Taking Stock #7: Cruel Summer [July ’23]

I’ve always been really bad at consistency and if there’s one thing I am regretting the most these past year or so, it’s that I failed to keep up with these Taking Stock posts that have been a big part of personalizing this blog and that used to mean so much to me. My last one was posted January 2022 which was my 2021 Reviewed post (crazy, it’s been that long!). I failed to make my 2022 Reviewed post (a thing that really bummed me out 😔) when there are lots of things that happened to me during that year. And in the span of, what, almost 7+ months in 2023, a lot has drastically changed and now I can’t look at my 2022 experiences the same way and talk about it like I intended to. I realized that documenting in the moment is really important to preserve those “point-in-time feelings” as things could change so fast and it’ll be hard to look back if you’re not careful. But this is an effort to start again. That’s the beauty with everything in life: you get to be patient enough with yourself to deal with these “failures” and get to re-start whenever you choose to. So here’s me writing about my beautiful (and heart breaking) July:

“Taking Stock” is a meme that encourages us to slow down and take stock of where and how are we right now.

July was a blur. And I meant that wholeheartedly. I feel like I’ve been everywhere and felt everything – which, to my otherwise normally neutral-state self, proved a bit too much to handle. I’ve dealt with some major heartbreak this past June and it left me reeling from emotions that I am not prepared to feel. It was unexpected and it also hurt like hell. Being the INTJ that I am (I don’t deal well with unexpected stuff and sudden changes), it felt like having the proverbial rug I was standing on suddenly pulled under me. And if I am in an unfamiliar “place”, I immediately default to going to my comfort state OR, in this case, throw myself into the deep waters and hope to God it drowns my thoughts enough to not think about things. And so that’s how my July started.

In this month, I flew to three different places: I went way south (of Ireland) to the unfamiliar lands of Israel to visit a friend and hoped to “Eat, Pray, Love” my sorrows away in a city whose people, food, and customs are not that familiar to me. Then I explored a bit of London by myself on a weekend: been to little pockets of it that I haven’t seen and experienced before, enjoyed the time alone moving through crowds and busy subways, and found ways to fall in love with a city that I somehow didn’t like much before. After a week of break, me and my friends jetted off to Wales as this is the only “kingdom” we haven’t been to in the UK. It was a fun time, exploring, eating and walking – god, the walking. The act of displacing myself was such a high – but of course, after that came the crash.

It’s the quiet, blank moments that were harder. When you’re forced to face your thoughts and go through with them. I was initially reading Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss when I found Annie Lord’s Notes on Heartbreak calling to me in the airport bookstore. So I bought it and started reading it as soon as I paid for it…. and it became the book of my July 2023, the book of my heartbreak. When you’re going through something, it is natural to go somewhere you feel you’d be understood, find someone that could relate. And when you are in pain, it always feel like you are going through it alone – the emotion too intense, it’s hard to imagine that it’s a common, universal experience. But it is. And, reading this book, it annoyed me to be confronted by the fact that it’s true.

But it is also a comfort.

It’s funny now but this book almost gave me a roadmap of getting over a breakup. I felt like I was going through it with her. And when it came to a point where Annie already started to come out of the dark cloud that is her heartache, it gave me hope that someday, in the foreseeable future (though I don’t know when), I can be in that place as well. By the time I finished it, I was convinced that it’s impossible to not get over this even if at that moment, I feel like it is.

“A lot of the time, the only way to withstand pain is to poeticise it, imagine it as something beautiful, unparalleled. Why suffer for something so ordinary?“, so Annie said. There is a phrase that I’ve been pondering on: “romanticize your joy” – a beautiful sentiment, an effort to make your happiness last a little bit longer. But it seems that these days, I am doing the antithesis of that: I am romanticizing my pain. Not really an effort to make it last longer (I am not that of a masochist) but making sense of it through words and art and everything in between. I don’t know, maybe this is how I cope.

Despite everything, I do still think that it is worth it to be able to feel unbridled love and affection towards a person even if it means unbearable heartache if it was taken away or if, due to some circumstance, you’re not allowed to feel it anymore. There is beauty in feeling a little too deeply, holding emotions a little too close. It is a privilege to be able to feel the breadth of human emotions. This is a unique moment when you feel sad and nostalgic and sometimes hopeful but most times miserably numb. A moment when you can feel so much and so little, at a given time. It amazes me, the capacity we can hold. That is the silver lining I decided on, the silver lining I chose.

And so, I will leave you with this thing I wrote in a good day around the tail-end of July:

July 28, 2023. I always go back to Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts these days. “It’s easier, being heartbroken in your thirties, because no matter how painful it is, you know it will pass. I don’t believe one other human has the power to ruin my life anymore.“

I read this book at around this same time last year, not expecting the roller coaster ride that I’ll be in after it. And now, I am back at square one. Mending a broken heart, figuring out myself over again.

