Modern Love

Love & Other Emotional Crimes

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  • “Maybe this part of your healing is about facing yourself.”

    Someone told me that in a dream.

    He looked happy. Enlightened.

    That effortless kind of peace people write books about.

    He looked like he believed in me.

    And in that surreal, slippery space between sleep and truth, the words echoed like something I already knew, and didn’t want to admit.

    Maybe this part of my healing was about facing myself.

    The parts I’d been expertly avoiding.

    The parts I wrapped in distractions, in plans, in motion.

    But sometimes life – in its brutal brilliance – removes the exit signs.

    You stop running, not because you’re done, but because you can’t.

    I couldn’t even walk without pain.

    So what was left?

    Just me.

    And the uncomfortable realization that maybe I wasn’t escaping anything, except myself.

    That’s when surrender knocked.

    Not softly, more like a SWAT team breaking down the door.

    Surrender is funny that way.

    It doesn’t arrive with incense and affirmations.

    It drags you by the hair out of your old identity, while you’re still screaming “Wait, I wasn’t ready yet!”

    And somewhere in the mess, in the ache, in the disillusionment, I stopped screaming.

    I started listening.

    To my body.

    To my shadows.

    To the version of me that wasn’t performing for anyone.

    And I started talking to her.

    She was scared, yes, but she was trying to protect me.

    From being wrong again. From being hurt again.

    But healing isn’t about being “right.”

    It’s about remembering the path you were always meant to be on.

    A path that, ironically, requires you to stop walking for a while.

    And sit.

    And reflect.

    Not just in the mirror, but in your life.

    In your choices.

    In the version of you who got buried under ambition, validation, and fear.

    So I asked myself:

    What do I want to see when I look at my life?

    Who do I want to be when I can finally run again?

    And maybe, just maybe…

    This part of my healing was about not becoming someone new,

    but finally seeing who’s been there all along.

    And maybe, just maybe…

    this part of my healing wasn’t about chasing, or even changing, 

    but about learning how to stay.

    To show up.

    To hold myself steady when everything else shakes.

    Because for the first time, I wasn’t waiting for someone to come hold my hand. 

    I was already here.

    And I wasn’t going anywhere.

  • Life is Full of Mirrored Moments

    There I was, Saturday night on my balcony, taking a break from watching Gilmore Girls because nothing soothes an overthinking mind quite like the fast-talking women of Stars Hollow.

    And then… from just one floor below, I hear it. The same theme song. The same Lorelai and Rory banter. I lean slightly over the railing and there she is, my downstairs neighbor, smoking, also watching Gilmore Girls. Two women, two apartments, one show, same scene, same night.

    I’ve lived in this apartment for 7 years. She’s just moved in.

    We didn’t say a word to each other. We didn’t need to. The universe already delivered the message loud and clear:

    Some nights aren’t about fate or romance or breakthroughs.

    They’re about mirrored lives, stacked on top of each other like chapters in a book we all think we’re writing alone.

    And it made me wonder…

    If our lives are all little reruns of each other’s heartbreaks, habits, and healing, maybe connection isn’t something we chase. Maybe it’s already happening, just one floor below, one rerun at a time.

  • When exactly did we stop playing like children?

    Was it after our first heartbreak? Our first tax return? The moment we decided swings were “embarrassing” and seesaws were “unsafe for the lower back”?

    Because somewhere between learning how to spell “mortgage” and forgetting how to skip without pulling a hamstring, we lost something. Something soft. Something simple.

    We traded jungle gyms for gyms.

    Trampolines for treadmills.

    Sandboxes for deadlines.

    We started amping up our dopamine instead of just feeling joy.

    “More, faster, better,” became the new fun.

    Amusement parks on steroids. Screaming rollercoasters and overpriced food. All engineered thrills.

    But joy? Real, no-filter joy? That’s harder to come by.

    Sometimes, when the city’s asleep, I go to the children’s park to swing.

    Just me and the stars. Sometimes with my girlfriends. Grown women, hip pain and all, giggling like we’re six and school just let out. That kind of joy is raw. Untouched. Uncomplicated.

    One time, on a mountain trail, we found this giant wooden seesaw, made for four people. We took turns like kids at recess. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t “Instagrammable.” It was just fun. The kind of fun that forgets to check the time. That reminds you your soul still has a playground inside, even if your knees say otherwise.

    Then there was that time I told a local guy (during one of my travels) that I love visiting the zoo and petting the wild goats. He smiled like he had just remembered a long-forgotten memory.

    “Isn’t that for kids? We’ve done that before, so we don’t think of doing it again.”

    Why does something only count if it’s new, impressive, and expensive?

    Why can’t naming a wild goat Sao-Feng and imagining you’re soul-bonded be enough?

    I think it is enough.

    In fact, I think it’s everything.

    We’ve overcomplicated joy. We turned it into a performance instead of a feeling.

