Butterflies

Butterflies, is that what I'm feeling? Butterflies when you say something endearing; a glimmer in your eye that warms the pit in my stomach. Even the weather feels warmer and I think I'm home. I grew up thinking love was earned, was won. Which eggshell will I clumsily stumble upon; what will grey out that shine in your eye; when will you find out I'm an imposter? One risky move and I'm clawing for a sign of life, desperately wondering if it is care I seek or approval. I know love should not feel so wretched, but I wonder for how much longer I can stretch this. I convince myself it hurts because it's true. I'll tell myself anything to feel subdued. It's Disney, it's the romance movies; It's all the brainwashing, that's what the truth is. Never that this has possible, probable toxicity. Never that my worth is proven if you're happy. Never that I needed more time to heal. Never that the butterflies are just actual fear. No, it shouldn't be so taxing, shouldn't feel like oxygen given or stolen. When will the tiptoeing end? This just isn't it, dear. Tough luck, let's try again, before we have more to ache over and lament; let's go and love ourselves a little more, before we have nothing left to mend. -Mai E.

nothing is as tender as annotating your favourite books. it’s like leaving a piece of your heart on the pages for somebody else to find.

The big 3-0

There's always been a sort of stigma around turning 30, especially in our society, for obvious reasons. So many specific statuses are expected to be reached, whether marital, financial, or societal, in order to define one's success. "A life well lived". It's all about what you would've gained by that point, but what they don't tell you enough is how much you shed.

To begin with, I was never in a rush to grow up. Not in fear of growing old, per se. But I just never understood why anyone would want to rush the now which is already so fleeting. The happiness is felt now, the sadness is felt now, the living is happening now! Pace yourself, Mai, for someday you'll be clawing at the remnants of days refusing to last.

I'm more humble than to claim I've stumbled upon some great wisdom billions before me hadn't already reached. But I revisited my memories and discovered some nuggets from my experiences and revelations that I wish someone could have bestowed upon me on my rocky road to 30. So here’s a letter I want to send to myself in the past…

Finally leaving our 20s is a blessing! Yes, my body aches in places I never thought could, and the sun goes down and I can't think of something cozier than snuggling up on a couch with my cup of coffee and a good movie, and I miss the days I felt immortal and like the streets had a magic binding me from going home. Just like Cinderella, you feel as if the clock would tick 12 and the fairytale would wear off, right?

Our parents did try to warn us a lot about the turbulent 20s and we didn't necessarily think they were lying, but we assumed they came from a time completely irrelevant to our then-current reality. "They couldn't possibly understand", we said. The things I can confirm from their imparted wisdom are these two…

First, the best friends we'll most likely ever make are the ones we met in school or college. The bonds we’ll have created just by being these two clumsy earthlings in each other's lives trying to figure out what kind of persons we want to be is priceless. It means we’ll have been in some of our rawest and purest versions of ourselves together, before we decided to try out an emo phase or a partying phase, or whatever we thought we needed to do to fit in or find ourselves.

Second, we'll realize we wasted so much thought and effort trying to reinvent ourselves from year to year out of regular bouts of identity crises just to impress others or feel less like an alien. Honey, we're all aliens in our 20s. And it's true that everyone's too busy recalling that one stupid joke they wish they hadn't said earlier today to even focus on that famous song only we didn't know. We're all stuck in our internal trivial battles and we aren't even full human beings to have earned the spot to judge anyone, let alone ourselves.

Now on to some things I wish they had given us a head's up about…"Bad influence" friends aren't only those our mom warned us about in school, they exist everywhere, even well into our young adult years. We can so easily start to become like the handful of people we spend most of our time with, and that can either drown our potential or morph us into something we can't be proud of. And God forbid you aren't proud of yourself in your 20s! You don't need to be adding any more insecurities, really.

So I now know to keep people whose life values I share or at least can understand or respect. You gotta meet on the same grounds somehow because you'll now have little energy to give anyway.

Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant, keeps advising to retain only belongings that "spark joy". I've learned this applies to people too, even places and activities, but let's elaborate on the people part. Energy does deplete, and so does the capacity to trust, open up, and even love. We'll regret reaching the finish line of our 20s feeling too spent, wondering if we have anything left to give. Surprise – we weren't invincible after all! So prepare yourself to find out that friends will become few and far between. They may not grow in numbers, but if you've got your head screwed on right - AKA have put in efforts to better understand who you are and what you need - I can promise you that they will grow in quality. It will get lonelier when we start becoming selective of the kinds of people we keep around, but we'll feel there's a lot less "noise". And that calm will be a blessing at times we're too busy becoming more responsible and accountable for ourselves and our loved ones. To touch up further on the topic of invincibility, I cannot stress this enough: you're a feeble human being in your 20s. Stop pretending to be so strong, 'cause that one person (or two…or three) will come along, and do great damage to our foundation. It'll become increasingly harder to find a big enough treasure trunk in our mind to tuck and lock away that baggage, trust me. Okay, let's talk about some perks - where that "invincible" power you thought you had seems to truly come to fruition. Your power is you. You’ll realize you can dream things and work towards their realization, all on your own, believe it or not. Without mommy or daddy's help.

And this piece of advice needs to be stripped of any descriptions or superlatives: Patience. Patience. Patience. You heard me. And all those things we learned - time to unlearn them! Yep, we can learn all the wrong things too. Education isn't always positive. Finally, we'll experience this nearing 30, after spending some time with those born a decade or two after us, I guarantee you won't be able to knock off that endearing and grateful smile off our face at some point when you realize how far we’ve gone, how many lives it feels like we’ve lived, and how many stories we’re surprised we have, stories that can fill a trilogy of books. And guess what, we're only just getting started. -Mai E.

