We grew up thinking life would feel like a movie once we got it right.

We were raised on storylines that promised clarity in the final act; love as transformation, heartbreak as revelation, beauty as proof that it all meant something.

We believed the arc would save us.
• Like Something’s Gotta Give, we’d cry into our laptops and somehow emerge softer.
• Like You’ve Got Mail, we’d find meaning in missed connections.
• Like Notting Hill, we’d stand in front of someone saying, “I’m just a girl…” and everything would fall into place.

But somewhere along the way, I started chasing the shape of a scene more than the moment itself. I thought the quiet and “boring” parts, the waiting, the “nothing days,” the blurred days, were filler.

But they were never filler. They were the film.

Act II: The Pattern

A few weeks ago, over dinner with friends, I caught myself explaining why I stopped seeing someone and then accidentally explaining why I didn’t stop sooner.

“I don’t even know why I kept meeting him,” I said.
“We didn’t really click… he was honestly kind of boring.
But we would’ve looked cute together.”

We laughed, but the line hit me harder later.

Damn. Cute together? Am I this shallow? lol.
Here I am wanting a relationship with depth, someone who would actually see me through my layers and contradictions, and this was what I was thinking about?

It was such a harmless line, but it exposed more than I expected.

It wasn’t him I wanted.
It was the scene I imagined us in.

The cinematic illusion of “us”:
• the chemistry I imagined (very Bonnie-and-Clyde coded)
• the “this could read like a chapter” tension (Anaïs Nin would’ve written us well lol)
• the fake still frame I imagined in some parallel life, hung on the wall of the house we never even talked about

And honestly? Who doesn’t want a good story?
We all want some good old rom-com moment we can believe in, the kind that makes the rest of life feel less chaotic.

But that night, I finally saw the pattern:
I wasn’t choosing people.
I was choosing potential montages.

For so long, I measured my life by how story-worthy it felt and tbh, whether it felt screenshot-able:
• the “right” city to fall in love in
• the “right” person to fill the frame beside me
• the “right” timing
• the “right” coincidence that would make it all poetic

As if hitting the perfect frame would finally make my life mean something.

I kept trying to arrange my life into a narrative that made sense.
A plot. A sequence. A through-line.

But that chase came with a cost.
Because the more I tried to shape my life into a scene, the more I overlooked the parts that didn’t look cinematic — the parts that might’ve actually held something real.

And somewhere in that realization, the illusion broke.

I thought I was chasing clarity.
But really?
I was just afraid to sit in the parts of my life that weren’t yet beautiful.

So yeah… I wasn’t actually choosing love.
I was choosing a motherf*cking cinematic scene stitched together from everything I’ve read and watched.

Act III: The Romance of Being Present

It’s wild how tightly we hold onto the idea that life must look meaningful to feel meaningful.

Being an ’89 girly raised on peak rom-coms like You’ve Got Mail, Something’s Gotta Give, Before Sunrise, and the softness of books like The Lover and The History of Love, it was so easy to believe that significance arrived with atmosphere; timing, mood, chemistry, dialogue.

I thought meaning needed aesthetics.
That love needed a “scene.”
I thought life needed a plot.

But now, I see it so differently.

Life was meant to be lived through, not arranged into something that makes emotional sense on paper. It doesn’t follow a script; it loops, it stumbles, it circles back, it confuses you, it pauses for no reason at all.

And somehow… that’s where it feels the most alive.

Maybe the point was never to chase the perfect poetic moment, the perfect vibe, the perfect spark that signals “this must be it.”

Maybe the point is to be present enough to actually feel what’s happening…
to notice that you find the way they stutter kind of cute,
that their awkwardness isn’t a red flag but a softness,
that the way they avoid eye contact is less disinterest and more kilig-inducing panic because they don’t know where to put their hands around you.

To notice the things that become visible only when you stop watching your life from the outside and actually step into it.

Because in the end, the little things, the in-betweens, the stills, the imperfections, were the ones holding the most truth.
The real story was never waiting in some imagined shot.
It was unfolding right in front of me, quietly insisting on being lived.

And honestly?

Maybe the whole point is to stop chasing a f*ckin “scene” long enough to realize that real, deep, soul-level love might already be staring right at me.

