The Dusty Diary #3

Posted on 01/07/2021 by Lenn

Hi, hello. Here I am again, back at this corner of my website to talk and rant about the stuff that I’ve been going through in the past couple of weeks or so.

In a span of three weeks, I’ve had so many realizations about my life that it just seemed a little overwhelming and scary. The realizations started when I had to undergo an out-patient medical procedure (which I’ve gone through back in 2019), it was scheduled on March 2020, but COVID happened and lockdowns were imposed. I’ve been so bothered by the number of cases and deaths at the time that I didn’t want to go to the hospital nor risk going outside in general, so I postponed the procedure. Eight months later, the virus is still here but cities are slowly trying to open up again and we kind of discovered a way to go around it by using masks and shields and just being extra extra careful, so I decided to go on with the procedure because it’s been long overdue — I still didn’t want to go to the hospital so I opted for a clinic instead for just a little bit less possibility of catching the virus and adding up to my current condition.

A few days later, I got my result and it didn’t turn out good. I’ve cried a lot and started to look back on my life — the result scared me out of my wits. I felt devastated and the worst part is that no one seemed to be taking it seriously, so I basically didn’t have anyone to confide in who understands me. The days that followed was either, I didn’t get enough sleep or I sleep the whole day through.

What I hate the most are those moments in the wee hours of the night when I am alone with my thoughts. I was just there — lying in bed and staring up at my ceiling trying to shut my mind. Then I looked back in the past two years and realized that in my almost 27 years of existence, I’ve only started to feel alive in 2018. The past 2 and a half years, even with a lot of pressure and stress, have been the best years of my life. It scared me even more because I wanted to spend more years living that way, I wanted to be able to do things with the person I love — to break rules, to go out of my comfort zone, to go places, and to learn new things.

It’s funny because there were so many times in my teenage years where I just wished that I wasn’t born or that I wish I didn’t have to live a long life so that I can just stop being here. Now, I just wanted to live despite all the stress and problems that I may or may not go through along the way, I just want to live and see for myself. All our plans for our future, I don’t want them to be just plans — I want to actually be in that future, in that moment.

Update: So this week, I decided to go to the hospital and have them do the same procedure on me and the findings turned out to be different from the one that I go back in December. I am so relieved and grateful.

High Hopes for 2021

Posted on 01/01/2021 by Lenn

I’ve said it a million times this year, you all said it, too — 2020 was not our year. There were so many challenges: The Taal volcano eruption, COVID-19, typhoons, etc. We’ve been through so much this year. It wasn’t easy, heck, it’s the hardest year for all of us. Personally, the pandemic took a toll on my mental health and it has been a struggle for me to wake up every morning and find the courage to go on and face a new day. It felt like I don’t have any goals, the days were repetitive and I feel like I’m living in a loop. It’s suffocating because I don’t get to go out because of the virus — honestly, the whole year just sucked.

But, hey, we survived, didn’t we? That counts for something. Wait, scratch that — it’s the most important thing we did in 2020, we survived and continued to push forward despite everything. With that, I hope that the coming year will be better for all of us and may the whole world be COVID-free in 2021.

Despite the year being more stressful than the previous years, I would still like to allot some time listing the things that helped me stay sane:

Because of the pandemic, we are all advised to stay at home and follow quarantine measures so as not to catch the virus which gave me more time for reading. That being said, I was able to read 42 books (as of writing) this year which is equivalent to 13,468 pages!
I was also able to take care of my skin more. Since I don’t go out a lot anymore, my skin is not exposed to invisible dirt, smoke, and other stuff that may cause breakouts. So my skin is more softer!
I learned how to cook a little and prepare my own meals! I learned how to make lasagna, flying saucer (which bread stuffed with lots of cheese), homemade pizza, and my own guacamole recipe!
I was able to save more money since I didn’t get to spend it on lunch outs and impulse-buys. I did buy a lot of books, yes, but I learned how to manage my money.
I read outside of my comfort zone; I started to love mystery/thrillers!
I got a work promotion!

It’s not a lot and everything I’ve listed are probably just little things but they are important to me and they’re the ones the helped keep my head above water.

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s all hope for the best. ❤

Christmas 2020

Posted on 12/25/2020 by Lenn

Merry Christmas, everyone! It seemed like only yesterday when I was writing my Christmas 2019 post. I can’t believe the year is coming to a close already! I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything, to be honest, because I had so many plans set for 2020, but we ended up being stuck at home. Hopefully, the coming year will give us more chance to go on adventures and explore new places!

