there are memories that have never become stories.

they have slipped quietly out of the world and into me. years can pass and i can forget entire periods of my life yet certain moments remain exactly where i left them. they return with the same feeling they had when they first happened as if they were never waiting to be remembered.

every so often one returns. it simply appears. for a few seconds i am there again and then it leaves as quietly as it arrived. i always find it strange that it has been with me this whole time. entire years disappear without asking permission yet something as small as the way someone looked at you once can continue existing with perfect clarity.

so much of a life exists beyond language. there are parts of me that have never become words. i don’t know if they ever will. they feel complete where they are. as though they were always meant to remain inside me.

i wonder if that is true of everyone.

how much of another person exists beyond the version that reaches us? beyond conversation. beyond memory as it is usually told. there must be entire landscapes that have never been spoken aloud. feelings that have remained feelings. thoughts that arrived, settled somewhere and became part of a life without ever becoming a sentence.

it feels impossible that every person i pass is carrying something like that. an ordinary face and somewhere inside it a whole collection of moments no one else has ever seen. experiences that have remained with them simply because they belonged there.

sometimes i think that is what a person really is. a whole life, lived twice. once in the world and once inside.

i think people talk a lot about change and reinvention but very little about continuity. the simple act of remaining fond. the way certain affections remain with you through every version of yourself. years pass and your life changes shape around them. things end, things begin and somehow there are still parts of you that feel connected to what once mattered. something catches your attention once and instead of disappearing, it follows you. or maybe you follow it.

sometimes i look around and realize that almost everything meaningful in my life began with a small attachment i refused to abandon. affection seems so gentle when you’re inside it. it doesn’t feel productive or important but it accumulates and it gathers weight. one interest leads to another. one curiosity opens a door into a whole section of yourself. one thing you love introduces you to another thing you love. and one day you look around and realize how much of yourself has formed around the things you kept returning to.

maybe that’s why i have such a soft spot for people with favorite things. people who have loved the same book for ten years or who still listen to the same album they listened to when they were seventeen. people who carry their attachments with them instead of outgrowing them. i think there is a kind of devotion in continuing to care. in letting something remain close to you simply because it still feels like it belongs there.

when i think about who i am, i don’t really think of the major events anymore. i think of the things that held my attention and the things i couldn’t stop returning to. the things that felt alive to me and continued to feel alive. maybe a self is nothing more than that. maybe a life is just the shape that forms around whatever we remain fond of long enough.

i love the silence that follows me. i love that my thoughts are always little whispers. i’ve always been the shy and quiet girl but i’ve come to realize that people tend to make me feel smaller because of it. but i love being a quiet girl. being quiet makes me notice things that others pass over. the way someone’s voice changes when they speak about something they love. the pause before laughter spills out. the way someone moves their hair out their faces. the sweet, little gestures of touch when someone wants to make you feel heard. i will always catch the in-betweens, the delicate pieces that live in silence.

i love everything that lives in the silence!!! maybe that’s why the world feels so full to me even when i don’t say much. i will collect expressions, tones, movements, fragments of conversations and keep them tucked away just to remember. i see the way the light sparkling in a room brings comfort. i see my favorite color everywhere i go and it will always catch my eye. i hear the soft foot taps when someone listens to their favorite song. i will always notice how someone looks at me, the way their body can tell me a lot about how they feel in the moment. all these small things root me, they make me feel like life is whispering to me constantly and i have the ears to hear it.

sometimes i get in my head about being quiet, that i don’t have a lot to say. sometimes i wonder if people mistake it for passivity or for being invisible. but it doesn’t feel like that, not to me. quietness gives me intimacy with the world, with everything around me. when you’re not always speaking, you learn to sit with a moment without needing to fill it. i don’t think i would be the same person if i were louder. i don’t think i would see as much, feel as much.

sometimes it makes me feel misunderstood, it leads me to be put in a box. it can be overlooked and it can be lonely. but silence is it’s own presence. i've grown to love the way it shapes me. being quiet is how i love the world

. through attention, through reverence, through catching the details that slip past when everyone else is talking.

and maybe it’s also how i love myself. to know that my voice doesn’t have to be the loudest to matter, that i can leave the room and still carry it with me. it’s enough for me to notice, to witness.

