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November always seems to arrive with a certain kind of sadness. I suppose this is what happens when a year begins to draw its curtains and we find ourselves once again approaching the end of something. We start counting the things that happened, the things that didn't, and all the little moments in between. The plans we made, the places we imagined ourselves going, the people we thought would still be around. And those little promises we made to ourselves at the beginning of the year, when twelve months seemed like such a generous amount of time. Some things happened exactly as we hoped. Others took a different turn. Some never happened at all. Along the way, we changed our minds, changed our plans, lost a few things, found a few others, and learned to live with the circumstances that came with them. I wonder if everyone feels this way towards the end of a year. A little nostalgic for what has passed, a little disappointed about what could have been, and perhaps a little surprised by the person they have become. I don't think we always give ourselves enough time to feel these things. We are so accustomed to moving on to the next thing that we rarely stop to consider everything we have left behind. So perhaps November is a good time to do just that. To remember without rushing ourselves. To miss a few things without feeling the need to get them back. To accept that some stories ended differently from how we had imagined. And perhaps to leave a little room for the things that have yet to find their way to us. P/S: To the November babies, happy birthday. I hope this new year of your lives finds you a little kinder to yourselves, and brings you things you didn't even know you were waiting for. Mila B. 1st November 2026

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I love you in a way that could only ever be yours. I used to love so intensely before you. So intense that it felt as though every rib inside me was being torn apart. I used to think that was what loving someone deeply meant - to give so much of yourself that there would hardly be anything left when it was over. But I understand now that you can never love two people in exactly the same way. You love each person in a way that belongs only to them. A love that could never be repeated, because it was always meant for that one person. So I'll say it again. I love you in a way that could only ever be yours. I don't love you intensely. I don't think I have that kind of love left in me. I've given it to someone before. I loved them so intensely that I was willing to be ruined for them, to destroy the world for them, even to perish for them. But with you, I love in a way that makes me want to rebuild the world. For you, and with you. I want to love, to live, to heal, and to become better. I want to make a life in which there is room for both of us to grow, to make mistakes, to find our way, and to keep choosing each other. And I can tell you, this is a thousand times harder than dying for love. Because this time, I have to live. I have to try. I have to fight every day. I have to find the strength to be here, to be better, to stay just another day. And perhaps this is how I love you. Not by giving you what remains of a life I was willing to throw away, but by trying, every day, to build a life I want to stay for. M. | October 2026

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There were days when I thought I was doing better, and days when I wondered if I had made any progress at all. Days when I could go about my life as usual, and days when even the smallest things felt heavier than they should. October showed me that I can be struggling and still have things to be grateful for. I can be carrying sadness and still find reasons to smile. I can love someone deeply, look forward to little things, make plans, write about beautiful moments, and still have days when I don't quite know what to do with myself. Perhaps these things do not cancel one another out. For sometimes, life holds more than one truth at a time. I tried on the days when I had the energy to believe things could get better. I tried on the days when that belief felt impossibly far away. I tried even when I had no faith in the future, only the faint hope to see what tomorrow might bring. October is leaving again. And I cannot say that I am any better, happier, or stronger than I was when it arrived. But I am leaving it having tried. M. | October 2026

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Today wasn't a very kind day to me. I had more feelings than I knew what to do with, and by the end of the day, I don't even know how to be close to myself again. I wish I knew how to make room for all the things I feel without letting them take up so much space inside of my head. I wish I knew how to feel everything without feeling as though I'm slowly losing my grip on myself. And I'm back to the same question. When does it become bearable? M. | October 2026

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I met my eight-year-old self today, and she asked me, “Why do you talk to yourself like that?” “Like what?” “Like you don't like yourself very much.” It struck me how easily we forgive others for being human. We make room for their mistakes, their bad days, their moments of weakness. We remind them that nobody gets everything right, that they are allowed to be tired, that one bad decision doesn't make them a bad person. Yet somehow, when it comes to ourselves, the rules change. We turn our mistakes into evidence against our character. We call ourselves foolish for not knowing better, weak for struggling, and lazy for needing rest. We hold on to old embarrassments and past mistakes long after we'd have forgiven someone else for theirs. We become both the person on trial and the one who refuses to grant a pardon. My eight-year-old self was still waiting for an answer. I wondered what I would say if she were the one making all those mistakes. Would I call her stupid? Would I tell her she should have known better? Would I make her feel she had to become someone else before she deserved a little kindness? Of course not. Perhaps being kinder to ourselves begins with learning to offer ourselves the same understanding we give so freely to others. After all, we're the ones who have to live with ourselves through it all. M. | October 2026

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I wonder if guideposts ever get lonely, standing at the edge of the same roads, day after day, watching everyone pass them by. Perhaps they don't. Perhaps all they need is to know that somewhere, someone is finding their way because they are there. I think about this sometimes, about how we can spend so much of our lives trying to find our way through the world, never knowing that one day, someone might come along and make the journey feel a little less lonely. And perhaps that is what we have become for each other. Not the destination, not the answer to every question, but a little light along the way. I will keep a little warmth for the days the world grows cold around you. And when the noise inside me gets too loud, I know where to find my stillness. Funny, isn't it? How two people can be so far apart and still become part of how the other finds their way home. M. | 20 October 2026 p/s: Happy birthday, dear muse. I hope this next trip around the sun is kind to you.

