The First Place I Felt Heard
Before astrology. Before tarot. Before I ever tried to make sense of other people’s charts or stories, there were books. Reading was my first sanctuary.
I don’t remember exactly when it began. I only remember that when the house felt emotionally unpredictable, when conversations felt unsafe, too loud, or too sharp, I would disappear into pages. Libraries felt steadier than living rooms. Fiction felt more honest than real life. Stories had structure, they had arcs and even conflict made sense within them.
Books did something the adults around me could not. They held space.
No one interrupted a sentence halfway. No one dismissed a feeling as “too sensitive.” No one debated whether a character was allowed to feel what they felt. In stories, emotions were valid simply because they existed. Anger had context. Grief had dignity. Longing had language.
That was revolutionary to me as a child.
When No One Held My Feelings, I Held Them Myself
I did not grow up with a mother who could sit beside me and ask, “What are you thinking?” or “What are you feeling?” There were no consistently reliable parental figures who could metabolise big emotions with me or help me make sense of the storms inside my chest.
So I learned to do it alone.
Writing became the place where I untangled my thoughts. It was where I could say the things I could not say out loud. On the page, anger did not have to be swallowed. Confusion did not have to be hidden. Sadness did not have to be justified.
I started early.. first MySpace, then Xanga and finally Blogspot, with a short stint on tumblr for a bit.
Long before Instagram captions and curated feeds, there were messy blog templates and dramatic teenage posts typed at 1AM, when the house had finally gone quiet. I wrote poems. I wrote reflections. I wrote about things I did not yet have the vocabulary to name. I did not know words like “projection” or “emotional neglect,” but I knew what it felt like to ache.
Sometimes I think those old blog entries saved me more than I realised. Because when you do not have a witness, you learn to witness yourself.
The Girl Who Lived in the Library
I loved English class. I loved Literature not because I was trying to be impressive, but because it felt like oxygen. I aced English and Literature in school, but the grades were secondary. What mattered was that language made sense to me in a way people often did not.
It gave structure to the chaos in my life.
I chose English Literature as a core subject for my O Levels without hesitation. The arts became my avenue of expression, my quiet rebellion against emotional confusion.
While other children escaped through noise or outward rebellion, I escaped through narrative. I did not want to destroy anything, I wanted to understand it.
Why do people behave the way they do?
Why does silence hurt more than shouting?
Why does longing linger long after logic says it should not?
Books were asking those questions long before I knew how to.
Looking Back, It Was Always This
When people ask me now why I read tarot the way I do, grounded, analytical, always listening between the lines.. I sometimes smile.
I have been doing this since I was ten.
Not with cards, but with characters and authors and countless of diaries written in the quiet of my room.
I learned to read subtext before I even knew the word “subtext.” I learned to notice what was not being said. I learned to trace patterns in behaviour and sit with contradictions without rushing to resolve them.
Writing taught me to slow down and reading taught me to hold complexity. Both taught me that every story has layers, and that truth rarely arrives in neat, dramatic declarations.
That foundation shaped everything that came after.
Books Were Never Just a Hobby
They were my trusty companions when I felt alone. They were the first place I felt seen without being judged or corrected.
And writing? Writing was the first place I existed without being negotiated.
Looking back now, I do not see a lonely child. I see a girl building her own inner world when the outer one felt unstable. I see someone teaching herself emotional literacy in the absence of guidance. I see resilience that did not look loud or defiant, but steady and self-generated.
Just quiet pages turning. Line by line, she built her own steadiness.