don't be sorry for being YOU

| on connections that feel like a lifetime & being unapologetically you

I’ve always been the biggest advocate of letting connections form organically, that one person you sit next to everyday in the bus on your commute to your college or workplace, the barista that took your order today & made you feel like maybe life is good and you just needed a coffee, that one person you sat next to in 8th standard because your teacher changed the seating arrangement (and you’ve been besties since the past 10yrs now), that one online friend who lives miles & miles away from you, but knows & gets you better than the ones in your vicinity. Sometimes these connections are short & momentary, some of them however feel like a quest of a lifetime, as if you’ve found a treasure.

Last night, a really good friend of mine & I were conversing on iMessage (ignoring the fact that we both had 8am lectures in the morning). He went on to show me this new guitar stand he had bought, and how he was contemplating between getting a red or a blue one, but ultimately settled on the black one. And in that moment it hit me, that yapping about the most random happenings of our lives, is what makes friendships truly amazing. It’s in those little things, which when yapped about, make us feel as if it was a shared experience.

I think am the kinda person, who would be just happy to know what all things you went to restock in your lil grocery run, what did the first rain in your city made you feel, if your cat is doing well, is she stretching enough? is she lollying around with all the whimsy in her being? My friends can literally yap about anything & everything and I would be all ears, with the widest doe-eyes, admiring them. I think that’s the kind of peace we crave in connections, i.e. wanting to be seen & heard without being performative. Conversations are also so much more effortless when you know the other person is just as weird & whimsical like you, in their own way.

Which reminds me of the fact that a lot of us have been conditioned by life to just stay performative, in order to be accepted & fit-in with our peers. Instead of raw, real conversations that genuinely make friendships feel light-hearted, a lot of us still choose to curate & shrink ourselves to a point where our quirks & the real persona is just non-existent. I used to do that back in highschool too, and perhaps even in first year of college, despite having the coolest personality (ahhahaha jk) of being a reader, an anime weeb, a swiftie, a kpop & kdrama fan, a studygrammer, a writer, a youtuber, a matcha person (no one say anything bout matcha, its the only thing keeping me sane) and so many other amazing whimsical quirks w +99999 aura, but all I did was dilute myself to fit-in with my classmates, and sometimes.. it just suffocates you, so much so, that, you vow to be weird and whimsical and unapologetically YOU for the rest of your life. And honestly? I think that’s the best decision ever, coz the ones who choose to stick around are your people.

Recently, I watched Anna Howard’s latest podcast episode on yt, she changed my whole perspective on ‘feeling misunderstood’, as sometimes THAT is the creative process, the emotions you feel when you’re surrounded by people who just don’t get you, the way you have to regulate your mindset and establish boundaries so as to not let those people hurt you. It is all a part of the creative process as you gotta alchemise those emotions into something that serves the world, but first and foremost serves YOU. And so what, if I don’t have the best people around me at college, what I do have are precious connections, no matter the distance. The people who won’t give up on me, the ones who will be cheering the loudest for all my wins & comforting me in the most delicate manner when I fail.

For me, content creation has always been an anchor, something I would do in order to romanticise and document my life, writing articles here on substack feels peaceful, almost as if writing a diary entry that can be read by different people with different persona, in a hope that it resonates with them. So please take this as a sign, to not let the people around you, who just don’t match your freak, discourage you or make you feel like you’re ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’. Stay whimsical ftw <3

Thank you sooo much for reading sweetheart, may all your wishes come true <3

You can connect with me on instagram theminimalstudies for study tips, vlogs, daily whimsical stories ehe & watch my most recent study vlog on yt if you get the time 🎀

remember you’re always loved

xoxo

Shreya