We’re all healing from something ❤️‍🩹

Dear Friend,

Hey, how’s it going? At one of my previous jobs when morale was super low (during its darkest days), my friend Shannon said the only thing she could think to do was to brave on a smile. And people would thank her, saying her smile meant a lot to them when things look so grim otherwise. In today’s state of the world where there simply isn’t any right answers, I remember her smile and recognize that the audacity to keep smiling, or to keep persisting, takes real courage.

The South San Francisco New Library finally opened this past weekend! It was but a pile of dirt when Ian and I first moved into the area back in 2020, and now the structure is proudly standing as if it’s always been there. We went to the grand opening and it looked like the entire population of South City was there. Say I’m in a bubble but I genuinely did not know this many people cared about a public library opening. An Apple Store maybe, a Starbucks Reserve perhaps, but a public library? Perhaps it’s true afterall that hope is there if you know to look for it.

I got a Kindle and with it finally finished Peach Blossom Springs, otherwise a 400 page book. Not only does Kindle help take away the friction to reading (ie: turning the page, reading in low light, etc), I’m also now able to send longer articles I collect from the web to that device and apparently, I’m obsessed with highlighting text.

One of the articles I read on the Kindle was How Millennials Grew Up and Got Old, where it mentioned that our generation went from being to blamed for ruining everything to this moment where “you just seem to matter less. People are less anxious about you, less mad about you — if anything, they seem slightly annoyed by you. You’re no longer the future. You’re the well-worn middle.” There’s also this concept of being washed that felt super accurate, which just means “you’re going out less (and caring less about what others think about it, or anything else) and also ‘acquiring unfashionable hobbies that nevertheless bring you pleasure.’ It means relaxing into yourself.”

Perhaps related, but I was just telling Ian the other day that Disney can make as however many diverse movies as they want but nothing will ever make me feel as seen as much as the Asian uncles at that SSF New Library grand opening who are clearly there for the free food.

The Leave Behind:

• The photos I took this month
• What’s worth remembering in October 2023

Thanks for reading on this and being with me on this journey. You can check out past issues of Dear Friend, here.

Love wins