how to hold myself with more gentleness, I also became able to hold others with more compassion.

I was able to recognize the people I love.

To value them.

To appreciate them.

To not take them for granted.

But also to understand that love does not always mean holding tightly.

Sometimes love means allowing space.

Sometimes love means caring from a distance.

Sometimes love means wishing someone well while still choosing yourself.

I am learning that two truths can exist at the same time.

I can love someone and still let go of what I cannot control.

I can grieve something and still be grateful for what it gave me.

I can miss something and still move forward.

I can carry the ache without carrying the burden.

And maybe that is what Frankfurt gave me.

Not an answer.

Not a perfect ending.

But a quiet realization:

I was never meant to lose myself trying to save something.

I was meant to come back home to myself.

The Skill I Thought I Lost

And then something unexpected happened.

As I walked through Frankfurt, something inside me started waking up.

At first, I thought I was simply exploring a new city.

But slowly, I realized…

I was remembering something about myself.

The part of me that knows how to navigate.

The part of me that knows how to observe.

The part of me that knows how to find patterns, routes, and connections.

The same brain that once carried physical maps in Malaysia was now looking at Frankfurt’s train lines and tram routes.

And somehow…

It made sense.

I started memorizing the stations.

I started recognizing connections.

I started understanding which tram would take me where I needed to go.

I found myself looking at maps and seeing possibilities instead of feeling overwhelmed.

And I laughed because I thought:

Wait… I know this.

I have done this before.

This was not new.

This was me.

For so many years, I thought my ability to navigate unfamiliar places was just something I had to do because of circumstances.

Because I had to survive.

Because I had no choice.

But this week, I saw it differently.

It was not only survival.

It was also a gift.

It was curiosity.

It was intelligence.

It was adaptability.

It was a part of my personality.

The thing that once helped me survive became something that allowed me to experience joy.

And maybe that is one of the greatest lessons I am learning:

Sometimes, the things we develop because we had to survive become the very things that help us thrive.

When I moved to Malaysia, I learned how to navigate different states.

Not just physically.

Emotionally too.

I learned how to enter unfamiliar places and find my way.

I learned how to communicate with people from different cultures.

I learned how to make strangers feel comfortable.

I learned how to become a bridge between worlds.

And now, here I am in Frankfurt.

Doing it again.

Different country.

Different language.

Different chapter.

Same Rhalyn.

The most beautiful realization was this:

I did not become capable because of Frankfurt.

Frankfurt simply reminded me that I always was.

The little girl who learned to find her way through the jungle.

The young woman who traveled across islands.

The expat who memorized train lines and routes.

The woman sitting in a Frankfurt café with a cup of coffee and a book.

They are all the same person.

They were never separate versions of me.

They were always me.

Thank You for Walking This Chapter With Me

If you made it this far, thank you.

Thank you for sitting with my story.

Thank you for allowing me the space to process, reflect, grieve, and rediscover parts of myself that I thought I had lost.

Writing has always been one of the ways I make sense of the world.

It is how I notice.

It is how I heal.

It is how I connect the dots between who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming.

And this week in Frankfurt reminded me why I continue to write.

Because sometimes, when we share our stories, we do not just document our own journey.

We create a small space where someone else might recognize themselves too.

Maybe you are also carrying something.

Maybe you are also standing at the edge of a new chapter.

Maybe you are also learning that you can grieve something and still find beauty.

I hope this reminds you that the parts of you that helped you survive are also the parts that can help you thrive.

Subscribe now

If you would like to continue walking with me through these reflections, stories, and little discoveries, you can support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber.

Your support helps me continue creating essays, sharing my experiences, and turning everyday moments into stories.

And if a paid subscription is not possible right now, please know that simply reading, sharing, commenting, or sending a little “brain snack” of encouragement already means so much.

Send me a brain snack here.

Every bit of support matters.

Because what may feel like a small amount to some can be incredibly meaningful to a creative like me.

Your support helps fund the quiet moments behind the words:

the coffee shops where I write,

the train rides where I think,

the walks where ideas appear,

the experiences that become stories.

In fact, this very trip — traveling alone through Frankfurt, exploring a new city, and giving myself space to process — was made possible partly because of the support I receive through this community.

It may seem like a small monthly subscription, but to a creator, it is a reminder that someone believes these words are worth making.

And that means more than I can express.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for reminding me that stories connect us, even across different cities, countries, and seasons of life.

Until the next chapter,

Rhalyn

There is something I need to say carefully, and I will say it with softness in my heart.

Not loudly. Not as argument. Not as resistance.

But as remembrance.

We were never empty before history found us.

We were already whole.

Sometimes I think about how often our stories are told in fragments.

As if we only began existing when someone else started recording us.

As if everything before that was silence.

But I don’t think that is true.

I don’t feel that is true.

Because when I look at what we were — and what we still are — I see continuity, not absence.

We were already royal.

Not in the sense of crowns alone, but in the sense of systems, leadership, and identity that existed long before external validation.

We had polities, laws, diplomacy, and relationships between islands that did not require outside naming to be legitimate.

Sugbu. Tondo. Maynila. Butuan. Sulu.

Each one carrying its own form of governance, its own rhythm of life, its own way of understanding the world.

We were already mystical.

