June anyone?

Today I opened up my week planner as usual, put in my schedule, but paused as I went to close the tab. It read "2026-06-08". Yes, that is the date, but also, that's the date already?? Cue sudden self panic as I realize that half of this year is gone, and I only have half a year left to answer with "16" when people ask for my age. HALF A YEAR Y'ALL.

I conceptualize my years differently to most people (or at least different to 364 out of 365 people), as my birthday falls on the first day of each year, January 1st, New Years Day. So each year, really is a new me, it's a new age. So each time when the clock strikes 12, I not only get to scream "Happy New Year", I age one year. Though coming up, 17 sounds old and scary. Somehow, 17 sounds scarier than 18. Like am I supposed to have my life together at this point? Who the heck knows!

I wonder if anyone remembers this age when their older. Do you ever look back on your teenager years, or does it really just get left in the past? 

Apparently I'm bad at writing love letters

I've got the paper, I've got the pen. I say to myself, you love him right? Well off course, and there's many things I love about my boyfriend, but I just stare at the stupid blank piece of paper. How do you even start a love letter? Like hey, I've been your girlfriend for a month and btw your a great kisser and I love you. I seriously cannot write anything romantic.

Lately I've been thinking what if I'm just not good at romantic gestures? He's done countless for me, I have all his letters, and he messages throughout the day to update me on life and make sure I'm okay. Well compare that to me, because I've texted him twice today, I'm failing at trying to plan a good date for us tomorrow, and I'm procrastinating the damn letter writing. Physical affection comes so much more natural me, you don't have to put any of this love stuff in words and you feel great at the same time in snuggles. Also, am I the only one who struggles to use affectionate names? I just call him Emmanuel, that's it. Baby/bae/boo is so strange to me that I'd probably end up cringing every time if I called him that. I don't mind that he does that with me ... so again, am I just bad at romantic gestures?

my relationship with red flags lately

You'd think that having a brain would be enough to alert oneself to a red flag. What should we do when we see red flags? Ruuuun. What do I do? I ruuuun....

towards it. stupid heart gets in the way.

Really, it should pretty straightforward. Guy makes promise, guy breaks promise, multiple times. Not a good sign. I say nothing, and I start thinking that it doesn't matter and it's fine, I drop it even though I know it wasn't good. I mean how dumb am I to overlook that? Honestly, I think I'm more of a "see the best in everyone" kinda person, but maybe it's a disadvantage. Or maybe boys seriously just can't control themselves, and there's no point expecting them to. What do you think?

the ghosts of past present future - guy edition

I talk about guys waayyy too much lately. So much for being a strong independent woman, right? Well, I'm weighing up 3 different thoughts. Past, present, and future - guy edition lmao. Entailing the guy in my past, the guy in my present, and me in my future.

Being single is underrated, or I should say instead, being productively single is underrated. I think back to 3 months ago, at that point I was heavily missing this 20 year old guy in my life, which was only a situationship/siblingzoning ship (read about it in my earlier posts). Cut me some slack here when I say I dealt with that like a champ.

Talk about starting the new year off with a bang! Yeah I spent it wondering why he'd sent me a message first right on 12:00, and then generally being a depressed child for the next few months. However I think I displayed a good amount of remorse, but as well as moving the heck forward in life bwahaha. I admit I did those cringe things you hear in self help tiktoks titled "5 steps on getting over him! xoxo"

Surprisingly, it actually somewhat works. I went to the gym, I made new friends, started attending my new seminary class, got back into my old hobbies like flexibility and singing, I really made the most of that free time I had. I still was stuck with that hurt, but slowly it all just melted behind me. I wrote about it alot here, which is why I appreciate blogging so much. I actually kinda grew in a healthy way and I don't look back on that time as some depressing ice cream binge eating time of my life. I actually kinda miss having lots more free time hahaha but I love my boyfriend.

So I'm writing about this months later because I looked at francis's IG for the first time in months. My own brain surprised me by feeling a happy reminiscent feeling, and no more resentment. Though to be fair, I mostly laugh because it's so obvious to me now that he's a grown ass man, and it makes sense why everyone was concerned that me as a 15 year old was his best friend. I still enjoyed the peace of seeing how life is turning out for him in his dance career, and now when I see him I get to just see the happy memories and not the pain I went through in that time. I'm stalking like some creepy ex when I receive a notification from my boy emmanuel, and I smile a little at how life winds it's mysterious ways.

interesting virginity talks

sometimes I think about how hot it is making out with him, and feeling him on top of me, and then my brain brings up the fact that he's literally been inside another woman and that alone is enough to stop me in my tracks lmao.

