everything is romantic
postcard 53: on a belated valentine's day special—bringing back yearning and love; a collection of unsaid love letters
We are asleep until we fall in Love!
I still think that Valentine’s Day is at least a tiny tiny bit of a corporate scam (and I don’t care how much of a hopeless romantic you are! Call me a cynic, I guess), but I do love the fact that there’s a day for celebrating love. And not just romantic love, but the love that surrounds us all the time. And I love thinking about things and people I love—it’s what holds me through difficult times and days and what I think makes life worth everything, despite everything.
This Valentine’s Day, Nana (
) and I got on Facetime, armed with alcohol (a bottle of wine for her, multiple refills of French martinis—raspberry liqueur, vodka, pineapple juice—for me) and snacks (prosciutto and mozzarella for her, salt and pepper chips and caramelized onion dip for me), and set out to watch the greatest Valentine’s Day movie of all time: Gone Girl. We ended up just talking and drunk, giggling for three hours, probably unintentionally keeping our families up until one in the morning (our moms have been sick of us for years I’m sure). I watched the movie alone after we hung up, which has been my annual tradition for a while.
I suddenly had the idea to put together a post on love letters, whether that be romantic or not. I asked followers on my Instagram and subscribers on my Substack (you!) to send in letters or notes to people that they want to express their love (or want to, but can’t for some reason). They ranged from letters to sisters to crushes to mothers to exes, and I love that they collectively represent the idea that love isn’t just romantic. Here they are:
unsent postcards
there’s a space in my heart that holds the sun in your eyes from five years ago. my hand on the nape of your neck, gazing longingly, wondering, “what if i love you.” “what if i never do?”
for years i thought love was this tumultuous, crazy, anxiety-ridden, panicked feeling, and i was supposed to just ride every turn out. when you chased my chaos with calm, i thought it couldn’t be real. nothing good ever comes this easy. i let the spiral settle, we let our practicality take over, and we lost touch, eventually. for the best, we said. before resentment festered and we lost the ability to see each other in light—
nostalgia is a bitter trick; a magician that brings about voices that appear out of thin air. my best friends are getting engaged and married. i go on date after date. you’re still the measure. i dance with a fever trapped in my wings. i think about how you were the closest that ever came to that. how, if i’d just gotten out of my head in time, maybe we would’ve never run out.
i saw you again for the first time in years. there’s a theory about last meetings; how people who’ve finished their run in your lives are bound to never appear again. we’ve been in close proximity for years and yet the comets have never once aligned, no matter how much i’ve implored them to. and i walk in, one chilly december night, with the world breathing heavy on my shoulders. there you were, like nothing changed. two souls, an invisible string, bated breath—after all this time. surprise written in your eyes, a hug—as quick and fleeting as we once were. search party abound, just like old times. does the theory hold? i pray you never disprove it.
i ate twelve grapes under the table this new year’s. you were every wish.
to my little sister –
i hope the universe will always unveil its wonders to you. i hope you’ll hold that childlike, carefree spirit inside you forever, and leave trails of laughter behind wherever you go. i hope you know that out of every facet that makes up my identity, ‘姐’ is the one i am the proudest of. i’d choose to be your sister in every lifetime–thank you for being mine.
for a brief moment i understood. it was there and it was shining and brief but i understood what the poets write about and why soldiers kept lockets, why they say the love may not solve everything but it matters that it was there. because it was there. for a moment i felt it. for a moment i understood. but there was not enough that i could give for crumbs do not make a man full but i love you and for a moment i felt it. for a moment i understood.
Don’t think I should even tell you this because you’re with someone else now, but I’m still in love with you.
Dad,
I hope you’re doing well up there in heaven. I’m taking good care of Mum. You don’t have to worry. We miss you every day. I love you.
I think about you every time I hear a love song now.
i’m in love with you, but i’ve been so scared to say it. every time i try to tell you, the words keep getting stuck in my throat and i don’t know why. i think i’ve unconsciously been telling you i love you in a hundred different ways without actually saying the words for a long time. and i’m pretty sure you’ve been doing the same.
All your life, you feel like you know love— you have met a lot of people, liked a few of them, loved even fewer.
