There’s a kind of craving that isn’t about touch or possession… it’s quieter than that.

To learn their pauses, the way they tilt their head when they think, the words they repeat without realizing, the softness or sharpness in their laugh.

It’s wanting to know what songs they skip, what memories live behind their silences, what makes them feel at home in a world that rarely feels kind. It’s wanting to trace the map of their mind, not to own it, but to understand it. To know what comforts them when they can’t sleep, what their favorite smell is, or which season makes them nostalgic.

It’s innocent, but it’s not painless. Because sometimes, you know you’ll never really know them. You’ll never get to see the unfiltered moments, the way their face softens when they’re lost in thought, or the words they whisper when no one’s listening.

That’s the part that hurts, the knowing that they’ll always stay a mystery. That you’ll keep wondering about the details they never offered, replaying the small pieces they did.

Craving someone’s essence without ever having it. That’s its own kind of heartbreak. It’s tender, quiet, and devastatingly human.

Sometimes I think that’s what I feel about him, about the Greek god in my life. Not the version that texts back or disappears, but the one I imagine when I think of who he might be beneath all the noise.

Maybe that’s the most innocent kind of love…wanting to understand someone’s soul, even when they never let you in.

And maybe that’s why I’m learning to sit with the ache instead of fighting it. To let the wanting exist without letting it define me. Because sometimes the longing itself teaches you more about you than the person you’re longing for ever could.

Maybe that’s the quiet gift hidden inside all this, the reminder that even unreturned curiosity can shape you, soften you, and bring you back to yourself.

I don’t know if he’ll ever let me in. But I’m finally starting to realise that my healing doesn’t have to wait for his permission.

Do you know a perpetrator? Most men would say no. They’d swear they don’t associate with men like that, the kind who hit, rape, control, or kill. But the truth is, you probably do.

You might share a drink with one. Laugh with one. Play sport with one. Work beside one. You might even be one… and not know it.

What is happening in South Africa

In South Africa today we are witnessing a national crisis of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) that is deeply systemic, painfully visible, and yet persistently under-responded to. Organizations such as Women for Change have mobilized entire movements around purple icons and profile pictures, calling for action and social mobilization against this epidemic.

On Friday 21 November 2025, Women for Change are calling for a nationwide shutdown in protest: women (and LGBTQI+ communities) will refrain from paid or unpaid labour, avoid spending money, wear black, change their profile pictures to purple, lie down for 15 minutes at noon to symbolize the 15 women murdered per day, and demand that GBVF be declared a national disaster.

This moment is aimed at sending a stark message: a country cannot host global summits, talk about growth and progress, while burying a woman every 2.5 hours.

As for the statistics: the survey by Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) signals that over 33.1% of women aged 18 and older in South Africa report having experienced physical violence in their lifetime. And a fact sheet noted that South Africa’s femicide rate is many times the global average.

The scale of this crisis, the symbolic purple icons, the mobilization of civil society, the protest set for 21 November—they all underline a sense that this is not just isolated incidents, but a national emergency.

Men not recognizing the perpetrator and why that matters

In the context of GBVF, much attention is given rightly to victims, to survivors, to the law enforcement and social services responses. But less attention is given (in popular discourse) to the role of men or to the invisible perpetrators, the ones who evade recognition, even by themselves. Yet to end this crisis we must look squarely at this: What happens when men don’t know a perpetrator? And by “know” I mean in several senses:

• They don’t recognise someone else as a perpetrator (even when signs are there).

• They don’t recognise themselves as perpetrators (either by ignorance or denial).

• They don’t care enough to know (or refuse to engage) because of attitudes, norms, belief systems.

Each of these positions is dangerous, because it allows the pattern of harm to persist unchallenged.

1. Not seeing the signs of perpetration

Many men (and women) may not know what constitutes “perpetrator behaviour” before it becomes the most extreme: murder, femicide, fatal assault. Patterns of coercive control, emotional manipulation, threats, moving quickly from jealousy to isolation, demeaning partner’s identity, claiming ownership over partner’s time, all these can be early warning signs. The problem is, if the behaviour is normalised in social or cultural context, then it goes unnoticed.

If a man says to his partner: “If you loved me you wouldn’t hang out with your friends,” and then “If you loved me you’d wear something different,” and then “If you loved me you’d quit your job so we can start a family,” – is this just jealousy, or is it signalling something more dangerous?

Many would shrug and say “boys will be boys,” or “it’s part of loving someone.” But in fact, these can be part of a pattern of control which, left unchecked, may escalate.

