Q1 2025: Life by Sow, Wrapped

the in-between, the undoing, the rebuild

my dearest readers, hello, how are you, I’ve missed you,

I say sheepishly to you as I break my silence on this corner of the internet. For the past many months, there were just too many thoughts, too many happenings, too many feelings to make sense of to put myself out here again. But one word at a time, I’m craving to find my way back to this outlet, to my voice, to this safe little home i’ve carved out for my reflections, and to you. so, hi!

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Q1 started like most chapters of change do: with a fog I couldn’t yet navigate. I had just finished applying to grad schools, and now was waiting for interview decisions to trickle in. Convinced the universe was going to hand me a hard no, I prepped myself for disappointment and told myself I’d be fine regardless.

It was a season of limbo, of waiting and wondering. And then, everything I thought wouldn’t happen… did.

One by one, the doors opened and opportunities I didn’t let myself fully imagine began to fly in.

In September, I’ll be heading to my dream school.

Even now, writing that feels surreal - like I’m watching it unfold from the outside. But currently, the joy is waiting to be felt, as I’m still stuck in this feeling of disbelief, even numbness. I wait for it to sink in slowly and soften into real gratitude.

But in the same breath, it’s also at times surreal to think about everything that dramatically shifted in the other direction this past quarter. What I held with certainty ceased to exist. What I had held closest to my heart no longer was in my reach.

It’s a strange thing, to find intense clarity in one part of your life while losing it in another.

The contrast is dizzying. The tides shifting. The ground underneath rearranging.

For a girl who loves her plans and knowing what her future could look like, whether it is plan A or plan Z, suddenly needs to cope with new context and circumstances life gave her.

Everything I was yearning for last year now granted, but at the simultaneous dissolving of a different idea of my future into imagination and stardust.

And right now, I’m trying to sit still in it all, and learning - slowly, but surely - to trust the unfolding.

I was lying down in shavasana in a yoga class this morning, when the yoga teacher said: observe your thoughts like you would clouds, letting them float in, shapeshift, and pass. no cloud more important than the other, treat them with equanimity. without clinging, without labeling, they’re all part of the sky.

And I realize this is the precise idea I’ve been returning back to this past month: to just let all the thoughts, the internal dialogue, the constructs, the memories, the plans just rush through me - to eventually find stillness.

I keep coming back to this idea too: that if memory didn’t exist, we could be new people every moment. And maybe, even with memory, we still can be. Every moment is an unlived one, untouched and irretrievable. And there’s power in choosing again. And again. And again.

Through the rush of what may feel overwhelming - the goodest of the good, and the worst of the worst - and the concurrent moments of desired stillness, I know what I want and need for myself.

For once in my conscious adult life, I want to delicately hold the big love I give to people and re-direct it back to myself. I want to actively choose myself, and work to be my own best friend first. A writer who journals everyday, I thought I knew myself well… enough. But, with the number of little discoveries I’ve had in the past month, I realize I need to rotate the chair back in my direction, and ask myself to dig deeper into my story and my journey.

This next chapter feels like a soft demolition, pulling apart old scaffolding and rebuilding from the roots up - really learning what that means beyond self-care and solo date nights. I want to sit with the hard questions, take long walks without needing to mentally arrive anywhere, spend time in silence without needing to narrate my stream of consciousness. I want to deconstruct stories I’ve been telling myself for years about who I am and what I deserve. And when old patterns resurface - as I’m certain they will - I hope I meet them with curiosity and patience, instead of shame.

And while so much of this work is internal, I’ve been holding close the people who feel like home, the ones who remind me who I am when I’m weak enough to forget. my community, my tribe, the people that give me life every single day.

journal excerpt from sometime in march

A few weeks ago, a few people of this community I hold so close, my family and my family friends, took a trip to costa rica. It was a pre-planned vacation that came timely right at the moment of my overwhelming good and bad.

In the midst of that trip, I found a special moment I’ll come to treasure for a long time: sitting directly underneath the Nauyaca waterfall where I entered a deeply meditative state for the first time ever.

To enter a state like that, especially in a time when I was struggling to find a break from my thoughts and feelings, was nothing short of magic.

The roar of the water drowned out every spiraling thought, and for the first time in literally my entire conscious lifetime, I couldn’t hear myself think.

The silence felt sacred, like it was the most grounding sound in the world.

There was no space for anything but just presence and breath underneath that waterfall.

And it reminded me, that there is a world outside of my inner voice. A vast one that is still full of beauty, surprise, love, and wonder. That there are infinite experiences, feelings, adventures, and connections waiting to be unlocked.

It was one of those moments that quietly rearranges something inside you - not with force, but with clarity. It’s not like this feeling was permanent, but it did have a residual impact in unlocking something in me.

And maybe that’s what healing and growing is. Not permanent shifts, not a destination, but a series of moments that don’t bring you back to who you were, but rather make space for who you’re becoming.

So what’s next for me these next few months?

This is the season of me becoming my own anchor, my own guide. A season of me resting. A season of me taking a pause, letting myself serve my needs, my wants, my reflections first, before school and a new move to a new city takes over later this year.

And a season of letting softness rewire me. Of solo dates, family dinners, passport stamps, reading books, losing myself in sci-fi worlds, boxing classes, new friends and skills in a summer badminton camp, trying pottery or maybe learning how to make the perfect flat white.

I’ll be traveling a whole bunch - from Mexico City to Slovenia to next door in Idaho.

I’ll be spending the last few months of working my big girl full-time job before I’m a student again for two years. And in between, I need to re-learn my microeconomics and world history so I actually sound like I finished my K-12, let alone undergrad.

And I’ll be taking a vipassana course - a 10 day meditation camp where you make a vow of silence. No journaling, no reading, no making eye contact with anyone but myself. Just me and my mind - a terrifying but thrilling idea. But something about it feels right for where I am - leaning and learning to trust myself in stillness.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how easy it is to define ourselves by the people and roles we orbit. We become reflections of our surroundings, shaped by conversations, routines, and quiet expectations.

But what happens when all of that shifts?

Who am I, really? What makes me feel alive, what makes me shrink? What do I want for myself, when there’s no one to give to, no one to reflect?

The answer isn’t clear yet, and maybe it won’t be for a while. But I’m learning to be okay with that, as I lean into that at-once cosmic and personal question this new quarter.

What I am about to say comes from someone who is a chronic planner, so know that I don’t say it lightly: I am finding that uncertainty can be a quiet kind of grace - an invitation to be present, to listen, to soften into trust.

So as I go from one destination to the next, here’s to the in-between.

To soft steps forward, to the golden hours yet to come, to new versions of me already becoming every moment, to everything beautiful unfolding as we open our eyes to it, and to walking toward the light, even when the path is still forming.

With softness, stillness, and big skies above,

I’ll meet whatever’s next with an open heart.

Until next time,

Sow :)