Flow with Fatima

I was battling a headache this afternoon. As usual, I felt today was another day passing without direction. I'd like to blame the moon—it’s almost full again. I get this a lot, like clockwork, but most of the time, the days of the month slip through the spaces between my fingers until I reach the next paralyzing moment. In my self-imposed exile, I’ve come to see life as if I’m living in a fairytale, and this chapter is called Expanding Horizons. Since last weekend, I’ve watched five films: Julie and Julia, The Hundred-Foot Journey, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Front of the Class, and today, Good Will Hunting. Now, I’m not a fan of the arts—at least, that’s what I was told to believe. It was instilled in me that it’s nothing but a waste of time, a phrase I’ve been trying to heal from for years. I try to be careful with my words because words are swords that cut dreams and kill geniuses. I’m still trying to figure out what my genius might have been, had I not heard unsupporti...

Today's one of those days when I have to trick myself into accomplishing my daily quests. Just wash five items from the kitchen sink. Just fold five pieces of clothing. It's not going to take a lot of time to feed the dogs. Fine, you don't have to mop. I feel the weight of my boobs, and I have to wear a bra today. I only have two days left to go out and date myself—a weekly activity from the book The Artist's Way . But where will I go? What will I do? Like any sane person who lives alone and doesn't talk to anybody, I consulted ChatGPT for self-date ideas. I really don't have the energy to go out, and one of its recommendations was to go on a movie date. Why not? I haven't watched a movie in a long time, so it counts as doing something new for myself. I was recommended Julie & Julia , which made me both cry and feel inspired. I was 45 minutes in when I stopped the film to catch the sunset. The horizon was ablaze with gold, fading into soft blushes of...

I wasn't a fan of takoyaki until I met this man, who I was friends with benefits with during one of my darkest years. I was trying everything, and my choices always led to nonstop reckless behavior. Red flags and boundaries weren’t part of my vocabulary back then. It wasn’t something my parents asked me to sit down and discuss behind closed doors. I was left to fend for myself at an early age, constantly seeking validation from parents who were busy giving their best to provide us a comfortable life while dealing with their own monsters blindly. One night, when we visited his friends, he told them he wouldn't want me as his girlfriend because I was deeply involved in nude art. He liked my art but didn’t want to be part of it. Fortunately, I overheard this conversation, and ever since then, I hated the way he looked when he was on top of me. From that moment, I planned my way out, like ditching him on my birthday and lying that I cooked the kare-kare I brought for his birthday, ...

I haven’t worked for days. I was in the middle of work last Monday and found myself almost vomiting in front of the laptop. This feeling is familiar; I’ve felt it numerous times before. This is my body saying, 'Nope, we don’t like doing that anymore.' Part of me envies the people who get to bag the loyalty award for staying in one place for so long. I loved this job. I enjoyed everything I was doing. I don’t talk to people; I don’t need to over-apologize for mistakes I didn’t make, and I was in front of numbers. I get to use Ctrl+H, Ctrl+G, Ctrl+F, C, V, and many others. I was having fun. Until I wasn’t. The company started to micromanage me and started questioning how fast I do the job. I was an efficient worker because I am a lazy person, but all those efficiencies backfired on me because all the shortcuts I found to make the job easier are now making me get paid less. I tried working slowly, but that just fried my brain cells. Clearly, I reached the precipice, and the only o...

I sat staring at a blank page in Microsoft Word, tears streaming down my face for hours. Olivia Rodrigo's "All I Want" played on repeat through my headphones, intensifying the overwhelming emotions that consumed me. Some days, words simply fail to express what I'm feeling; I'm simply left to feel it all. As I tackled the office reports, it struck me that today was the 12th of March. Years ago, this week would have been filled with bustling plans and celebrations. Have you ever experienced that feeling when a date you've commemorated for years suddenly loses its significance? There might not have been anything to mark today, but amidst the absence of a once-cherished tradition, I realized that even the absence of something is still worth celebrating. Sometimes a man gets exactly what he wishes for, and that can be the most perfect punishment of all.  - Joe Goldberg, You I looked around me. I am living a life I used to only dream about. A few years back, the i...

Some familiar feelings leave you addicted to them. Sometimes, all you need is a conversation, a phrase, and it transports you back to wanting to curl yourself back in bed. I physically hurt myself when the pain of spoken words becomes unbearable to carry. I came from parents who left me to figure out my potential, leaving me alone to grow roots so deep that I could fend for myself. I didn’t win the lottery of the womb; worse, I was dealt bad cards, which left me without a choice to play. Today, I feel like physically hurting myself. A punch in the face, bumping my head on the wall, or pinching myself so hard that you'd see the shadow of my nails that will wear off too. I feel like an elephant's feet have stomped on my heart again, which makes me want to grab a knife and just free myself from this pain. In my tiny bubble where I found solace in the presence of nobody, technology has been both a friend and a foe. And today, she was the latter. My nemesis did it again. In her inno...