I’m XXVI now. Somewhere along the way, life stopped feeling like something that was about to start and became something that is already happening. No warning. No big moment. Just one day you look around and realise this is it. This is the life you’ve been living while waiting for something bigger. So many things have already passed me by. People I thought would stay. Versions of me I thought I would always be. Dreams I was so sure about, until I wasn’t. And still, there is so

I make my noodles the way a friend once showed me in high school. Back when life felt half-finished and quietly sacred. When afternoons stretched longer than they do now. When we believed we had time to become whoever we said we would be. She told me not to overcook them. “Let them breathe,” she said, as if noodles had lungs. I laughed then. I still hear it sometimes when the water starts to boil. I still strain them the same way. Not because it’s the best method, but because

It is February again. A new month. The future feels unsure in that familiar way, like standing at the edge of something you cannot yet name. Valentine’s Day is approaching, and with it comes that quiet wondering of who will plant flowers in your garden this year. Tonight, I keep thinking about you. You all the way in Kuala Lumpur, doing whatever it is you do when you disappear into your own life. I think about our call, the way it lingered longer than it needed to, the comfor