#nostalgic? melancholy?

[feyd-meowtha]

I miss when people on Tumblr used to post about Dune

[lilblueorchid]

There's no love in the end

Forgive me for quite the depressive quote, I've simply been obsessed with Aurora's song "A dangerous thing" lately. Still, I feel like it kinda fits the vibe of this lonely boat bathing in the light of a fading day.

The world that surrounds us is getting darker day by day. It's hard not to lose light. Sometimes I wonder if any of what I do makes sense... But i've been told those sceneries I paint feel like a window to another world. Maybe a softer one. If you're feeling sad, I hope it can bring a little bit of comfort to you then. ♥

[rounni]

[asyayordanova]

[oldstuffilikealotandstuff]

I can't describe this feeling.

[acquired-stardust]

Bleach: Memories of Nobody Studio Pierrot 2006

[whataboutfractions]

[klara-mitfoch]

Kaltemarchen (winter 2023)

[aqua-regia009]

Words ring hollow Clouds draw in Discouraged Spring rides on Embrace the solitude The fruit of life Sorrow deep Impenetrable Watch the skyline catch fire Strangers come and go There’s death on your lips I never knew Our tears are water Under the bridge A distant memory Before I go to sleep Watch the skyline catch fire Swallows come and go I was never really here But these streets know my name Behold I’m nothing

(Behold I’m nothing)

[skyloftian-nutcase]

I posted a sketch of Abel being happy so now I guess the tax must be paid and he must have angst again

It didn't take long for the excitement to wear off.

The outburst started gently, at least. Link wandered anxiously, hands held out in front of him as if he were going to grab something or play with something, and then he wrung them nervously. He sniffled, eyes widening and watering.

"Link?" Abel prompted, putting the last of his armor on his bed.

And that was all it took. Abel stared in alarm as his little boy burst into tears, catching the attention of their roommate, Norri, who flinched.

“I want to go home,” Link cried.

Abel knelt down to be at eye level with the boy, trying to settle him quickly. “Link, we can’t go home.”

“But I want to go home!”

“I know,” Abel acknowledged, putting his hands on the little one’s shoulders. Link’s eyes were puffy now, his face red as he stood there and sobbed. “I know you do. But we can’t go home. We have to stay here.”

“I want Mama!”

Abel’s heart clenched. For a moment he couldn’t speak, emotions drowning his voice, but Link’s wails pierced through the fog, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as Norri began to look agitated.

Quickly picking his boy up, he hastened outside, pressing Link’s face to his shoulder both to wipe his tears and try to muffle his cries as he whispered again, “Link, calm down. We can’t go home. I told you we would be here a while.”

It was ridiculous to assume a four-year-old would truly understand his words when he had explained the trip and he knew it. It was foolish to think this was going to be fine. But he had hoped… after running into the king himself had managed to not be disastrous, and after Link had spent two days wandering without incident, he’d hoped it would be all right.

Link cried louder, legs wiggling as he started to progress to a full-on meltdown. Abel held on to him helplessly. Tilieth always had more patience for these moments, always knew how to soothe their child when he himself didn’t know how to do so. Abel was of no use in this situation – he expressed his emotions so differently, so quietly in comparison to that of a child. He tried to remember what his sisters did, but Ama always focused outward on their younger sister, and he’d never really figured out how to calm Shola down so much as just argue with her. So he… had no experience in this.

“Link,” Abel said helplessly as he finally made it outside to avoid causing a ruckus in the palace. “Link, settle down. We can’t go home; you have to accept that.”

No matter what words Abel chose, Link wouldn’t accept that. He repeated his displeasure continuously, so much so that Abel was afraid he’d wake all of Zora’s Domain. He tried to hide in a corner somewhere, climbing one of the passageways that twirled around the Domain, ignoring the damp chill that began to settle through his light undertunic and trousers. Link didn’t seem to notice it, though he felt the little boy’s fingers steadily turn to icicles.

Frustration started to pull at him. He couldn’t calm his child, he couldn’t get him to be quiet, he was screaming in his ear—it wasn’t as if Abel himself didn’t want to see Tilieth, as if he weren’t worrying about his wife who was on death’s door with illness—

Abel, stop. He’s a child.

And? He’d stared at his dead father’s face, smelled the stench of rotting flesh despite the perfumes liberally poured around him, all when he was a child. He’d watched it kill his mother slowly for two years before she finally joined him.

You were eight at that point. He’s four. He doesn’t understand and you know that.

