sparking blog

perhaps looking backwards is really the only way to move forward. i have done some pretty stupid things in the first five years of my twenties. took fast and curious steps. lost many qualities along the way, acquired so many new ones. the things that make me happy and the way i choose to be happy changed. now i realize how stupid i was being when i thought i was so smart. how i thought i knew everything but knew so little about so many obvious things. but i think the smartest thing i did was loving who i was becoming in all of those chapters. 

i look at photos from 2022, mulling, and that’s a whole other person walking on earth. the hair is different, the clothes are different, the light in the eyes is shining differently. more importantly, aspirations, admirations, missions, and outcomes are different. and i would definitely hold my hand and take myself out of so many rooms. but probably some of the rooms i loved standing in would also shrink and be left out of this reality. 

then my hair changed. my clothes changed. people around me always change. except for some, but they also change within. paintings on my skin change. the fights i choose to fight change. so many things i saw as freedom shift shape and look like traps now. a lot of the things i let happen seem like weird visions. as if a curtain had fallen over my eyes. i thought i saw the true colors of life but they were just the colors of the curtain over my eyes. 

it’s 2026 and i feel so much younger now. so much brighter. still with a lot of qualities and burdens i know i should be shaking off. still know i am probably making some decisions i will look back at and think to myself “are you serious?” but that’s the sweet bite. i am a child of this reality. i may fall and bruise my knees along the way. i may make mistakes and dumb decisions. i may let things i should never let happen, happen. but i know the vision is getting clearer. i feel it creeping.

i stick to old photos. i stick to old collections. i stick to playlists from years ago. i stick to clothes. i stick to books and lucky pens. ever since i have known myself, this has been the case. me and sticking. perhaps shedding skin is not so bad. perhaps it won’t make me feel so cold. perhaps it is like turning the cold water on after a warm shower, it may feel tense at first but you get used to it so quickly, and you immediately see it feels a lot better. and the feeling sticks with you after the shower. you get scared of being cold but it actually prevents you from getting cold after the shower. perhaps that’s life.

it feels like i have been asleep and just woke up. is this because i am close to 25? or is it the new moon? to my surprise, a lot of people are actually right about some points of life, including mom and dad. well, especially mom and dad. i still find them to be wrong about so many things but that’s for other reasons. but in general, i may be approaching closer to a wider perspective. i find many of my previous decisions dumb. and knowing that i did all of these while thinking i was being smart, is sort of funny and sort of disturbing. because who knows how many things i am doing wrong right now while thinking i am being smart? not me. what i know is that i am so much different than i was in the beginning of my 20s. at least i didn’t get married. 

is this me now? for life? great news is, no. every time i ask this question, i know another version of me is coming. “change is a thing you can count on. i feel so much younger now”. happy new moon in aries. 

the songs i listened on repeat while writing this: drop dead by Olivia Rodrigo, used to be young, younger you and younger now by Miley Cyrus.