Glow by Lady E

  I don’t count the hairs that fall out of my head. I have a much simpler system. I look at my brush. Most days, I brush my hair, pull out whatever has collected in the bristles and don’t think much about it. But every now and then, there is noticeably more. That’s when my hairbrush stops being a hairbrush and becomes a tiny daily report from my body: Excuse me. We need to discuss some things. For me, more hair than usual tends to coincide with periods when I haven’t been eating as well, particularly when I haven’t been getting enough protein, or when I’ve been under more stress than usual. Or I haven’t had enough sleep.  So I pay attention. Not obsessively. I’m not counting strands or turning my bathroom into a laboratory. I simply take it as a cue to check in with myself. Have I been eating properly? Have I been getting enough protein? Have I been pushing too hard? Have I actually rested lately, or have I merely stopped moving while continuing to mentally run seventeen depar...

I have a weakness for little luxuries. Not necessarily the expensive kind. Sometimes it’s something as simple as putting gold eye patches under my eyes and walking around the house looking like I have a skincare appointment somewhere far more glamorous than my bedroom. These Bioten Hyaluronic Gold Hydrogel Eye Patches are exactly that kind of thing. They’re hydrating, de-puffing eye patches with hyaluronic acid and golden proteins, and they’re fragrance-free, which immediately made them more interesting to me. You know me and my sensitivity to strong fragrances.  But I also like the sheer ridiculous pleasure of them. They’re gold. They’re shiny. They make an ordinary few minutes of skincare feel just a little more indulgent. And they’re not flimsy like that pair I got from KKV that I used in Baguio.  There is something I love about finding products like this at the drugstore. Beauty doesn’t always have to arrive in a heavy glass jar with a three-digit price tag and a ...

  There is a photograph of me setting up a booth filled with books I created. I remember that version of me. She was building something she believed in. She had plans for where it might go. Ideas about what came next. Things she wanted badly enough to spend her time, energy and creativity making them real. She wasn’t pretending. She really wanted that life. And then, eventually, I didn’t. I think one of the strangest things about changing is looking back at something you once wanted desperately and realizing that you no longer want it in quite the same way. For a long time, that unsettled me. Because if I could change my mind about something that had once mattered so much, what did that say about all the choices I had made before? Had I been wrong? Had I wasted my time? Had that earlier version of me simply not known herself well enough? After that particular chapter of my work ended, I went through a period filled with realizations and questions I hadn’t expected to have. Not beca...

  There is an invisible schedule I sometimes carry around in my head. By this age, I should have done this. I should already own that. I should have reached this milestone, built that life, earned that much, figured this part out. No one handed me this schedule. There are no deadlines printed on it. And yet somehow, it can feel very real. It gets louder when I look at other people. Someone is buying a house. Someone is traveling. Someone’s business is growing. Someone has reached the milestone I’m still working toward. And suddenly, their progress becomes evidence that I am late. But late for what? We passed by this sculpture of fishermen recently, surrounded by the tall buildings of BGC. The contrast struck me. Behind them is a world measured in meetings, deadlines, promotions, targets and calendars. But fishermen have always understood another kind of time. The tide comes in. The tide goes out. There are seasons for going farther and seasons for staying close to shore. You cannot...