life – Page 3 – My Little Hawk

While I ate cake at a family gathering: Thoughts on family

I stood in the corner, a paper plate with a slice of cake in my lap. My eyes widened with confusion. Looking around me, I realized: I don’t know that many happy families.

Children’s Understanding of Grief

My godson caught me off guard with how he explained where his grandparents are. To him, it was just another version of the story. Maybe next time he’ll get with something else, until he’s old enough to understand. Children’s understanding of death and grief is the most heartbreaking oblivion there is.

Summer in Details: Fragments of Time

Sitting with the weight of a year passed, I bite into a peach, and as I trail the juice from my hand to my elbow, I try to ground myself. My hands are sticky, and I wipe them on my shirt, leaving a blotchy stain on my ribs.

“You can’t have a village without being a villager.”

Protecting our peace, while important, is not something people understand its nature and purpose to be. We use it when we can’t be bothered to do anything, really. This lack of community is part of a much larger issue, but the point still stands: we forgot how to be friends.

Summer in Waiting Rooms: Figuring Your Life Out in Your Twenties

I’ve been ready to move all my life. I’ve been waiting forever in my room that isn’t my room because I have somewhere else to be. A home.

Travel Fun to Horror

Want to know how a fun travel story turns into a horror story in no time? You’re in the right place. Grab some coffee—it might be a short story, but it was one looong day! My girlfriends and I were on a little weekend getaway in Kotor, Montenegro, a few weeks ago. The vacation wasContinueContinue reading “Travel Fun to Horror”

Journaling in the Time of Social Media

Yes, it might actually be that damn phone. Journaling, Very Literally Journals are (I think) supposed to be a place for yourself to collect your thoughts. Whatever lies heavy on your chest, whatever you can’t/don’t want to share with others, or just a random thoughts dump. I feel like it turned into us interviewing ourselvesContinueContinue reading “Journaling in the Time of Social Media”

Lamentations of your unemployed friend in their twenties (excerpt from my diary)

My phone storage is full. I need to get my life together. I don’t have the leverage of being a student with at least some time still to go before I graduate to decide what’s next. There is no safety in a structure or a schedule that university life would set for me, where IContinueContinue reading “Lamentations of your unemployed friend in their twenties (excerpt from my diary)”

ROMANTICIZING SUMMER 2025: When Life Gives You Tangerines

I’m standing over the sink, washing the glasses, and smiling to myself over the familiarity of the routine summer always sets up for me. The shouting of the orders over the counter, oil sizzling in the kitchen, clicking of the glasses on the bar trays as they are carried through the restaurant, Aneta’s laughter fromContinueContinue reading “ROMANTICIZING SUMMER 2025: When Life Gives You Tangerines”

A Happy Place: Vilnius

I know how to help you now. Find me in the future. Bye, Vilnius! My suitcase is packed and ready. The packages are sent. I think I got everything. But that’s the easy part. How do I arrange all the memories? How do I unlearn all the habits I loved to build here? Love isContinueContinue reading “A Happy Place: Vilnius”