Most times, it’s not the explosive crying-yourself-to-sleep feeling. There is the pain of losing someone you shared your most vulnerable and intimate self with, sure. But the sadness is usually just a constant hum or a soft pulse in the background. The truth of the matter is that it a numbing feeling and it just makes everything fade in gray.

But there are also days like this when I am walking in an unusually sunny city. When the morning sunshine hits just at the perfect angle and it almost feels like everything sparkles. The warmth of the sun against my face, the almost-chilly wind brushing back my overgrown bangs from my eyes, the hum of a city starting to come alive – it feels like hope. Healing is not a linear process, as they say. And I wanted to memorize this moment so that I could go back to this when I am feeling down: that there are days when I would genuinely think, believe, AND feel that everything’s going to be alright. ⋆｡°✩

I’ve read somewhere in Instagram about “glimmers” – basically the opposite of triggers. “It’s a moment that makes you feel hopeful and joyful, happy or grateful.” Yes, these random moments are my glimmers.

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Now on to the breezy stuff:

I AM CURRENTLY

reading A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I just started it (literally only 2 chapters in) so I don’t really have any insight on it yet. I’ve been on a buying binge from my favourite second-hand bookstore in Belfast (and one of my favourite places in the city), Keats and Chapman, and I was so glad when I saw a copy of this in the Modern Lit section. The owner said he was a bit sad after finishing this book and I am excited for the prospect (lol). This was recently adapted into a move starring Tom Hanks (A Man Called Otto, stylized for the American audience, I suppose) and having taken the pledge of Readit1st (as much as I can, at least), I am planning to read it first before watching it. Fredrik Backman‘s Anxious People is one of the most important books in my life and I have a feeling that it would have the same vibes. I hope so! ✨

writing my Normal People Reading Diary post. I did some journaling last night and was able to finish a spread for Normal People and I can’t wait to share it. I haven’t posted a review of this book yet but by making this diary, I hope it will make it easier for me to draft one. That’s always the problem with books that I absolutely adore, it’s always hard to organize and put my thoughts to paper (in this, a blog post). But we’ll get there. At least we have this Reading Diary.

listening on repeat to the Cruel Summer Spotify song radio. I think the song radio recommendation changes per personal playlist and algorithm so it won’t be the same every time. I discovered a song in this radio that never failed to make me sad: Ceilings by Lizzy McAlpine. The progression of the lyrics is what hit me the most: from “it feels like the start of a movie I’ve seen before” to changing it to “it feels like the end of a move I’ve seen before”. According to Genius, this is a “nostalgic reminiscence of a past relationship” and it fits so perfectly. I made a montage of my own with this song because it’s been running through my head ever since that faithful June night. Snippets of it calling back to a year well spent. Watching (and making) the montage made me sad but there’s this weird feeling of me channelling all my sadness and nostalgia in that one video and song, and letting it all go. So in a way, it’s a sort of a personal catharsis. 😅 (Also adding this wee podcast that really helped me process stuff, even a little bit. I can’t help that my brain always default to logic when it comes to this. And this podcast broke this situation down into little logical chunks, and it significantly helped me deal with it better.)

watching Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building. I don’t think I’ve said it enough but I love this series so much! There’s something so classic about this show: the premise, the storyboarding, the music, and even the costumes. Plus they have amazing new cast additions this season. I saw that Loretta (played by Meryl Streep) audition in the beginning of Episode 1 and I was instantly blown away by the talent. What a wonderful woman Meryl is! And this is another season of me drooling over Mabel’s wardrobe.

cooking or rather baking this Almond Flour Bread. I am trying to maintain a low carb diet these days and constantly attempting to make this. I made a decent loaf last time but it ended up not being able to keep to its usual shelf life because I failed to incorporate the egg whites properly and fully at the end. I somehow attempted to make the more sophisticated version to have a more fluffy bread (because I was ambitious like that lol) and it backfired. I hope to make this again sometime this month because I really miss my French Toast mornings. 🤤

feeling a little bit hopeful for the rest of the month It’s a simple ask: I just hope I feel much better the rest of my August.

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This post got longer than I initially planned but I am glad I got these words out of the way. Long-winded written posts have always been my jam anyway. And it really forced me to slow down again and make a coherent ball out of my thoughts these days. I almost forgot how this series/meme helps me in centre-ing myself and, after all this time, it still works like magic.

(Note: The original title of this post was “Notes on (my) Heartbreak” as a pun to Annie Lord’s book but I felt like it was too on-the-nose and I might cringe at it looking back. So Cruel Summer it is – because I am a lowkey Swiftie anyway and this summer is indeed cruel for my heart. 😅)

How about you? How’s the past month for you?

Also, a little SURVEY: What do you think of this post? Do you like seeing more personal posts in this site? TIA for the response, if ever you are kind enough to give one. 😊

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