Not as something imagined later, but as something lived.

The way people read the sea.

The way the sky was interpreted.

The way animals, weather, and movement were understood as part of a larger conversation between land, water, and spirit.

These were not superstitions in the way they are sometimes reduced today.

They were frameworks of understanding.

Ways of paying attention to a living world.

And maybe this is what I keep coming back to the most.

We were already whole.

Not perfect. Not static. Not untouched by change.

But whole in the sense that we already had identity before it was renamed.

We already had connection before it was mapped.

We already had intelligence before it was measured from the outside.

And yet, something happens when a people are renamed.

When identity is compressed into a single word that cannot hold all its history.

It becomes easier to forget the plurality.

The complexity.

The movement.

The living systems that existed before simplification.

But I do not feel erased.

Even when parts of the story were interrupted, scattered, or reframed, something remained.

In language.

In memory.

In migration.

In the way people still carry pieces of where they come from, even across oceans.

We are still here.

Not as a single image.

But as fragments of something larger that never fully disappeared.

Sometimes I think this is what inheritance really is.

Not just bloodlines or names.

But memory that refuses to leave the body.

Stories that resurface even when they were not formally taught.

A sense of belonging that returns even when it was not always explained.

We are the ones who were never truly gone.

We are the ones who were never only one thing.

We are the ones who were already whole, even when the world tried to describe us in pieces.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

You know where I keep returning to?

Before we were defined by borders, we were defined by movement.

Not movement as displacement.

But movement as knowledge.

We were a maritime people long before we were named anything else.

Let me tell you something I’ve come to understand slowly.

To live in an archipelago is to learn a different kind of intelligence.

Not the intelligence of walls.

But the intelligence of water.

You do not survive here by standing still.

You survive by reading the sea.

By understanding wind patterns.

By knowing when to move and when to wait.

By trusting the body to remember what maps have not yet written.

Our ancestors built boats that did not simply float.

They carried entire ways of life.

The balangay boat was not just a vessel.

It was a technology of migration, trade, and relationship between islands.

A wooden memory of how people moved across the region long before modern borders existed.

These boats connected communities across what we now call Southeast Asia, part of wider Austronesian maritime traditions that stretched across oceans and generations.

I think about that often.

How knowledge was not written.

It was carried.

In wood.

In rope.

In muscle memory.

In stories passed between people who navigated not by certainty, but by attention.

The stars were not decoration.

They were direction.

The currents were not obstacles.

They were instruction.

Even the wind had meaning.

There is something deeply humbling in realizing that navigation was once an inherited skill.

Something learned not in isolation, but in relationship with sea and sky.

You don’t just simply “go to sea.”

You get to enter into conversation with it.

You get to listen before you move.

You get to adjust as it shift.

You get to respect what it could take and what it could give.

And I wonder what it means to come from that kind of lineage.

A people who understood that survival was not about control.

But about awareness.

About timing.

About trust.

About knowing that the world is alive and responsive if you know how to read it.

Sometimes I think we forget that about ourselves.

We reduce history into still images.

But we were never still.

We were movement.

We were crossings.

We were exchange.

We were people who understood that water does not separate life.

It carries it.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

There is something I keep thinking about.

Before we were called anything familiar to modern maps, I was told by my ancestors that we were already known outside of our islands.

Not in the way history books sometimes flatten it.

But in the way trade routes remember people. In the way ports remember ships. In the way the sea remembers movement.

Let me tell you something I’ve come to understand slowly.

We were never invisible.

We were already in circulation.

Long before colonial naming, the islands that now make up the Philippines were part of wider maritime networks across Southeast Asia and beyond.

Chinese records, for example, already mention places such as Butuan as early as the year 1001, describing it as a society engaged in trade, diplomacy, and exchange. Butuan was known for gold, boats, and its presence in regional maritime routes. Butuan historical polity

In other parts of the archipelago, coastal centers like Tondo and Maynila were already active in riverine and sea-based trade, connected to neighboring polities and larger regional systems.

And in the south, Sulu was already part of a vast maritime world stretching toward Borneo, Brunei, and the Malay world.

None of these places were waiting to be introduced to the world.

They were already in relationship with it.

I think about that often.

Because it shifts something in how we understand ourselves.

We were not isolated islands sitting quietly at the edge of history.

We were active participants in movement across water.

Trade moved through us.

Ideas moved through us.

People moved through us.

The sea was not a boundary.

It was a shared language.

And I cannot help but notice how differently we are sometimes described in later narratives.

As if we only began to matter once someone documented us in their own terms.

But the sea tells a different story.

The sea does not record conquest.

It records connection.

It remembers ports that exchanged goods.

It remembers winds that carried ships between islands.

It remembers people who already knew how to navigate long before foreign maps arrived.

Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to fully understand that.

Not just intellectually.

But deeply.

That we were already known.

Already trading. Already thriving.

Already part of a wider world system that did not begin with colonization.

There is something quietly grounding in that realization.

Not pride in the loud sense.

I guess, that would mean recognition.

Maybe this is why I keep returning to maritime history.

Because it reminds me that identity is not always something assigned from the outside.

Sometimes it is something already in motion long before it is named.

And naming does not always mean beginning.

Sometimes it simply means someone else finally noticed what was already there.

The sea already knew our names.

