Meet our April guest editor, Linh Le!
Linh is a Vietnamese-American queer woman who works in gaming and tech by day and writes her heart out by night. She is passionate about representation in media and tech, geeky stuff, and, more recently, skincare. She’s also a proud Bay Area native and resident. Follow on Twitter and read more of her work.
We are so excited to share Linh’s story with you, which discusses impermanence, nostalgia, and both accepting past experiences for what they are.
Read it now: “Finding Peace With The Scarcity of Time”
While impermanence and change can be scary, why is it something that people can also learn to embrace and see as positive?
A cynical answer that most people would provide, which has its own fair points, is that you can’t control it so you might as well embrace it. There’s something comforting in knowing that things don’t last forever — it changes your perspective of things and frees you to go with the flow. Though it’s sad that good things don’t last forever, they hold so much more meaning because of it. This also means that bad things don’t last forever, which is great if you ask me haha.
Time is a never-ending journey and we are all just along for the ride.
I’ve learned to embrace change because I see it as a step forward in my life story. There’s a reason why most good stories have some sort of conflict in them. Change needs to occur for the character to grow and I apply that same idea to to my personal life. With every obstacle I overcome, I “level up” in life and become a better me. It’s a very exciting thought!
What are the things or people that you miss the most and have lost to time, change or other circumstances? How do you keep them around?
I definitely miss spending time with my sisters the most, which I talk about briefly in my essay. However, since I got my youngest sister her first phone, we’ve all been able to keep in touch via group text. My three younger sisters and I are the most consistent group of loved ones I’ve ever had in my life, so to be able to make inside jokes and share silly photos with just a few taps on my phone has been amazing.
My sisters and I have always been close and I would do everything in my power to still spend as much time with them as possible.
I also dearly miss my college friends, especially ones in a club that I was heavily involved in. The easiest way I try and keep in touch is by liking everything they post and commenting or responding to their Instagram Stories LOL. With my friends who live far away or tend to have busy schedules, I try to reach out once every few months at the very least to schedule a phone call with no hard end time so we can just spend hours and hours catching up. The circumstances of our friendships might be different, and we might have grown into different people, but after spending some time together again I tend to find that not much has changed after all.
What conversations are you hoping to start with this theme?
Mental health issues and self-care seem to be a popular topic amongst the community. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I adore us so much. That we can be vulnerable and talk so freely about the things that hurt us and heal us gives me hope that one day everyone can be like the Femsplain community. A huge part of my self-care journey has been learning to let go and accept things that are out of my control. Ironically, by doing that, I feel much more in control of my life. Yes, things happen that are out of my control, but by the end of the day, I’m in control of my own narrative.
I wanted to share this with everyone else and give back to a community that’s given me so much too. I’m excited to hear all the lovely responses!
April updates:
- We are ramping up our fundraising for the Spring so that we can continue paying and increase our budget for our writers. Consider becoming a monthly Member on Medium or by donating any amount one time on Gumroad!