Then someone comes along, redefining all your concepts and ideas, making you question whether you’ve really loved anyone before? Nothing existed before them and nothing would exist after them.
It’s true they say, we’re all just passing by, but to you, they become an absolute point.
You were that absolute point for me, my valentines’ two years ago. We had no plans to celebrate but we ended up getting each other chocolates, and spent the day talking. That’s how it was with you, with everything— Easy.
Years have gone by and still, I don’t really know what to do with all this love. I heard, they say, love doesn’t just disappear— it evaporates. Slowly, with a sloth’s pace. There are factors which decrease it’s boiling point, bring it closer and closer to establishing that equilibrium. It’s not instantaneous, that’s why we never realise it happening and wake up one day, purged off of it. Or so I believed until I met you.
It would’ve been easier if I could just hate you. Hate with such passion that the very thought of you would become repulsive, that I’d find myself free of this heavy load, this love. There are times wherein I find myself, on the verge, the anger mixing with the love— forming a solution of love and hate. I stir it, hoping, this time the love would evaporate, the hate is that factor, it will happen but at the end, when the solution of my being settles down, there’s only love that’s left. Turns out, my hate is rather volatile when it comes to you, but the love, it’s the essence, the very atom of my being.
I’m glad you’re my best friend. I wouldn’t trade you for anything. Let’s stay friends forever and ever and ever because I don’t know how to live this life without you with me.
For my younger sister. I’ve written many love letters to you; whether in form of birthday cards, or excerpts from my journal. Although we squabble over the pettiest things, you are the one person I share the most conversations and time with on a daily basis. You’ve nearly reached my height, which is so crazy because I once knew you as a crying, red, bald baby. You are so beautiful, and I love you. I’m so glad I got to grow up with you, and to witness you grow. I remember our conversation of how we will always choose each other as our maids of honour, because friends come and go, but sisters have to stick around. You’re my favourite sister, even though you’re the only one I have. Thank you for being the best little sister ever. I see you and me in every sister duo I read about or see in movies.
i never believed in right person, wrong time until you came into my life. i wish i had been braver. i wish i told you not to leave when you asked me if i’d be ok with you moving. i wish things were different. but now i just watch your instagram stories and write you letters i can never send you. why didn’t i ask you to stay? we could be together right now. everything else feels silly now.
Thanks for showing me that love is gradual — and infinite. I loved you yesterday, but I love you more now. And I know I’ll love you even more tomorrow. It’s growing with you, side by side, within your smiles, your soft kisses to my cheek, the way you say “babe”, and the way you run toward me.
My heart is full with you, baby boy.
You are the reason why now I tear up without fail when I hear Can’t Help Falling In Love now. I still love you so much, but that love feels useless now. You seem to be doing better and I’m happy that you’re happy but what if I’m not? Every March 9 I light a candle for us.
The Space Between Us
Nights stretch too long without you.
The bed is too wide, too cold,
and silence presses in like a weight.
Even the air feels restless,
turning over in its sleep, searching for you.
The city moves, uncaring—
headlights streaking across wet pavement,
voices rising, fading,
but none of it touches me.
Even the wind, once soft, now stings.
Your book still waits on the nightstand,
a folded page frozen in time.
Your coffee cup lingers in the sink,
as if you might return,
as if love alone could summon you home.
Some say distance makes love fade,
but I know better.
Time bends for us, waits for us—
I will wait for you, steady as the tide,
until we are real again.
you came into my life and turned my world upside down. i can’t remember a time before i knew you, and to be honest, i don’t want to. you tell me that i changed your life for the better, but i see colors that i never saw before you. how could i have not known it was possible to feel this way about someone? every day i think of telling you how i feel. everything feels so easy with you until i’m about to tell you that i’m in love with you. and then everything feels so terrifying. but i’ll say it here because you’ll never see it, wish it on a star, three times for good luck. i love you. i love you. i love you.
wherever you are, i hope you know i’m patiently waiting for you.
despair creeps into my heart, doubt in my mind. but i know everything worthwhile takes time. so, i’ll wait.
thank you for loving me the way you do. thank you for being kind, and thoughtful. thank you for the late night talks, and the full days spent at the museums, and that poem collection you gave me for my birthday. i remember every word you annotated for me. thank you for giving me your time. thank you for choosing me. thank you for letting me choose you.
i love that you are the only person who cooks for me without me having to ask. and the way your eyes wrinkle when you smile. and how pretentious we both are about art. i love your brain, but mostly your heart.
wherever you are, know that i am waiting. patiently waiting. sure that you will come.