If men and social spaces (friends, community, workplace) don’t recognise these as the early stages of perpetration, then too many relationships become sites of ongoing harm. For the national strategy to work, recognition must happen early.

2. Not recognising oneself as a perpetrator

Some men who engage in or have engaged in harmful behaviour simply do not self-identify as perpetrators. They may think: “I didn’t hit her” or “I didn’t kill her” so I can’t be the problem. They may rationalise their behaviour (“she asked for it”, “I lost control because of stress”) or normalise it (“this is how men behave”). This lack of self-recognition means no internal reckoning, no accountability, no transformation.

And some men may know but refuse to care, or minimise the problem (“false accusations!”, “she overreacted!”, “everyone has bad days”). This denial (or deflection) creates a culture of impunity. The danger is not just the few who become extreme perpetrators, but the many who engage in low-level harm and never reflect, never change, never face consequences. Because one cannot build safe relationships on the assumption of “he will learn” or “it’s not so bad” if patterns repeat.

3. Thinking that some accusations are false and therefore opting out of believing, engaging, changing

Another challenge: in the public and private sphere, there are voices saying “what about false allegations?” “Men are being targeted unfairly.” While false allegations do exist in any domain, what becomes problematic is when this line of thinking becomes a shield against recognising the vast majority of real harm. When the default assumption is doubt rather than support for survivors, the system tilts toward impunity. Men who resist believing or engaging with survivors or who dismiss the possibility of harm in “their circle” effectively allow the perpetrator to exist unchallenged.

Thus, one mode of “not knowing a perpetrator” is refusing to believe perpetrators exist in one’s own community, one’s own friend group, one’s own past. That leaves survivors further isolated.

Why is this blindness so harmful?

When men don’t recognise perpetrators, or don’t engage with the possibility of perpetration in themselves or their peers, several harmful outcomes follow:

• Perpetrator behaviour goes unchecked: What was once subtle control becomes overt violence. Without early intervention or peer challenge, escalation happens.

• Survivors remain invisible, unsupported or disbelieved: This adds to trauma, silences voices, and reinforces the narrative that GBVF is something “other people” suffer.

• Social norms remain unchanged: If men don’t challenge or reflect on harmful behaviour, the culture that produced that behaviour remains intact: entitlement, control, dominance, “masculinity” defined by power.

• Prevention efforts lose potency: Policies, campaigns, activism can call for “men as allies”, but if many men remain passive or unaware of their own potential as part of the change, then the transformation stalls.

• The moments (like 21 November) risks being symbolic without deep change: When women withdraw work for a day, turn profiles purple, lie down for 15 minutes, the symbolism is powerful. But unless men also engage by recognizing perpetrators among them, by reflecting on their own behavior, by taking active steps, the structural patterns persist.

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What men can do, a call to reflection and action

Given this reality, what might men in South Africa (and beyond) do to move from “not knowing” toward “recognising” and “acting”?

1. Educate oneself on the full spectrum of perpetrator behaviour

   • Recognise that abuse is not only physical violence. Emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, coercive behaviours all matter.

   • Pay attention to the saying “when you know better you do better.” Learning the signs, the patterns, the pathways to danger empowers one to act earlier.

2. Reflect on one’s own behaviour and peer culture

   • Ask: Have I ever used language that demeans a woman or cuts her off from her network? Have I minimised her feelings? Have I resisted her autonomy?

   • Ask the same of your friend group or work culture: Are jokes, comments, behaviours minimising or normalising women’s pain or boundaries?

   • Being honest is difficult, but necessary. Accountability begins with recognition.

3. Reframe “allyship” as active not passive

   • Being an ally does not only mean posting purple icons. It means challenging abusive behaviour among men. It means believing survivors. It means supporting structural change (policies, funding, service access).

   • On 21 November, if you’re a man, you can still participate: not only by withdrawing or supporting women’s absence, but by consciously using that day to reflect on how you will operate differently.

4. Hold perpetrators to account

   • This includes community accountability: if you suspect someone is being abusive, you speak up, you support the victim, you don’t stay silent.

   • It also includes supporting systems: demanding that GBVF is treated with the urgency of a national disaster, as Women for Change is calling.

   • Supporting policies, reforms, shelters, survivor services.

5. Change the narrative about false accusations

   • It is entirely reasonable and responsible to ask for fairness. But when this becomes a default narrative that drowns out the realities of harm, it becomes obstructive.

   • Men can help shift the narrative: “I acknowledge that harm is real, that survivors deserve belief and justice. I accept that my silence or disbelief might be part of the problem.”

