rae's ramblings

33 on 33

rae ✦ — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 06:17:00 GMT

10/24/25 08:31AM eating breakfast on a bench in the middle of rittenhouse square, philly

funny thing - before i got set up to actually start writing, my [fountain] pen fell to the ground. i gasped… and just whispered “oh well.” a few years ago, if this exact same thing happened, i would have probably [become so annoyed], called myself stupid [for dropping an expensive pen], and let that define whatever the mood was for the day. but today, i didn’t. i just whispered, “oh well” and went on with writing. if that isn’t a clear sign of the growth [i’ve gone through the past years], i don’t know what is.

i grew up thinking grandiose things are mandatory for birthdays even though i’ve only ever had 1 or 2 parties myself (that i can remember right at this moment). but today, i’m spending the morning just enjoying simple things - buying a matcha latte from a cafe i’ve never tried before, sitting on a bench in a park i’ve never been before, and just writing down what i have in mind, reading a book i’ve never seen (only bought it yesterday because the title seemed so apt for today), all while listening to one of my favorite artists i’m going to watch tonight. i don’t think i’ve ever done this before.

it’s so different, but i needed this… there is peace & gratitude in my heart at this exact moment.

today, i turn 33. a year older and hopefully wiser. i look back on all the things that i have learned over the years. i used to do this a lot when i still had a blog and was pretty consistent so i figured i’d do it again this year. i can’t even remember the last time i did this… probably seven or eight years ago. i’m hoping to tone it down to a sentence or two.

33 on 33 - thoughts i have & things i have learned over the past few years

the best weight you can ever lose is the weight of other people’s opinions [about you & your life].
rest is still productive.
age doesn’t equate to maturity. some of the older people i know are some of the most immature people i’ve ever met.
sometimes, actually more often than not, your worst enemy is yourself. love yourself as much, even more, as you love those you value.
no matter how much you want for something/someone to change, you do not have control of when it’s going to happen (or if it ever’s going to happen, really). you can’t do anything about things you can’t control.
with that said above, only focus on what you can control. things will actually shift, you’ll see - although it may not be the shift you prefer to see.
keeping things to yourself will do nothing good - it will eat up your mind and affect how you behave towards those you love and care about.
if you don’t set your own boundaries, others will do it for you. you won’t always like it.
sometimes, people just need someone to listen to them and not lecture them.
be kind - you never know who needs that.
relationships - all kinds of it - are two-way. both parties need to do their part for it to flourish.
having faith and believing in God is one of the major reasons why i’m still here.
the way a person grows up - their childhood, their environment, the family culture etc. - says & defines everything as to what and how the person will be as an adult.
related to what i said above - yes, it’s not your fault if you grew up with an unhealthy set-up. it’s what you do about it once you’ve made the realization that changes everything.
it’s okay not tho have everything figured out. you will eventually have the chance to work through it.
do things afraid when you can - but also be mindful and prepared for what happens next.
deciding to work on yourself - healing, getting better, processing unresolved trauma & issues - is one of the best decisions you can make for yourself.
yes, you can have friends and loved ones who have different opinions - but having different morals is another story.
talk to yourself the way you talk to your friends. you’ll find that sometimes, we’re kinder to others than to ourselves.
stop letting anyone else define things for you - your happiness, success, love. people have different lives than yours.
don’t let other people make you feel bad about your hobbies and all the things you love. you’re not performing for anyone if you really, really love them.
grief comes in waves and sometimes it’s a tsunami. yes, you can try to learn how to ride it. but other times, you can let it just swallow you whole - feel the pain. it’ll pass.
friends come and go. be grateful for all the time and love once shared.
nothing good ever comes out of your mind or your heart after midnight. better to just hold your pen and write, than to hold your phone.
there’s nothing wrong in changing your mind about certain things - especially if it’s for the better.
you can love someone and still feel like you never know them completely.
there are some things better left unsaid - but if you’re hard-headed like me, you will end up blurting it out anyway and realize that it’s not so bad.
it’s never wrong to voluntarily pluck yourself out of a situation that doesn’t add value to your life.
don’t let the fear of getting embarrassed or messing up hold you back from trying something new - how else are you supposed to find out whether it’s for you or not?
you can share a lot of things publicly and still be able to keep a lot of the things going on in your life privately.
picking up a book and spending time on hobbies are the obvious better choices instead of picking up your phone.
you are made up of all the little things you’ve experienced, a huge puzzle of pieces from parts of people who you love(/d) and have love(/d) you. you will always end up being changed no matter how brief the encounter is.
unlearning is as difficult as learning things - but it sure is worth it.

