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I am in a tunnel with my sister and her friends. I am 14 years old, and we are bored. I’ve seen this tunnel before on one of my walks around the park near my house, water trickling out of it, dark and gloomy, my curiosity piqued, but I never dared to wander through it, though I always wanted to. I am excited when someone suggests it, and here we are, walking through it after checking if the coast is clear, it is. There are six of us: me, my sister, her best friend, and three other friends who I’m not very close to, but I’ve seen them around school. They bring along three flashlights, and we break into groups of twos and threes, each holding a flashlight, and we walk slowly into the tunnel. It’s summer and hot, so there isn’t much water coming out of it, but we walk slightly to the side so our shoes don’t get wet. Soon, the light from the opening disappears. There is echo, it’s cool, and some of us are talking, which is comforting, here in the dark, except for the beams of our flashlights. The path splits into two, one way much too small and the other barely wide enough for us. We decide to hang around the junction for a bit, talking about what teenagers tend to talk about, nothing in particular, before deciding to head back. I look into the darkness, and the darkness looks back at me. A shiver runs through me, fear of the unknown, and I tell myself that one day, I’m going to come back here and finish what I started, to continue this journey through the darkened tunnel of the unknown. I never did Although, sometimes, in later years, I would come back here alone and venture into the tunnel, just to the point where the light cuts off, and jerk off until I come, just for fun. I would look into the dark, and my imagination would go wild with all the monsters lurking in there, thanks to all the horror movies I grew up with. I have a favourite quote from Avatar: The Last Airbender that goes something like this: “Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place.” I think about how true this is to our lives. Sometimes it feels like we are walking in darkness, not knowing where life is taking us, but that’s part of the process of living—facing the unknown, which is what makes it special. Sometimes, it’s all about taking one day at a time, at your own pace. For me, it’s not about blindly believing that everything will get better if I just keep walking, but about trusting in the act of moving forward itself. Even when the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t visible, I have this quiet sense that the act of continuing—step by step—will bring me somewhere I’m meant to be. It’s not about guarantees, but about faith in the process, faith in myself. That’s how I choose to make peace with the darkness, by embracing it as part of the journey.

I am Philip Nguyen, just an ordinary person living an ordinary life. I’m sitting at my desk, writing these words on an iPad I bought sometime this year, beyond my budget, but I’m glad I did. It’s one of those little joys in my life that I try to nurture. I often think about having a luxurious life and the ways in which one can foster it. I first came across this idea on a podcast where the speaker said that having flowers scattered across the house is a splendid way to have a luxurious life, although an expensive one. I like to think that if I had all the money in the world, I’d probably have every room filled with flowers, fresh ones delivered daily, with a gardener around to place them in little vases, water filled halfway. I recently discovered the joy of using bath sheets instead of bath towels. They’re so huge they wrap around your entire body effortlessly, and they dry just as quickly too. They do take up a little too much room though, but you could say that about almost anything if you collect enough of it. I tend to buy things that are expensive and feel nice to use. My Dyson vacuum cleaner comes to mind, or my shaver, which I use about as often as a full moon. But I don’t always buy expensive things. My t-shirts, for instance, are from Cotton On, disposable, I often say to people, because they only last about half a year before they become the title of one of my friend’s famous book: Stretched and Unusable. But why am I listing all my things? I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time. The light shines dimly from my desk lamp, illuminating my dry hands that never seem to rehydrate, no matter how much moisturizer I use, and I use a lot, by the way. I suppose it’s the price one pays for nice skin, since I’ve been on Roaccutane for as long as I can remember. Ten years? Or was it twelve? My nails are cracked, my eyes are dry, and my lips resemble the rough surface of Australia. But these are all manageable, so I don’t mind. Well, except for that one time when my hands felt like pins and needles, and all signs pointed to nerve damage. It went away after I lowered the dosage, thank goodness, but I often wondered if it was something more serious. You know, something sinister lurking beneath the surface, like one of those clowns you find in the gutter of a children’s book whose name I’ve already forgotten. Oh, and did I mention I’m on medication for hair loss? Someone once told me my hair looked fine, I told her that’s because I’m on medication, she said fair enough, and asked if I still wanted that cup of coffee I’d ordered earlier. Yes, I replied, with two sugars please, and that was the end of that. I do sometimes think about getting old and what that will be like. I suppose we’re aging and getting older every day. A girl I once liked told me I wasn’t getting any younger, which was a very mean but true thing to say. I told her neither was she, and we never spoke again. I read a book recently about the joy of aging, about how it’s a normal process. I think a lot of people forget that. There was this very popular singer I used to listen to. I remember one day, he posted a video on Facebook saying he was so happy to be young and wished time would stop so he could stay that way forever. He was twenty-five at the time. It makes me wonder how he’s doing now that he’s much older, whether he feels depressed because he couldn’t keep that youthful look, or, hopefully, realized that everyone ages and has moved on with his life. I’ve decided I’ll embrace getting older and try to limit my skincare products to the ones I use now. Partly because A, I’m poor, and partly because B, I want my wrinkles to tell the story of my life up to this point. It’s probably more of A, but I like to think B is the nobler choice.