I remember the first time I met you on a hookup app of all places, 1 August 2022, and since then my love has bloomed in ways that surprised me. Sometimes I asked God, “why did you put him in my life?”, and I understand the reason now, it was so I can learn how to love so earnestly and fully in a way I didn’t think I could ever do or even thought I deserved to do, but I learnt that I’m a lover girl at heart, and while it hurts that I can’t say this to you personally, this love letter is a testament to the fact that I love you so deeply and in the end, you let me get to love you the way I wanted to. Even though we didn’t make it, I know we will always be intertwined in this timeline and the next, but for now my love, meri jaan, forever and always
Sometimes i feel like it's okay that we're are apart and oceans are separating us, because my love is enough for it, knowing that you're okay and you're smiling are enough for it.
Sometimes I can't look at you without a pang in my chest, knowing what you had and have to go through from the beginning, and it hurts so much that i want to just look away to just end my suffering.
But i look at you anyway, because looking away feels selfish and my love is not selfish, that's what i tell myself, refusing to tear my gaze away from you.
Sometimes i look at you and just wish to be near you. Not romantically or something like that, but just to feel you near me, see your chest expanding with every breath, see your eyes as you wake up in the morning, greeting the sunrise, see the way your hands are playing on the piano, caressing the keys gently. I just want to walk you through your life as some kind of ghost, i want you to feel my hand on your shoulder when it gets hard, i want you to step behind me so i can protect you.
Sometimes it gets so unbearable that my love becomes selfish and greedy and destructive and all the things i wish it weren't. I just want you all to myself, i want to catch your every breath, every genius word that slips from your lips, hear you quiet laugh and hug you so hard that you'd understand that I'm here.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but it makes me weaker when my desire to see you is burning in my chest, physically drags me closer to you, but you've gone too far for me to touch you.
Sometimes i wish i didn't love you.
I may be weak but my love isn't. So I do, I always do.
ode to a lost twin.
it’s strange to say goodbye to someone before you’ve said hello. to miss someone you’ve never met. to have the rug pulled out from under you before you’ve had a chance to make a home. to share a womb and then nothing at all, ever again. i catch myself wishing i could tell you about my days, imagining your shadow moving parallel with mine. i have memories of us that don’t exist, giggling late under the covers at night, two sets of blonde pigtails in matching pink ribbons. but then i blink and the film reel in my mind judders to a halt. when i look up at the moon i think of you. every year on our birthday i write a message on a balloon and watch it fly up to you, but here’s one more. i miss you and i love you.
Hey,
I know our relationship has been so difficult and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve decided to believe in what other people say about you, that I believe all the horrible things they say or jump to conclusions that you’re a terrible, unlovable failure of a man.
I’m sorry that I haven’t done better in trying to take care of you, that my mind is so scattershot that I can’t care for you the way you need. I wish that you could find the happiness and love that you deserve. I wish that things in your life can get better, even though you don’t believe it will. I wish that you could really believe that you’re smart and capable and earnest and good, like all your friends say you are and that you can grow into.
I wish I could take better care of you, especially that you and I are stuck together, that you and I are the same.
I wish I could love you better. I wish I could love myself better.
Dear Mom,
When I think of love, I immediately think of the love that you’ve poured into me, sweeter and warmer and messier and stronger than all of the world’s Valentine perfumes and chocolates and roses mixed together as a concoction.
Happy Valentines
love letter
fort greene park
evelina
cape cod beach
homemade curry and twisters (2024)
cafe paulette salad
can’t take my eyes off you
amc a-lister
joker: folie à deux
chess, lucali, and a bottle of wine
casper ruud jaaa
miffy and boris
calling HR
bourgeoisie
cows and udder
madagascar mort
katesye dances
puerto rico and inauguration day
costco cookies
these are just a few of the many things only the two of us can giggle about. how lucky am i that we have written a love letter only the two of us can decode.
