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ella jade's avatar

I wrote a long comment last night and it deleted when i tried to post💔 I really really needed to read this - as someone living abroad and only seeing writing as a viable future. i wish the desire to be seen an acknowledged wasn’t so ingrained in me

Tara Monjazeb's avatar

thank you <3 it can feel so lonely, living abroad is such an introspective process and being a writer is fundamentally solitary. so i’m very glad it resonated with you

Stacey's avatar

"If every one of those words were an hour, it would build the life of a 12-year-old child." :') beautiful and special (because everything is)

Tara Monjazeb's avatar

<3 thank you

A. Maya's avatar

So, so lovely. I resonated with so much of this. From one little girl who dreamed of being a writer– and also moved to London as a teenager— I'm proud of you. The little moments are all that counts.

Tara Monjazeb's avatar

oh, thank you so much !!! xx

The AI Architect's avatar

Marie Howe's "headstrong blue" sky captures exactly what you're describing - that stubborn, insistent beauty that exists whether we're paying attention or not. Your reframing of moving abroad from announcement to aftermath is so necessary. The "I chose this" mantra resonates deeply, especially paired with recognizing that the remarkable moments are actually the silent yeses to coffee dates and friendships. The contrast between finishing your novel and the closing-in insecurity that followed is painfully honest - we're conditioned to expect relief at completion, but the vacuum of accomplishment is its own reckoning. Your point about the digital world being a vacuum of flaunting while real life is composed of Nows that only you witness cuts to the core of why Stoner resonates now. We're all performing uniqueness while the actual substance of living happens off-camera. The 107,000 words as a 12-year-old child's lifetime is a perfect metric for what matters.