lili's footnotes ♡

 sunday. grass smells like grass. children playing, people taking photos. church was okay. I'd listened more intently to the foreign homily than I ever did back home. It's funny. The way I'd hoped to hear something in English, praying there'd be some sense smacked back unto me. i cried for the third time this year during the first song when the ball rang to signify the start of the mass. last night was my second, in the shower, repeating affirmations because my thoughts were starting to get ahold of me again. it sounds exaggerated, but once you actually live through it, it would make sense. it makes so much sense to me now. sometimes i think these tribulations are vital to my development, as it would allow me to understand others better by wearing their shoes. it sort of makes me wiser somehow, despite me wanting to kill myself every time. what is wisdom if I can't apply it in my life because I'll be dead. I won't be dead. i always wonder when I'm going ...

 Despite having a rigid memory of useless things, i.e. things I would benefit from none at all if by nostalgia, I have little to think about in that one-time experience in Vigan. Actually, I have a lot to say, they're only waiting to be unlocked when my brain is involuntarily capable of doing. Referring to the videos, however, they have stayed there for four years. Now, they are free. I've always been overwhelmed by the thought of editing the clips and compiling them together. I thought what a waste of pretty clips only to be edited by a novice like me. I really wanted the outcome to be great, perfect if possible. That's how it dusted away in my CapCut drafts for four years, taking up storage space. In all honesty, I still find little edits that could be made better in the uploaded video , but I'm vowing to create and share despite the apparent flawed outcome--mostly only apparent to me, but you know. My camera broke last year. For the first time in three years also, I...

 I forgot the purpose of this blog was to swap Twitter. In that silly bird app where I used to feed the void of about two-hundred followers spam of text that doesn't make sense, but which I considered funny, I wasted hours, but it felt comforting. And funny. I love that bird app, though if I were to live a better life as some say one should, I'd have to find alternative ways of coping. For a while, I thought I could never get around things without Twitter. Instagram worked for a while, but soon, I became too annoyed at myself for oversharing with my face as the backdrop on the screen. Even without my face, talking about my thoughts on that camera app felt too open. I realized I'd prefer oversharing with text and text alone. Photos just make things more real than they are (i.e. thoughts). Thoughts are only best in theory, well, sometimes there may be benefits to actualizing, but in my case, most of the time it really is otherwise. It is 11:44 p.m. and I decided to sleep abou...

Holding up a toothbrush in one hand and a glass of soymilk in the other reminds me of that one night in Malaysia. There were no teaspoons, though teacups, hot water, and packets of Milo were available. With three toothbrushes on the table, we had makeshift teaspoons. They were sanitary, being packed in wrappers of plastic.       It's not every night I get to dance in the apartment. I used to never even dance in apartments. There weren't any apartments to dance in, but back home there was also no space to move around. I mean there was, but not that much to really look silly. We have windows that overlook windows from the buildings across the street. Imagine how Amsterdam's buildings are. That, minus the colors. And there's moss everywhere. I feel like it's less romantic given the clothes being hung outside their windows. Though, it is a step closer to Pinterest architecture. They look pleasing during the day, in the night they look okay. Each window light isn't e...

when I started to feel somewhat better. 

As the neighborhood's last flicker came to nigh, the walking stood still, the breathing spoke not a single syllable. Before it came to this, a loud gasp echoed door to door, consuming the oblivious. There it was as the oblivious saw it, having its world shaken down to a halt; everything there was at present, only sucked through a silent expanse of dark and grey. I found its grief questionable as to think I loved the wide expanse of dark. I felt alive with it, as though I could finally be at present with every part of my body: my senses, my emotions, myself; I am aware of everything at once, but I am at ease. There is no wave of strength creating a collision towards my weaknesses, there is no noise interrupting the pleasing sound of tranquility. I feel as though I have found myself back, I know myself now, only now—the flick has now turned towards my negativity, the positivity of the oblivious, and now I am spiraling back down again to that dark expanse of black and grey, and every ...