It’s October – my most loved month of the year… the time for, among many other lovely things, to re-read my diary:

October 27, 2023

…Why can’t I be okay like everyone else is? Why am I cursed with this intense longing to love someone and be loved. In a way, there is nothing better than being at rock bottom. It is where you grow your claws to dig yourself out of the hole you found yourself in. And then, these claws turn into wings so that you can soar higher than the clouds…

November 2, 2023

…It is not a roller coaster, it is more like a mouse training wheel that goes round and round and round. Somewhere in those circles is a lesson I am learning. Sometimes going in circles gets you somewhere. Maybe by going through cycles of pain and hurt, you can change so quickly and intensely how the most blessed and luckiest person never can. Sometimes being at the bottom means you’re at the top. You’re becoming your strongest, your toughest, your happiest…

November 5, 2023

…One thing that shocks me is how different it turned out to be. What shocks me more is how I expected it to turn out the same way I wanted it to…

…I drove down this road after making the round of Winnipeg Starbucks with my blank resume. I drove down this road falling asleep at the wheel after long days at the racetrack. I drove down this road giggling, hugging someone. Then I drove down this road screaming, water in my eyes blurring out headlights. And here I am, again, driving down the 59, not knowing how the next time I drive down this road will look like. Maybe this is the last time I drive it. I will never know…

December 24, 2023

…On my way to work, I blasted music and shouted out the lyrics because it is too hard to be sad all the time. I went to the gym after and danced upstairs. It was night when I finished, and as I took a walk in the frosty town, I looked up at the sky. The moon was big and beautiful and had a huge halo around it. I made an enormous heart in the snow outside the SCU.

January 27, 2024

I love Edinbruh. Of course I am moving here as soon as possible. Food and lodging is “quite pricey” (as my British accent will tell you) so I would have to choose one of them. I also realized haggis is not my thing and it would be best for me to avoid putting things in my pocket altogether. Till now, my passport and phone is not in my Notes app “list of things I lost” so I am doing wonderful!

January 31, 2024

I thought today how even when you fully realize the finiteness of your existence, it still feels as though life will go on forever. Maybe it is the divine in us. Why does it shock us when life ends, if we knew it will all along?

February 12, 2024

… The neighbouring roommates are blasting Adele. And I am sobbing face down on the rickety bed of a tiny British college, because I am so homesick and I hate this country and I want to be with someone I love…

March 27, 2024

I cried during my grad speech. I am extremely grateful that my instructor recorded one of the most mortifying moments of my life for my personal records. And then I cried on the empty train to London because I love everyone and it hurts to leave. Leaving. My life seems to have an awful lot of leaving in it. I guess, the pain is there to show how much I love those I do.

April 29, 2024

… I need at least 45 minutes, alone, away from Grandma. I have so much thinking to catch up on. I desperately wish I was a smoker. I don’t need the smoke, I need the smoker benefits. The permission to leave the room without explaining myself and stare at the world, contemplating existence with no confused glances in my direction. Otherwise it goes like, “I am okay, I am just looking at those trees over there.” I don’t enjoy being so obviously weird. It’s raining in Paris. He said “Bonsoir”, exquisite for one frozen millisecond in time, before the shallow reality set in, and I walked by silently. Even ugly things are beautiful to those who are starving. I don’t want to go back to Grandma’s hotel room. I want to be under the rainy Parisian sky until it is time to leave. Peace, where art thou?

May 19, 2024

…I am learning to live in the moment, noticing the grass curve as I touch it, watching the sparkles in my little brother’s baby blue eyes, smiling at the people around me, strangers and friends, perfectly oblivious to the river of life rushing them down to the sea. I look at my younger siblings and wonder how innocent and perfect this world feels to them. I want to be like them.

June 26, 2024

Today’s evening run was spectacular. I found lots of pretty flowers growing on the side of the gravel road that are so fragile in their beauty you’ll never guess they grow on dust and dirt. I think that is lovely.

August 12, 2024

…It is 8 pm. It is the same Coffee Culture cement block that heard my muffled sobs a year ago. She knew she’ll survive. She just didn’t know how. Now I know how. I feel too old for these streets. The ones I walked as a shy, awkward teenager, worrying about the way I appeared to others. Hoping someone would like me enough to notice. I sat on the highway curb and stared at the sunset. It was pretty. Then I went home.

September 19, 2024

…I thought how there are certain cards I have been dealt. And who am I to know that they are worse than others. I wasn’t meant to live in the 1940s, grow up as a rich kid, or have my perfectly planned out love story. I was meant to live out God’s plan for me.

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Isn’t it funny how I always think my intense longing to love and to be loved happens only to me and for the first time ever, but after reading through my old diary entries, I realize it is as ancient as time and as universal as being human.

Love,

Nadya