It still does.

In currents.

In routes.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Let me tell you a secret.

It is not hidden. Not lost. Not even newly discovered.

But it is something that often gets softened or simplified when history is told too quickly.

We were never just one name.

Not before the Spanish. Not before the maps. Not before someone decided to draw lines across water and call it a country.

Actually, this is what I keep returning to when I think about our past.

We were already many things before we were renamed.

There were already communities here long before any colonizer arrived to name the archipelago as one.

Sugbu. Tondo. Maynila. Butuan. Sulu.

These were not fragments of something unfinished.

They were already whole in their own ways.

Each carried its own systems of leadership, trade, belief, and relationship with the sea and surrounding islands.

I don’t say this as a theory.

I say this because it changes how we see ourselves when we sit with it long enough.

We were not waiting to be completed.

We were already living.

Already organizing life around movement, water, exchange, and kinship in ways that were deeply intentional.

And maybe this is the part I want to slow down on.

Because when I say we were many, I don’t mean chaotic.

I mean plural.

Different centers of life, connected not by sameness, but by water.

The sea did not divide us.

It connected us.

And that connection mattered more than we sometimes remember.

It allowed movement between islands.

It allowed trade, language, stories, and relationships to exist beyond a single center of control.

We were not one voice.

We were many voices in conversation.

Sometimes I wonder why this part of history feels so quietly powerful to me.

Maybe it is because I grew up hearing versions of the story that begin only at arrival.

Only at conquest.

Only at naming.

But when I sit with what I know now, and what I have been slowly learning and remembering, I keep coming back to this:

we were already here.

We were already becoming.

We were already whole in more ways than one.

And I think that is what I want to pass on carefully.

Not as certainty.

Not as superiority.

But as remembrance.

Because when you understand that your people were never empty space waiting for history to happen…

you start to understand yourself differently too.

There is something grounding in that.

Something that makes you stand a little differently in your own life.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

“Some civilizations are remembered by the silence they leave behind.”

Some empires carved in stone and kingdoms gathered by rivers, and here I am, finding myself returning to waves of the sea and the whispers of the water.

Not the distant waters of other kingdoms, but the southern seas that feel closer to home.

The Sultanate of Sulu was not simply a kingdom.

It was a maritime power.

A people who understood that the sea was not emptiness, but livelihood, movement, and memory.

Founded in the 15th century, the Sultanate grew into one of the most influential powers in the southern Philippines, with its heart in Jolo and its reach extending across the Sulu-Celebes Sea and into northern Borneo. It flourished through trade, diplomacy, and mastery of the sea.

But once again, I do not want to write only in dates.

I want to sit with what it means.

There is something deeply moving about knowing that before colonizers drew borders around our islands, there were already powers here that understood navigation, commerce, and exchange.

The people of Sulu were connected not only to Mindanao and the Visayas, but to Brunei, Borneo, China, and the wider Malay world.

The sea did not isolate them.

It introduced them.

Pearls, bird’s nests, sea cucumber, mother-of-pearl, and woven textiles moved through these routes, making Sulu one of the most vibrant trading hubs in the region.

There is something almost poetic in that.

A kingdom built not on walls, but on currents.

What stays with me most is the sense of sovereignty.

This was a people who already had systems of leadership, faith, law, and diplomacy.

The arrival of Islam reshaped the political and spiritual life of the region, and the Sultanate became both a seat of power and a center of identity for the Tausug and surrounding communities.

Sometimes I think about how often our histories are told only from the moment colonizers arrived.

As if we began there.

But we did not.

We were already moving.

Already trading.

Already governing.

Already becoming.

That matters to me.

Because it reminds us that our story did not begin with conquest.

It began with our own seas.

Perhaps that is why this kingdom feels so personal.

It is not distant history.

It is part of the memory of this region.

A reminder that the southern Philippines has long been a place of strength, movement, and cultural depth.

Before maps flattened us into one name, there were many centers of power.

Sulu was one of them.

And it listened to the sea as deeply as any empire before it.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Sultanate of Sulu

• Sea nomads, Sultans, and Sulu Archipelago

• Jolo,Sulu

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Some civilizations are remembered by the silence they leave behind.”

Since the last time I cruise the rivers of Ayutthaya, I found myself drawn to stone.

Not the kind that simply builds walls, but the kind that holds memory.

That is what Angkor feels like to me.

A kingdom written in stone.

Centered in what is now Cambodia, the Khmer Empire reached its height between the 9th and 15th centuries, with Angkor as its heart. It was one of the most expansive and sophisticated civilizations in Southeast Asia, known for its vast urban planning, temple complexes, and hydraulic systems. Khmer Empire Angkor Wat

But once again, I do not want to begin with facts alone.

I want to begin with the feeling.

The first time I saw images of Angkor, I did not see ruins.

I saw devotion.

I saw ambition carved into sandstone.

I saw a people who believed that architecture could mirror the cosmos.

Temples rising like mountains.

Moats reflecting the sky.

Corridors that seem to stretch beyond time.

It does not feel accidental.

It feels ceremonial.

What moves me most about Angkor is how deeply it was built around meaning.

The temples were not simply places of worship.

They were maps of belief.

Cosmologies in stone.

