Dearest human,

Have you ever experienced the deep intimacy of being seen and witnessed from miles and worlds apart?

Not the intimacy that physical closeness often suggests, but the kind that distance and spaciousness do not diminish, only deepen.

April carried many of those experiences for me.

One of them found me on a morning walk under the pouring rain.

I crossed paths with a painted canvas strewn on the wet grass near the sidewalk.

As I bent over to take a closer look, a smile came over me.

It was as if a presence was trying to speak to me.

The painting was of a young traveller dressed in a light coat and pinstriped pants, resting on the railroad tracks, with an umbrella propped behind him, sheltering his suitcase.

Under the tilt of his hat, he looked at me.

And I looked back, umbrella in hand, watching as droplets of rain trickled down, travelling from my world into his.

Held from afar.

A moment recently brought me to tears.

It was a moment of both relief and release when I felt safe enough to be loved and held, even with grief arriving alongside it.

It was a season when I made an unlikely connection. One that defies the assumptions we so often make about a love shared between opposites.

This became a love rooted in friendship,
knowing,
witnessing,
and holding.

A love where being was enough.

Unsurveilled. Unquestioned.

I found I could cry in his presence without tipping into overwhelm.

And when I jokingly warned him not to “run for the hills” when I was at my most vulnerable,
he stayed,
willingly.

He has lightened my heaviness with humor in moments I didn’t know I needed it.

He archives the details of my stories with care, mirroring them back with the nonchalance of someone who calls himself “most chalant.”

And even as I write these words, the tears return.

I oftentimes replay a voice note of his on the days when I am at my lowest.

He asks me to gently place my right hand on my left rib and my left hand on my right rib,

to give myself the biggest squeeze,

and to imagine him present for the embrace.

And somehow, that reaches me just as profoundly as an in-person hug.

Even knowing that we are continents and seas apart.

What I experienced in just a few months stood in stark contrast to other relationships where I had overstayed for years.

I came to know what it is to be myself freely and fully,
without management,
performance,
or shrinking.

That grief is real.

But the joy is realer still.

To know that daylight is possible, even against the night.

Not as a concept, but as lived truth.

And that changes everything.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for in April:

1. Never quite alone.

This new chapter of my life meets me in chosen solitude. A rebuild where most of my time is mine.

Where no one is there to witness or validate.

Where the responsibility is greater.

Even in choosing this quiet, I show up for myself and for the experiences, whether they come with a crowd or in silence.

From mentalist shows and comedic performances to obstacle courses ahead, some plans were made with company in mind, while others were tailored just for me. Even those that started with numbers, over time, dwindled to one.

In those moments, one might think, “She’s doing it alone.”

But I’ve come to realize something beyond myself, something that invites me to zoom out far enough to see the fuller picture:

I may plan it alone.

I may arrive there alone.

But the moment I walk past the doors, I am never quite alone.

I am in a room full of people who also decided to show up.

Who wanted to be there to share in that same moment in time.

We may not know each other, but for those few hours, we are in it together.

And that is its own kind of company.

2. Within a span of minutes.

I had woken up one morning carrying a fog I could not shake.

It had been sitting heavily on my chest before the day even had a chance to begin.

And so I reached out to my two eldest sisters,
both living six hours ahead,
both in another part of the hemisphere,
both already responding to the demands of their day.

After the message was sent, it was only a matter of minutes.

My eldest sister video-called from her office. Her day was packed, her patient schedule full, and she made the time anyway. She stayed with me for as long as she could and held me.

Soon after, my other sister video-called. She was getting prepped to walk into the surgery room. She offered words of comfort in the small window she had.

That moment left me with something I needed to feel for myself:

There may be battles that we alone can fight, but alone does not mean without an army.

And within minutes, mine showed up.

3. Dancing on the sidewalk.

It was one of those days when you could inhale the air of spring.

The sun was out, and even though the full heat hadn’t quite settled in, it didn’t stop me from wandering out to receive whatever warmth I could.

With earbuds in and music ablaze, I set my sights on the sidewalk and proceeded to dance.

But not just dance.

I grooved.
I swerved.
I turned.
I hip-hopped.

