Revival?

How long has it been since I posted anything on here? 3 years? Time flies… What’s been happening with Twitter lately got me thinking of reviving this blog. A little push from my friend Yuuka, but also the encouragement of many others at the idea made me open WordPress again to write, haha! I also changed the theme.

I’m glad to see that the blogging community still thrives somehow!

My last entry before this one was just before the start of COVID and oof, we’ve come a long way… So I thought a little “catch up” post would be nice!

I moved out of my parents’ house

This is the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of big changes that happened in my life since then. During the pandemic, it was only me and my mom cooped up in our apartment. I wasn’t affected at all work-wise, it was truly a rough time for me, mentally. As the eldest daughter of an immigrant family, my parents had always relied on me a lot since I was a child for medical appointment and stuff that required good knowledge of French in general (which is far from normal for a child). This load is heavier and heavier to carry as you grow old and that’s what I realized during the pandemic. I felt conflicted, because I’ve been raised to be “filially pious”, yet the exhaustion I experienced was very real.

My mother took the decision to retire at the beginning of the pandemic, which was pretty understandable: her workplace was being bought by competitors after being closed during the lockdown and being an older member of the staff, she was kind of being “handed over” to the new bosses and she didn’t want that. However, after her retiring, it was as if many health concerns surfaced while she was feeling fine before. She had a lot of medical appointments and underwent two surgeries, which I booked and to which I went with her.

Honestly, I could feel she was very depressed about the whole ordeal and being both hypochondriac and quite anxious in general didn’t help her and nor me. As much as I love her, being around her all day was very draining because she was projecting all that negative energy onto me, even though I couldn’t blame her for it. (I’ve seen people being called ungrateful for feeling this way by peers on groups like Subtle Asian Traits (when I was still on Facebook), but those feelings are valid to me. You can absolutely feel exhausted of being relied upon all the time, but it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate your parents.)

My boyfriend also lived at his parents and for other reasons, it was getting pretty tiring for him as well. We couldn’t see each other for a long time with the various lockdowns since we didn’t live near each other enough, in addition of not wanting to risk catching COVID. Moving in together was something we thought of before, without proactively seeking to do it. As time passed by, it practically became a need, so we just looked into it and rented an apartment together! It’s been almost one year since, and I’m really happy to finally have my own place. My mother is sad that I left, but I needed to go. I visit her whenever I can, or she comes sometimes. Her health got better too.

I cleaned my office recently and snapped a few shots! It’s the room where I spend most of my time:

I’ve been obsessed with nails

Around the same time, I picked up a new hobby: doing nails (as in a nail technician’s work: nail art, nail extensions, etc.). As long as I can remember, I’ve always been a nail polish person. I used to be a nail biter when I was younger, but I stopped purely because it was prettier to have long nails to put polish on (lol). Anyway, I kind of put aside journaling and stationary for manicures and gel polishes. I’ve been really passionate about it and still am today! I’ve learned a lot through YouTube and also online trainings. I made a lot of mistakes during the process (damaging my nails by overfiling, cutting my cuticles too much, etc. but don’t worry, they recovered lol) but I feel like I reached a decent level now?

Here is a between my first set of nails back in 2020 (gel polish on natural nails, RIP my cuticles) VS my latest set (gel extensions with glitter inlay):

As of now, I don’t plan to monetize this hobby which I view as an art medium. I mostly do my own nails and press on nails for more artistic endeavors (I’d be heartbroken to file off the designs), but I do take care of one of my best friends’ nails on a regular basis though, so I can get out of my comfort zone and have experience with other nails than mine! It’s been amazing so far.

Also, I opened an Instagram account dedicated to my nail work recently, don’t hesitate to follow me there if you’re interested: @delphinitely.nails

I’m feeling good

As I’m nearing 30, I can say pretty confidently that I’m happy to be where I stand right now in my life. I’m grateful for being able to make it so far, surrounded by awesome people and doing stuff I’ve always wanted to do 😊

Oh and I didn’t get to finish and to publish the article on the last leg of my Japan trip in Tokyo!! Although it’s been ages, I still want  to publish it in the future but I need to gather my thoughts and memories about it again first :’)

See you around!