dear benji
This is inspired by and for lunamouse, whose blog and post format/idea of writing to a plushie I always adored. I will miss your writing!
Dear Benji,
I’ve been very sensitive lately to bad news. Or changes that aren’t necessarily bad. But not all changes... It’s very unpredictable what will hit me like that, but my heart will pound strongly, I feel sad and upset, my eyes well up with tears and I feel very helpless and small.
I’ve experienced it when finding out my favorite professor is leaving my university. Even though it’s not like that at all and I can still keep up on her many amazing projects elsewhere, it still felt like she was gonna drop off the face of the earth somehow. Like death. University in general feels so ephemeral and like I’m getting left behind because they can’t stop changing and overhauling my degree and it stresses me out. But I noticed it a few weeks prior too: Felt the same way when a blog I follow changed their domain. So inconsequential, but somehow it still made me emotional. Felt the same way again when I read that a blog I like will stop blogging for now. Well, I guess in that case, they really are dropping off the face of the earth for me.
I seem to have an issue with being reminded that time is passing, I guess. That’s what it all has in common: that I’m reminded that things won’t stay like they are right now. That people will drop by and leave again, that not the same people will be shaping this platform all the time, that one day they’ll become disinterested and leave; I am currently on a hiatus as well after all, but plan to be properly back some time in June.
I recognize that things I take for granted now and expect to be there for the foreseeable future are really just a phase, that workplaces have some turnover and that it’s just one of many stations in life. Where I am is just an island, and people are jumping between islands all the time.
I don’t want things to stay the same either. But at the same time, something in me is just so bothered right now by how unpredictable the changes are and how out of my control it all is. Obviously, there is nothing I can do about these three examples; I’m just presented with a fait accompli. But that’s okay. I know I will bounce back soon.
Sleep well,
Ava
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Published 27 May, 2025