At the center of it all stands Angkor Wat, originally dedicated to Vishnu and later transformed into a Buddhist sanctuary over centuries.

That evolution itself tells a story.

Kingdoms change.

Beliefs shift.

And yet the sacred often remains.

The walls still speak.

The carvings still breathe.

Every bas-relief, every celestial dancer, every corridor feels like a conversation between earth and heaven.

There is something deeply humbling in knowing that this was once one of the largest cities in the world.

A place sustained not only by faith and leadership, but by extraordinary engineering.

Reservoirs, canals, and water systems sustained life on a scale that still amazes historians today.

Once again, we return to water.

It seems our ancestors across the region always understood something we are only relearning:

civilization depends on relationship.

With land.

With water.

With sky.

With each other.

And yet, what lingers with me most is the silence.

The way ruins can feel louder than living cities.

Perhaps because they ask us to imagine what once was.

Footsteps in temple corridors.

Morning prayers.

The sound of wind moving through stone windows.

Markets opening.

Monks walking.

Children running.

An empire alive.

Now, what remains is memory held in architecture.

And perhaps that is enough.

Because some civilizations are not lost.

They continue through what still stands.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Khmer Empire

• Angkor Wat

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Some kingdoms do not disappear. They echo.”

There’s something about empires that moved with the sea and gathered the islands, I found myself thinking about cities.

Not just as places.

But as memory made visible.

Some cities hold history in books.

Others hold it in stone.

Ayutthaya feels like the latter.

Founded in 1351 in what is now central Thailand, Ayutthaya stood for more than four centuries and grew into one of the most powerful kingdoms in Southeast Asia. At its height, it was known as one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the region, a place where merchants, monks, diplomats, and travelers from China, Persia, India, and Europe all crossed paths.

But I do not want to begin with dates.

I want to begin with the image.

A city rising from the meeting of rivers.

A capital cradled by water.

Temples catching the first light of morning.

Golden spires.

Stone Buddhas.

Walls that once held ceremony, commerce, and power.

There is something about Ayutthaya that feels less like a kingdom and more like an echo.

Even in ruins, it still speaks.

What moves me most is not only its grandeur, but its endurance.

For over four hundred years, Ayutthaya shaped the political and cultural heart of what would later become Thailand. It became a center of Theravada Buddhism, royal ritual, literature, and international trade.

This was a city that understood both power and exchange.

The river did not isolate it.

The river fed it.

Ships could travel inland, bringing silk, ceramics, spices, and stories.

In some ways, it reminds me of everything we have been writing about this month:

that water has always been more than landscape.

It has been memory.

Movement.

Connection.

And yet, what lingers in me most is the idea that such magnificence could still fall.

In 1767, Ayutthaya was sacked, much of the city destroyed, and countless works of art, architecture, and literature were lost.

There is grief in that.

A reminder that even the grandest things are not immune to time.

But perhaps that is also why it stays with us.

Because ruins do something strange.

They remind us not only of what was lost, but of what once stood with certainty.

They prove that something magnificent was here.

Sometimes I wonder if this is why I am drawn to these old kingdoms.

Not because they were perfect.

But because they remind me that civilizations, like people, carry both brilliance and fragility.

A city can burn.

A temple can crumble.

A kingdom can fall.

And still, its memory remains.

Still, its name is spoken.

Still, its story survives.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• The Ayutthayan period, 1351–1767

• Ayutthaya Kingdom

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“There was once a time when the islands knew each other by name.”

After writing about Srivijaya, I found myself thinking about what came after the sea.

What happens when movement becomes memory?

What happens when routes become realms?

This is where Majapahit enters the story.

Unlike Srivijaya, which feels to me like water and wind, Majapahit feels like intention.

It rises from the land of East Java, yet its imagination stretched far beyond the shore. Founded in 1293, it grew into one of the most influential empires in Southeast Asian history, reaching its height under Hayam Wuruk and the famed prime minister Gajah Mada.

But again, I do not want to write this only as history.

I want to sit with what it means.

There is something deeply moving about the idea that the islands once belonged to a shared vision.

Not in the modern sense of nationhood.

Not with borders the way we understand them now.

But through relationship, influence, trade, and recognition.

Majapahit carried the idea of Nusantara — the outer islands, the wider archipelago, the scattered lands held together by movement and allegiance.

That word alone makes me pause.

Because for those of us who come from islands, there is always this tension between separation and belonging.

We grow up surrounded by water, yet always connected by it.

Perhaps that is why this history feels personal.

I keep thinking about how power looked different then.

It was not simply conquest.

It was the ability to gather.

To bring ports, cultures, and kingdoms into a shared orbit.

The capital itself was said to be cosmopolitan, alive with merchants, artisans, and travelers. Literature and art flourished there, and its memory still lingers in legends across the region.

There is something almost poetic about that.

An empire remembered not only for its reach, but for its cultural pulse.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what we are all still trying to do.

Gather the scattered parts of ourselves.

The islands within us.

The versions of who we have been.

Maybe that is why Majapahit speaks to me.

Not because of scale alone.

But because it reminds me that belonging does not always require sameness.

Sometimes it simply requires recognition.

A knowing that the distant shore is still part of the same story.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• History of Indian influence on Southeast Asia

• Majapahit

• Nusantara

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Before borders, there was water.”

