It’s been a while since I wrote anything here… I hadn’t intended to shelve this site when starting university in 2020, however I underestimated just how much time and energy my studies would take. I figured it was time to do a quick life update if nothing else; and also apologise to anyone who’s left comments that I didn’t get around to replying.
I’m currently in my final year of my creative writing MA course and just taken a month off from my studies to recover from the last few years. Finally, I’m starting to feel some semblance of being human again.
So what happened? The workload of work required for my studies doubled in my second year. In short, that meant my lower-than-average energy with ME/CFS was totally consumed by my studies. I was also diagnosed with POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) around the same time, as well as informally diagnosed with AutiADHD through the university. I also had the “joys” of covid and now long covid.
Toward the end of my BA course, I lost my mother; and last year I lost my father too. They were my reason to live, so trying to exist in the world without them has been unbearably hard. I kept on with my studies as it was the only thing I had to focus on and to keep me going. The world without my parents still doesn’t make sense and it feels like the grief of losing them both and losing them so close together will never expire. I don’t think there’s an equivlent comparison for how dark and bleak my state of mind has been the last few years. There are days I’m not sure how I’m still here.
For the last year, I’ve been exiting in survival mode and just getting by each day. Fortunately I have the entire academic year to do my dissertation which hopefully, my mind will allow me to continue with now that I’ve given myself some respite.
So that’s the worst of things…pretty much.
It hasn’t all been bad!
I passed my BA course and have self-published my creative pieces submitted for both BA and first year of MA (The Demon of Munbigye: Prequel Stories and Horologically Displaced).
During the first year of my BA course, I had an interesting twist of fate and found out the identity of my twin flame. That became the inspiration for much of my creative writing at university, got me into writing poetry (definitely never saw that one coming), and ultimately, led to me writing out a memoir on my twin flame experiences (If You Want To Know…Just Ask!) with more to come in the future.
Both my university research and my twin flame connection led me to South Korea twice during my time at univeristy – guided by a roof tile that started this crazy life path in 2021. Both times going out there were the most challenging and most rewarding times of my life. It makes little sense…but I never felt “home” until I was there. Me, a country girl that always chose the most rural places to escape to was thriving and loving every moment in Seoul. My heart and soul have been aching ever since leaving. I hope one day I can find my way back. I miss Seoul and South Korea every day. Whether it’s an unexplainable soul connection to the land or because that’s where my twin flame lives – or a blend of both – who knows. I just know that if I think about my time their for too long, I can’t help but cry and pine for that place.
Outside of my life as a student and unable to afford advertising, being lousy with social media marketing (yay, anxiety and zero popularity ranking), and the ongoing mission to promote myself in some way also led to me putting my YouTube channel to work. I’ve recently started doing poetry videos for now, and I hope to start doing videos on twin flames soon. That is as soon as I have the complete first draft of my dissertation in hand at least…though, may also be after I have finished my MA. Me and my dissertion aren’t compatible at the moment.
Starting a YouTube channel is something I have wanted to do since YouTube first began – I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. Also, I didn’t want to have to do it alone. There’s so much of my life lived, experienced, and done in isolation, that thinking of starting anything new alone exacerbates my depression. Also with my anxiety, it’s a terrifying thing. I think I am only able to do it now as I’ve hit an age checkpoint in my life where I think a lot of fears and concerns have been outweighed by the fact of my life trickling away and the main thought: “so what?”
Also…whatever the heck is going on with my twin flame journey has made a difference to my ability to overcome fears and obstacles. It’s an unconventional experience I have with my twin flame. What we have is more energetic and psychic – we’ve never spoken or even met. He lives 9000 miles away. If not for the fact I had two years of mind-blowing experiences that were validated through the wonders of the internet, I’d have discounted it and let the madness exist inside of me without expressing it. I only know of two others with a similar connection to what I have, and that somehow makes me more determined to make sense of the experiences I’ve had throughout my entire life – and to provide an unconventional and alternative perspective on twin flames.
Even as I had tried to run away from the connection or ignore it for much of my life, going to university spun me even closer to the connection whether I wanted it or not. Turns out, making sense of twin flames has been my life’s ambition even without knowing it. It’s why all my stories have parallels with twin flames. Still…even though I have my experiences, trying to find a way to create videos that are something that would have an audience without repeating what many others do is challenging. So, it’s something I’m diligently planning out before I get started.
Writing If You Want To Know…Just Ask! was my way of finding my way out of grief and heartbreak of losing my mother, I ended up down a creative rabbit hole recently when the grief of losing my father finally caught up to me. Kokuhaku was the outcome of that dark place: an album with songs adapted from poetry published in If You Want To Know…Just Ask! which is now out.
While I don’t know what my future has in store…I do know I’ll be writing my way through it. Writing is the only thing that makes sense and the only thing that keeps me sane and living.