i didn’t really have something clever to end that journal entry. but let me end this post by saying that it took me yearsss to actually realize and learn the things i’ve written above.if you’re currently or ever at a point in your life where you feel stuck and everything just seems so bleak, know that i was in that same spot five or six years ago. a lot can happen - don’t rush things. you don’t have to have it all figured out all the time immediately. there’s no fixed timetable for everyone. anyone who tells you you’re supposed to know everything once you reach a certain age don’t even know what they’re talking about.

heck, i’m already 33 and i’m more than happy to admit that i still don’t have it all figured out. and that’s ok. because i know when i’m finally ready for whatever “it” will be, i will have been equipped with all the things i need. i’m pretty sure you will too. x

i need to get off of my desk and go to sleep,

rae

Guess who forgot they had Substack?

rae ✦ — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 03:45:37 GMT

I’m hopeless - the first chance I get to throw in a Taylor Swift lyric, I shamelessly grab it and put it in the subtitle. I had all this great comeback intro about my return and the last minute, I decide to just do this instead. *drags drafted intro to the trash bin* Anyway…

Hi. You’re probably wondering why you’re getting an e-mail or a notification from me. To help jog your memory: this is a newsletter I decided to create in November of 2022 back when I was unemployed and wanted to get back into writing - if you want to reread that, here’s the link. Since then (and up until June 2023), you probably subscribed… and then, well, silence. Not that I expected you to sit around eagerly awaiting a newsletter from me. If this were a house, it’d be a haunted one by now, covered in cobwebs and mold from neglect.

I’m coming clean and confessing that title is a lie. I never really forgot about it. I even had the app on my phone but I just wasn’t in the proper headspace and felt like I never was since my last post. It was a very emotional one and part of me found it difficult to follow it. That, and also because I mentioned in my first post that I didn’t want to pressure myself on the frequency of updates for this so it won’t feel like a chore, I never bothered reminding myself to write new posts. But also, everything was crazy the past two years I barely even used a planner. I did attempt to come back in three separate occasions, but in true ADHD fashion, I didn’t write those down or put a reminder for myself to see it through. Or well… I did write them down but kept moving them. Until lo and behold, it’s 2025. :) How lovely.

It’s a bit crazy I felt I wanted to come back at a time when a lot of people are flocking here to monetize their writing. I knew from the get-go that Substack was mainly a publication with paid subscriptions but I never expected even some of the content creators I follow to start their own now while I abandoned mine. And then you have me… dusting off my corner of the internet to… ramble about life. Feels on-brand, honestly.

That’s basically it - I just wanted to say I’m back. This year, I’d like to be more intentional about writing here. I would like to say that I just want to keep myself busy and this gives me the chance to exercise my brain but in reality, I just felt this yearning to write - same as I did back when I started this. So here I am. As with all the personal projects and hobbies I’ve started, I hope I can keep this up.

And now we come to my favorite part…

Rae’s Currently List

Watching: Severance. Finally started after letting it sit in my watchlist forever. I’m hooked!
Reading: I haven’t started anything yet. I’m planning to get back into reading this year. I will let you know in my next letter what I decided on.
Thinking about: the ube crinkle cookies I made. I’m going to go grab another one once I hit post.
Listening to: my Lauver playlist: currently playing as I finish this is While You Were Sleeping
Hyperfocusing on: finalizing my goals for my first 12-Week Year in 2025

This currently list is never going away, btw. :) That’s it for now - I’m saving the “catch-up recap” for the next letter (or two).