The frustration grew, though, despite his arguments, despite him knowing that his boy couldn’t help this. Perhaps it was just because he was angry at himself for even thinking about this, for ever suggesting and fighting for bringing a four-year-old child to a diplomatic mission, for having to shoulder the responsibility of the entire family while his wife was dying—

Abel bit his lip until it bled, trying to ignore the sobs coming from his son. Instead, he held him tightly, rocking back and forth, out of words, out of patience, out of emotions, out of everything. His repeated whispers devolved into hushes, offering what little comfort he could. It didn’t feel like nearly enough. It never felt like enough.

Link cried himself into exhaustion, his wailing finally settling into hiccups, and Abel released a full breath, having been rigid as a board for what felt like an hour. Slowly, hesitantly, he started making his way back to the central part of the Domain, thankful for the lack of people in the area, but hesitated before going to the palace. He himself was too full of emotions and energy now, and he knew he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he tucked Link more closely to the center of his chest, head right under his chin, and continued to sway back and forth with a light bounce to his knees. He wandered aimlessly, mind helplessly full of cotton and unable to process words anymore, before he found himself in front of the statue of Hylia.

It was a small statue, carved in the luminous stones of the area, giving it an ethereal glow. Some aquatic plant was adorning her head like a crown. It was lopsided, like a child had placed it there and wasn’t quite tall enough to get it right.

Abel slid to the ground, back against the railing behind him, Link held ever so closely. The boy was limp with exhaustion, asleep and warm in the embrace. Abel shivered.

He had no words to offer in a prayer. Instead, he just stared. Hylia smiled serenely back.

Abel stayed there, in a strange trance, overwhelmed and underwhelmed, energized and exhausted, until the sun started to reflect on the sparkling stones.

[publicpools]

Supposedly sentimentality grows with age, but that's nonsense. From the beginning, my focus was on the past.

[starlonga]

[rounni]

I'm breaking down ♱

[liskie]

my favorite smell has to be smoke when it’s cold outside, it’s a very specific and comforting combination that reminds me of who i am

[cojest2-blog]

[capseycartwright]

Every year the day before my birthday, I write myself a letter – it’s my way of saying goodbye to the year I’ve just lived, a way of letting go of the good, and the bad, and everything else in-between. I’ve written one of these letters every year since I turned eighteen, so this year marks ten years since I started one of the greatest traditions of my life. The words come easier, some years, and other years, the words are stuck in my throat, fingers stiff as I try to articulate what it means to live another year, how to put into words all the way that life challenges and changes me – for better, and worse – every year I get to spend on this planet.

This is one of the years where the words aren’t coming as easily. I’m not entirely naïve, anymore – though I don’t think you can ever fully lose naivety when it was such a hallmark of your personality growing up – but it’s hard not to hope that after a bad year, a good year would follow. I thought that maybe that would be the case, after 26 being one of the hardest years of my life so far, but the universe does not see my birthday as the fundamental start, and end, point that I see it as, and the hardship sort of just – continued.

Maybe that’s one of the things I’ve learned this year – whether you measure your year by birthdays, or New Year’s Eves, these arbitrary start and end points don’t mean much at all: your problems and your wins are yours the day you’re 26, and they remain yours the day you turn 27. As arbitrary as they are, I like a start, and an end, and – even arbitrarily – my final day of being 27 feels like a moment to reflect and think about who I want my 28-year-old self to be. 

I want her to be happier. It’s not that I don’t have a great life – I do – but 27 has been plagued by this lingering unhappiness that has wormed its dark tendrils into every aspect of my life, work and friends and family and everything that doesn’t fall into those neat packages. I could reflect on all the reasons for it. There’s an element of trauma, for one, because watching my mum, my best friend in the entire world, lie in a hospital bed for weeks on end, sitting by her side and holding her hand as she begged me to stay with her, hallucinations caused by an infection making her believe I was nothing more than a figment of her imagination as she took her final breaths, is something I’ll never forget as long as I live. She’s okay now – and every day, I thank a God I’m not sure I even believe in for the fact she answers her phone every morning when I call, greeting me with a tired ‘hello, love’ – but once you’re faced with the reality of how vulnerable your parents really are, it’s hard to forget that there will be more hospital beds and hand-holding in your future. 

I could talk about breaking my foot, and how what feels like a simple injury affected my mental wellbeing in ways I’m still picking up the pieces from – I have never been good at being vulnerable, and I am independent to a fault, and after putting myself in an Uber, hopping around on a foot that I couldn’t put weight on, still unwilling to ask for help, I sat in a hospital car park with a cast that went to my knee and sobbed into the phone, wishing then, more than ever, that I had never left the safe cocoon of my parents embrace. 