   • By refusing to dismiss or deride survivors, men shift the culture toward accountability.

Recognizing the perpetrator means recognizing our role

If we treat the perpetrator as “other”, as someone distant, as someone we don’t know or can’t imagine, then the crisis of GBVF remains a problem someone else must solve. But when we accept that perpetrators may be close…friends, colleagues, ex-partners, even ourselves, then the work changes. It becomes personal. It becomes urgent.

If men are truly going to be part of that change, then they must move from silence, from ignorance, from the assumed distance of “not me”, to engagement: recognising, reflecting, acting.

Because until perpetrators are seen and until men recognize the possibility of perpetration in their world, the purple icons and the shutdowns will remain powerful gestures, but the deeper transformation will remain unfinished.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written here I didn’t mean to disappear. I just… started drowning.

Not all at once, not dramatically. It happened quietly. A little more weight each day, a little less air. And before I knew it, writing something that once felt like breathing started to feel like work my lungs couldn’t manage.

There’s a scene in BoJack Horseman where he says,

“All three of us were drowning, and we didn’t know how to save each other, but there was an understanding that we were all drowning together.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about that line more than I’d like to admit. The kind of line that finds you when you’re already halfway underwater (the view from half way down). The kind of line that names something you’ve been trying to breathe through for weeks.

Right now, I feel like I’m drowning. Not the dramatic kind, no waves crashing, no screaming. Just the quiet kind. The kind that looks like answering messages late. Smiling when someone asks how you are. Saying “I’m fine” because explaining feels too heavy.

There’s this strange ache that comes from feeling like you’re sinking alone. No one beside you to say, “I know.” No one who seems to be flailing in the same direction. Just the silence of the water pressing in on all sides.

BoJack’s line hit me because it wasn’t about being saved. It was about being seen. There’s a kind of comfort in realizing someone else was also gasping for air, even if you couldn’t pull each other out. Even if all you could do was reach a trembling hand through the water and know you weren’t the only one trying to survive it.

Maybe that’s what I’m looking for right now, not rescue, not advice, just acknowledgment. A small echo that says, “I’ve been there too.” Because maybe, in that shared understanding, we stop drowning quite so silently.

If you’re reading this and you’ve felt it too. The heaviness, the quiet panic, the feeling of barely keeping your head above the surface. I see you. We might be drowning, but at least, somehow, we’re drowning together.

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I’m trying to swim again.

Before I ever touched a keyboard with purpose or slipped into heels that made no sense for the real world, I was already living in a fantasy built by The Bold Type, Sex and the City, and The Devil Wears Prada.

Those shows weren’t just entertainment. They were visions of possibility, of ambition, of women who owned their voice and wielded it like a pen dipped in power. They were my first taste of what it looked like to live creatively, boldly, unapologetically. And I was hooked.

The Bold Type: A Blueprint for Becoming.

When The Bold Type dropped, it felt like someone had cracked open my brain and spilled my dream onto the screen.

Scarlet Magazine was the dream job. The office with its towering glass walls, the outfits that said “I have somewhere to be,” and a boss like Jacqueline Carlyle, elegant, fierce, nurturing. She was everything Miranda Priestly wasn’t, yet equally iconic. I wanted to be Jane. To pitch stories that mattered. To have my words in print, on screens, in hearts.

There was something sacred about watching three best friends navigating career, heartbreak, and identity while chasing deadlines and bylines. They didn’t just want to write, they wanted to change the world one article at a time. And so did I.

Sex and the City: The Writer’s Romance.

Before I knew what Manolo Blahniks even were, I knew Carrie Bradshaw. She was the original writer-girl archetype, typing away at her laptop with a cigarette in one hand and a cosmos-filled nightlife in the other. A woman who made rent off words and had the audacity to turn heartbreak into column material? Iconic.

She taught me that stories are everywhere, on subway seats, across brunch tables, between the lines of a complicated relationship. She wrote like she lived: boldly, curiously, romantically. Sex and the City made me want to fall in love with my city, my work, and myself, all at the same time.

It also made me believe that a woman’s voice belonged at the center of the conversation. That she didn’t have to shrink, apologize, or “tone it down.” She could be loud, raw, fashionable, and emotionally honest and still command a column in a major publication.

The Devil Wears Prada: The Reality Check I Still Loved.

Miranda Priestly. The Chanel boots. The Runway closet. That “florals for spring” line that lives in my head rent-free.

The Devil Wears Prada was the fantasy and the cost. It was what happened when your dream job became your whole identity. And yet, I still wanted it. I still wanted the pressure, the proximity to greatness, the adrenaline of making something beautiful under impossible deadlines.