I was in my own world, and my world had only me in it.

What I soon came to realize was that I wasn’t the only traveller on the path.

When he passed by me, my first instinct was to surrender to what social norms would have had me do: unwind the rhythm, slow the dance, and return to the civilized walk.

But I decided against it.

And as I kept dancing, my fellow traveller paused ahead.

I didn’t know what to expect from his stillness.

But when he turned to face me, there was a smile on his face, and a thumbs-up that followed.

I clutched my chest where I felt the blush.

I waved, thanked him, and wished him a good day.

As he continued on his way, the biggest smile returned to me.

It wasn’t the first time I had danced on the street. As a matter of fact, I am a frequent dancer on most streets.

But it was the first time I had been celebrated on the sidewalk for simply being me.

If April revealed anything, it is that distance is not always what it seems.

Despite the divide, a tenderness and presence can be found, one deep enough to bridge the gap: in people, in moments, in reminders, and in the quieter forms that witness.

And here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self

Dearest human,

I had a moment of pause recently as I found myself willfully walking through the flurries of a quiet snowstorm.

It was the anticipated start of Spring, where temperatures were to rise and nature to flourish. And yet Winter decided to extend its stay and play footsy with our Season of Bloom.

As speckles of snow blurred my vision, I realized my reality is but one experience. That wherever we are across hemispheres, the season meets us differently.

And the seasons we live in carry with them different experiences that we might not always be able to relate to in the same way. At this very moment. Maybe never.

Even so, we find a way.

Taking another stab.

It had been eight years since I had set foot within the confines of its historic building.

I was a different person back then, someone not awake to the fullness of her life. Someone who knew that this was a room she needed to return to. To reclaim a part of herself she had kept hidden.

Although a lot had changed as I scanned the walls of theatrical posters and awards, his presence was still as magnetic. And with a name like Muggleton, I couldn’t help but feel the privilege of having once again won passage across Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

He didn’t remember me, and had ego been my most attractive quality, I would have felt the offense. But I was actually elated; in fact, liberated.

I could now start over with a clean script and nothing to prove. To simply learn and enjoy the process, this time with more life behind me and intentions clear.

It was finally another chance to exist without the weight of who I was then or what I thought I was reaching for. Where self-consciousness could be left on the coat rack, and all that remains is a presence that feels safe to be alive.

By staying in the room long enough, I found myself transported back to where it all began:

To a young girl beaming at being cast in her first play, mastering her stern, shuffled entrance onto the stage as a nine of hearts in the Queen’s army. She later headlined as Mark Antony, responsible for delivering a speech soon after the greatest betrayal and stabbing in her historical recollection.

Such reminiscing served as a reminder that even though the years were inconsistent, I always found my way back.

And all that was being asked of me was that I stay. To show up.

Not with expectations or far-fetched dreams, but with an acceptance of the inevitable truth that always kept me coming back.

The truth of my belonging, with people who require no translation.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for in March:

1. The snowstorm as my oyster.

The snowstorm met me not only in reflection but also in a feeling that left me quite emboldened.

The weather had many retreating to safety, leaving the roads barren and most snow-covered pavements unmarked. I, on the other hand, saw it as my moment of uninhibited glory.

Even with familiar faces who took to the sidewalks, not letting conditions hinder their stride, I found myself lengthening my steps and trading skips for leaps, as if the world were my playground and the playground were mine.

I ran wild and free, spinning in circles as the wind met my breath whilst belting out to Gavin DeGraw and Alessia Cara, knowing that if I were to be swept away, I would be content, having lived.

2. A second home.

A close friend had invited me to her family home for a home-cooked meal. It was a full house, with two adorable dogs that had me smiling like a buffoon.

I knew it was love at a hundredth sight when my friend stood by her decision to pan-sear me a tuna steak despite my offer for a more economical option from the sea. As her sous-chef, I learned the ways of the mashed potatoes that earned me my best reviews to date.

The dining table was intimate, with food that filled me with gratitude and conversation that had me catching my breath. Who would have thought “Yo Mama” jokes could make a comeback, or that toilet paper and other eco-friendly crafts could be made out of odorless animal feces? Emphasis on odorless.

