All the love we have left to give

“When you give other people room to have opinions on things that are so personal to you, it poisons it,” says Bella in her latest interview with Vogue.

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I woke up late this morning, partly because I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep until I ate a sugar cookie. I'm an early riser, always awake with the first rays of sunlight, always awake before my alarm. Ever since I was a child, I've hated the mechanical alarm sound. I'd rather be woken up by the sounds around the house or on the street. My partner-in-sleep doesn't get it, although it warms his heart to find me wide awake just as he's regaining consciousness and see me staring back at him with a wide smile, excited as a child on the first day of summer break.

I'm a morning person, through and through.

But this morning, I decided to take it easy, wake up a lot later than usual, decided to text my parents only once, and late, and slowly wake up to prepare my breakfast of two boiled eggs and one cup of tea. After I finished my breakfast while watching the first few minutes of Sierra Burgess Is A Loser, I decided to read about a random person who has been on my mind, and that is how I came across Bella Hadid's interview.

I'm trying to grow out my nails these days, something that has always seemed icky to me. I want to temporarily have talons and paint them with new bright colours every couple of days. People at work are too prudent but I always go in with sparkly or neon nails and some of the bling I inherited as a married woman. It doesn't matter to me how I'm perceived, I feel content this year. I eat my lunches alone and grab a coffee by myself whenever I please. I've been working as hard as I can manage and keeping my head down in the process of carving a future for myself. It doesn't matter if I fail or succeed because I'll always know that I tried my best, as I have been doing for the past nine years. It would take forever to explain my journey to potential employers but there's always the hope that someone with matched empathy can see where I started and extend opportunities to me.

My hands are icy, I need to get out of bed to turn the heating up.