"You know what I miss? Blogs. I miss the days when our attention span could handle long form blogs about literally just how our days went, even if it was just errands."
That impulse tweet of mine got 45 likes, 1 retweet, and 4 quoted tweets. A pretty impressive statistic from my humble account of 1,364 followers. These days the urge to blog or just write longer than 280-character tweets or emojis or gifs has been strong. It’s the main reason I wanted to start this newsletter. Not that I have a lot to say (lol who am I kidding), but I just miss having my own little space on the internet that’s outside the social media realm. The only thing that was stopping me was that I didn’t think I had anything to write about. But after a while I realized that really wasn’t true. I just needed to pay more attention.
That quote by Kathleen in You’ve Got Mail is really so ingrained in me because my life is small. And it is valuable. I love it here. Everything in its place and time, and I like the way most of the days look exactly the same. My life is rich with friendships, creativity, and the joy of not labelling the things I love as “guilty pleasures." But sometimes I still wonder if I haven’t been brave enough to explore a life outside of it because I’m very comfortable in this bubble.
Like, a lot of the times I say that I’m not a “travel person.” But is that only because traveling with me is such a logistical nightmare (#justwheelchairthings) and I don’t like putting people through all that trouble, or do I really not like traveling? Or when I say that the advertising and corporate life isn’t for me, is that because I haven’t really experienced it yet or was I put off by friends’ nightmare stories? There are so many things I think I wouldn’t want to do, but is that only because I haven’t tried them yet? Have I already put a limit to myself and the life I can live?
I often think about how my friends have such big dreams and goals, and so many things they want to achieve on such a massive scale. Whenever we have those kinds of conversations my go-to internal monologue is, “Love that for them, but I’m good right here. Here is also great. Here is enough.”
In a recent project interview I was asked, “What’s the big dream? What’s the biggest thing you want to achieve?” It was 10:30am. I haven’t had breakfast yet. I was unprepared, and true to form, I almost cried during this video interview. What was my big dream? I needed a few seconds to pull myself together. I had no time for an existential crisis right now.
Finally, I took a deep breath and said:
“My dreams aren’t very big. I just want to live a comfortable life so that I am able to help others live a comfortable life as well.”
I realized that day that I literally just want to be rich enough to be comfortable — financially independent to be able to unburden my family, and to have the ability and capacity to consistently spread the wealth (however big or small that may be) that will make some kind of impact to someone. And for me that’s enough.
I know it’s a weird time to be asking what your big dream is while we’re all in the middle of *flails hand* ~ this ~. I mean, what does a year from now even look like? But I’ve really been thinking about these things and I thought you’d want to think about them too. (Damay damay na ‘to.)
What’s the life you’ve been living these days?
What kind of value do you see in it?
What’s the big dream?
Again, just sending cosmic questions out into the void.
Happy Sunday, dear void. Whatever life you are living, I hope you’re living it well. Whatever that means for you.
Yours from afar,
Aia
I can't believe I could still read long blogs as fast as I used to when blogging was still a thing #titasoftumblrandwordpressandblogspot
So yay for going back to blogging!!! 🥰🥰
From someone who has been a freelancer and a corporate junkie at the same time, I can feel your friends about their burdens. As of now, super happy to juggle both things as I've been trying to be more practical when it comes to some things freelancing stuff won't give me but at the same time earning an extra cash for our growing expenses.
But because today we're stuck inside a loophole (aka our house), I try to relax a bit more and sometimes say no to freelancing gigs since I've come to realize that my physical and mental health are the most important things to me right now.. it's nice to be a couch potato once a week and hussle again.
AND I'VE BEEN RECENTLY HOOKED WITH BTS SO MY COUCH POTATO DAY IS BASICALLY MY BTS DAY!!! SORRY FIANCÈ! 😂
Love you Aia!!! Keep on writing!