This is not a letter. This is a figment of your imagination. This letter doesn't exist, and you're seeing things.

*

There's something that shitty mental health does to you. You're laughing and smiling, but underneath, the ice is melting, and you're falling apart. My mind's been a mess for most of this year, but it's been rising to the fore these days. I let go of things I thought I could hold on to, this letter for example, and I apologise.

(This letter is unedited.)

Regularly Scheduled Programming

Hola,

I binged watched the show Dash & Lily, and I absolutely love it. Let me backtrack a little;

November is Christmas season for Hollywood. Cheesy Hollywood movies and shows start coming out (Hi Hallmark!) and the Christmas magic is the order of the day. As a kid, I used to adore shows like these and this year, I made a decision to watch as many as I could. I don't believe in Christmas - I'm pretty sure Christ was born in early October but that's by the way. Someone on TikTok said that being an adult is just doing the things you liked to do as a kid but with wine and though I don't have wine, I'm going back to being a kid for a little while.

Last week, I watched Falling for Christmas, Lindsay Lohan's comeback? to Hollywood. It was meh. Predictable. But still had the Christmas spirit and cheer we know and love. I gave a review on my WhatsApp status and someone recommended the series Dash & Lily. I wrote a little review for it. You can watch it on Netflix if you're interested.

When I was watching, Lily said something about the etymology of the word 'Abracadabra' and I spent a good five minutes reading up on that. Most sources agree that it's from the Aramaic word "avra kehdabra" which means "I create as I speak" (some say it's from the Hebrew phrase ebrah k'dabri meaning the same thing). With Hebrew and Aramaic having such close ties to Christianity, it's no surprise that there's a Christian saying "There is power in the tongue". Maybe this is a sign that I should start taking manifestations seriously. Might manifest my depression and anxiety away. Bants about my mental illnesses aside, it's something to think about.

I found an old draft of something I started when I read Vagabonds! and I completed it today. It's a piece on faces and masking, dare I say it's one of my rawer pieces till date.

An ode to Faces. | Latifah's Library — ziatiffah.wordpress.com

This is an old draft I started a couple of months ago but finally completed today. It has neither head nor tail, and you should read this with no expectations. * Contrary to popular opinion, I do not like being seen. I do not like being perceived and I would like to dwell in people’s…

On Life.

Apart from the state of my head being in complete disarray, Life has still been a weird vibe lately. I lost something dear to me. It was something I knew I was going to lose but knowing doesn't make the feeling of losing any easier.

You do a certain kind of grieving when you have lost so much that one more on the list just makes you shrug. You breeze through the stages of grief like you're running a 100m race when, in fact, the process of grieving and, by extension, healing is a marathon. But again, knowing ≠ feeling.

I watched Black Panther on opening weekend, and I reread the letter where I talked about the trailer; it's nice to see I wasn't wrong there. With Black Panther and this loss, I had to go back to reread my own words - let the past Zia talk some sense into me. She was a smart cookie that one.

"For what is grief if not love persevering? Love for what was, love for what could have been."

On Books.

I finally finished Legendborn and it was worth every second. I will be reading the second book, 'Bloodmarked', and I will let you know how it goes. Legendborn was an 8/10, I fear. I also read Bridges are for Burning by Bina Idonije and in awe of how good people are with words. Then there's me who hasn't done NaNoWriMo in three years and counting. If you happen to be in a bookstore and see the book, grab a copy.

On Music.

Any and all music news has been dwarfed by the fact that Kim Namjoon is dropping a third project called "Indigo"! I am so excited for it. I have given up on getting the album preordered (because poverty) but I'm so psyched to hear what my husband has in store for me!

Lemonade.

Good things are slowly catching up to the bad things lately and I like it. I wrote two articles that got published in GTCo's Fashion Weekend Magazine, even though they didn't put my name, it still is a win!

I've been making a list of things I did that I was proud of this year and vice versa, I actually did do some good things. My 2022 goals are in the mud and the year showed me shege but I survived and I almost thrived. Keyword being 'almost'. We go again next year.