Maybe the romance was never in the scene I tried to frame
but in the life that kept unfolding
when I finally looked up.

And maybe that’s exactly why I’ve been asking the universe to surprise me,
because deep down, I knew I had to loosen my grip for anything real to find me.

So I’m letting the frame widen.
I’m letting the plot breathe.

Because don’t we all want a story we can finally call ours?

Something so specific, so unexpected, so wildly us
that we could never say:
“I’ve read this before,” or
“I think I’ve watched this somewhere.”

Something only life could write.

Thanks for reading this far, truly.💛
I still can’t activate the paid option here on Substack (3rd world problems lol), but if you’d like to send some love, here is my “Buy me coffee” link:

Buy Me Coffee

And since you’re already here…
I’m finally naming something I’ve been quietly building:

Feeling Frames, a guided creative experience that helps founders and artists translate the way their work feels into visual language.
A living, breathing moodboard.
A soft archive of emotion.
A foundation for your next brand shoot, your next creative direction, or the next version of you.

More soon! xxx

The Quietest Goodbye

My father passed away fourteen hours ago as I write this. His breathing had been slow for days, half-dreaming, half-here, like his body was waiting for the soul to catch up. When the final exhales came, his eyes closed with tears that didn’t fall. 93 years contained in 3 long and deep breaths.

He lived through World War II, martial law, decades of noise and rebuilding, and what he now calls “modern dictatorship”. He was a man of law, reason, and endurance, the kind who believed feelings were luxuries. Strength was his gospel, and I learned it by heart.

Growing up with him meant learning to hold everything in.
To not cry.
To stay composed.
To equate stillness with control.
I inherited that survival instinct and wore it proudly until it began to cost me more than I realized.

The Gospel of Pretending

Strength in our house looked a lot like silence.
It sounded like, “Don’t cry. Be obedient. Don’t complain. Be grateful.”
And around us, religion echoed that same message.

I grew up watching people preach kindness and practice cruelty. The kind of “faithful” who consistently prays on Sundays and curses us by Monday. People who spoke of love but acted from hate. My father still helped them; new car? No problem. Down payment for a house overseas? No problem. Equipment for clinics? No problem. Tuition fee for their children? No fucking problem. Even after the betrayals.

They took and kept taking, disguising greed and jealousy as prayer.
This was why I was never “religious.”

Even in his final days, he whispered apologies to those who’d never sought forgiveness. He was still the man who wanted peace more than pride. And maybe that’s why I carry the anger he couldn’t, anger at the hypocrisy, at the manipulation, at the quiet abuse disguised as family love.

I’ve hidden that rage for years. I called it grace. I called it regulation. But really, it was repression.. grief that had nowhere to go.

The Cost of Being “Chill”

I learned to mask emotion early.
When things fell apart, I smiled.
When I was scared, I said I was fine.
Even in the past few years, when my body trembled, I told myself I was just “managing my nervous system.”

People called me chill.
What they didn’t know was that calm was my armor.
I became fluent in pretending everything was okay.
I froze my anger, my sadness, my disappointment until I mistook numbness for peace.

But grief doesn’t let you hide.
It finds you in the quiet.
It seeps through the cracks of your composure.

Sitting beside my father’s bed these past weeks, I felt it all: the love, the resentment, the ache, the softness I kept postponing.

Maybe that’s what he’s trying to teach me in his passing, that finally he learned that strength isn’t about holding it together. It’s about letting yourself come undone.

Learning to Grieve Softly

Grief, I’m learning, isn’t a storm to survive.
It’s water.
You move through it, and you let it move through you.
Some days it’s a flood; other days, a slow tide that hums beneath your ribs.

When I held my father’s hands for the last time, I realized this:
He taught me strength so I could one day learn softness.
That being strong doesn’t mean being “put together” all the time,
it means staying open even when everything inside you wants to close.

So now I cry, a lot.
I eat what comforts me. I drink my favorite things.
I let grief pass through like rain instead of building dams.

To grieve my father is to stay open.
to receive love, to be supported by the people who’ve been holding me close.
To cry as much as I want to.
To smile when I remember the way he once told me I deserved someone who would cross the ocean for me after my recent heartbreak.
To remember that, even though he never said “I love you,” he showed it in his own quiet, stubborn ways.
To miss his grumpy humor, his deliberate calm, his very rare but unmistakable smiles.

