[9:01pm]

I’m freestyling this entry, and posting it in real time. Gosh, I’m not sure where to begin. I feel a great burden to give context from the past few months, but it’s all so much that I’m overwhelmed just thinking about it. If the last few entries I made don’t make it painfully obvious, I was going through it chile! Phew! Praise God that I’m here to tell the tale. Anyway, to ease this burden, I have decided to just write what is in the present, knowing that bits and bobs from the past will make their way in naturally as I reflect.

Today, I had a thought while listening to a podcast. It’s something I’ve heard multiple times over, and the truth of it only settled deep in my soul recently. Life is hard, that’s a fact. Going through the difficulties of life, its challenges/hardships/valleys, whatever you choose to call it, is a shared human experiences. We all have things we struggle with, no one is exempt, regardless of what it looks like. And that really comforted me. In the midst of my struggles these past couple of months, what I realized made me despair the most was this idea I believed that I was the only one struggling, especially with the particular issues I faced, and that I would never be able to figure it out, or that I wasn’t figuring it out quickly enough. I was looking at these struggles as something outside of life, something I needed to fix and then get back to living. And yet, those struggles also constitute life. I am going through life, just like everyone else. One can only hope that these struggles build a new strength and resilience in us. At least that’s what I’m hoping for. The good news is, life is not all doom and gloom, it has its beauty as well, so much of it. Being loved and loving people, doing meaningful work, sunsets, good food, laughter, hugs, and the list goes on and on. There’s so much beauty in it, and amidst all the difficulties/challenges, I hope we all still get to experience this beauty, and it gives us strength to keep going one more day, one more hour, one more minute, whichever it is. I pray to have my eyes opened to more and more of life’s beauty, and the courage to contribute to it as well.

-Moonie x.

Photo Context: I remember the first time I had this wine was when I got it for a friend who was hosting me and a few other people for dinner. I was so nervous about what to bring, and since it was my first time meeting them, I called a mutual friend in a panic asking what to get. He just said ‘wine’, and this is where my intuition led me. To this day, it remains my favorite wine ever! 🍷