3. Getting more personal.

With every piece I publish, I feel the scaffolds of my shell fall away. I was once convinced I could write detached from myself, and yet I found it impossible, in fact, dishonest.

I am now resigned to the inevitable, understanding that in order to write from lived experience, we have to be vulnerable enough to share ours. To offer a space for others’ witnessing, we first need to be able to offer it to ourselves.

There have been a few pieces that have stirred the heart, signalling to me that something truly mattered. Something that needed to exist for myself first.

They carry parts of my story, survival, and living anthem.

My continued hope is that they offer a space for others to be seen in moments or chapters. To remind them of their worth and the complexity of their humanity.

And so may we stand with hearts and ears open, tuned to the highest volume of our registers, ready for when life quietly invites us to return, and to trust that each small yes to ourselves is its own inevitable beginning.

And here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self

Dearest human,

At last, we have made it past Cupid’s orchestrated whim.

Oh, February.

This season of renewed appreciation also came with opportunities for grand, performative flair, leaving us persuaded that a “love expressed” lives for social markers rather than daily practice.

But what do I know, for I did not secure the role of Valentine this year. Rather, the villain in a story of chosen misunderstanding.

Closure is not owed.

February would have marked another anniversary of a love now past.

It wasn’t long ago that I stepped out of rupture and grief. I can’t say that healing is ever complete, for I still find myself tiptoeing the line. And yet, my growth is calling for direction.

Months spent spinning in circles over what went wrong, the role I played, what I learned, and how to move forward felt like Olympic-level emotional athleticism.

Like Frodo after facing his final reckoning with the Ring at Mount Doom, I can say I no longer carry the burden of mine.

The Ring has lost its fit, and with it, the self-blame, guilt, and overextended empathy.

I have come out on the other end a scuffed, beaten warrior, yet with a joy still shining bright enough to rebuild.

I have my closure, and yet my past paid a visit for his, asking me to hold his emotional bucket.

And that is when I realized that when accountability and awareness are one-sided, accepting the bucket can tip the scales back toward regression.

So I refused to hold the bucket.

Not because my past did not deserve it, but because I wasn’t willing to self-abandon for a form of closure that asked me to carry more than my fair share of the load.

I now know that closure isn’t owed. It must be discerned.

If the nervous system doesn’t feel at ease, it must be honored. And if curiosity isn’t part of the framework, then misunderstanding is inevitable.

So here I stand, misunderstood by someone who once knew me deeply.

These days, I wear many crowns, and Valentine is not one of them.

I am the stranger,
the delu-lu,
the villain of the story.

But if it gives me peace with a clear knowing of my internal truth, then please, let me be crowned.

For I sense there are many royals out there who carry titles like mine.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for in February:

1. Accepting the book and the cover.

My neighbour had invited me out for a dining experience, and watching him speak with such glee was all the sales pitch I needed.

The prix fixe menu featured courses that teased haute couture, so I ordered with high anticipation.

That anticipation rewarded me with salad, wilted fries, and three jumbo shrimp, leaving me wondering who had left the party early.

Let’s just say love was lacking on the plate, but the laughter that followed made for an abundant experience.

It left me appreciating the power we each carry in such moments: whether we stay frustrated over what we believe we’re owed or accept reality with release and play.

One keeps us stagnant while the other is expansive, gifting us with good stories to tell for years to come.

2. A strength in boundaries.

I recently blocked someone whom I allowed into my emotional home longer than I should have.

Tolerating their ambiguity and dysregulation until endurance could no longer endure.

And so I set a boundary in the hopes that I could still keep them at my doorstep.

But they found a way past the door, which I allowed again.

And even with hope for difference, I was met with the same pattern, but with escalation.

And that was the form of clarity I needed. One that came with a gavel in hand.

As I look back on my failed attempts to set boundaries, I do so with compassion, knowing that my empathy, too, needed boundaries of its own.

To not shame myself because I didn’t find the clarity sooner.

But to stand powerful and strong the moment I did.

3. A friendship only minutes in the making.

I made a new friend this season.

