Hi there! A month has gone by with no newsletter. I can’t remember taking so long to return to you, but here I am. Thank you for waiting.
It’s almost funny, because in the past when fellow writers commented they had “no ideas” I’d easily retort with something among the lines of “that’s your prompt then!” — you write about not knowing what to write about. Sounds genius and simple to me.. You create something out of nothing, what seems to be non-existent. In a way us, artists and creatives or anyone of the sort, we bring forth a saying I used to reject: all we need is within us. We take from what’s around us, from the outside, and from what happens in our heads and hearts blooms into something else.
Writing is a solitary activity, and if it’s non-fiction, personal themes, it requires you to meet yourself where you’re at, to study your own eyes in the mirror and not look away. Easier said than done. It’s not as if by not coming here I’ve been running from myself, but I’ll admit I’ve been celebrating various small joys and postponing all the rest, the heavy work, the worries that weren’t urgent, the questions within that long to be explored. It’s alright, we deserve effortless happiness too. You may lose sight of how to enjoy life if you focus so badly on how to fix it. It’s worth finding reasons to smile amidst the mess.
Too much rest and ease it and I become idle, I’ll lazy my way through most of my free time, which isn’t inherently wrong but I know deep down it’s not how I’d like to remember my days. It makes me more restless and impatient, frustrated for what seems to be “no reason”. I don’t enjoy myself when I’m feeling sluggish, yet I keep going back to it like an addict. Why do we only want what seems to spoil us?
But make no mistake, I still write. I’ll never abandon writing. While at work, there’s always a small notebook where I keep stray thoughts, songs, concepts, themes, reminders, all sorts of things that seem like the start of a path, like an idea that tastes of something more. These letters, my journal entries, the messages we share, to me they all begin with a spark. Inspiration is everywhere if only you let things burn the way they’re meant to.
And there is so much I could pick, I do not know what to decide, what to grab or hold on to, what idea to work with. I can’t seem to move from the starting line, to know how to spread my wings like before. I become just as lost as if there were no options, no roads ahead, blankly looking at words wondering how to build the bridges between them. I don’t like this. It makes me feel stupid, stuck. I wait, I entertain my brain with any other fleeting thing. Will it ever be easy to write when motivation is scarce? Or is it that I do have a need, the desire to write, but can’t find ways to articulate and to express what’s within? There is something stuck in the middle of my throat, I can’t swallow or spew it out.
Truthfully, a lot of things seem to hold me back these days. I am an anchor with no land to sink to, the dog with the bone or the bird at the door, an arrow with no aim. I want to read more but also watch a movie or two, the lists are ever growing to the point they seem endless. I want to study languages yet have enough time to play and rest my own way, when time always slips through my fingers. I want to engage with the world more, with things people that I lost used to love, but there’s this looming dark shadow above that follows. Why do I feel so stuck? Have I been running by doing nothing at all? It goes like that saying, falling feels like flying until you hit the ground.
There is also a voice, faraway but still there, telling me it’s all impossible, that it’ll hurt me more to pursue what may fail. I suspect it’s a choir, a collective of guilt, shame and regret, emotions that are interchangeable in my head. It claims I have no right to, that I haven’t earned it, that I’m not allowed to unless I ask for permission. To who? Who knows, maybe it’s those people I’ve hurt, the ones that are just memories now, or the man made concept of productivity, the obvious difficulty to plan if there’s little time and too much to crave, or my gluttony. It is as if I got something to prove.. to who? What ‘something’? I can’t tell. I feel judgements that aren’t there, I lose myself in scenarios that haven’t, or won’t ever happen. I feel dirty almost, brazen for wanting more out of life, wanting to move on while simultaneously touching what feels like it isn’t mine, what seems to belong in the past. All of this, paired with my disorganized self, the tendency to think the worst and the absence of functional time management make a perfect equation for disaster. An imminent one: mine came when I lost my trusty pair of fingerless gloves a few days ago. The second time this year, I might add, and we’re only in April. You know, when one thing goes astray and it ticks everything else, making each issue, no matter big or small, fall, like domino pieces in your face? That was my trigger, my bullet.
I know not to believe everything that comes up in my mind. A teacher I had once went as far as to say our heads are our biggest enemies, we are our biggest critics, our own enemies. Humans make things up, from the names of flowers to the concept of economy, but I also now know that sometimes you have to let it all crash, and begin again by collecting the scattered pieces. To build your scattered self.
I used to believe I had no regrets. Everything is so…situational. We’re always going through something, so some understanding goes a long way to appease any unease you may be feeling regarding your choices. With enough compassion, what either propelled forward or held you back becomes far clearer. Of course, when we gain something we lose something else. It’s the price we pay for our choices… today tough, I can’t say I’m unfamiliar with remorse.
