meet me at midnight

I would love to be a morning person, but it takes severe self-restraint to not stay awake at night. I pride myself on having the finest room in the house; it is pink, has the coolest breeze in December, and a charming window that overlooks our village. By six am, the most delightful sunlight drips off that same window. The best part is that each sunrise is never the same.

I would love to be a morning person, but so much is at stake as soon as the moon goes up. I own a yellow nightlight, and it illuminates every corner of my bedroom as though it were fresh off a coming-of-age movie. Know those Divoom speakers everyone owned on K-Pop TikTok? My Divoom has an amazing sound system and plays an animation of Sanrio characters and BTS stills — by 11:30 pm, I get drunk off reading the cheesiest rom-coms while playing soft music on Divoom. After sulking about how real life could never compare to that of literature, I play Y2K tunes. Thanks to Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You, Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield is a nightly chant I inject into my head, deluding myself into being Taylor Swift in the You Belong With Me music video. Everything happens in the evening: I hold a concert for my plushies, watch Mamma Mia, play dress up, listen to motivational podcasts, sort my Notion page, set new goals, take an online course, and accomplish anything in the spur of the moment that will heighten my chances of professional and personal success.

You know what the best kind of nights are? The ones that end up in writing. 

For the longest time, I’ve put off writing. Funnily enough, anyone who knows me well knows that I would not be me without my love for the written word. No one talks about how draining it is: having to bear every raw emotion and relive every single hurtful memory as soon as the words bleed on paper. Concretizing the arbitrary ideas I’ve shushed in my brain. Feeling the trepidation of rejection long before penning a single word. And shamefully claiming to be immune to fearing failure when asked. As much as the thought of quitting writing entered my mind (confessing this on paper and to myself feels like a sin), I can never detach myself from it. No matter what I do, I find myself going back to it. Back to art, back to that which makes me feel alive.

Naturally, this is why I started this blog. I like to write. And I hope you’ll enjoy my attempts at it. I swear I can be relatable. I’ll try not to be sappy. Or pessimistic. 

Fortunately, this was one of the best kind of late nights. Is it sadistic that I am gaslighting myself in acknowledging that my presently passionate outburst for words is temporal and that in a few days, writer’s block will soon be my reality? I’m sorry, I said I wouldn’t be pessimistic. Keep reading, I swear I’m worth your time.

I would love to be a morning person, but I am admittedly still growing up, learning how to let go of my shabby fifteen-year-old body clock. Let’s enjoy it for now because I’ve got a lot to talk about: university life, fangirling, books and writing, and my sentimental self-growth principles. I’d like to bask in the comfort of my teenage dream a little longer. Being a morning person feels grown-up, so till then, please meet me at midnight.