Here is a list of things I want:

I want to get my holiday restaurant recommendations from the family who owns the local cafe. I want to cook the recipes my Lola cooks, ones that are created from her memory and taste like the navy blue and white ceramic plates and hiding the peppercorns from Grandma whenever she would cook adobo and my childhood Hello Kitty spatula with the melted red plastic handle. I want to see someone on the street with an outfit that catches my eye and then go home and try to recreate it. I want to pay attention to things, like the heart shaped shadows those iron gates reflect, and the pockets of light shining through the trees, and how my hands feel on my cheeks when I rub in my moisturizer. I want to allow myself to age, to let the gray hairs come in and feel the wrinkles on my forehead when I cry or the crinkles next to my eyes when I smile. I want to watch the street buskers perform and write down their names to listen to their music later. I want to exist free of the fear that something I’m doing might be captured and shared online. I want to keep moments sacred. Creations sacred. Photos sacred. I want to have my own stories to tell when my flatmates and I find ourselves talking downstairs past midnight. I want to measure the milestones in my life not through numbers or posts but through memories with loved ones. I want to celebrate all of the joys, from texting my friends about my dog and then being greeted with his U.K. doppelgänger at the pub, to having a mom who I can text to ask about a recipe or whether I should buy a pair of shoes or simply to just say hello. I want to go to sleep and dream and wake up and hear the sounds outside the skylights, the birds and the baby next door and the construction, signs that I am not alone, signs of life and community around me. I want to eat a birthday cake because I do not want to limit the act of buying and eating cake to special occasions. I want to wear a crown and put sprinkles on my ice cream and eat my orange on a plate instead of a napkin. I want to look at myself in the mirror and feel and know and believe that I am enough. I want to read my Great Grandma’s letters, and feel her soft touch and delicate skin and ruby nails through the yellow office paper and creased envelopes and cursive writing, letters I held onto because I knew that one day they would be more than what they were. I want to remember things that I could easily Google, the things that are on the tip of my tongue, that I probably care more about remembering than the actual thing itself. I want to write with a pen and spell something wrong, and cross it out and feel the humanity of my scribbles. I want to be inconvenienced, to wait in line at the post office and strike up a conversation with the old lady in front of me, the one with two tiny chihuahuas in her roller bag (it’s her 78th birthday and she is celebrating at the Turkish restaurant), to get stuck on the train and see a little girl playing with her Barbie doll, to be reminded of the time when I did the same. I want to remember what it felt like to have true childlike wonder about something, to notice that I like something and understand why I like it. I want to ask our neighbor with the incredible garden if she wants to have a cup of tea. I want to watch a movie or listen to an album and form my own opinion on it before reading anyone else’s. I want to be allowed to admit that I liked something, or perhaps I didn’t, and that’s okay. I want to go to a bar and dance, even though that one time a girl called me stiff and another time I heard a friend ask another friend what’s wrong with me, I just want to dance through it all even though I am deeply insecure about my dancing. I want to laugh so hard that my belly hurts and I go silent and do that Filipino thing where I hit the person I am with. I want to create without feeling an urge to document my process. I want to hug my parents and hold my boyfriend’s hand and have long conversations with my brothers and feel my cat sitting in my lap and my dog resting his chin on my ankle, feelings I might one day realize I took for granted, or maybe I already have. I want to buy flowers and let them wither and dry and crinkle, and then I want to buy some more, because even though flowers die, at least we care enough to get them in the first place. I want to create and I want to inspire, and I just want to remember that I am human.

What do you want?

hello hello!

it’s been a while, i hope you are well :-)

lately i have found myself frustrated with ai and the internet. everything is too convenient and too optimized, all of the posts on my explore page look exactly the same (seriously — there is such a sameness of content rn), whether disclosed or not, advertisements are absolutely everywhere, “community” is becoming a buzzword among brands and other online people (IMO community starts with the people and places you see IRL, every day), and - as the brits say - it’s doing my head in. i literally backed out of what would have been my first major brand deal because i realised that, actually, i don’t want to advertise anything, i don’t want to add to the noise that i’m feeling so frustrated by right now. i started writing a substack post about all of this and more, and while i was showering i found myself drying my hand and reaching for my notes app to jot down a list of things that i want. and then i did the thing that i tend to do when i’m excited about a creative idea, and it’s all i have been focusing on for the last 5 days, and i turned the list into a poem (? i think this is a poem? not sure what to call it tbh…), and then i turned the poem into a video. i’ll let you read (or watch) between the lines, and as always, thanks for being here :-)

until next time,

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

hello hello!

in the midst of writing my substack posts (and sharing many notes filled with many mirror photos depicting ‘what i’ve been wearing lately’) over the last year, i have been slowly piecing together what eventually became my 8th zine: styling tips with tatum. for those who don’t know, i have been making zines since 2020 (and for those who don’t know what a zine is, it’s kind of like a mini magazine, more on this here) — i had gone through my first true heartbreak followed by my first true (and short-lived) situationship (a canon event for a 22 year old girl, i fear) and i took all of the old letters and texts and drawings and photos from the people of my past and pieced them into a 12 page booklet aptly titled “heartbreak way.” it was a therapeutic way of re-contextualizing the memories i always seem to hold onto both in my head and inside the box under my bed, and it was the final push i needed to finally make the hypothetical zine i had always wanted to make.

while in college, i was introduced to the concept of zines via the discovery of The Luna Collective + Local Wolves and i felt inspired to begin my own. i was so overwhelmed by what a zine was, though, that it took multiple years and the ending of two formative relationships to realise that there are no rules and a zine can be whatever the heck you want it to be, which is both terrifying and freeing for someone who craves a checklist of guidelines to abide by. as the years went on, i learned that you can take old love letters and scan them, you can write a list of 25 things you learned by the age of 25, you can ask people around the world to send you a letter, you can take the memories from your memory box and scan them and piece them into collages, you can ask strangers for advice on your 26th birthday, you can write a literal dictionary of words you made up, you can take photos of flowers and doodle on top of them — once you realise that there is no right or wrong way to create something, you are left with much to discover about yourself and your creativity. the limitations are endless.

AND SO, a year ago i posted a fit check on my tiktok, and i was like, “wow, i love this outfit.” it was my first time experimenting with wearing a dress over jeans (à la ashley tisdale on the disney channel red carpet circa 2002), and shortly after i went down a pinterest rabbit hole of vintage clothing tags and button packaging and i was like, “wow, i love how whimsical and thoughtful designs for mundane objects used to be.” and then i was like, “my clothes are so fun.” and then i was like… “should i…. make a…..zine…about my clothes?”

and thus, the cover for “styling tips with tatum” was born:

i designed the cover in a single afternoon, using scanned fabric scraps, ribbons, and a screenshot of my outfit video, and i was so enthused by the idea of a fashion-themed zine that i even ordered custom clothing tags to send out with the (eventual) physical copies. right after making the cover, i texted my old boss to show him, simply because he is a fashion-forward french man who enjoys a magazine and i thought he might enjoy it (he did). over the following weeks, i managed to compile a few more spreads, and i had set the goal of releasing the zine by the end of august. but then it was august, and then it was september, and then i was freshly laid off and temporarily back in america due to visa complications (it’s a long story), and *then* i was telling my therapist that this fashion-themed zine was starting to collect dust in my desktop, and i was stuck on what i even wanted to include inside of it, and she reminded me that it should be about whatever i want it to be about, and that i needed to remember why i wanted to create it in the first place. “it should be for fun,” she said.

so i returned to the clothing tags, the pins of button packaging, vintage japanese fashion magazines, the clothes in my closet, the “thank you notes” from small businesses that i held on to, and my good friend Sophia, who has impeccable style.

and by the time i returned to london with a fresh long-term visa in my passport and three weeks of free time between one job ending and a new one beginning, my creativity had finally returned. i made a font out of my clothes, i (virtually) made the “Clueless” wardrobe website out of construction paper, i embroidered wonky stars on my tank top, i interviewed Sophia, and what i thought was going to be a 12-page mini-zine with 10 styling tips ended up turning into a 72-page mini-zine with 10 styling tips (and a whole lot more) ((seriously, i even made a fashion-themed bingo board and a random outfit generator)).

i’ve been thinking a lot about how — as someone who often makes and shares things online — social media can make art feel very disposable. you create something, you post about it, and then it’s on to the next creation. you scroll past a post about an artist releasing an album, a painter debuting a new piece, a writer sharing their byline, hours of labour and love and inspiration and editing reduced into a 1080x1920 rectangle sat upon thousands and thousands of others. this might be an insane comparison to draw, because i am not Lauryn Hill nor am i Leonardo da Vinci, but i sometimes think about how Lauryn Hill released one incredible album, and that was it, and how people travel from all over the world to see a work of art from the 18th century, tucked behind velvet ropes and a thick layer of glass. and then i go on instagram and see faceless usernames upset that Chappell Roan hasn’t started a second album, even though The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was born from years of growing into oneself, an entire decade of coming-of-age events, how it wasn’t born overnight and how it is a huge ask to expect another one. i don’t know, this is probably a topic for another post, and this is also 2 similar-but-different points that i am getting into (1. social media makes art feel disposable 2. why do we expect so much from certain artists), but i guess what i am trying to say is that my zines usually take me months to create, and it would feel like a disservice to myself and my art to share it once and feel pressured to move on to whatever is next. i just think we need to celebrate the things we create a little bit more, and then celebrate them again, simply because we are allowed to!

i post a lot of bits and bobs on my social media, and while some of them take far longer to create compared to others (i.e. a video of my outfit which i put together in five minutes vs a video flipping through a zine that took me nearly a year to design), i never want the things i share to feel like “content” that is being “pushed out” to “feed an algorithm” — i want them to feel intentional, and especially with my zines, i hope that they can exist digitally and physically as pieces of art that can be flipped through and re-visited time and time again, and perhaps even scanned or torn and re-imagined into something new, and hopefully serve as sources of inspiration to others, just like The Luna Collective and Local Wolves were to me.

i was originally going to send out this newsletter to let you know that my zine is out now, and naturally, i ended up typing 1,500 words and going on several tangents before getting to the point (welcome to “letters from tum”).

a n y w h o, “styling tips with tatum” is yours now! you can flip through it here and i have also listed some copies on my etsy if you’d like one :)

p.s. U.S.A. baddies i am so sorry about international shipping costs …. i wish i had more control over them :/

remember: there are no rules!

until next time,

btw, a lovely subscriber named Addy interviewed me about zine-making, working in music, and living abroad for her own substack! she also turned the interview into a zine which is perhaps the sweetest gesture anyone has ever done for me. tysm addy <3

Friends & Strangers

014: Tatum Van Dam on fangirls running the music industry, interviewing Role Model, and finding purpose outside of work

The same way Tatum Van Dam (better known as tum and paddingtum on Instagram) found solace in Youtubers like Tyler Oakley and Brittany Broski growing up, over the years I also found that same comfort in her zines, interviews, and more recently, Substack articles…

Read more

5 months ago · 10 likes · 6 comments · addy

An old lady, alone (but perhaps not lonely), holding a single yellow rose on Valentine’s Day. An old man, a canvas tote full of bread crumbs, hungry, blue-eyed pigeons at his feet. A hand-sewn, quilted red and white gingham photo album, “Tatum” embroidered on a lace-trimmed heart. A chocolate flavored sponge with espresso flavored buttercream and numbered candles, a 2 and an 8. Many gifts, for many people, wrapped in pink and white polka dot wrapping paper, candles and perfume and books and trinkets tied with silver and brown and blue and black ribbons. Communal dinners at family-owned restaurants, napkins tossed in the air, Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao! Flowers – heaps of flowers – bouquets for 14th of February as well as the 9th and also the 22nd, a Sunday stroll to Columbia Road, intending to buy tulips and then sitting on the top floor of the bus with tulips and ranunculus and mimosas and baby’s breath spilling out of my bag, online orders to a wholesale flower market for an afternoon of bouquet-making and cake-eating, anemones and carnations and gypsophila a must. Tissues and watery eyes because I am allergic to anemones but I don’t care because they are my favorite flowers, first to ranunculus and peonies. A corner of a teak desk slowly piling with letters and stickers and stationary, white envelopes decorated with Snoopy and “Goodnight Moon” stamps and washi tape lined with hearts and teddy bears. Vintage magazine cutouts, scalloped scissors, and gluesticks. Inspiration and intention. Three moms catching up over wine and sourdough bread and whipped butter, endearing reminders of girlhood and something to look forward to in ten years time. An exchange of cards, mine of an abstract blue and yellow and green painting I thought he would like (he did), his of a gold foiled heart tied with a red ribbon he thought I would like (I did). An afternoon spent collaging and connecting with internet girls offline. Meals cooked from the heart served in ceramic dishes from Greece. Fortnightly frustrations with the internet, venting with the person who understands. A little bit of “Girl, so confusing,” a lot of “Everything is romantic.” Sitting on the bench in the park, eating yogurt bowls and admiring dogs and their owners. Dachshunds and whippets in knit sweaters and boots. New friends, a Jeopardy! contestant and a medieval textile maker. The cinema and M&Ms and a large popcorn and a diet coke. Pancakes and strawberries and whipped cream. Candlesticks and tealights. Bonnets and scarves. Laughter and tears. Stems and newspapers. Hellos and goodbyes. Rain, and then some more rain, and then finally, the sun.

I am typing this in the middle of February, as the ringing in my ears dwindles to a buzz akin to the mosquito ringtone on YouTube we’d listen to as kids solely because it was at a frequency our parents could not hear, as my cat, Juno sleeps on her grey and white polka dot blanket on the lower left corner of our bed. I used to work in an office but now I work from home, and I used to worry that Juno felt lonely during the day but now I have come to understand that between the hours of 9am to 5pm, Juno is sleeping, and then at some point she is moving to a different edge of the bed, and then she is eating and then sleeping some more. With the knowledge that Juno is snoozing away, I have decided to go on a walk because the sun has decided to visit London, and when the sun decides to visit London, I simply must say hello (and learn through the consequences of wishful thinking and a lack of layers that just because it is sunny, does not mean that it is warm), and then I will walk past my neighbour’s garden, a garden which has a yellow rose bush and a stamped sign that reads “How lovely is the silence of growing things!” with a little ladybug climbing onto the corner of the word ‘silence,’ and then I will look at the ground and see a candy wrapper called “Tom Tom,” and then I will remember that in ten days, it will have been one year since my great grandma passed away — whose favorite flower was a yellow rose, whose nickname for me was “Tom Tom,” whose initial “E” is engraved into the silver ring on my pointer finger. Always with me in my hand and my dreams and my neighbour’s garden and candy wrappers on the floor. And then I will return to my desk and open my laptop to a blank document as Juno sleeps and my ears whistle.

February always seems to fly by. I mark its cadence by the number of birthdays of the people in my life (including my own), as well as Valentine’s Day, and now, by the soon-to-be-commemorated one year anniversary of my great grandma’s passing. Somehow, five of my friends and I are all Aquariuses born in February, somehow, Nielsan and I have celebrated our fourth Valentine’s Day together, and somehow, it has already been one year since the hardest FaceTime call I have ever picked up. I like February, though. I like that it is the only month of the year that can pass without a single full moon. I like the aesthetic of the month and the idea of Valentine’s Day, how shops line their windows with heart-shaped garlands and other pinks and reds and how people buy each other flowers and how elementary schoolers make candy grams for their classmates. I like how this Valentine’s Day was the first day of the year where it did not rain in the U.K., and how the two cats were sitting outside the flower shop next door, and how many roses and tulips and peonies and hand-holding and smiles I witnessed in restaurants and busses and parks and streets. I like that February starts to hint at Spring, teasing what is to come in just one month: the sun is no longer resting at 4 o’clock in the evening, snowdrops and dandelions are introducing themselves to the green spaces, and rhubarb seems to be every bakery’s flavour of the month. It is pink and it is at first sour but suddenly it is sweet and it is soft, just like February.

At Avery’s birthday dinner, we were asked tell the table our themes of the year. Tara’s was “twinkle,” Katie’s was “it’s all jazz,” and mine was “a fresh start.” February has been just that, a fresh start. December marked the end of my old job — a job I reminisce on like an ex who is still in love, a job which consumed my time, my identity, and most of my brain power — and January marked the start of a new one, one that has offered boundaries and stability, one that allows for afternoon walks and writing and weeknight birthday dinners. In January I was in California, and then I was in Hawaii, and then I was in London, dealing with half a day’s worth of jet lag and trying to remember what it felt like to be a normal, working adult in a big city, and now it is February and I am adjusting to the lifestyle — or lack thereof — of a freelance creative, trying my best to operate within a certain unstructured kind of structure, typing a Substack piece when I am supposed to be eating lunch and forbidding myself from working in my sweatpants and hoodies because I must attempt to have some semblance of a work-life balance, and radically accepting that I will perpetually receive my payments one month after completing the job, re-designing my invoices with a whimsical font and graphics, hoping the light pink dots will woo the accounts payable employee.

I have been watching less YouTube video essays, partially because I am having discourse fatigue, partially because I watched one video essay about the “rise of analogue” which used a video of my friend — my friend who is a writer and reader and an analogue enthusiast through and through — to critique the concept of an “analogue bag,” and partially because I started to watch a different video essay about the internet, and the creator used my comment left on a previous video of theirs — a comment which read, “the coolest girls in my life are chronically offline, genuinely,” where I then provided a paragraph of nuanced context as to what led me to comment that — to create an entirely new video essay in defense of being online. (The irony is that I, too am in defense of being online. I’m on the same page as the creator. They make interesting, thoughtful videos and I watch them because I like to think about those things, too. But it is a weird feeling to go on YouTube, click a video essay, and then see your name, your photo, and your comment in the video you chose to watch because you were feeling down.)

So, anyways, I have put myself on a video essay hiatus partially due to my quest for new things to think about, and partially (mainly) until I get over the reality that I, and my friend, have been taken out of context by a niche group of people who, in my case, probably watched a video and did not think twice about the fact that I was the commenter featured in the video and that I didn’t fully mean the thing that I said but I also did in some other ways. I digress.

A fresh start. Unstructured structure. A lack of video essays leading me to a word document. It is 3:00pm and there is still natural light in my bedroom, and thank goodness for that. In November of last year, after two months spent anxiously anticipating the decision of a visa application from my childhood bedroom, I was granted three additional years in England, and this visa in particular seems to have led to an acceptance that London is where I will live, probably for a while, which seems like something you’d expect someone to have already accepted after nearly five years of living in a city, but not I, for I am sentimental and have attachment issues and wish I could split myself in half and live in two places at once. A bulk of my conversations with anyone who hears that I do not have an English accent result in the questions of 1. what led me to London and 2. where I will live long term. My answer is almost always that one day I might go back to California, but it is the answer I have been giving since 2021, and by the expiry date of the visa that cost half my savings, I will then have been in London for nearly 8 years —almost a third of my existence — and considering the community and life I have built for myself thus far, the thought of restarting somewhere new sounds like something I absolutely do not want to do right now, and maybe ever. So, ever since my return to London in January, when people have asked if I will one day move home to California, I tell them that London is home. At least for the next three years, and perhaps a few more after that.

And then I daydream about watching T.V. with my mom.

I have a song living rent free in my head and I do not think it will ever see itself out. I’ve given it full ownership of the couch and a spare key and I am prepared to live alongside it for quite some time. “Altars” by Charli xcx, the ninth track on the album she created for the film “Wuthering Heights.” It is a song which — if I was still a music writer — I would consider describing as the one word I would deliberately avoid as a music writer — an earworm — the type of song that you hear once and immediately know it is going to stick with you forever. The type of song you would pay to experience listening to for the first time again, because there is just something so indescribably perfect about it. When I listen to “Altars” I think about “Wuthering Heights” (the film), and when I think about “Wuthering Heights” I think about how I am scared to publicly admit that I actually kind of liked it.

At the start of last year, I made the courageous decision to stop actively scrolling on TikTok, slightly due to addiction, mainly due to the dystopian message that appeared on the screen when the U.S. ban was lifted the same day it started. I then spent February through April watching Season 2 of Severance and Season 3 of The White Lotus and was left with nothing but my own thoughts and in-person conversations with friends and coworkers (and anyone else I overheard talking about the shows) to debrief and ruminate and predict what might happen next. My friend and I went to a sample sale, where we waited in a queue for over an hour, and the only topic we discussed was Severance. It was refreshing, to consume a near-perfect piece of media and form my own opinion without the influence of outside noise, and a year later, I seem to have found myself withholding from publicly stating that I enjoyed a popular film that I watched. My initial expectation for the film was that there was going to be lace, and there was going to be Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and there was most likely going to be a lot of intimacy. And then the film came out and every other Instagram story I clicked through seemed to have strong negative opinions towards it. And then I saw the film through the lens of these stories, and made the mistake of reading other Letterboxd reviews before leaving my own, and ultimately felt like I couldn’t say that I actually felt moved by it without feeling a level of shame.

Let me be clear: I have not read Wuthering Heights and knowing what I now know about the book, I do agree that questionable casting choices were made, certain characters were written poorly, and in doing so the film fails to fully explore the themes integral to the book: class and race. However, completely separating the experience of watching the film from the book, I found it to be a compelling and heartbreaking and beautiful story about love and self-destruction with aesthetics and cinematography to match. The visual of the hand on the ankle as a sign of love, the exquisitely camp gowns and wigs, the foggy landscape eating alive at its inhabitants. The relatability (and comedic relief) of a glasses-wearing girl with a ribbon room, who makes scrapbooks, who reads romance novels, and is lovestruck by Jacob Elordi, the tear I shed at the closing scene.

With all this being said, my conclusion is that its problem lies within calling itself “Wuthering Heights.” For what it was — a movie — I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I left the theater four days ago. And I also cannot stop listening to its soundtrack, and particularly, “Altars.” Sue Me, I Went To Film School And I Enjoyed “Wuthering Heights” (alternate, click-bait title for this piece).

@hannahglennhannahglennThis week’s essay 🐚 on substack #art #substack #videoessay #writing

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I have been trying my very hardest to slow down: to do my skincare in the morning and allow myself to feel my fingertips rubbing the moisturiser into my face, to do the dishes for the sake of doing the dishes, to sit on the staircase by the big window and let the sun warm my body, to create with intention and to really take my time doing so, to understand that there is no rush, no matter how often our phones, or our calendars, or the chaos of a busy city tricks us into believing that there is. Perhaps it is a uniquely specific Gen-Z (or Zillennial?) thing, the chronic need to be doing something, to be busy, to have items to tick on a never-ending to do list. Last night I was blow drying my hair and remembered something I needed to do today, so I had to stop and write it down in my planner so I wouldn’t forget. This Substack piece has been fragmented together between tasks and distractions alike throughout the month. I have additional ongoing creative works-in-progresses I am flip-flopping between the sloppily-written reminders to complete this draft — two zines, an unedited YouTube video, several Instagram posts — and I worry I will not have end products, but rather a handful of Photoshop files and raw videos and magazine cutouts sprawled across my digital and physical desktops, more items to add to the growing list of things to do.

In another song I cannot seem to get enough of right now, “Talk To Me” by Robyn, she says “‘Cause sometimes I need an audience / to feel like I’m making sense” and this is where my second dilemma appears: much like the Swedish pop icon whose album I need imminently, sometimes I feel like I have to be documenting absolutely everything, taking a photo of my outfit, taking a video while making a zine, reminding people that I am here, reminding myself that I exist. I guess that is a compulsion that happens when you get used to sharing so much of yourself with other people on the internet, a compulsion to feel seen and to feel heard. But sometimes I just want to make a zine without the need to document the process. Sometimes I want to journal just to journal. And sometimes, like right now, I just want to wear an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants with leggings underneath because it is cold. And sometimes I want to enjoy the process instead of capturing it.

Anyways, in an attempt to not completely regurgitate my piece where I unpacked my complicated relationship with the internet, I’ll be back, I am going to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and remind myself that social media is a hobby — not my job — so I should and will continue to practice enjoying it instead of feeling stressed out by it and feeling a constant need to document things all the time and to compare myself to others. A job is a job is a job, I wrote in an earlier piece, just as a hobby is a hobby is a hobby. You will see no documentation of these cookies I am about to bake! This is resistance!

Yesterday, the 22nd of February, might have been my idea of a perfect day. It involved all of my favourite things: Sunday mornings, fresh flowers, sunlight and south facing windows, ribbons and cake, coffee and creativity, laughter and conversation. And all of the people that I love.

I woke up at 9 o’clock in the morning to the sound of rain, immediately followed by the sound of Nielsan’s voice telling me “not to worry, because it is only going to last for another hour,” which oddly made me feel loved because when I awoke to the rain I immediately worried that we’d get wet on the way to my party (no matter how hard you pry, you cannot take the Californian out of the Londoner, okay). We then rolled out of bed, had breakfast and tea, the rain stopped like Nielsan said it would, I changed into the outfit I had created in my head the evening prior, hoping its execution would match my imagination’s: a lace-trimmed, mocha-colored long sleeve dress, knee-high blue and brown polka dot socks, a denim jacket, and silver maryjanes, and then we grabbed the bucket of flowers and the tote bag of supplies and headed to the room above one of my favorite bakeries, where I decided to host my 28th birthday party.

I seem to have fallen into an annual pattern of hosting birthday parties that involve crafting and eating cake and I am confident much of it traces back to my party-planning tendencies I have had since childhood (I used to go on Party City’s website, pick a theme, usually Hello Kitty or Paris, and create a “supplies” wishlist to present to my mom alongside a handwritten contract, which obviously included balloons and crepe paper and confetti) and all of it is ironic because for someone who is so shy and whose forehead shines at the thought of being perceived by a crowd, I do love planning birthday parties that feel like the inside of my brain. 27 was paper crown decorating, 26 was scrunchie-making, 25 was cowboy hat decorating, 24 was all cake, no crafting because I had moved to London a few months beforehand and did not know enough people to have a party, and 28 was a flower potluck but it was also so much more. It was all of my friends in one room: old coworkers, friends from my Master’s program, friends from the internet, old neighbors, a friend from California who coincidentally found himself in London ten years down the line, friends from Nielsan, all of us together, sharing flowers and stories and ditching the chaos of the city, the same city where, against all odds, we managed to connect with one another.

And then all of the sudden all that remained were flower petals, a cake box full of crumbs, The Marías playing on the speaker, two bin bags full of plates and forks and pink tablecloths, a full heart, and Nielsan, who I hugged and thanked for all of his help.

When I think about why I love flowers so much, I think about my great grandma. When I was six years old, we used to pick the pink and yellow roses in our backyard, and after my grandma trimmed the thorns I would wrap them in a wet paper towel, and then in foil, so that I could carry them around wherever I went. I also think about the annual early-morning trips to Safeway with my dad, where I held the creative decision-making authority as to what flowers we’d buy my mom for Mother’s Day, and obviously, I would pick multiple bunches and ask the florist to wrap them with a ribbon. One year, when I was around seven, we ran into the local (professional) football player buying what appeared to be a vase of 100 roses for his wife, and we laughed at the comparison to our own selection. I think about the time I worked at a flower shop, a wooden shack overlooking a creek which I had waltzed into at some point during the tail-end of the pandemic, asking if they wanted an enthusiastic employee with zero flower-shop experience, and the following week I was learning how to process flowers and stocking shelves of vases and candles with my lovely coworkers Kathy and Suzie. I think about the arrangement I made for Mother’s Day, inside of a vase shaped like a gold crown, and how my mom kept it on the mantle for the following 3 years, how all that remained were shriveled up sticks stuck inside a foam block but still, she held onto it. I think about the sunflowers Nielsan bought me on one of our first dates, and last year when the barista had taped a dried flower and a lavender sprig to my coffee because they “thought I would appreciate it,” and the recent zine I made, a booklet full of photos of flowers I took in the office I used to work at. I think about the arrangements I made for my great grandma’s funeral last year, filled with yellows and pinks and oranges and greens, and I think about the pastel yellow spray roses in the tall vase on my dresser, purchased with dried up eyes two days into my grieving, now a decaying artefact of our bedroom that I refuse to part ways with. I think about my first weekend of living in London, when I experienced the wholesome chaos of the Columbia Road Flower Market, a Sunday activity which has become a bi-monthly tradition four and a half years down the line.

Yes, I like to buy myself flowers, but mostly I enjoy the sight of Londoners buying flowers, seeing hydrangeas wrapped in brown paper dangling over shoulders, seeing monsteras balancing in the bucket of a Lime bike, seeing people pick and choose the stems that speak to them, seeing that there are so many other people who appreciate the simple beauty of a flower, knowing that one day, the clear water will turn murky and the petals will dry and fall onto the floor, but they buy and trim and place the flower in a vase anyways, because even though they know a flower will die they still want to appreciate the company of a flower while it lasts. To some, a flower is just a flower, but to most, I’d like to think it means so much more. It means we care.

I think I think about flowers in the same way that I recently took the time to think about the ritual of “birthday nails.” “Birthday nails” are not normal nails, they are the nails you get done specifically during your birthday month. They feel special compared to other nails, and that is because they are. I got my birthday nails done the Friday before my party, and my inspiration was funfetti, chrome, pink, stars, dots, and flowers. I can’t stop looking at them, especially at my thumb, which has a pearlescent 3-D heart, and my pinky, which has a hand-drawn bouquet of daisies tied with a red ribbon. On Saturday, I went to dinner with some friends — one of several celebrations of the month — and they had asked if they were my birthday nails, and they were just as excited to see them as I was to show them and I just think it is an unbelievably cute concept that I had never considered to think about until the other night. I wonder what other rituals we do for ourselves without realizing how special they are.

“This feels like the beginning of Spring,” said Avery, holding her flowers as the sunlight hit them at a perfect angle. “I have only ever bought flowers for myself once,” said Fraser. “This honestly feels like a really nice thing to do more often.” “Oh my gosh, I feel like a giddy child right now,” said Yazz, smiling and pressing the petal of a red and yellow tulip outward. “I love how everyone’s flowers match their personalities,” said Tara. “Aww, the baby’s breaths just want to hold on to one another,” said Stacey.

So I suppose if there was one thing that February was, maybe it was flowers. Flowers and birthdays and fresh starts and slowing down and songs on repeat and the anticipation of spring. The reminder that the days are only getting longer and brighter, the re-assurance that perhaps I am exactly where I need to be after all.

hello! i report to you live from my bedroom on a tuesday at 4:00 pm. this month has been very sweet. it has been, as my friend avery put it, a month of birthdaymaxxxing. it was my birthday and it was also 4 of my friend’s birthdays, so each week has been filled with cards and celebrations and reminders of how lucky i am to have such wonderful people surrounding me. my first birthday in london was spent alone with my flatmate and a heart-shaped cake, and each subsequent year the room seems to get more and more full (and i am left with less and less leftovers of the cake). fresh starts aside, 28, so far, has been acceptance: of who i am and where i am meant to be, which is apparently on the corner of my bed, and probably not the best for my posture. also, i just realized i have 2,000 subscribers on here which is kind of insane so thank you so much for taking the time to read my articles because oftentimes they are long and considering i can hardly read a book these days i appreciate you for giving my writing your time of day.

anywho!!!! enough of me. until the next time i feel a random wave of inspiration that leads me here…… .. .

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Yesterday, my dog Achilles turned 11 years old. Whether or not the 13th of November is his real birthday remains unknown, but what my family is certain about is the fact that Achilles is around the age of 11, because around 11 years ago, we rescued him from the street outside of my dad’s car repair shop.

Well, actually, no, that’s not really how it happened. It’s never as simple as one sentence, and this is something you and I both know.

Around 11 years ago, my little brother and I received a text from our oldest brother: a compressed image of a cute puppy, pixelated enough to know it was a puppy, clear enough to know it was a cute one. A green bubble read, “Do u guys think this dog is cute?” We replied, “Yes,” because only someone who hates Fun would type, “Actually, no, that Tiny Puppy With Big Eyes Is Not Very Cute. Also, I hate Fun,” to which to which he promptly requested we “Come upstairs,” and so we tip-toed upstairs to his bedroom — the guest house, separated from the actual house, the right amount of discreet to hide something, perhaps a small animal, from the rest of us family members — and upon opening the squeaky door, the weeks-old puppy — the one in the pixelated photo — was clear as ever, resting on my oldest brother’s lap, and littered on the floor were a dog toy, a bag of kibble, and a Petco receipt.

My little brother and I stood in shock, imminently accompanied by shock’s best friend, anxiety: shock and anxiety not due to the sight of a weeks old, grey puppy with white paws — I promise, we’re Fun people — but rather, due to the mere thought of our mother finding out that there is a weeks old, grey pitbull puppy with white paws inside of the house that we are renting, a house which strictly does not allow pets, which already has a small white dog and a grey striped cat roaming its corridors, fuzzy outlaws that we have to hide at our family friend’s house whenever the landlord decides that it is time for her to say “hello,” so while, yes, the puppy was absolutely adorable — the runt of the litter, with one chipped ear seemingly permanently stuck in an upright position and a tongue sticking out its mouth — by simply standing in the bedroom and making contact with the puppy, my little brother and I were now accomplices in our oldest brother’s latest rescue mission. (This was not the first time he brought home an animal, unprovoked, to a rented house that did not allow pets, and this is how we knew we did not want to be involved.) And then our other brother, my fellow middle sibling warrior, found out about the puppy. And then so did our dad. And then five of us were keeping a secret from our mom: that there was a weeks old, grey puppy with white paws in the guest house above the garage.

So, it wouldn’t necessarily be an un-truth to say that around 11 years ago Achilles was rescued from the street outside my dad’s car repair shop, but it also wouldn’t necessarily be the whole truth.