I could talk about a lot of things – but I’m realising, more and more, sometimes there is no reason for sadness. Sometimes, you’re just sad, for no good reason, and that’s another thing I’ve learned this year – that I can’t always rationalise the way I feel, that there’s not always a reason, not always a ‘why’ that I can fix. That’s been a hard one to accept, because I have always been a ‘fixer’ – someone who focuses on the things I can fix, the things I am able to change – and that has been another thing I have had to accept this year: I can’t always fix things. There are things in my life that have happened, and will happen, that are so far out of my control I can hardly touch them, and I just have to accept that. And my god, do I hate the prospect of having to just accept things. That’s been a theme of my 27th lap around the sun – having to accept that there are things in my life that I can’t control, can’t fix, can’t change. It’s been an exercise in learning how to let go and lean into the uncertainty and challenge of life. 

I could talk about a lot of things, is the point – but all of those things don’t change that ambition of mine to live a happier life. I have a wonderful life. I have a job that gives me purpose, a job that gets me out of bed every morning and makes me feel like maybe I am making a difference in the world. My parents are, objectively, my favourite people on the planet, and this year, I got to explore a new city, in a new country, with them. I have a family who I love dearly – and I think I could probably write a good sitcom about. I have the best friends in the world, and they’re scattered all over the planet, but they are always at the other end of the phone – whether I’m drunk on a tram and crying about a boy or having a bad day at work and need to get my annoyance off my chest. I am about to move into a new apartment, with new flatmates, and it feels like the most wonderful change I could hope for. I have a wonderful life, is the point – and I want to fully enjoy it. Although there have been moments of pure joy in my life this year, I feel like I have lost the ability to find joy in the mundane, the normal, the everyday – and if I can set myself any goal for 28, it is to find the joy in the everyday again. 

I’ve been thinking, a lot, about what it means to be happier, how you can be happier – and, as with anything in life, I’m realising that happiness is not a given: it takes work, to find the joy in your everyday. I don’t think I’ve been putting that work in, this year. It’s a startling realisation to have, if I’m honest – and a healthy one, too, to realise that you have put too much faith in the grandiose power of the universe, and neglected the (perhaps less grandiose, but still powerful) power you hold yourself to create a happier life. It seems silly, to forget that I hold all the power I need to give myself a happier life – especially when I am the person who’s created this life I do have. I am a product of all the people who love me, and who’ve given me the space to grow and learn and become the person I am today, of course I am the product of so many people’s belief and love – but I am the person who made the decision to move my life abroad, and pursue a dream so big I can hardly believe it’s mine, so I am the person who has the power to make my life happier. I’ve learned that this year. 

I’ve also learned that with every promotion, you hit a crossroads. That sounds terribly lofty – but hear me out. I am lucky enough to have had several promotions in my (arguably short) career so far, but they’ve been promotions from intern, to assistant, to low-level grown up. Last month, I was promoted into the most senior position I can ever have in my organisation – and I underestimated the change that comes with that new title. I thought senior was just doing bigger, and better, and more – and in some ways, it is. But in other ways, it’s not – being more senior is about being more of a leader, thinking strategically, and giving those same interns and assistants I used to be the opportunities my senior colleagues once gave me. It’s hard, to let go of the things you know you can do well and pass them on to someone else to make their own – but that is a part of my new journey. 

I’m calling it a crossroads because it is one – now, I have the word senior in front of my title and so I need to decide what kind of senior staff member I want to be: and it’s hardly a decision, really. I want to be the kind of senior staff member I started my career surrounded by – open, and caring, willing to teach and eager to get junior staff involved, the kind of senior team leader who passes on their knowledge and expertise long before they hand their notice in – sharing not out of necessity, no. Sharing because it’s what you should do. I’m not sure I’m a natural born leader – it’s a role I wasn’t sure appealed to me, until I lived this twenty-seventh year and realised that it’s the path I want my career to go down – and it's going to be one of the greatest learning curves of my life. I’ve never been good at letting go – I hold on to the things I love, my grip deathly tight, until they are wrenched from my grasp without my permission. It’s not a nice way to be, I know – and so in these final few weeks of being 27, I have begun a learning process that daunts me more than any essay, or exam, ever did – I am learning to let go, so that other people can grow in the places where I have been given the space to flourish these last four years. 

