An update, and sampling of my best pieces!

To make up for what I'm about to do.

A sample of cheese, for this newsletter’s theme. By me.

Heyyyyy…

It’s another Essay Tuesday and I’m coming up empty-handed because mentally, I’m not doing so well! 🙃

I think Substack’s new Notes section has taken a negative toll on me, because I’m finding myself yet again comparing my work (and worth, gonna be honest) and ability to write anything meaningful to everyone else who seems to exist and thrive casually, yet exceptionally, over there.

It’s kinda hit me during a vulnerable spot; right before the cruise I was excited to explore and embody some concepts I felt confident would propel me forward in understanding what my next steps were.

I wrote them down, but it’s been hard to be as excited about what I was looking forward to pre-cruise. Working on it, but it’s not coming. And now it’s starting to feel a bit forced which never helps.

Since coming back from the cruise, and back to the reality of helping family finish planning my grandpa’s funeral (and back to the reality that I do indeed live in a country where teens and kids are being shot for everyday accidents…¹)

I feel like an outsider, and I’m completely aware that it’s definitely a “me” problem. I just wanna work on making things feel better in my world and in my head. I might be wrong (I hope so!), but it might mean me stepping back so I can work on this and live life and just… figure something out.

Too many of my posts have been sad, sappy “Oops I’m falling backward again and not doing too hot!” so I’ll spare you anymore for a while, and I don’t wanna force pieces to meet even a once-a-week-quota (I feel like the quality of my work could be better; I think the open rate has slowed cause I’m struggling to write better-quality pieces).

So instead of continuing this torturous cycle of explaining how I’ve yet again slid backward on my path to finding myself, I’ve decided to leave you with a roundup of my most popular (and favorite) posts over nearly a year stay here on Substack.

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A new chapter, a new substack

The biggest rebrand of my newsletter after mom died. How I was writing and the feel of everything just felt off after she passed, but I wanted to keep writing…

So I changed from Tiny Moments to Losing Orbit, and I explained all the changes I had in mind back then.

The foundation is the same, so it’s a good starting point.

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Sinner’s Bingo

This will always be a fun, and content-packed read! Shoutout to Reddit and all my other empowerment finds and tools back when I was more energetic and felt like I understood my world better.

Anyway, this piece is about setting boundaries with loved ones. And making a BINGO card on all the predictable things a loved one could say about you for “sinning” by doing something like living with your boyfriend.

A must-read.

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What if it never gets better?

There’s a positive spin to this, but to keep on the theme of despair, I wrote about my observations of it and how came to an epiphany to start turning it around.

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Writerhood

A piece advocating for writers and how similar they are to parents of actual children, yet a lot of writers never act as such.

A fresh perspective I believe a lot of writers would enjoy. Well go on, read it down below.

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How to tell the future

Biases aside, I love this piece not only because I was able to focus on my love for the videogame God of War: Ragnarok, but because it brought forward a truth I never realized before:

We all can tell the future.

And this isn’t some woo-woo magic article. This is a piece on the predictability of people when they live out a life pattern without ever changing.

Since seeing this concept in that game, I’ve been able to pinpoint it in so many people’s lives whose fates have or had been sealed based on their unchanging patterns.

Both a beautiful game, and a life-changing concept.

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I wonder if Spring could’ve saved her

Last piece for you to sample is a more recent one. This is an intimate poem about truly believing at some point toward the end of my mom’s journey that Spring could’ve saved her.

I interpreted those feelings now and then as best I could, and it would be an honor for you to read it.

Shoutout to

Maybe Baby

for having the sampler concept available for me to steal from as I try to get back on my writer/life feet.

Thank you both free and my one paid subbies for sticking around and being patient with me. I wanna bring my best foot forward but I feel a bit empty right now.

Unless something changes, I think I need to find things in the real world to fill me up.

Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to comment about any of the pieces mentioned above either here or in their own comment section. I always love interacting with ya!

I’m off to fix some smashed potatoes (with a jerk seasoning!), scrambled eggs, and a London fog. Then it’s off to work on figuring out what’s next.

See you soon (enough). :)

1. Like I really never thought I’d see the day when I could find an ounce of logic behind someone getting shot over scuffing someone’s J’s until I heard about the string of shootings recently for going to the wrong door to pick up a little brother, or mistaking someone else’s car as your own (this has also happened locally at the beginning of this year in another incident), or TURNING AROUND IN SOMEONE’S DRIVEWAY. I obviously don’t condone shooting people for any reason, it’s just wild to be able to say, “we at least know someone shot a person because they were angry they had their shoes scuffed. Now? There’s NO reason for these shootings.”