hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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If you had to pick your five most favorite scenes you've ever written in your fics, what would they be?
Ok time to answer this lol. It’s so hard for me to pick 5 scenes that are my favorite to write, idk why, I’m just an odd person. But I did ask some of my mutuals what their favorite scenes were & they gave me their opinions! (Thanks guys)
1. The tree comfort scene in the first book of LIAB. I remember that particular section of the story was really dark and tense & then POOF we had tree cuddles. It was the first time the boys were cuddly together before things were official between them. Idk it was a nice breath of fresh air before it all went to hell.
2. The first bathtub scene in RIA with Sokka confronting his scars and Zuko being there for him and washing him while trying to give helpful advice he remembered from uncle. That was fun & I know a lot of people enjoyed that.
3. I’d have to say I enjoyed writing Aang & Sokka first meditation scene in ITF because I love meditation & exploring the depth of the human mind. I also loved giving Aang’s character more depth than just a goofy kid. He is wise and experienced so it was nice to give him an area that he was skilled in that allowed him to slow down and help his friend.
4. I gotta say in RIA I liked writing Sokka destroying that RR with a stick. Not just the murder but the conversation leading up to it and the implications the man made and Sokka twisting that around to justify his actions. (Also the man took pity and took of his helmet to seem more human to the boy he was trying to bond with which was his ultimate demise.) & it was cool that on the other side of camp Zuko was also taking control of his situation and killed the archer RR.
5. Last but not least would be Sokka’s fever dream, I enjoyed writing it even though it made me incredibly insecure to post haha. I pack in a lot of strange weird symbolism & hidden meaning & foreshadowing that I just know doesn’t make any sense but does it have to? It’s a fever dream! Idk it was nice & Yue was there so that was awesome.
Soooooo that’s it I guess!! (I do have a few scenes coming up with Zuko & an adult that I’ve already written & I’m really excited about because oh thank god it’s a fucking adult talking to Zuko & he isn’t growling and he is actually SHARING?? whaaatttt??? ;)
Oh & I’m really excited about TWO adults who have some scenes together that make me giggle just thinking about them interacting but that’s future stuff)
Ok that’s it!! Yippieee
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an update
Actually I am still upset a majority of the people in the fandom just ignored my pinned post. Like me posting again isn't me suddenly forgetting or anything, I'm just genuinely trying to carve out a space for myself again in this fandom again but I'm genuinely struggling to do that knowing that a majority (overwhelming amount actually) of people in this fandom continue to stan her and are okay with alienating me and other black and fans of color as a result. Which is ironic given the fact that this series is hailed as extremely diverse in its setting and characters and yet the fandom is still so racist and overwhelming white (or subscribed to white supremacy) that their go-to artist for their playlists for characters is a woman who dated a neo-nazi because "she's an amazing songwriter." I promise you Iko and Cinder would not be streaming (or even give a fuck about) Evermore.
A similar thing happened in the fandom in 2015 when Taylor Swift started feuding with Nicki Minaj because she mistook Nicki's critique on the music industry marginalizing Black female artists as an attack on her. Swifties (and lunartics) reblogged on my dash calling Nicki Minaj a g*r*lla and other antiblack slurs I'm not going to list and that caused me to distance myself from the fandom.
So seeing 7 years later this fandom, with brand new people, who are still Swifties, ignore and pretend Taylor never dated who she did, and then continue to openly stan and love characters who are of said race that were harmed by her, displayed extreme cognitive dissonance and made me lose my fucking mind respectively.
I just don't want anyone in the fandom to look at themselves and have the audacity to call themselves an ally to ANY minority if they GENUINELY continue to stan Taylor Swift at this point. You had an opportunity to openly support a black woman who was hurt by your actions in this fandom and not only did you ignore me, you kept stanning this woman who has, to this day, never addressed or taken accountability for who she dated.
And if you run to that blogger asking her opinion on this, I don't care. At the end of the day, other women of color who continued to ignore TS actions implicitly side with her racism and her racist fans and continue to harm and marginalize black women.
And if you see this post as me "complaining," fuck you.
Thank you to the 2 people of color who reached out to me and talked to me about this. It means so much more than I could put into words and thank you for holding space for me.
Ultimately, I've chosen to stay and continue being active because I refuse to let a fandom overlap ruin my experience while I'm here, and know I can still find and build community here that doesn't interact with TS.
Gaia
edited: 17/09/23 all edits are bolded
EDIT: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LMK IF YOU SEE A SWIFTIE BLOG INTERACT WITH MY POSTS. I HAVE ALL OF THEM BLOCKED BUT AFTER THE IS SITUATION I WON'T TAKE ANY CHANCES HAVING THEM ENGAGE WITH MY POSTS. JUST SEND ME AN ASK/MESSAGE WITH THE POST LINK LETTING ME KNOW. THANK YOU!!
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