This letter feels altogether very forward looking – which reflects my state of mind, I think – but I don’t want to see this year out without some good old-fashioned reflection, because if there is anything I am good at, it’s being nostalgic for times that aren’t even over, yet. In years gone by, I have reflected on my strength – the way I have continued through some of the worst, and scariest times of my life, and still come out the other side. That strength is still there – and I will always be proud of it – but this year, I’m prouder of the way I have admitted my own weaknesses. There’s a lot of reasons why I am the way I am, independent to a fault, unwilling to admit my own flaws and weaknesses, and so it hasn’t been easy to embrace my own weaknesses, the things I am not good at. It hasn’t been easy to ask for help – but I have. I’ve asked for help by text, and in person, and I am learning to rely on the people who love me: because my weaknesses are not burdens. I don’t always believe that – but I’m trying to, because people in my life love me, and loving someone means loving their weaknesses, as well as their strengths. 

27 has brought about a need to embrace my own vulnerability in ways I don’t find entirely comfortable. Independent to a fault, unwilling to ask for help – all of the above. But all that has made it so I am living a life more isolated than I would like, and 27 has begun a process of unlearning that, of dismantling the near-impenetrable stone wall I have built around myself. I have always been embarrassed of how much I feel – good, or bad, I feel with my entire self. A friend told me this year (hi, Emma) that the way I feel is one of her favourite things about me – and that the way I feel so intensely is a beautiful quality. I don’t think I fully believe that, yet, but 27 has marked the beginning of wanting to believe that – wanting to believe that the way I have never been able to feel by halves is a good thing. That it’s a good thing, I care so passionately about my family, and friends, and colleagues, and the world we live in, that it can feel overwhelming. That it’s a good thing, to cry at emotional TV adverts and to lose myself in the wonder of romance novels. That it’s a good thing, to feel so much that I can’t help but want to write – fiction, or prose, or whatever comes to mind when my fingers start to move against a keyboard so rapidly that my thoughts can hardly keep up. One day, someone will love me for how intensely I feel – and it won’t be a burden, to be the object of the overwhelming love and care I feel for people. 

(I know who I’d like to be the object of that love, and care – and it’d be somewhat insincere, to let a letter like this pass by without acknowledging that so much of this twenty-seventh year of mine has been taken up by you, by this friendship of ours that’s become one of the most important in my life – because you’ve listened, to all my fears and woes and worries with a smile and the knowledge that can only come with being a few years past 27 – and I have fallen so hard for you in such a short space of time, it sometimes makes me wish I didn’t feel so much. I should tell you; I know that – and I hope 28-year-old me will be brave enough to. Because I think we’d work, and sometimes I think you think the same. It's on my list, of things I’d like to do this next year of mine.)

Maybe it’s because 30 is looming on the horizon, a new decade of my life peeping around the corner – but so much of this year has felt contemplative. Who do I want to be? What kind of friend, colleague, do I want to be known as? Where do I want to continue to build this wonderful life of mine – is the call to come home outweighing the desire to stay abroad and live this life of adventure I have sacrificed so much for? I don’t have answers, not to all of those questions, and maybe I never will have definitive ones – but I know this much for sure. 27 has been hard – harder than I imagined it would be, hard in that deeply existential way I think nothing can prepare you for. It’s been hard, and it’s been wonderful – new babies, and new friends, and old friendships set alight with a newfound joy, a promotion to a senior role in a job that has changed the course of my life, a new apartment and new flatmates I think could become close friends, a family, even – and it’s been divinely nuanced in that way I am realising life always is: there is no definitively good, or bad year. There are only years I am lucky enough to live, time I am lucky enough to have, and laughter lines that don’t make me queasy, the way I used to think they would – because they are a reminder I am here, and I am alive, and laughing, and each day I spend on this planet is a privilege. 27 has borne so many reminders that life is short, and it's fragile, and it ends, so quickly and unexpectedly, and perhaps that’s part of why I have such a burning desire to live a happier life: because we only get so much of it, and I have already lived 27 years of mine. 27 has been hard, and it’s been good, and it’s been bad, and it’s been wonderful – and I won’t miss it. Not when I think that what the first few months of 28 has in store for me is exciting, and overwhelming, and utterly transformative. 

This has been 27 – and I think that I’m going to like the version of me that 28 will see the growth of so much. And I’m excited to see who I’ll be in a year, sitting here the night before my birthday, saying goodbye to a year that feels full of unknown. Me of a year ago would have hated that uncertainty – me of today, well, she’s trying to embrace letting go. We’ll see how that goes.