"Every time I'm around you...All my cells are...Fizzy. And alive. And everything feels hopeful."

In love with this quote.

SEX EDUCATION – S03E03 ››› George Robinson as Isaac Goodwin ››› Emma Mackey as Maeve Wiley

Hold

Oh, how easy would it be to depend on you, and to have you depend on me, even if just for conversations? But I'm too old now to be making the same mistakes, and I'm still contemplating whether you were my best or worst mistake. -Mai E.

Every pure intention ends when the good times start Fallin' over everything to reach the first-time spark Started under neon lights and then it all got dark I only know how to go too far My bad habits lead to late nights, endin' alone Conversations with a stranger I barely know Swearin' this will be the last, but it probably won't I got nothin' left to lose, or use, or do My bad habits lead to wide eyes starin' at space And I know I'll lose control of the things that I say Yeah, I was lookin' for a way out, now I can't escape Nothin' happens after two, it's truе, it's true My bad habits lead to you

Do you ever get a wave of nostalgia for a hyperfixation that’s never coming back with the same sort of melancholy with which you mourn a lost childhood friend

Coffee

I’m the kind of person who will drink her coffee in not less than thirty minutes, so in the span of that, I’ll have probably gone and reheated my coffee in the microwave two times.

I realize how wasteful this is of effort, but more so electricity. Perhaps it’s time I make the effort to have foam in my coffee, so it traps in that heat much longer. But oh, the time I’ll waste making that foam.

-Mai E.

Midday thoughts

Did I love you or did I love being young and in love? -Mai E.

via weheartit

Love thyself

In two of my most emotionally abusive years, I learned words like 'disassociate' and 'compartmentalize'. They became my best friends at a time I felt the loneliest. I felt beyond help and stuck in a dirty ugly secret. I was living a double life. Except this hidden one could barely be considered a life. I was miserable, depressed, and afraid. I also learned that you could have tears fill up your eyes without a specific trigger or thought. You’re crying in the back seat of your car ride home and you don’t exactly know why except you feel tired and like you wish someone could save you.

Those moments are nothing compared to the atrocious images I wish to forever erase from my mind, except I can’t. There are days I believe I’ve forgotten some of it with the help of time and with the help of never revisiting those situations in my mind so as not to give them a life of their own and turn them into memories. But then something will happen, or someone will say something and it all starts replaying in my mind as clear as day, as if it were yesterday.

At first, I thought the problem was that I could never forgive myself. Thankfully, that’s becoming easier to do recently. I realize the hard part is getting over the trauma. Every inch of my body remembers it all too well. After all, I rack up more than three condensed years of emotional abuse in my record.

I blamed myself for forever for the irreparable damage. But if this had happened to a best friend, I’d have felt compassion for them in an instant. I would have rushed to comfort them and shower them with love. I needed to remember that I am my best friend. Yes, I treated myself terribly, I totally let myself down. But that’s okay. I am not beyond repair. I am not beyond forgiveness. I don’t need to validate why I did the things I did, or even allowed the things to be done to me. They happened. Period. I can’t change the past but I can stop living in it.

I think I thought too highly of myself growing up, aside from all the insecurities. But deep down, I was proud that I was smart, nerdy, opinionated, and conscientious. Everything I did was opposite all those values I thought I’d never break and so I felt like a fraud. I didn’t know who I was anymore because my life suddenly lost all order, all definition.

I’m still fragile and reeling from the damage. I don’t feel out of the woods yet, especially because I still mess up. As long as I don’t truly feel, believe, and see that I’m a changed woman, I’m not certain I can truly flip the page and end this chapter.

However, the more I thought about how to forgive myself, the more it started to happen naturally. I first jumped on Google the past months only to find that every piece of advice was lame and generic. I’m still not sure what the science is behind forgiveness - I’ll leave that to the experts, but I realized that when I came to forgive people who hurt me in the past, it just happens. One day, you wake up, and you feel lighter. I didn’t need a how-to article, I just needed to believe it’s greener on the other side of forgiveness.

-Mai E.

What will it all have been for?

What makes me unique

For years I thought the most apparent traits I had were my innate moral compass and how adamant I was about honesty and doing the right thing. But often, through the years, that only brought me pain and heartache, where the lines between right and wrong were usually and involuntarily blurred. I’m not always right, I’m not always honest, but I will always try.

So when I dig deeper in my mind, or in this case in my heart, I believe the thing that makes me most unique is my compassion. My empathy. How much I feel for human beings for only just being human. How much I give them the benefit of the doubt in a relentless belief in the inner good we all must have, we just must have. And for this, I forget, before I even have time to forgive. For this, I excuse, before I can even heal. I feel too much that we are all connected and so I constantly seek for that thing that connects us all despite all the obvious differences.

Maybe it’s a taxi driver, the pharmacist, a lady in the street. All it takes sometimes is just a pure smile, a laugh, or a good conversation. That genuineness without agendas.

I’m not in an illusion that there isn’t true hatred and ugliness residing in too many people, but I can’t help but rummage through all the dirt each time in search of that light we buried, or the world and others helped bury for us. Sometimes, it’s not even just about the search for good, it’s about discovering the complexities that make one who they are. Uncovering each puzzle feels like I’m finding the world in a sole vessel, and finding God in a soul.

-Mai E.

We had a relatively fun night out with our friends, and as we had all gotten up to leave the cafe, you turned around to quickly grab a coaster from the table we sat at. When I asked why, you said you simply liked collecting memories. I remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t realize you were so sappy.” But I smiled, and went to grab one myself.

I’d almost forgotten how I was Miss Memorabilia. Miss Sentimental. Since I was a child. I kept all kinds of useless things that would too soon lose their meaning.

I wonder if you still collect things. I wonder if you still have that coaster.

-Mai E.