After weeks of drowning in the giant stacks of to-dos, I finally found the time to meet with myself again. My three-week vacation—if we can even call it that, since I’m still studying—from school is about to end, and I found myself rekindling old passions and versions of myself I have buried and forgotten for almost a year. I read til my eyes burned, cried, loathed, and loved myself.
Oh, it was a roller coaster ride, and who would’ve thought that staying at home for weeks would be more of an adventure than having a full schedule for going on the once-a-year dates with my friends?
I took the liberty of crossing off some books from my to-read list, and it’s crazy how I managed to finish five books in 2 weeks. I read Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon, I Hope This Doesn't Find You by Ann Liang, and the first three books of the A Court of Thorn Series by Sarah J. Mass. And here comes the reading til my eyes burned, crying, and self-loathing part.
The rush of feelings the ACOTAR series made me feel led me to stay up until 2-3:00 am wide-eyed, with my heart beating fast every night for a whole week. The adventure-filled story brought me to a new world that only books have ever made me feel. The very bad reading habits that resurfaced brought me back to the days I first learned how a beautiful experience reading was. It painted a picture of me cozily laying down on our Chinese-style antique solid varnished-wood sofa, with my phone reading the Harry Potter series. I couldn’t afford then the soft-bound physical books—but it was still a portal to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
But I loathed myself for being unable to stop myself from reading. I still have so many lessons to study for my upcoming qualifying exam, but I just can’t help but turn the book to the next page. The urge to escape in the Prythrian kept me sane, alive, and happy. And I hated it more when I had to end. Closing off the book 3 made me feel so empty and lost. I slept and slept after that, just feeling sad and I didn’t know the reason. I often feel things like that happening to me after watching a good Korean drama series, or a movie that I can relate to so much. But still, the feeling was unusual and felt so out of place. Why would I feel so sad for finishing a book? I must put my focus back on my studies and review.
And yet, it was so hard. But thank God for Quora for being an avenue for asking the most random questions and finding them answered years ago already. I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. My sudden feeling of emptiness and temporary depression was because literature made me feel so much, and its sudden loss left a hole in my heart. It was like an addiction. Diving into those entertaining books gave rise to my happy hormones for more than a week, and when I stopped, it just went down—making me sad and lonely. I had to learn to bring back my happy hormones to normal levels, and my body adjusting to that made me feel things. And it was normal.
These days, I spend my mornings and study breaks reading in Substack. The simplest essays to the heavy ones. And for every essay I indulge in, I am left with the feeling of being “seen”, because who would’ve thought that I was not the only one feeling lost, sad, or weary when almost everyone on social media is posting highlights of their lives? My mornings in Substack leave me happy and comforted with the knowledge that this foreign feeling in me is felt by many people as well. Writing has become a classic escape for feelings that are overflowing, and it’s amazing how reading pieces from that overflow relieves and regulates one’s own chaotic and messy insides.
I have read in some books that I have already forgotten that when things are not named it is not real—or at least it doesn't feel real. By finding names and determining our feelings, we are liberated from thinking that maybe it isn’t real, or it’s just in our head. It’s the same reason diagnoses are very ground-breaking to a person’s life. It allows a systematic start for healing. How can one heal if they do not even know what they’re dealing with?
With that in mind, by finding a community or a venue where feelings are named, where I realize that I am not alone, where I find that these feelings aren’t foreign or unusual—I feel liberated. I can’t help but sympathize with people who did not have access to this kind of technology before. It wasn’t easy to be alone battling problems we have no name of yet, like for LGBTQ+ people in the 1900s or even earlier than that, as well as those struggling with mental health conditions before it was researched and studied.
Maybe this feeling of seeking comfort and identifying feelings is also the reason why I am so inclined toward God. Jesus welcomed those with leprosy and the woman who bled for 12 years with open arms and gave them a miracle. Jesus was someone who understood when no one else did. He was the hope. And maybe, that’s the reason why we talk to Him—the hope to be understood and listened to. The hope to find clarity.
We live in a society where people with unknown and foreign conditions or battles are shunned, judged, and discriminated against. And my heart breaks for it, because how can we seek healing if the first thing we do when we encounter something new is to hate it?
Even we are guilty of that. I loathed myself for doing and feeling something that I am not used to—diving into such beautiful pieces of literature and feeling bad after. And I self-sabotage by avoiding reflecting when things are getting out of hand because I am so afraid of facing what’s wrong that I’ll do other (productive) things just to avoid it.
But we are forgetting how beautiful it is to name the things we have long hidden in the deep, dark, depths of our soul. And when we finally do, there’s a surge of joy we never knew was possible.
The encouragement here is to let us let ourselves find opportunities, venues, and people to label our feelings. I’ve always believed in the thought that we have something someone else needs, just like how we need what someone else has. We are making the world a better place by sharing our lives with people and letting other people share their lives with us. By doing so, we find that our battles are not so foreign at all.
I live for those success stories. Someone has dealt with my problem once and succeded. Those are the bits of hope that can change our lives by opening our world to others. And it’s not about those sugar-coated, Instagram-able lives, but those raw stories that are filled with so much soul.
Let’s live a life that seeks that. Because what’s the point of living if we do not feel?
Thank you so much for reading my Substack! Fancy finding you here. If you reached the end of this article—then, wow.
This week, I am preparing for a big exam!! May the Lord and every lesson I read be with me.
I’m also reading The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren. So far so good, I enjoy how it doesn't make me stay up until midnight. And I love how it makes my mornings extra special.
Some of the songs I enjoy these days are:
As for movies, I am in my Julia Roberts fixation era. She’s so beautiful and I love how light-hearted these movies are. Such a good go-to when life seems heavy or boring.