Thank you, Next ;)

Hello my lovelies, I’m back!
So much lighter than I was in my last post.

I’m writing this from the cafe I used to haunt during the chaotic months.

Same soft hum of songs, same coconut milk latte. I used to come here jittery with deadlines, emails, and caffeine. There was always something to finish, something to fix, someone checking in. My brain wasn’t functioning at normal speed. I’ve had conversations here that I now completely blacked out on. To the people I’ve talked to at the time, I’m sorry. (that wasn’t me, that was Patricia!)

Now it’s just me. And the straw paper I’m fidgeting with.

It’s strange how quickly silence grows loud when you’ve been living inside noise for too long. Today I finally got the news I’ve been fighting for in the past few months, and with a cherry on top too! 

Now, my phone sits face down next to me, but I keep glancing anyway… muscle memory. It’s like my body doesn’t know the difference between adrenaline and quiet. It still waits for that familiar vibration, that small rush of being needed. To fight, to argue, to cry even! 

The coffee tastes different– or maybe I do.

Aristotle said virtue lives in balance, the “golden mean” between too much and too little. And I wonder what exists between noise and nothing. The space after momentum. The calm that follows when everything that defined your days suddenly evaporates.

I find that I sometimes treat motion like proof of existence. I fill the silence because it’s easier than facing myself inside it. But I’m starting to think stillness isn’t the absence of meaning– maybe it’s where meaning actually catches up.

And me, being the avoidant that I am, I still have a couple of things pressing on me right now, but I’m pretending they don’t exist, just for a while. Because most times there are people involved, and I can’t be one of the ones who freak out. I have to be the one holding it together, the “sane” one, even though I’d love to just scream my lungs out sometimes.

Nevertheless, I know I’ve been doing okay… taking things one step at a time, getting things done, even when it takes too much out of me, even when it puts me in a pressure cooker and burns me down. At least I have my people… the ones who stand by me, who push me, even when it’s just a two word text reassuring me I did good.

I am forever grateful for everyone who’s been here for me. I think my faith in humanity has been restored this year. I was put in situations where I had to rely on others, and the number of people who stepped up and went out of their way to help me left me in tears more times than I can admit. I found myself asking people “Why? Why are you doing this for me?” and most would either give a simple look of are you crazy? and others would just reply with “why not?” And shut me up.

I’ve never felt this supported, this trusted, this loved. And this, this is the whole point. I went into war alone and came out with an army. Victorious on all ends. الحمدلله. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have “won” this battle without my people. 

There’s a kind of holiness in sitting here with nothing more to do. The playlist has looped twice, and the world keeps moving around me. People rushing, doors opening, a car horn in the distance. And here I am, not rushing. Just sitting. Doing my favorite thing in the world: writing. Almost meditating.

I don’t know how to rest without guilt yet. But I’m learning… and I think I’m doing good.

And because I know this won’t last long, that I’ll have to jump right back into it as soon as I’m back home, I’m appreciating these few hours I’m stripping myself of responsibilities. And I’ll probably miss this quiet the way I’m now missing the noise.

Maybe that’s the balance Aristotle meant, not stillness or motion, but learning to love the pendulum swing between them. 

Stillness isn’t the void. It’s the proof that something moved you. And if you sit quietly enough, you can still feel it moving within you. 

To my worst enemy in my career years: thank you. Thank you for fucking me over. I truly, deeply appreciate it.

See you again soon, dearests!

FFB out