sometimes i think it’s my confidence or maybe the lack of it. though that’s not completely true. i do think i’m beautiful. at least sometimes. but most of the time i just feel… dorky. i feel dorky when i’m alone and even more so when i’m around my gorgeous friends.

part of it is layered in the way i see my own body, which is valid in its own right. but underneath all of it i think what lingers is the thought that i don’t feel feminine enough. or that femininity doesn’t quite settle on me the way it seems to on other women. when i lean into it i sometimes feel like i’m being seen as a child playing dress up. i don’t mind being called cute or sweet but there are moments when i can tell it’s coming from that place meant to shrink me, not see me. the “oh, it’s cute that you tried this hairstyle” or “cute that you wore that outfit.” it’s not womanhood they see, it’s something smaller. and i don’t always know what to do with that.

and maybe this is silly but i think about that movie duff. i’ve never actually seen it but i know the term. “designated ugly fat friend.” a cruel invention, really, since beauty is so subjective and the actress wasn’t ugly or fat at all. but still the idea lingers. i don’t really experience “pretty privilege.” i hardly ever get noticed in the casual, easy way some of my friends do. and if i ever do it’s because i’m not wearing a bra or because my clothes are smaller, thinner, revealing more of me than i’d like. it’s as though i have to trade privacy for visibility.

and i know what people will say. that compliments don’t matter, that attention doesn’t define you. and i agree, to a point. but it’s not so much about being defined, it’s about being recognized. it’s about someone noticing without being asked, without being provoked. it’s about feeling like you exist in the eyes of others without having to shout for it. and that i think is why it stings. because i do think i’m beautiful, maybe a little dorky, but that’s my charm. i just don’t get to see that beauty reflected back at me in the world very often. it is so nice to be noticed.

and this isn’t me asking for pity or calling myself ugly. i know i’m not. i know there’s a kind of beauty in me, even if it doesn’t always translate the way i wish it did. it’s not about needing to be reassured, it’s about the silence. it’s the way i’ve started to pay attention to these patterns and how secretly they’ve grown into something heavier.

and honestly i never felt this way until i moved to new york, at least to this degree. this city feels like it’s overflowing with the most beautiful women i have ever seen. (but maybe they feel the way i do sometimes?) it makes me more aware of myself, of how i stack up. i hate the part of myself that compares but comparison feels stitched into the air here, something you do whether you want to or not. it isn’t that i want to measure myself against anyone. it’s that the measuring happens anyway. and then i wonder where i fit in the spectrum, if i even fit at all.

sometimes i wonder if invisibility is something i’ve carried with me my whole life. if it’s in the way i move, the way i shrink back, the way i let others shine while i keep myself just out of focus. maybe people have learned not to look because i’ve trained them not to. or maybe they were never looking in the first place. i don’t know which is lonelier: being unseen, or being seen only when there’s something to take.

listen to this if you have a big heart

this summer i have felt like the unluckiest girl in the world. not in the way that draws pity but just in a quiet, stubborn way life can keep refusing you. it feels like i’m doing something wrong but i've been careful with my tenderness and so wilful in offering sweetness. i keep hoping maybe it might come back to me in some form i could hold.

i’ve never been the kind of girl who could let things arrive on their own. if i don’t move toward people, romance, friendships, anything, i dissolve into the background. unnoticed. and knowing that is its own loneliness. i want to be loved terribly. not politely, not moderately. terribly. recklessly. i want it in a way that could ruin a person but i know enough now to call it a want, not a need. somehow that difference makes it feel even farther away. maybe it’s my doing. maybe it’s the years of being quiet, reserved, watchful. what if i just doesn’t have anything to say? i wonder if the solidity i’ve built in myself has kept me from finding something to lean on in someone else.

it’s a pattern that almost starts to seem like a ritual. i meet people i like, people i connect with, and then it unravels in the same familiar way. not because i stop wanting them but because they stop wanting me. i can be the sweetest girl in the world and still they go. i am soft with them until they remember they can be soft with themselves. then they find it, love or something close to it. just not with me. i’m starting to think maybe love in that way isn't going to happen for me.

