Do you ever look at your life and wonder, ‘What happened to me?’ It’s like somewhere along the way, you sort of gave up on yourself. On your dreams. On the future you once imagined so vividly.

All around you, people seem happy with their lives… but you are not satisfied. Something, somewhere, is missing. It’s not that you are ungrateful or that you hate your life; it just doesn’t feel yours.

You don’t create as much as you’d want to. You don’t remember the little things that used to bring you joy. Your people-watching skills have become abysmal – and you hardly have time for it anyway. You stopped hiking, writing, cooking, dancing, singing, dreaming, living… the spark was gone.

And yet, you’d still say thank you to the barista, say hi to stray dogs on random walks, and wave back to kids in school buses along the road. You are still you, and yet somehow… not.

So you wonder, what happened?

You think you know what happened. It didn’t happen overnight. It was gradual. Like the waves slowly erasing your footsteps on the sand, tide after tide. Your dreams have become a distant memory.

Survival happened.

You went to school. Chose a course based on the job market, performed well enough, graduated, started working, and eventually you started experiencing the same day on repeat.

The need to have a roof over your head in a space that grants you some sort of peace. The fact that these bodies need their fuel. Rent, groceries, utilities, black tax, hangouts with friends, birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, weddings, funerals.

The cycle of life kept moving, and somewhere along the way, you opted out of your dreams just to keep up.

I remember how much I used to love to write. But now, even this piece has lived through four other drafts, none of them felt right.

Every time I pictured my life, I was a writer in her cabin in the woods – and not just in retirement, but throughout adulthood. Watching sunsets on the porch with my cats and dogs, sipping on some sweet cinnamon tea, birds chirping on the water fountain, a book on the side table and a magnificent view painted by God herself.
A life that truly felt mine.

After being an adult for about 15 years, I was nowhere near that dream. And I was afraid. Afraid that I’d wake up at 60, stuck to a desk, still working for men in suits, instead of gathering eggs from my chicken coop for a breakfast omelette.

That thought unsettled me like a kite struggling in the wind, straining against its string. That restlessness wasn’t emptiness; it was my own voice, calling me back. Asking me to remember.

I do remember.

I want to write. I want to write about everything and nothing. I want to tell stories. To have ideas for books, shows, plays, poems, heck, even songs… who knows.

If my life were a movie, this would be the part where I quit my job, pack up my bags with a big smile and no savings, to pursue my dreams. But this is not a movie.

So, instead, I’ll write. And hope that one day, it will become everything.

For those of us born without silver spoons, survival is all we’ve ever known. And it’s not easy, the fear, the worry, the overthinking. The cards we were dealt mean that we will always be playing catch-up.

But the truth is, sometimes you have to love yourself enough to start surviving in the direction of your dreams.

So, here it goes…

Hi,

My name is Em, I’m a writer who fell in love with stories before she knew how to tell her own. A poet who, at one point, stopped scribbling. A feminist who’s tired of recycled myths that only serve the oppressors. And a film lover who believes life deserves a good edit.

Maybe nothing happened.

Maybe I just took a detour and now I have more stories to tell.
Welcome to the unlearning curve.
My first 10,000 drafts. A space to shed what we were told life “should” be.
A chance to process, question, dismantle, and let go of beliefs that no longer serve us.

Let the unlearning begin…