Grief, I’ve decided, is just love trying to move somewhere. So starting tonight, I’m letting it move; through tears, through laughter, through movies and books, through spoonfuls of whatever comfort food finds me first.

If you’ve read this far, maybe send something warm my way.

→ buymeacoffee.com/rituumarchives
✧ Cheetos, Ferrero, cashew nuts. Iced coffee, matcha, or wine. Or just kind words.

send <3

For now, I’m letting life be what it is: very sad, nostalgic, and still somehow beautiful.

Back in 2018, sustainable fashion in the Philippines wasn’t really a thing. There weren’t many labels I could look to for inspiration on sustainability, except for (hello, welcome to Substack 🙂) and Stella McCartney. So I dove into research, stitched together ideas, and built something new.

That’s how the label emerged as the country’s first sustainable swimwear label, pioneering in ways I didn’t even realize at the time. It became more than just advocating for sustainable fashion; it was where my creativity and love for art fused into what I thought then was my passion. Each piece printed and designed as wearable art. I landed a collaboration with Solenn Heussaff, and my pieces ended up on [Anne Curtis Smith, Pia Wurtzbach, etc.]. Suddenly, the label I’d once only imagined was out in the world: on real bodies, in real shoots, making ripples that felt impossible to ignore.

I even got invited to be featured in a local magazine for “Filipinas who are moving fashion forward,” but I was already in Barcelona then. My family was proud, my friends cheered me on, and it felt like momentum was carrying me forward, like the universe was co-signing all my dreams.

At the label’s peak, the scholarship I had applied for a year earlier came through. It was an absolute DREAM! I packed my life into two suitcases and flew to Spain with a scholarship in hand to study Fashion Management.

One of my best friends flew to Prague for a month-long “work break,” so when she arrived, we watched FIFA, went on tourist mode in Barcelona, and booked cheap flights to Vienna, Berlin, wherever curiosity called. It was the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE YET! The kind of season that makes you believe the world is wide open and everything is possible.

For the first time in my life, I thought: this is it. I’ve arrived.

I believed in that life so much. I thought I’d always be a label owner. That I’d have a foreign husband, a blue-eyed son, a home somewhere in Spain (Mallorca was a dream then), and that this chapter would stretch into forever.

But it didn’t. Instead, it became the life I’d one day grieve.

Because here’s the thing about perfect-on-paper lives: they rarely survive the weight of real life.

The Unraveling

The years that followed cracked everything open. A long-distance relationship stretched across a pandemic; something out of The Five-Year Engagement with Emily Blunt and Jason Segel (minus the Hollywood happy ending, ofc).

Mistakes piled on mistakes, some I’m still untangling now. Dreams I’d spent years building dissolved right in front of me.

For a while, I clung to that perfect life with both hands, finding ways to go back, waiting for the pandemic to settle, telling myself the answer was escape. New work. New distractions. New hobby. I convinced myself that was freedom.

But I learned freedom doesn’t come from running. It comes from staying put, letting the fire burn around me, letting the chaos I created rearrange me, and refusing to bolt at the first sign of pain.

As wrote in her Substack: “Escape is the most seductive form of captivity. And she’s right. What felt like freedom was just another cage.

Normally, I’d run. Escape has always been my default. But this time, I stayed. Long enough for the chaos to settle into something else and long enough for it to start reshaping me. Honestly, it’s been the slowest process of shedding and grieving, slowly integrating what I’ve been picking up over the past years. But I’m glad it happened this way.

And from staying came something I never expected: meeting the most amazing people, most of them just online.

Unconventional Friendships

I’ve always been lucky in my long-time friendships. I’m still close to the best friends I made at 16 (we’ve literally been friends for 20 years), to the ones from college who know me in ways only time allows, and to the low-maintenance friendships that have lasted through all my seasons.

But there’s a very special place in my heart for the friendships that found me in these harder years.

Unconventional friendships that began online but became lifelines. Conversations that anchored me while the world — my world — was burning. My new friends who didn’t just see my depth but invited me deeper, showing me new ways of loving, creating, and living.