I don't know how other people get over it, because quite frankly ever since he told me it's like I can't see him the same way. To be fair it's not like we're in our 20s where that would be normal, we're both sixteen. Not just that, we're both in a church that prohibits that before marrige. I understand that he wasn't even in the church back then, but it was only six months ago... I still remember the look on his face when he said it too. I'm not resenting him for it at all, I still love him it's just processing in my mind right now.

I asked him outright if he was a virgin, he paused first and then jokingly asked me why I wanted to know, but he got serious and then looked down. He then finally said no. No he was not a virgin. I would say it took it well, my face was probably mixed emotions but I was like ok, ok um alright wow. I mean what am I supposed to say to that, I think my first question was who, and he said his last girlfriend that we'd previously been talking about.

Okay so who decided that god should give me a mouth because I used that mouth to blurt out "How was it?". Like who in their right minds asks that lmao. Well his english didn't quite catch that so he asked "how was it... are you asking how many times?". Ah why yes emmanuel I would like to know that too. So I said yeah actually how many times did you.. you know. I could tell these were hard questions for him to answer, especially to me. We were sitting on the rooftop, past midnight, sitting facing eachother after we'd made out. He looks away and says "so many times", was that regret I heard in his voice? I don't know but I think I probably swallowed my heart if that was possible.

He said they would kiss, she would turn off the lights, and then ... yeah. Okay so why did god give me curiousity too because when he asked again by what did I mean how was it, I said likee... did you enjoy it? GIRL WHY ARE YOU ASKING OF COURSE HE DID HE IS A MAN WITH A DONG FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. He look pained and was like ahauuh why are you asking me that? I was so flushed I just said nevermind and laughed it off. So I'm processing still, and he's like do you wanna play truth or dare then if you've got more questions, and that did sound fun but I say no, because I have a serious last question to ask him.

I'm too shy to use said mouth so I first ask "Are you sad that we won't ever do that?", he's like what, because he can tell that I'm holding it back. I'm blushing pretty bad at this point, I hold him by the shoulders again so I can brave the courage to just outright say "Are you sad that we'll never have sex?". I think he was impressed by my direct question, or maybe just surprised. It was clear his answer was no, because he told me that love isn't sex, love is more than that, so it doesn't make him sad. Honestly all in all it was a good conversation and I'm really glad we had it even if it means it ruins some special things, I would rather know yk?

I guess it's scary for me knowing I'm a complete newby to all of this, he's my first kiss and my first boyfriend and any romantic thing you can just slap a first label on. But I do like how good he is at all of it. How good he is at laying me down. bwehhheheheheheheheee. So maybe I do prefer that he's experienced, it's just a weird thought. He really loves me, which is scary in it's own way. He loves me more than I love him, which sounds mean to say, but it's the truth. I haven't talked to him in 2 days and I have hundreds of messages from him telling me how much it hurts and he misses me and loves me. He's messaged my mum and sister too asking about me. It's not actually a willfull thing, since I got back home near 1am I'm in super trouble so I'm trying not to do anything that upsets my dad, since we're still beefing over the fact that I have a boyfriend now. Maybe I'm overthinking it all but I think in life we don't always feel the rational feeling, and I think it's okay to share that too :)

what people think + I fell in love

Blog. I have not written in what feels like actual years.

However I didn't expect to write this entry for at least another 7 years. Since I was young, my dad's stance on dating was that I was not allowed to have a boyfriend until I was 23. I'm not even joking. So yesterday I had the uncomfortable discussion with my dad where I said "me and emmanuel have kissed already, and I think I should tell you that now so you don't think I'm hiding it from you", cue a 1 hour discussion with my dad revolved around pregnancy, love my life.

Let me introduce you to emmanuel. I met emmanuel exactly one month ago. If you asked me how it all started, I would probably say infatuation at first sight. I don't even know why. If you follow my blog you probably heard me write about my anticipation for a week long camp called FSY, this is where I met him. At FSY you are split into groups called companies. I remember when I first saw him, which is funny. We were in the cafeteria, with 300 other kids. I was walking past his table, were he was taking a photo with his copmany. We locked eyes and blushed.