At the time, my older brother was 20 years old, and when you are 20 years old and decide to bring home a teeny tiny pitbull puppy to both a house and a guardian which would not and could not certainly be convinced to accept another forbidden pet, you do not think much further than the act of bringing the puppy to your bedroom and buying him some food and some toys and hoping he uses the pee pads because the room is, in fact, carpeted and you are, in fact, a renter. Your brain does not think as far as the next day, when you’d feel peckish and leave your room — your room which was now occupied by a second, furry tenant — to go downstairs and slip through the sliding door, b-lining straight to the leftover takeout, and by pure not-so-divine timing your mom would walk through the same sliding door and up the stairs, into the guest house looking for something, and instead of finding whatever it was that she was looking for, she’d find a squeaky tennis ball. And then a crate. And then a bowl of kibble. And then a grey puppy, sitting on the navy blue couch, staring at her with a big head and an even bigger heart.

I think I must have blocked out the proceeding week from my memory, because, essentially, my mom was Very Mad that our entire family was keeping a secret from her. I think she was more mad about the secret-keeping than the dog-hiding, and this I cannot blame her for. In my defence — in our communal defence — I held the knowledge that there was a puppy upstairs against my own will. I did not choose to enter the bedroom and see my brother holding a puppy, nor did my little brother, we were merely told to “Come upstairs” and so we did as we were commanded to. It is what happens when you have an older brother eight years your senior: you listen to everything he tells you to do because 1. you look up to him, in quite literally every sense and 2. you are also slightly terrified of him (one time he told me to get in the car, and so I did, and then we drove to the bank and he withdrew a wad of cash, and then he took me to a random backyard where he handed a random man the wad of cash and then the man handed me a Siberian husky puppy, and then my older brother made ME be the one to enter the house and shouted “Mom, come downstairs!”. I digress.) But then after shutting the door and returning to our bedrooms we couldn’t un-see the puppy, and we absolutely could not let ourselves become attached to the puppy, because that would really suck, to become attached to a tiny puppy before it was most likely taken to a shelter, or maybe to our cousins, who took the last dog our older brother brought home (the husky, which again, was how we knew we did not want to be involved in his escapades).

All of this is to say: our mom was angry....

…But how can you be angry when there is a wide-eyed, tiny pitbull with white paws and triangular ears, sitting so innocently on the blue couch, staring at you, inviting you to cuddle him? I say that on that day, my mom didn’t find what she was looking for in that room, but really, she found everything she was looking for, and possibly more. It was one of those classic situations where one of your parents is against getting a pet, and then, somehow they agree to let you get the pet, and then they are the ones who fall in love with the pet. (They also might have been against their children getting tattoos, and are now looking into booking an appointment to get a silhouette of them and the pet on their forearm.) My mom sat on the couch, because her maternal instincts said she couldn’t leave a puppy alone in a room, and she didn’t want to like the puppy, but one stroke behind his floppy ear and it was over. He was ours, but mainly, he was hers, and suddenly, we were hiding two dogs and a cat from our landlord. Achilles was, collectively, our secret.

So perhaps it was not we, but rather my oldest brother, who rescued Achilles outside my dad’s car repair shop. Someone from the warehouse next door owned a pitbull that had a litter of puppies, and the puppies were getting mistreated, being fed human food (flaming hot cheetos, actually), and my brother couldn’t stand to see it happening any longer, so he grabbed one — the runt of the litter — and then bought some supplies on the way home and sent a text to my little brother and I asking if we thought the puppy was cute, and here we are today, 11 years later, celebrating his birthday (which, again, we are not positive when his real birthday is, so we decided to bestow the 13th of November upon him, because that’s near-ish when we think he was born, and it is also my dad’s mom’s birthday, who passed away when he was young.)

Only this year, the 13th of November felt far from a celebration. Yesterday, we wore tiny party hats, and while my mom took a photo of my dad and I with Achilles, I couldn’t make it to the count of “three” without tears welling up in my eyes. When I showered, I forced myself to sing along to the pop music intentionally playing on full volume so I wouldn’t break down, and if I did, at least I was masked by the sounds of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. And now, I guess I am returning to the only thing I seem to know how to do when I fail to express myself otherwise.

Because what the hell do you do when you know your dog isn’t going to live for much longer? In the last ten days, it feels like Chili (his nickname, among various others) has aged by ten years. He can’t walk up or down the stairs, he can hardly make it from his bed to the floor. He’s not eating or drinking, he can’t bark, his skin is flaring up, he has red sores in his mouth, and there is a newly discovered giant lump on the inside of his left cheek. A lump which was swabbed for testing today. The veterinarian danced carefully around her words, and none of us are hopeful that the results are going to be positive.

I cannot explain it, I’ll try my best to, it feels like we — my parents, my brothers, and I — are mourning Chili while he is still here, as he lays on the couch staring longingly into the distance, and then into our eyes, as if trying to convey something that we cannot understand. I tried to pet him this morning, but I couldn’t look at him for more than 15 seconds before feeling my emotions rise to the surface. And I know it is healthy to feel your feelings, but it hurts to know your dog is hurting before he understands that he is hurting. Last night my parents sat with Achilles on the couch for hours, and I sat at the table, the three of us watching back to back recordings of Jeopardy! and sitting in silence while I skipped through the commercial breaks.

You want to believe that your parents are superheroes, that they can fix any and every problem, that everything is going to be okay because they will make sure that everything is going to be okay, but then you grow older and realise that, above all, they are humans, too. They don’t have all the answers. They can’t always make everything okay. This is also their first time dealing with an ageing pet. None of us have said it out loud to each other, but we all know it. We can all sense it. We all have a gut feeling, and it isn’t a good one. A few weeks ago, my aunt came over and said, “Chili is lucky. He is the most loved dog in this world.” And after she said that, for reasons I cannot explain, a wave of worry washed over me for the first time ever: “What if we don’t have him for much longer?”

And I know Achilles is downstairs, and I know that I can still pet him and cuddle him, and I promise that I have been, but I do not want to accept a reality where Chili isn’t laying at the foot of my bed every morning, with his single ear perked up and his tongue sticking out of his mouth, a reality where I cannot hear his paws pitter-pattering against the hardwood floors, a reality where I am working at my desk and he is not laying by my feet, dreaming and snoring louder than ever, a reality where I enter the house, shouting “Hiiiii Chili boy!” and he is not running to find a shoe to put in his mouth out of sheer excitement. Because in some ways, this reality already seems to exist.

His joints are not strong enough to allow him to hop on my bed anymore, so in the morning, he peers his head into my room to make sure I am there, and then turns around once I say “Hello, Chili! Come hereee!”. As of a few days ago, he has not felt excited enough to grab a shoe, and his gravitational pull towards food seems to have disappeared. He is not sitting by my feet when I work because he cannot walk up the stairs. He is not waiting by the door when we get home, he is hardly batting an eye. He is laying on the bed by the couch, and then he is taken outside, and then he is carried upstairs to my parent’s bed, where he continues to lay, and then instead of sleeping, he shakes, and then the cycle repeats itself.

I live in London but I have been home, in California, for one month and three weeks now due to an expired visa and the application process for the next one, and this morning at 6:30AM I received the email I had been eagerly anticipating for what feels like eons: my visa application was approved, and I am allowed to return to the U.K. and continue my life with my partner, my cat, and my friends, for the next two years and nine months. And thank goodness for that. The hard work (and my savings) paid off. I was, obviously, very excited about the email, so much so that I was out of bed at 6:30 in the morning, and then I had a job interview an hour later — at the ripe hour of 7:25 in the morning (3:25 in the afternoon in London) — which went quite well, and then after riding the high of a visa acceptance and a successful interview, I accompanied my parents, mostly in silence, to drop off Chili at the vet, and then I intentionally moved my return flight to the end of this month, because I am worried that the next time I visit home, my dog will no longer be there. And now, I am sad. I am happy that the things I was worried about have sorted themselves out — they always seem to — but now a new worry has presented itself, one which cannot be alleviated by receiving an acceptance email or talking about ones strengths and weaknesses on Google Meet or delaying a flight by a week.

When you live abroad, or maybe when you live far away from home, you carry the somewhat selfish assumption that things will always be the same when you return. You convince yourself that you will regress into your annoying, teenage self if you stay at your parent’s house for longer than 10 days, that you are “too good” for the bubble you fought so hard to leave, that a small town will always be a small town, with the same people doing the same things, just as you remember them to be and do. And in some ways, yes, things are kind of the same, but more often than not there are stark reminders that everyone else’s lives are continuing, too: my favourite Açai Bowl place closed. They built a bridge down the street. The flower shop I used to work at was bought out by some other competitor company. So was my go-to coffee shop. My next door neighbour, the Grandpa with the white dog, hasn’t been walking the white dog. My orthodontist retired and his office has moved.

And all of these things happen slowly, incrementally, between once or twice a year 10-day visits — too scant and too sparse to fully internalise that anything has changed at all — until one day, your dog who used to salivate at the sight of whipped cream can hardly eat a treat, let alone a steak on his 11th birthday, and suddenly the reminder becomes more apparent than ever: time is passing us by.

The universe works in mysterious ways, sometimes. To quote my last piece, things don’t work out, until suddenly they do. For better or for worse. Earlier this year, I wasn’t allowed to leave the country due to a visa application, and I was struggling to accept the dystopian-but-very-real fact that I’d be attending my great grandma’s funeral on Zoom. Then, at the last minute, things changed and I had to leave the U.K. within five days, and I was able to attend her service. I was supposed to fly back to London two weeks ago, and then I pushed my flight to next week, and tonight I pushed it to the week after the next one, because I think I will regret it if I don’t stay. Yes, I miss my life in London, but I know I will not forgive myself for leaving Chili while he is still here. Time is precious and this is time that I’ll never get back.

I am scared, I think my parents are scared, I think my brothers are scared, I think that Chili is scared. The dining table still has an opened package of miniature dog-sized party hats and candles spelling “woof” that were never used.

In my high school Expository Writing class, the class (and teacher) which led me to discover my love for creative writing (hi Ms. Little), we were assigned to conjure up a six word phrase that revealed something about ourselves, and transform it into a physical piece of art. I remember my classmate wrote something about being gluten free and turned it into a cereal box (the intricate details my brain chooses to remember instead of, you know, fundamentally important things), and the phrase I wrote was “Always too busy capturing the moment,” and I turned it into the sharpie “signature” on a giant polaroid picture composed of a bunch of smaller polaroid pictures (actually, they were Fujifilm instax mini pictures. Not polaroids. Iykyk.) I am sure part of me wrote that phrase in an effort to present myself as one who is pseudo-deep, because I was 16 and pretentious and spent most of my time lost in the depths YouTube and Tumblr, but there was a hint of truth within it. I was aware that I was the friend who was always taking photos and videos, and I was aware of the risk that comes with that: I’d lose out on the mere act of existing, of letting myself be.

Maybe, sometimes, it is as easy as one sentence…

Ten years down the line, I seem to have reverted to quite an opposite six word phrase, with an affect all the same: “I’m afraid of the moment ending.” (I guess it’s seven words, technically, let me live.) A few nights ago, my dad was telling my little brother and I stories from his childhood in the Netherlands. Every time we learn a new piece of his story — of Dad’s Dutch Lore — I am convinced that his life could and should be a movie. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it secretly is (there is a photo that exists which pictures my dad and Jean Claude Van Damme, sometimes I lie and tell people he’s my uncle) ((probably worth noting here that my last name is “Van Dam)). I was aware that this was a moment that I’d one day cherish, the night where my dad told us the story about the club, and the limo, and the boat, and the 2x4, and I tried my best to remember every word he was saying. But suddenly I became too focused on the fact that the moment would eventually become a memory, which in turn, rescinded the opportunity to “be” in the moment to begin with. These days, I’m no longer busy physically capturing the moment, per se, I’m just too busy thinking about how I don’t want the moment to end, how, soon enough, it’ll become something I’ll relive in my head again and again, how I must remember the details. I’m grieving a memory before I even give it the chance to become one, just like how I seem to be grieving my dog, when he is laying on the couch in the other room. And here I am, in my bed, memorialising it all in writing.

I guess this is my cue to shut my laptop and go say “goodnight” to Achilles.

We just got home from the Farmer’s Market — a Saturday ritual — only this weekend felt different than the last. We bought the same berries, the same tea, the same produce, the same flowers, but it felt like a welcomed distraction more than anything else. My mom wore her sunglasses, even though today is cloudy, I wore extra glitter on my eyelids to deflect from the puffiness, and when we visited the bakery stand (where we are regulars), they asked “Do you want a box?” (embarrassing) and while the answer is usually always yes, we do, (because if there is one thing to know about my love for pastries it is that it comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is my parents, who always bring home boxes of pastries at any given moment), today, to their surprise, we said “No thank you.” We bought an artisan-ly pointy baguette at the request of my brother, and then my dad and I chose a slice of apple cake and a blueberry muffin for ourselves. (And I am aware that for most families this is a normal pastry haul, but we usually bring home 4-5 baked goods at the very least.) We joked that we are working on self-control this weekend, but in reality, I don’t think any of us have that much of an appetite right now.

And then we went to Trader Joe’s, because I needed tahini and parsley and I obviously also needed the salmon-themed advent calendar for Juno, my cat, and when we were checking out, there was a single yellow rose sat on top of the till. The person working was probably confused as to why I was failing at small talk because I was trying to sneak a photo of the rose on the register, but how am I meant to explain to the Trader Joe’s employee that I see my great grandma within every yellow rose that I find? That yellow roses are my “sign” that my grandma is with me? Yesterday, I was driving through a parking lot that I have driven through many times before, and I noticed a yellow rose bush. And then another. And then another. And then seven more. Maybe they had been there this whole time and I never bothered to look up, but this time, I found them. Or maybe they found me. Like a mom walking into a bedroom and being greeted by a white pawed puppy.

One of the many ways I know love exists is because I see it in the way my dad cups his palm to gently stroke Achilles across his cheek, the one with the sore, and in the way that Achilles was so happy when I walked through the garage door on Halloween, so much so that he grabbed a leaf and delivered it to me because he couldn’t find a shoe quick enough, and I see it in the way my mom is sleeping downstairs on the couch right now because Achilles doesn’t want to go upstairs, and the way my little brother made eye contact with me after we both looked at Achilles, thinking the same thing and only speaking through a brief moment of locked eyes, and the way that my oldest brother decided to bring Achilles home when he was 20, even though he knew the risks, that our house, and our mom, would not allow any pets. I hear love every time any one of my family members enters the house, singing Chili’s name in every pitch and semi-rhyming word imaginable as Chili scurries to find the nearest shoe, and how my mom shouts bye to Chili before she shuts the door. And I saw it in the way Achilles used to lay with my parents in the mornings, and once they rose for the day, he moved to my room, and then to my little brother’s room, and then to my middle brother’s room, and how these days, my middle brother sits down with Achilles and pets him, because even though he grew up with a fear of dogs due to a scary childhood accident, he learned to trust Achilles and Achilles knew to trust him.

I know love exists because I felt it in the way I sat on the couch with Achilles for two hours tonight, watching Jeopardy! and then Wheel of Fortune and then Animal Planet, making the most of the very fact that I am home, and being home means I get to be with my dog.

Today, Chili was — to our surprise — very nearly back to normal. He successfully walked up and down the stairs, he scurried towards the kitchen when he smelled the teriyaki chicken on the stove, he even barked when the doorbell rang and went to find a shoe when we returned home.

We played our nightly round of Jeopardy! and took turns laying with Achilles on the couch. Through the commercial breaks we talked about the week my oldest brother brought him home — the week we collectively hid a secret from our own mom, the week we gained a new family member, a new understanding of what “love” is. We showed each other photos of Achilles as a baby, with his velvety coat and giant paws and the tiny chip in his ear.

Today, we allowed ourselves to watch TV, to pet our dog, and, even if just for two episodes of Jeopardy!, to feel as if everything was going to be okay. Who knows? It might be.

Things are okay but they also aren’t. The things that are okay is that Chili has remained seemingly happy and seemingly healthy since I last wrote, the things that aren’t okay are that the vets called and the lump in his throat is “highly suggestive” of what we worried it might be. The C-Word. And not the curable kind. Apparently, the kind that spreads rapidly if untreated. When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I very quickly changed my dream job to “florist” when I found out being a veterinarian meant I’d have to see animals in pain. And when I found out that I’d have to deliver certain news to certain pet owners, certain news that any pet owner dreads to even think about.

The thing about knowing that the lump is, indeed, the C-Word is that there are options, and the thing about options is that we won’t know unless we do or do not try. Depending on the course of action my family decides to take, Achilles could have 6 months left, or he could have a few years left, or he could have somewhere in-between, or more, or less, and we have a lot to think about.

No future is guaranteed for any of us, but what I do know is that, today, in this moment, Achilles is wagging his tail because my mom just walked in through the garage door, and my dad just cupped his palm to stroke his cheek, and now he is probably laying on the couch between my little brother’s arms, like a gigantic baby being swaddled. Tonight we will watch our nightly Jeopardy! episode and then Achilles will follow my dad upstairs to my parent’s bedroom, and then my dad will give him his nightly handful of treats and then he will sleep at my mom’s feet, because even though that means she must sacrifice her precious bed space, she is willing to sleep with her legs crossed instead of sprawling out because that is what mothers do, they do not leave puppies unattended in guest houses above garages and they certainly do not move their dogs from the foot of their bed to prioritise their own comfort, and then Achilles will sleep and snore and wake up and pitter-patter across the hallway to peer his head into my room, and then he will sit on the sofa behind me as I sit down to work, chin resting on the pillow, sunbathing and daydreaming about whatever the hell dogs dream about. Probably whipped cream and steak.

There is one thing I am certain of: I know how to love, because I know how much I love my dog, Achilles. And I hope he knows how much he is loved, too.

hiiii,

the last two months have been filled with lots of different emotions. i’m so stoked that my visa has been approved and i can return to my life in the u.k., but equally, this visit home — like most visits — has been perhaps the starkest reminder of them all that life goes on, time is passing us by quicker than we realise, and i am determined to make the most of every day that i have with achilles, even if it’s only these next 7. tonight we were sitting on the couch together, and then he got up and repositioned himself between my legs and fell asleep and i wanted to cry because it was so cute. a lot of lesions are popping up all over his coat, but there is still a tiny section of fur, just on the top of his neck, that remains just as velvety and smooth as ever.

also, shout out to the people in my life and their pets, because every day i am reminded that love exists because i see it between daria and ladybug, maddie and beans, sophia and serrano and binxy, nielsan (and me) and juno, and mr. mark and rue.

as always, thank u very much for reading this piece and if you have a pet please go give them a cuddle. right now!! :’)

also… on a lighter note.. i was googling the word “pitbull” because i wasn’t sure if it was one or two words and this is the first result that came up:

In the span of 24 hours: an ominously-worded email, a never-ending train ride accompanied with delays and midnight passport checks at Kings Cross St. Pancras, a night of broken sleep, a bottle of Advil, a half-an-hour long conversation.

One year ago from writing this, on the 20th of September, I posted a video on TikTok, a TikTok which ended up going viral, a ten second clip about working at a record label. I posted a video about how the album I had been working towards releasing was finally out in the world for everyone to hear, and while my involvement in the release was merely within its messaging, messaging through social media posts that people saw, liked, and then probably forgot about two scrolls later, exactly one trip around the sun — on the very same day — moments after finalising a “One Year Album Anniversary” post, I was made redundant from my job. One year ago, to the day, and probably to the hour, I was having what I would later realise was the most stressful week of my career, crying over a spreadsheet of posts and hounding people to approve them, feeling the pressure of a number on a chart and a ticking clock, and now, as I type this, the same stress seems to have seeped its way back into my bones.

I did not know how to process the redundancy, I honestly, probably have yet to. The anticipation of walking into a meeting ominously described via email as “discussing the future of your role…” exhausted every ounce of anxiety in my body — so much so, that by the time I learned that the worst case scenario I had mentally prepared for was actually true, all that was left for me to do was to nod and avoid contact with my manager’s glossy eyes and return to my corner of the table. I spun around in my swivel chair and opened my laptop, and suddenly my migraine went away, which feels like the opposite of what should happen when you get made redundant from the job you’ve been working at for two years, but I had been so panicked by the Ominous Email that it almost felt like a relief after the words came out of their mouths: Your role has been made redundant, we’re sorry. I knew this was not going to be my forever job, but at the very least, I wanted the end of my journey to be marked on my own terms. Rarely is it ever enjoyable being the person broken up with, but I do firmly believe it is monumentally more difficult to be the breaker-upper. You carry the guilt of choosing “you” at the expense of someone else’s heart (or in this case, their career).

A pattern seems to be recurring, where each return to California is marked by somewhat traumatic experiences that aren’t necessarily attached to — but happen to be intertwined with — complications with my visa status (or a lack thereof). For those unaware, I am from California but I have been living in England for the last four years, and yes, I, too routinely question why I would leave a near-perfect state for nine months of rain and fog and beige cuisine. I digress. In February, my great grandma passed away, and my immediate thought after hanging up the Worst FaceTime Call of My Life was “Shit. I can’t go to the funeral because of my visa application.” If you must know the intricacies of being a foreigner abroad — and what most conversations with fellow expats in England devolve into — in March, I was preparing to apply for a visa, which meant I was unable to travel outside the country once my application was submitted. Then, a few days before my grandma’s funeral, I learned that, in fact, because of some strange new rule, I had to leave the country ASAP and apply for my new visa from America. Things didn’t work out, and then suddenly they did; I got to attend my grandma’s memorial service, and then I got to return to the U.K. with a new stamp in my passport, my grandma’s letters safely stowed between the pages in my journal, and very sore, very dry eyes. Sure, I might have been in California for a total of 4 days, and sure, I might have only adjusted to the time difference while on the plane ride back to London, but at least I got to say goodbye to my great grandma one last time, wearing her gold and silver ring on my pointer finger, questioning my decision to have ever left in the first place while staring into the clouds.

History repeats itself, yes, but I was not expecting history to repeat itself within the same calendar year. I was in Amsterdam for much of last week, and then on the last day of my holiday I received The Email that 1. made my heart sink 2. spiked my cortisol levels and 3. has made me vow to forever turn off all Outlook notifications when embarking on future holidays, and then the following afternoon during my first day back at work I found out that I have been made redundant, and then in three days I am returning to America for up to one and a half months to spend half of my savings in order to apply for yet another visa. Unlike the last time this happened, I had more than five days’ notice to prepare for my departure, but instead of the loss of a family member (which I am still grappling with), I am now internally battling with the loss of a job.

A job is a job is a job, I know, but my particular job is (was? will have been?) deeply intertwined with my personal life, and much of my social life, too (welcome to the music industry). When you work for a musician, especially in a management capacity, your artist inadvertently becomes your whole world. For better or for worse, I can tell you exactly what cities and what venues the artists I work for have been in the last year, I cannot tell you what I had for dinner two nights ago (last year they were starting their world tour in Mexico City, I genuinely cannot recall Friday night’s dinner). My coworkers are my close friends and the office is my routine and this job — this life — is what I know best. In addition to snails, caterpillars, and most men, change and loss and uncertainty sit among the shelf of items which I fear most. The trepidation of the unknown takes over and I shrivel up and shut down and take paracetamol until the headache goes away. Or I welcome healthy distraction, which I did last night.

Four years ago I moved to London with two suitcases, a backpack, and the blissful ignorance of the GOV.UK website and NHS surcharges, knowing no one but an old college roommate of mine who was making her way to New York City, and last night, I hosted a scrapbooking event with 15 lovely internet strangers-turned-friends, one whom moved to London the very same day I celebrated my fourth year of living here, another who started scrapbooking because of my own digital scrapbooking, and a third who owns the same gingham journal as I do, but in a different colour (mine is light blue with a pink ribbon, hers is light red with a deep red ribbon, both are equally as cute as the other). While creating the junk journaling kits for the attendees of my event, I watched a YouTube video where Anna, the host, described fall as a new start, almost like a new school year, marked by a shift in the colour of the leaves and the appetite to learn something new; the appetite to assign oneself a certain kind of curriculum, even if the “curriculum” is to learn how to cook a new recipe, or pick up an old hobby, or finish the book you are reading.

Something about the crisp air in the autumnal months — the leaves falling off the trees and piling up on the pavement, Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (10 minute version)” soundtracking the season, the switch from an iced coffee to a warm chai — feels different and encouraging, and in some ways, I can sense that a new start is on the horizon. It feels oddly serendipitous that the day after I found out I was made redundant from the job that much of my life is built around, and four days after I made a Notes App list called “things I would do if I wasn’t working all the time,” is the same day that I would dedicate all of my energy to my creative hobbies and connecting with my online community face to face, in a tiny shop in central London, surrounded by other girls who also save receipts with cursive letters, and wear ruffled phone straps slung across their shoulder, and have over five keychains on their carabiners, and deeply appreciate something like an old ticket stub or a doily served at a restaurant or a cutout from a vintage magazine. Perhaps that was the point of it all, to help me understand what life could be like — and might be like — if I am not spending Monday to Friday in an office, every day, panicking over things that would be embarrassing to admit out loud (after all, I am a social media manager, I am not a heart surgeon, it’s just an Instagram reel it’s fine it’s fine I’m fine). Perhaps my craft night wasn’t a distraction, but rather a glimpse of what is to come, should I choose to let it. An invitation to accept change, to let the leaves change colour and create a branch anew.

I feel like I should be freaking out, especially given the amount of “How are you?” and “I’m so sorry” messages I have been receiving, and trust me — I appreciate the kind words and I probably will freak out in two months time when I realise I won’t be seeing the people that I see more than my own partner on a daily basis (baristas included, Colin I will never forget you and your perfect oat milk lattes) and I already have FOMO from the exciting year I had thought was en route (my artists are playing Coachella and in college I set myself the career goal of attending Coachella on an artist’s team, hey ho) — but, for some reason, in this very moment I am instead choosing to remain calm, and kind of excited, and maybe even the most microscopic amount relieved. Endless possibilities lie ahead: I can go back to working at a flower shop where my biggest stressor was packaging leis for the local high school graduation, I can re-attempt the unstructured life of a “freelance creative” and wander down Broadway Market at 12pm, wondering what the hell everyone does for work before questioning what the hell I am doing for work, I can use my airline points to visit my best friends in New York City, I can host more craft nights and connect with likeminded people in London, I can apply to work at my favourite stationary store in Covent Garden or at the Californian bakery down the road, I can kickstart the YouTube channel I hardly post to, and I know it is easy to romanticise each of these lifestyles (when I was 16 I worked at an ice cream shop where I was once yelled at by a customer who didn’t understand what a brownie bite was; when I explained it was a brownie cut into bite sized pieces she demanded a visual and, of course, ended up not ordering brownie bites) but my point is that my next chapter is entirely up to me. And especially as someone who cannot make decisions, that can be a terrifying thought — the endless possibilities of what your life could be (à la The Midnight Library and the Fig Tree which I will soon mention) — but I am choosing to see this change of pace as an opportunity to come back to myself.

I am a simple girl: I make adult money, I transfer a small portion of it to my savings, and I spend the rest on rent and clothes. The height of quarantine marked the height of my obsession with finding small fashion brands — mainly through the likes of TikTok, Emma Chamberlain, and Ashley a.k.a. bestdressed (sigh, I miss her) — and one of these brands happened to be Gia Milan Co., a 20-something year old artist who hand paints tiny portraits, movie stills, and other scenes on pointelle t-shirts and tank tops. During one of her clothing drops, I wound up panic purchasing a tank top called “the fig tree.” It is white with lace lining and in the centre of it is a delicately sewn-on patch with a flower and the Sylvia Plath quote painted in miniature strokes:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was…”

Full disclosure: my main reason for purchasing the tank top was because I wanted to own a Gia Milan Co. tank top. I did not once stop to consider the substance of the quote I was wearing to bed every other night, and no, neither of these are behaviours that I presently condone. The years passed, I grew older, things almost happened (like the time I agreed to move to Sweden to work at a music tech company or the time I chose to hang out with my now-partner instead of an ex-situationship), the branches of the fig tree made themselves known, and eventually I became ever-so-slightly obsessed with the idea of what and who could have been (and became aware that panic purchasing is not sustainable for my wallet or my wardrobe or the planet), and, naturally, I came to understand the significance of the Plath quote, as most people in their twenties — and most people on this platform — seem to do.

Things don’t work out until suddenly, they do. Many moons ago (thirty five of them, I think), my dad missed his connecting flight from Amsterdam to Hawaii, and the airline compensated him with a stay in a hotel room near the San Francisco Airport — the very same hotel that my mom happened to be sipping a vodka cranberry at. When my flight to move from California to London was cancelled, my dad reassured me that everything would be okay. I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a missed flight, after all, but have I ever stopped to consider what came before it?

Yes, today I got made redundant from my job (I now have zero excuse for having not written on Substack since July) but two days ago I was in the Netherlands in an attempt to 1. see my little brother, who is travelling through Europe right now and 2. connect with my Dutch roots. My dad is from Holland and he moved to America when he was in his twenties; both of his parents passed away when he was young, and all of the bits and pieces of his childhood that I have managed to piece together take place on a farm, or in a mobile home, or in a river. My dad spent his formative years riding ponies bareback, swimming in swamps, making some pocket change through the bike re-sale market (wink wink), and participating in what can accurately be described as shenanigans or hooliganisms. Recently, my mom found the address of my dad’s childhood home, and out of sheer curiosity I decided to visit it. Initially, I was not going to, but then something in my gut told me I should, and so Nielsan and I took a train to the nearest city and then called an Uber to, seemingly, the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly, the farm town I only knew in my imagination was passing before my eyes, a teeny tiny village with an even tinier river running parallel to a single, long road lined with cottages, each equipped with a bridge to cross over the stream. One of them had a dam and a well that looked like it had been there for at least a century, and a handful of them had gingham-lined tables with handwritten signs reading “take X amount of eggs/flowers/etc. and leave X euros in the box…”

The village was small, in a way that I can only think relate it to Schitt’s Creek - everyone probably knows everyone, and the person who works at the shop might also work at the gas station and perhaps they are also the pastor at the church, too. It had two establishments: a Chinese restaurant and an ice-cream parlour, which kind of makes sense because my dad’s two favourite foods are Chinese takeout and ice-cream. As I tried to retrace the steps of my dad’s life on this winding road surrounded by hay bales and a rusty Ford pickup truck, I finally made it to the house with the black roof, exactly like the one in the Google Maps screenshot my mom had sent. I held the photo up against the view of the house, and then I Facetimed my parents to show them where I was. “Wow, I can’t believe you’re there,” my dad said.

And so, my dad led me across the bridge and around the corridor, where there was a lady with two dogs. She was watering sunflowers, and she was also the first and only person I had seen in the village; it was 3:30PM on a gloomy, grey day, and it was raining and windy, so using an umbrella was useless because not only would it flip inside out, but the rain would head directly into your face, smudging your glasses and subsequently blurring the world. The dogs ran up to Nielsan and I and the lady spoke to us in Dutch. “I’m so sorry, I speak English! My dad used to live here,” I said, showing her my dad on the call. The lady smiled at me. “Ah, yes, [Insert my dad’s Very Unique Dutch Name here]. I know your dad,” she smiled. I looked back down at my phone and my dad was, in fact, as red as a tomato. My mom was no longer in frame. At first, I was like, “What the f*ck? How does she know him?” and then, I was like, “If they know each other, then why aren’t they talking to one another?” and then I remembered that in February I ran into an ex-friend in public, at a market, who I haven’t talked to in almost two years, and my immediate instinct upon realising it was them was to run into the crowd and hide. Another time, I was in a cafe facing a window and a different ex-friend appeared outside said window, and I buried my face in my journal and telepathically lured them away from wanting to enter the cafe. It is funny, how a person can know all of our secrets, and familiarise themselves with all of our idiosyncrasies, like the way we like our tea or our favourite fork to use or the fact that we don’t like beer but we do like the fancy Fentimans lemonade, a person can become a part of our daily routines, and us, theirs, and then eventually, somehow, life happens and you become footnotes in each other’s stories, a removed tattoo, an erased memory, old letters and cards and photos placed in a shoebox and tucked into the corner of a closet, running away to another country, into a sea of people, running away at the thought of ever encountering each other ever again.

It did not take long to connect the dots: this woman was my dad’s ex-girlfriend, Sarah*. Of seven years. Who he left shortly after meeting my mom. Whose name he had tattoo-ed on his forearm, a now-patch of soft skin which was once a name etched in cursive. Who still lives in the very house I came to see, the one with the black roof. Where she moved after living with my dad in California very briefly. Where she took care of my father’s dad until he passed away. Who was the only person outside in this tiny village at three o’clock in the afternoon. With her dogs, watering sunflowers, on a rainy day.

*pseudonym for privacy purposes

Amidst the palpable, awkward tension of two 62 year olds who were at once 21, I remained on the FaceTime call as Sarah showed us around her garden and the inside of the house. I played with her dogs as I tried to imagine my dad’s childhood stories bound to the warm living room with hardwood floors and the steep wooden stairs freshly painted in a coat of white. At first, my dad and Sarah were deliberately avoiding talking to one another, instead talking to me about their individual experiences in their shared home, and then, eventually, they started catching up. I grew up hearing my dad speak Dutch so often, but I never actually learned the language myself (as is the same with my mom and her native language, Tagalog), and because of this I can tell when people are speaking Dutch (and Tagalog) but I have zero clue what is actually being said. Nielsan speaks German and describes Dutch as “drunken German,” and he was laughing along with whatever was occurring because if there is one thing to know about my dad, it is that he will make you laugh, no matter the situation you find yourself in (or I suppose, the situations he finds himself in). At some point, I heard the names of my aunts and uncles, I think they were talking about everything being bigger in America (my dad panned the camera to our living room), and I also heard something about Facebook and something else about me living far away. After I hung up, she told me that things did not end well between them. “When your dad met your mom, he left me,” Sarah said. “We were together from ages 14-21 and I was very young. I was so heartbroken, it took me a very long time to move on.” To my knowledge, it was their first time talking in over 30 years, and then I realised that perhaps there are more reasons as to why my dad hasn’t been back to the Netherlands since he left. Again, the guilt we carry from choosing ourselves at the expense of someone else’s heart.