    Maybe if we let our inner children run barefoot again, pick daisies, jump in puddles, and squeal when we see a sleepy bear nibbling on grass mid-hibernation, we’d actually feel alive again.

    Because maybe, just maybe, growing up doesn’t mean growing out of the things that made our hearts light up.

    Maybe it means protecting them even harder.

  • On Bugs, Metros, and the Art of Letting Go

    In Milan, you get used to two things: heatwaves and unexpected insect roommates. It’s like the city never told them they weren’t invited, and now they just live here, casually buzzing into your apartment like they pay rent.

    One day, I killed two flies. No drama, no mercy, just out of annoyance.

    The next morning, I found a small bug at the metro. A woman wanted to crush it. I let a firm “no” out, and stopped her from doing so. I picked it up in a napkin, keeping it safe until I got out.

    Ten minutes later, on my way out, another insect. Another rescue. A strange kind of redemption arc began to unfold; one bug at a time.

    Months passed. I cried over the spider I killed by accident almost a year ago. Sobbed, actually. Like I had killed something sacred. Maybe I had.

    The next day, I found a bug underground again. Trapped between steel and foot traffic. And again, I set it free.

    I started to notice a pattern.

    Every time I released a bug from the belly of the city (this dark, mechanical underground maze) something in me felt lighter.

    Because maybe it was never just about the bugs.

    Maybe it was about all the things I’ve kept trapped in my own system: the grief, the control, the clinging to people who weren’t meant to stay. Maybe I keep freeing insects because I’m still learning how to free myself.

    And isn’t that the quiet spiritual metaphor of it all?

    We kill things we don’t understand.

    We trap what we don’t know how to handle.

    And every once in a while, we choose instead to set it free, even when we don’t have to.

    Sometimes I wonder if that tiny insect, dazed and dusty, ever turns around and thinks, thank you.

    Or maybe it just flies off, back to where it belongs; the sky, the trees, anywhere but here.

    And me?

    I stay behind on the metro platform, quietly realizing: setting things free… is a very freeing thing to do.

  • How blunt is too blunt?

    In a society where speaking your mind can quickly earn you a label; too much, too intense, too opinionated, we’ve collectively defaulted to “polite mode.”

    We sugarcoat. We tiptoe. We water ourselves down like a low-calorie version of truth, and we call it kindness.

    But in situations where the truth might sting momentarily, yet ultimately liberates the other person from a blind spot or a bad habit, who are we actually protecting by holding back?

    Is it them?
    Or is it us?

    Are we avoiding hurting their feelings…
    or just avoiding conflict altogether?

    Is it more loving to tell your partner that you’d really appreciate if he stopped leaving his socks all over the damn floor? Or to silently give them the side-eye while picking them up, punctuating the moment with a passive-aggressive sigh?

    Is it rude to tell your family “I love you, but your constant advice feels more like control than care”? Or is it honest?

    Is it disloyal to warn your friend that her new love interest has more red flags than a Formula 1 race? Or is it actually the loyalty test?

    The thing is: we think we’re avoiding drama by staying quiet.
    But what we’re really doing is delaying the explosion.

    Unspoken truths don’t disappear. They simmer.

    And the longer we let politeness take the wheel, the more tension piles up in the trunk, until we’re suddenly swerving off course, crashing over something that could’ve been a conversation.

    So maybe the better question is:

    How much future conflict do we create simply by avoiding present honesty?

    Written by a virgo. We won’t always hold back. Because we have regretted holding back when he had the chance to be brutally honest. And let’s face it, a virgo that doesn’t automatically tell you what they think is wrong with you, how much do they actually love you?

    If you have a virgo in your lives, kindly let us be brutally honest with you without taking it too personally. If you see a virgo trying to be fake-polite to keep the peace, it’s because they’re too afraid to lose you. Let us be ourselves, and try to see the criticism as an act of love. Because it honestly is. And we appreciate the brutal honesty back.

  • The Spider in the Bathtub: A Story About Goodbyes

    It was almost a year ago.
    A spider accidentally drowned in the bathtub.
    Not a metaphor. Not a symbol. A real spider.
    Small, delicate, curled in on itself. Its little body in the water puddle.
    I picked it up gently and laid it out on the coffee table, hoping maybe it was just stunned. Maybe it needed to dry.
    Maybe it would wake up.

    I left the room for a moment.
    When I came back, the spider was gone, thrown away.
    No ceremony. No goodbye.

    I felt the kind of grief that punches through logic. The kind that makes no sense to the people around you. The kind you can’t explain. I know because I had tears in my eyes when he said he threw it out, the kind of tears he could not relate to and didn’t even take seriously.

    But I knew this wasn’t just about a spider.

    Because I’m still not over it. After almost a year.