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When I was little, I thought being an adult meant you'd eventually understand everything. That one day, you'd wake up knowing what to do with your life. I thought grown-ups had answers. That they knew where they were going, who they were supposed to be, and how to stop being afraid of things they couldn't control. Nobody told me that the years would pass without necessarily bringing the answers with them. That you could make a decision with all the love in your heart and still spend years wondering if you got it wrong. I thought that by now, I'd know how to make peace with the past. Instead, I've learned that some questions grow older with you. Maybe that's all adulthood is. Realising that the people you once thought had everything figured out were probably just doing their best, too. Making choices with what little they knew, carrying things they never spoke about, hoping tomorrow would make a little more sense than today. Every now and then, I wish I could sit beside the little girl I used to be and tell her that I tried. I'd tell her that I still don't have all the answers. And I think she'd be a little disappointed. Because she thought that by the time we grew up, we'd know. Still, if I could tell her one more thing, I'd tell her that it's alright. We're getting a little better at finding our way through. M. | October 2026

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Perhaps we need to find our way back to a time when the world was something we marvelled at, rather than something we had to learn to survive. I think about the children we once were, chasing clouds and butterflies, making friends over a shared toy, and coming home with muddy feet, dirty knees, and hearts full of happiness. We didn't know much about the world back then, but perhaps we knew something we've since forgotten. How to be kind without being asked. How to find joy in the simplest things. How to love the world without needing a reason to. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to us. We grew old enough to build things, conquer things, and destroy things, but somehow forgot how to take care of the things that were never ours to ruin. I think about the children in today's world, how they should still be making up games, laughing over little things, and collecting little reasons to be happy, and how far too many are already learning that the world can hurt. I wonder if growing up has something to do with it. How we learn to guard our hearts, build our walls, and carry our disappointments until we forget that the world can still be met with tenderness. I don't know how we begin to heal a world like this. Maybe we should begin with ourselves, with the kindness we choose, the suffering we refuse to dismiss, and the little ways we make life gentler for one another. And to remember that we are not powerless simply because we cannot change everything. We cannot undo all the hurt we've caused, but we can choose not to pass it on. Because what if healing the world means remembering how to love it before we learned all the ways to hurt it? M. | October 2026

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Why now? Why not when we were younger, happier, less corrupted by this world? Why do some people find each other only after life has left them with wounds they are still learning to live with, after they've learnt to be careful with the very thing they still long to give? I don't have the answer. Maybe we just need time to grow a little, hurt a little, and learn a little more before we can love each other right. And perhaps that's the strange thing about timing. We spend so much of our lives wondering why certain things didn't happen sooner, never knowing who we might have been if they had. Of all the people in the world, of all the different turns two lives could take, somehow, some paths cross. Two strangers become familiar. Two separate worlds find a little room for each other. I wonder how many versions of ourselves have existed just to arrive at the people we are when we meet. Maybe there's no equation that could explain why certain people find each other. Maybe we're just living, missing turns, taking chances, and finding each other in a world full of ways not to. But still, what are the odds? And how extraordinary that, somehow, we happen. M. | October 2026

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I sometimes wonder how many times we have walked past someone who would have changed our lives if we'd met on a different day. How many ‘almosts’ have passed us on the street, carrying their own little universes, never knowing how close they came to becoming part of ours, or how close we came to becoming part of theirs. And how happiness might have always been less of a destination than catching yourself humming while doing the dishes, or finding the afternoon sun falling across the floor just right. I don't know why I thought of any of these things. Maybe a mind is just a house with too many windows, and every now and then, the wind opens them all at once. Anyway, I should probably drink more water. P/S. I've been a little under the weather lately, which might explain why my thoughts have been taking unsupervised field trips. M. | October 2026

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I don't think I was prepared for how much it would mean to me to see the person who has spent so much of his life being strong become a little boy around me. And I don't think I will ever stop being moved by that. To know that someone can carry so much of the world on his shoulders and still find his way back to the child he once was, simply because he feels safe enough to. I used to think love meant finding someone to grow old with. Now, I think it also means finding someone who reminds you that growing up doesn't have to mean leaving the child inside you behind. And perhaps the most beautiful part is knowing that we get to be those people for each other. M. | October 2026