What started out as a shared interest in film and old classics turned into deeper reveals and truth-telling.

We often perceive time as the truest measure of a strong bond. But time, in fact, plays only a minor role.

What time can’t compete with is intentionality.

When we intentionally invest in another with curiosity and reciprocity, a connection can feel timeless, even if it’s relatively new.

And so here I continue to stand in the highs, mids, and lows of life, as it should be.

Knowing that love is best served as a verb rather than a noun.

Knowing that love itself is not the villain, only the roles we try to force it into.

And here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self

Dearest human,

January has made its grand exit.

A month ever symbolic of new resolutions, new beginnings, and old sheddings.

What is new now finds us in the celestial world as we transition from the Snake to the Fire Horse. From stilled reflection to renewed motivation.

And yet, I regarded it just like any other. A mere continuation.

I didn’t cross the threshold with fireworks or celebratory champagne. Just a great read and an early bedtime.

And although I am not a celestial by nature, this month was very much one of shedding.

From regulator to self-possessed.

I remember the feeling as if it were yesterday.

A potent and residual reminder of what it feels like to not be met with reciprocity.

Excuses of empathy and quiet strength dissolved, revealing the truth at play.

A feeling I can only describe as fever-induced.

A body in a state of emotional detox.

A body in shivers, pleading with me to listen.

January asked that I take up arms and finally face these unhealthy patterns.

Patterns born from endurance and responsibility.

From a capacity to hold the emotional worlds of others.

Patterns that normalized unidirectional travel across terrains to meet others in their complexity.

In return, I was left underfed.

Left at a table where bargaining, justification, and explanation became the starved language.

Nibbling on crumbs with broken humility instead of demanding the full loaf.

This month asked for a reset.

To not discard the gifts inherited from survival, but to use them with discernment.

To return to the seller and step into the role of buyer.

To be selective of who was deserving to drink from my well.

It asked that I witness myself again and clean house.

To step back from those who minimized my needs and most painful moments.

Who intermittently sought me out for regulation.

And unconsciously crowned me “therapist,” free of charge, with no return.

I allowed myself to exit with love and integrity, choosing not to let my heart calcify.

To no longer explain my worth.

To no longer become the starved, but the abundant.

To lean into it heavily like Boondocks on The Itis.

I was finally in a place to receive the peace I believed I already possessed. And to rebuild quietly once more.

This month asked that I sit with the discomfort and confusion long enough to find clarity, even when grief was unbearable.

For I have come to realize that all growth hardships don’t arrive by happenstance; they are tailor-designed.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for in January:

1. Oxtail Soup for the soul.

Again, not one for the celestial. Spiritual, certainly. But never sign-seeking.

And yet it just so happened, unexpected and serendipitous.

A friend had shared a photo of the butternut squash soup I had made for her, in a bowl we didn’t know would make me tear up with memory.

It was a vintage stoneware Oxtail Soup bowl. Cauldron-shaped with a ‘60s flair.

A bowl in the exact likeness of the one I ate pepper soup from as a young girl at the dinner table of my family home.

It was less about the bowl and more about a father no longer within reach.

The bowl now sits gifted in my cupboard.

I have yet to eat from it, but when I do, I’ll be sure to fill it to the brim with nostalgia.

2. Walking in union.

I’ve always loved a wholesome challenge, and this month found me participating in a group walking challenge with a few co-workers.

To witness how everyone showed up despite the “calls of life.”

I even had competition that I met with curiosity, surpassing the steps I thought possible to win.

For I couldn’t have done it without my alter-ego: The Annihilator. My thanks to Arnold.

3. Labour, a love expressed.

I recently planned and celebrated a friend’s 40th birthday with a foul-mouthed comedian, followed by an intimate dinner and candle-blowing.

It reminded me of the importance of creating experiences, both personal and shared.

Experiences are the highlights of living.

Vivid splashes of aliveness on the grand canvas.

It comes with a toll, but then again, so does all.

For all that is meaningful asks that it be met with energy and effort.

As long as it is served where it belongs.

And so I find myself here, with over a dozen posts written in quiet consistency, remaining thankful for those who have chosen to follow me on the journey.