When this post is published, I will probably be at my grandparents’ house in Tagaytay where we usually spend Christmas at. This year, we’re going for another Samgyupsal-inspired feast with a touch of the classic Filipino dish called Relyenong Bangus which we ordered from a seller from Malabon before going here. My grandfather couldn’t eat properly because he recently had to of his teeth extracted, that’s why we had to mix our Samgyupsal meal with some soft food.

Anyway, I’m sharing with you guys my Christmas 2020 outfit! Haha I took a photo before we left so that I can include it in this post. The dress I’m wearing is the one I bought from Zara in November and it’s really comfy and loose! The print is also very simple yet festive. I absolutely love it.

I will most likely write another blog post specifically for this outfit. In the meantime, I hope you are all enjoying the holidays and your Christmas Eve feast.

What about you? How are you spending your holidays?

The Dusty Diary #2

Posted on 10/10/2020 by Lenn

I haven’t been myself lately.

Yup, you read that right. I haven’t been myself lately, again. Just when I thought I have finally moved past that phase. It’s been five months since I last wrote that first entry for The Dusty Diary where I talked about how my anxiety has been getting worse during the pandemic. I said that I’ve been trying out different things that I think might help me get through it. I didn’t write any updates about it, but during the past couple of months, I really felt like I’ve been doing better.

So to give you a brief run down of what I’ve been busy with during the past couple of months, I’ve been:

reading a lot, of course.
watching a lot of anime.
buddy-watching a series with my boyfriend.
active on bookstagram.
trying to do bullet-journaling.
doing some workout.

It worked for a couple of months as I’ve mentioned at the start of this post. But in the past week, I’ve been feeling a bit down for no apparent reason. It’s frustrating just how when I thought I am finally getting better, here’s the anxiety again, looming over my head like a dark cloud.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking what I could have done wrong in the past couple of days for my anxiety to resurface, and I came to the conclusion that maybe I’m just feeling a little burnt out from work. I’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t know how to deal with it because what should I do? I need to work to earn money and suffice my needs (and wants). So I ignored it, whatever it was, I just had to ignore it because I can’t file a leave every time I feel this way. I thought it will go away eventually. I was wrong.

During work days, I always wake up with dread knowing that I’d have to spend 8 hours of my day in front of my laptop, attending meetings, and dealing with my tasks. Sometimes, even a small task feels like it’s going to take me forever to finish it. I keep reminding myself that I’ve done bigger tasks and have submitted each of them way before the deadline itself, but it just doesn’t work — I feel entirely restless most of the time. So I always find myself just looking forward to the weekend, so I can have all my time to myself.

Yet, these days, it’s either I sleep a lot or don’t get any sleep at all and it’s infuriating. There are nights where I’ve been awake until the wee hours of the morning, listening to music that might help me fall asleep while drawing spirals, the way John Green told me to. It’s funny thinking about it, if you’re not suffering from the same thoughts.

I’ve also been suffering from migraines more often these days which almost always result to my being irritated. I snap at everyone who talks to me because I feel like I need more silent moments — I just don’t want to speak with anyone. There are also times when I am in a desperate need for an escape and on most days, it’s through reading that I find my peace. I lock myself up inside my room, just so no one can come in and pull me away from my book. Sometimes, it’s through journaling as it keeps me busy, especially when I’m trying to think of ideas that will make a spread look pretty enough. But there are days when I crave a different kind of escape — I just need to get away from this dark empty space inside my head.

So, yes, here I am again; back at where I started. Again, trying to write all of my thoughts thinking that if I do, this blank space will take all of it away. If you made it up to this point, thank you for listening, even if this doesn’t have any conclusion at all.

Me? An Otaku?

Posted on 08/12/2020 by Lenn

I have always considered myself as an avid reader, so I read almost anything and everything. As I have mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t have a lot of friends when I was in elementary school and books have been my best friends since. I basically devoured every book that is available for me to read.

I used to read a lot of romance books (because my mom used to have a lot of Nicholas Sparks pocket books) back then. And in the middle of all that, I was also reading middle-grade fantasy books, nonfiction (e.g., National Geographic magazines, Almanac, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, etc.), comics, and horror books. It was just recently when I discovered the wonderful world of manga (and even more recently, anime).