    This was about every goodbye I never got to say; laid in front of my eyes in the form of a bathroom spidey I had formed a mild emotional attachment to, whose accidental death was my fault, and it was thrown out by the person I loved.

    In my life, people leave.
    Not dramatically. Not loudly.
    Just… suddenly. Quietly. When I’m not looking.

    Loved ones pass away when I’m away.
    Breakups happen over the phone.
    Pets are gone when I’m away.
    Endings, real ones, never seem to happen face to face.

    There are no doors closing. No farewell hugs.
    Just empty space. A sudden absence. A vacuum that no one acknowledges.

    So I carry them.
    All of them.
    Inside.

    That spider cracked something open in me.

    Because I wanted to sit beside it.
    Watch. Wait. Witness.
    And if it didn’t come back, I wanted to give it a good goodbye.
    A sacred one.
    Even if it was “just” a spider.

    But I wasn’t given that chance.

    And that’s been the theme.
    The life pattern. The grief blueprint.

    “I wasn’t given that chance.”

    What do you do when life refuses to give you closure?

    You get it in your dreams at night.

    You get it in the wind that makes you remember a certain moment in your life.

    You get it by making new memories by yourself in the places you used to go together. In the streets you laughed, kissed, argued… Lived life. Even briefly.

  • We Broke Up, But Why Did We Also Break Apart?

    on post-breakup territory wars and becoming strangers with people we once undressed our souls with

    No one warns you about the silent custody agreement after a breakup.

    You get your side of the city. I get mine.

    You get the bar near your place. I’ll avoid it like it’s cursed.

    I get the bookstore downtown, but only before 2PM, because I know that’s when you usually go.

    The mutual cafe? Dead to both of us.

    We don’t talk about it, but we feel it.

    And suddenly, we’ve turned a love story into a war over real estate.

    We used to walk these streets like we were creating a world together. Now we’re living in the ruins, divided like ex-nations.

    There’s no judge or jury…

    But somehow, we both know which cafés are now forbidden, which parks are now sacred, and whose friends are no longer “neutral ground.”

    And I can’t help but wonder why does a breakup have to mean a complete delete of the non-romantic parts of a connection?

    We weren’t just lovers. We were people.

    Friends, even.

    We shared music, dumb jokes, late-night thoughts about the meaning of life.

    We sat on balconies and talked about our parents.

    We slow-danced in kitchens.

    We cried. We laughed.

    We knew each other.

    So why is it that, after it ends, we’re supposed to act like we never existed?

    Why is “just friends” seen as a downgrade, not a grace?

    Why do their friends have to stop being our friends?

    Why is it suddenly “too weird” to say hi without pretending like the past didn’t happen?

    Why does the end of romance mean the end of all relating?

    Maybe it’s ego.

    Maybe it’s pain.

    Maybe it’s our culture telling us to “cut the cord” and never look back.

    But maybe, just maybe, we’ve forgotten how to hold space for nuance.

    Maybe two people can love each other deeply, part ways honestly, and still care, without it being “messy.”

    Maybe it’s possible to outgrow the role without erasing the person.

    To say:

    “I no longer want you as my partner, but I still respect who you are.”

    “I won’t be at your birthday party, but I hope someone brings your favorite cake.”

    “I’m not yours anymore, but I hope you’re happy.”

    “I’m moving on, but I remember us fondly.”

    We don’t have to vanish from each other’s lives like ghosts.

    We don’t have to pretend it didn’t matter.

    It did.

    It just doesn’t anymore.

    And maybe that’s okay.

  • Mercury’s in Gatorade Again, Isn’t It?

    You don’t need an astrologer to tell you that the planets are in the microwave or turned into lemonade, again. 

    Just open your window and listen, the neighbors are screaming about who left the yogurt out.

    Your mom suddenly decided now is the perfect time to critique your life decisions, your career, and the way you dress. 

    A guy from 10 years ago? Resurfaces via a “heyyy… hope you’re well, I’ve been thinking about you” message. 

    Your phone glitches just when you finally send a risky text.

    Your emails vanish.

    Your emotions don’t.

    The group chat is suspiciously quiet, and everyone’s “just been going through it.”

    Even your plants are looking at you sideways. And the birds are giving you spiritual downloads through eye contact.

    It’s not just Mercury.

    It’s the whole zodiac throwing a tantrum.

    Venus is crying in the shower, then putting on a sexy black dress and going out to flirt. 

    Mars is organizing your closet at 3AM. 

    Saturn’s giving everyone a pop quiz on boundaries.

    And Neptune’s making your dreams weirder than usual.

    (Oh hey the guy who’s not in my life and his entire friend group chilling at my childhood house!? Nice haircut btw!)

    So no, you don’t need a birth chart.

    You just need to know that every coffee shop line is now a test of your spiritual maturity.

    Your inbox is a battlefield.

    And your nervous system? A full-blown disco.