I first encountered the story of Srivijaya not as history, but as a feeling.

A movement. A memory carried by water.

There is something about maritime civilizations that makes me pause longer than others. Perhaps it is because I was born at midnight, when the moon kissed the waves. Perhaps it is because I have always felt that movement can also be a kind of home.

When I began learning about Srivijaya, I did not immediately think of empire. I thought of the sea.

I thought of ships moving between islands, carrying spices, gold, language, and stories. I thought of the wind deciding direction long before maps did.

Before borders, there was water.

And the water connected us.

Srivijaya was one of the great maritime powers of Southeast Asia, centered in what is now Sumatra, Indonesia, and flourishing between the 7th and 13th centuries. It was a maritime empire that thrived by controlling and protecting trade routes through the Strait of Malacca, linking China, India, and the Malay world.

But I do not want to speak of it only in dates and names.

What stays with me is this: there was once a civilization that listened to the sea.

A people who understood that the ocean was not separation, but relationship.

The sea was livelihood, diplomacy, survival, and movement. It was not something to conquer. It was something to read, respect, and move with.

I think about the tides.

The way the moon pulls them.

The way the wind shifts.

The way people once knew where they were going by looking at the stars and feeling the current beneath them.

There is something deeply humbling in that.

A wisdom that feels older than any border.

Perhaps this is why the story of Srivijaya feels strangely personal to me.

It reminds me that our part of the world has always known how to move.

We were never isolated islands.

We were connected by routes, rituals, trade, and memory.

Water did not divide us.

It introduced us.

Srivijaya was also a center of learning, particularly for Buddhist scholarship, where monks and travelers stopped before continuing toward India and beyond. It was not only a trading power, but a keeper of ideas, belief systems, and cultural exchange.

Sometimes I wonder what it means to belong to a people whose ancestors once trusted the sea so deeply.

Perhaps it means remembering that movement is not always instability.

Sometimes movement is inheritance.

Sometimes movement is power.

Sometimes movement is home.

Thank you for reading. I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, ancestry, memory, and the stories that continue to shape us.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Srivijaya

• Strait of Malacca

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Some encounters are not accidents.”

There are some encounters you do not forget.

Not because they are rare, but because they arrive with meaning.

I used to think animals simply crossed our path. Now I am not so sure.

Some of them feel like reminders. Some feel like direction. And some feel like blessings that do not need explanation.

I have always known butterflies in a different way.

They were never just insects to me. They arrived in moments of quiet shift—at wakes, during grief, or in times when something inside me was changing shape.

I have written about them before, but they belong here too.

Because they are not just symbols of death or transformation.

They are witnesses.

But there are other visitors.

Other messengers.

When we go on our yearly tribal walk for the harvest festival in Sarawak, called Gawai Dayak, we do not walk without attention to the land.

We listen. We watch. We feel the wind before we name the direction.

And sometimes, we look up.

When the Agila appears, it is never ignored.

It is not just a bird passing overhead.

It becomes direction.

It becomes confirmation.

It gives us a sense of boldness and wisdom, as if the path ahead has already been acknowledged by something higher than us.

There is something about its movement that feels like it understands the journey before we do.

So when it circles above, something in us shifts.

We walk differently.

More aware. More steady. More certain in a way that does not come from thinking, but from recognition.

Then there is the peacock.

We do not see it as ordinary beauty.

We see it as abundance made visible.

During harvest festivals, peacocks are not kept away or controlled. They are allowed to move within the space of celebration, roaming freely around the circle as if they belong to the gathering itself.

Their presence is not decoration.

It feels ceremonial.

In our belief, peacocks are not just symbols of wealth or joy.

They are often understood as beings close to the divine—creatures that carry blessing simply by being present.

When they spread their feathers, it does not feel like display.

It feels like permission.

Permission to receive. Permission to celebrate. Permission to remember that life can be full.

And then there is the butterfly, which I have already spoken of in another story.

It arrives in moments of transition, grief, and quiet change.

It does not demand attention, but it is always noticed.

It moves through thresholds we cannot see clearly, but always feel.

There is something I am beginning to understand more deeply now.

We were never taught that animals were just animals.

We were taught that they were part of a conversation.

Between land and sky. Between ancestors and the living. Between what is visible and what is felt but not always explained.

Maybe that is why I still pay attention.

To wind.

To movement.

To what crosses my path when I am not looking for anything at all.

Because sometimes, the world does not speak in words.

Sometimes it arrives as wings.

Sometimes it arrives as direction.

Sometimes it arrives as joy.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, ancestry, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Indigenous Philippine Folk Religions — on anito, diwata, sacred adornments, pearls, gold, and ritual objects (Wikipedia)

• Orang Bunian (Malay folklore) — on hidden forest beings and invisible people in Southeast Asian oral traditions

• Hyang (Indonesian ancestral spirit belief) — on sacred mountains, forests, and ancestral presence

• Animism in Philippine pre-colonial beliefs — on respecting sacred grounds, spirits, rivers, and nature

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Some skies do not simply pass above us—they speak.”

Remember when I told you that I was born at midnight, when the bulan kissed the alon?

Perhaps that is why I have always looked up.

Long before I learned how to read books, I learned how to read the sky.

The moon was never just the moon.

