August 8, 2025:

I'm tired. That is all this is. But still I cannot help to think that things are already ending and I've got to let it, even though it's painful and I don't want to, I have to let things end so that something else may begin again. There is still so much hope in August and yet I feel none of it. I've realized something about myself only recently, though this is something that happens frequently - that I procrastinate on ending things. These days it's usually books. I don't finish them because I'm afraid. I don't like change, you know? Finishing a book feels like mourning a loss rather than a sense of accomplishment. I'm the same with relationships, too, of any kind. I don't ever end things, I always let the other person do it or it will fade out on its own. It's not a good habit, I'm aware. I just cannot stand the ending of something... even if it's bad. I could go through the worst torment in the world! and I would not want it to end simply because of the notion of ending. Maybe I settle too quickly in the things that I am used to, such as misery.

I'll tell you another dream I had, the night before yesterday. I dreamt that I died and lived in the afterlife. I saw my own death too, though I'm not quite clear about how it was that I passed. In any case, I saw my body lying there on the pavement and suddenly everything was different. I dreamt that the afterlife was just a mirror of the living world with other dead people roaming around. I went home with a desire to move, so I found an apartment listing and packed to meet the landlady. I took a train where meals were already set on the table, or you could order a different meal if you'd like, but you still had to pay in the afterlife. I talked to some people on the train, about what I can't remember. The view was wonderful, like from Spirited Away. When I got off I went to see the landlady. The apartment was small, very cramped. A couple entered behind me and we had to do an interview to get the place (quite literally everything is a mirror!) and I ended up not getting it after all. I stood outside for a while, lost of what to do, and then I woke up. I retold this dream to my mom and she said (I'm Taiwanese, but am not well versed in certain customs such as the dead since I live in the West) that money is burned for the deceased so that they can afford things in the afterlife. Despite the grim theme, I had quite a good time in that dream.

August 3, 2025:

So it is August already. I feel all the days, down to the hour, of time passing this month. I know that come mid-August I will be melancholic. When I notice that the sun is setting sooner each evening, I will doubtlessly be filled with dread. Like clockwork.

Last night I had a dream that I was at [redacted]. It was a different street, one that kind of sloped endlessly. I was worrying because I couldn't find a bus route that would take me home until several hours have passed. And I stood out there by the bus stop with other people, watching them file onto the bus and go off without me. Truthfully I've been thinking a lot about the future but there is nothing I can say that doesn't end with, "well, we'll see how it goes" because it is the future, after all, and what can one really do but wait? A lot of transitional periods of my life include, I have realized, just waiting around. It is a specific type of shame that I feel when I am completely motionless and others are still moving. Must I sit like that, like how I wait for the bus? I suppose even a part of me knows that it will be good for me not to rush into things.