Up until this point, I only knew Sarah as a removed tattoo, an ex-partner of my dad’s, the woman who came before my mom, but when I met her, I felt a sense of remorse for my ignorance. Because at one point, I, too was 21 and heartbroken from a relationship that I never thought I would have the strength to move past. We’ve all been there, have we not? But then I got over it, and I decided to make a zine about it, which led me to apply for a Master’s Degree in London, and I continued my life in a foreign country, and then I met Nielsan, and here we were, the two of us in a small village in the middle of the Netherlands, standing in my dad’s childhood home with his ex-partner, Sarah, as they stood face to face (albeit virtually) for the first time in over three decades.

I would not exist if Sarah did not date my dad. I would not be with Nielsan if I was not completely heartbroken in 2020. A string of events had to occur in order for my dad to meet my mom, and him being with Sarah was one of them. A seemingly small decision can change the course of our lives without us knowing it: sending a letter, taking a seat next to someone in a university classroom, missing a flight, commenting on a video. Two of my favourite films are Past Lives and Before Sunrise, and if you are like me, then I am sure you also 1. yearn, frequently and 2. thought of these two perfect films while reading this, and I can feel the tears welling in my eyes thinking about their respective endings. While my dad was speaking to Sarah for the first time since they were in their twenties, I couldn’t help but think of in-yun.

In Past Lives, when the protagonist, Nora, meets her soon-to-be boyfriend-turned-husband at a writing retreat, she says: “There is a word in Korean: In-Yun. It means “providence” or “fate”. But it’s specifically about relationships between people. I think it comes from Buddhism and reincarnation. It’s an In-Yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of In-Yun over 8,000 lifetimes.”

I am the kind of person who sits on a train and wonders how — of all the places in the world we could be — we all happen to be coexisting at the same time, at the same place, at the same moment. While I might be daydreaming about being with my family across the world, and the person next to me might be running late to an important meeting, we are existing next to each other, with each other, even if only for a very brief moment between two stations. And none of these synchronicities seem to mean anything until you are dating your now-partner of three years, and both of you realise that three months before you met, you were both at Harry Styles’ “One Night Only” concert, on the same night, standing on the left-hand side of the O2 Academy Brixton (a very small venue), and afterwards at 10:02 P.M. and 10:03 P.M., respectively, you both took selfies at the same spot outside of the venue, just below the marquee. You might have brushed shoulders and you might have appeared as blurs in each other’s camera rolls, and that is because it wasn’t the right time for you to meet, not just yet. It was our in-yun, perhaps one of many. One of 8,000.

And I am sure, in some ways, it feels strange to write about my dad and his ex-partner, and I know my mom is reading this (and I hope this is okay with you, mom), but I’d like to believe that, through me envisioning my dad’s childhood through the kitchenette and wildflowers and the black roof and the sheep, that Sarah was able to receive some amount of closure from it all.

It has now been exactly one week since meeting Sarah, which means it has been five days since I have been made redundant from my job, which means it has been four days since I scrapbooked with my online friends, which means that tomorrow I am returning to America for an unpredictable amount of time. I packed two suitcases, one filled with summer clothes and one filled with autumn clothes, and I also brought some miscellaneous craft supplies, because halfway into packing I checked the weather app and California is still 90 degrees, and, as it stands, I do not know when my return flight is, so my journal, my stationary, and my rosette-making kits are an absolute must. My best friend Paisley and I see each other once or twice a year, whenever we happen to be in the same city. We always say “I’ll see you when I see you” to one another, one of the beauties of a 20+ year old cross-continental friendship, and I suppose what I am trying to say is that I will see London whenever I see London. I will apply for my visa and I will return to London and I will find a new job and maybe I will even begin one of the tasks on my list of things I’d like to do, now that I have the time to. Uncertainty awaits but so does a fresh start. A fresh branch on my fig tree.

As I sit in my airplane seat surrounded by strangers who happen to be in the same place, at the same time, travelling from London to San Francisco, floating in the air together for the next eight hours, I think about how lucky I am to have coworkers who are also my close friends, and how lucky I am to have worked at a record label for the last two years (something 18 year old me had dreamt of doing), and how lucky I am to have a partner who tells me how pretty I am the moment I wake up, with my retainers glued to my mouth and pimple patches stuck in my hair, and how lucky I am to be growing with the Before Sunrise trilogy, and how lucky I am to have stepped into my dad’s childhood home and to have met someone who was once a part of his life, and how lucky I am to have a healthy and loving relationship with my parents who have a healthy and loving relationship with each other. I think about how lucky I am to have connected face to face with 15 online friends last weekend, and how lucky I am to have built a life for myself in London, one that is filled with community and friendship, one that is worth the stress of a visa application and the stress of living so far away from home, and how lucky I am to even have a home and a family to return to in this strange, interim period of being 27, living in two countries at once, and ultimately, I think about how lucky I am that things don’t work out, until suddenly they do.

HI from california! it is sunny here and this morning i went to the farmer’s market with my parents and my little brother (he’s 25 and 6’2) and we got pastries and coffee and strawberries and randomly ran into my dad’s friend slash my “uncle” who is also from the tiny town in holland and for that i am grateful. as always, if you made it this far thank you for taking the time to read this post! i haven’t written a substack piece since july, mainly because i wasn’t feeling very inspired, and because there just aren’t enough hours in the damn day, but after meeting Sarah i just knew i needed to do *something* about it. then i lost my job . LOL.

also i felt apprehensive to publish this one because i feel ashamed to admit i’ve been made redundant from my job that i talk about a lot, but hopefully it can serve as a source of comfort for anyone else who has been affected by redundancies, too. life is uncertain right now, but i’m just going to let it work out like it always seems to…. also if you live in london expect some more community craft nights once i’m back :-)

tata for now!

For the last few days, I have accomplished the unthinkable: I have allowed myself to be bored. In turn, my boredom has led me to this pen, this blank, unlined notebook (a Christmas gift from my partner’s mom, who correctly guessed that I prefer unlined journals), and whatever words may or may not spill across these pages. I am currently in Greece, on an island called Sifnos, a lesser known island — but nonetheless an island — most known for its cuisine and its pottery, two components that make life worth living, because fewer delights compare to a home cooked meal served in a handmade ceramic dish.

So I am currently in Greece, in Sifnos, on a rock, sitting cross legged on a brown and white striped towel, with salty hair dripping down my back and sun-kissed skin (well, as sun-kissed as my vampirian-esque complexion allows), as the prettiest water I have ever swam in sparkles in the light. Nielsan (my partner) is reading a book to my left, two friends are buried behind books of their own to my right, and an endless oceanic abyss with the faintest silhouette of an island stretches as far as my squinted eyes will reach, as if I could blink and it might not even be there after all.

For the last few days, I have been on holiday, and for the last few days, I have felt true boredom for the first time in what feels like years. I have been waking up without an alarm, getting ready without feeling rushed, sitting on a rock by the ocean much like I am right now, letting the tide rise and fall, the sun rise and set, the only items in our agenda to swim and to sunbathe...

…Which is funny, because I am someone who typically likes to be doing things. Or rather, someone who has to be doing things. Someone who likes to be busy. Or perhaps, someone who likes to keep themselves busy? Every morning, I make a daily checklist of things to do, often filled with tasks benign as “buying tofu after work” or “posting a reel,” and I feel equally as restless when my tasks are checked as I do when they are left unchecked and pushed to tomorrow’s agenda — anxiety seeping its way into any attempt at controlling it. It is strange, how I have been counting down the days until this very moment, sitting on an otherworldly rock with an otherworldly view next to the person I adore most, yet the devil of doubt floats above my shoulder, “You’re missing out,” it says. On what, exactly, remains unknown.

I am sure this is unique to people like me, who spend a lot of time, perhaps too much time, creating and consuming online, who should probably read more books and prioritize touching grass (or sitting on rocks by the sea), this feeling of FOMO while away from home, from work, from routine, from worlds online and in real life. From waking up and half-asleepidly making a checklist and then going to work and catching up with friends on the weekends and daydreaming about the Sifnian sea in the small pockets of time in between. This feeling that if I hide myself for too long, I’ll forget and be forgotten. It’s ironic — how living life, swimming in the Mediterranean, laying under the sun — these moments of tranquility, inadvertently causing me to feel like I’m falling behind. It’s not, though, and deep down, I know that. But knowing something doesn’t make it any easier to accept. There is power in slowing down, in letting your mind wander, in leaving your phone in the Airbnb and bringing nothing but a film camera, a bottle of sunscreen, an unlined journal, a black pen, a striped towel, and a pair of sunglasses down to the big rock by the blue sea. I sit among the worriers, my fellow comrades constantly obsessing over every little thing — worrying that the near-empty can of coke will leave a stain in my tote bag, worrying that we might run out of sunscreen, worrying that if I go for a swim right now, that I’ll lose the flow of writing I appear to have found myself in. But for every cry of worry in my brain, there is the reminder that there will always be another train.

If you miss the train, another one will come. Another statement we know to be true, yet we fail to accept when we run to the platform seconds after the train has departed. We watch the train disappear into the tunnel, and we let out a sigh, perhaps a swear word under our breath, forgetting that a coca cola stain on a tote bag can be washed. A new bottle of sunscreen can be bought. A piece can be picked up where it was left off. Another train will come.

Each day is slipping into the next, not in a gloomy, monotonous way, but in the kind of way where I am losing track of time and space, savoring every sip of a freddo cappuccino (iced latte) from the cafe downstairs and exchanging laughs and kind words with the shop owners, a couple, and their little son who probably does not remember that I bought a handmade magnet from him two Julys ago, an orange teddy bear made of clay and paint which remains stuck to our fridge, and then going for swims at the special spot by the white church with the blue roof and afterwards climbing the man-made steps, wet towels and even wetter hair, rewarding ourselves with the air-conditioned apartment when the sun is shining a little too brightly to allow us to do anything else, but that’s okay because once the sun decides it is time for it to set, we will cook and eat dinners on the balcony, a warm breeze will blow the lace-trimmed curtains against the windowsill, the hymns of children and parents playing and laughing and singing will echo throughout the corridors until midnight, the grecian cats will travel in packs from rooftop to rooftop, the perfect story for a picture book, the sea is finally left undisturbed, the same sea I will greet tomorrow morning for another swim, resting and repeating our makeshift routine, until suddenly it is my second to last day on this island. I think that is when you know a break has been a nice one, when you only remember the first and last days because you were too busy drinking coffee and giggling and swimming and living out all of the little details in between.

I just finished writing postcards to Paisley, Mollie, Hunter, Auntie Dyne, Mom and Dad, and Nielsan’s parents. For some reason, my 15 year old self decided that I would refuse to use any kind of pen that is not an Inkjoy Gel Pen, and unfortunately this kind of pen is the kind that smears on postcards and finds itself stuck to the side of your right palm once you finish using it, so after my hands were covered in dots and smears I held each postcard in the air, letting the salty breeze attach the messages to the postcards once and for all. The tide is getting higher; the crashing waves resemble translucent fireworks, flying above my head and then back into each other. I read for the first time in months, a book about friendship and grief which feels oddly enough perfectly timed with my life right now, and I am writing whatever this ends up becoming. “Boredom is the best thing for inspiration,” Nielsan said two days ago, after we mutually declared that we had been feeling bored.

On the last day of February of this year, my great grandma passed away. At this point, I have become numb to the phrase “my grandma passed away” and part of me still refuses to believe that the statement is true, that someone can just disappear from the world like that, with an unfinished book and half-eaten madeleines on their nightstand and oh-so much love left to give. I refuse to believe she is gone, despite having flown from England to California for four days to attend the memorial service where I quite literally held her urn in between my two hands, and anyways, my point in all of this is the yellow roses.

When I was little, one of the many houses I lived in had a row of rose bushes in the backyard (it also had a lemon tree and a flower box of pansies and the dangling branches of a persimmon tree; the titas (Filipino for ‘aunties’) would pick persimmons by the plastic-bagful, claiming that they were ours, even if the trunk of the tree did, in fact, belong to our neighbors) — the roses were pastel pink and yellow and orange — and whenever my grandma would visit, we would pick the roses together. She would carefully trim a stem from the bush, and together we would wrap the rose into a wet paper towel secured with an exoskeleton of aluminum foil, shielding our nimble hands from any thorns. From that point forward, flowers became our “thing.” So, on the first day of March, when London spring was just a few showers away from its debut, wisterias preparing to bloom and glimpses of pink peeking out from under green tree branches, I decided to find my grandma in every yellow rose I saw. And over the course of spring I saw a lot of them, to the point where I eventually stopped seeking them out.

Last month, I was in an Uber, and the driver had asked about my recent-ish trip to California, because when an English Uber driver hears you have an American accent, each conversation quickly goes from discussing the weather to discussing your split life between California and England, one that you do not quite know how to fully comprehend yourself. Each year only further complicates your understanding of your own life, because each year you are more rooted within London than you are within California, and it is another hard truth to accept, that perhaps this is your life now, because how are you meant to start all over again if one day you move back to America like you say you will? You have a partner here, a cat here, a pension here, a life here! This time though, I didn’t mind the reminder that I Do Not Know What I’m Doing induced by London traffic and two people with two different accents. The driver was nice. “Your family must have been so happy to see you,” he said. “They were. I actually went home for my grandma’s funeral, so it was really nice to be with them.” (I am nothing if not honest to people, even if I have just met then 15 minutes beforehand.) The driver said a prayer for my Grandma, one I cannot fully recall, and as he was speaking I looked outside the window, and there she was: a yellow rose bush.

A week ago, we arrived in Athens, restless and melting into a puddle of our own sweat, and after attempting to feel as human as one can feel after a 3 o’clock in the morning National Express Ride followed by three hours at Luton Airport, followed by a three hour Ryan Air flight and a two hour metro ride sans-seats, we set ourselves on a mission to find dinner, which I suppose was also technically breakfast and lunch. We said we’d “go into wherever we stumble upon” but when you are trying to be a wanderlust travelling couple in 98 degree heat running on mere hours of sleep, the method of finding nourishment jumps from “let’s see where the wind takes us” to “there is no wind, let’s just pull up Google Maps” within milliseconds. A combination of poor reception abroad and weather-induced impatience led us to one place which felt far too fancy for someone wearing boxers and a tank top, a second place which sold specifically ice cream and waffles which I mentally bookmarked for dessert, and a third which we could not get a full read on because it looked closed, until suddenly, we were being guided inside by its owner, his only customers who dare eat dinner at half past 5 o’clock p.m. We sat down on purple and green velvet chairs in the center of the empty restaurant, he switched on the AC for us, a cover band rendition of Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” sang into my ears, and I looked to my right. On the wall was a framed drawing of a yellow rose. “Yellow Roses,” it read: “enthusiasm and friendship. A single rose can be my garden… a single friend my world.”

I took a photo and sent it to my mom, because when you are 27 you will find any excuse to text a parent and when you lose a loved one you will look for them in anything and everything. My mom texted: Awww is grandma with you 🥹 she always loved it when you travel.

I wish I could still write my grandma letters and postcards. I did not know this until around the time she was gone, but she always held onto my letters and my cards, even the ones where I was too young to remember writing them to her. She probably did not know this, but I held onto some of her letters, too. Whenever we would call, she would ask how I liked my new apartment, even though by February I had lived there for nearly a year. I figured it was her poor memory, but when my mom was packing up her belongings in the days after her passing, she found a card in her handbag, one with two pink birds stamped on the front with the phrase “love u” where I had written about my new apartment on the inside. “It has pretty stained glass windows, you would like it.” Then I understood why she always asked about my apartment every time we spoke. She finally saw the stained glass windows on our last Facetime call, in our final moment together. We cremated her with that card.

…And suddenly, I am aggressively typing into my Notes App because my pen ran out of ink as tears stream down my cheeks. I guess this is why they say it comes in waves.

In the book I am reading, one of the characters — a nervous 14 year old boy named Ted — says that if he could have a super power, he would want the ability to freeze time. When I was little, I wished I could teleport so I could be everywhere at once, but I now realize that maybe I, too, wished I could freeze time. I wish I could freeze this moment, where I am writing in my journal as Nielsan reads his book with his legs dangling over the glistening sea, and I wish I could freeze the time when I was six years old and picking yellow and pink and orange roses with my Grandma, and I wish I could freeze all the moments where I was laughing so hard with my friends that my stomach started to hurt — because those are the best kinds of laughs — I wish I could freeze all of the times like these. The times where I am too lost in the moment to even begin to think about holding onto it, the times between the first and last day of a vacation.

The passage of time is simultaneously life’s greatest curse and blessing. It makes sense that my favorite films are Before Sunrise, My Old Ass, and Past Lives. There is just something so freeing, yet so unbelievably heart-wrenching about knowing that a moment is finite, that time is something uncontrollable. The very fact that there is an end to our existence is what makes it so beautiful, I think. The waves are inching closer to my towel and my belongings, but we refuse to move. I am still writing and Nielsan is still reading and even if we get wet at least we can let the sun dry us off. As I watch the waves splash I remember that there will always be another train, but there will not always be another yellow rose picked with a grandma, a hug with a loved one, a belly laugh with best friends, an afternoon spent on a rock in Greece with a partner.

Last night, on the way home from dining for nearly three hours, we walked past an older man telling someone else, a stranger, I think, between tears, “This is our first trip together in 40 years. And it might be our last…. so.. you know…. it’s now or never.” I wondered if he was with his kids, or perhaps a lover, and if they had visited this same island 40 years ago.

Sometimes we convince ourselves that we are in a rush. A rush to keep up with the latest discourse, the latest trend trend, a rush to make sure you didn’t miss anything, to be in the “know,” a rush to write a new Substack piece, or share another video, even though it feels like not long ago when you published and posted something, a rush to get to where you think you need to be, a rush to get that one thing that’s going to make all the other problems go away — a rush to move to a new city, or meet a partner, or find a new job, because surely that will be the missing piece that solves everything else — a rush to catch the train. Or maybe it is just me.

It is 4:24 PM and I have been sitting by the ocean for a few hours. I am wearing sunglasses so the vibrancy of mother nature is now tinted with a translucent orange, but thank goodness they are prescription sunglasses so at the very least, it is a high-definition tinted orange. Around the corner of the cove, tucked between the cliff and the pebbled beach, is the restaurant we had our three hour dinner at last night — Cantina — and everything about it was perfect. Yes, the food, but also, everything else. We watched the chefs dance in the kitchen to their playlist which we were quick to find and save on Spotify (apparently 117 others have done the same) — at one point, one of the chefs grabbed the lamp hanging on the ceiling and shined the spotlight through the open doors onto us and we giggled and danced around with them — and the waiters gave us two desserts solely because “you guys are so nice” and we were supposed to have a shared table but when our fellow table sharers realised they, too, had booked a shared table they decided they didn’t want one anymore and we ended up having a table of five to ourselves, which overlooked the sun setting, the neighbors eating their dinner on the shore, the table sharers that could have been, and a father rocking his baby to sleep. “If I were a baby, this is exactly where I would want to be cradled,” I said. We drank chilled orange and red wine and ate the most delicious seafood and watched the chefs dance and the families laugh. We made up stories about the people at the other tables — guessing the dynamic between three friends and presuming whether the couple was here for a honeymoon, or perhaps an engagement — to me, the best kind of meals are rarely ever a product of the meal itself, but the life surrounding the meal. Nearly three years ago, Maddie and Daniella were in London and we went to Ottolenghi. When we arrived, it was busy as ever, the kind of busy where you feel like you are yelling to speak to someone else, and by the time we finished our conversation we turned around and the restaurant was empty; it was half an hour past midnight. The staff looked at us with smiles, we apologized, “Oh my gosh, we didn’t know it was so late!” and our server said, “We love seeing conversations go on like that, we didn’t want to interrupt. It really is our pleasure,” and from that point forward I decided that a meal is a quality meal when I am so deeply entrenched in a conversation that I forget I am eating a meal to begin with. Like going on a holiday and only remembering the first and last day.

Nielsan is now foraging for skippable stones and I am intently staring at a bright green bug that will hopefully decide that I am nice and that it should not pinch me. Eventually, we will have dinner, and maybe I will even buy an ice cream cone despite my tummy still hurting from the ice cream we had last night, but it’ll pass, like it always does.

And just like that, I am back by the sea, on The Rock, unlined notebook in hand, armed with a pen full of ink that I bought from the cafe with the nice owners. It is light blue and says “Greece” and depicts several cartoon donkeys carrying several different objects — watermelons, flowers, blankets — and just like that, it is our last full day on this magical island. The girls and boys to my right are about to leave, I wonder if there is a romance sparking between them because they had entered as two sets of two but now exist as a group of four, and once again Nielsan and I are left with a place in the world that has always existed in our minds as “ours” and ours alone.

Earlier, we went to the cafe and did not need to order, because our friends already knew what we wanted: two freddo cappuccinos, one with almond milk, both with sugar. (And, a light blue pen with cartoon donkeys on its exterior.) They handed us our coffees with a small, soft cookie aptly placed on each lid. “Thank you guys, enjoy,” they said, with a smile.

We decided to break our balcony-breakfast routine by climbing the steps to the top of the village, to a bench which overlooks the blue church and the even bluer sea. A gray blur scurried past our shoes, almost too fast for us to process that it was indeed a small cat, and as we sat down and started sipping our coffees, three more balls of fur appeared in front of us: a black and white spotted cat and her two kittens, one with gray stripes and the other black, both adorned with button noses and delicate bodies small enough to fit in a teacup. I wanted to cry, first, at the sight of weeks-old, adorable kittens reminding me of my own cat back home, second, at the thought of them being hungry and also at their mom’s scraggly fur, and third, at the reminder that time doesn’t stop for anyone. One day, the teeny tiny kittens will grow into cats, and maybe, eventually, they will have babies of their own, baking biscuits into their chest and nuzzling their cheeks against one another, on a stone-carved step with a view of the blue-capped church. It feels like an inconceivable thought, to look at a baby, and see it as anything more than a baby, until suddenly it is a girl, and then a wife, and then a mother, and then a grandmother, and then a great-grandmother, holding a tiny, delicate pink parcel of a newborn girl, a newborn girl who would come to love picking flowers and eating lemon loaf cakes and wearing button up cardigans, just as her great grandma did. And like most things happen — slowly, then all at once — the rose-loving, lemon loaf-eating girl would find herself holding her great grandma in between her shaky fingers and sweaty palms, decades of love and postcards and letters and flowers and “Love you, miss you, see you soons” in a wooden box following a memorial service. And then she’d fly back to England the next day and find a yellow rose bush hiding around every corner, and then a few months later she’d find herself welling up at the sight of kittens while sitting on a bench on her last day in Sifnos.

To be honest, I still do not know what this is that I am writing, but I do not necessarily think it has to be anything at all. Semantics are semantics are semantics. I am admiring how crystal clear the water is, I am watching the rainbows that form when the waves spray off the side of the cliffs, I am feeling the sun on my skin and the feeling of contentment in the air. I am not in a rush, I am enjoying right now, today before it becomes another memory I’ll want to relive. Like a photo of a blue and white church on the front of a postcard, with two tiny figures at the bottom of the rocks, just above the sea – a boy and a girl – laying on striped towels with soft smiles painted across their faces. The same church painted on the magnet our cafe friends gave us this morning as a parting gift, the same church I will find myself daydreaming about until I get to return to it again.

⋆. 𐙚₊˚⊹ ᡣ𐭩 a note from tum ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ ᡣ𐭩

helloooo! i went on holiday for 10(ish) days (if you follow me on instagram you probably saw my 1928982 stories of the ocean and the greek cats) and i decided to start writing in a blank journal — analog style — and alas, it turned into a substack piece. i went in with the intention of writing about the power of being bored and letting your mind wander, which is something that can be so difficult to do when you (me) are constantly stimulated with music and media and notifications in our ears, but the silence ultimately unraveled into writing about grief, and then i kept on writing, and of course it turned into yet another 4,000+ word ramble. if you read this far, as always, thank you, i appreciate you!

The third summer I spent in London was a hot one. It was the kind of ‘hot’ where going outside isn’t really an option, but staying inside means shutting all three blinds, taking intermittent cold showers, and inserting ice packs into the blue and white plastic desk fan that cost £75 on Amazon Prime, and thinking, “Is this really what I waited 9 months for?” and “I wish London had A.C.” Admittedly, I lived in a studio flat the size comparable to that of a shoebox which meant that the heat was contained to a space far too small for my liking, but it also meant that I could sing as loud as I wanted to in the shower, I could Deliveroo tiramisu from Eataly at 9pm feeling little to no shame walking to and from the front door in my slippers, and I could film videos without getting nervous that someone might overhear me – or worse – walk into the room mid-fit-check. During the third summer I spent in London I was melting into a puddle of cold brew and isolation, but at the very least, I was free.

On one of 2023’s summer days, where the 32 degree heat was just about bearable enough to walk down Broadway Market and purchase an “iced oat latte” before it melted into a lukewarm, espresso-ey cocktail, I decided to post a TikTok. I had recently started documenting my outfits online (something I still do to this day), and on this particular afternoon I sported a loose, white button up shirt, a pair of dark brown, striped boxer shorts, white crew socks, a pair of tennis shoes, sunglasses, and a black crossbody bag. Without much thought, I quickly scribbled text on top of the video declaring myself as having a “Boxer Girl Summer,” thinking, “What’s not to love about a pair of high-waisted dark brown shorts with an elastic waistband made of breathable fabric?” In part, I added the text because that’s sort of the thing you do on TikTok — overlay a block of niche words on top of an otherwise mundane video — and in doing so I discovered that, apparently, there is A Lot That Is Not To Love about a pair of boxers. Rather than circulating throughout my side of the internet — the side that understands boxers as a cute summer clothing piece — my TikTok wound up on the FYP’s of those who disagree that boxer-style shorts are an acceptable form of clothing, no matter the season. There was one hate comment, and suddenly, there were many hate comments.

I am so grossed out. Boxers are underwear and not shorts. Ahh yes, so we’re adding to the list of “things people are wearing that they definitely would’ve bullied other girls for 10 years ago” cool cool. Looks ridiculous. “Is it a fit or is she just skinny” (there were a lot of body comments which was just greaaat).

I will never forget the commenter who pointed out that my shoes sucked too, aptly followed by the tennis shoe emoji 👟, which hurt the most, because I, for one, love my New Balances. Their brown colour-way matched my boxers and my glasses – ever heard of the sandwich method? When boxer shorts ended up trending the following summer, I resisted the urge to respond to the commenters asking if they had anything they would like to say to me.

@taytoomboxer girl summer lets go !!! 🥊 #boxershorts #fitcheck

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Before and after what my friends and I have since coined as “Boxers-Gate” I have posted several other viral-ish videos resulting in negative comments*, even – and especially – when they have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the video itself. Like the time I posted a video about working in the music industry, where I had recorded myself while walking down the street and added a block of text explaining that an album I worked on had been released, and someone commented “Ok slew foot.” (I still laugh about this one but also if I don’t laugh I’ll cry. Platform loafers are heavy, okay?!) Or the latest iteration of Boxers-Gate, Scanner-Gate, where I posted a video of a scanner that I got for Christmas. It got over 15 million views, and I received so many hate comments I decided to turn off commenting. No amount of engagement is worth any amount of anxiety. I instead followed up with an educational video explaining what a scanner is for the few whose pea-sized brains had the capacity to watch a video for longer than 10 seconds, and how I use scanners in the art that I create, and, naturally, I used the PR as an opportunity to advertise my new zine.

I have posted enough things on the internet to learn to disassociate from the hate of it all. When I worked as a TikTok creator for VICE (and wrote a few bylines for their website) I very quickly understood the importance of ignoring negative commenters and that perhaps journalism is not my calling. Recently, however, I have found myself worrying that people can be so mean, that we feel scared to be authentically ourselves online, whether we are sharing a summer outfit, a reflection on our office job, or a unique Christmas present.

@taytoomhere is a little breakdown of scanners and textures, as they relate to my zine making hobby :) [hold for 2x speed] #zines #graphicdesign #magazine #creative #crafty

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*Note: there were also lots of lovely comments on these videos, too, and they did not (and do not) go unnoticed. Thank you to anyone and everyone who leaves nice comments online (and in real life), the world needs more positivity! A special shout out to the girl at the shop last week, who told me my outfit was cute and that I looked like a Pinterest Girl. That morning I was *not* feeling cute and her words made my day :’)

These days, with doting eyes, I look back to the time where the internet was a place that only existed within the khaki-coloured, cardboard box of a computer tucked into the corner of my parent’s bedroom. The world-wide web was a placed you logged in to and out of (as identified by a green, red, or yellow dot next to your name), a place where the “Google” search eventually ended and then you would press the power button on the back left of the wheezing monitor and go outside and bike around the neighbourhood with your friends, unbothered by the potential of being recorded and posted online, the idea of being labelled as the internet’s new victim of the week nonexistent. Bullies were only to be found in the hallways at school, or in the shows on the television, and I know this is a morbid observation but cyber-bullying was not yet conceived as an idea, at least not in my early experience of being online. I think about when I first downloaded Instagram when I was 13 years old; my first photo, shared on December 29, 2011 was of four socks being used as Christmas stockings with the Valencia filter slapped on top. The caption read “pretty quality christmas stockings..” and my posts that followed were much of the same: random objects around the house with a random filter added, memes reposted from 9gag.com, or screenshots of text that read “Like for a truth is (:”. These were the years shortly before the white borders and the “#SelfieSunday” and the Facetune-ification of it all: the days where we shared what we wanted to share, and it meant nothing more or less than that.

*I know, I know, there were also viruses and scammers and objectively bad people taking advantage of the internet during its early days. This is my best attempt at painting the picture of using the internet as a small Tatum.

I grew up in the early 2000s, so I am old enough that I remember having “computer time” in elementary school, where we painted rainbows on KidPix (iykyk) on the the blue and pink and green and orange iMac computers built with translucent plastic, but I suppose I am young enough that I did not have a MySpace or MSN Messenger account. While I was not picking out a Fall Out Boy or Paramore song to pin to a profile, I did play the mini-games on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon websites, I was posting YouTube videos when video responses, 5 star ratings, the sidebar, and private messages still existed on the platform, my friends and I chatted on G-Chat to organise our Club Penguin hang outs, we video-called via Skype and Oovoo, and I created — or rather, coded — websites with glittery HTML stickers on weebly.com. As both a young woman in S.T.E.M. and a 1998 child self-identifying as a “Zillennial,” I caught the tail-end of the “millennial optimism” that has found its way into recent video-essayist discourse. I, too, was belting positivity into the air, like “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas and “Tonight” by F.U.N. and “Firework” by Katy Perry, I, too was wearing neon green, wing-armed blouses from Forever 21 accessorised with a silver owl pendant necklace and a slouchy beanie that fought for its life on the back of my head, and I was punching the shades out of the 3D glasses from the cinema, taking selfies on Photobooth at the Apple Store with my friends and uploading them to Facebook, and I was returning home and using iMovie to create music videos to sped up songs before editing photos on Piknik and sending 20 character texts to my friends on my Motorola Karma.

And then I grew up, and the internet grew up, and things changed. I stopped logging out.

Before I critique the very thing that is responsible for my identity and much of my existence as a whole, I will once again acknowledge that the internet is a place where I have met some of my best friends, learned my creative hobbies, found an audience of crafty, fashionable, like minded girls (my follower demographic is 95% women and 5% men, and thank goodness for that) and it is even the place where I met my partner, who I have been with for nearly three years. I have the internet to thank for just about everything.

I guess when I write “the internet” what I am really referring to is social media. At some point between when I was dancing to “Super Bass” in the Apple Store in my 3D glasses sans-lenses and posting a TikTok of my boxer shorts in a hot and tiny London flat, “friends” became “followers,” “favourites” became “likes,” “pictures” became “content,” “people” became “creators,” “timelines” became ultra-customised “for you pages,” going “viral” became commonplace, content became monetisable, and the lines between the internet and real life blurred into an inescapable hyperreal haze.

I have been sharing things online since 2009. Do not fault my parents for this; they didn’t know better, and neither did I. My childlike wonder brought me to YouTube, of all places, and my first ever video was recorded directly on the site via my iMac’s webcam: a 47 second, 240p masterpiece where I said “HAPPY 11TH BIRTHDAY!” to my friend Natasha, as The Veronicas sang “Untouched” at far too high of a volume to hear anything else. At Natasha’s birthday party, I proudly presented my magnum opus on their family computer, and everyone was amazed that I was standing next to them, but I was also inside of a screen. My second upload was a violin tutorial on how to play none other than the introductory solo of “Our Song” by Taylor Swift. I was wearing Fred (yes, Figglehorn) merch and my violin-playing was subpar and screechy and off-key, yet somehow, I managed to receive 1,000 views.

I shared my first YouTube video with Natasha, and Natasha is the only person whom I intended to have it viewed by. I shared my violin tutorial with, presumably, people who wanted to learn how to play “Our Song” by Taylor Swift on the violin, and all of these years later, I seem to have developed a fictional “you” in my head not only when I am posting things online, but also throughout my day to day existence.

I anxiously turn the pages of a book on the tube, wondering if people will sneak a photograph and deem myself as TikTok’s latest performative reader, or if I appear artsy and mysterious, like the girls on Tumblr I wanted to be when I was 14. Last month I cried on an airplane because that’s just how grief is sometimes, and part of me imagined this as one of the melancholic scenes of my life’s movie. Whenever it starts raining while I’m on the bus, I look outside the window longingly, as if I am the star of a melodramatic early 2000’s music video. Last night I started dancing to music in my bedroom, and then stopped when I realised someone might see me through the window.