Andrea Sachs was all of us, idealistic, unsure, desperate to prove that she belonged. She didn’t dream of being a fashion editor, but she ended up doing the impossible anyway. Watching her was a reminder that even when the path isn’t perfect, it’s shaping you.

"Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. Everybody wants this. Everybody wants to be us."

My Cosmo Dream.

I used to imagine my name in bold letters beneath a headline on Cosmopolitan’s glossy pages. I wanted to talk about love, bodies, ambition, healing, empowerment. I wanted to write those punchy intros, those witty one-liners, those “I feel seen” moments that made you dog-ear the page or send a screenshot to your group chat.

Cosmo wasn’t just a magazine. It was an experience. Bold, brazen, and beautifully honest. It told women: you are allowed to want more, from life, from love, from yourself. And that’s what I wanted to say, too.

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Why It Still Matters.

Even if I never made it into a midtown office with coffee in one hand and copy edits in the other, the dream shaped me. It raised my standards, sharpened my voice, and gave me a north star. It made me love words. It taught me that fashion isn’t shallow, that writing is power, and that stories, our stories, deserve to be told in full color.

And maybe that’s what it was all for.

Not just to get the dream job, but to become the dream woman.

So here’s to the girls who grew up on editorials and episodes. The ones who journal like it’s gospel, who write their way through life, who believe in the power of a good outfit and a better story.

We may not all be at Cosmo, but we’re still writing. Still dreaming. Still bold.

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There’s a strange kind of freedom in not knowing. In waking up without a plan, trying your braids in a ponytail, and meeting your reflection with soft eyes instead of expectations. I used to think clarity was the goal. That if I didn’t know where I was going, I was doing something wrong. That confusion was something to escape. But now, I wear it like a silk robe. Light. Honest. Mine.

Lately, I’ve been dancing with the unknown.

Not in a panicked, frantic way but slow. Swaying. Eyes closed. Letting my body lead without demanding it explain itself. It’s a kind of softness I never thought I'd earn. The kind that Sabrina Claudio sings about in Confidently Lost, where you’re floating but rooted. Alone, but not lonely. Silent, but not empty.

“I may be lost, but I’m confidently lost.”

That line used to sting. Like, how could you be okay with not knowing? Wasn’t the whole point of life to figure it out? To tick off milestones like a to-do list: degree, career, partner, purpose. But I’m learning that purpose isn’t always a destination. Sometimes it’s a vibration. A frequency you move at when you stop trying to impress, control, or arrive.

I’m not where I thought I’d be by now and maybe that’s a good thing.

Because the person I’m becoming isn’t built on deadlines or definitions. She’s built on mornings where I cry for no reason and afternoons where I laugh like I’m ten years old. She’s built on late-night questions I don’t try to answer. On deep exhales. On walking away when something beautiful no longer feels aligned. On choosing peace even when chaos feels more familiar.

Sometimes, I don’t recognize myself and that’s okay too.

There’s magic in being undone. In allowing the pieces of who I was to scatter without rushing to pick them up. I don’t need to be whole to be worthy. I don’t need to have a map to keep moving forward.

I don’t need to be certain to be powerful.

Because there’s something sacred about this liminal space, the in-between. This pause before the next chapter. This gentle unraveling. This season where I am not chasing anything but presence. Not forcing anything but truth. Just me, meeting myself here. Again and again. In the mirror. In the quiet. In the ache and the ease.

So yes, I’m lost.

But it’s the kind of lost that feels like healing. Like finally laying down the armor. Like stretching out in the wilderness of self and whispering:

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I love who I’m becoming.”

And for now, that’s enough.

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There’s a kind of sleep I crave. Not the tossing, turning, light-dream kind. Not the vivid nightmares, or the half-conscious scrolling until 3 a.m. kind. I’m talking about the kind of sleep where there is nothing.

No thoughts. No images. No dreams. No time.

It’s the kind of sleep that feels like vanishing, a complete surrender of the self. You lay your head down and, without knowing when or how, you simply aren’t there anymore. You blink and it’s morning. But in between? There was nothing.

Some might say that sounds like death. And maybe it is, in a small, sacred way.

The scientists call it slow-wave sleep, or deep NREM sleep. It’s when the brain goes quiet, the body slows down, and healing begins. No movement, no mental chatter, no subconscious storylines. Just a full shutdown. A factory reset of the soul.

But to me, it’s something deeper than biology. It’s peace. The kind of peace you can’t force. The kind that can’t be faked.