How are we supposed to hold regret? With our bare hands so it burns our skin down to the bone? With gloves, clumsily, trying not to let it slip away? With the palm flat and straight, waiting until it flies away? With only the tips of our fingers? Close to our chest, to our hearts? At the bottom of our feet? Behind us? Am I to forget where I place it?
Regret doesn’t only come from loss, although the majority of it seems to. I regret words I handpicked, choices I ought not to execute the way I did. I regret not doing something sooner or more often, I regret letting shame, or better phrasing, the fear of shame stopping me one too many times. Shame’s a deadbeat topic around here unless you’re new. The other day I found an Uncle Iroh quote that said: Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote.
How does humility goes? Think not less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less, that’s what Tolkien said. Posh words for me, someone writing this kind of letter in a website all about my life. Obviously we are no axis, yet our experiences are ours, none equal, none the same although there are always twin lines, meeting points. Oh, I too have that pain. I see humility as acceptance of one’s standard, of your qualities and shortcomings. Is regret in the way of humility then? Does accepting have to mean approving?
Would we feel regret if we didn’t believe we could be someone else? If we weren’t so focused on how we could’ve, should’ve been? If we weren’t so obsessed with not being here, in the present, in the now? In what we can’t change? In what we think is part of us, forever? There was this phrase I saw the other day, about how we don’t flow through time, time flows through us. Time and regret seem intertwined, so much remorse grows when you’re too late or too early, too fast or not fast enough.
Work has been busy too, and it has proved me that that saying is true. I don’t feel the flow of time anymore, not like I used to at least. 6 months came and went so fast, my internship is almost meeting its end, but the atmosphere has been quite stressful We’re undergoing so many changes in a short period of time, anxiety flows in the air all around. I feel awkward, as if it was my first day, my first week again, trying so hard to catch up to everyone else’s rhythm. I wish to do a good job. I wonder what can I possibly do to handle everything thrown my way without shutting off, feeling guilty or not enough, and accidentally building a regret, which seems to be counterproductive. How to handle everything, hold the world. I want to be someone people can believe in and rely on. Not just at work, in my relationships with others, in my home, to myself. I want to cross someone’s mind when they need help, and give it as wished. But I fall so easily, fail to meet the standards others seem to reach so effortlessly.
I think I got reliability mostly wrong though. A part of it does trust you can be there when needed, but it isn’t to be there all the time — it’s to be there fully. We’re so demanding of ourselves. We’re also not meant to give and give and give. It’s not a wrong feature to have a spark in your eyes, a hunger, but something’s got to give. Like the waves and the seasons, we come and we go, we won’t withstand every harsh wind, but we’ll be back, and we’ll bloom again.
Losing, regret, guilt, all that holds us back doesn’t have to prove that we’re weak. When I was trying to make peace with the possibility of not getting those gloves back, I wrote some lengthy paragraphs on a whim, carried by the emotions, the loss of control, that dooming sense of regret. In life —and I don’t like to say this — we’re all meant to lose things. In them I wrote “I’m sick of losing, sick of looking at myself and feeling like a piece made of losses, all patched up.” Does that mean we can’t be whole, if we’ve built ourselves piece by piece? Maybe what stops us is merely meant to be starting points. When we lose something, we gain something too.
I’ve been trying to be more hopeful lately. Keen on hope. Letting myself getting it wrong, trying again, winning, failing, going under, getting back up. One step forward, half a step back. Getting better at falling. Even if time does flow through us, I can’t just stay still. It might not apply to every restrain in our life, but many of them only come down once we face them headfirst, once we fail and pile another regret to the list. It’s uncomfortable, a lot of things that take courage seem to be… but isn’t it just as painful to remain chained to regret? I think it is. Yes, I believe so.
Thank you for reading delicate this week! May April with its rains and chilly weather not freeze your beating heart.
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delicacies of the week
I watched “Suzume” last week, tempted by the film’s mystical theme song. Makoto Shinkai’s works always walk the line between whimsical and heavy with grace and beautiful frames, of his latest 4 movies I think this was the most stunning. Not to mention the soundtrack was… as breath-taking as the views.
Music wise, I liked Tyla’s debut album a lot, filled with pleasant and hypnotizing melodies (highlights: Breathe Me and ART), dodie’s honest Hot Mess EP (highlights: Hot Mess, Got Weird and Lonely Bones) and, found just last week, QWER’s energetic and refreshing mini album MANITO (highlights: Ferris Wheel, Manito). I’ve also found Ichiko Aoba’s band that I had yet to hear, named NUUAMM.
I’ve also reread “Strike the Zither” in preparation for the sequel which comes out later this month. It was even better than the first time. If you like fantasy do give it a chance.
SONGS OF THE WEEK: manito by qwer, in my bones by margot liotta and MU-MIN by NUUAMM
delicate’s spotify playlist! & delicate’s tumblr
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