Is it possible to exist without performing? To write a Substack piece without an audience in mind? To begin a TikTok voiceover without the words Hey guys? To work from home without feeling the need to wear makeup and curl my hair? To post a story without rewatching it multiple times? To become less aware of my own debilitating self-surveillance? I don’t know. The first Substack essay I ever read was Rayne Fisher Quann’s “standing on the shoulders of complex female characters” — an excellent observation of internet and media commodification and its affect on the identities of young women online. When I read the closing line, I started to spiral:

we consume so much, now, that perhaps we don’t know what it means to exist as something unsellable. i had to give up journalling because i couldn’t stop writing for the people who would read it after i was dead.

Over the last year or so, I have been re-evaluating my relationship with social media, and part of that involves dismantling the voice in my head telling me that I need to receive a certain amount of engagement for whatever it is that I’m sharing to be “worthy” content. Suddenly, a “like” from a friend isn’t enough. 1 like becomes 10, 10 becomes 100, 100 becomes 1000, and nothing ever feels adequate, especially scrolling through endless timelines that lead to inevitable self-doubt. And then when a video goes viral and you have thousands of people telling you your art sucks and your boxers aren’t cute, you wonder why you even shared your art or your boxers to begin with. This morning, I put on an outfit that made me feel happy: a polka dot skirt, a green, lace-trimmed long sleeve top, and biker boots. Then, I went outside and got cat-called twice within the span of five minutes, and wish I hadn’t worn my outfit at all.

When you work as a social media manager, your success is predominantly measured by numbers: How many views did they get? How many people are making TikToks using their song? Can we start a trend? Why hasn’t their follower count risen? Why aren’t we getting more clicks? WE NEED TO SELL TICKETS! If a video is a success, you get a fleeting “congrats" and if a video flops, you don’t get much at all. The first time a video hits a million views, you feel proud, but when the subsequent ten hardly hit 100,000, you wonder what you are doing wrong. You forget that behind the number there is a fan enjoying whatever piece of content it is and no matter how many of them there are, hardly does it ever feel satisfactory. The thing is, no one is doing anything wrong — that’s just how algorithms work — it’s an addicting game of dopamine and doubt. I think that we – or at the very least, I – have been primed to believe that an audience is necessary to exist online. Without our “notifications” button to click on every time we open an app, who are we?

Be honest, how would you feel if you posted something, somewhere and no one liked it, viewed it, or commented on it? Maybe to few, refreshing, but to most it would probably feel like being in a group conversation, saying something, and no one acknowledging you. Not even that one friend who always makes sure that you feel included in social settings. Much of my Substack notes timeline is littered with memes about receiving a like on Instagram versus a like on Substack, or being thankful to have hit X amount of subscribers and Y amount of likes, and I’ll admit – I relate, and I have contributed to these types of posts on many occasions – but I cannot stress the importance of recognising the very real person behind the number. I feel absolutely honoured when someone takes the time to read one of my Substack posts and I am in disbelief that you liked my writing enough to subscribe to this newsletter and read this far along, and I am grateful when someone reaches out after flipping through one of my zines, or comments on something else I posted, but I try my very best to share things because I want to share things; not because I want to feel the attention that comes with sharing things. The internet feels like an endless, chaotic void, and I cannot blame anyone for wanting to feel seen and heard within it — I certainly do. I’m shadow banned on TikTok right now and it feels like the universe is watching me type this article and telling me, “Okay, then show us you’ll live without people seeing your content!”

Bo Burnham’s 2016 Netflix special, Make Happy, which feels (oddly enough) ahead of its time, concludes with:

“What do we want more than to lie in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member. I know very little about anything. But what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it.”

Recently, I was eating dinner alone with my thoughts and I whipped out my Notes app and typed: “New substack - I wish the TikTok ban actually happened.” And I say this as someone who creates content online*. So much of trend journalism and video essayist discourse relies on the newest TikTok topic – I cannot tell you how many 20-30 minute videos I have watched about the Stanley Cup craze, the lack of third spaces, trad wives and the rise of conservatism, Gen Z and clubbing (or the lack thereof), overconsumption-core, dark academia and cottage core and the aestheticisation and TikTokification and blank-ification of everything ever – and while this is not intended to slander video essayists*, because video essays observe and critique culture and much of cultural conversation is intertwined with the online space, but when TikTok was banned, I was curious to see how it would affect journalism, and more generally, our ability to truly think independently of one another. What topics would people make video essays about? What clothes would I buy, and how would I style them? What type of art would I create, and where would I find inspiration? What would I really think of a new album, or a new film? How would I form my own opinions about the world around me?

*Video essayists, I love you, I promise!

Anyways, after being banned for a duration shorter than my first situationship the TikTok app started working again and I was greeted by a message that the President had helped, and following this I made an executive decision of my own to stop scrolling on the app. I watched the recent seasons of Severance and The White Lotus without using TikTok, and while I did watch a handful of long-form YouTube videos posted by cinephile channels discussing each show, it was freeing to form my own theories on what was to happen next between episodes. My friend and I waited an hour in line together at a sample sale, and we spent the entire time discussing Severance. Each Tuesday for two months straight, my coworkers and I sat together at lunch to debrief The White Lotus. I managed to find ways to engage in the conversation free from the FYP. I still use the app to post videos, and I will watch whatever my friends send me, but I am on a journey to detach my phone from my hand, my brain from my algorithm, and the need for validation and the compulsion to scroll and compare myself to others.

*Worth noting that I create content online, but I do not make income from creating content online. Adobe, if you’re seeing this… my inbox is open

Everything is ironic now, and I kind of hate it. Hear me out: irony has become a mask for vulnerability. Or maybe it always has been, and I am only now just realising it. Probably the latter. In college, I remember watching the Netflix original The Kissing Booth (and the second and third iterations that followed), and making sure people knew “it’s so bad, but so fun to hate watch” when it came up in conversation. I justified my decision by saying that Jacob Elordi was in The Kissing Booth, so therefore it wasn’t absolutely unwatchable because he’s Jacob Elordi. He’s in Euphoria. He’s Elvis! I tuned into YouTube reaction channels – like Cody Ko and Noel Miller’s “That’s Cringe” and Kurtis Conner and his friend Dean reacting to a Cosmopolitan series, “Bestie Picks Bae” – feeling at ease watching otherwise “cringe” content through the guise of someone else poking fun at it. I have watched every season of Love Is Blind, most seasons of Below Deck, and I even dedicated an entire summer to keeping up with a season of Love Island. This begs the question: at what point do I just admit that I like watching reality TV, and I like pop music, and – actually – I am planning on watching the fourth season of You, not in an ironic way, but because maybe it is good, and maybe I actually enjoy it? At what point do we let a guilty pleasure exist as, simply, a pleasure?

It is springtime in London right now, which means that yellow roses are peeking out of every corner, and all of the trees are casting pink and purple shadows, and as a result, my camera roll is akin to that of a botanical garden’s Instagram page. One of my friends shared a ten-slide carousel post of ten different pink trees. It made me smile. I shared an Instagram story of pink tree petals on the ground contrasted by my yellow maryjane shoes. The next day I shared another story of the pink tree outside my office, one of its branches dangling behind a bright red phone booth, a sight which stopped me in my tracks and served as a reminder that I am lucky to live in such a whimsical city. Then, later, I reposted this meme. It feels as if I was using the meme as a self-reflexive defence to those scrolling past my stories – probably one of many Londoners sharing a pink tree to their Instagram – hey, I know you just clicked through another story of a pink tree, so here’s a meme about posting photos of pink trees just so you’re aware that I’m aware that everyone else is sharing photos of pink trees. It’s ironic!

In a now-deleted Tumblr post about the irony epidemic, Ethel Cain writes:

I miss genuine passion. As an autistic individual, when I'm alone, sometimes I cannot contain myself with how things make me feel. The music I listen to, the video games I play, the books I read. I almost feel the need to run through the house and scream in everyone's face how I'm feeling. It feels good to love intensely. Now, I won't pretend like autistic people haven't been bullied for this since the dawn of time, but there is surely a noticeable lack of passion in everything these days. Everyone can feel it, everyone is talking about it. Everything now is "cringe", or "doing too much", or "not that serious". Actually, it is that serious.

I am an advocate in posting the things that make you happy, which, in most of my cases happens to be photos of flowers or videos of my outfits or carousels edited to look like a digital scrapbook – but this does not spare me from feeling the need to downplay my genuine hobbies and interests and creations to others. It was not until recently that I decided to look back on my days of being a fangirl-wannabe-Youtuber without prefacing it with “It’s so embarrassing, but I used to…”

It isn’t embarrassing to like what you like, and it especially isn’t embarrassing to do so unapologetically. In 2013, I discovered the mutually exclusive wonders of fandom, Twitter, and Tumblr, and now I work in the music industry. Last year, I got to interview one of my favourite artists about one of my favourite albums of the year, for a music magazine that I created. I got my job as a social media manager at a record label partially because in my interview I mentioned that I used to run a fan account when I was younger. I know how to edit photos and videos because I wanted to be a YouTuber back in its heyday. So, no, it’s not embarrassing that I went to Vidcon and that I probably have a photo with your favorite YouTuber from 2013, because it was a period of my life where I found a community online, and in doing so, inadvertently built the skillset and knowledge of the internet required to do my job and engage in my hobbies today. It can be easy to see an adult at Disneyland wearing Mickey Mouse ears, or a Marvel fan cosplaying as a superhero at Comicon, or someone filming a TikTok dance in public, and deem ourselves as superior. I mean, really, what’s the difference between dressing up as Batman versus painting your face and body to go to a football match and sing chants with your mates versus dressing up in cowboy boots and a fringe-lined turquoise dress for a Swiftogeddon club night? Let’s let each other live a little bit, okay?

Maturing is turning 27 and realising that it is actually a very admirable thing to be a “try hard.” I remember, in middle school and high school, the “try hards” made themselves particularly known in P.E. — they were the people who actually wore running shoes and ran fast and tried at the sports we had to play. Meanwhile, myself and others did the mile run in Vans and Converse, trying our best to stand somewhere in the middle with blistered feet and un-tied hair and sweaty necks, because when I was 16, nothing was more embarrassing than trying. My mission was to fit in, and if that meant pretending like I didn’t care, then so be it. One of the try hards [complimentary] ended up going to Harvard to run track and field. I went to the park last weekend and ran two miles, and I am still sore. So there’s that!

The bottom line is: putting effort into something you care about is inspiring. The last two years have been an absolute treat for music lovers; I am wholeheartedly convinced that the positive reception to artists like Chappell Roan, Doechii, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx, and Tyler, the Creator has proven the importance of trying. These artists are not just releasing songs, they are carefully curating entire worlds. They are bringing back the concept of eras. They don’t play shows, they create experiences. They are — and have been, for the last decade or so — try hards, and finally, they are receiving their flowers for caring so deeply about their craft. I had to wait nearly three gruelling years to watch the second season of Severance, and holy shit were those ten hours worth every second of the wait. Severance made me realise just how much I enjoy and value quality television and throughout the season, part of me wished I was still in film school so I had an excuse to talk about it more. When Timothée Chalamet accepted his recent SAG award for Best Actor, he said, "I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight.” And I know referencing some of the most popular artists and television shows probably aren’t the best examples for the point I am trying to make, but all I am saying is that maybe we should all try to try a little bit harder. We should all strive to be great.

Before I moved to London, I was living at home, and it was also the pandemic. I was healing from heartbreak and found comfort through the discovery of one of my now favourite YouTubers, writers, and visual artists: Shayna Klee. She released a poetry book, I purchased a copy, and I found myself particularly drawn to her poem “Make Bad Art & Take Up Space,” and this is what I will leave you with:

We need to stop apologising for existing, especially on the internet. Shout about the art you are proud of creating and share the photos and videos and words you want to share because you want to share them. Resist the urge to discredit and downplay yourself, prefacing statements with the words “silly” and “little” because if it means a lot to you then it is not silly, and I am sure it is far from little. It is serious and big! People online can be cruel (trust me, I get it), but it is so important to say and like and do and watch and wear the things that fill your soul with joy. You might even find some likeminded people along the way. If you like your boxers and want to share a video of them, then go for it. If you want to write a 5,000 word Substack piece unpacking your complicated relationship with social media, then write it. Maybe someone will read it and find a piece of themselves within your prose, or maybe the piece will exit their inbox just as quickly as it entered, but you took your time to create something out of nothing — editing during your lunch breaks and staying up past your bedtime and proofreading again and again and again — for no reason other than you wanted to, and that is pretty cool in and of itself.

You are allowed to — and should — take up space.

⋆. 𐙚₊˚⊹ ᡣ𐭩 a note from tum ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ ᡣ𐭩

hello ! once again, i am spiralling about social media! in some ways this feels like a part 2 to ‘it’s just a number, after all (isn’t it?)’. i’ve been reading and watching lots of discourse surrounding social media, returning to analog hobbies, and the art of trying, and i felt compelled to write about it as someone who enjoys creating content online, but equally recognises and feels the unwanted nerves and anxiety it brings. at the end of the day (at least for me) it’s a hobby. and hobbies shouldn’t stress you out! i like to edit photos and i like to make videos of my outfits and i like to make zines and i shall continue to do so in a way that is healthy for my brain :’)

thank you for reading if you managed to make it this far !!! <3

xx tum

also i decided to commit to UK english for this piece. to my american friends who will roast me for this choice i am so srry

media that inspired me to write this:

• Nathan Zed’s “How Trying Became Cool Again”

• Tiffany Ferg’s “romanticizing ‘millennial optimism’ & the 2010’s hipster lifestyle??”

• Mina Le’s “why is social media not fun anymore?”

• Anna Howard’s “How to Be An Artist Without Selling Your Soul on the Internet”

• Kurtis Conner’s “Why is Everything So Boring Now?”

• Shayna Klee’s “Make Bad Art & Take Up Space”

tw: this is a piece about grief/loss, proceed with caution!

A month ago, I told myself I would start writing a new Substack piece about grief, how you think going through it once will make the second time around easier, and how that is completely, utterly untrue because no two experiences with grief are mirrors, and how processing the death of a loved one from abroad brews guilt and selfishness. I told myself I would write about how, when I read and signed the company handbook two years ago, I never thought I would have to use “Bereavement Leave,” and how I spent the first half of the first week of March using two of my three allotted days, aimlessly wandering around London, perusing in and out of shops knowing that I was not going to buy anything, smiling at the sight of grandmothers and their grandchildren, telling white lies when the barista and record shop worker asked how my day was going, and returning home by 3 'o’clock in the afternoon, where I would run out of distractions and, for once, sit in true boredom. I told myself I would write about how the grief-induced-depression-induced-boredom inadvertently led to the creation of a video that I ended up sharing for the world to see, and how I would not let myself leave my laptop until the video was completely done, and how I felt a strange sense of FOMO knowing that I would have to attend a funeral on Zoom because of a pending visa application. But then I didn’t write anything at all.

And then two more sunny Sundays passed and two more unexpected events occurred: my coworker — and my friend — was let go, and after receiving her “goodbye” email I received another that there was an issue with my visa application. I had 6 days to depart the U.K. My Great Grandma’s memorial service was in 7 days. I booked a last minute flight from London to San Francisco. It’s funny, how things seemingly do not work out until suddenly they do.

Following a long week in the office without my coworker’s silly stories and welcomed midday distractions and the gain of a spur-of-the-moment five day trip back to California, I spent a weekend in the English countryside, in the tiny town where my partner is from. I found myself welling up at a selection of shortbread in an organic farm shop — yes, shortbread cookies — because I realised that it was the first time I would return home where I did not need to pack a box of shortbread cookies in my carry on, because it was the first time I would return home where my Grandma would not be there to receive them. As I walked to the check out till, I told myself I would finally start writing my hypothetical Substack piece, a piece which would begin with myself staring at a box of cookies while on the verge of tears. I would point out that my last piece was titled “lemon shortbread bows and cats” and while the title was not directly correlated to my Grandma, the piece included a sentence about her along with a photo, and then when I would let my mom know I published a new piece I’d receive a text back many hours later that would result in a FaceTime call from the Emergency Room, where my Grandma and I would have our last ever conversation, if you could even call it that. She was nonverbal and wearing an oxygen mask as I was holding back tears, showing her the pixelated flowers across my living room trying to think what I could possibly say in these last moments we would share together from opposite ends of the globe. My mom kept repeatedly urging me to “tell Grandma you love her” while reassuring my Grandma not to worry because “Tatum will visit soon” and while I did manage to croak the little words that could escape my mouth, “I love you Grandma,” and “look at these flowers, Grandma,” what remained after ending the call was a lump in my throat that seems to return whenever I write or talk or think about that very moment.

And then the Thursday after I cried in the cookie aisle I was on a ten and a half hour flight from London to California, nervous because of my visa (or lack thereof), nervous because I was going to see some family members I had not seen in seven years, and nervous to re-process the fact that my Great Grandma is gone. It is one thing, knowing someone you hold close will not be there when you eventually return home, but it is another thing, actually returning to your house to see enough florals and sympathy cards and framed photos to fill an entire Hallmark shop. These days, for better or for worse, it seems as though uncertainty awaits me and I suppose I should just let myself revel in it.

I am 27, which — I think — means that it is now officially considered normal scroll past an engagement, a new home, or a pregnancy announcement without feeling the need to screenshot it and send it to your high school group chat. When I reunited with my 27 year old cousin — the cousin I grew up closest with — who now has an 18 month old baby boy, I quickly realized that there was nothing to be nervous about. Our dynamic was the same, and her child is absolutely adorable. All that has changed is an extra seat at the table and an extra bag to carry around. “This is my cousin Tatum,” she told him. “She makes ootds on Tiktok!” He wrapped his tiny hand around my finger and I cried inside. My other cousin, who is 30, has two children now — an eight month old and a four year old — and seeing my cousin’s bright smile and ability to light up any room she walks into reflected into her sunflower of a daughter made me re-think a lot of my preconceived notions about children and life. I concluded that if I ever have a child I think I would not care about anything else in the entire world.

Two days later — Saturday — was the memorial service. I try to consciously use the words ‘memorial service’ because I do not like the connotations of the word ‘funeral.’ The word ‘funeral’ comes from the latin word ‘funus’ which translates to ‘death’ or ‘corpse,’ but isn’t the point of a memorial service to celebrate one’s life and one’s impact, rather than speak about their death in the present tense?

My mom, her sisters, my Lola, and I showed up an hour early to the mortuary (another word I am not particularly fond of due to its phonetic morbidity). It felt like a building that was stuck in the 2000s in its all of its beige decorum and dusty plastic mahogany roses and barely-there lighting, so I was tasked with creating bouquets of flowers to brighten up the space. I went for yellow roses (Grandma’s favorite), bright pink carnations, baby’s breath, and orange tulips (my dad insisted on adding some “Dutch-ness” to the bouquets and added three tulip bunches to the basket). We also had posterboard-sized collages of my Grandma and her family, flower arrangements sent from all across the globe, and stacks of prayer cards with my Grandma’s portrait on its top side. As we were setting up, a ten minute slideshow played on loop. I took a photo of my mom, her sisters, and my Lola, and a single photo of my Grandma wearing a blue dress timed up perfectly with the shot. Then the sound of strings and melodies written in minor chords filled the room and I had to step outside because, for some reason, I did not want to let myself cry, not just yet.

During the service, my auntie made a speech. She, along with my uncle and my cousins and their children, came all the way from Hawai’i. There are 12 of them in total. My aunt explained that this particular family trip to California was meant to be a “Hello” — where Grandma would finally meet her great great grandchildren — and within the span of a ten minute FaceTime call, their “Hello” became a “Goodbye.” My aunt told stories of Grandma, some which I knew, like the fact that, every night after dinner, she would make my mom and her sisters walk around the house balancing an encyclopedia on their heads for 30 minutes in the name of posture and elegance, but many other stories were new to me. We were asked to describe Grandma in one word, and hearing all of the different adjectives from family and friends and acquaintances made me realize all of the different versions of Grandma that everyone in the room had the honor of knowing. Paisley, my best friend from Kindergarten, gave me a hug and a bouquet of what I have decided are my new favorite flowers — anemones — they were a bright magenta, tied together with eucalyptus and a green striped bow. I brought the ribbon back to London with me.

Following the memorial service, I practically gave up on writing this alleged Substack piece because the last thing I wanted was to feel like a dark cloud casting its shadow over your inbox. I instead started writing a draft about the importance of stories, how we need to tell our stories because one day our stories is all we will have of one another. Yesterday, my dad learned that my dream dog to own is a dalmatian, and then when I said “I heard they can be intense” I learned that perhaps they are not, because my dad said “They’re really nice dogs, actually” then told me that he had a dalmatian when he was little and living in Utrecht. Her name was Cora and she was so tall that she could open the front door and let herself outside whenever she needed to. When I was younger I learned that the patch of soft skin on my Dad’s forearm was not from a wrestling fight with a crocodile, but rather a removed tattoo of an ex girlfriend’s name and somewhere between the shock on my little face when I saw the “Nine West” logo on the bottom of my mom’s alleged crocodile-shoes-from-dads-fight and realizing that the dog I have always wanted is the same kind of dog my dad used to have, I came to understand that we only know someone as much as we ask someone. It is interesting, the things we choose to share with others, and the things we choose to withhold until asked. Or until our six year old daughter finds her mom’s faux crocodile-skin shoe from Nine West.

This morning, I came across an infographic that explained how Gen-Z is the most stressed out generation, listing finances, job security, and the current climate of the world as the main causes of stress. I swiped through the post and thought that all of it was obvious, and it felt silly to even write it out and share it on social media, because this is all known information. Most conversations with friends involve some degree of complaints about being underpaid and overworked, and most of those conversations take place while buying a coffee and a pastry, because we must treat ourselves in order to cope with the state of the world, and I know this all sounds quite depressing but what I will say is that I am a dreamer, and I am lucky to be surrounded by dreamers, and despite the weight of being a part of — and a contributor to — the most stressed out generation, I still allow myself to dream big. It is what gives me hope.

The last month has been filled with reflection, reflection over the things I tend to stress about and reflection over how minute they feel in comparison to the death of a loved one. “I have concluded that the most important thing to me is proximity to my family,” I wrote in my journal. This is the first time I have moved houses without packing until a week beforehand, and I have moved 21 times in my 27 years of being. I am trying not to take my office stress home and I am trying not to point out that dishes need to be done or that laundry needs to be put away or that there is dust on the bedroom window that is making me sneeze. On the days I had off work, meandering around East London, the minor day-to-day stressors suddenly became the least of my worries. At this point in time, I am not even 100% sure if I will be allowed back in the U.K. when I return next week*, but at least I got to arrange yellow and pink and orange flowers into empty jam jars, and at least I got to reunite with my cousins who I have not seen in seven years, and at least I got to go on a morning pastry and coffee run with my dad and my little brother to buy an excessive amount of chocolate and almond and plain croissants for 20 people, and at least I got to see my Lola and my dogs and my neighbors. At least I got to catch up with my brothers last night and split an orange with my Lola this morning and at least I got to finally meet my cute little niece and nephews with their high ponytails and button noses, and at least I got to sit in the living room in the company of my mom’s entire family until midnight, eating ice-cream and playing board games and laughing and telling stories. At least I got to see Paisley and learn that I really like anemones, perhaps even more than I like peonies, and even though flowers are perishable at least I got to save the green and white striped ribbon for my notebook. At least, when I returned from the San Francisco airport to my childhood home in a jet-lagged haze, I got to run up the stairs, straight towards the cardboard box in the corner of my closet, and pull out all of the letters from Grandma that I could find, the ones written on yellow lined office paper with a return address to her Las Vegas address, one from an eighth grade graduation, one from a sixteenth birthday, one from a seventeenth birthday, and one from the Christmas of 2013 which contained the sentence “…although everybody knows it is impossible for me to forget you.”

To allow yourself to love someone is to allow yourself to grieve someone, and I feel so lucky to have loved my Great Grandma so much that I see her within boxes of shortbread cookies in English farm shops and bouquets of yellow roses at every market and grocery store I pass through, and the jackets and cardigans I grab when I am leaving the house in the summertime because I can still hear her telling me that I am going to catch a cold if I do not bring a jacket even though it is hot outside, and within sheets of lined yellow office paper and the stacks of $1 books at the library and containers of Vicks Vapor Rub and packs of tissues, and within red polka dot head scarves and pink cardigans with gold buttons and white frilly socks tucked into crocs, and boxes of Skyflake crackers and those individually wrapped madeleine cookies from Costco, and this Substack piece that I finally got myself to sit down and write and publish a month after I told myself I would.

*present-day Tatum here, I was allowed back in the U.K. It all worked out :-)

hello! thank you so much for taking the time to read this, i appreciate you <3 the last month has been nothing short of hectic but i’m glad i could finally take some time to reflect on it all. also, thank you so much for 1,000 subscribers?! absolute insanity. i am so happy you are here !!!

<3 tum

p.s. as i was writing this, one of those ‘featured photos’ notifications appeared on my phone and it was a photo of my grandma and her caretakers from 2024. how crazy is that ??? ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊

February started with cookies. Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth lemon shortbread, dusted with flour and rolled flat and cookie-cuttered into silhouettes of tiny bows and massive cats, lined across trays and baked for 20 minutes and then cooled and dipped into a sweet, simple glaze of lemon juice and icing sugar, a baker’s dozen of biscuits that would soon endure a bumpy double decker bus ride and the chaos of 6:00PM on a Saturday on the Northern line, shifting side to side in the glass tupperware, traversing across the river to the inside of a cozy flat filled with the warmth of six soon-to-be friends, girls from opposing corners of North America (and opposing corners of London) who would eventually find their way to each other through a group chat proposing they have a dinner party and a cookie exchange, and from this followed an evening of none other than just that: lasagna and salad and cookies and conversations both silly and serious, the kind of conversations where time and space cease to exist, and then suddenly once the white ceramic bowls were filled with crumbs and the empty wine glasses were stained with glittery lip gloss, the remaining cookies would be divided among six scalloped-trimmed boxes, earl grey, and brown butter chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin, and rosemary sugar, and lemon shortbread bows and cats, a careful curation baked by six girls, their labours of love tied together with an ivory lace ribbon as they embarked on midnight train and bus rides alike, returning both to their corners of London and to the group chat to share photos and exclaim what a wholesome time it was, and how grateful they feel, and then half past midnight, the box full of cookies and the empty glass tupperware would wound up in the green-tiled kitchen where it began, the ivory lace ribbon delicately undone and placed on top of the wooden drawers next to the box of white paper crowns, one eagerly awaiting to meet the other.

After the cookies came the crowns, but before the crowns came the unexpected: an unexpected meeting at work on Wednesday followed by an unexpected surprise on my way to work on Friday, both resulting in some tears, although very different kinds. On Friday, in the midst of tying my brown and white striped bonnet into a knot and thrusting my tote bag over my puffer-jacketed shoulder and reaching for my jangly keys, I b-lined towards the front door and my four best friends were standing in my living room, shouting “Surprise! We’re here for your birthday! You don’t have work today, or next week!” I cried because they told me in November they read my Substack piece about missing home and proceeded to buy plane tickets the same night, and moments after, I slipped into a state of shock and anxiety that took multiple days to wear off, a state of shock that was only further enforced when we went to my favorite brunch restaurant and I saw a lady who looked exactly like my mom seconds before piecing together that she was, in fact, my mom and a state of anxiety solely due to the lack of preparation to have time off, because my job is — for the lack of a better explanation — not a typical job; but I tried my best to place the spreadsheets and soon-to-be-and-now-already-missed meetings in the back of my mind as I showed my best friends and my mom my favorite pockets of London on a Friday afternoon. It felt wrong, but it also felt right. It was raining and cold but for once I didn’t care that my hair might get frizzy or my ears might ring, the company brought all the warmth I could have asked for.

“How old did you turn, again?” my coworker asked. “27,” I said. “That’s kind of crazy, I would’ve expected it to be at least 30, or some other milestone age for all of those visitors,” he laughed.

I have always held the firm belief that cake does not — and should not — have to warrant a celebration. If you want to eat a birthday cake, even if it is not your birthday, then eat a birthday cake. I can think of at least two times I have purchased a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins solely because I was craving a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. On a recent Podcast But Outside episode, Andrew mentioned, in a passing, that he buys ice-cream cones in bulk and it makes eating ice-cream at home a little more exciting. If your best friend, who you last saw in 2023, lives across the world, you are allowed to visit her for her 27th birthday, even if 27 is not an age that ends in “5” or “0,” or an age that gift shops have a specific card section or a shiny balloon dedicated to. Life is too short to let the dress in the corner of the closet collect dust, or to limit one’s cake intake to once a year, or to not show your friends that you care about them. Special things can and should be used and eaten and worn on the ordinary days, too.

But, a majority of my coworkers are English, which means that they likely live a train ride away from their parents and friends (and that they share the luxury of living on the same time zone), so they probably do not spend most of their time catching up on missed group texts, or FaceTiming their parents at midnight, or generally wishing their friends and family could be with them at any given moment of any given day, existing in a permanent state of wish you were here’s and sorry, i just saw this’s and this reminded me of you’s. I remember in my college philosophy class we discussed pleasure and pain, and we debated whether or not they coexist — if a lack of one is what causes the presence of the other — and I always intrusively wonder if moving far away is what deeply strengthened the ties I feel to the ones I hold closest. I recently came to understand that I did not move far away to escape anyone, or anything, and I am lucky to have a home and a family and friends and a state to both miss and love and return to.

“Yeahhh, I feel very special and appreciated. 27 is the new 30!”

And then came the crowns and the croissants and the cakes. Since moving countries, I have had four birthdays, each year celebrated in a room fuller and brighter than the last. I turned 24 three months after moving to London, and my "party" consisted of my old flatmate, myself, a cake large enough for six to eight people at the very least, and a dinner reservation at a trendy, Instagrammable restaurant which 1. my stomach ultimately did not agree with and 2. quite literally caught on fire when I decided to return with a friend a few months later (lesson learned: trust your gut, in all its senses). The cake was delicious, expensive, and heart-shaped, although far too indulgent for two people to finish on their own, and the remaining slices became an artefact of our red, Smeg freezer until we eventually parted ways. 25 was spent with a handful of friends — mostly acquired from my Master’s program, one acquired from the internet (who, by pure chance, happened to be my next door neighbor) — sat in a circle around my living room, drinking wine and decorating cowboy hats as pink candlesticks melted into their wooden holder. There was another heart-shaped cake — dark chocolate filled with raspberries and iced with vanilla buttercream, which marked the monumental shift in not only my frontal lobe, but my palate from being a vanilla-cake girl to a chocolate-cake girl — and this time no slice went un-eaten. Last year, my 26th birthday consisted of most of the same friends (with an additional two made from Tik Tok) eating brunch and drinking iced lattes with oat milk and attending a scrunchie making workshop, and my 27th birthday was filled with more light and laughter and cake than 24-year-old Tatum could have ever possibly predicted (seriously, there were three cakes and one of them was made by my friend Gwynnie and modelled after a Jellycat.)

I turned 27 on the top floor of one of my favorite bakeries with all of my favorite people from all of the eras of Me, eating croissants and cakes and decorating paper crowns with stickers and fabric and paint and glitter and ivory lace ribbons and all of the other things that I used to gravitate towards when I was 7, and here I am (or rather, there I was), decades later surrounded by the people who, I can definitively say, make me feel my best self. I do not have to be nervous about my stutters or my tangents or my anxiety-induced-shine, they understand me and I understand them and we mutually choose to understand each other time and time again. Sat above the bakery were friends from childhood, friends from college, friends from my master’s program, friends from Instagram, friends from Tik Tok, friends from work, and friends from other friends. “That’s really cool that you’ve built this community from scratch,” said Daniella, as we cleaned up spilled glitter and pastry flakes.

My journal entry from 9 February 2025 reads:

★★★ I AM 27!!! ★★★

It is almost midnight and I am VERY tired and cake-d out, but I would just like to say that today was a very nice day with some very nice people. It was crazy how full the room was of people who are my FRIENDS from all eras of my life. Childhood, college, master’s, the internet, London, all of it. And it was really nice having mom + Auntie Ro there, too. We all made crowns and it was very fun and cute. I decided that the word for this year is whimsy*: playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor.

*every year, I pick a word or a phrase as my theme. Last year was “levelling up” and this year is “whimsy”

There were also the cards, from Mollie and Paisley and Alix and Auntie Dyne, who send me a card every year on my birthday, from Nashville and San Francisco and Los Angeles or wherever they happen to be in the world. Paisley’s included doodles of objects and inside jokes that remind her of our friendship, Alix’s included stickers upon stickers of stars and Snoopies and hearts, Mollie somehow fit an entire cake-themed sticker sheet and a matching pack of magnets into the envelope, and my Auntie Dyne included a sticker as well, in the shape of an alpaca. I try to refrain from using the same word twice in a paragraph, but I cannot help that I love stickers and I love the thoughtfulness of a card sent overseas, and there was no way I could write a section about my birthday without mentioning them.

And then came the tears, because my best friends and my mom returned to their respective cities, but the following day came the sun — for the first time in seven days — and then the coffee, which comes every day, but never feels any less special. On Valentine’s Day, I woke up and decided that I wanted to seek out love, because I am wholeheartedly convinced that love is everywhere; sometimes you just have to look a little bit harder for it. My office attire included Nielsan’s Snoopy jumper that says “HUG MORE,” my favorite long, white skirt, my frilly socks that my Great Grandma wears because they remind her of me, and my brown oxford docs, and because the sun was shining for the first time in seven days I got off the bus a few stops early to maximize my precious time with the morning sunlight. I listened to some new music released by one of my favorite artists as I spotted bouquets of flowers through windows, a bright pink heart-shaped sticker stuck to the ground, a couple walking together with peonies and pastries, multiple dogs in sweaters, and a red heart hanging outside a baby blue door, all in the span of 15 minutes.

