lighthouse & sparkle

1st May, 2025

I wrote a little while back about my friends acting as my lighthouse, a guiding warmth in an ocean I don't always know how to navigate.

That's been proven true again tonight - even as some of those friends seem quite adrift in their own oceans.

I also wrote recently about how I oscillate so frequently from one emotional state from another, even between entire personalities. About how I struggle to find myself, in-between the pendulum swings.

Tonight, I am feeling more like myself than I have for a while.

This may seem odd, given that the version of me writing this right now is so rarely found these days. Perhaps it is wishful thinking - that this determined, hopeful, creative self is the 'real' me. But I don't think so.

The paranoia and the doubt are still there, whispering about at the edges of perception. But they are fighting a losing battle, and they know it. We have driven them back for tonight.

It's quite amazing, what a few messages from a friend can do.

🔥 🔥 🔥

Today has still been a range of emotional states and fluctuations. This sense of renewed and genuine me has only come about in the last hour or so, and sadly I do expect it will depart again soon, mingled in with the usual heartache we all seem to be feeling some variation of at the moment.

But I'm not here to dwell on that. I am here because many important things happened today.

I stopped on the way to class and chatted with a gentleman sitting on the side of the road. He gave me a short story he had written and printed out, on an A4 piece of paper. Frankly it wasn't very good, but I sent him $5 anyway, because I said I would. This helped.

I read a very good book that I deeply empathise with, which I've written about over there. This helped.

I received a message from my downstairs housemate, asking if I was home and if I wanted to come play a boardgame with her and some friends. Unfortunately I was not home, and she apologised for the short notice and promised to ask again next time. This helped.

I ran into a wonderful friend very briefly at about 9pm, and despite the fact that he looked as tired as I felt, we stopped on our respective journeys long to exchange some kind words. There was a look in his eyes, behind the tiredness. Something that spoke of deep genuinity and care. This helped.

While waiting for my bus I stepped forward to hold the door of an entirely different one, so the person running up the street would not miss it. I didn't really think anything of this - it's just what you do. Small acts of kindness. But two strangers standing nearby applauded, of all things. This felt very strange. But it helped.

I walked home from the bus. I lay down in bed, feeling empty. On a whim, I opened an old fanfiction website, seeking oblivion in words.

I found the page of an author I used to casually follow - and discovered he had passed away, almost 6 years ago. Incredibly though, his page was still alive with activity. Every month, from then till now, people had been posting comments, wishing him peace and expressing love and regret and grief. Some addressed him by name, and reappeared frequently. Others seemed to be strangers, once-off visitors who had found his work, discovered his passing, and left some kind words for those still here.

It was an outpouring of love I'm somehow not used to seeing anymore. This helped.

This helped. This helped. This helped.

The world is full of small, important flames. I begin to feel a little less empty.

And then... finally, I receive a goodnight message. If you've been reading these, or if you know me, you may have picked up that goodnights are quite, quite important to me, as much as I am always afraid of turning the heartfelt ritual into some kind of obligation.

This one was from one of my dearest friends. I said goodnight in return, and expected that would be all, as usual. That's okay - I was glad just to have received it.

I was wrong. A few more words followed, to my surprise. Nothing that I will share here. But a spark of something, the colour of hope amidst tiredness.

And those words were important. Those words made me smile, softly at first and then more and more. They warmed my heart, with that wonderfully coarse and playful glow in my chest that I feel around those I genuinely love.

And that tiny spark lit a flame in the fuel that had been building all day, without me realising it. And now, for however brief a time, I am aglow again.

🔥 🔥 🔥

Many of the people I care about are going through a bad time right now. I don't know all of the causes. I don't think they know all of the causes.

Even when I do think I understand what ails my friends, I don't always know how to help.

I don't know if I can help. I don't know if I'm needed.

But I want to. I want to be. If this is selfishness, then it is a better kind than many I have known. I just want my friends to be okay, eventually. In their own time, at their own pace. But getting better.

And so I must not let this flame go out. If I do, I become another patch of treacherous rocks in the dark. And I have already been that far too often.

I may not know if I am needed, but I know I cannot be helpful to my friends if I run out of light to give.

So for a little while at least, I cradle this little spark in my palms like the gift that it is. Whether or not it is accepted, I will still strive to be the lighthouse in the dark, the candle that lasts the night, the rays of sun within the storm. Just like they all have been, for me.

I don't know who I'll wake up as, in the morning. But I hope I read this and remember.

I owe you the world, and I would set it ablaze to keep you all warm.

Distance is to love like wind is to fire,

it extinguishes small ones, and kindles the great.