#nano day 3

[swordheld]

hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?

hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].

but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.

it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.

and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.

the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.

an emptiness, like you said.

but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.

you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.

he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.

but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.

how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.

the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.

think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.

i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.

but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one. wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.

as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛

[bitternace]

my wonderful friend!!! may i request 48 and aqua for the spotify asks? love your art as always i hope youre having a nice day :)

lost in a labyrinth and left with no way out

[ID: a cleaned up sketch of aqua from kingdom hearts'. she is shown from the chest up, the colors are slightly muted as light from an opening above her head hits her back. her expression is slightly worried as she reaches a hand, hair flaring out away from her face. /End ID.]

[sewooonz]

⊹꙳⁺ ⸝·⸝ . 𐙚 24.11.11 ♡ 빼빼로는 될 수 없어! . ⸝·⸝⁺꙳⊹

[sensitivedead]

flash memory of my dad absolutely obliterating my adolescent eardrums with money - pink floyd in his 1984 teal mazda b2000

[spoon]

Dva's Nano Cola skin ♡

[blossysartgobrr]

An apple a day keeps the medical students away

OG image and more are under the cut!

Yes I found this via Pinterest how did you know

[hudders-and-hiddles]

YEAH BINCH

[nopeleavemealoone]

Drew my boys

[bluberimufim]

*deep inhale*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go hug all my cats and drown myself in tasty little reward treats

Taglist: @wildswrites @little-mouse-gardens

[belethlegwen]

The Stranding - Chp 64 - Getting Through It

Hey everyone! So so sorry for the late update, this week has been intense and I had hoped to get it finished and out yesterday, on time, but things just... well, you know how it is. Happy I managed to get it out my birthday, at least!

She's a long one, 27 pages apparently! but I hope you all enjoy it <3 The next little arc is going to be a fun one, and I'm glad to finally be posting it (it was written during NanoWrimo last year and I've been trying to get to this coming moment ever since then, hahaha).

Hope you're all having a fabulous weekend! Much love <3

~ Belle

[acaciapines]

decided to do nano this year! despite the fact that i will be! perhaps! the most busy! in november!! but i am DETERMINED to try and finish the owl house daemon au this year goddamnit i wanna be DONE!!! i want to be free!!!! its been eight million years!!

[starchilddante]

Almost forgot, but Nanowrimo Day 3!!

I hit my word mark again!

Word Count: 28508

I'm gonna finish my novel this year. That's a fuckin' promise.

[shamera]

okay, FINE, I will catch up on the Fontaine Archon Quest in Genshin.

(so there are, like, a dozen gmvs for Genshin to the song Gods and they are all FIRE??? Literally the perfect song for the game.)

[dante-winning-archive]

I might start being slightly more active as I sit at my desk and try to distract myself while agonizing about nanowrimo

[defira85]

Nobody tell the Nano website, I'll lose my momentum if we do

[bahoreal]

a question for writers to answer in the tags. what is your favourite thing to do to procrastinate writing?