It was timing.
It was mood.
It was a whisper carried across water.

As children, we were taught to notice it.

A full moon meant something.

A crescent meant something else.

Sometimes the moon would tell us if there was calamity coming—on the land or on the sea.

Its halo, its shape, even the way it sat in the night sky felt like a message.

In many old traditions across Southeast Asia, lunar signs and eclipses were read as warnings of imbalance, storms, or shifts in nature.

For our people, the sky was never empty.

It watched us back.

And then there was the rain.

Have you ever seen a rainbow appear while the sun is still shining through a rainshower?

That strange and beautiful moment when the world seems suspended between light and water?

In my tribe, when the sun, the rain, and the rainbow appear together, you must go outside.

You do not hide from it.

You step into it.

You receive the blessing of the earth.

You let the rain touch your skin.

You let the light find your face.

You notice it.

For us, this was not merely weather.

It was grace.

It always seemed to happen on the first of May, as if the earth itself was offering a quiet blessing at the threshold of a new season.

Yes, I know — too late for this year.

But perhaps next year, when May comes again, step outside and see if the sky still remembers.

Across insular Southeast Asia, sunshowers are often regarded as spiritually charged moments, sometimes called “hot rain”, where the meeting of sun and rain carries ritual meaning. Some communities see it as dangerous, while others interpret it as a sign of blessing or presence from the unseen.

As a child, I loved the pause before the rain.

The hush before the first drop touched the soil.

The stillness that made birds disappear and leaves hold their breath.

It felt sacred.

Even now, living in Germany, I still pause when rain begins.

I still find myself watching the moon from my window, as if it might tell me something I have forgotten.

Maybe this is what our ancestors always knew:

the moon warns,
the rain nourishes,
and the rainbow blesses.

Nature was never separate from us.

The sky was not something above.

It was something in conversation with our lives.

Perhaps the world has always been speaking.

We just forgot how to listen.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, ancestry, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Indigenous Philippine Folk Religions — on anito, diwata, sacred adornments, pearls, gold, and ritual objects (Wikipedia)

• Orang Bunian (Malay folklore) — on hidden forest beings and invisible people in Southeast Asian oral traditions

• Hyang (Indonesian ancestral spirit belief) — on sacred mountains, forests, and ancestral presence

• Animism in Philippine pre-colonial beliefs — on respecting sacred grounds, spirits, rivers, and nature

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

“Some wings do not arrive by accident.”

The first time I truly noticed how adults reacted to a black butterfly, the room had already been heavy with mourning.

It was the wake of one of our Apo. She was 103 years old.

Even now, I can still picture her before that final goodbye—quietly munching on a small orange loquat, the kind of fruit that fits perfectly in the palm, sweet with a slight tang, said by the elders to keep the teeth strong. Even at her age, she bit into it with a quiet determination that made time itself seem to soften around her.

That image has never left me.

At the wake, a black butterfly appeared.

No one screamed. No one chased it away.

Instead, the room shifted. Voices lowered. Eyes followed its slow and deliberate movement, as though it carried something more than wings.

As a child, I never thought much about what black butterflies did, not even when they landed on me. I have always adored butterflies, especially the black ones. There was always something enchanted about them, something that kept drawing me closer.

But among our people, there was a strong belief: when a butterfly lands on your head, death is courting you. And when it lands on your shoulder, someone close to you may be taken away.

Those words should have frightened me.

And yet, they never truly did.

Maybe because butterflies have always felt more like messengers than omens. Maybe because part of me has always known grief too intimately.

Or maybe… it is because I have been kissed by death before.

There were seasons in my life when I lost my babies. Seasons of quiet grief that no words could ever fully hold.

And somehow, in those moments, I was always visited by butterflies.

They came in the stillness—near windows, along pathways, sometimes resting just long enough for me to notice.

At first, I wondered if I should be afraid.

But instead of fear, what came was recognition.

A strange kind of peace.

I no longer see them as warnings.

I see them as reminders: that life is fragile, that love does not disappear, and that every day above ground is a gift.

So now, I number my days.

Not in fear of death, but in reverence for life.

I live knowing that any ordinary morning, any cup of coffee, any walk beneath the trees, any message from someone I love—is already grace.

Perhaps that is why I still adore black butterflies.

Because they remind me that life and death are never as far apart as we imagine.

One teaches us to hold on. The other teaches us how precious it all is.

Maybe that is what our elders were trying to tell us all along.

Not to fear the butterfly, but to pay attention.

To notice what arrives quietly.

To honor what lingers.

To remember that some visits are not accidents.

Some come bearing memory. Some come bearing warning. And some come simply to remind us that we are still here.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, ancestry, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Indigenous Philippine Folk Religions — on anito, diwata, sacred adornments, pearls, gold, and ritual objects (Wikipedia)

• Orang Bunian (Malay folklore) — on hidden forest beings and invisible people in Southeast Asian oral traditions

• Hyang (Indonesian ancestral spirit belief) — on sacred mountains, forests, and ancestral presence

• Animism in Philippine pre-colonial beliefs — on respecting sacred grounds, spirits, rivers, and nature

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

I was born at midnight, in that quiet hour when the bulan kissed the alon.

The moon touched the tide, and perhaps something in me was marked by water from the very beginning.

