personal reflections on healing, solitude, writing, home, and the small moments shaping my life.
the notebook
she looked at me and said, "i don't think you lost yourself. i think you have just been in pain for so long that you forgot what it felt like to be you. but that is different from being gone. you are still there. i can still
the notebook
i have survived the fire, and now i am learning the strange grief of not burning. no screaming. no collapse. no grand ending to point at and say, there, that was the moment i learned that not every death makes a sound.
the notebook
i get it. you see me in the spotlight, and you must think, this is one hell of a woman. maybe you saw in me everything you were told you were not allowed to become. but you forgot that powerful women still bleed. we still break. we still come home,
the notebook
these past six months, i have been learning not to demand brightness from myself while i am still quietly mending inside. i am just slowly picking myself up, piece by piece. what is broken can remain as a new scar. what is still whole, i will keep, nurture, and learn
the notebook
for the slow conversations, the familiar faces, the quiet kindness that turns a small town into something you miss before you even arrive.
the notebook
what doesn't kill you makes you: * lose your innocence * stop trusting anyone * wonder what makes you so unlovable * live in a constant state of survival * question everything you thought you knew * replay all the ways it could have been different * ask yourself if it is worth going on
the notebook
soon, i may have to start calling Portugal something closer to home.
the notebook
1. Fishy and her sister came visiting from Saigon, carrying with them a little piece of justice. her sister's rapist been thrown into jail, and somehow, with my help, the world corrected itself by one small inch. it felt like watching the universe return one stolen thing. not
the notebook
the version of me in my twenties believed that life had three missions: knowledge, lifestyle, and love. only after growing older did i realize that was not enough. because out in the world, the three words people worship most are money, money, and money. and it is strangely hard to
the notebook
i tried to become a good person. i tried to shrink myself into something your love could keep safe. but here, they turned my pain into a carnival. they paraded me through the streets like a monster they could not kill. and i kept bandaging the same places they had
the notebook
my beloved, these days, while the brutality of each battle with life got imprinted on your eyes and lips, i desperately tried to grab all the most beautiful memories of my life with all my strength, before everything is washed away in the whirlwind of time. those were also the
the notebook
i last seen Laurent at a French bistro in Saigon. i ordered a cocktail, he wanted to try the pain perdu. the forty-five minutes conversation was much about things and people that run in parallels: big corporations, his mother, Parisienne at their finest, someone else's man has became