I’ve launched a newsletter!

Hello! I know it's been a while. But unless you've been living under a rock, you know the pandemic has taken over everything: my brain included. Even though I haven't written for myself in a long, long time, I'm trying out something new — I've launched a weekly newsletter over on Substack: niacarnelio.substack.com. 🎉 niacarnelio.substack.com...

2019: The End of the Decade

I read somewhere* that since the end of 2019 not only signifies the end of the year but also the end of the decade, it’s a good time to close chapters and even whole books. Basically, if you’ve been looking for a sign to let things go, close the book on some dreams or people,...

We Will Smile As Time Goes On

They’re there every day. My living room window overlooks the neighbouring building’s playground. For several years, I’ve seen a grandfather bring his granddaughter to spend some time on the swings. Today as I watched them, I realized with a start that the little granddaughter who looked so tiny in her grandfather’s arms was now a...

Death & Beyond: On Grief & Coping

  The thing about grief is that it never really goes away, but it makes its way into the very crevices of your bones and your body, so you never really forget about it. You know how sometimes you have a song playing at the back of your mind and then suddenly, one fine day,...

Thks fr th Mmrs – On Memories & Remembering

Memories are fickle, aren’t they? Over the past week or so, I’ve been thinking about how (and why) I remember. People, events, incidents, words, everything I remember – or don’t. Flashbacks in films & tv shows fascinate me quite a bit, because my ability to recreate a scene from memory is notoriously poor. When a...

Kill ‘Em With Kindness

For a few years there – more than half a decade, actually – I believed that being meaner was better than being kind. In theory, yeah, kindness won and triumphed everything but in the real world, it looked increasingly like the kind ones were being trampled upon. It’s important to me to be able to...

On Growing Older & Changing Paths

Growing up is fun, growing older is not. I’ve an irrational annoyance with growing older, most of it stems from fear. I’m not really keen on being dependent on anyone but after the middle chunk of life, I will regress back to the dependency I had as a child and there’s nothing I can do...

2018: The Year of Being Kinder to Yourself

I’ve been excited to write this post since early November this year – in the four years I’ve been writing my yearly recaps, this has never happened. It’s been a good year, folks, a change from my usually melancholic and self-shattering years where I piece myself back near the end for a tiny bit. Honestly,...

Home Alone 4: Adulthood

Growing older is an odd experience – we all know this. Literally nothing you thought as a child is true: grocery shopping is actually the best thing ever and the idea of staying up all night makes you want to roll your eyes so hard so that you can squeeze a few seconds of shut-eye....

On Belonging & Familiarity

Five and a half years ago, I walked into the Xavier’s first quad along with my best friend full of hope and joy at leaving my small suburb behind. I didn’t have any idea how much my life was going to change that moment – in that one moment I was happy to have made...