Another thing I am convinced by is that the universe is a mirror; it will return the energy that you pour into the world, and this is where the coffee comes in. I walked into the coffee shop where I have befriended many of the baristas (my goal in every neighborhood I frequent in is to become a regular) and while I was waiting for my oat milk latte one of my barista friends said, “I think you’ll like this, Tatum” and handed me a dried flower. Another barista friend handed me my coffee, and they had taped a dried sprig of lavender to the cup. It felt like I was experiencing a reflection of myself and I sent a photo to my friend Tara because she is someone who also appreciates things like a flower taped to a cup of coffee. Tara replied, “I LOVE VALENTINE’S DAY!!!!”

The rest of the 14th of February was filled with a biscuit from a coworker, a cooked dinner and an exchange of gifts with Nielsan, a single anemone with a pink ribbon tied around its stem, and a bouquet of flowers which made me reminisce on the time I worked at a flower shop shortly before sneezing and remembering that I am allergic to certain kinds of flowers, and there were also handwritten cards, and a cheesy movie with Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller, and a slice of tiramisu and forehead kisses.

And after the coffee was the conversation but prior to the conversation was the journey there. I attended the birthday dinner of a dear friend of mine, and the theme of the night was “abundance.” On the way to the dinner I took the tube and there was a red heart balloon floating across from me, and I’d like to think it was another symbol of love for the people who seek it out. I was on my way to Notting Hill Gate, and I thought about a moment three years ago, when I was new to the city and sat on the tube near a group of girls wearing cute clothes, and I so badly wanted to ask them to be friends in a way that wasn’t completely abnormal. Instead we parted ways at Notting Hill Gate and I went to a cafe and opened my journal and decided to start a dictionary of words. The first word I wrote is “frotend” and the definition is:

“observing someone/s (i.e. the barista who makes your coffee every day, or the girls on the tube with the cool outfits) and knowing you would be good friends with them, but not saying anything because you’re an adult, and for some reason being an adult means you can’t walk up to each other on the playground and ask to play.”

I then think about the day before, when I was eating breakfast at the cafe below my flat. I was sitting facing the window, and outside sat a dad and his little girl. There was another little girl at the bus stop, holding hands with her mom, wearing the tiniest chef’s hat, and the two little girls waved at each other. Then, the little chef at the bus stop walked up to the little girl at the cafe, and despite not fully knowing how to speak, the girls said “Hello” and hugged one another and I wanted to cry because it was precious and I was reminded of how pure children are. Their parents exchanged smiles. And then, the tube doors opened, the voice told me to “Mind The Gap between the train and the platform” and so I minded the gap and tapped my card at the till and made my way to the restaurant to celebrate my friend’s 27th birthday; a friend who I made two summers ago, solely by walking up to one another and complimenting each other’s jewellery, and realizing that we could have met in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Paris and maybe even New York City, but we instead met at a music festival in London. And now we were spending the first weekend of February baking cookies, and the next weekend decorating crowns, and the third weekend celebrating abundance with a feast and a heart shaped cake.

And suddenly, there was the conversation. A table of eight more friends, some new, some old, all equally as wonderful, sharing small plates and drinking red and white wine, chatting about books and music and cats and politics. As the dialogue unfolded, I found myself quiet, because I was in awe of how intelligent and kind and creative and cool everyone at the table was and is. Two of my friends at the table are in the process of writing and publishing their debut novels (yes, novels). Another newly acquired friend with a newly acquired kitten named Vicky is studying and teaching at a university here in England. She also has impeccable music taste. The other is a dancer from Australia, her partner an actor from New Zealand, and they both used to watch YouTube in its heyday of British vloggers and collab channels, a token of my teenage-hood that was once a shameful secret and now a topic of instant bonding, and there was also my friend’s partner who studied Russian Literature and my other friend’s partner who was discussing computational biology, topics of which I have never once thought about until that night. I also did not know that “-cester” is a suffix linking to a Roman military camp and I was not familiar with much of the books and authors being referenced throughout the night, but I was happy to be there, listening to people talk about the things they are passionate about. As I sipped my glass, I smiled, questioning how all of the small decisions I have made in my life led me to a restaurant in Notting Hill with even more new friends. Abundance!

And then by the end of it all there were flowers, lots of flowers. Tulips and ranunculus and baby’s breath and posies and mums and roses and lilacs and marigolds and a single sprig of dried lavender, adorning the living room, lining the windowsill and the table and the shelves in vases and jars and bottles large and small. Flowers from Nielsan, from Daniella, from Holly, from the barista, from the sunny afternoon at the market with India, a collection of flowers from February surrounding our home. A flower is often more than a flower, it is a symbol of care. In the same way that we light candlesticks knowing that they are soon going to melt away, we buy flowers and trim their stems and place them in water knowing that the flower’s lifespan is finite, and I’d like to believe that the reason that we light candlesticks and buy flowers for ourselves and for others is simply because we care enough to.

Last summer, on my walk to work (a lot of my reflections happen either in the shower or on walks for reasons that I do not know), I noticed that someone had attached a bag of soil with colorful flowers poking out of it to their tree. It was sort of like the trees that sometimes have crochet sweaters wrapped around their trunks, except instead of a sweater, this tree wore bunches of purple and yellow and red pansies. Every time the pansies died they were replaced with new ones, and once the seasons changed the bag of soil was replaced with fairy lights that twinkle in the winter darkness. On a recent morning walk to the office, I passed the tree and underneath it was a Christmas wreath laying flat on the ground. On my way home, I noticed that someone had placed the wreath on a wooden pole leaning against the tree, displaying its velvety red ribbons and snow-capped pine cones to the world. I smiled and snapped a photo of the wreath and thought about the kinds of people who care enough, you know, the people who care enough to hang up a Christmas wreath discarded on the sidewalk in the middle of February, or to crochet a sweater for a tree stump or a hat for a postbox, or to feed the pigeons in the park and the ducks in the pond, or to leave a book in a public library and to pick the weeds in the communal garden, or to compliment a stranger when they like their outfit, or to wear the tiniest bit of pink or red on Valentine’s Day and hang a heart-shaped decoration outside their front door, or to tape a sprig of lavender to a customer's cup of coffee, or to tell someone what the suffix “-cester” means because they could tell they did not fully understand the conversation at the dinner table, the kinds of people who care enough to include a bunch of doodles or a selection of stickers in a birthday card sent via snail mail, or to read a Substack piece about homesickness written by a friend or a daughter and immediately book tickets to surprise her across the world on her birthday, or to reach out to the people who inspire them to let them know they inspire them, or to buy white paper boxes and ivory lace ribbons for a handful of new friends to pack away each other’s homemade cookies in, and as I continued strolling to my bus stop I ultimately concluded that perhaps the point of it all is the people who care.

When I got home from the cookie night, I was showering at 1 o’clock in the morning, and I paused mid-shampoo to grab my phone, open my Notes app, and type the sentence: “February started with cookies.”

hi! thank you for reading yet another letter from tum, i feel like i’m evolving as a writer every time i magically create a new one of these, and i have my friends and mutuals to thank for that. a special shoutout to stacey and chloé because every time i read one of their posts i am in admiration of the way their brains connect words together like puzzle pieces. also i recently hit 700 subscribers which is absolutely insane so thank you for being here, i appreciate you for taking the time to read these very extremely long reflections of whatever happens to be on my mind :’)

also, i make zines, and my new one is out now! it’s called TUM IS 26! and you can check it out here if ya like. i made it throughout the year of being 26 and it features some art and writing from my url and irl friends <3

also also, yes, i did watch Perfect Days and yes, it did make me cry bc i had never felt more seen by a film (if you appreciate the little things in life you will love Perfect Days)

ta ta for now,

tum ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

10 hours and 30 minutes away from the town I grew up in, I am living a life that is so vastly different from the one I left behind, and it often feels like I cannot fully let go of one so as to fully immerse myself into the other. The places will remain where and how they are but the versions of myself that exist in those places are ever-evolving, and I am sure that all of this is a reminder of the growth that was necessary to become the person I am now, but the thought of only ever being 10 hours and 30 minutes away from the people I treasure most — a few movies or an extra long day at the office — always seems to consume every ounce of my being when I am hopping from one home to the other, switching SIM cards and attempting to fall asleep in an upright position.

Returning to California for the holidays is a reminder of several things:

1. that ageing is inevitable (in pets and in parents)

2. that the world will continue to spin regardless of where you are (my favorite Açai Bowl place closed, how dare they)

3. that I am not the only person in my life who has grown in the last three years (am I outing myself as an absent-minded person for not noticing this earlier?)

For the most part, everyone and everything seems as still and stationary as you left it. The furniture is arranged the same, bar one or two decorative pillows and the modular boucle brown sofa upstairs, the pantry is still stocked with your dad’s Ideal Protein bars and your older brother’s hot sauce collection, the box of clothes that you cannot seem to part ways with — not just yet — remains stashed away in the right corner of the bedroom closet, and the note you wrote your mom, the one on the mirror with dry erase marker, lingers in its flaky impermanence. But then you clean your glasses and squint and zoom in the slightest bit closer and see that your dog is no longer strong enough to hop on your bed by himself, three of the five bedrooms in the house have been turned into guest rooms, stripped of their knick knacks and replaced with muted bed sheets and side tables collecting dust, your dad's hair is completely grey, your orthodontist has moved into a tiny office that is open once per week, and you hardly recognize the people you went to school with for nearly a decade and a half of your existence.

I have already written extensively about the conundrum that comes with living abroad — which essentially feels like the Hannah Montana movie, but the version where Miley lives between California and London and cannot decide which is best for her in the long run (the answer is there is no right answer) — and I will try my best not to regurgitate the thoughts and sentences that tend to spill out when I am reflecting on the life I have willingly chosen and built for myself, but what I will say is that this time around I departed from the San Francisco airport feeling a little more comforted than I normally do, despite shedding a tear while typing the first sentence of this piece into my Notes app, and despite the last paragraph I wrote, which I now realize comes across as deeply sad. And maybe it is not the fact I live in a foreign city that is deeply sad, but rather the experience of growing into myself and becoming an adult in the absence of my close friends and family, and watching them come into themselves from a tiny screen and phone calls and voice notes. “Look guys, I wear skirts and ballet flats now and I pay my rent and bills on time and I like sushi and I have a cat and I can also very nearly work up the courage to ask for the check when I’m at a restaurant.”

The rooms are empty, but Tanner moved in with his girlfriend into my dream Victorian apartment in San Francisco (it has a pink-tiled bathroom and sconces and storage I am immensely jealous) and Sidney moved in with his best friends and their two cats in the town across the freeway. My dad's hair is grey, but it is hardly noticeable through his jokes and ability to make anyone he encounters laugh out loud. While my orthodontist is out of office, he is also preparing for retirement, and I only get to see Paisley once a year, but she is now working as a full time LAWYER, and Danielle is selling her ceramics at art markets, and my cousin Shane is thriving as a tattoo artist in Seattle, and my sweet neighbor Jen is sewing with the garage door open and fostering kittens and growing vegetables and smiling brighter than ever, and my 97 year old great grandma — the exception to that point I made earlier about ageing — is spending her days with her legs propped up on the bed, reading books larger than my vocabulary, and eating cookies from her treat table (as she should, this is how I aspire to be at 97). I suppose, in the face of empty bedrooms and grey-ing hairs, I have found comfort in the fact that I am doing well, and my far away loved ones seem to be doing well, too.

Visiting home for two weeks means having back to back appointments for the first five days of your stay, because when you have two weeks out of the whole year to exercise your American health insurance as a not-so-freshly 26 year old (and when you are within an arm’s reach of your go-to hair salon) you might as well take advantage of the fine establishments your suburban hometown has to offer. The doctor, the dentist, the orthodontist, the dermatologist, the hair salon-ist, the hair colorist (and the nail tech, because my mom saw the state of my nails and responded first by gasping, and second by booking an appointment). While I was on my way to Appointment Number 1 (the dentist), I bumped into someone in the hallway. I said “Sorry, my bad” and then he said “No worries,” and then looked up and asked, "Wait, are you Tatum Van Dam?" and after staring at him for about 10 seconds too long, probably long enough for him to clock that my brain was both jet lagged and calibrating “How does this random man know me?” the puzzle pieces came together. He was is my friend from Kindergarten, who I have known for practically my entire life, who was neighbors with my best friend Paisley. We caught up on the last nine years and then followed each other on Instagram and the whole encounter felt like an out of body experience. The following day, the same thing happened, but at a coffee shop, and the person I ran into has always been a kind one. He told me that he reads my zines, and he always knew I was going to do something creative, and that he is proud of me. It was nice to know that perhaps the impact I have left on people from high school was not the high school version of me, the one who was insecure, acne prone, and yearning for validation, but the many ever-so-slightly more secure iterations that have followed since, and it reminded me that maybe I have created a fulfilling life for myself, after all. And that maybe I do not — and should not — have to look back on my high school years (and the people who existed in them) with tinges of disdain. We’re all in flux. None of us are who we were 9 years ago. And we owe it to each other to believe that we are capable of changing for the better.

The very thing that makes the internet so wonderful is precisely the same thing that can make it so hurtful. It is a place where I have met and connected with so many creative and cool and kind individuals — some of whom are my best friends IRL, others whom I hope to meet in person one day — and it is also a place where I can post a video about something as mundane as a scanner (yes, the office tool that you probably used that one time you had to print out and sign a legal form), and proceed to receive more views than the population of London (and counting) and thousands of comments calling you stupid for having a scanner (you're a graphic designer), calling you the "over consumption final boss" (you definitely throw away your scanner and buy a new one between scans), and telling you to get a job (you already have two and would probably combust with a third). I have the internet to thank for much of the life I am living right now; without it, my jobs would not exist, I would not have felt inspired to pick up my creative hobbies, I would not know about lots of my favorite bands and brands and artists, and I probably would not be sitting here, typing a newsletter to eventually make its way to your inbox.

My relationship with the internet — or rather, social media — is kind of confusing, because I recognize the benefits and privileges and connections and experiences it has bestowed upon me — I met my boyfriend on Hinge, I work as a full time social media manager, I work part time for a music blog, I showcase my art through my profiles, and I have fostered a community of people who share similar creative outlets to mine, all of which I would not trade for the world — and in the same ways that I like how an algorithm has the ability to bring me fulfilment in the form of inspiration, people, and connections, I hate that an algorithm has the ability to create — and dictate — my innermost anxieties. Some that did not exist until very recently.

Algorithms are akin to the unfortunate men I found myself dating back in the day (I write this as if there were multiple, I really can only think of one or two): they love bomb you with attention and comments and validation, and then they leave you high and dry and craving more, and when you try to win them back, they have already moved on to the next victim while you are driving past their house blasting “Somebody Else” by The 1975 through tears of hysteria. I try to remind myself that there was a time not too long ago where I shared my creations online because I wanted to share my creations online, and the only people who really showed interest in them were my best friends, their moms, and my own mother, and that was completely, entirely okay with me. I still love to share the things I make with the world, but I would be lying if I said a microscopic part of my brain did not fully care about — or rather, base my worth — on the number attached to the outcome. I am going to type something out that is most certainly going to make me aware of how pathetic I sound — at this point in the editing stage I am considering removing it — but I posted a Tik Tok a few hours ago and it has 21 likes, and it is taking every fibre of my being to withhold from archiving it (which is kind of insane if you really think about it, because I 1. posted the Tik Tok because I was happy with it 2. cannot imagine being in a room with hundreds of people with all of their eyes on me, let alone 21 people and 3. there are far more pressing things to spend my energy on than the amount of likes I get on a Tik Tok). You cannot convince me otherwise that our caveman brains were meant to deal with the potential of thousands — and in the case of Scanner Gate, 14.1+ million — of eyes watching every pixel of your every digital move and casting their opinions on a curated 10 second splice of your day, and yet The Almighty Algorithm has made us feel that the higher the number, the more confident we should feel about something, and the lower the number, the more we should reconsider the standard of our output. It is a mind game; the highs are highs and the lows are lows and we so often forget that a number is not a number, it is a multidimensional person with hobbies and likes and dislikes, just like you and me. And sometimes the person behind that number can be a nice person, and sometimes they can choose to be a not-so-nice person. I Googled “pros and cons of turning off comments on a post due to hate reddit” and the general consensus was that all engagement is good engagement. Love that.

I came across a deeply thought-provoking TikTok from an ex-influencer who posed a question that I will never stop asking myself: "Are you posting this video because you want attention? Or because you genuinely want to share what you made with others?" and he does not know that he has become the little voice in my head whenever I am preparing to share something online. What is my true, raw intention of sharing this with others? Do I want to inspire someone, or am I seeking attention? The answer might be one, or the other, or both, and that is okay because none of us are perfect — all we want is to be seen and to be heard* — but I am trying my very best to be intentional with detaching from outcomes. Hardly is anything ever about the outcome, so much is it about the process of getting there. In my friend Stacey’s latest Substack piece, she quotes an old journal entry: “I know I’ll miss writing this book once it’s finally done.”

On the TikTok, someone commented “Sharing from a place of joy is it!” and it has become my mantra for 2025.

*this line is paraphrased from this video by a well spoken YouTuber named Shimon Davis, I highly recommend the watch

I think part of my situationship that I am in with social media — and probably with my own self-perception — is the fact that it is a very strange feeling, stumbling upon the realization that the things that made you "weird" as a kid are precisely the same things that make you "cool" as an adult. “Weird” and “cool” are both constructs, respectively, but continue to hear me out for just one more second. I used to be a fangirl and now I work at a record label. The former made me extremely undesirable during my teenage years — a high school fling quite literally ended things because he did not want to get in the way of myself and the time I dedicated to Shawn Mendes — and the latter has made the same people who did not desire me, ask me via LinkedIn DMs for a job in the music industry nearly a decade later. I will not begin to describe my visceral reaction to hearing “Sexy To Someone” by Clairo for the first time, either, because she so perfectly expresses the confusion that comes with being labelled as a “strange” girl who grows up, goes to college in a new city, surrounds herself with likeminded individuals, understands how to use a hair curler and how to dress, thus becoming “cool” and is then genuinely confused when any person expresses romantic interest in her because she was conditioned to believe she was un-cool and un-hot and un-wanted by all of the men in her hometown.

I DIGRESS.

My point is: I am always confused about how I feel about the internet. And how my hobbies were once strange to people, but now they are seemingly not so strange. And that is okay, I think, because maybe when I was younger I did not yet find my people, and now, I have.

I got brunch with two friends, one who I met through the chance of an algorithm, the other who I met through the chance of being the last two people left alone, together, in the crowd of mutual friends at a festival. Both are Americans in London and, much like myself, share their thoughts and musings on TikTok and Substack and Instagram. We found ourselves discussing "likes," particularly with regards to Substack, and how we had to train our brains to withhold from equating the amount of likes on a post to the quality of the writing in the piece — and how, once we learned to do that, it was freeing. (Ironic how I am able to do this with a written piece, but when it comes to a 10 second TikTok, I struggle to). Talking with my friends was validating and refreshing, and it is bewildering that they have had moments of doubting their writing, because they are genuinely two of the most talented writers I know. I could go on an additional tangent of how lucky I feel to be able to call my friends my inspirations, but we will save that for another time. You two know who you are, and I will be reading your novels the day they are published.

Back in California, I spent a weekend in the snow, and inside of a cozy cabin, myself, my brothers, and my cousins were chatting about hate comments and TikTok (subtle foreshadowing for what was to come, I suppose) and then my older brother Sidney told me that some of his most impressionable YouTube videos — the ones that caused him to form a new habit, or feel inspired to learn a new skill, or just stick with him generally — are ones that he never interacted with. Sidney does not talk often, so when he does, they are words to be held tightly. I think about how, actually, I do not always interact with the content that ends up inspiring me. I am a chronic Instagram story liker and I will not hesitate to leave a comment, although I am not quite sure if I am subscribed to some of my favorite YouTube channels and podcasts, despite tuning in every week. And lots of the content I consume will typically serve as a catalyst for these Substack posts, or an outfit combination, or a design choice, or a recipe cooked for dinner. Yesterday I wore biker boots with a knee length skirt because a few months ago I saw a girl on the bus pair the two together and I thought she looked insanely cool. The section above this one, about my hobbies and the internet, was inspired by an episode of The Broski Report. We are merely reflections of one another.

On my first day back from California, I was walking down one of my favorite roads in London, wearing my brand new-old boots and a flowy white skirt, slowly trailing behind a little girl and her father, who, I could tell was trying to make space to allow me to pass through. I smiled at the girl, and she called me stylish. “Yes, let’s make some room for the nice stylish lady to pass by,” her dad said, holding her hand. I felt my heart go a little fuzzy for a moment as I thought about all of the stylish girls I looked up to when I was younger. And, as I walked past a warmly lit ceramics workshop and a bakery smelling of cinnamon and coffee, I had one of those frontal lobe epiphanies: I think have become the girl that little me always aspired to be. The little me that grew up in the town 10 hours and 30 minutes away, that wore the ill-fitting clothes and wrote in the journals and read the books that are now stowed away in the corner of my closet. I still remember making my mom a handwritten 10 page long proposal called "16 reasons why we should go to London for my 16th birthday" and crying when the response was a “No.” I can also remember posting YouTube videos in 2009, far too young to have access to the world-wide web, wearing a turquoise blue American Apparel zip up hoodie and asking the 16 year old stylist at Supercuts for side bangs, wanting to be exactly like JennxPenn and Supermac18 and livelavalive, in all of their iMovie and jump cuts and Coolvetica glory (if you understood any part of this sentence you are a real one). I can remember wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts in the California heat, hiding every part of my body that revealed any sort of shape, admiring the outfits the other girls wore as I overheated in the lunchtime sun. I can remember growing older and wanting to be crafty, (I was crafty, but I especially wanted to start making zines and figure out how in the world people drew on top of their photos), and I wanted to be kind, and I wanted to be fashionable, and I wanted to be confident, and I ultimately wanted to inspire.

Especially within the last year, I think I have finally become Me.

This morning someone messaged me that they purchased a zine of mine, and it is their first zine ever, and what an honor it is to have someone in the world who wants a piece of my art on their shelf, and to be the creator of the first zine in a growing collection. Someone else mailed me a college music zine they started because of my own, and it was incredibly made and filled with wonderful recommendations, and a very lovely girl named Elise reached out because she started a Substack and wanted me to be a part of her community. I commented on a girl’s TikTok admiring her long, plaid dress, and she replied saying that it was I who had convinced her to buy a long, plaid dress. For all of the anxieties I have because of the internet, I am constantly reminded that there are people out there who resonate with the things I choose to put into the ether, regardless of the numbers I internalize and the recent hate comments I have had to learn to ignore. Whether I am made aware of it or not, I am a teeny tiny morsel of a mosaic in someone else’s life.

I appreciate each and every person who takes the time to read one of my zines, and who takes the time to send me a kind message, and who takes the time to listen or watch or consume anything I have to say in general. (Especially you, because these Substack posts are often longer than the papers I had to write in college.) I grew up shy and quiet and I am still shy and quiet, but I think there are a little bit more people who are willing to hear me out and I do not take it for granted in the slightest.*

*I just want to note that I am not trying to brag, and I hope it does not come off as such. I am genuinely touched that there are people who have felt any degree of impact from my creations, because some of the time I forget that people are actually, fully reading and watching and flipping through them to begin with.

After flying for 10 hours and 30 minutes to return home for the holidays, I found my old tooth fairy box sitting atop my dresser. It is actually a jewellery box, but when I was six years old I used it whenever I lost a tooth so that the tooth fairy knew where to look. It is small and painted in pastel yellows and blues, with dainty illustrations of red ladybugs and a fairy and a dragonfly, trademarked from the year 2004. Inside sits a tiny silk pillow, and when I lifted it there were two pairs of earrings, shaped as bows, hidden under the soft parcel. One pair completely silver, the other covered in gems. I forgot — and suddenly remembered — that I used to wear bow shaped earrings when I was little, and I immediately went to twiddle the earrings I am wearing now — and have been wearing every day for the last few years — silver earrings shaped as bows. Then I pulled down my sock, revealing my faded tattoo of a small red bow. I guess I am the girl I have always been; only now I wholeheartedly believe that I am cool and kind and fashionable and worthy of being heard.

And I am very, extremely grateful to those willing to hear me out.

hi! happy new year y’all, as always thank you for 1. taking the time to read this and 2. for being you :) i do not typically partake in new years resolutions, but i am trying my BEST to be intentional when i create and share things, and to enjoy the creation process, and to DETACH FROM THE OUTCOME! so this is me trying to do exactly that. ily and see u the next time i randomly decide to spiral about something <3

side note: because i had to write with uk english for my MA program here, and for my job i have to write with it too, i fear my substacks have become a confusing mix of using UK spellings like “ageing” and US spellings like “realize” and for that i am sorry

also, my heart is with anyone who has been affected by the los angeles wildfires. the one thing i love more than being a californian is california itself — here are a few ways to show your support both online and irl, and my dear friend alix created a zine full of images of her hometown. all of the proceeds go towards the altadena teen girls fire recovery <3x

I feel like I am usually better at putting my thoughts into written words than I am at explaining them out loud – any close friend or coworker or family member can attest to my tangents and my stutters – but I cannot seem to find the right way to describe the thing I am trying to say in a way that makes sense or reads the slightest bit eloquent. I want to get better at writing, and to get better at writing means to get better at reading, and to get better at reading means to get better at putting down my phone and picking up one of the many books lining the many shelves of my flat. I know you might think I am someone who reads because I am someone who writes (and someone who wears glasses and frequents coffee shops and keeps a half-read book in my crossbody bag as a reminder that I should finish it) and it is not that I do not like to read, because I do, I really do like to get lost in someone else’s written world, I just seem to lack the focus and self-discipline these days. I blame it on an insufficient amount of time, when in reality, much of my time is spent getting lost in the depths of my phone, scrolling and saving and letting the compulsion to compare take over. This introduction has been drafted and re-drafted, typed out and deleted and typed out again – three days ago I was on a plane, ferociously editing every other sentence and adding some more and then the entire document erased itself the moment I landed and my cell phone service loaded – where I was left with no choice but to radically accept that 1. the universe wanted me to try my hand at this one more time, to perhaps write about writing an introduction, and 2. to also accept that I should probably make a document available offline before adding to it while I am floating through the clouds, and so here we are, off the airplane and in my living room, candles lit, slippers on, and thoughts suspended in mid air, like puzzle pieces resisting connection.

What I want to write about is how I was at the pub down the road, the pub which has detailed oil paintings of black and brown pugs and maroon red candlesticks dripping their wax down the sides of empty wine bottles, and how there was a lady sitting by herself at the table behind ours, face expressionless as she nursed a glass of water, scanning the pug-painting premises between sips. She was waiting for someone, as most of us do when we are alone at pubs, and the moment her “someone” – a partner, presumably – walked into the room, a smile stretched across her face as they went to embrace each other. And it made me think about how much I love that we have people in our lives that make us light up in the blink of an eye. How we can be rushing down a street, laser-focused on walking faster than anyone else around us because we are in London and in London We Must Walk Fast, but the moment we hear a familiar voice call our name, we stop in our tracks to say hello and give them a hug and suddenly getting wherever we are rushing to is the least of our worries. How we can be unlocking the many locks on our building after a long day at work, overheating and overstimulated, groceries in hand and Airpods hanging on by a thread and suddenly our partner approaches the front door on his bike and then all of our worries blow away in the wind as Lorde sings in our ears. How we can be waiting in a dimly lit pub, anxiously tapping our leg and sipping our glass of water, and when our person enters the room it is all of the sudden brighter than it ever was. What I witnessed at the pub is one of my favorite human experiences to both observe and partake in; seeing someone waiting for someone else, and seeing their happiness when they spot their “someone else.” It is one of those things that I think makes humans kind of cute. Amidst a sea of people — or rather, a pub of people and pug paintings — we recognise a person we know, and suddenly, we light up. We feel seen.

It is now autumn, which means that bright yellow and red leaves are floating in the sky and dissolving into the pavement, and because of this my camera roll is full of imagery of crunchy leaves and my shoes stepping over them, and in the mornings and early afternoons the sun is shining and the air is crisp, and it is not yet too cold but most certainly not too warm, unless you find yourself on the tube or on a bus full of commuters, which get far too stuffy and damp for anyone’s liking. Autumn is the sweet spot between the scorching, unpredictable London summers that we lust for during the dark months ahead and the freezing, wet London winters that made me understand the concept of seasonal depression, and I do not think I ever thought too deeply about autumn — or light, for the matter — until these last few weeks, and especially right now. 

When I moved to London, I was convinced that I was a Winter Girl. The snow was a romantic concept to me (Californians call the snow “the snow” because of how foreign it is to most of us) and as a child, I dreamt about sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows and whipped cream by a crackling fireplace and building a snowman with a carrot for a nose and sticks for arms and bundling up in a coat and a scarf and a beanie with a pom pom, letting the snowflakes fall on my nose and making snow angels while watching the icicles crystallize on the edge of the roof. Maybe I watched movies like Home Alone and Elf one too many times, or maybe my only real-life reference of the snow is from visiting Lake Tahoe every December as a child, because when I got older and moved to London and experienced three winters there – one of which involved the snow – I realised that perhaps maybe I am a summer person after all, and perhaps I have been a summer person this entire time, because after experiencing the three London summers that followed those three London winters I realized that I like the sunlight and I like how people take advantage of the sunlight the moment it appears until the very moment it goes to rest and I like being able to wake up and go to work in the light and being able to leave to go back home in the light. So, ultimately, yes, I am a summer person, and yes, it is 4:30pm and pitch black outside as I type this, and yes, I am sad to have retired my gingham boxer shorts and white linen skirts for my wool scarves and chunky knits, but a lack of light has only seemed to make me appreciate it all the more. On my walks to work, sitting by the big window in the office, opening my blinds every morning, pausing as I let the autumn warmth seep in. Maybe I am an autumn person too. Or maybe I am just a person who likes light. 

When it comes to my ideal flat, my first non-negotiable has and always will be natural light (the second one is hardwood floors, the third is a gas burner, and the fourth is a Smeg refrigerator [I know a Smeg refrigerator sounds niche and very much negotiable in the sense that it is not a non-negotiable, but thus far in my London life two out of the four flats I have lived in were blessed with the pièce de résistance that is a Smeg fridge, so do with that track record what you will]). In my first London flat, the rustic one with the freshly painted blue door and the cherry red Smeg, my bedroom had two wooden windows facing the sun. I taped a sheet of prism film onto a panel, and although from the outside it looked like I had plastered an A4 sized piece of see through paper to my window, every afternoon rainbows would shine across my bed and my floors and my shelves. My second London flat, the tiny shoebox of a studio, had two larger-than-life windows – you could open one of them and climb onto the rooftop – and during golden hour the light would hit the wall next to my bed and reflect the shadow of my plants in the kind of way that would make me stop what I was doing and admire it while it lasted. My third London flat, where I lived with my partner and his brother and our friend, our bedroom had a slanted ceiling with two windows, and if you peeped your head through them you could watch the sun set over the London skyline. In my fourth — and hopefully final (for now) — London flat (which has a light blue Smeg) there are stained glass windows in our living room, and during the afternoon the sun will paint hues of reds and yellows across the walls; it is the same kind of phenomenon that would happen in my studio, where, without fail, I will pause for a moment and appreciate the sight of sunlight shining through a windowpane. Even if just for five minutes, I am taken out of the chaos of my brain and worlds both online and real and I am reminded of and immersed in the beauty of the everyday. 

I seem to have found myself surrounded by a lot of light, in every sense of the word. I decided to go to the flower market, one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday in London, and I was coerced into purchasing three bouquets of roses (I was initially going to get two, but it was buy two get one free, and so I paid for two and took three and gave one to my friend), and then on my bus ride home, I was sitting next to my 24 pastel pink roses, delicate but thorny and eagerly awaiting to be trimmed and placed in glass vases and spread across my home. A girl got on the bus, and I cannot fully remember what she looked like, but I remember she had a very welcoming energy; she had a big backpack and a messy bun and was wearing cheetah print and she seemed like the kind of person I would sit next to on public transportation solely because she felt safe and was also wearing an outfit that I would wear too. She sat in the row parallel to me, and the bus started to move, and I held onto my flowers. “Excuse me?” the girl said, “Do you mind if I take a film picture of you? The pink flowers and the light hitting you and the colours look really pretty.” I smiled and said “Yes, of course, go for it,” because that is exactly the kind of thing I would ask of a stranger, too. We then talked about film cameras, and flowers, and how we love seeing people walking around London holding big bouquets of roses and houseplants, and then I learned that she was from Italy, visiting a friend who was having a barbecue, and before we parted ways, we exchanged contacts for whenever she decided to develop the film. I messaged her to let her know I was me, and that it was nice to meet her, and to have a lovely visit in London, and she replied thanking me for letting her, someone I did not know, take my photo. The older woman in front of us was smiling, and I’d like to believe it was the same kind of smile I let out when my faith in humanity is temporarily restored in moments like those.

Among the many named things and trends and tests on TikTok which can sometimes be fun and healthy and at other times quite the opposite, I came across a video about something called “the bird test.” It is sort of like a litmus test for someone’s ability to appreciate something as little as a bird, and apparently, it’s backed by science too. The bird test is as follows: you are on a first date, and you are sitting outside on a bench, and you see a pretty bird. You then stop in the middle of telling your date whatever it was you were in the middle of telling them to say, “Oh my gosh, what a pretty bird!” If they turn around and acknowledge the bird and perhaps say something else about the bird, then they have passed the bird test. They are one to keep. I noticed that all of my friends and I pass the bird test with flying colors, because if there is a cute dog or cat — and on one recent-ish occasion, a one-legged bird hopping around our park bench — we will stop in our tracks to point out how cute it is, and in some instances our conversation will sidebar for a few minutes wondering where the bird came from and if it is hungry, or seeing if we can pet the dog playing fetch, or trying to lure the street cat over to us with subtle clicks. My friends and I exist through each other’s tangents. And ultimately, it is not about birds at all, or dogs or cats, it is about showing genuine interest in something someone you care for is excited about – something that makes them light up – and I thought that was really special. 