It’s strange, but I’m more grateful for the people who stood beside me through the last five difficult years than for all my so-called “ultimate highs.” Because the truth is, the ones who walk with you through the fire, who sit with you in grief, matter far more than those who clap for you in the spotlight.

It was also in these years that I fell back in love with writing, something I’d buried along with my first boyfriend (lol). He had this ultimate “nice boy” image, which is why no one else would ever understand how small he made me feel.

If my life hadn’t unraveled the way it did, I might never have found these people. I might never have returned to writing. I might never have been forced to confront my old patterns. And, most importantly, I might not have been able to care for my father the way I do now.

My life didn’t turn out the way I once imagined… and maybe that’s the gift.

Because when the old dreams burned down, they left me stripped bare. The timelines, the milestones, the version of myself I thought I had to become… gone.

What remained was smaller, quieter, but somehow truer: presence.

The Practice of Presence

Presence that revealed itself in unexpected ways: in friendships that carried me, in the act of writing again, in caring for my father. Presence that reminded me I didn’t need to rebuild the same life, but to live the one unfolding in front of me.

And now, while I’m still (re)building, I find myself here, on this very un-linear path. Strangely, things are starting to fall into place, not in the old sense of “milestones” or “next steps,” but in a way that feels more like alignment.

What’s present for me right now looks like:
✧ the most amazing vortex of life-changing communities I get to be part of
✧ lifelong friendships I’ve formed inside them
✧ musings I can’t stop circling, inspirations I can’t stop following
✧ curating and moodboarding everything under the sun, lol

[Expanded. Sweet Life. Creative Living by and . Social Life by . Saint Hilaire by . Rooted Impact by ]

It feels less like chasing the next big thing and more like listening, going deeper into what’s already here with me.

Lately, I’ve also been very protective of my energy and my time. For years, I’ve been so generous to clients, friends, and family, until I realized how depleted I was. Now, with so much of my time devoted to caring for my father, I don’t have the luxury of scattering what remains. So I go where my presence is valued, where the exchange feels nourishing. Where it either adds to the life I’m (re)building or offers the right kind of rest I need.

This is also the first time in my life that I don’t have a precise five-year plan with neat milestones. And yes, it feels terrifying. But it also feels more mine.

I think back to my mid-20s when I wished for a life that felt like an adventure. And well, DAMN! This is one hell of a motherfucking ride.

And maybe that’s the paradox: the adventure I once chased through milestones now looks like this… staying present, letting the fire strip away what doesn’t belong, and beginning again.

After The Fire

What survives the fire is what was meant to begin. Grieving the life I thought I’d have isn’t about regret; it’s about release. The knowing that what burned away made room for something else.

And as I write this while the world itself is burning, I realize I can’t imagine myself living that life anymore. Because what I have now, though messy, imperfect, unfinished, feels more alive.

I’m making space. I’m giving room to the things that are already circling closer: aligned collaborations, deeper friendships, maybe even true love. People who value my presence, who meet my giving nature with their own.

I don’t have a map. I don’t have milestones. But I have this: a life that’s unfolding, surprising me in ways I never could have planned.

And I know, it’s going to be even more beautiful. Because honestly? For once, I’ve stopped holding the reins so tight. I’m just letting life have its plot twist. :)

Buy Me Coffee

I don’t expect my words or my art to save anyone (lol, I can barely save myself some days). But I do hope they’re a reminder that even when life feels upside down, there’s still more ahead worth leaning into.

So I did. I applied for a scholarship to a radical reading–writing workshop, not really expecting much. Days later, literally while drafting this post, I opened my inbox to:

Then, I tried asking my writing coach, (of The Smoking Area), for something I knew I wanted and needed for both my creative practice and my business. She met me with clarity, and I’m so grateful for this beautiful human being. It’s like when they say: when one person truly believes in you, sometimes that’s enough.

To be honest, I’ve always been scared of rejection, so I usually play it safe and rarely ask. (Side note: I think in my 20s I was more fearless, but the past 5–6 years have been heavy. Life has just been hitting me on all fronts, in waves lol.)

Chelsea mentioned in another episode to practice asking for small things. What I began to ask for weren’t even small but they became proof:

When we ask with clarity and intention, we open windows of possibility. Even if the outcome isn’t exact, it’s often close… or it reveals something we didn’t even know was possible.

