For anyone not following my lore, my birthday was two weeks ago. I am 24 (canon). The last two weeks I have reflected, freaked, and even geeked. The rest of this Substack is a departure from all my previous ones in that it is dreadfully earnest. I am allowing myself this as a birthday gift. I’m writing this Substack in the way that Adele titles every album with her age. I hope that is ok with everyone!! These are 24 feelings (“feelings” is a loose definition here).
One of my favorite things in the world is how easy it is to forget things. Remembering you used to love something ? yes… rediscovering an old hyper fixation or finding an old favorite snack that was discontinued at my most convenient store…
Disappointment when you touch something thinking it’s going to be squishy/soft but it’s actually hard/rough
How easy it is to be happy when it’s nice out
Smelling — In Burma, loved ones will give each other a kiss by getting very close and sniffing (it sounds perhaps creepy in the Joe-Biden-sniffing-child way but just rid yourself of Western brain rot for a second…). A kiss on the lips or on the skin feels more or less the same on anyone, but someone’s smell is so personal, a sweet blend of their lotions, conditioners, perfume, sweat. When I find it in the world without them there, it’s a truer evocation of the person than anything else. It’s easy to recall someone’s character, the “things” you like about them. A smell recalls simpler, sweeter memories — lying together, embracing, proximity. The expression of love in a sniff-kiss is telling someone that I want to remember them, not just in my thoughts but in my body too. Wearing their clothes, buying their detergent, finding the same perfume. Remembering the feeling of being with them.
The sweet surprise of someone remembering something about you that you forgot you told them
Nostalgia of getting on the subway at the first/last station in its line and hearing the bell ring like its 5,000 years ago
Noticing the beautiful thing — I always look at the ground when I walk. In Bangkok, sidewalks are barely maintained. One look towards sky or building is a hazard and so my eyes are trained for the ground. In New York, the sidewalks are reliably flat (thanks De Blasio….) but I can’t stop looking at them! I’m missing sunsets, architectural quirks, when buildings reflect the color of the sky. And though New York has a more interesting landscape of things left on the ground than other places, the ground is mostly drab. Looking up seems worth stepping in unspecified substance every once in a while!
Following the beautiful thing — whenever I walk anywhere in New York, I try to maximize the number of corners on which I can choose to either cross the avenue or cross the street. Walking the most efficient diagonal, following the breadcrumbs of the pedestrian crossing light. In the last two weeks and on separate occasions I have walked with two friends who suggested choosing a path because the street looked beautiful. A sidewalk lined with more trees, an avenue where the cafes are particularly busy, a storefront with knit baby socks. Rerouting a path for something sweet and small.
Laughing so hard and wondering why my face gets so red
Trying to figure out how tall my brother is over facetime by asking him to stand in a doorframe
Saying “yaaayyyy”
Collecting objects — on the day after my birthday Sanjana (my college roommate/one of the pillars of my life) and I went to various home stores. She bought me sweet little placemats as a gift and shepherded me through the stress of becoming a plant owner. Now in my apartment I have these things we bought together, a bench my dad and I built together, three bud vases my mom sent as a birthday gift, and so many other small things bought with people, given to me by people, or just sweetly associated with people. With people is my favorite way to collect objects. It is magical thinking to believe an object is imbued with someone’s spirit or energy, to see the provenance of ordinary things. I try not to indulge too much in that because objects are still just objects. Objects can break. If one of the bud vases were to fall and shatter, it would be useless suffering to grieve what it represents of my mom. It’s just a bud vase. But while I have it, I am happy to think of her.
Getting my apartment ready for my friends to come over and feeling so wife mode. Like I’m all of my friends’ one wife
Self-generating— recently I’ve felt like a collection of things. Facts, traits, sayings, mannerisms from the people currently around me and the people once around me. I don’t think there’s one single part of me that is self-generated. And that’s something else I like! When I’m not home and I cannot look at my little objects, when I’m in the subway and I can’t smell anything except trash and piss, it doesn’t matter! All these immaterial things I have to remind me of people.
Uhhh sadness idk I just need to get to 24 now
Having intentional gateways to feeling a little sad and nostalgic when I feel like it
Missing - in Thai, the phrase for “I miss you” is “kid teung” (that’s the tinglish spelling). In high school, someone told me the literal translation of “kid teung” was not actually “I miss you,” but “my thoughts reach out to you.” I think that’s even sweeter. “I miss you” or “I’m missing you” suggests you’re not whole with them gone. “My thoughts reach out to you,” you still get to be a whole person even without them. I’m reaching for you; my mind is extending for you; I become a bigger, fuller person in thinking of you, but I’m still a whole person by myself.
Happiness yep
Knowing happiness and sadness have to go together for anything to be meaningful
Anger and frustration and disappointment yuuhh (3 for 1 here)
Excitement for the movie Inside Out 2
Wondering when DreamWorks will make Boss Baby 3
Opening — a pretty obvious motif is just how infatuated I am with the people in my life!! To be so grounded and happy in a community makes it so much easier to accept the possibility of hurt and failure in all other ventures. Dating, going after opportunities, walking these tightropes knowing I only have to fall 2 feet before a net catches me.
<3 — The heart is a muscle and heartbreak is an exercise! Recovery time, cool downs, warm ups, it’s all just practice. Stopping myself from burrowing down into pain (a natural, unavoidable ill of being alive) and swelling it into suffering (an unnecessary burden, the result of your own or someone else’s active efforts). Instead, resting with pain and coaxing it towards its flatline. It is difficult and learned! As someone additionally on a journey to getting # swole, I can attest that the only way to become better at something is repetition. AMRAP, baby.
Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me learn love :)
you are my one wife
“He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.” Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
“The the chite, thamee.” Mom