I’ve always known that manga have a large cult following different types of fans depending on its genre (e.g., yaoi, yuri, shoujo, and others). Being a long-time comic book reader, it was a bit confusing for me when I first started reading manga because of the reversed way of reading it. I know so many people who are quite fans of reading manga. Take for example, my brother — he reads a lot of manga online and I never really cared about it before until I met my boyfriend a couple of years back who asked me to try it. Being a wide-reader, I did try it, but I never really expected to go deep into this fandom.

The quarantine has absolutely turned me into what they call an Otaku, a person with consuming interests in manga and anime. In my side of the world, reading manga or watching anime is synonymous to a geek or a nerd, which I don’t quite understand. In my perspective, I am just reading another book or watching another series/film. It’s still reading, it’s still watching. That’s it.

So what made me continue reading manga? What really cemented my being an Otaku was when I fell in love with Tokyo Ghoul‘s characters. I am far from finished with the first arc because I have yet to complete the physical copies, but I am absolutely obsessed with this manga that I even started reading other titles like One-Punch Man, Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and I recently preordered the Orange Collection Vol. 1 which I am really excited about. Hopefully it arrives this month. I also started reading Cardcaptor Sakura which has been my favorite anime when I was a kid.

Aside from reading manga, I also started watching anime. I started watching Sword Art Online, Erased (which I’ve already finished), and Your Lie in April. It’s been such a fun journey so far and I am absolutely looking forward to more manga to read and anime to watch.

How about you? Do you read manga or watch anime? Maybe you could recommend me something?

The Dusty Diary #1

Posted on 05/28/2020 by Lenn

When I first started blogging, I used to write about my daily encounters with different things. My Tumblr blog used to be a diary of sorts and since this pandemic has been really affecting my mental health, I felt that I needed to write these kind of stuff again because writing my feelings down is therapeutic for me. I needed to take extra steps that I think will help me get through this, so here I am:

It has been nearly three months since the lockdown was imposed in my country, and despite forcing myself to stay positive amidst all this ⁠— well, this pandemic and quarantine really did take a toll on my mental health.

During the first couple of weeks, I was able to stay sane by focusing on work, reading books, and sometimes I even tried to learn new things (e.g., cooking and making dessert). I thought I had my anxiety under control, but as the days go by and as the quarantine period in my side of the world was extended and extended and extended, I found myself more and more anxious. I tried distracting myself by spending way too much time on online shops which resulted in, of course, me buying so many things like books and skincare products. For a while, I was really happy ⁠— receiving a package sort of gives you that giddy feeling like receiving a gift on your birthday or on Christmas. It worked for a while, I felt happy whenever a package is delivered on our front door and I liked the thrill of opening it and, of course, using the products.

Again, I thought I had it under control, but last week, I’ve been having a hard time sleeping. I am tired and sleepy, but every time I try to close my eyes, my mind goes into a spiral of thoughts that I just can’t shake. I am overthinking again, and it seemed a lot worse than before this pandemic started. I’ve been thinking about the pandemic, the lockdown, my future, my stress from work and my deadlines ⁠— there were so many things running through my mind all at once that it felt like my head was going to crack open. I even came to a point where I cried and begged my mind to just stop thinking and just let me rest ⁠— I was so freaking restless.

Right now, I bought an over-the-counter medicine for some dosage of melatonin to help me sleep at night and I’ve also been drinking tea or milk before going to bed. I’ve been taking the meds for two days now, and so far, it’s helping me pretty well with my sleep though I’m still having occasional breakdowns during the day. I hope I get to cope up with all that is happening because having a mental breakdown at this time is so much harder.

I’ve also been constantly talking with my boyfriend and some of my friends about it, and most of them keep on telling me to just don’t overthink things as I do not have control over everything. I agree, I totally freaking agree, but the thing is, I just can’t force my mind to just stop thinking about everything. As I’ve mentioned, I even came to a point where I begged my mind to just stop ⁠— the noise in my head just don’t know how to stop. It sounds crazy, but it feels that way and I’ve been having intense headaches because of it. It’s so hard to deal with my anxiety, stress, and panic attacks when everything around me is stressing the hell out of me.

I hope that these baby steps like taking in dosages of melatonin, drinking tea/milk, and writing my heart out helps a bit with what I’m currently feeling because I don’t know what else to do.

Lenn of Spades ♠

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