I find it beautiful that our bodies know how to take us there. That in a world full of noise, anxiety, overstimulation, and pressure to always be “on”, we’re still wired for stillness. For blankness. For nothing.

And that kind of nothing? That’s everything.

There’s a certain kind of heartbreak that doesn’t arrive with betrayal or distance, but with proximity. It slips in quietly not through arguments or silence but through the sound of their voice saying something that makes your insides recoil.

You know the feeling. That undeniable physical pull toward someone. The way your stomach flips when they walk into the room. The kind of attraction that makes you forget your last name, your standards, your common sense. For a while, their presence alone feels like enough.

But then they start to speak.

And what once felt like magnetic chemistry starts to feel… embarrassing.

They say something off, something tone-deaf or shallow or painfully unaware. They laugh at something that makes your skin crawl. They talk over you, or they don’t ask questions back. They make everything about them. They’re beautiful, sure but the more you see, the less you like.

I once talked to this guy, let’s call him Zeus He looked like a geek god carved out of dreams. Tall, broad, well-spoken, soft-spoken. He had the kind of face that makes you forget what you were doing. It was instant. I was obsessed. I wanted him. I liked him before I even knew him and maybe that was the problem.

Because the more I talked to Zeus, the less I wanted to. Not because he was a bad person but because the things he said just... didn’t click. They didn’t spark anything in me. They didn’t challenge me, or make me laugh, or make me feel seen. It wasn’t even about personality, it was about alignment. Or lack of it.

He’d say something and I’d feel my whole body subtly deflate. You know that moment? When your body reacts before your brain does? Like, oh no, this isn't it... I tried to overlook it. I gave it space. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But that kind of disconnection has a way of echoing louder each time.

And I found myself wondering… maybe he was doing it on purpose. Maybe he wasn’t that into me. Maybe it wasn’t that we didn’t align, maybe he just wasn’t putting in any effort to begin with. You know when someone doesn’t care enough to impress you? When the conversation is dull not because they’re dull, but because they’re not trying? That stung more than anything he actually said.

It’s disorienting to be so drawn to someone’s shell, only to find the inside hollow or sharp or simply incompatible with who you are. And sometimes, it’s not even their fault. They just aren’t your person. Or maybe they don’t want to be.

The most frustrating part? I wanted to like him. I tried. I built a version of him in my mind, hoping he’d step into it, hoping the beauty wasn’t just skin-deep. But eventually, the illusion cracked. And I found myself mourning something that never really existed.

I’ve come to realize this is one of the quiet tragedies of romantic attraction. The idea that desire and compatibility aren’t always on speaking terms. You can be pulled toward someone so hard it hurts… only to realize, days or weeks later, that you're not even sure you like them.

That’s what I mean when I say, to know me more is to love me less. Not because I’m unlovable, but because so many people fall in love with their idea of me. And as soon as the fantasy slips as soon as I’m real, honest, a little complex, a little contradictory the light dims in their eyes. Or maybe I’ve done it to others, too. Maybe we’re all guilty of romanticizing from afar, only to flinch at the truth up close.

But I’d rather be truly known and liked a little less than be adored for something I’m not.

So now, I ask myself before I get too invested, before I get too attached: Do I like them? Or do I just like how they make me feel... for now?

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“It’s an extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bare your soul to, and who’ll accept you for what you are…” This line from Edward Cullen’s wedding toast in Breaking Dawn Part 1 has lived rent-free in my mind since I first heard it. Not because I’m obsessed with vampires (though let’s be honest, we all had our Twilight phase), but because it captures something eternal: the raw, aching human desire to be seen, known, and loved anyway.

In a world where love is often filtered, performative, and surface-level, this idea of baring your soul and being accepted feels radical. Almost mythical. But maybe that’s why it hits so hard.

When Edward says:

“No measure of time with you will be long enough. But let’s start with forever.”

…he isn’t promising perfection. He’s surrendering. He’s saying: I know what I am, I know what I’ve done, and still I choose to begin again, with you.

There’s something almost sacred about that. It’s not a fairy tale, not really. It’s a confession wrapped in hope. A vow from someone who’s been through darkness and is choosing light not because he has to, but because love made him want to.

Love as Redemption

Whether you believe in soulmates or not, we all crave redemption. To be chosen despite the mess. To be a safe place for someone and have them be one for you.

That’s what Bella and Edward represent here, not just romantic love, but redemptive love.

Love that says: I see all of you, the good, the dark, the strange and I’m not leaving.

Isn’t that what we all want?

My Comfort Movie

It sounds silly, I know but Breaking Dawn is one of my comfort movies. The whole Twilight saga, really. I grew up with it. And in a way, it grew up with me.