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Often, we spend the entire week trying to keep up with a life that seems to never slows down. Most of the time, we forget that we are a person, too, with a heart that gets tired and a mind that sometimes needs a little room to breathe. Then Friday arrives, and we find ourselves still running through tomorrow's worries instead of feeling relieved. We finally have a little time to breathe, only to realize how long it has been since we last did. I think there is a particular kind of sadness in spending so much of our lives keeping up with things that we begin to lose sight of the life we're trying to keep up for. We become so accustomed to getting through the days that we forget to ask ourselves whether we're enjoying any of them. We long for the simple pleasure of being somewhere without thinking about all the things waiting for us elsewhere. To be a person outside of everything we're expected to do. To exist without feeling as though we should be doing something more with our existence. Perhaps all we want is an evening that doesn't feel like a brief intermission before we have to begin again. And yet, here we are. We made it to Friday. The days keep passing, whether or not we find the time to feel them. So I hope, somewhere between Friday and the rest of our lives, we remember to live a little, too. M. | October 2026

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I don't need to have all the answers, at least not right now. I just want to remember us, the way we can hurt, then soften; lose our way, then somehow find each other again. I still want your hand in mine, your silence beside me, and that little moment when you softly say, “I love you,” and somehow the distance between us feels smaller. So when the sun is down, and the night gets heavy, I’d still choose us. Even with all the uncertainties and the hurting in my heart, I’d still find my way back to you, the same you I miss even when you’re close. M. | October 2026

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I wonder who remembers the small version of me. The little girl I was, before the world became complicated. I wonder if someone still remembers the way I used to run, the things I was afraid of, the stories I made up from my imaginations, the questions I asked without worrying whether they made sense. Maybe someone still remembers the little habits I have completely forgotten about. There must be a version of me living quietly in other people's memories. A little girl with scraped knees and untidy hair. A girl who could spend an entire afternoon with a book, who believed certain places would always feel familiar, who didn't yet know that people could leave and that some goodbyes would follow you long after they were spoken. I wonder if anyone remembers her. Maybe somewhere, in someone's memory, she is still there. Still laughing. Still reading. Still running after the birds, after the butterflies, after the moving clouds in the sky. And perhaps that is one of the ways life preserves itself. Not in photographs or names or the things we leave behind, but in the minds of people who remember a version of us that we can no longer reach ourselves. Somewhere, someone still remembers the small version of me. I hope she is happy there. M. | October 2026

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The first day of October, and somehow, I find myself in a place I never thought I would have to return to. The cold voice in my mind keeps asking, “Why am I still here? Why do I keep trying so hard when I am already so tired?” Some days, giving up can sound deceptively simple. No more fighting through another painful day. No more waking up and having to convince yourself to keep going. No more asking yourself how much longer you can carry what you have been carrying. And still, I am here. Still trying. I wish I could say I always know why. I don’t. Sometimes, I keep going because there are still things I love. People I love. Small pieces of life that I am not ready to leave behind. Sometimes, I keep going simply because I have made it this far, and some part of me still believes there must be something waiting for me on the other side of this. Maybe that is what trying really is. Not knowing how everything will turn out, but refusing to let one difficult chapter decide the ending for you. So I will try again tomorrow. And then, if I have to, the day after that. M. | 1st October 2026

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“Hey, can I get back to you later? I’m in the middle of trying to keep myself together.” Often, you wish you could say that to people. Tell them the truth, so they might understand what it is like sometimes inside your head. And yet, some days, your mind opens the door to its own ghosts, and suddenly there is no room left inside you for anything else, no explanation you could offer. So you retreat, slowly disappearing from the world, finding your way back to the familiar darkness that was once your hiding place. You thought you had left it behind, believing you had finally found your way out. Only to find yourself standing at its door, once more. And you think to yourself, “One of these days, the ghosts will get tired too.” M. | September 2026

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“And you do not need my forgiveness, nor I yours; it is all the same whether you forgive or not, all the rest of my life you will remain like a wound in my soul, and I in yours - and that is proper” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

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“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.” ~Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

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I didn't notice September leaving until there was so little of it left. Maybe that is how time works when you are simply trying to make it through the days. You wake up, you do what needs to be done, you carry whatever is still waiting for you, and somewhere between one day and the next, an entire month has passed. There are things in me that may never completely disappear. The sadness. The anxiety. The old fears that still know exactly where to find me. Perhaps I will carry some of them for the rest of my life. And I know there will still be days when I fall apart. Days when my mind becomes too loud, when I am tired of carrying myself, when getting through the day feels like an accomplishment no one else will ever know about. I will keep going, even on the days when living feels less like certainty and more like an act of faith. Maybe strength was never about becoming someone who could not be broken. Maybe it was learning that brokenness does not get to decide what happens next. September is leaving now. I don't have some beautiful ending for it. I don't think I need one. It was a month. I lived through it. Some days I was brave. Some days I was barely holding myself together. Most days, I was somewhere in between. But I kept going. M. | September 2026

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“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine, the lack of which will spoil your sleep and your day and your life, until you close your eyes for the final time” ~Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

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