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Shake your microscopic boat a little

Bali, March 2023

By AnhPhuong

April 16^th, 2023

When I was 15,

I thought that one day all of these feelings will stop. These strong sensations in my heart that I felt ringing so violently whenever there is a new debilitating event. Like the butterflies that I felt the first time I liked that boy with body full of tattoos. The warmth in my heart after I met Dim and Minh in a charity event, who later became my best friends and still are after 10+ years. I thought I could physically feel my heart dried out under the sun, with only a thin shadow of tree leaves between my heart and the sky. And of course, the bad ones too... Like the first time getting my heart broken by that same boy with the tattoos.. Sometimes these feelings would get to be too much that I wished it would one day stop. I thought with puberty ends then they would stop. With adulthood maybe? When I start to have responsibilities and boring adult life, it has to stop, right?

10 or so years later here I am and my capacity to feel are still as intense as I was a young girl, just that I have been better at keeping it under the surface. Everything that has happened in the past 6 months, especially.

I wanted to jump with both my foot held up above the back of my knees when I was promoted way faster than I ever expected, at the company that has shaped me and has faith in me.

I wanted to smile until my grin hurt my head when Kit met my parents and family in Vietnam. And we talked about our 10 year plans and 20 year plans and …

I wanted to wail for days, and days, and days. When Kit and I were over just over a month after the trip. And not showing up for work. And not eat. And ceases to live like a plant with the owner gone. I didn't, but I really wanted to.

But I put my head down and levelled. No matter the joy or the pain, I kept at the same pace. While inside, my emotions felt like tsunamis, waving over me, and keeping me breathless. For months after everything was said and done.

Shake your microscopic boat a little

Shake your microscopic boat a little

Shake your microscopic boat a little

Shake your microscopic boat a little

Then I went to Bali,

As the small canoe sped fast to take us to the snorkeling site and in several occasions leaping over the ocean surface, floating in the air before landing back down with a huge splash making all the guests gasping and laughing, I laughed too until tears were coming out of my eyes and I weren’t sure if they were happy or sad. And for the first time in months, admitting to myself that I have felt pain, have felt joy, and it is okay to be stupid and cried, right here and now. Because well, these people are all strangers and why saving face in front of people I will probably never meet again.

I jumped into the water and swam among a big school of hundreds of fishes. They were not startled or even changed the directions of where they were going.

I felt small and humbled and amazed.

I felt, for the first time in a long time, a relief that I don’t and shouldn’t have to carry these weights any longer. It is okay to feel. And to grief. And to celebrate, Out loud to myself.

I live a small life. A nothing life in the grand scheme of things. What does it matter to shake this tiny microscopic boat a little?

© 2026 AnhPhuong

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