This morning, I took the bus to work, as I do most days of the week, and I did something I rarely do unless I must: I sat on the top level. I think the anxiety in me (that I like to imagine is one of those little bug-eyed characters from Inside Out) prefers to sit on the bottom level, because London busses are chaotic and hectic and difficult to exit if you are damp, carrying a wet umbrella, with a tote bag falling off your shoulder, as you try to successfully march down the slippery stairs while getting swayed back and forth, and so this morning I randomly decided to deviate from my norm and sit upstairs. At the next stop, a dad, two little kids, and their grandparents sat in front of me, and the kids were at the age where they like to speak about anything and everything. I think they had recently learned the alphabet, because in the UK, each bus stop is named with a big white letter inside of a big red circle, and we passed stop “C” and one of the little kids shouted with glee, “C! C! Look daddy, a C!” “This is a good game,” the dad said, “Collect as many letters as you can and I will put them in my pocket!” As we passed each bus stop, the high pitched voices squealed with joy as they added more letters of the alphabet to their growing collection. “Z! Look! I got a Z!” Their dad, grandma, and grandpa rewarded them with high fives after each correct letter. There is just something so refreshing about seeing a child get excited over something as simple as a letter. Their own “bird test.”

I think back to when I was a child, specifically to when I was 7 years old and in Miss Dee’s second grade class. When I was in second grade, I spent my recesses sitting outside of the classroom, cross legged and patiently waiting for the bell to ring. I had transferred to my elementary school halfway through first grade, and once the facade of being “the new kid from the school down the road” wore off, I was left with no one to hang out with at lunch except for the ramp outside the empty, beige portable classroom. Miss Dee had a reputation for being strict – I remember receiving the 4x6” notecard with a sticker on it declaring Miss Dee as my second grade teacher, and being told I got one of the “mean ones” – but I never fully understood the negativity, and now that I am at an age where my peers are teachers, I feel bad for the teachers who are labelled as “mean” because hardly are they ever “mean” so much as they are misunderstood.* My mom recently told me that during her parent teacher conference with Miss Dee, Miss Dee told my mom that she felt sad watching me sit by myself everyday, and that I am so nice and kind and it breaks her heart to see me alone. Looking at a photo of myself when I was 7, I, too feel heartbroken knowing that she was sitting alone during recess every single day.

*There are exceptions, I am very aware that there are exceptions to this

There was a time where Miss Dee announced that she was going to adopt a foster child and asked for donations, so I put together a gift basket filled with my favorite toys and some supplies from Miss Dee’s list that I most likely hand picked with my mom at Target and wrapped in ribbons and tissue paper. During one lunch, Miss Dee asked me to step inside the classroom, and she thanked me, saying it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever received. She was crying to me and told me I was special but because I was seven I couldn’t fully understand why she was crying, and I also didn’t fully believe that I was extraordinary, but nearly twenty years later I realize that maybe Miss Dee saw a certain kind of light within me that not many others could. And maybe I saw a certain kind of light within her, too. I wonder if she ever ended up adopting the foster child, and what their name is, and if they liked the toys, and what kind of life they are living now. 

As I type this, I am now in the middle of Iceland, and in Iceland, the sun rises at 10:30am and sets at 4pm, and similar to the way people in Paris line the Seine with their baguettes and cheap wine and conversation the second the sun shines over the city, I am on my own quest to be outside, admiring Iceland in all of its beauty, from the moment the sun sort-of rises to the moment the sun sort-of sets. Last night, we stayed in a fishing village in a tiny cottage on the top of a hill. At 6pm, we headed to The Restaurant (it had one restaurant and it opened at 6pm) for dinner, and the door was locked. We lingered outside in our awkwardness, hoping someone else would perhaps try to successfully open the door or that someone from inside would unlock it, and a car parked itself to our left. An older, friendly looking man came out and walked up to us. “Are you waiting for the food… Or the Northern Lights?” he laughed. We said “Both!” with a smile, and I asked if he was local, and he said he was from Austria, and then him and Nielsan spoke German to each other and I tried to guess what they were talking about, then we collectively entered the empty restaurant upon realizing that the door was, in fact, unlocked the entire time and we, in fact, are dumb and pushed instead of pulled. The server asked if we wanted a table for three, and we paused and collectively looked at each other and said a table for two, and a table for one.

Later that night, I told Nielsan that I was prepared to ask the man if he wanted to sit with us. He told me he could tell. “I know some people really enjoy their own company,” I said, “but when I saw him alone my brain automatically was like, ‘What if he had a partner that passed away, and their dream was to go to Iceland, and he decided to go by himself in their honor, and then when he saw us he was reminded of his partner, and now he’s eating alone facing us, eating together. Like, that’s so sad, I would have totally invited him to eat with us. Even though I don’t speak German.” 

“My brain doesn’t quite think that way,” said Nielsan, to which I asked, “In what way?”

“So positively.”

After recent worldly events immediately followed by a well-timed week spent among reindeers and glaciers and starry skies and reminders that parts of this Earth remain very beautiful, I returned to London with a Substack draft freshly refreshed into a blank document and the conclusion that now, more than ever, we need to chase the light. We need to surround ourselves with the people who bring us light, and we need to bring light to those around us, and we need to stop and slow down, and appreciate the simple beauty of sunlight shining through a tree as its red and yellow leaves fall onto the sidewalk, or through the opening of a cave in the north of Iceland, or through a bus window, illuminating two bouquets of pale pink roses. We need to remember the importance of giving our friends flowers, because even though flowers die at least we care enough to pick through the bunches and find the most colourful and healthy stems for our friends, and the importance of telling someone when their flowers look pretty, and how a small interaction with a stranger can last a lifetime, even when there is no guarantee that you will see the film photo they took of you and your roses and even if you do not know how to speak German, or how to open the door to the restaurant you are standing outside of. We need reminders that there are children who are over the moon from learning the alphabet, collecting letters at bus stops with their dad and their grandparents, and there are other children sitting outside of their second grade classrooms all by themselves, unsure of how to make friends but hopeful that one day they would be surrounded by lots of light, even if they would get older and move to a city that gets dark at 4pm, and even if they sometimes cannot focus on reading or writing as much as they would like to or as much as they probably should, and even if they sometimes still feel lonely from time to time, because when they go to the pub with their coworkers and look at the oil paintings of pugs on the walls and candlesticks with wax dripping down their sides, and see a person’s happiness brought upon by seeing their partner, they are reminded that, actually, there is light all around us, and maybe, we do not have to look for it as hard as we think we need to.

1. who makes you light up?

2. what has made you light up this week? 

3. how can you bring light to others in your day to day? 

hiiii! i’ve had the idea of writing about light stuck in my head for the last month or so, and this was the result :-) i started drafting it when it still felt like autumn here in ldn, and then i went to iceland for a week, and now i’m back and ironically enough, i woke up to snow this morning! YAY snow. it is cold and my hands are cold but i am determined to publish this while it is still *technically* considered autumn. srry you had to click out of the email to make it this far. as always, thank you for reading :”)

<3 tum 

It is a Thursday afternoon and instead of sitting in an office I am sitting in a sprinter van, among a handful of my coworkers, some who I know as friends, others who I only know in brief intervals of passing — mutually filling morning mugs of coffee, working from opposite sides of the same room, familiar faces without names — as we make our way to a tiny beachside town in the Scottish countryside called Saddell, a place we will collectively call ‘home’ for the next four days. It is hour three and a half of the four hour journey, my headphones are off, the road is winding, and I have just finished watching The Iron Claw — why I did not research how tragic this movie is prior to downloading it for a car ride with colleagues, I do not know — but I am thinking about a lot of things between the tears I am withholding. About my brothers, about my family, about the days ahead. I shift my glossy gaze from my dusty screen to an ocean and its crashing waves and eight picturesque, pastel coloured houses arranged in a neat row of pinks and purples and yellows, and then I notice the raindrops scattered across the window, and all of the sudden I cannot focus on anything else. 

When I was young, a lot of my time was spent in the car, usually with my mom and my little brother, Tanner. Tanner is two years younger than me, 11 inches taller than me, we have historically been told we look like twins, probably because we have hazel eyes and matching dimples, but for now all there is to know about Tanner is that he and I were our mom’s designated errand-running-children. Likely because we were younger and therefore willing to accompany her to the grocery store, or to a haircut, or to a Filipino party — or because we were younger and therefore devoid of choice — and sitting in a car with one another gave us all sorts of opportunities to find imaginative ways to entertain ourselves buckled up in the back seat. Me on the right, Tanner on the left, two hot chocolates with whipped cream in the middle compartment cup holders. I remember, whenever it would rain, I would look out the window and pretend that the raindrops were in a race to see which one could make it from the left side to the right side the quickest; one drop getting pulled by the wind to another, slowly passing the microscopic baton and then all at once combining forces and rushing to the finish line before the new sets of raindrops entered the relay. Another classic was the ABC game. You look outside the car at street signs, license plates, bumper stickers, establishments, anything with text plastered across its front, and whoever can get through the alphabet first wins. No repeat words allowed. A wonderful way to pass the time and to pay attention to one’s surroundings. “Exit” was always the easiest “E,” as was “Interstate” for “I,” X-tra trucks were the only way to find an “X,” and whoever spotted one first was usually always guaranteed to win the game. The prize was nothing more than the pride of saying you won the ABC game, but it is one of those things that very quickly induces a competitive edge, even if you claim you are not a competitive person. One time my dad purposefully pulled over to a nearby taco truck so he could use “Quesadilla” — or Quesidilia, as he calls them — as his “Q.” There was also the close your eyes on the way home and guess when we are turning into our neighbourhood based solely on the movement of the car game, where our mom would sometimes catch on and play along, taking an intentional wrong turn or braking a house early. I am always fascinated by children and their imaginations, and it makes me sad that a time comes in our lives where we are sitting in the car and the raindrops racing across the window or the signs hanging above the freeway become nothing more than what they are: raindrops on a window and signs on a freeway.

In August, I heard a song that contained a succession of guitar sounds that unburied yet another car activity formed by the creative genius that is Tanner and me. I have no idea how to explain this in a way that will make sense to anyone but us, one of the magical things about a core memory, but one of us would be the guitar — singing these three specific chords — and the other would sing a story about themselves with a country twang. It has been over a decade since remembering that song, and I sent a text to Tanner out of the blue asking if he remembered it, too. And he most certainly did, calming my fear that I am living inside of my own head, ruminating on and cherishing memories with people so deeply, while the people in question fail to remember the moments at all.

Last summer, I flew home for my dad’s 60th birthday, one of the two times throughout the year I would return from England to California see my family. As a part of the festivities, we went white water rafting, which began not in an inflatable boat, but on a four hour drive at 4:30 in the morning, followed by a day of rowing and baking in the sun, completed with a four hour return sat in rush hour traffic. On the way home, I hopped in the car with my partner Nielsan, and Tanner, and one of my other brothers, Sidney. At some point down the line, we exhausted ourselves of the ABC game — one started by Tanner when he pointed out an A, B, and C within seconds of each other — and we found ourselves in a state of reminiscing. Tanner brought up the swing set and the “Together Forever” song — a relic from the furthest corner of my brain that I nearly forgot existed — Sid told a story about a journey home from Tahoe which involved Game Cubes, garlic bread, and car sickness, and I cannot remember any other details of the story but what I can remember is that me, Tanner, and Nielsan were laughing so hard we nearly had to pull over because of how hilarious Sid’s delivery was. Sid is a man of few words, and on that car ride the three of us talked more than we ever had in a very long time; maybe even in our whole lives. The closer we approached our exit, the more I wanted the car ride to last forever, because as we pulled into our driveway, each of us had realised that this was one of the only times the three of us would be together for a very long time; me living in London, Sidney and Tanner living in California, none of us very frequent on text. It is a weird feeling being in a car with your older brother and your little brother, reminiscing on the shared-but-individual experience of growing up, and realising that those were the only years you were ever going to have together, in that capacity. The “Together Forever” song, the ghost game, Disney Party, DIY Legends Of The Hidden Temple in our garage, the water balloon fights, Christmas at the Calls, Sid singing “Still Alive” on Rock Band, playing Animal Crossing and being annoyed that Sid always got to be the number one villager with a gold statue, the thunderstorm in the Cameo home, our scary babysitter, the rats in the house, walking in on Sid and Jaymi learning the Soulja Boy dance, Insert Other Random Memories Here.  

One of the paradoxical realisations brought upon by the development of my frontal lobe, and by the movie My Old Ass, is that the passage of time is life’s greatest gift, but equally its greatest curse, and by that I mean I spent much of my teenage years either locked away in my bedroom or out of the house with my friends, and then all of the sudden I am 26 and living in another country, sitting in a bedroom in an old Scottish farmhouse that I am nearly positive is haunted, wishing I could go back in time and urge my past self to appreciate her family a little bit more. Because when she visits home, she realises how all of us are getting older, and just how quickly time passes*, and what she would give to experience more car rides with her brothers, preferably with all three. There are times in my life where I wish I could freeze the moment and remember every detail of it so I can re-live it again and again and again, and the car ride with Tanner and Sid is one of them. 

*more like this here

It is quite a strange thing, to turn 22, move across the world, only to find yourself sitting in a colonial dining room lined with 11 taxidermy deer heads — Boar On The Floor style — reflecting on your relationship with your brothers. You are examining a pair of antlers, thinking about how your siblings have seen you at your worst, at your best, and at every phase in between and I think because you are related it makes it easy to forget that with a sibling comes a certain type of love through witnessing the growth of one other over the decades. We would likely fail to explain to each other what we all do for work — I know Tanner works at a construction company and Jaymi does real estate and Sid does something with numbers for a bank(?) — but what I am certain of is that Jaymi likes mint chip ice-cream, specifically the one from Baskin Robbins because it has shavings of chocolate as opposed to chips, and that he has a soft spot for animals — if he sees a struggling bee, he will stop in his tracks to find a water bottle cap and some sugar to save it — and I could also tell you that Tanner sometimes walks with his toes down first then his heel, because when you grow up attending each and every one of his soccer games you eventually come to observe the way he walks, and I could even recount what time of the day and how Sidney makes his iced coffee when he works from home (3-4PM, with the tall plastic cup from Starbucks and the green straw, with his homemade cold brew and the mocha mix from Safeway on the right side of the fridge door). I know my brothers, and my brothers know me.

With growing up in a house of six, seven, and at one point eight other people comes a certain kind of safety and comfort in the knowledge that there are others around you, even if they are hidden behind a closed door, tucked away in their worlds. This must be why I like busy cities; the comfort of knowing someone else is there, even if it is a stranger on the tube, an exchange of smiles with a passerby, a flat with its lights turned on when it is dark out. It has been over three years since I have lived with my family, and this weekend I am staying in a larger than life house with 20 other people; some work friends, some artists-affiliated-with-my-work-turned-friends, and I have been greeted with reminders of how nice it is to be surrounded by sounds from afar in a house full of people: laughter caused by trivial arguments during a Scrabble game, the mumbling hymns of those focused on a near-impossible 1000 piece puzzle, music being made behind closed doors, the sizzling and clamour of a meal being cooked, clinking of wine glasses and the twisting of bottle caps, the harmonies of life occupying every hallway and every room. 

One of the greatest gifts I ever received from my ex was the teachings of a card game called Pounce. It can best be described as “intense solitaire,” where you are playing three games at once — same suits, same color building up in the middle of the table, alternating suits, alternating colors building down in your corner of the table, a pile of 13 cards to the left deciding the start and end of the game — and the feeling of learning and understanding Pounce is akin to an addiction of sorts. I am not joking when I write this. When my ex taught me and our mutual friend how to play Pounce, we couldn’t stop. Genuinely. We were always asking to play, and when we weren’t playing with each other, we were playing online. A year later, I taught it to my family; they couldn’t stop. In June, I taught it to my old flatmates; it resulted in hours long games in the living room and our ongoing group chat called “pounce club.” This weekend, I taught some of my coworkers how to play; we ended up playing for two hours straight. “This game is amazing,” said George. “I’m totally going to teach this to my family.”

Afterwards, I thought about how beautiful it is, that we are all mosaics of one another, passing along little bits and pieces and idiosyncrasies of ourselves, allowing them to be claimed and reclaimed by those around us, and those around them. I think about how my handwriting is a mixture of cursive and non-cursive characters because as a child, I would admire my cousin Prudence’s handwriting in all its loops and curves, I think about how I wear cowboy boots because my Papa wore cowboy boots, I think about how, last week, I realised that Nielsan and I have all of the same exact eight pairs of shoes, and I think about how my best friends and I adopt words from each other until they have been integrated into a language of our own. I think about the letters I received as a child, sent every week from my Great Grandma written on yellow office paper, which ignited a love of my own for handwritten letters, and I think about how, as I type this, I am wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves cuffed because my college roommate Anni used to cuff her sleeves and I loved how she looked. I think about how I am wearing a colorful knit beanie because I saw a girl on the street wearing a colorful knit beanie a few winters ago, I think about how I like making conversation with strangers because it is exactly what my dad likes to do, and I think about how a friend loaned me an annotated book, and now I cannot read a book without a pen in reach. I wonder what mosaics I have imprinted on the people around me, whether a friend or a stranger passing by: a way of writing the letter “J,” a cuffed sleeve, a loaned book, a card game.

I am currently sitting on the five and a half hour long train ride home, a golden sun on its way to set into the Lake District to my right, the laughter of Kwes and Saskia from behind, a sleepy, pink-haired Gwynnie to my front, Beth typing away to the left, thinking about how I woke up yesterday and thought to myself, “Yeah, this was cool, but I think I could go home now” and how I drifted into sleep later that night thinking, “Today was so much fun, I’m really glad I stayed.” I started my Sunday with a 7.7 kilometre hike with a handful of people, getting to know each other outside of the context of meetings and work projects, talking about things like Spanish cider recommendations and the differences between sci-fi and fantasy and what categories Dr. Who and Dune fall into, and classic cars and being Dutch and our worst breakups, wandering through a wet and muddy and green and mossy trail, ascending into the misty hills of Saddell until our view of the cabin was reduced to a tiny dot. When we arrived back to the house, we played none other than the aforementioned two hour game of Pounce, had some tea, attempted a game of Scrabble before realising we were game-d out and before I realised that I am Very Bad at Scrabble, and then I remembered that before the hike, I volunteered to assist with cooking dinner, and so I headed to the kitchen. 

What I did realise on Sunday was that me, Jodie, and George had agreed to cook a meal for 20 people. What I did not realise on Sunday was that me, Jodie, and George had agreed to cook an entire crate of fresh lobsters that were now rock solid frozen, with little to no knowledge on how to cook a lobster (sans Jodie thanks to her experience working at Brat) ((not the album, the restaurant)), and I will not bore you with my in-depth knowledge on how to cook and de-shell a lobster from frozen, but what I will divulge is that nothing bonds three people together quite like the act of cooking a meal and serving it to a table of 20 hungry people, newfound friends forever bound by a trip to Saddell. Maybe it is because of the glasses of orange wine and Scottish whiskey, maybe it is because it was our fourth day in a row of existing together, but there were multiple moments between staring at a crate of 15 lobsters and wondering what the fuck to do with them and serving out plates of Pasta á la Lobster followed by STP (sticky toffee pudding) where we were laughing so hard, I was in tears and declaring that my stomach hurt, which is when you know I am genuinely laughing very, extremely hard. Much like the guitar chords and the song between Tanner and I, this is another one of those times that words would fail to convey just how hilarious the moment was. Another memory only ours to share.

One of my favorite things that this world has to offer is laughing until my stomach hurts, because it is in those moments that I am truly letting myself be myself around someone, fully and wholly, which is sometimes difficult for me to do. I am the kind of person who is always worrying about how they appear to other people; when I eat I am worried I have food stuck in my teeth, when I speak and I stutter I am worried that someone caught onto it, when I am at work I routinely go to the bathroom mirror to make sure my hair looks okay, and when it doesn’t it is all I can focus on. As I approached this impromptu weekend away — I had initially declined before I was politely coerced into saying “yes” by Sian — I was already nervous to be surrounded by people who were used to seeing me dressed in my nice work clothes, hair curled, face painted, in a state quite the opposite: one of linty leggings, stained sweatshirts, and undone hair, but by the time I was wrestling a boiled lobster 24 hours ago to the T, the state of my appearance was the least of the worries. I was grateful for the present moment, where I was uncontrollably laughing with Jodie and George, thinking about nothing else. 

On the topic of worrying, lately, I have caught myself concerned with things that, in the grand scheme of things, do not hold much importance. At all. I have become insecure with the way I present myself on the internet, because it seems like the algorithm no longer wants to support the things I am sharing, which has since led to multiple spirals about why I care about things like an algorithm, and an attempt at re-wiring my brain to focus on the process and to let go of the outcome (expressed in a post I wrote a month ago). Suffice to say, going to a place where my phone did not work for five days was probably a Healthy thing to do, because when I am older, and hopefully somewhat wiser, I will look back on this period of my life and remember things like the time I cooked a bunch of frozen lobsters or the time I accidentally initiated a heated argument over the word “MANGO” in a game of Scrabble, or the time we were playing Pounce and we noticed that Gwynnie was flipping through her cards one by one, and then we all stared at each other in silence before laughing hysterically, or the time I asked George if he wanted some of the STP sauce and then we broke into soundless laughter over a spoon, I am sure that when my hair is silver and I am wrinkled and wearing a mumu I will think about these moments instead of thinking about the pimple on my left cheek or the fact that I am in my internet flop era or the state of my shirt I wore last night, which is covered in the smell of seafood and desperately begging for a wash. 

In a recent episode of The Broski Report, in a tangental, relatable spiral on the internet and identity and self-compassion, much like this section of the post, Brittany Broski posed the question: what do you like? And how can you incorporate more of that into your life? I decided to use it as a journal prompt, and I wrote that I like sunsets and pink skies, baking, long convos with friends, my alone time, journalling, when I can be myself around someone, movies like Before Sunrise, wearing glitter eyeshadow every day, Valentine’s day, doodling things, ME!, dancing to good music even though I suck at dancing, the process of making something, texts that start with “this reminded me of you,” when humans give reminders that they are human (i.e. stopping to take photos of a flower), seeing cats outside, STICKERS, making things that make me happy, long, frilly skirts, the process of making something, the color pink, handwriting that is kinda cursive, kinda not, the act of getting coffee, bows, childlike wonder, singing in the shower, laughing so hard my stomach hurts, and art that is messy and full of imperfections. 

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and it seems as if I am finding myself returning to some of these ideas today.

The sun has set and it is blue outside — the kind of deep, cerulean blue where the certain silhouettes are illuminated by the moon, and it is not yet dark, but most certainly not light — and we are on hour nine of ten of travel, passing through brief interludes of civilisation between the vast stretches of fields and trees and blueness. The laughter of friends behind me continues as I look down at my hands — a nail chipped from taking on the role of a chef last night — and I turn my head towards the window, a handful of neon signs pointing towards a plaza of sorts, and I scan my eyes up and down, checking if any of words I see start with the letter “A” — and I wonder if there might be any X-tra trucks in England. 

hellooo again, thank you to everyone who read my last post about living abroad, and thank you to everyone who has reached out about it and to those who have subscribed since (there are 300 of you !!! what the heck ! <3) it was one of my favorite things i’ve written in a long time, and i’ve been worried about how to proceed, but after spending a weekend (semi) unplugged and ~re-connecting with nature~, this was the result. it’s a bit more abstract and s c a t t e r e d compared to my other posts, probably because my brain is also very much All Over The Place atm, so please do with it what you will. i fear my train is about to arrive in london aka i must prepare for the 9:30pm journey home to nielsan and juno. until next time xxx tatum : )

There are a lot of things you do not think about when you are preparing to move to another country. On the days before I moved from California to England, my mind was completely consumed by how many pairs of jeans and random hoodies I could fit into my suitcase and how early I needed to be at the airport and stocking up on the maximum amount of prescription refills that my pharmacy would allow and what snacks I should pack for the airplane and whether or not I needed to bring things like a curling iron or hiking shoes and what movies and albums I should download and how to get to my Airbnb once I was there and what the Covid restrictions were going to be like and if I was going to get along with my flatmate and how we were going to move into an unfurnished apartment with no bills, no phone plan, and no bank accounts set up. The unknown that comes with moving to a new place — a new continent, even — consuming each and every ounce of my being; there were a lot of things I did not think about when I moved to London. 

I did not realize that waking up in my childhood bedroom on the morning I moved to London would be the very last time I would be waking up in that room, with that room being my room. I did not realize that from that point forward, my personal space would soon become a guest room embracing the skeleton of my presence; clothes and books and posters I left behind, pink and white speckled sheets only used by visitors, boxes of memories tucked away in the closet and under the bed. I did not realize that my dog, Achilles would peek his head through the door the next morning, expecting me to be there to cuddle with him, and I would no longer wake up to his perked up ear and curled up body weighing against my own. I did not realize that, because I was moving for the purpose of school, I would end up finding a job after graduating and remaining in England indefinitely, commencing my adult life with a set amount of calendar days in which I could return home to see my family. I did not realize that the walk I went on with my parents the night before I moved would be the last time where I could go downstairs at 5PM and stroll around the block with my mom and dad and our dogs, the pinks and oranges of a California sunset painted across the sky as we discussed whatever was on our minds that day, or what we wanted to have for dinner, or if we wanted to get gelato down the street for the third time that week (which, yes, we did). I did not realize that saying goodnight to them every night, my dad fast asleep, my mom eating a bowl of popcorn, an Achilles in-between, would come to a pause before I turned 24 years old, and the next time we all live together might not be for a very long time from now in very different circumstances. I did not realize that there would eventually come a day where my brothers would move out of the house, too, and when I go home there is a chance I will not see them every day that I am there; a house of 7 reduced to a house of 4. I did not realize that my mom was crying when she said “bye” to me at the airport, waving from behind the security entrance until we were tiny dots in each others fields of vision, because she had already realized all of this and more. She could no longer come up to my bedroom and sit on my chair and talk to me as I watched my YouTube videos or read my books or tried to sleep. She could no longer text me to bring her a bowl of popcorn at 11PM where I would sometimes sneak in some M&Ms or the chocolate covered pretzels from Trader Joes. She could no longer bring me along on her errands to the post office or to the Sunday market or to my dad’s workplace to drop off some papers. She could no longer have a daughter to confide in on long car rides or weekend hikes. She could no longer hold onto my arm when we walked around the block, just like my Lola does.

There is a lot that my mom realized when I moved from California to England, that I failed to realize until I moved from California to England. 

Last Christmas, I stayed in London for the holiday break. I had already gone home in the spring and the summer, and so I figured I would try something new and experience Christmas in London. It seems romantic — the holiday lights sparkling across every borough, the markets and the smell of roasted chestnuts and evergreen and pine, the decorations scaling outside of Fortnum and Mason, picking out a Christmas tree and hobbling down the high street, and wrapping gifts for your flatmates in brown paper and pink ribbons and silver stickers — it all feels and seems and smells romantic up until you wake up on Christmas morning and realize that you are, in fact, staying in London for Christmas. On Christmas morning, I woke up and cried to my partner, because I realized it was my first Christmas in my 25 years of life without being surrounded by my family or the proximity of my friends and I missed them and I became frustrated with myself for intentionally choosing to stay in London, in a living situation I was not entirely fond of, cold and broke and far away from everyone in my life that I love so much. I tried my best to put on a smile and a cable knit sweater and enjoy Christmas with my partner and his family — who are some of the kindest and most caring people I know — and I cried when his mom gave me presents and a card that said that I am not alone. She does not know that I could not read the card in front of her because when I opened it and read the words “you are not alone” the waterworks were underway, and as I type this, I am starting to tear up again.

When I moved from California to England, I knew that I was placing myself further away from those I am closest to, but I did not realize the severity of certain moments I would miss, like when my cousin got married to her husband in Mexico, or when my other cousin had her baby boy in Hawai’i, or my great grandma’s 96th birthday, which I joined from my bed, on Zoom, and her 97th birthday which is a month away from today. I did not realize that, two days before I left to move to London, when I got tattoos with one of my best friends, it would be one of my last times speaking to her sweet, incredible, fashionable mother. I did not realize that two years later, I would see their family again on a trip to Los Angeles, and then five months after that, I would be waking up in my studio flat in London, reading the dreaded text none of us wanted to receive, and once again burrowing my head into my partner’s arms and crying until my eyes could not produce any more tears because I would not be able to attend a funeral and support my friend through the toughest time of her life. All I wanted to do was fly to California and hug my three best friends. I did not realize that the same month, I would get laid off from my job, and then my own father would get diagnosed with skin cancer, and in that moment I could not help but feel selfish for having moved so far away.

When I moved from California to England, I did not realize the logistical complexities that come with being in a relationship with someone from another country. I should have thought about this, because my mom is from the Philippines and my dad is from the Netherlands, but I did not, and I did not realize that for the rest of our lives, Nielsan and I will forever find ourselves stuck between spaces, one of us a £700 flight away from home, the other a short commute, and that it only gets more confusing and conflicting when a wedding and kids are brought into the discussion. When I see a grandma, a mom, and her child, I think about how either my mom or Nielsan’s mom will not have the equal opportunity to share the every day moments that come with being a grandmother, depending on where we end up in the world. I did not realize that I would become attached to a country because of a person, that our parents and siblings might not get the chance to meet face to face until it is at a ceremony, and that I somehow need to find a way to stay in London when my visa expires in six months, because otherwise, I will not know what to do.

When I moved to London, I did not realize that England, is in fact, different from America. I know this sounds very American of me, but I did not realize that there is black mold, there is hard water, and there is no air conditioning. I did not realize that my clothes would get crunchy from being air dried and my hair would exist in a permanent state of frizz and that there is no choice but to purchase a dehumidifier otherwise the mold will spread and your clothes will not dry and you will develop a cough and if you tell your landlord about it they will most likely paint it white or recommend that you clean it yourself. I did not realize that renting as an American in London is expensive and confusing, and getting a job as a non-U.K. citizen in London is nearly impossible, and much of the jobs in my field pay just enough to get by with no savings.

However;

When I moved to London, I did not realize that maybe I do like to raise my hand and participate in class and that I would somehow write a dissertation in the span of four months, and that I would get a Master’s degree and successfully find not one, but two careers in the music industry. I did not realize that I would end up working for record labels and media companies I have always dreamt of working for, and how the reason I was able to accomplish it all is because I made it happen for myself. I did not realize that I would gain the confidence to pitch myself to my dream blog or produce photo shoots and magazines with some of my favorite artists, or chase months-late invoices or negotiate a salary or speak up when I am being asked to do things that I did not agree to do. I did not realize that I would connect with creative individuals from all across the globe, and how inspired I would feel every day, with creativity existing in all corners of my life.

When I moved to London, I did not realize just how much I would grow from the experience of moving from one country to another, in every way shape and form that one could possibly grow. How I would figure it all out, whether applying for a visa, a bank account, or a flat to rent, and how maybe I am a lot more self-sufficient than I thought I was, and that whatever the “thing”, I managed to get through it. I did not realize that I would get over the person I thought I would never get over or that I even had the capability and the confidence to go on a bunch of first and last dates. I did not realize that I would eventually learn to enjoy and embrace my independence and find my sense of personal style and that, in the time I would decide to stop looking for love, love would find me.

When I moved to London, I did not realize how utterly confusing adult friendships can be. I did not realize that I would endure not one, or two, but three friendship breakups in the course of a year, and that I would have to have multiple uncomfortable conversations and confrontations if I wanted to reach my fullest potential. I did not realize that a friendship breakup is not the end of the world though in the moment it seems like it is, and that often times you will make it out on the other end feeling light as ever, and your future self will thank you every day for it. I did not realize just how drastically the quality of your life can shift when you place your time and energy into the people and things that inspire and uplift you most. I did not realize that friendships are supposed to be easy, and thank goodness I know that now.

When I moved to London, I did not realize how much I would treasure my friendships back in America. I did not realize that we would find our special and sometimes silly ways to keep in touch and maintain our years — some, decades — long relationships with one another, whether through Facetime calls or monthly “I MISS YOU” texts or sending our NYT games scores to one another in the morning, or our penpalling and postcards, or sending a song or a meme or a photo saying, “This reminded me of you,” always thinking of one another and finding excuses to keep the conversation going, despite being oceans apart. I did not realize that I am so lucky to have people in my life who are willing to travel overseas to see me, and also how appreciative I am to have re-connected with old friends who have found themselves in my neck of the woods.

When I moved to London, I did not realize that there were other people, like me, moving to London, who would soon become “mates” whose presence I deeply cherish. I did not realize that in a place like London you meet people from all around the world, and some of my closest friends here are from places like Virginia and Brazil and Luxembourg and England and Florida. In the last week, I both hosted and attended dinner parties, and all I could think about was how I moved to London knowing no one and now I am consistently finding myself sat at tables filled with love and joy and laughter, in my own house and in the house of my friends. 

