The Idea Of Juxtaposition, That Is What Makes Me Curious And Want To Be Alive. The Idea Of Life And Death,

The idea of juxtaposition, that is what makes me curious and want to be alive. The idea of life and death, opposing things always in a balance. The yin and yang of existence. All things in life have another side to the coin, each apart of the other. It’s beautiful, and haunting, and lovely, and sad, and mad and crazy. Everything in life is amazing if you experience it the way it’s meant to be lived.

But that’s also so scary. To always be taking a risk in being alive, for your abundant joy could easily crack and make room for maddening unhappiness.

The balance of these things; these emotions are the tricky part of it all. And when your brain is so in tuned with the emotions of others, how can you possibly navigate your own head.

-Excerpts from my stupid brain, Quips & Musings, 2024

Learned this the hardest way possible in the past two years. It’s okay to let go of people who don’t support your growth.

“Accept the fact that you will grow apart from people you’ve had significant relationships with. Understand when someone no longer positively affects your life. Let them go. Don’t hinder your growth.”

— Lyjeeria

Sometimes I used to think about the person I was going to marry. That was before. That was before I met him.

Before I met him, I used to think it was an idea. This idea that there’s a person out there who will shake you so you’ll want to spend forever with them. Forever is a really long time with one other person (significant other that is), and I remember I always thought, I may meet them someday.

And I did think I met them at one point. But that was different because I just thought, “yeah, I could be with you for a while”, but it wasn’t until I met him that I realized. It exists.

And the weird thing is, I knew when I met him. But I didn’t really know because it was complicated, and I didn’t get to be with him for a while. But when we were together finally, it came so quickly, how much I knew. It’s like, this idea of what love should look like, isn’t an idea. It’s the soul of another person.

I knew, when I met him, forever would never be long enough. And that’s a really insane thing to know about yourself, and another person.

-Excerpts from my stupid brain, #2, Him, 2024

the artist's job is to communicate the noncommunicable

one of my teachers told me that but i had forgotten. like anything i've forgotten only to find again somewhere unexpected, it made me think. mostly about how perfectionism affects how i make art and. something clicked for the first time.?

there's no perfection. i cannot and will not reach perfection, my work will never be perfect and so i'm asking myself like. what's the point right? what's the point

but- hear me out for a minute okay- what if the point is to make it anyway? to look at perfection, to know it is impossible to achieve and to make it anyway? to attempt to communicate something that happened only once and will never happen again?

that's the point, i think. to try. that's the point.

“You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.”

— Ernest Hemingway

She felt overwhelmed at that moment. The overflowing love and warmth in her body coated her being in a sense of joy and happiness. It was as if the moment he pulled her back to his body, she knew he would never let her go. He pulled her back and kissed her, deeply. A kiss that conveyed more than words could in that moment.

It was odd, she always felt that words could say more than most other things. Words could bring reality to the pain she felt, to the hurt she endured. But this was different, this feeling was unlike any she had ever experienced with anyone ever. It was new, frighteningly safe, and overwhelmingly warm; a comfort in a person she had never known until now. A safe space in someone she had felt long ago was familiar, and never really got to know until about two and a half years ago.

The love and endearment she felt towards this person, it was amazingly clear, sound. She understood this person as well as she understood the back of her hand; and she stared deeply in his eyes every morning and evening. To love another soul so deeply was risky and vulnerable. But that’s the thing right? When you fall, there’s no coming back. You only have down to go, and once you are at the bottom, you are either alone and wondering how to move forward in the darkness; or cushioned by a soft embrace, one that is never to be experienced again in this life or another.

“To the one who takes my soul, forever yours”, by Kat E🫥

“Latina”, 2018 by Norman Engel