the rest of it, i answer
as i’m starting to write this, it’s 9 pm and i have my design & analysis of algorithms midterms tomorrow. hi.
first of all, i’d like to hold a memorial for my abandoned substack drafts from 2020:
æmen.
i haven’t been living as a “writer”, per se, in this past year. i’ve alluded to it a lot, talked about it to my friends a lot, but september-october rolled in last year and i barely lived through. i used a kpop group and its fandom as a crutch & abandoned everything else. i disappointed people, threw away my responsibilities, kept my phone on do not disturb so nobody could tell me otherwise. i failed that semester. i don’t remember much of it at all, except repeatedly making bad decisions and letting executive dysfunction rear its ugly head. not trying & not willing to. & maybe it was grief. maybe it was grief and years of trauma culminating into something impossibly heavy that choked me down. but at the same time, i keep doubting myself: was it really that, or did i just want an excuse? did i just want the permission to be “mediocre”, just once, in my lifetime? the eldest daughter of a broken family. the eldest grandchild in both sides of the family. the expectations i imposed upon myself was drowning me — i couldn’t reach it.
so instead, i let go. i shut the rest of the world off.
yet in reality, what happened was probably a combination of both of them1. yes, the grief for my grandfather and the untreated trauma was a factor. yes, i probably have undiagnosed attention problems that contributed to me failing to thrive in an online learning environment. yes, our financial problems were making a shell out of me. & yes — i absolutely did want an excuse.
but was i so wrong for that? even until now, i don’t think so.
so let me close this chapter of my life. i ruminated, i learnt my lessons. i forgive myself — yet again, the way i will always have to do, because i can’t help but to make mistakes (hopefully a comforting instead of a seizing thought).
i dust off my knees and walk.
october is weird to me. it always catches me off-guard with how fast it comes, and somehow each year its significance only piles up. it was always supposed to be a happy month. my birthday, the weather getting colder in these tropics. but somehow these past few years, it was marred. i have an inkling of a poem about it:
it’s still rough around the edges, i know. i find myself being the best at writing when i’ve been “filled” — creatively — with other works, and i haven’t really had the chance to digest any recently. i feel so cut off from all my creative disciplines except for crocheting lol — and that’s a hobby! maybe being a #WomanInSTEM has its drawbacks. (like i’m super grateful that i kinda understand physics and linear algebra now but i also want to read so so much... instead i’m watching youtube videos to fill that void. ACK……)
i’m trying to fill october with things i like. birthdays, pretty stuff, you guess it. so that even if it is marred, i still have the glimmers with it too. i want to make this quote a reality, instead of unconsciously dreading the month every time it comes:
to close this off2, pretty things, aka i cleaned up my notion dashboard to be more ~useful~ to me instead of just utilizing the tasks inventory. i’m pretty satisfied with it.
with warmth,
madina <3
#JustLibraSunThings
p.s: please let me know what poems or texts you’re reading... i’m begging you it’s my first weekend off of midterms i want to fulfill myself with nourishing stuff instead of binging on youtube videos PLEASE…..