When I moved to London, I did not realize the level of attachment one could develop to a city. I did not realize that, despite the weather and the mold and the frizz, maybe I do like how people take advantage of the sun the moment it decides to come out of hiding, and how there is always something to see, whether an event or a concert or an exhibition, and how there are pieces of home here; like Rowen and Fraser and the friends travelling through London or the Californian bakery down the road or the Filipino pocket of Earl’s Court, the people and places and foods that take me back home, even just for a brief moment. And maybe I do like talking to strangers and maybe strangers do like talking to me, and no matter what part of the city I live in, I am able to form relationships and build a community around me. Maybe I do like the life I have built for myself and the home Nielsan and I have managed to create in under two months, one that is small but cozy and full of warmth. Maybe I do like the coffee catch ups with Tara and going to the flower market with India and finding new brunch spots with Maria and Esme and Julie and Adele and the lazy Sundays with Nielsan and Juno. And maybe I do like being in an office every day, surrounded by my coworkers who are hardly coworkers so much as they are close friends who see me more than anyone else, and maybe I do like the journey I have had over the last three years in London, and maybe the people from my life back home are happy for me, after all.

And maybe, part of growing older is realizing just how much you took for granted when you were younger, wishing you could go back in time and urge your past self to understand just how quickly life can and will pass you by. When you were 16 and withholding the details of your life from your mom, asking to stay home from school one day because you “felt sick” when in reality, you were crying all night because some people from your class were mean to you online, or when you were in college living with and around all of your best friends, without the knowledge that a time would come where you are on different sides of the globe instead of different rooms in a house; instead of running into Sophia in the kitchen at 10pm proofing her Trader Joe’s chocolate croissants or doing homework in your room while Maddie did her work on the other side of the wall or texting each other about what time we wanted to leave for Korean BBQ before huddling into Daria’s car, belting our hearts out to Conan Gray, unaware that one day we would be sending each other every detail of our lives on three different time zones — a photo of our coffee, selfies with our pets, 9 minute voice memos — unsure of when we’d all be in the same room again, let alone the same state. All of the hikes and the lockdown walks with your mom and your dad and your brothers and all of the morning cuddles with your dog. But you didn’t know any better, because how can you expect a moody teenager or a busy college student or a girl moving to another country to think about these things, when her mind is consumed by high school drama or a final paper or how many pairs of jeans and random hoodies she can fit into her suitcase?

On the day I was supposed to move to London three years ago, my flight got cancelled and I started to panic. After reading dozens of anxiety texts sent at 4:45AM, my dad came to my room. “Don’t worry about it, it will work out.” “I met your mom because my flight got cancelled.” 

(p.s. mom and lola i know you’re reading this, i promise i’m okay lol haha <3)

also, hello! yes, i changed the name of this newsletter from ‘tatum’s thoughts’ to ‘letters from tum’ — i created this account without putting any real thought (no pun intended) behind the name thinking i’d just use it as a void to type my thoughts into, and while that is true, i’ve decided to change it to ‘letters from tum’ because tum is my nickname and i like writing letters and the aforementioned tattoo i got with my best friend before moving to london was, in fact, of a love letter : ) my first and favorite tattoo. one time a kid was like, “omg i can’t believe you have a tattoo of an email!” and it has never made me feel more senile at 26 but alas,,,

I am a firm believer that one can assess the the stages of their heartbreak solely through the content on their Tik Tok feed. Stage 1 predominantly includes (but is not limited to) other users going through heartbreak. They are sad, and you are sad, and there is sad music, and there are sad comments, and the light at the end of the hypothetical tunnel is nowhere to be seen. Stage 2 includes what I like to call “False Hope Tik Tok” and this is where I found myself four years ago, nearly to the day. It is the side of Tik Tok that presents you with tarot card readings, or the initial of the person who you are meant to be with, and other “signs” that give you hope that “your person will come back”, all you have to do is comment to “claim” and “follow” and “like for more” — perhaps purchase a reading online — and soon enough you will be reunited with your happily ever after. Did I comment “claim” on more than 10 occasions? Yes. Did I contemplate purchasing a reading? Yes. Was I convinced they could be my soulmate? Quite possibly so. (This is not to shade Tarot readings, by the way, I personally found that a hefty amount were on my FYP during my heartbreak, much of them leaving me with a clouded reality.)

As I was not-so-smoothly exiting the trenches of the Tarot Tik Tok, erasing any idea that they would, indeed, come back, my FYP eventually landed on Stage 3: the healing phase. Self-care tips, self-discovery journeys, learning to find yourself in your newfound independence. Inspiring, hopeful, uplifting. Lots of journaling. Lots of We’re Not Really Strangers (at least for me). Lots of new outlooks on life. The light at the end of the tunnel, visible and within reach. On one occasion, my feed presented a poetry book, You’ll come back to yourself, a hand flipping through its pages as white on-screen text read, “whatever I land on is what you need to hear right now” — I do not often read poetry (although I wish I was a person who truly understood it), nor can I remember what the “landed on” poem was, but I felt a certain kind of calling to this book. I ended up buying a copy, reading and highlighting every other sentence, and eventually it became an artefact of the very early stages of my healing process. 

It has been about four years since I have thought about that book. In fact, I ended up lending it to a friend who was going through heartbreak in 2021, and at that point in my life I had no time for Tik Tok because I was packing my belongings into two suitcases and a 55 liter backpack bursting at the seams, preparing to move from San Francisco to London by my lonesome. In three days from writing this — September 6 — I will have officially lived here, in England, for three whole years. 

Sometimes, a word or phrase will get stuck in my head and I will not let myself stop thinking about it until I do something with it (the genesis of most of these Substack posts and lots of unfinished Notes app entries), and currently it is the sentiment “you’ll come back to yourself.” Whether I am repeating a book title or a common phrase, I do not know, but this time around, it feels less induced by heartbreak, more-so by other equally-as-unwanted-emotions-to-be-worked-through. To come back implies a departure from, and that much reigns true to these last few weeks. I have been struggling with feelings of self-comparison and imposter syndrome, and jealousy (which I hate to say, but it is true) repeatedly asking myself questions I cannot seem to find answers to: what am I even doing this for? If not for myself, then who? And if not who, then why? And now, days away from my three year anniversary with the city of London, I am attempting to come back to who I was at the start of it all, while I was packing all of the clothes and shoes and possessions I owned into my beloved Osprey.

For as long as my memory holds, I have always loved making things and writing about things and documenting things. I have a whole bookshelf of journals from the last 11 years, I have YouTube videos — public, private, and unlisted — from ages 10-16, and in both my current home and childhood home I have boxes upon boxes of memories: old concert tickets, every birthday card I have ever received because what if they pass away and I want to get their handwriting tattooed, plane tickets, random wristbands from random events, postcards. Some call it emotional hoarding, I call it memory collecting. As a child, school presentations were my favorite — despite being so anxiety ridden I missed a whole month of seventh grade — because it meant a trip to Michael’s (a craft store, not a human) with my mom to buy a poster board, and on our way to the check out till I would sneak some stickers, stencils, stationary, and glitter glue into the bright red cart. I also loved birthdays, whether my own or someone else’s, and holidays too, because it meant making handmade cards and party planning — I remember crafting Tiffany & Co themed birthday invites for my 16th birthday party, printed on none other than Tiffany blue card-stock paper, slid into a matching envelope and tied with a white, satin ribbon — and throughout my adolescence, two of my dream jobs were “florist” and “wedding planner.” No matter the project, birthday, or holiday — even April Fool’s Day — anything that required a trip to Michael’s (again, a store, not a human) had little Tatum absolutely stoked. My mom and her wallet — not so much.

At some point between my fifth grade presentation on the Pier 39 where I likely decorated a poster board in San Francisco themed stickers and images of the seals and the infamous crepe stand printed from the family computer, and eventually turning my “florist” dream job into a reality when I worked part time at the local flower shop in my early twenties, I decided to digitize my love for making things and documentation by treating my social media accounts sort of like an open diary. A digital scrapbook. A mood board, but in real life, but also online, if you will. Blurring the line between the analog and the digital. I began doodling musings over my photos, embellishing them in stickers and ribbons and anything else that was flat and scannable and made posting to Instagram less of an anxiety inducing activity and more of an ongoing art project that continues to this day. On Tik Tok I started sharing my creations and editing tutorials for anyone else who wanted a mini introduction to things like Photoshop and zines, although these days my account has turned into a hodgepodge of outfit videos and the occasional creative tutorial when I find the time because most of my hours during the week are spent in an office and most of my hours during the weekend are spent either seeing friends or doing life admin or neither or both. Adulthood :-(

My “artsy” social media posts never seemed to resonate with the people in my online circles — mainly those from my hometown — but they eventually started to garner (for the most part) positive attention from crowds of people on the internet who, like me, enjoy stickers and introspection and documentation and Pinterest and other cute things. As time went on, though, I felt a certain type of pressure — set upon myself by none other than myself — to upkeep an online presence, and then at some other point I felt the dilemma that people who post online tend to feel where they do not know if they are making art for themselves or for others, and then they go on Tik Tok and see other people doing exactly what they are doing which is objectively a good thing because it means there are more likeminded people out there with similar interests but for some reason they keep on doom-scrolling and keep on comparing and keep on doubting the authenticity and validity of what they do, and then they realize that perhaps they are dealing with envy and also a scarcity mindset which is quite simply Not The Vibe, and then they kind of start to spiral in the form of a Substack post because, after all, they started this Substack because they wanted to write for themselves, free from any desire of numbers, merely a void to shout their thoughts into.

My apologies. I digress.

The other day, I went to a cafe with a dear friend of mine — she is someone who occasionally shares her art and writing online (we met through Tik Tok), and once dealt with the feelings that I am dealing with right now — and we wound up talking about this and so much more. I felt embarrassed to admit my inner dilemmas, because in hindsight comparing yourself to other people online feels like a silly thing to worry about when 1. There are bigger issues and 2. You verbalize it, out loud. “No, it’s not embarrassing, it’s so valid,” she said. “It can feel so frustrating seeing people do something that you also want to do, but doing it more successfully. But you need to step back and remind yourself why you do it to begin with.” We ultimately came to two conclusions: To: 1. take the negative feelings and twist it into inspiration — to see someone accomplishing the things I want to accomplish and re-shift my brain to think, “Wow, this is inspiring to see someone do this, this means I can do it, too, in my own way.” and 2. return back to the drawing board and remember why I started creating; to be purposeful in what I choose to create and post and write and wear moving forward. To come back to myself and to create for myself.

(one of my comfort youtubers at the moment, Inayah. this video appeared on my feed last week and i cannot put into words just how much i needed to hear it. thank u Inayah <3)

Coincidentally, when I moved to London three years ago is the exact day I passed the “you’ll come back to yourself” baton to a friend who needed it most and here I sit today, on my anniversary with the city of London, far from heartbroken and instead questioning — or redefining — what it means to return to oneself. When I started having these negative feelings that I am so desperately trying to get rid of, I immediately went under my bed and into my memory box to pull out a very specific print I bought two-or-so years ago, from one of my favorite artists (and Youtuber) Shayna Klee. On one side is a painting of an angel floating through a hazy, pastel dreamscape holding a silver laptop, and on the other side is a text called “My internet angels are watching over me.” I hung it on my wall with a clip so I could flip it over whenever I wanted to read the affirmation. When I do, one line always seems to stand out from the rest: I prioritize enjoying the process over attachment to outcomes.

When I first started posting my creations, it was hardly with any end-goal of reaching a certain number, or even an audience. Much like I am with these Substack posts, I was (and am) grateful when 1 person would take the time to read an article I wrote or flip through a zine I made or comment on a silly video of my outfit, but what ultimately brought me joy was the process. Being in a creative flow, letting the ideas pour out of you, and then editing and cutting down and shuffling around until deciding the project is complete. My friend Hunter texted me a photo of a letter I had written him when he was one of five people to purchase my second zine back in 2020. I was so excited that someone — anyone — wanted to have a piece of my art on their shelves. And I still get excited whenever someone purchases a zine, or when a bookstore agrees to stock a copy or two. While lots of these posts steer in the direction of me wishing I had more time to participate in my hobbies, lately I’ve been finding myself excited to return home from work and create pages for my next zine. I am trying my best to prioritize the process over the outcome, prioritize making my zine over making a TikTok and checking how many people liked it, because at the end of the day, all I have ever wanted to do is make art, take up space, and hope that it might inspire someone else to do the same.

(I should also clarify that I do not necessarily think that scrolling on social media has to be a negative thing, because through the internet I have found a lovely and inspiring community of creative individuals, writers, zine-makers, mixed media artists, photographers, illustrators, fashion girlies — some whom I have even befriended in real life. Through posting online, I’ve made some lifelong friends, and for that I am eternally grateful. In my next zine, I even invited some of them to contribute a spread, and I am so excited to have our creations together in one place. It is a blessing to be able to call my friends my inspiration. When I say scrolling, I’m more-so referring to scrolling and scrolling and spiraling and inevitably letting comparison be the thief of joy.)

As I decipher what coming back to oneself means, I think about when I decided to start posting videos of my outfits online, and my intention in doing so. I struggle with body dysmorphia and found that wearing clothes that made me happy helps me deal with it, and so I think I will take that mentality of “wearing what makes me happy” and apply it to this. Returning to myself through the things that make me smile: The Shayna Klee print under my bed (and now on my wall, angel-side on display). The hair clip I bought a few weeks ago (when I was little the haircut place I went to had a “bow tree” and I would always beg my mom to buy me a new bow each time I got my hair cut. I recently realized that the reason I love my hairclip, and why I have a bow tattoo is probably because I used to love bows as a little girl). Meeting up with friends for coffee and talking about everything and nothing at once, like I did the other day. Looking out the bus window and seeing a dad and his kid riding a bicycle — the tiny child sat just below the handlebars with their tiny backpack on — laughing because of how unstable the bike was, and thinking about the time I tried to ride a tandem bike in Amsterdam, or when I was 5 and my own dad removed the training wheels from my bike and pushed me down the street. Last night, my partner had some of his friends over for dinner, and at one point they were in the kitchen portioning out some artisanal tiramisu from none other than M&S — I sat on the couch, looking at empty wine bottles, glasses, and candles on the table — hearing laughter from afar and a Frank Ocean song spinning on the record player, and being reminded of the life and love I feel so lucky to have found.

Three years ago, I moved from California to London without knowing anyone, and now, I am surrounded by positivity and inspiration and creativity wherever I look; outside bus windows, in my home, on my phone. I am trying my very best to be intentional in my process, in my posting, and in the energy I put into the universe, and I am (hopefully) going to come back to myself.

two years ago, i made a zine called “tum’s dictionary: vol. 1” — a dictionary full of words i created to describe complex emotions and experiences. while you can view the zine in its entirety here (and purchase a copy here if you’d like), below are a bunch of words i wrote inspired by a bunch of feelings i had, but struggled to define.

TUM’S DICTIONARY: VOL. 1

pernichial (noun)

/pur-nee-chee-ul/

someone who shares the same niche interests* that shapes the way you view the world - like, loving an introspective card game, or referencing a tumblr account that a person made 9 years ago to give words to unique feelings/thoughts/experiences that had yet to be defined.

*this is not in a way that makes you feel as though you’ve never had an original thought, action, or experience - but in a way that serves as a gentle reminder that your people are out there, you just need to find one another. and if you’re lucky enough, you’ll both choose to stay.

origin:

person + niche + special 

→ pernichial 

example: 

1. they weren’t just my friend; they were my pernichial.

crewait (verb)

/cree-way-t/

the feeling of waiting for a creative burst to come - you cannot predict when, or how, it happens - it just does, and then you make something, and then you sit and wait for it to come again.

origin: 

wait + create

→ crewait

example:

1. she hadn’t made a zine in a year; she was sitting at her desk, aimlessly scrolling on her phone and crewaiting.

frotend (verb)

/frow-tend/

observing someone/s (i.e. the barista who makes your coffee every day, or the girls on the tube with the cool outfits) and knowing you would be good friends with them, but not saying anything because you’re an adult, and for some reason being an adult means you can’t walk up to each other on the playground and ask to play. 

origin: 

friend + know + potential

→ frotend

example: 

1. every time she went to the coffee shop, she would frotend; wishing she would make more than ‘small talk’ with the barista. 

fomenemon (noun)

/fow-men-eh-mawn/

the phenomenon where all of the special people in your life are in the same space without knowing it – your grandma and your ex are both wandering around the same city, your high school friend group and college friend group are at the same music festival, your two best friends are studying at the same campus -- and you are stuck on the other side of the world, scrolling through posts, watching your own personal crossover episode unfold, thinking about how many variables have to line up for two people you deeply adore to be existing in the same space at the same time. 

origin: 

fomo + phenomenon 

→ fomenemon

example: 

1. she was swiping through each of her friend’s stories of the same concert, wondering how such a fomenemons occur. 

sondom (noun)

/sawn-dawm/

being in a public space surrounded by strangers (sitting on the train, waiting in line at the post office, etc.) and questioning the chances of you, and them, existing at the same place, at the same time. 

origin: 

sonder + phenomenon 

→ sondom

example: 

1. as she stood on the bus during rush hour, an overwhelming feeling of sondom took her out of the present. 

bory (verb)

/bow-ree/

when you are telling someone a story, and halfway through, some part of their silent social cues give you the indication that they aren’t actually listening to your story, and they don’t really, fully care to hear it. but you’re already halfway through, so you wrap it up and tie a sad bow on it, and stay silent for the remainder of the conversation, thinking about how sometimes self awareness comes at a fault. how telling a story would be so much easier without worrying if the other person is or is not interested. 

origin: 

boring + story 

→ bory

example: 

1. in the middle of recounting her night to her friend, she boried, wishing she had never spoken to begin with. 

tanxt (noun)

/tank-st/

the combination of melancholically induced anxiety that comes with speaking in a group message and nobody responding to you. how you wish you wouldn’t have said anything at all, pondering why hiding behind a screen makes things more uncomfortable – how if the scenario would have played out in person, at least one person might have felt obligated to acknowledge you.

origin:

anxiety + text 

→ tanxt

example: 

1. she told them about the incident, and suddenly felt tanxt when she was met with silence.

distine (verb)

/diss-teen/

when someone does something that interrupts your routine – for example, you are in a coffee shop, mentally working up the courage to use the restroom, and the moment you finally stand up someone else gracefully enters the single-use washroom – and you feel annoyed, but only at yourself, because in their mind they were working up the same exact courage as you without even realising it. 

origin: 

disrupt + routine 

→ distine

example: 

1. she was distined when she went to take a seat at the end of the now-full table.

flerson (noun)

/fleur-sun/

sharing a fleeting moment with a stranger. for example, waiting in line for an appointment, and getting into a conversation where you have just scratched the surfaces of your respective stories, and suddenly you are called for your appointment – and, afterwards, you are unsure if you are supposed to wait for them to finish their appointment and wish them well – or continue about your day with this feeling of a missed connection that would not have been there if the two of you had never spoken. 

origin: 

person + fleeting 

example:

1. she encountered a fleurson with the man next to her on the tube, and suddenly, they went their separate ways, escaping into the sea of people in the busy city. 

memlé (verb) 

/mehm-lay/

replaying a specific, real-life scenario in your mind — like a first kiss after a magical date, or a funny moment with friends — in hopes that it will resurface those very emotions, while simultaneously serving as a mental time capsule of memories you never want to forget. 

origin:

replay + memory

example:

1. it was 1:02 AM and she couldn’t sleep; she was too busy memléing. 

fleace (verb)

/flees/

being at peace with the idea that everything is fleeting – whether it be a moment or person – and all there is to do is exist in the present moment 

origin: 

peace + fleet 

→ flees

example:

1. despite only having one night together, the boy and the girl were at fleace, and continued to share laughter and tears into the late hours of the night. 

interxist (noun)

/in-tuhr-xzist/

the stage of a long car ride with friend/s where you’ve run out of stories to tell each other — or perhaps you’ve run out of the mental and physical capacity to carry on the conversation — but you no longer feel the need to fill in the gaps of silence with little anecdotes and mumbles, and you coexist, listening to music and looking out the window at the stars, being comforted by the mere existence of one another.

origin: 

intermission + exist

example: 

1. on the way home from the desert they interxisted, driving away from the melting sunset and into the sparkling stars. 

soulting (verb)

/sole-ting/

when you meet someone for the first time and it feels like you have known each other forever. perhaps your unique circumstances and all of your little life decisions perfectly aligned your paths to cross at that very point, or perhaps it was some unexplainable, metaphysical force that was waiting for the right time to occur.

origin:

meeting + souls

→ soulting

example:

1. it wasn’t until her first date with him that she realised soultings are possible. 

passation (verb)

/pass-ay-shun/ 

being so deeply enticed in a conversation that the time escapes you. suddenly, an hour has passed, and then two, and then the restaurant is signalling you to exit by turning off the music and turning on the lights and flipping the ‘open’ sign on the door. 

origin: 

conversation + passion 

→ passation

example:

1. they hadn’t really known each other well, but once they started talking about food and the culinary arts the passation was imminent.

rouple (noun) 

/roo-pull/

the people who you only keep in your life because you are used to their yearly, convenient appearances – relatives you see only during the holidays, distant friends who only pop up in the form of ‘happy birthday’ texts, the people whose contact is loosely hanging by a thread, but for some reason, neither of you will let it break apart  

origin: 

people + routine

→ rouple

example: 

1. when the christmas gathering occurred, she stared at the rouples around her, questioning the point of it all. 

frustance (verb)

/frust-inse/

the frustration brought upon by sheer distance – knowing that your situation could be resolved by a plane ticket or a 5 hour car drive – but, due to external circumstances, you must remain where you are, thinking about how the trajectory of your life could completely change had you booked a ticket

origin:

distance +  frustration 

→ frustance 

example:

1. she lived in london, he did not live in london, all she could feel was frustrance when he admitted his feelings for her.

fuzzend (verb)

/fuz-zend/

the confusing moment where the distinction between what constitutes a friend as a “friend” is blurred: your eyes linger at one another for a split second too long, and you mutually think a boundary is about to cross, and right when it is about to, it doesn’t, because you are just friends and just friends don’t quite act like that 

origin:

friend + fuzzy 

→ fuzzend

example: 

1. as they said goodbye to one another, they fuzzended, departing with confused hearts. 

On Sunday, I woke up and decided that I wanted to spend the morning with myself, which I have not done for a long while. Last year, when I lived alone in a studio flat comparable to the size of one of those drive-through-only coffee shops situated in the middle of random suburban-American parking lots, my days were mainly spent talking to no one but me, myself, and I, and the occasional emotional support baristas and the nice man who worked at the post office. I also worked as a freelancer and would oftentimes go an entire day without saying anything out loud beyond, “Hi! Can I have an iced latte with oat milk please?” or “Two international stamps to send a letter to America please,” (which, by the way, £2.50 for a single international stamp should be illegal) and between the six months spent in and out of my drive-through-coffee-shop I learned that I actually, really, truly enjoy the presence of my own company. After eventually moving in with three flatmates, and now living with just my partner, Nielsan, things are different now, and have been different for the last 11 months. Nielsan and I have (and enjoy) alone time, together — what the psychologists call ‘parallel play’ and what us young folk like to call ‘enclosure time’ — but on Sunday we woke up and mutually agreed that we should part ways for the afternoon. Nielsan was keen (I’m sorry, I’ve lived in the UK for 3 years and while I do not yet have an accent I do un-ironically say words like ‘keen’) to go to the garden and hardware shops and buy some soil and plants and some shelves and screws for our plant-less and shelf-less abode, and I had three equally as important things on my to-do list, albeit not for the greater good of making our home feel like a home, but more-so the greater good of — again, as us young folk like to say — my self-fulfilment, psychological, and basic needs:

1. The Cute Frilly Grey Cardigan I Saw On Instagram (from this very specific pop-up shop in East London)

2. Flowers (for both myself and my friends that were coming over later in the evening)

3. Iced coffee (and a pastry - but anyone who knows me knows this goes without saying)

I decided to tick the Very Important things off my to do list in sequential order, and so, we begin this section of the post with The Cardigan (sorry Swifties, not the cardigan you think it is.)

A brand that I absolutely adore called Good Squish was having a pop-up shop here in London, and Sunday was the last day, and I had already been procrastinating going since opening night but something in my gut — as well as the e-mail reminder at 10:00 AM — told me that I should go to it, and so I got out of bed, put on my plaid skirt, my fluffy GS scrunchie, my docs and my tote bag, and headed to London’s mecca of Instagram-bars and vintage shopping otherwise known as: Shoreditch. (Despite the ball pit bar and Boxpark and the phone snatchers outside of Shoreditch High Street station, we still love her. Or at least I do.) On my walk from the bus stop to the shop, I passed by a bakery that makes *the* best focaccia sandwiches I’d often eat on my self-assigned freelance lunch breaks, a coffee shop that I went on a first date at, where I thought things were going well and then he said he wanted to see me again and then proceeded to ghost and block me on all platforms (where I then learned you probably shouldn’t talk to someone for 4 months before going on a first date and also that if someone blocks you on WhatsApp their profile picture disappears), and a bookshop that stocked a few of my zines last year but have yet to pay out my invoice of 50 Great British Pounds. For better or for worse, Bethnal Green Road holds a memorable place in my heart, and it probably always will.

The pop-up shop greeted me with everything I love about the brand: lace and frills and stripes and the color pink and hair clips and ribbons and femininity and messy handwriting and childlike wonder and everything else that is good in this world. The girl working — dressed in a red cardigan from the collection — greeted me, I smiled back, and then did that thing where you walk through a shop and pretend like you’re looking at everything on display even though you came for a very specific grey cardigan but someone else was in the cardigan section so you try and time your pace with the timing of their browsing and hope that you can make a clean sweep when the section is open. (Or maybe it’s just me…. having anxiety is Super Cool.) I grabbed a cardigan, she was as wonderful as I could have ever imagined, and I asked the Good Squish Girlie if it was a one size fits all situation. Yes, it is, she said. I said thank you, no worries, knowing that regardless of sizing I probably would end up purchasing, and then she followed up with words I could not have anticipated: By the way, I think I follow you on Substack! Are you Paddingtum?

I never in a million years thought that someone would recognise me from this silly little platform, where I — firstly and fore-mostly — do not consider myself someone to be worthy of IRL recognition, ever, and secondly, write 15+ minute long articles that I never anticipate people to actually finish (let alone start), ever, [I’ve seen the click rate for these posts… the 58% of you who choose to read this far, thank you, I appreciate you]. When I get at least 2 likes (one of which is usually from my mom, hi mom) and the occasional comment or re-stack, I am absolutely stoked.

Anyways, I was like, What?!, and then she told me she recently started a Substack of her own, and then we talked about Good Squish and social media, and then it occurred to me that I think she commented on my post a few weeks ago (about community) and I had replied back, which she then confirmed did, indeed, happen and *then* we talked about one of my favorite things to think about: small talk and strangers, and how rewarding it can feel to be seen and acknowledged by the not-so-random people around you. As a born and bred Londoner, she has observed a shift within the last 10 years — unfortunately, people are a lot less keen on small talk as they used to be. She also told me that she has become a regular at the coffee shop next door, and it made me happy that other people find joy in having their orders remembered.

I told her we should hang out sometime, and Mo, if you’re reading this - let’s get a coffee?

I wound up buying the cardigan, because how could I not, and then I left the pop-up shop feeling very happy having made a new friend and a new purchase, the fuel a Tatum needs to continue a Sunday morning alone. I returned to the aforementioned coffee shop as a means of reclaiming a first date gone semi-wrong, treated myself to an iced latte with oat milk, and while I waited for my Basic Need Of The Day That For Some Reason Cost £4.20 I sent my friend Maddie an eager voice note to tell her what happened, and she responded with perhaps the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me:

As I sipped the expensive nectar of the Holy Shot Gods and made my way to the flower market, I was thinking about what Maddie said; how I seem to be the only person who can make friends in the wild. For someone who recites their restaurant order over and over again in their head and most times still manages to stutter, I strangely wind up striking up conversations with people out and about and I think it is perhaps the most enigmatic thing about me. (When I was 16 I worked at an ice-cream shop and somehow wound up working on register during the hot summer rushes. My manager, who, looking back on it, was kind of a weirdo himself, told me I have a “weird confidence” where I’m kind of awkward, but I know how to engage with customers, and while I do not love being described as ‘weird’ or ‘awkward,’ I understand what he meant and I do think it rings true to this day.) I have always liked to write because I do not always like to speak but when I do speak I usually end up feeling very fulfilled after. Crazy how that works.

For what feels like months now, I’ve been wanting to write a Substack piece about small talk and strangers and the irony of big cities often failing to foster a sense of community and how we should all be a little kinder to one another but I couldn’t quite ever get it right. Like Charli Xcx recently said, I think about it all the time. And really, I do. I have about three drafts in here about the topic, but they all steer in the direction of citing psychology articles about how London is one of the loneliest and most anxious cities in the UK, and studies on how small talk is actually good for you, or just straight up paraphrasing this book I have been reading since my second date with Nielsan (which was in July of 2022), and while I love myself an academically researched and reviewed paper, I do not want my writing on here to feel like one. I want it to feel like an open diary, or like a FaceTime call with a familiar friend, or like a Notes app vent, where I can spew my thoughts and feelings and my run on sentences and you can (hopefully) read and listen and get something out of it. If there’s one takeaway here, it is to talk to strangers, despite what your parents might have taught you as a child. It is also that unfriendliness has, in fact, penetrated the vibe.

I am aware of the Boomer implications when I say this, but we are living in a digital, disconnected age where we opt out of any ounce of tangible togetherness. We choose self-checkout over a register with a clerk and ask food delivery drivers to leave the takeout outside the door, and we avoid eye contact on public transportation, instead choosing our online worlds, or our books, or our headphones. By placing our headphones over our ears, or going to self-checkout, we are signalling that we do not wish to be spoken to. (I understand the convenience of self-checkout, and trust me, sometimes I just want to listen to Clairo in peace too, but hopefully you can understand what I’m trying to say.) When I booked an appointment to get my eyebrows done, there was literally an option to ask your aesthetician to not speak to you. I saw a Tik Tok where a person gives advice on how to avoid small talk, and the hundreds of thousands of likes and comments genuinely made me so sad for humanity, because it takes at least two people to make most things happen, and it is so, deeply upsetting that we are going to lengths as great as giving others tips and tricks on how to avoid connecting with one another.

I met one of my good friends, Tara, through Tik Tok, because she commented on a video of mine and I asked her if she wanted to hang out because she seemed really cool (can confirm, she is!). I became friends with Sam, who works in the same building as me, because one time I sat on the train and he was on the seat next to me and we realized that we take the same hour long commute to the office every day, and then my subsequent commutes became a lot less lonely. I met Nielsan because I decided to reply to his message, and currently I am writing an article as he re-pots our plants. I got my job of making magazines for my dream music blog because I cold emailed them pitching myself, and then I pitched the idea of creating a magazine to them, and now I am working on the 6th edition. I have a track record of receiving coffee and pastries on the house because I have a tendency to become besties with the people who work at the coffee shops around me. My mom (who is from The Philippines) met my dad (who is from Holland) because she said hi to him at a bar (in San Francisco). I’m telling you — a little bit of small talk goes a long way. Even if it is as simple as “hello.”

… that being said, I cannot overstate just how gratifying my interaction with Mo left me feeling. I am convinced that I was meant to go to that pop-up shop, at that specific time, to be reminded that there actually is a lot of kindness in this sometimes-isolating city. The fact that we had previously interacted with one another a few weeks ago through a Substack comments section, and now we were in a shop admiring a brand we both adore, blows my mind in a way that I cannot fully explain. How many other people have I connected with, without knowing it? How many meaningful connections would we form if we let someone sit next to us on the bus, or honestly told the person at the register how our day was going, or complimented someone’s outfit out loud instead of in our head? I like to think that the universe rewards me with a gift every day, and on that day, it was a new connection.

I thought about all of the above and more as I approached the flower market. If you live in London, you know the one I’m talking about. The Flower Market is not for the faint of heart: what seems like a wholesome Sunday activity is actually like going to the bar on a Friday night and fighting for the bartender’s attention, only instead of drunkenly asking for a G&T you are asking for a bunch of sunflowers or a massive house plant. This flower market in particular is always crowded with Sambas and Salomons, and there are usually people yelling “LAVENDER FOR A FIVER, LAVENDER FOR A FIVER! GET YOUR LAVENDER HERE!” and sometimes most times those people are shirtless and sweaty and sunburnt and 63 years old and you can choose to hate it or love it, and personally, I choose to love it. There is nothing better than seeing people walk around the streets of East London carrying plants taller than themselves, bouquets of massive hydrangeas, and the colors of summer wrapped in dark brown paper, tied together with a bow. It is one of those sights that reminds us that we are humans, and sometimes, we can be cute. Amongst the chaos, I secured three bunches: daisies, wildflowers, and orange thistles.

At this point, I had completed all of my missions except one, arguably the most important: a sweet treat. Despite how much money I did not and do not want to spend for the foreseeable future due to this expensive morning of buying things, I decided to walk to one of my favorite bakeries, passing by my old studio flat and being reminded of the times spent talking to myself and having a refrigerator at the foot of my bed, and then wound up around the corner and bought a slice of carrot cake for myself and a cardamom bun for Nielsan.

Then, I walked home with my hands fuller than ever, wondering if anyone would see me and feel the same way that I feel when I see someone walking with a big bouquet of flowers. A human being a human.

Then, I got home, gave Nielsan his pastry, tried on my cardigan, put the flowers in their respective vases, grabbed a fork and my carrot cake, and immediately got to writing about my very successful Sunday.

P.S. for anyone interested in consuming content about strangers, I love:

• We’re Not Really Strangers (the game and the IG account)

• The Power of Strangers by Joe Keohane

• Thoraya Maronesy on YouTube

• A zine I made, The Penpal Project

• Podcast But Outside

I feel like No, I don’t feel like, I am completely and well aware — too aware — that my brain is constantly thinking about the next thing there is to do. I have to wake up, and then wash my face, and then eat my breakfast, and then get ready in time, and before I leave I have to make sure to bring the recycling down with me, but I also want to record a silly little video of my outfit, which means I need to move the clothes drying rack out of the way and then at some point today I have to buy groceries to cook dinner tonight, and I still have to decide what to cook for dinner tonight, oh, and I need to fill up my water bottle and then re-fill the Brita and there are also (what feels like) hundreds of texts and messages I need to reply to, and I still have to write and send my best friends and my own brother their birthday cards — their birthdays were in early June — and I see the bus approaching, then I look down and I’m not wearing my rings, and wait, did I remember to spray my perfume?