i think i’ve always been the girl before the girl. i’m the one who makes space and capacity, the one who speaks gently enough for them to hear themselves for the first time. but it’s never me in the end and if it’s not meant for me, that’s okay. i’ll still cherish the people i’ve known and i will keep their small trace.! a laugh i can still hear if i try, a glance that felt like recognition. but i do wish it were meant for me.

people always respond like there’s some easy fix: love is out there for you. it’ll come when you least expect it. you just have to believe. but i do believe…in my worth, in my capacity to love. i just don’t believe it is promised. some truths aren’t palatable enough to share without apology.

in a perfect world yeah everyone would find their person or their people or the place that feels like home. but the world is full of uneven distribution. of love, of time, of joy. some will live without it. that isn’t a failure.

i’ll always want it. i’ll want it until wanting becomes its own kind of companionship. and if it never arrives, i will still be myself: sweet, intact, and a little undone. not a tragedy.

i wanted to be just like you—someone more than a shadow in the distance. everything circles around me in the quiet; i'm always tracing the silhouettes of what might have been, and i can only whisper secrets that don’t belong to me. i like to close my eyes when i listen to music. i like to close my eyes when i think of you. i can find you in the silent space between songs, in the emptiness that echoes with the suffering of hypotheticals, because there im allowed to think of you.

i think that waiting is a sound only i can hear—a muted hum that breaks through the quiet moments. i thought that moving forward would be like stepping into a new rhythm, like i’d be carried towards something brighter, something solid. but now, i think that time has stopped listening. nothing comes and nothing goes. i'm unmoved, untouched, and somewhere between the echo of that movement, i find myself suspended—both too close to hope and too far from despair. there’s a sound to this stillness; i’m sure of it.

i can hear it sometimes, can you? it’s a heavy, echoing pause with possibilities of you, of this or that, of everything. the more i wait, the further they seem.

i keep grasping to something that feels more like a memory now. comfort and pain are no longer separate. it became something i can’t quite name, something that drifts in the space between what i used to hold and what i have now. i hate how the calm that i felt with you lingers in the same breath as the emptiness you left behind. when i reach for that feeling now, it slips away. i can't tell if the warmth was real or something i imagined because i needed it to be true. it’s all tangled with the sense of missing you; sometimes i think they’re the same thing. i guess being held can feel both like shelter and surrender. but it was always balancing on the edge of something i didn’t want to see.

i've been left in the middle of a sentence. there is something hollow about endings. they don’t feel like i thought they would. i expected a sense of relief, you know: "one door closes so another door can open." but there’s nothing to hold onto here, just this lingering feeling that maybe i was wrong, maybe i don't know what an ending is supposed to feel like. i expected to feel lighter, more sure of where i was going or what was headed towards me. everything didn’t move like i thought it would; it didn’t rush in to fill the gaps left behind. so i'm left with nothing but the weight of unfinished thoughts, unfinished feelings, never moving forward nor staying still. the silence wasn’t what i expected—it wasn’t gentle or freeing. it was just quiet. too quiet.

maybe hope is quieter than i thought. it lingers, just on the edge of things. i’m still here in the waiting. but somewhere in the distance, i think i can feel something. it’s uncertain, barely there—something delicate that might fall apart if i touch it too soon. but it’s there.

i’ve learned that endings don’t announce themselves, don’t make a clean break between what was and what will be. but maybe beginnings aren’t like that either. maybe they slip in quietly, unnoticed. i’m still waiting, but there’s a soft feeling somewhere deep inside me that tells me i’m not waiting for nothing. i can’t explain it. but sometimes, when i'm still, i think i can hear it.

i can wait a little longer. i might be holding my breath but there’s comfort in not knowing. maybe i’m not stuck, just paused. i'm not sure, but i think i’ll stay and listen. what if i haven’t heard everything yet??

i don't know, maybe i should just stop thinking about you.