From all that has unfolded, both with lessons and bittersweet memories, I carry only the words of Maya Angelou as I walk into February:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

And here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self

Dearest human,

We have crossed another finish line in measured time.

And with that comes the spoils of war found in the fond memories, the not-so-fond ones, and the gifted lessons we get to add to our arsenal of experience for the next chapter ahead.

December, for me, was one of quiet remembrance.

I found myself transported to the past with nothing but a four-dollar Dollarama jar and sheets of origami paper.

I experienced the simplest joy from rising forecast temperatures amid a freezing season.

I even surprisingly levelled up my party skills by mastering the cork trick after what felt like an eternity of tries.

All to say, December was all about the little things made big.

Finding joy in the little things.

It all took place in the early hours of the morning.

I had just taken a brief pause from my writing to check the weather forecast. A habit that has found me ahead of my morning walks, all to mentally brace for the conditions ahead.

It read two degrees.

Not minus two.

Not minus twenty.
For a moment, I wondered whether I had omitted a zero in questionable deniability.

But a two.
And a positive two at that.

I felt I had stumbled across the fountain of youth, limited in supply.

Upon seeing the number, I was no longer the dazed adult who had crawled and scraped her way out of bed an hour prior.

I found myself jumping up and down like a gleeful child who had just received the present of a lifetime.

To onlookers, it might have been a little thing. But to me, it was everything.

It was the gift of motion with ease and longer walks during a cold season that built my resolve.

It was the gift of continued presence and regulation.

The gift of consistency.

The gift of renewed creativity.

Walking saved my life during the darkest of hours.

And so, I carry it with such reverence, holding more importance than the conditions I have to endure.

So the two felt like a gift.

It felt like relief.

It felt like joy.

It was a moment of pure gratitude, and I allowed myself to bask in it unabashedly.

The jar of past and present.

It called out to me while perusing my social feed.

A mission, if I were willing to accept, for the entire year of my existence.

To write down, each week:

Something good that had happened in my life.
Something that had an impact, big or small.

To then have them memorialized in a jar until the start of the new year:

A practice of reflection and gratitude at its pinnacle.

This came to me in a limbo season of grief and rumination, while still cohabitating in the familiarity where heartbreak lived.

I needed to find grounding with a perspective shift.

But little did I know that these “good things” would be the needles in a haystack.

Good things did not come easily all the time.

Sometimes they came in ripples.

Other times, they came in with stillness.

I feared that the only good thing that would be written would be about my nature walks. And lest I forget, more nature walks.

Still, even with trepidation, I kept going.

I kept living.

I kept experiencing.

I kept walking.

Eventually, what started out as one-liners evolved into full-length entries.

Sheets became imprinted with dates as markers for memory.

The good things not only became good things, but also lessons.

And as I reflected on the lessons, I was able to return to the good things.

By keeping these weekly promises through all of life’s changes, I finally understood the meaning behind this practice:

Joy and suffering sit at opposite extremes. We don’t get to control the when, what, or how of these extremes, but we do have a say in how we receive them. And we can choose to receive them with strength.

The year ended with me sitting across from a dear friend, cocooned together in the intimate ambience of the Rabbit Hole.

She graciously offered to be my witness as we opened and reflected on each memory.

We welled up as we travelled the timeline from my past to present self.

The painful, mundane, and discomforting.

But also the joyful and persevering.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for in December:

1. Consistency in seasons. In a season of gathered celebration and reflected resolutions for the New Year, the only truth that has defied all seasons for me is consistency. It followed me from the Fall into the Winter. And as I look at my wristband with the engraving, “Suck, don’t skip,” I am reminded that momentum fares better than celebratory markers.

2. Snoop Dawg Santa. I found this Santa figurine in the Christmas aisle of Walmart. I appreciated the attempt at representation with his ashed chocolate skin and charcoal-grey hair. Endearing, I thought. But that sentiment ran cold amongst friends and family. The name Snoop Dawg became the running joke for its lack of resemblance. And yet, I couldn’t help but roll him up a blunt made from wax paper.