Chelsea Riffe calls it The Art of the Ask. It’s the reminder I needed that asking isn’t weakness or cringe-y, it’s a practice in self-trust.

This made me realize: I’ve never truly defined what I want in a relationship. And maybe that’s what I’ve been circling all along, where all of this was leading… to name it, at last. My Golden Ask.

Clarity vs. Precision

A few days after I listened to The Art of The Ask, I read an essay about “speaking so you can be found.” The writer argued for precision: define yourself so specifically, down to your taste in music, soup, textures, so the right person can meet you.

I get it. Blurriness is real when you haven’t yet found the words for yourself. But precision has never been my language. Besides, forming a personal taste in music, books, and movies is a lifelong and ongoing (re)discovery.

I don’t have a “specific taste” that can be wrapped in one playlist, nor do I have a label that defines me. I move between frequencies.

🎶 In music, I listen to Norah Jones when I want to sulk into sadness. I dance to reggaeton in the shower when I want to hype myself up on design days. I listen to my friend’s Bali playlist when I just want feel-good R&Bs. I soften into Miguel when I just want to chill. And my current favorite is Olivia Dean (Man I Need — very apt for this post lol).

🎬 In movies and series, I also have a wide range of taste. Last weekend, I watched The Kontrabida Academy with my mother, a comedy with a local cast. A couple of weeks ago I watched Love Happens, and I finally saw what the buzz was with SATC’s sort-of sequel And Just Like That. I’m also currently watching Foundation, Invasion, and Platonic on Apple TV. My August Criterion watches were A Place in the Sun, Singles, and So I Married an Axe Murderer.

📚 With books… that’s another story and would take an entire Substack of its own (I’m currently part of a couple of book clubs lol).

So, no, I’m not precise. And I don’t want to be. I refuse to be neatly categorized into “soft girl,” “nerdy girl,” or any tidy trope.

Clarity, for me, isn’t about being exact. It’s about being honest with the fluidity of what moves me. And maybe that’s why the myth of “The One” felt so seductive for so long.

The Myth of “The One”

And the myth of “the one” is easy to believe. It’s the idea of effortless compatibility; that love should feel easy-going, smooth, and natural. That you’ll meet someone where the chemistry is perfect, the timing aligned, and your tastes fall into place like a puzzle. That this ideal fit will erase the need for struggle, disagreement, or choosing.

The truth is, the “ideal one” I imagined in my 20s doesn’t exist. Not the perfectly aligned playlists, not the seamless chemistry, not the partner who avoids discussions or delays the big decisions — like actually showing up when it matters.

I used to think the One would feel effortless; easy-going, all green lights, no friction. But love isn’t a frictionless ideal. Love is a choice, again and again.

Barcelona, 2019. He was half-Argentinian, half-Spanish, with a thread of Colombian in him. Born the first week of August, named after his sign lol, of course, he is charismatic and magnetic. When he entered a room, people were naturally drawn to him.

When he introduced me, he’d say I was the prettiest “exotic” Asian woman (yes, that was his word). He’d tell people my work was revolutionary, that I was truly one-of-a-kind, like I’d invented the light bulb lol.

With him, it felt like Bonnie and Clyde, entering rooms with a strong presence. So, I thought he was it. We got engaged before the pandemic and held on through four years of long distance.

Four years to the idea of forever. For a while, it worked. FaceTimes, late-night book talks, songs he sang when I was sad. But in the end, action was missing. When distance stretched across continents, I felt unchosen.

And once you’ve known that ache.. waiting to be picked, feeling invisible inside what’s supposed to be home, you decide never to feel it again.

That’s when the myth broke. Because if someone is “the one,” they don’t just say it. They choose you, fully, in action, not just in words.

(context of the photo below: This was one of my curations for the first round of Creative Living by and last year and this was how he made me feel )

What matters isn’t perfection. It’s presence. Values. Action.

And when you finally see that, dating in your mid-30s feels different. You stop looking for the dream of an ideal, and start noticing the realities you won’t compromise on.

(Un)Dating in the Mid-30s

After him, there were almosts.

The guy who wanted a “private relationship” but carried himself like a bachelor (and surprise, had kids). His version of “private” was really just a cover. For me, private should mean quiet, not hidden. A quiet kind of love is rooted in trust and intimacy, not secrecy and excuses.