There’s something about comfort movies. They don’t just entertain, they anchor us. They hold parts of us we didn’t know were fragile. They remind us who we were, who we wanted to be, and what we hoped love would feel like. For me, it’s always been about love.

Unconditional love. A love that chooses you, no matter how much you try to deny it. A love that silences the chaos inside you not because it fixes you, but because it stays.

Nothing in life feels settled until you completely surrender to it. And maybe that’s why this line, this scene, this movie... still means everything to me. It’s not about vampires. It’s about being wanted. Chosen. Safe.

So here’s my toast: To the ones who’ve waited. To those who are still waiting. To the ones who are afraid they might be too much. To the lovers who know that “forever” isn’t about time. It’s about intention.

Let’s start with that. Let’s start with forever. Cheers.

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We had a hard drive overflowing with movies. Our dad’s quiet gift to us. On slow afternoons or sleepless nights, my sister and I would huddle around the laptop, picking titles at random. Movies were our thing. Our escape. Our language. Our bond.

We were just kids, I eleven and she was twelve , when we pressed play on The Lovely Bones. We had no idea what we were stepping into. No warning. No context. Just a girl on the cover and a title that sounded, well, kind of pretty.

But that film didn’t just tell us a story. It shattered something. And cracked something open. Something raw. Something we couldn’t un-feel, even if we wanted to.

We didn’t know it at the time, but The Lovely Bones marked the beginning of our consciousness. Not just of the world’s darkness, but of our capacity to hold space for it. It made us empaths before we even knew the word. It made us feel things that weren’t ours and carry them as if they were.

It’s the kind of film you only watch once. And somehow, it never stops playing inside you.

We were way too young. But maybe there’s no such thing as the “right” age to be introduced to the reality that girls disappear. That children go missing. That monsters don’t look like monsters.

It wasn’t just the story of Susie Salmon. It was the story of every girl who’s walked home afraid. Every child whose innocence was stolen. Every sister who never made it back.

We didn’t have the language back then. But we felt it, deep in our chests, in our stomachs, in our bones. That movie didn’t just scare us. It shaped us.

After we watched it, we cried. Quietly, at first. Then hard. And when we looked up again, the world didn’t feel the same. We walked faster at night. We looked over our shoulders more. But we also started listening harder. Caring more. Noticing things no one else seemed to. It made us feel more. Hurt more deeply for others. And eventually, speak up for those who couldn’t.

We started to understand that empathy isn’t just a personality trait. It’s a choice. A discipline. A muscle that grows stronger the more stories you let break your heart.

There’s something about The Lovely Bones that stays lodged in your soul, not because of the violence, but because of the silence around it. The way no one sees it coming. The way evil hides in plain sight. The way girlhood is so fragile, and violence so invisible.

That film, in its own haunting way, was a warning. A prayer. A heartbreak. And somehow, a beginning.

“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.” -Susie Salmon, The Lovely Bones

I often think about how differently boys are raised. How much they’re protected from the realities girls are forced to internalize early. Maybe if boys watched movies like The Lovely Bones or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, they’d grow up different. Not traumatized, humanized. Maybe they’d become men who feel. Men who pause before they act. Men who understand that “just being a guy” doesn’t excuse ignorance. If we want to raise men who don’t harm, we have to raise men who notice.

I’ll probably never watch The Lovely Bones again. But I carry it with me.

In how I believe survivors. In how I listen to women. In how I walk through the world both fearful and fierce. In how I try to make the world just a little safer for the girls around me.

And I’m so grateful I watched it with my sister. Two girls who grew up too fast but who grew up kind.

The Book vs. The Film

Years later, I found out The Lovely Bones was a novel by Alice Sebold before it became a film. The book lingers more on grief, on memory, on the quiet unraveling of a family after loss. Some say it’s more powerful, more poetic. Others say the film made it real in a way words couldn’t. Personally, I think both are necessary( I don’t think I could stomach the book). But the movie, it’s what cracked me open. It’s what gave me a conscience. Not just about violence, but about silence. About how often we walk past the unseen. And how important it is that we choose to see.

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Is there a movie or book that has made an impact in your life ?

I don’t want you to carry the weight. I just want you to notice I’m holding it. To whisper, “You don’t have to do it alone. I see you.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how heavy the world feels when no one really sees you. Like, really see you. Not for what you post, or how you look, or what you can offer but for who you are when the noise is gone. When the filter is off. When the show ends and it’s just you, uncurated.