Do-do-dooing my night away (please listen to Laufey’s Dance With You Tonight so this closing doesn’t seem weird),

Rae

Of Grief: Year Two

rae ✦ — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 23:21:26 GMT

I don’t know when I stopped writing to and about you in length - but it seemed to be something I decided to do subconsciously - still quite uncertain. Maybe I lost my way around words a few weeks after the first month - my brain exasperated coming up with all the possible words just to describe how I was feeling - what I was going through. Or maybe it was dealing with my diagnosis of depression - my psych putting me on medication and so the feeling of anguish seemed like it diminished on the surface. Or perhaps it was because it seemed to me that nobody wanted to read about pain and how dare I rain on their own parades of positivity and happiness - how careless of me to put out these raw, unsolicited emotions and thoughts on display to people who have lives of their own.

I was so vocal about how devastated I was when you passed away and felt like I’ve used up all the words synonymous to sadness, pain, and grief. I poured my heart out to friends and family who reached out and already went through the situation I found myself in. But there was a nagging feeling of always having to tiptoe around most for fear of dragging down their moods. So I kept it in and tried to cope with it by myself or with Mum and Ting. I did a pretty decent job, I’d like to think.

My therapist told me yesterday that sometimes, the pain we feel when we lose someone we love isn’t always about just grieving for the loss, whatever form it may be. Sometimes it’s grieving what you pictured your life out to be had that loss not taken your loved one away.

My heart was filled to the brim with regret - it still is now - thinking of all the experiences I will never get to share with you. Of all the music we will never make, all the songs we will never sing. Of all the things I will never even have the chance to give you. And even though we always used to say “I love you”, I still feel like I never said it enough.

In ordinary days, I listen to all the songs you used to sing or play. Watch videos of you or us sometimes. I close my eyes and I can see you singing your heart out, playing skillfully on your guitar. I let the tears flow because I need it.

In my dreams, you’re well and alive. We talk, we sing, we laugh. It’s like you never left - and then annoyance creeps in when I hear my alarm. I hit snooze or stop and the sadness seeps in because it feels like losing you all over again.

You see, even in the most mundane of days, I allow myself to lament. But today… today isn’t like any other day. Today marks the second year of not having you in my life and it already feels like a lifetime. I clasp my hands and cry my heart out in prayer because I need all the strength God can bless me with to endure more years of this.

There’s no one-way street to go through the stages of grief. I keep the faith and hope for the best and take each day at a time. I keep springing back and forth to bargaining and depression when I thought I’m already at the point of acceptance. Grief is very contrary to what a lot of people say. No, it just doesn’t get better. Grief is synonymous to ocean waves. It comes and it goes - and you don’t have a single clue when. Sometimes the waves feel like they’re going to drown me, sometimes I feel like I can just ride it out and move forward… until the next giant wave comes.

June used to be a very happy month for me. But now, when June comes, it feels so heavy. Father’s Day and the anniversary of your passing a few days apart? It’s a two-fold hit and the days in between just isn’t enough to recuperate. I find myself always torn between assuring myself that you’re happier, doing better… because why couldn’t it have been happier… here? Better, here. I ask a lot more of those questions and remind myself that it can’t be undone and that whatever the answer is, it’s nothing my feeble human mind can ever comprehend. That life is fleeting. And no matter how painful it is and how short the years seem to be, I’m just grateful the Lord appointed you to be my father. That I got to experience the kind of love you had to give - it wasn’t perfect, but it was unwavering. In moments where I feel so heavy-laden, I see your smile and bear in mind that there was nothing you wanted more in life but for our family to be happy. So I have to be. I need to be.

Today and on all other days, I let myself grieve what could’ve been, would’ve been, and should’ve been. But know that there is also hope and love in my heart. Right in that big, gaping, you-shaped spot that will never get better. I’m just learning to live around it.

I love you, my jolly old soul. I’ll spend the rest of this life missing you.