Then there was the one whose conversations fell flat. A gray area I had no energy for, and certainly not the shades of gray I want lol. I’ve always had ease in connection, so when words feel forced or strained, I know it’s not for me. Good conversation, for me, has always been the entry point to intimacy.

It’s not that I’m closed off. It’s that I’m discerning. Asking doesn’t mean lowering my standards; it means naming them. It means refusing to accept a love that leaves me blurred, half-seen, or hidden.

Unorthodox Love

Which is why my version of love will never be conventional. I saw this and thought this is the closest description of how I love, and how I want to be loved.

(context of this photo: for my constellation lovers who understand an Aquarian stellium — my big three are in Aquarius, and my Venus is too — you get the vibe :> )

My ask in love: unconventional.

Freedom-giving. Not the kind that disguises itself as “private” while one partner walks and acts like they’re single. But freedom that celebrates individuality, where you can travel apart or create your own traditions and still feel chosen. Like and Frank, who host the podcast Love You to the Core. I’ve learned freedom in love is always about learning from each other and compromising. It’s building a marriage that bends to your rhythm, not tradition. I remember a couple of people asking Xanthe on her weekly AMA, why she didn’t spend a holiday with Frank and why she loved that alone time. She said it so beautifully: they honor each other’s independence and individuality. And damn, these are the kinds of conversations I want to have and also.. I want to invent my own holiday with my future husband LOL

Cerebral. I dated a writer, an adventurous being well-versed in movies and music, and my ex was very well-read. We would stay up late talking about the books we read. My brain has to be met, mirrored, stretched. And I think and Tom model this beautifully. As writers, travellers and partners, they show that love can be both intellectual and devotional, very rooted in dialogue as much as in desire. Their conversation on one of the episodes of Thought to Thing has been included in my love expansion list when I think about trust and the unknown. (Also, I want to be adopted by these two if I end up single forever lol.)

Unorthodox. A relationship that writes its own rules, that doesn’t cling to timelines or cultural scripts. , my mentor (also a relationship coach and a writer), and her partner embody this. Their love is simple and steady, built on warmth and trust. In a world where modern dating often feels like swipes, strategies, and performance, theirs is a reminder that love can be different; not louder or flashier, but quieter, clearer, and deeply lived. It’s the essence of Amy’s own work, The Softening: stepping out of performance and returning to what feels human, tender, and real. I love this most recent writing from her: Why Romance is the Most necessary Inconvenience.

These couples are just three from my ever-growing list of couple expanders, a concept from my expansion queen herself, (more on this soon). They are living proof that there isn’t one right way. That freedom and devotion can sit in the same room. That love doesn’t have to look like the world expects it to.

The Golden Ask

So what do I want?

Someone who will stand beside me in all kinds of rooms and weather through life’s increasingly chaotic world with me. Someone I can ask hard questions with, like, “Would we ever raise a child in the current state of the world?” and know we’ll wrestle with the answers together. Someone who will hold my opinions gently, align with my values, and be the stronger one when I’m not.

Freedom that expands us both. Because not every need can be met by a partner. Freedom that is trusting, always learning, never pedestalizing. An anchor I’ll always come back to.

A mind that meets mine. Curious, alive, and willing to wander into ideas with me. Someone who loves the long conversations, the late-night tangents, the kind of thinking that leaves you changed, or someone who would listen to my out-of-this-world ideas and watch me bring some of them to life.

A love that feels like practice. Where getting to know each other isn’t something we finish, but something we keep choosing. A devotion that lives in the ordinary: the check-ins, the follow-through, the everyday action that proves love isn’t just words.

That’s my Golden Ask. Not precise or rigid, but clear.

Ask, and the universe will surprise me with a love that holds all of it; freedom-giving, cerebral, unorthodox. A love that is less performance and more presence. A love that expands, mirrors, and bends toward us both.

Maybe this is the truth I’ve been circling:
Love doesn’t begin in ideals or in precision. It begins with the clarity of an ask.

And so now, like how Chelsea’s podcast moved me to ask, I give this question to you:
What’s the ask you’ve been holding back?

Buy me coffee (or matcha) ☕🍵