Since I was a child, I have always felt more at home in the middle of the jungle than inside a classroom.

The forest did not ask me to sit still.

It did not ask me to lower my voice, follow straight lines, or fit neatly into rows of desks and expectations.

Outside, everything felt alive.

The leaves whispered.

The wind moved like breath.

The river stones held warmth from the sun.

Even the silence seemed to hum.

I remember arguing with my parents because I insisted that I was only playing outside.

But in truth, I would be gone for days.

As a child, that never frightened me.

What unsettled the adults more was when I came home and told them that my friends were tiny humans — little beings who tickled me, made me laugh, and sometimes made me so sleepy that I would lie beneath the trees and drift into dreams.

At that age, I did not know there were names for them.

Dwarves. Fairies. Spirits. Imaginary friends.

Whatever adults called them, they never felt scary to me.

They felt familiar.

They felt like part of the jungle itself.

Perhaps that is why our elders never allowed us to enter sacred places empty-handed.

We carried something.

A root.

A metal.

A blessing.

Sometimes, it was ginger.

Ginger was never just something from the kitchen.

It was protection.

A warmth held in the palm.

A medicine carried into the body.

A way of paying respect to what could not be seen.

And if someone became lost in the forest, there was something else we were taught to do:

flip your clothes inside out.

As a child, I obeyed without question.

Now I understand that this was more than superstition.

It was a symbolic reversal.

A way of disrupting confusion.

A quiet request to the forest to guide you home.

Some ancient Austronesian and Malay beliefs hold similar practices—ritual reversals, protective herbs, and asking permission from sacred spaces before entering them.

The land was never seen as empty.

It was alive.

It listened.

At twelve, I received my first gold bracelet.

I lost it.

Then came my first pair of gold earrings.

I lost those too.

Next was a gold necklace with a cross pendant.

And yes, I lost that as well.

For years, I wondered why they kept giving me gold.

Was it because I was careless?

Was it because I needed to learn responsibility?

Only now do I understand that gold was never simply jewelry.

In our tribal belief, it was protection.

Something worn close to the skin to guard the body from harmful spirits and wandering energies.

It was beauty, yes.

But it was also a shield.

As a child of water, I was also gifted a pearl amulet.

I received it when I first lost my tooth and completed my first task at the age of eight:

to climb the mountain
and bring sacrifice to our Nuno.

Even now, I can still feel the weight of that moment.

The mountain did not frighten me.

It felt holy.

The pearl was not just a gift.

It was a blessing.

A symbol of trust.

A sacred reminder that I had completed something greater than myself.

Some cultures across Southeast Asia, the Malay world, and even Hindu traditions share this reverence for sacred places, sacred objects, and the blessing or curse of Mother Nature.

Rain is never just rain.

Wind is never just wind.

A mountain is never simply a mountain.

Everything carries meaning.

Everything asks for respect.

Now, as an adult living in Germany, something has shifted in me.

I may not remember every whispered warning from the elders, every ritual, or every story told under moonlight.

But I have kept what remained.

I still speak life to all living things.

I still lower my voice near trees.

I still greet rivers in my heart.

I still believe sacred places deserve reverence.

Perhaps this is what our ancestors always knew:

Mother Nature can bless.
Mother Nature can curse.

And maybe the most sacred thing we carry is not the ginger, the gold, or the pearls—

but the memory that every place we enter asks something of us:

respect.

Some of the most sacred things we carry are invisible—memory, reverence, and the stories our ancestors left in our hands.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, ancestry, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Cultural Notes & References

This story is rooted in personal memory, ancestral oral traditions, and cultural research across Southeast Asian and pre-colonial Philippine belief systems. Some references that informed the cultural context of this piece include:

• Indigenous Philippine Folk Religions — on anito, diwata, sacred adornments, pearls, gold, and ritual objects (Wikipedia)

• Orang Bunian (Malay folklore) — on hidden forest beings and invisible people in Southeast Asian oral traditions

• Hyang (Indonesian ancestral spirit belief) — on sacred mountains, forests, and ancestral presence

• Animism in Philippine pre-colonial beliefs — on respecting sacred grounds, spirits, rivers, and nature

As with many indigenous and tribal traditions, much of what we know lives through oral storytelling, memory, and lived practice passed down through generations.

Subscribe now

The morning sun spilled across our little garden, warming the soil and the tiny linga plants that barely reached my knees.

In the Philippines, growth isn’t always loud.

Some things take their time.

Some plants don’t demand attention.

Linga, also known as Sesame seeds, were like that—small, quiet, and easy to overlook. But for our family meals, it was essential. The seeds sprinkled into our dishes gave flavor, nutrition, and that comforting touch of home.

I watched their slow progress, day by day.

The stems stretched just a little taller, the tiny leaves unfolded, and the seeds slowly ripened. They didn’t scream for notice. They didn’t bloom like tomatoes or corn.

But they persisted, like all the little lessons that shape you when you’re young: patience, care, and respect for what is subtle.

Sometimes, I got distracted that I would chase butterflies, sneak off to taste sugarcane, or run barefoot through puddles left by the irrigation.

My aunts and uncles would shake their heads, smiling at my clever little schemes, knowing that even as I played, I was learning.