I’m not asking for someone to fix everything. I’ve never needed rescuing before. I’m just asking for a witness, someone to sit with me in the dark and say, “Talk to me.” Someone whose presence feels like exhale. Like, “You don’t have to hold it alone anymore. I’m here.”

Someone who doesn’t try to make it prettier or easier. Someone who hears the tremble in my laugh, the silence in my “I’m fine,” and chooses to stay anyway. It sounds so simple…connection, but in this world, it feels like a miracle. A rare alignment of energy and timing, vulnerability and willingness. And if I’m being honest? I miss yearning. I miss being able to want without shame. I’m a yearner, I’ve always been a yearner.

Yearning, for me, is not desperation. It’s devotion. It’s hope. It’s a kind of love that lives in the in-between. That sees beauty in the wait, in the small, in the quiet reaching.

I fall in love through curiosity, the slow unraveling of who someone is beneath the surface, the joy of discovering their layers. Through the rhythm of conversation that flows into the a.m’s. Through emotional intimacy. Through small glances that feel like paragraphs. Through shared playlists, mutual silence, unspoken comfort.

Love, for me, is not a performance. It’s presence. It’s being known slowly, deeply and still being chosen.

But now? In this era? Hookup culture has swallowed intimacy whole. We skipped the slow burn. We discarded emotional curiosity. No one wants to know each other anymore, at least not deeply, not vulnerably, not soul-first.

Attention over intention. People are so comfortable asking for your body, but somehow it’s too much to ask for a conversation. Isn’t it wild? That someone asking for access to your body isn’t as “intense” as someone asking, “What’s been heavy on your heart lately?” That you can lay skin to skin with someone and still feel completely alone?

Sometimes I just want someone to talk to. To ask me how I really am, and genuinely want to know the layered, unpretty answer. To not get bored of the depth I carry, or shrink from the softness I wear. Someone who understands that emotional safety is the real intimacy. Someone who thinks consistency is romantic. Someone who doesn’t want to consume me, but experience me, mind, heart, and spirit included.(okay, body too eventually.)

Being a lover girl in a world that runs from love is more than just hard, it’s lonely. Especially when the moment you reveal you're more than surface, people disappear. You open up, offer depth, and suddenly... it’s too much.

And it gets even lonelier when you’re 24, living alone. Having built a world for yourself that feels soft and sacred only to realize how rare it is to find someone who wants to meet you in that softness. Someone who won’t flinch at your fullness. Someone who knows love isn’t chaos, it’s quiet. It’s choosing.

Sometimes I fantasize about just co-existing with someone. Not even doing anything grand. Just... being. Reading in the same room. Watching a movie with our feet touching. Cooking together. Sitting in the quiet without it feeling awkward. Letting someone in without having to perform. Letting someone see me without earning it through sex or perfection.

But that dream feels so far-fetched. Like finding someone you can just be basic in silence with is some kind of rare phenomenon. Like saying, “I want emotional safety and meaningful conversation,” is the same as saying, “I want a unicorn to pick me up in a Bentley.”

And yet I still believe.

Even in this ache. Even in the drought. Even in the quiet moments where I question if I’m asking too much, I still believe there’s someone out there who craves what I crave. Who sees love as presence, not performance. Who still believes in emotional connection, slow magic, and the beauty of being known.

Maybe I’m not alone in this. Maybe there are other yearners out there, still trying to love in a world that tells us to feel less.

If you are one of them, I see you. And maybe that’s the point of all this.

Maybe we’re all just walking each other home. Witnessing each other until love feels less far away.

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(All pictures are from Pinterest)

From time to time, I think about Diane Nguyen from BoJack Horseman. One scene in particular lingers, Season 6, Episode 2. Diane is having a quiet, honest conversation with Princess Carolyn, and she says:

“I have to… because if I don’t, it means that all the damage I got isn’t ‘good damage,’ it’s just damage. I’ve gotten nothing out of it. And all those years I was miserable was for nothing. I could’ve been… happy this whole time…”

What was it all for?

That line sat in my chest like a stone.

Because I know what it means to beg your suffering to matter. To feel like you owe your strength to people. To think: If I don’t turn this into something useful, something inspiring then I’ve failed twice. First, for getting hurt. And second, for not making it beautiful.

There’s this idea I keep coming back to that if I can turn my pain into something meaningful, maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. Maybe the heartbreak, the trauma, the silence, the shrinking maybe it all counts for something if I write about it. If I help someone. If I survive beautifully. If I make it poetic.

But lately, I’m not so sure. Lately I wonder if all I’ve done is wrap the same wound in prettier bandages.