I missed the bus because I went back inside to put on my rings and spray my perfume because otherwise I would have felt wrong and exposed and worried that I smell and now I have time to finally sit and relax for all of 20 minutes until get off the bus and walk to work but suddenly I have a desperate longing to go to the beach, which has been amplified by scrolling on Instagram and seeing everyone else at a beach and the cruel reminders in the photos app that remind you that today, one year ago you were eating the best meal of your life on a Greek island and today, one year later I am hot and sweaty and it is only 9:30am and a man just walked onto the bus and is yelling inaudible noises very loudly that I think is furthering my desire to be anywhere but a bus, during rush hour, at the start of a very heat-filled, humid London day.

I have a hard time relaxing, in case that has not yet been made apparent, and the only times my brain ever seems to stop thinking has been when I am hyper focused on a project, like the one time I tried pottery and ended up making a bowl for 4 hours without realising that any time had passed, or when I’m writing one of these long notes app entries that inevitably turn into a Substack post that I will fixate on until it is published, or every once in a blue moon when I find myself having enough material to make a zine or enough of an attention span to read a book. (Or when I’m in Greece eating the best meal of my life.)

For someone whose flat is filled with stacks and shelves of books of all sorts, I do not read nearly as much as I should, or as much as one might expect based on the sheer number of books I own. There was a time in my life — around two years ago — where I was reading consistently. Maybe it’s because I was a student who had lots of time between classes and dissertation writing, or maybe I’m just finding excuses as to why I no longer read all the time, but I remember writing a journal entry in the midst of my reading phase, about libraries and book shops and just how overwhelming it is that there are so many books that unlock so many worlds, wonders, and experiences, and there will never be enough time to read them all. Such is our finite existence. This realisation usually always hits when I am in a book shop — refraining from buying books because when we moved we told each other we wouldn’t buy any more books until we read the ones we have — and the few titles I have read will pop out and remind me of the days I spent entranced in someone else’s universe. And just how much reading a couple hundred words changed my perspective. And how the books I have read sit alongside a sea of titles and authors and covers that could very well include the stories I need to hear. Maybe even offer an opportunity for my brain to quiet itself. 

@taytoomit is me, i am girl, we are one #craftygirl #crafting #collaging #zines #scrapbooking #beading #beads

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Sometimes, a lot of the time, I think about what my life would be like if I had the time to devote to creating. To writing and making zines and designing fun Instagram posts and making my silly little TikToks and editing videos and pen palling and getting lost in the worlds that creating things tends to take me to. I admit I am lucky enough to do all of these things for work, but these days I spend so much time creating for other people and businesses that I have found myself too burnt out and busy to create for myself.

There were several times when I had a glimpse into this life, one of having enough time to explore my creative interests: the pandemic, during my Masters where I was meant to be writing a dissertation, and the Very Cool Time when I got laid off last summer and spent two hotter-than-average months in funemployment. Each of these events had their obvious (unfortunate) reasonings as to why I had all the time in the world to make a zine or write an article, and all I can think about now is how during those times, I was waiting for whatever comes after. For a pandemic to end, for a Masters to be over with, to begin a new job. The pandemic ended, I got my Master’s degree, and I also found a full-time job, and here I sit, writing about how I wish I could be funemployed again.

When I was in college, I downloaded Photoshop and discovered the existence of a zine. I was so overwhelmed by how to 1. successfully navigate Photoshop and 2. the concept of what a zine even was that I always thought about using the former to create the latter, and then I thought about it so much that it never actually happened. I also used to pronounce zeen as zign, like ‘sign’ but ‘zign.’ I still don’t know which is the correct pronunciation. All that resulted were mockups based on the two I read at the time — Local Wolves and The Luna Collective* — and half-ideas that never really felt authentic. Just a lot of Google docs and unchecked boxes and attempts at creating a cover page, all sitting in the graveyard of my iMac.

(*a special shout out to The Luna Collective and Sophie Gragg, I didn’t know what a zine was until Luna/Sophie and it has been so extremely cool and inspiring to see where it is now !!!)

I kept trying, though. My first Photoshop project is genuinely laughable looking back on it, but we all have to start somewhere and I am going to choose to see this image as endearing and curious and innocent instead of cringe and bad and unknowing. I had just received film photos from a formal event, and my sights were set on creating a collage with handwritten doodles across the front. No matter what I clicked, I could not figure out how to resize things proportionately, I did not understand “layers,” and I also executed the doodles via trackpad and a semi-steady hand. The vision was there, and the execution was certainly attempted at best. For someone who preaches that everything can be googled, I probably should have listened to my own advice in that moment.

Throughout my college years (2016-2020) spent pondering film photography and zine making and other mediums, I was hyper-focused on finding an aesthetic — my aesthetic. I think part of this had to do with being an avid Brandon Woelfel follower in 2014, and also living in the imposter syndrome epicenter otherwise known as Los Angeles, but I was completely and utterly convinced that the photos I was taking or whatever zine I ended up creating had to fall into a specific category, one that was on trend but still somehow entirely unique. Much of this aesthetic-soul-searching resulted in straight up copying Brandon’s bokeh fairy lights and buying a star filter and a Canon AE-1 in hopes that my photos would look grainy and soft and Tumblr-y and I eventually got frustrated by the fact that nothing seemed to be working out. If only I knew what I know now.

2020 was not a good year — for anyone — for many obvious reasons. At the time, I was going through the peak of those chaotic and sad things one goes through in their early twenties that they eventually look back on in their late twenties and say, “Wow, I’m thankful I went through that experience because I wouldn’t be who I am today with out it,” but in retrospect I refuse to open my journal from 2020 because yesterday I did for the first time since I shut it and I shit you not, one of the sentences said “my eyes are permanently shut from crying for the last 7 days. I am so broken right now.” I DIGRESS. 

Among other worldly events, 2020 marked the end of my first long term relationship. It also marked the rise and fall, not of a Midwest Princess, but of my very first situationship — an integral character building experience to any girl’s personal development between 20 and 23. Also my childhood cat, Misty, died on my birthday and I was moving out of my college home, where I had lived with my best friends for 3 years. On moving out day we took a photo on the porch and I am crying my eyes out in it. Suffice to say I was quite unwell in 2020 and the family and friends who dealt with me are entitled to financial compensation. I love you all and I am sorry.

I was so unwell I spent every day of lockdown baking, and I wish I was exaggerating when I say every day. I think I kept King Arthur Flour in business during lockdown. I guess if there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that there are several things in life I am very extra with and one of them is baking. The baking got to the point that I was making multiple batches of treats a day. We’re not talking chocolate chip cookies and boxed cakes (what is this, amateur hour?) — we’re talking cheesecakes and triple layered coconut cakes and fortune cookies and Claire Saffitz pop tarts and a literal gingerbread house with windows made out of melted isomalt. On the night of my big breakup I made 6 pizzas for each of my family members. The following night I made the aforementioned coconut cake, filled with chocolate ganache and topped with a sprig of lavender.

During the Christmas of 2020 I made 400 cookies of different variations, including the kind that look like a checkerboard and another which was dusted with freeze dried strawberries and edible flower petals. My quarantine therapy-stress-baking brought me to the point where one night, I snuck into the kitchen and grabbed the banana bread essentials — flour, bananas, baking soda, sugar — and I heard my brother shout, “Mom! She’s trying to bake again!” “It’s just banana bread, it’s healthy,” I probably said, looking at the counter filled with my previous bakes from earlier in the day. “I told you you’re banned from the kitchen, no more baking!” Again…. I digress.

On the day my situationship ended, a woeful morning in July of 2020, months after my first major breakup and perfectly timed with the release of “august” by Taylor Swift, I truly thought the world was crumbling around me. I was crying, begging for closure, I blocked him on everything then attempted to become a skater girl in hopes of winning him back, in a low moment I listened to Elliot Smith on my speaker and stared at the ceiling for 2 hours, in several other low moments I commented “Claim” on the Tarot TikToks that predicted your ex-lover to return, “Somebody Else” was on its way to becoming my number one song on Spotify wrapped, and for some reason, that morning in July, the sudden urge to finally make a zine overcame me. I woke up (not that I ever slept), grabbed every letter and trinket and thing an ex had ever given me, scanned them using my roommate’s printer, googled the dimensions of a piece of paper, and got straight to work in creating what I would soon title ‘heartbreak way.’

It felt nice to repurpose love letters and photographs and the items of my past into something new, something that was mine. I had went on a colourful desert getaway with my situationship where I shot a bunch of rolls of film… that I did not realise were in black and white until I got them developed. At first I was sad to see that all of these magical sunsets and pinks and oranges of the desert were now in grainy black and white film stock, but while creating my zine, I realised that the black and white imagery re-contextualised the photos, and who I was with when I took them, which only further contributed to the whole idea of the zine. I spent that day hunched over on my computer and running between my room and the living room to use the scanner as more ideas came and went and by the end of the day I had created a 20(?) page collection of memories. I didn’t think about aesthetics, I didn’t think about anything, really. I just created. I didn’t even think of it as a valid art form until my best friend Paisley recently said, “U do realize that these [zines] are works of art, right?”

A few months later I wound up moving from LA to my suburban hometown, and did that thing where you clean your childhood room and end up finding Halloween costumes from 2014 and that one charm necklace you used to wear all the time and that box of memories stuffed in a cardboard box from 2008 that is in desperate need of some TLC. It was the pandemic, I was confused, I missed my friends, I missed going to concerts, I missed a life free of masks and social distancing, and I was entering the self-discovery stage of heartbreak. In this phase, I discovered two fundamental pillars of my personality: I like indie-pop music and I like making things on Photoshop. A lot. It was like a digital scrapbook, and I loved everything about the process. So, naturally, I took that box of memories from the corner of my closet, scanned everything that fit in an A4 scanning bed, reached out to a very unique and lovely artist I met in Joshua Tree on the aforementioned desert getaway, and eventually I had my second zine in my hands: dear 2020, what the f**k? 

This process repeated itself for the zines that have followed — I would collect a lot of trinkets, and then I would scan the trinkets, and I would maybe write some words, and then I would turn them into a little book. I recently decided to make a little video called “zines I made and what I was going through,” where I showed each zine title and what caused me to create it. Someone commented: “all of them have a different vibe but still manage to look super cute and a similar style woahhhh” and not only did it make my day but it also made me realise that, in not focusing on what my aesthetic was, I inadvertently created a 1 of 1 aesthetic that was completely my own: a collage of my handwriting, my memories, lots of stickers, trinkets, and other scannable things, pastel colours, doodles, and childlike wonder. 

So I guess this is my really long winded way of saying that things will eventually fall into place, and you will find your aesthetic/style/whatever you are searching for when you aren’t trying to, and I should probably also stress the importance of hobbies because otherwise the first 1,000 words of this post would effectively be for nothing. Whatever it is, just do it. I am currently falling alseep* as I type this because it is 11:54 PM and I have been awake for way too long today, but at least this article-post-newsletter-thing made me temporarily forget that I have dishes in the sink and plans tomorrow morning.

Shit ...

*yes i noticed this typo the following day but i left it for the ~effect~

p.s. thank you for 100+ subscribers!!! i usually don’t think a whole lot about numbers but it really is so nice that over 100 people would take the time to read these very long posts :’) <3

A few weeks ago, I went to the corner store in desperate need of some toilet paper, or as the Brits say: loo roll. (I’ve been living in England for nearly three years but for some reason cannot get myself to call it ‘loo roll.’ I do use the words ‘quite’ and ‘lovely’ and ‘proper’ though, so at least I have linguistically assimilated in other ways.) For the non-big-city-dwellers reading this, a corner store is sort of like a 7-11, except it has a little bit of everything, sans a giant slushy machine or $1 hot dogs glistening as they rotate under a heat lamp. I guess you can think of a corner store as if a CVS was condensed into a 300 square foot building. You never really know what direction the queue goes in because the store is packed with aisles and stashes and containers of every possible item one might need throughout the course of the day — from paracetamol to toothpaste to laundry detergent to a wide array of imported Italian cookies (yes, even the kind with the stars) — and they are so deeply integral to every little pocket of life that London has to offer.

You always seem to find yourself in a corner store out of convenience and proximity, whether it is for an ice cream bar on a hot day, a £1.99 gin and tonic seltzer on a night out, or — like myself — a 4 pack of toilet paper because you and the person you live with average at the rate of one roll per week and also because the size of a U.K. toilet paper roll is laughable in comparison to a Charmin Ultra Strong.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, I went to the corner store to buy some toilet paper. Corner stores — especially my local corner store — do not hesitate to make use of every inch of space as humanly possible, and because of this, the toilet paper was stacked on top of the fridge, a carefully curated pyramid above drinks and yogurts and other cold items I can’t quite remember right now. Being 5’4 (which, by the way, is the average height for a woman in America), I am no stranger to climbing surfaces and thinking creatively when it comes to securing an item that is mere inches beyond my reach. No step stool? No problem. The resources available to me were: a six pack of big Evian water bottles and the edge of the fridge, each big enough for a Tatum-sized foot. But, I was in a corner store, so I did not want to risk putting my weight (or footprint) onto a bunch of water bottles or the side of a refrigerator that could very well topple over and cause a myriad of issues.

My third and most viable resource: the man at the register. The register at this particular corner store rests on a platform slightly above the floor. I looked up, asked the man if he could help me reach something, and he smiled and said, “Yes, but…” before stepping down to the floor and revealing that, in fact, we are both 5’4. He used his hand to measure the distance from his head to my head. They were the same. We laughed. I pointed to the toilet paper I needed, and he already knew what to do: one foot on the water bottles, one foot on the side of the fridge, both hands on my £2.99 pack of toilet paper with a cute golden retriever on the packaging. I said, “I know exactly what it’s like!” and we continued to laugh as I scanned my Apple Pay.

This morning, I needed some more toilet paper. I walked into the corner store, my 5’4 friend was working, and I said, “I might need some help again…” He smiled, used the same water bottle-foot-on-fridge method, and secured the toilet paper. We laughed again, I told him to have a good day, and I walked home thinking that I wanted the introduction to my next Substack piece to be about this particular interaction. And here we are. Toilet paper in my tote bag, with a vague idea of where I want to take this article.

I moved to my neighborhood around ten months ago, and to be honest, it took nearly all of 10 months for me to appreciate the streets I am surrounded by. I was very apprehensive to move here for several reasons, the main one being how far it was from the places and people I had learned to appreciate most. (It also did not help that my commute quadrupled in time, so I think there was a hefty portion of built up regret and resentment, with no one to blame other than myself.) For the last two years, I had lived in East London. I found my go-to spots, I made friends with my neighbors, I even became such a regular at the coffee shop that the baristas would have my drink ready for me before I stepped foot inside. I felt like I had finally built a sense of community, which can be hard to do as someone living abroad, and suddenly, I was leaving it behind for a neighborhood a long journey across the river. When you look at a map it sounds dramatic because I am quite literally 6.7 miles away from my old flat (and because I am also dramatic), and I pass it every day on my way to work, but each area of London might as well be their own cities entirely.

When I move to a new place, the first thing I look for (after natural light and hardwood floors) is a coffee shop within walking distance, and anyone that has ever had the wonderful, incredible, awesome experience of dating me or existing in my general vicinity has typically exited the relationship or lease with an accidental caffeine addiction due to my own. I have this thing… where I have to get a coffee every day. It does not matter where I am; I will find a coffee. (Last summer, on a tiny island, I managed to learn the Greek translation for “non dairy iced latte” and for seven days in a row I woke up, bought a Freddo Espresso with Almond Milk and a spanakopita, hiked down a bunch of rocks, sipped my coffee, and swam in the sea.) I — alongside my bank account — are well aware of the expenses that come with this addiction habit. I have been told many times that a Pret subscription exists, and I also know that by now I could probably own an espresso machine with the amount of £3.80 lattes I have purchased over the years, and while I appreciate the proposed solutions to this perceived problem, the fact of the matter is that I like to get a coffee from a coffee shop. Simple as that. It is not really about the coffee itself, but more-so the ritual of going on a walk, grabbing a coffee, and befriending the baristas who work there. It is partially an excuse to leave the house and to talk to someone; a gateway to community.

The other part of my coffee habit is conditioning. My dad loves a homemade coffee, my mom loves a barista-made coffee, so throughout my childhood I would accompany my mom on her daily coffee run where she would order a triple-shot non-fat cappuccino (extra foam, bone dry), a bag of dark blend beans fit for a cone filter, and two hot chocolates with whipped cream for myself and my little brother, Tanner. As I got older, hot chocolate turned into frappuccinos, which eventually turned into mochas and dirty chais, and now, lattes and cold brews, and as I type this, I am thinking about how the daily coffee shop ritual seems to be the thing that make myself, and my parents, feel a part of our communities, and it also seems to be the thing that makes me feel closer to my parents, despite being 5,000 miles and an 8 hour time difference away. When I get a coffee, I think of them. When we are with each other, we start every day with a Peet’s run. Cappuccino for my mom, freshly ground beans for my dad, and a puppaccino for Achilles.

On my first weekend of living in my current flat, I scanned the high street for cute coffee shops, and set my sights on what would become my new place to get my daily dose of caffeine and community. I walked in, quickly transferred £5 from my savings to my checking, and the barista looked at me. I looked at her. We both smiled and said “What are you doing here?!”

The barista working at this coffee shop, an hour and a half away from where I used to live, was the same barista who worked at the coffee shop I used to go to every day. Her name is Rose and she is lovely. She always remembered my name and my order. One time, I was buying a tote bag and she gave it to me on the house. Another time, I complimented her haircut and she snuck me a free latte. A month prior, Rose had quit working at the East London coffee shop to try out the 9-5 lifestyle, but after realising it wasn’t for her, she was covering some shifts at the coffee shop down the street from my new place. What were the chances of that?

It has been 10 months since that day, and I still go to there at least three times a week. I was there this morning, and yesterday morning, and the one before. Rose no longer works there, but I have successfully befriended almost all of the baristas….

…And suddenly, as I am packing up my belongings to move back East in two weeks, I am feeling the same exact struggle I felt before moving here: I am leaving behind a community I have built over the last ten months. The man at the corner store, the baristas, the M&S security guard who is always smiling, the post office ladies, my downstairs neighbors who gave us fresh grown raspberries from their yard, the kids next door, the postman…

Maybe it was not an East London versus Southeast London thing. Maybe I just crave community.

I am now typing this on a semi-sunny Saturday afternoon (by London standards, it is as sunny as it can be. If I can comfortably wear a flowy skirt outside, despite the grey clouds and occasional gusts of wind, then I will happily take what this attempt of a summer has to offer today). I went to the Saturday market down the road and bought two tiramisus from the Tiramisu Man. I do not know his name, and I do not know if he knows mine, but every Saturday I seem to find myself going back to his market stall to buy some dessert as an excuse to hear more about his life. He has a close friend that moved from Italy to Berkeley, California to open his own pizzeria. My hometown is not far from the pizzeria. He used to live in East London and would go to raves in the 90s. For the work I do now (I work at a record label), it is very closely linked with London rave culture. Now, he has a wife and kids and lives a life full of cannolis and other Italian sweet treats, and today, he asked when I was moving. “July 5,” I said. “On my birthday?! You can’t leave me on my birthday!” I promised him we would pay him a visit next weekend, because no Saturday evening is complete without a homemade bowl of tiramisu.

It is the little interactions that leave me feeling the most fulfilled. The fact the Tiramisu Man remembered the details of our last conversation, or that I shared a laugh with the corner store king, or how earlier today when I was walking down the street I ran into one of my barista friends and we exchanged waves. It is always the small moments I think about the most. I sometimes have this existential worry that these moments are not treasured by others in the same way that I treasure them myself, but maybe that’s for another time, or something to confine to the bounds of my journal or therapy sessions. (After becoming regulars at the Greek coffee shop for a week — at the level of taking midday shots with the owner and receiving many free cookies — my friends went to the same island and said the cafe owner didn’t remember us which then caused me to spiral about this very topic because here I was in London, about to buy a postcard to send them, saying thanks for everything.) I think because I am so far away from home, and because I have moved nearly 19 times in my 26 years of living, and because I like the taste of coffee, I find myself journalling and thinking about and appreciating my five minute conversations with the not-so-random-people around me.

Soon, I will be scoping out a new coffee shop and a new weekend market to frequent, and I will become a part of a new community, and another ten months down the line the new, not-so-random people and places will forever immortalize themselves in the pages of my journal and the little section of my heart, sitting alongside all of the other communities I have been so lucky to be a part of. I guess we are all just characters in each others stories after all, and perhaps that does not have to be such a bitter thing so much as it is sweet.

I always seem to find myself stuck between spaces. Between California and England, between my full time job, my freelance job, my creative outlets, and my social life (or lack thereof), between my bedroom full of packing tape and cardboard boxes and the cute little flat I will get the keys to three weeks from typing this, between the things I want to do and the things I have to do, sitting somewhere in the middle of a “yes” and a “no,” like an hourglass that never seems to run out of sand, forever existing in a fuzzy state of permanent impermanence.

On Sunday, I was on the train and I overheard a (presumably) American student speaking to her (presumably) English classmate about how she moved from America to London to do a Master’s program with the intention of staying and starting a life in London afterwards. Because of recent laws which have affected myself and many other non-English folk, the U.K. government has made staying in the country merely impossible for a recent graduate to do, and now the person on the train is confused on what she is doing in London to begin with, if she isn’t guaranteed the tools to continue a life here. I was sitting directly across from her, wishing that I could just shout, “I’m on the same exact boat as you! My visa expires soon and I don’t know what I’m going to do! You are not alone! I understand!” In theory, I could have, but I 1. did not want them to know I had fully been eavesdropping on their conversation for 15 minutes despite having both Airpods in my ears and 2. did not know if saying something that essentially echoes her situation would only cause further distress.

It is moments like these where I am convinced that we all feel this way — stuck between two spaces, or places, whatever or wherever they may be — only some of us are better at hiding it. We sit in silence on the train, brushing shoulders and exchanging glances and bumping into one another as it suddenly comes to a halt, keeping quiet to the comfort of our devices and our books and our headphones and our anxieties without realizing that perhaps, we are a little more alike than we think we are. Inside, we’re all the same.

Last year, a lot of things happened in my life that some might deem as “big adult changes,” others (i.e. my therapist) might deem as a “resilience building experience” — I was living alone in a studio flat the size of a storage container (it was a shoebox but it was MY shoebox), I worked two freelance jobs which meant I could wake up whenever I wanted, and I could also be one of those people that wears sambas and gilets and gets a coffee at 1pm on a Monday on Broadway Market while other people wonder exactly what it is they do for work — despite them also being on Broadway Market at 1pm on a Monday — which ultimately led to an unhealthy work life balance and maxing out the amount of YouTube video essays and documentaries one could possibly consume over the course of the workday, and choosing to solve my problems by breaking my lease to apply for a new one with three people — three boys, including my partner — as well as a full time big girl job in a full time big girl office.

After not viewing the new flat which resides far outside the parameters of the community I had spent the last two years building in my little pocket of East London and hesitantly signing some papers, our offer was accepted, and shortly after, I wound up receiving and accepting the big girl job offer. In the moment, I knew that these contracts I was willingly singing myself into would fundamentally affect the course of my days and my routines (again, or lack thereof), but I craved the structure that living with others and having an office job would offer. The idea of freelancing full time as a “creative” sounds nice until you are chasing multiple HR departments to process your invoices that are five months overdue, and the only person you speak to the entire day is the barista serving you a £3.80 iced oat latte, and because you don’t clock in, you don’t clock out. You never seem to stop working, especially because your job is to write and make things for other people and your main hobby is to write and make things for yourself, and your dining table is also your desk, and you don’t receive any benefits or perks, nor do you get invited to Christmas parties where you get to wear fun knit sweaters and buy someone a £10 Secret Santa gift, and suddenly it is July and you are on a remote Greek island relaxing for what feels like the first time ever, and you sail and fly and train and bus home and hop on your weekly job call only to get laid off and then you hop on another call and find out one of your parents has skin cancer so ultimately you decide to 1. sign a lease with three boys in the midst of realizing that you like living alone and probably have some sort of undiagnosed cleaning compulsion and 2. apply for a full time job an hour and a half away from the flat you just signed a lease for.

I asked the universe for structure, and I fear bringing structure into my life has only caused further distress. Is this what the shock of the “real world” feels like? It has been nearly ten months since the move and the job and I remain stuck, only these days I get less sleep and have a caffeine dependency. I desperately need to go back to Greece because I have not felt peace since.

Don’t get me wrong, having a full time job — in an office — has brought great little joys in my day to day life that I craved while freelancing. My role is unique and cool and I am eternally grateful to have wound up in the position that I am in. I love having coworkers to yap with, there are two lovely chefs, Maf and Nancy, who cook the most incredible lunches, and I am now on free-coffee terms with both of the coffee shops next door. I enjoy laughing with my new friends and working alongside inspiring and creative and talented people in a building that feels like the type of place Architectural Digest would make a video about. It’s not that, no — it’s everything before and afterwards that seems to be leaving me feeling like a shell of a human being. It’s the lack of time to do basic things, like my laundry, groceries, the dishes, or sending a text back, and the lack of energy to maintain my second job and my close relationships, and the lack of funds, and the worry that these changes in my life are slowly dimming the light I know I exists inside of me.

This week in particular, I have found myself dealing with the dilemma that most of my other friends in their mid-twenties seem to be experiencing, where I am struggling to find a healthy balance between quite literally everything to ever exist in my life. I was used to being a student, and then I was used to being a freelancer (which was essentially like being a student but you’re in charge of yourself and you get paid for it), and I am trying my very best to get used to being a Working Girl In A Big City (it doesn’t help that the Big City in question is expensive and the wages in said Big City don’t quite equate to Said Living Expenses [olive oil is now £10 and 10 strawberries that grow mold within 3 days costs £3.99] and also I am a foreigner so if I fail to sort out a new visa in 8 months time I will get deported.) Much like the girl on the train, I am worried but I also know that everything will be okay because everything has to be okay. I will move and I will work and I will find a way to stay in the U.K. (or I won’t and that’s okay too) and I will write and make zines and create and come back to myself eventually.

I always seem to find myself typing these posts while I am on my way to go somewhere. I started typing this yesterday; I was taking a bus, and a train, followed by — you guessed it — another bus to meet with my friend Tara. Six miles and a hour and a half later (welcome to London), we went to a cafe steps away from the flat I am moving to, and split two slices of cake — pistachio and lemon and blueberry — and talked about life and people watched outside the window. Then we whipped out our journals and coloured pencils and binders of Korean stickers that we paid $20 in shipping fees for and filled our blank pages with whatever seemed to be speaking to us in that moment. For Tara, it was the things she likes right now, and for me, it was a collage inspired by my phone case. Tara is one of those friends that you hang out with, and you leave feeling inspired and grateful to have had the mere chance of crossing paths with one another. I think this is the third post I have mentioned her in and it is for a good reason.

The night before seeing Tara, I decided to Facetime my mom at 11:30 PM and to my surprise, my Lola answered the call. I thought she was in the Philippines, but apparently she was at “Traders Joe” with my mom. My Lola is perhaps the cutest person in my life and every life and I think if you met her, you would have no choice but to think so, too. Even through a phone screen, her contagious energy momentarily took me out of the rut I have been struggling to escape this week. In the middle of speaking to her, she said “Oh my gooosh sweetie you are so pretty and Nelson [her name for Nielsan] is soooo cute.” I am currently on my way to see some of my friends I met in my Master’s program - Adele, Julie, and Esme. In about ten bus stops, we will be sipping our iced lattes with oat milk and vanilla syrup and eating brunch and hearing about Julie’s trip to Tokyo and Adele’s nightmare of a haircut experience and Esme’s half marathon and my upcoming move.

Sometimes, all you need is a cup of coffee and a conversation with a friend. Or a midnight phone call with your Lola and your mom. Or writing it out in your notes app as you sit on the train, temporarily in motion, between two spaces. Maybe, you are not stuck after all.

Whenever someone — usually a Brit — hears I am from California, I am always asked the same question: If you’re from California, then why the hell would you move to London?

On the days where it is cold, windy, and damp, which most days in London tend to be, I find myself wondering the same thing. But right now, as I wait for the train and bask in the morning sunlight — sporting my favorite pair of red gingham boxers, gripping my Jolene tote bag, and knowing that when I get to work I am going to buy an iced coffee and when I leave work it is still going to be light outside — I am reminded that the storm always passes. The sun is here, and hopefully, she is here to stay.

People in England carry an appreciation for the sun that I (and I think many others) tend to lack while living in a place like California. When I lived in Los Angeles, I hardly used its green spaces and I can count the amount of times I went to the beach on one hand. Maybe it’s because I was a college student confined to the bounds of USC’s campus, focused on graduating with the most accolades I could possibly achieve, or maybe it’s because I always told myself I would go to the beach, or sit in the park, and then I wouldn’t, but it’s okay because there’s always next weekend, and then the next, and then the one after, until suddenly I am packing my boxes into a rental van to move home and then a year later I am moving overseas to a city where parks are more than prevalent — beaches and sunshine, less-so. On a sunny day in London, I was at a park, talking about this with my friend Tara, who is also an American living here, and she sent me this poem afterwards:

I guess that’s how things always are; you never truly appreciate the presence of something until it is gone (or until it occurs in sparse, excessive bursts between the months of late May and September), but I do really think that moving to London has helped me understand the value of a sunny day. There is nothing better than hearing the birds chirp, seeing friends and families and dogs sprawled across each and every open green space, and hearing the commotion and laughter on the streets outside the living room window until the very last second of the day, right when the summer sun decides it is finally time to rest. Winter is depressing, yes, but there comes a moment where you stuff your puffer jacket and thermals and fuzzy socks into the suitcase under your bed and you can finally wear the red gingham boxers and the puffy white blouse that have been collecting dust in your drawers since last September. At least for now, it is bright outside, and I am content.

I am currently on the train, commuting to work, deflecting what I actually came here to write about by first writing about the sun shining. I forgot to wipe the smudges of my mascara from below my eyes that happens when I use my setting spray and I worry that if anyone looks too hard they will notice not only is my makeup smudged but my eyes are puffy because I was crying on and off for much of last night.

I am reconciling with the idea that we only know a person as much as we think we know a person. And it would be so nice to live in ignorance and remember the person as who we thought they were — the best friend who you supported for years, who invited you to assist with all of their creative projects because they knew you wanted to work in music, who bought a copy of all of your zines when they weren’t selling, who deemed you as their creative inspiration, who constantly reminded you to trust in yourself and your creativity, who ended each long phone conversation with ‘love you, bye,’ who laughed while you sat in the passenger seat of their sports car, waiting for them to ship a package at Fedex in east LA, and then the parking lot security guard demanded you move the car, so you slide from the passenger princess throne to the drivers seat of a 2012 Camaro with a modified engine and swerve into the gridlock traffic on Sunset, as they watch you from inside Fedex, smiling at the sight of a 22 year old Tatum driving a monster of a car, who you shared all these memories with and more — I so badly want to remember them as this person I have condensed into 166 words, and maybe I eventually will, but right now I am allowing myself to mourn the idea of who I thought this person was. The best friend that maybe-never-slightly-potentially was.

I hate that so many of my sentences start with the words I am about to type, but I saw a TikTok of a girl who’s Roman Empire is her best friend of 7+ years that randomly stopped talking to her one day, no explanation, no closure, no nothing. Gone with the wind, as if they were never friends to begin with. On one hand, I feel for this girl — I, too, have fallen victim to a friend (the aforementioned friend) deciding to remove themselves from my life on a random weekday in 2021, and after a year of begging on my knees for the tiniest ounce of closure, I stopped all efforts to — and on the other hand, I can place myself in the shoes of the this girl’s friend because I, too, have made the decision to stop talking to a friend before, but not without first letting them know that the friendship wasn’t serving me in the way I had once hoped, and wishing them the best.

Sometimes, we’ll never get answers, if we’re lucky, we do, and there comes a point where we have to stop searching for a reason and shift our energy into cherishing the friendships and people in our lives that fulfil us….

……which I had been doing for the last three years — quite successfully, might I add — up until last night. At 6PM, I received a series of things — things I will not say for my sake and your sake and the sake of others — which exposed the true character of my old friend. It sent me into a shock — seriously, I bursted out into tears and then sipped my water bottle and then choked on the water and then continued to cry some more — that someone I had admired with my whole heart, someone I held with the highest regards, could say and do and believe the things I saw. For as similar as I thought we were, I am now realizing we have always been so incredibly, fundamentally, entirely different people.

Although years have passed since the day my friend decided to exit my life, and at least two years have passed since I have actually formed a thought about them, I am suddenly feeling so sad for the girl I was at age 14. Knowing that this person I thought the world of actually went against each and every one of my core beliefs, behind closed doors. And knowing that, at 22, when I was visiting them in the city they lived in, and we were sharing a bed for the fifth night in a row, they only wanted one thing from me, and when I didn’t give it to them and felt somewhat confused and violated, it wasn’t worth continuing the friendship I thought we had up until that point.

I feel sorry for my younger self, how naive she was to believe in the very best of someone. But I am trying to remind myself what a gift it can be, and how lucky I am, to be someone who assumes the best in people. The name “Tatum” translates to “bringer of joy” and it is exactly what I try to do every day: I speak with a smile, much like my dad does, and oftentimes I am met with fulfilling interactions with strangers, friendships that fill my heart with happiness, and waking up on a Monday morning and being grateful for the sun shining through the window, the sound of the birds chirping, and the love and light I actively choose to bring into my life.