i’d like to think there is still something sparkly; i’d like to think that there is something left. but my chest is hollow, and as much as i try to fill it up with sweetness and sureness, it's swallowed up by an ache for more. every once in a while something stays. little moments dance through the tapestry of my days, facing the apparent void that life presents. but things stay! like my cat curling up for a nap on my feet, lending warmth, i think she senses the cold that wraps around me. it’s a subtle reminder that, amidst the cold, there exists a shared warmth. or getting a kind message from a friend, tender and unexpected, reminding me that i’m not forgotten. or writing about how i love you in my red journal stamped with a heart: “i’m placing the stars in the sky just for you, ill make them glimmer. give you little kisses and turn them into the brightest stars you can look up anytime. always there for you.” or being called a pet name, i feel special. watching trees outside my window, witnessing their cyclical dance of growth and slumber, i realize they've observed my blossoming and repose. or witnessing others, one time i was on the train and a couple had just finished their date. they held fingers, not hands and i think that’s more intimate. or someone kissing my hand. or a touch of reassurance like a hand on the back or a squeeze on the shoulder — these gestures are like whispers of solace. or sitting on the same side of the table because i want to hear you. or sitting at a park on the bench when you’re waiting for someone. or the tender act of someone fixing my hair during a conversation. or seeing the end of things, i love to know where it could go. all these moments find a haven within me, each burrowing into the depths of my chest, leaving a warmth that twinkles with light and comfort. i hope that all the gloom left behind some stars.

a playlist for sentimental Girls :3

i love being a sentimental girl. memories are stuffed inside me like cotton filling, sometimes even resembling a beating heart that holds me together. i cherish them fully, to the point where it gets nauseatingly overwhelming, as if they are engraved into the pit of my stomach. memories are all of me, everything to me, all around me. i have no fear of nostalgia, i actually kind of like it. i love when vanished feelings hit me all over again from remembering small things, big things. i love that feeling of just remembering and the bit of comfort from it. remembering feels warm and light, sweet and silly. 

here and there (but really always), i’ll listen to one of my favorite songs and have a glimpse of what it felt like the first time i heard it, how much it meant to me, and every little moment i had to it. even in my loneliest of times last winter, where everything just kept falling apart and crumbling down – my memories were there. sometimes to ease things, sometimes for escapism, sometimes to reflect and mold the small hope that lived beside my memories. i’d bring nostalgia to me with music, maybe that’s why music is a big part of me too. perhaps, i associate the two by logging my memories with a song, so when a little tune or melody plays – i think of a time, place, person, everything. 

 my gutting winter is best described as being all tied together inside, like shoe strings on leaping feet, all tight and snug, and a simple tug on a loose string untangles me inside with illusive force. and when everything is untied, i trip and fall and fall and fall. out of silly but intentional impulse, i moved across the country, leaving behind everything familiar and comforting to me. the brew of that and heartbreak left me waking up everyday feeling like taking out every bit of me and letting the rabbits burrow inside me, wishing there were seams on my skin so i could rip myself apart. it was gutting, it’s the best word to describe feeling heartbreak everyday. i had never felt that kind of loneliness before, where everyone around you seems so distant, and not being able to find your place despite waking up every morning feeling hopeful – so aware of what you deserve, yet never even getting a glimpse of it. it might sound odd, but it always seemed like my chest was empty, cold and hollow – as if i pitted a map of something, and every once in a while a song would fit just right in there. all that frigidness from the snow and the gloom suddenly became cozier, because during my gutting winter, when the snow buried my surroundings, my memories through songs kept me warm and hopeful, and now certain songs make me miss the snow.

there's a familiar feeling of that with everything that i come across. sometimes i’ll go to the coffee shop i frequented in high school, and miss my high school boyfriend and the catharsis of “first love.” or sometimes the scent of patchouli brings recollections of a summer and a happy relationship. the scent of maple brings me echoes of everything falling apart and loneliness. i’m grateful that i can hold so much sentimentality for things like that – that i can find that sentimentality everywhere i turn, everything i smell, everything i see and hear. 

every now and then when my sentimentality is induced by nostalgia, i think about how i felt during that winter. a year has passed, and that gutting feeling has gone away. every once in a while, it comes back, but then i’ll listen to a song buried from the snow and hold all the change since then. things are just a bit more different than a year ago. i’ve found myself a teeny tiny little pocket now, but i’ve also grasped how to be comfortable in loneliness and even find comfort in being somber. it feels rewarding to be weird and find sentimentality in everything because if it wasn’t for that i wouldn’t be able to feel so much and hold who i am now and who i was before so dearly to my heart and hold everything and everyone close to my heart, even if it stings a little – it feels warm to look back and know that love and tenderness are inherent parts of me. i love being a sentimental girl. love and tenderness is everything, and the stars are made for me.