I think again about Diane later in that same scene, she says:

“When I was a little girl, I thought that everything, all the abuse and neglect, it somehow made me special…”

That if you were hurting, you had to do something with it. Turn it into art. A lesson. A story worth clapping for. That if you didn’t, you were just broken.

That’s what they don’t tell you: The pressure to turn trauma into growth or creativity. To make your pain profitable. Digestible. Palatable.

They romanticize suffering, especially in women. The tortured genius. The wounded healer. The girl who went through hell but came out pretty on the other side.

But what if I don’t want to be pretty about it? What if I don’t want to be your comeback story? What if healing doesn’t look like blooming? What if it looks like surviving, quietly?

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Sometimes I look at myself and wonder: Did I heal? Or did I just get better at performing peace?

Did I grow? Or did I just learn how to rebrand my wounds as wisdom?

Maybe not all pain is meant to become poetry. Maybe some damage is just damage. And maybe the most radical thing I can do now is stop trying to make it useful. And just let it be real.

What Diane said made me feel seen in the places I usually hide. It made me cry not because it was sad, but because it was true. Because I’ve tried so hard to alchemize my suffering into something beautiful, as if that’s the only way to make it count. As if survival only matters if it inspires someone else. But pain doesn’t always need to be rebranded. Sometimes it just wants to be felt.

And maybe the softest, most rebellious thing I can do now… is stop trying to make it art. Maybe the healing is in letting it exist without explanation.

Any Bojack horseman(the show) fans out here ?🙂

I’m afraid I’ve lived most of my life in my head.

And I don’t mean in a dreamy, poetic way, not daydreaming about Paris or writing poems in a rainstorm. I mean I’ve spent years narrating my life as if I didn’t fully exist. Half-present. Always slightly detached. Watching moments instead of feeling them.

Sometimes I think I’ve spent more energy replaying moments than actually living them. What I could’ve said, what I should’ve done, what it would’ve meant if I’d said it.

People. Conversations. Opportunities. I always found a way to emotionally duck out before anyone could ask me to stay. And not in some bold, liberating, “I choose myself” kind of way. No. It’s smaller than that. It looks like laughing a little differently. Texting a little slower. Saying, “life is so hectic right now,” when the truth is…

I’ve been unraveling in silence.

There was a day recently where I stood in a room full of people I care about, and I couldn’t feel myself inside the moment. I was smiling. Nodding. Engaging. But it felt like watching someone else live my life. A version of me going through the motions while the real me hovered just above it all, thinking too hard about whether I belonged.

That’s the part I’m tired of.

I think it started with childhood trauma. When everything you do or say is constantly scrutinized, you learn to walk on eggshells. And if you walk on them long enough, they stop feeling like a floor, and start feeling like a trap. So you shrink. You hide. Until eventually, you lock yourself in a shell just to feel safe. And that shell becomes your head, the only place that feels like home, even when it’s suffocating.

Maybe emotional over-performance played a part too. Always being on. Being the understanding one. The patient one. The one who listens, supports, shows up, and keeps everything light, even when it’s unbearably heavy inside.

And maybe people saw that as strength. But to me, it felt like shrinking. Like I was dimming the parts of myself that needed the most light…just to survive.

Maybe it’s also because I’m introverted and introversion isn’t just about being quiet. It’s about being a constant observer.

I don’t just walk into a room. I scan it. I watch the way people move, speak, avoid, overcompensate. I replay what someone meant versus what they said. I internalize things deeply, not just my experiences, but other people’s too.

And I carry all of it into my private world, where conversations continue long after they end, and emotions echo even after the room is empty. It’s like I’m split in two.

There’s the version of me everyone sees, composed, polite, showing up.

And then there’s the version of me that lives in my head, loud, overthinking, over-feeling, a world of my own that not many people get to meet. Two completely different people.

And lately, I don’t know which one is real.

But here’s the truth that scares me the most: What if I die having never really lived outside of my head?

What if I’ve spent so much time preparing for life, processing, analyzing, scripting that I never fully entered it? What if I’ve ghosted my own existence so well that when it’s over, I’ll wonder if I was ever truly here at all?

That thought stays with me. It presses against my chest in quiet moments. Not as panic. Not as drama. Just a quiet fear… that I’ve been surviving instead of existing.

So maybe this piece isn’t just about a coping mechanism. Maybe it’s about coming back home to myself. Coming back into the world, messy, unpredictable, unscripted as it is.

No more quiet exits. No more emotional performance. No more survival mode dressed up as strength.

Are you really here or are you still living in your head too?