3. Time with family and friends. From engaging in warm, unperformative chatter to debating who should earn the Marvel title for universal bravery, whether a mortal or “super” hero, Christmas dinners became the excuse for such laughter and rare, poignant moments.
   
   

The beauty of time, I have discovered, lies in its relativity.

To be able to stand at any point in our timelines and reflect.

Before setting forth to climb to the next summit, we have the opportunity to look back.

To look back not with eyes of perjury, but with recognition.

To look back at how far we have come.

To find ourselves still standing in this present moment.

That is all you.

And here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self

Dearest human,

In the midst of writing my very first monthly letter, I can’t help but chuckle at my opening line of choice.

Dearest human…
Dearest reader…
Dearest gentle reader…

Ring any bells?

But I digress. Unlike other pieces I share in the form of essays and verses, these monthly letters are where I get to peel back another layer of vulnerability as I invite you into the curated museum of my life as it unfolds.

When you know, you know.

My debut into the writing world started in my early adolescence.

Within the bounds of a hard-covered notebook, I penciled my first novella. A mashup of family drama I had no business divulging and the steamy intensity of a Harlequin Romance. Let’s just say Ordinary People never took off.

Fast forward to November of this year when I published my first essay on Substack.

My return to writing could be likened to the Hero’s Journey, or as I prefer to reference more eloquently, the Robin Williams edition of Peter Pan.

This young heroine had a part of herself that lit up.
But she lost that light along the way.

Adulthood swallowed it.
The memories became a distant figment as life pulled her further away.

It took a hardship and a storm to call her back.
Not to return to adolescence, but to reunite with the truth of who she is today.

When I started writing again, something inexplicable happened. An overwhelming sensation of emotions held me captive. Feelings of fear and excitement simultaneously erupted.

A self-knowing arrived.

There was the pull to keep exploring the written word and to finally, imperfectly, answer the call.

There is no self-trust without follow-through.

This year marked another significant milestone: living on my own for the very first time.

Even with all the adulting I can muster, I feel like a toddler on training wheels.

One moment, you feel that airborne freedom of declaration: “I get to do what I want, when I want, how I want.”

But as soon as the loneliness of expenses leaves your bank account, gravity takes hold and brings you back to humble ground.

You come to the realization that when you are on your own, you truly are on your own.

Everything is on you.

But even in that realization, you also come to an understanding that life is no different. You just happen to be the only one in the room to face the mirror, with your younger self looking to you for guidance and your older, not yet fully formed self observing with hope.

And so you are asked to take on a world of responsibilities, but you are not afraid to meet the challenge.

Welcome to the new me: the screw, bolt, and drywall queen, able to assemble all parts of furniture while masking big holes in walls like a great Temu illusionist.

And when I am not DIY-ing, I find myself stepping into the shoes of John Cena and performing the five-knuckle shuffle slam into a heap of unpacked Amazon boxes for easy disposal.

In this new chapter, the promises you make to yourself are most sacred because self-trust demands it. Your confidence and the new identity you are building will thrive from your follow-through.

So be careful what you dare speak into the universe, for self-trust will be watching steadily like Pennywise from the sewers.

Gratitude Notes

What I have been most grateful for this November:

1. Check-ins from family and friends, from the classic single-line-and-emoji combo to the hour-deep conversations where you lose all track of time.

2. Not making every small injustice a battle. Case in point: the Lindt Dubai Style chocolate bar I purchased at Walmart and neglected to check the price on, only to find that it cost a whopping eighteen dollars. Was I transported to Dubai? No. But it did taste sublime. So in the great wisdom of Elsa, I let it go.

3. Peace and solitude. This inevitable duo tends to make their entrance in seasons of healing. Even though the discomfort of facing the mirror is unbearable at times, with loneliness as a guaranteed side effect, I have come to accept that it is what is most needed for my journey of growth. And how else would I be able to continue my reflective work if I didn’t subject myself to such misery? ;)
   
   

And so we have arrived at a crossroad. Thank you for taking the journey with me in this new endeavour. Here’s to meeting ourselves again and again in the small moments between the lines.

Until next time,

Reflective Self