Dear Rina

Dear Rina, I've been going on this incredible journey of self-discovery this past year. It's been a lot of hills and MANY valleys, but I wanted to write to you today on the topic of loneliness. The first letter I wrote to you centered around this. I struggled with this idea of what friendship was and why I had such a hard time understanding my place in this world with people such as what I meant to people and what they meant to me. I think from a young age, we're told that "your friends are forever" and friendship is basically defined your value in life. I think that's why I always had problems when my friendships seemed to fail and I wondered if this was a direct reflection on me. If my friendship failed, does that mean I'm a bad person? It took me a while, but I finally realized that I should  be holding my friends to a higher standard. I should be as critical about my friendships as I am about my romantic relationships. Matthew Hussey (the guy I m...

In response to your letter to me . Dear Rina, I think it's a little uncanny how you write to me about one of my core insecurities. Something that I've learned about myself over the past few years is how easy it is for me to succumb to my depression and anxiety in this particular area. I can easily get into this cycle of not feeling good enough, not doing enough, and not being enough; this is what propelled me in my undergrad to do so many things. And while I don't regret doing so much in my undergrad, I felt burnt out a lot of the time. I found myself in these vast mood swings and pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion and overall it just didn't feel like a good, healthy way to live my life. I'm now on the other side of that spectrum where I feel like my life is somewhat stagnant. I'm in graduate school, I have a part-time job at UH, and I live with my boyfriend. I'm in a very steady routine of going to work, going to school, and coming home. I find...

Dear Rina, A lot has been going on in my life that I'll be elaborating on in letters to come, but I wanted to get your opinion on my views on friendship; something I've been reevaluating my beliefs and practices of. Recently, I broke up with my boyfriend of a little over two years and had a falling out with two of my closest friends. As I have been suffering from this loneliness and heartbreak, I can't help but wonder how it ended like this and why, through all of this, I can't help but feel this immense frustration with myself and these people I thought were so close to me. I went through the infamous stages of grief, but I noticed I kept coming back to the same feelings and thoughts over and over again. My process of reflection over these past few months can be summed up in the following questions: "why do I feel angry at myself and them," "why do I feel extremely frustrated," and "how can I be better moving forward." In my newfound b...