    But don’t worry.

    Like all those before, this too shall pass.

    Just maybe don’t sign any contracts, text your ex, or try to explain anything to your mom until it’s over.

    We’re just cosmically inconvenienced.

  • A Million Ways to Get Over Someone (But Only One That Actually Works)

    There are probably a million ways to get over heartbreak. Yet somehow, we always postpone doing the one thing that actually works.

    Maybe you buy plants (dozens of them) and water them like your love life depends on it. Maybe you get a dog, one who never leaves you on read.
    Maybe you overschedule yourself so hard that burnout becomes your new personality trait.
    You wake up, work out, meditate, start a new language, pick up new hobbies, hike mountains, dance barefoot in your apartment with ambient lighting, climb trees, go dancing, socialize, and tell your mom “I’m doing great.”

    There are a million ways to run.
    Oh, I should know. I happen to be an expert in distraction; with just enough self-awareness not to do anything I’d regret later.

    But then life throws something inconvenient at you.
    Like an injury.
    Suddenly, you can’t go for your head-clearing walks, or heal your heart on a mountain trail, or skate through the pain like a sexy little blur of denial. You can’t run, can’t escape, can’t avoid.

    You’re forced to sit still.
    And it doesn’t even hit then.

    It still hits way later.
    Like a shadow in the dark.
    The grief you thought you’d outpaced six months ago comes. With a projector.
    And suddenly, you’re watching the memories you had been suppressing like a film reel on a random Friday night, in the city you love the most; mascara smudged, heart open, ego crumbling.

    What was I afraid of all this time?
    Crying on a bench sometime after 4AM like some tragic French film with birds chirping in the background?
    Or was I afraid that crying meant it mattered?
    That he mattered.
    That I wasn’t as detached and cool and over it as I wanted to believe?

    The emotional release I feared the most… didn’t break me.
    It set me free.

    Because maybe healing doesn’t always look like vision boards, new hobbies, and creative side-projects .
    Maybe sometimes, it’s letting your inner child sob in your arms over someone who didn’t choose you.
    Someone who probably would never.
    Someone you still wanted anyway.

    Maybe the real heartbreak isn’t being left,
    It’s realizing how hard you’ve hurt yourself just to keep someone else around.

    So yes, there are a million ways to get over heartbreak.
    You can shop, sweat, scroll, flirt, run, cry, reinvent yourself six times and still feel the ghost of them in your dreams.
    But one way (maybe the only real way) is this:

    You sit with it.
    You stop running.
    You grieve.
    You stop pretending it didn’t matter.
    You admit that you cared.
    You loved deeply.
    And you stayed longer than you should’ve.

    And then…
    You hold yourself.
    You wipe your tears.
    You look around at the friends who still show up, the family who still calls, the version of you who didn’t die from heartbreak; she evolved.
    She rose.

    And eventually, you shine again.

    Because you are the sunshine.
    And the moonlight. The stars.
    And yeah, sometimes, the clouds,the clouds, the rain, the thunder… even the lightning that scorches everything in its path.


    But you’re still the whole damn sky.

  • Can We Really Meet “The One” Before We’re Healed?

    …or are we just falling in love with different versions of our own wounds?

    At first, I thought I had a type.
    You know; emotionally unavailable, mysterious, says things like “I don’t believe in labels,” and somehow ruins me with a smile.
    But after the third version of the same man with a different star sign, I started to ask:
    Is this really my type… or is this my trauma playing dress-up?

    Because the truth is: we attract what we are.
    Not on the surface, not what we look like, or what we post, or even what we say we want.
    We attract from the core wound. From the energy we haven’t healed. From the version of us that still doesn’t fully believe we deserve the love we crave.

    So maybe the reason we keep falling for the same kinds of people isn’t bad luck or bad taste.
    Maybe it’s a mirror.
    Maybe it’s the universe screaming look at yourself.
    Maybe it’s that unresolved need to be chosen by someone who doesn’t know how to choose themselves.

    And here’s the cosmic twist that no one wants to say out loud:
    You might not meet the “right one” until you become the version of yourself who can actually receive them.

    Because soulmates aren’t here to complete us, they’re here to reflect us.
    And if we’re still fragmented, afraid, closed off or secretly addicted to chaos… Guess what we attract?

    Another incomplete mirror.

    So can we meet the one before we’re healed?
    Maybe.
    But chances are, we’ll push them away.
    Or sabotage it.
    Or not even recognize them, because we’re still wired to crave the pain we’re used to.

    Healing isn’t about being perfect.
    It’s about being aware.
    Aware enough to stop blaming everyone else for the ways we keep breaking our own heart.

    So if you keep attracting the same type… pause.
    Ask yourself: What part of me is still choosing this dynamic? What part of me thinks this is love?

    And more importantly… Who do I become when I stop chasing the reflection… and start becoming the source?