I don't love talking highly about myself, but I'll just provide some context. I was the only white girl at this camp. Everyone was filipino. Luckily my tagalog had improved enough to have a small clue on what was going on during the week, but I by no means fully understand. Filipinos love foriegeners, pale skin, and pointy noses. Well suffice to say I check all 3 boxes and get commented on it a lot. It was the wierdest transition for me coming from a country where I was just a normal girl, to here where I fit the beauty standard wack and center. I didn't change at all, the enviroment around me did. Defenitley showed me how fickle beauty is and how it is mostly subjective. You haven't met me, but if we did you'll probably see me smiling and giving you hug even if I didn't know you. I'm a pretty friendly person and I love people. By the fourth day of this camp, people were literally asking me to sign their ID's and asking for photos with me, it was very strange. At the dances, I hardly caught a break after being stolen from guy to guy to dance. But hey, I am by no means complaining bwahahaha.

Ok, so back to si emms. I saw him that first day, and from then forth that was it. We were infatuated. I liked his smile the most, or the fact that he even smiled. Over the next few days, whenever we would be in the same place, we were locking eyes constantly and smiling. On the second day we danced, which is when we officially met. I was a little bummed that he didn't have good english but that didn't stop me. We spent the next few days having many cute small interactions. There was a slight problem though, my friends were not supportive, and his company was not either. Of course most people didn't really care but our friends were trying to keep us apart more than they were trying to get us together. Nobody fully believed I liked him, and that was hard and still is. Because I'm me, and he's him. He's morena (which means he's darker) and in filipino culture, darker = not attractive.

I mean I'm the opposite, love me some chocolate. I think that's a big part of our relationship. Just yesterday, he showed me a text from his auntie, it goes like this. Her: You guys don't match. Him: How can you even say that? Her: She's beautiful, your ugly, she's rich, your poor, work harder if you want to keep her. I think this has been the biggest reality of it all.

On the last day, at the final dance, he asked me to dance, and he confessed to me. That time was the first time I ever told someone I liked them too. Whenever I wasn't stolen by another guy, we danced for the rest of the night. Before I left back home, he gave me a note and we took a photo together. When I got home, I had a friend request from him, along with all my other new friends, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. On one hand I knew I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend, and that if I responded we'd end up talking, and evolve from there, but if I didn't he'd likely be a little heartbroken. Well I'll sum up the past month for you. I messaged him back, we started talking from there, he came to see me that sunday, and since then any time I'm free (which is sundays only), we see eachother. I've been to his church ward, we've met each others siblings, we have matching jeans, matching bracelets, we call almost every night, and I guess things became serious from there. A few days ago we had our first kiss ... it was amazing (also my first kiss ever). The next day he came over (coincidentally when my family was out which made it a whole lot more sus but I promise I did not plan it like that), and we made out on the stairs ;))

Emmnauel is very good to me, he waits for my message every day at 12 midnight when I finish work, he wears his heart on his sleeve and has always loved me, he pays for everything and he's definitely a gentleman. That's not to say there's been plently of hiccups too, he gets jealous and overthinks easily, he somehow has brought it upon himself to friend all of my friends, but my oh my has this whole last month given me so much to think about.

I never tried to hide any of it from my dad, but when I told him what I said above he was quiet for a whole minute. He went over the worst case scenarios with me, but he had already accepted the fact that he is my boyfriend. Emmanuel doesn't know that yet, I haven't talked to him since with work and everything. But as I walked out of my dad's apartment and down the hall, a tear or 2 did escape. Knowing that I'm just a 16 year old now navigating this scary thing called love, where people start disapproving, and someone else's heart is on the line, it really does scare me and I questioned if it is even worth it. 

Call it fate, but playing from the dorm across from my dad's was this: "and up until now I've been content with loneliness ... because none of it was worth the risk. but darling, you are the only exception"

I walked out, head held high with hands in my pockets, because he is my only exception.

dear viewer, life is yours for the taking

you could waste it, you could spend it, you could simple live in it ..... or you can take it and make it your own :))

(Note that this is not an April Fools joke lmao)