Every small act of observation, every skipped row I returned to, every time I checked on those tiny linga plants, added to my understanding of life’s quiet rhythms.

By the end of summer, the linga seeds were ready to harvest, and I could see the invisible growth that had been happening all along.

It reminded me that not all progress needs applause.

Some growth is meant to nourish quietly, without fanfare, without noticing—just like the hands that tend the soil, the water that nourishes the roots, and the sun that warms the leaves.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Subscribe now

The sun was high, the heat pressing down on the dusty paths between rows of eggplants, and I felt both trapped and free all at once.

I didn’t love eggplants—not like corn, not like watermelon—but they were everywhere during April and May. The pods hung from their stems like tiny purple lanterns, gleaming in the sun, and I had chores to do: water them, check for pests, pluck the overripe ones.

But seven-year-old Rhalyn had a wandering heart. I got distracted easily.

Sometimes, I’d leave a row half-watered to sneak into the stream, feeling the cool water wash over my legs, listening to the gentle babble over rocks and the rustling of coconut leaves in the wind.

Other times, I’d wander to the sugarcane patch, pulling a stalk to gnaw on the sweet juice while my aunts shook their heads, pretending not to notice.

My eggplants didn’t mind. They grew anyway, quietly, without applause, without complaint.

I noticed subtle changes over days and weeks: a bud unfurling into a flower, a tiny fruit swelling under the leaves, the leaves curling just so in the afternoon sun.

It was slow, almost invisible—but if you paid attention, it was unmistakable.

Share

Unlike the fast bursts of corn or the immediate sweetness of watermelon, eggplants taught me that growth doesn’t always scream for notice. Sometimes, it just happens.

Even when I got lost in play or daydreams, the eggplants persisted. That quiet, steady progress reminded me that becoming someone new isn’t always loud or obvious.

Sometimes it’s found in the moments when you let yourself explore, wander, and follow curiosity, even if it means leaving work unfinished.

The world grows you even when you’re busy chasing a butterfly or tasting sugarcane.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

Subscribe now

The April sun was relentless, beating down on our small patch of okra with a heat that made my skin stick to my shirt and my arms ache with each bucket of water.

I hated okra.

Hated planting it. Hated watering it. Hated the way its spiky little pods pricked my fingers. And the slimy texture? Don’t even get me started.

But there I was, seven or eight, hauling bucket after bucket of water to keep them alive under the blazing sun, while my aunts and uncles watched with amused eyes, nodding at how clever I was, even when I didn’t feel clever at all.

I quickly learned the slow, invisible ways okra grows.

The first tiny buds seemed almost stubborn, refusing to bloom or yield. Leaves curled differently each day, and the plant had a rhythm all its own—one that didn’t match my impatience.

Every so often, I’d sneak off to trade my labor for small victories: a bite of sweet corn, a slice of watermelon, anything that made me feel like I’d outsmarted the day.

There was humor in it, too.

I’d roll little coconut-leaf balls with my cousins, tossing them across the garden when no one was looking.

I’d chase the birds away from the seeds, or get distracted by the gentle babble of the nearby stream, the whistling of coconut leaves in the wind, the chirping of Mayas above us. And still, somehow, the okra grew.

Quietly, persistently, and exactly on its own schedule.

Even when the plants wilted under the midday heat or fell prey to tiny pests, there was a lesson hidden in every struggle.

I learned that growth isn’t always exciting or fast.

Sometimes it’s invisible, creeping along unnoticed while you carry on with your ordinary days. And when you finally notice, it’s amazing how resilient life can be.

By the end of the season, I realized that okra—and maybe life itself—heals in ordinary moments.

The stubborn little plants reminded me that patience, care, and clever thinking can turn even the most reluctant effort into something quietly extraordinary.

Thank you for reading! I’m Rhalyn. I write about life, growth, and finding softness in the everyday.

Do you like what you read?
Support me and buy me brain snacks!

I had such a good conversation with Robert today.

It started from one of our many “50 tabs open” kind of thoughts—What You Resist Persists—and somehow turned into this deep, gentle space about surrendering… but to kindness.

And you know when someone is just easy to talk to? That’s him.

We went from life, to laughter, to this feeling of almost unlimited energy when the conversation just flows. We talked about things like “discounted advantage” and what that even means for people like us… especially with late-diagnosed ADHD brains trying to make sense of everything.

Inside this episode, we talk about:

He shared that he recently started Prozac, and that opened the door to conversations about suppressed memories, anhedonia, and even bigger questions like… what is happiness, really? Is it something we actually believe in, or something we were taught to chase?

It was one of those conversations where two hours didn’t feel like two hours at all.

Just laughter. Realizations. Tangents that somehow made sense.

I loved the analogies, the spontaneity, the way we could just be—authentic, unfiltered, and understood.

And maybe that’s the best part…

Being in a space where you don’t feel misunderstood.

So if you feel like listening in, I hope you enjoy 🤍

Robert is on a mission to help fellow ADHDers design businesses that don’t burn them out.

You can follow his journey here:

📸 Instagram: @robertalexanderdoran

And just a reminder for you, dear listener:

Enjoyed this episode or found it helpful?

You can drop a little love in my Tip Jar—

every bit helps keep these 50 tabs open and caffeinated ☕✨

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Rhalyn Morgenroth in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app