Usually whenever Valentine’s is around, I absolutely dread it. I don’t mind people celebrating love. I just don’t like the reminder that I’m so single, especially one particular rather scornful week in February. For some reason, I didn’t sweat it too much this time - maybe I spent more time indoors and forget about the impending D-day or maybe I am immuned to it at this point. I saw some content creator make a day out of nice solo dates buying flowers, jewellery shopping and treating herself to a nice dinner. I thought I could do something similar and signed up for an art gallery viewing just by myself. Okay maybe I was hoping I would stumble upon the good looking former French prime minister’s son who curated the gallery or perhaps some well-dressed dude who knows art stuff and lacks the highly contagious blandness of personality that prevails in guys these days. The day was off to a rocky start, I didn’t pass my exam, which I only moderately studied for. The tiny morsel of unhappiness flew away by the awareness that I was looking really nice today dressed up in a nice black satin dress paired with sheer black leggings, red lipstick and heels. E and I made a drinking opportunity out of it and got 3 glasses of wine each. This of course hinders my much anticipated plans for some art gallery soulmate-searching. We talked about music, the absurdity of Firework lyrics starting with a “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?” which we mutually contended to sharing from time to time and then loudly singing lyrics to “I’ve got a pocket full of sunshine” and finally progressing to, of course, relationships and boys.
For a moment I am back in another bar, more dimly lit with E who proposes the idea of flirting with one of her friends. I wasn’t particularly interested but thought I looked good, felt confident and surely could use some extra validation so why the hell not. He seems nice and polite and I am already mildly drunk. E berated him for his clothing choice that day to which I replied “I think he is okay” and I realised I wasn’t even lying. Being the wingwoman that she is, E hypes me up telling how I finish reading books in 2 weeks and makes me sound smarter than I really am. And then of course, the classic she needed to use the washroom trick, which to my surprise I was thankful for. No we didn’t flirt but we did talk and in some weird sort of way it felt better. Like no butterflies, just feeling level-headed and not losing my sanity sort of. In a word, safe, very safe. All this while I have come up about different theories about love, my most recent being that love is a number’s game. And when you think you know everything about something, a stranger walks in and all these ideas, theories you have collected and ruminated on are thrown out of the window. Who makes you feel okay, like a person who is more focused on asking questions and staying curious, rather than running this unspoken radar of how hot I look today or how many times did I mess up today a million times in your head. I realised how that non-fleeting sense of security has been missing in my past romantic expeditions. And that is something I really would look for from now on…
I walk back to office in my drunken state and shockingly no one caught on the act. In 2 hours, the tipsiness finally wore off, thank heavens, and I feel like my mortal self again. I head to the nearby library after work and get some books on ancient Rome which I have been meaning to read for the longest time. By the time I step out its already dark. I conclude my night with a box of greasy pizza with herby garlic dip, contended and feeling less alone. My eternal flame is yet another day’s discovery but I go to sleep knowing I am surrounded by my books and my lovely friends always.
I think you are one of the few people I know where I can pinpoint the moment I realized I wanted you to be in my life. Maybe I’m wrong and it actually happened earlier, but this is what I remember.
We were all in the staff room unpacking boxes. You took a look inside one of them, realized it contained several large knives, yelled “DANGER” and started to cut up some extra cardboard to make knife covers. Although we had all recently finished a group training session on risk mitigation you did this completely unprompted and within seconds of clocking the cover-less knives, which I thought was hilarious. Later on, I opened the drawer where the knives had been placed. Each of the cardboard covers had puns written on them in black Sharpie: “You can HANDLE it!”, “Cut out negativity!”, “You’re on the cutting edge!”, “Looking sharp!”.
I laughed and decided I wanted to be your friend — although if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure which of these things happened first.
Maybe the past is an odd thing to write about on a postcard but I thought about you today and this is what came out.
It really was knife to meet you.
Thank you for marrying me and loving me. I’d love you in every lifetime.
This really brightened my morning. It's such a nice reminder that there is so much love out there. Also "knife to meet you" cracked me up!
"I'd marry you in each lifetime" yearning truly is so back oh my 😭💞