This did not go as planned
It’s curious how much we forget so we can survive.
24 January 2024, 08:05
Names for my Dog
Peach
Mango
Potato
Bubblegum
Kiwi
When I was thinking of what to write today, I had this brilliant idea. I would go down memory lane, enter the murky territory of my notes app and I’d pick a few to share here. I would scatter them through the writing, like a garnish of sorts. It would be a fun adventure and we would both delve into my past, unearth together what was on my mind then.
7th February 2024, 11.17 am
LATELY I’M TRYING
To eat. To get over it. To sit outside and get some sun. To remember to take my medicine. To teach myself how to live. To learn how to live with pain. To put my head down and just work. To rise above the politics. Why must there be politics can’t we just do the work? To forgive myself. To muster the excitement to cook again.
I conveniently forgot about the breakup, and the pain, and how that coloured all my thoughts, all my words. I also forgot that in the end, when things were at their worst, I had taken to documenting my encounters with her. Because my mind was fickle and prone to thinking, “it’s not that bad”, “she’s not that bad”, and “we can still figure things out”. I needed the irrefutable proof, a play by play of our interactions to keep me from begging for a different outcome.
It’s curious how much we forget so we can survive. Somehow, I forgot that I used to do that. So when I was pulling up notes to add to this, and encountered one of those documentations, it felt like walking into a trap. A room of horrors. I was suddenly so sad. Sad that that’s how things ended, sad to have lost what was once good. Sad to have felt sad. Sad. And naturally, I didn’t want to write anymore because I am tired of writing about that part of my life.
15 January, 2025, 02.43 am
D
I just found this
How are you doing
This is a message someone I used to know left on a collaborative note I started when we were seeing each other. The note was left months after we stopped seeing each other, months after she’d blocked me on every platform. So imagine my surprise that she was reaching out, and through the notes app no less? I forget how we started following each other, except that she was dating a friend of a friend. I also forget how we started talking, except that she replied to one of my Instagram stories. It was a chaotic three months, in which we talked feverishly and made elaborate plans to see each other, travel the world and fuck on a balcony in Italy. None of which came to pass. She was a passing wind, the only sign she was ever here is this note, now deleted.
23 January, 2025 at 22:49
Personal - the podcast
(Read a vintage personal ad, and say whether I’d respond to it)
(Discuss relationship dilemmas etc)
By now, you already know about my fascination with personal ads. And I think this note shows that it has been a long-running one. I never did get around to doing the podcast. Maybe something to think about for 2026?
*
My initial idea was to take a trip down memory lane and juxtapose that with what I am thinking about right now. Something like, here’s what I have been thinking about every January since 2022. But that opened a can of worms that I am happy to kick back under the bed and forget it exists.
Now that the fireworks have faded from the sky, and the air is losing the levity December brings, my mind too is taking a more serious turn. I am thinking more about returning to work, filing taxes, planning for the year and less about margaritas, sitting out in the sun and going out dancing. It’s a natural progression but one that I am loath to give in to. But hey, I still have three more days left. Let’s see what I can get up to.
What are you thinking about?