Last week I had the chance to share my research journey to my fellow Filipino researchers. We have a very inspiring online community called #PinoyScientists, where every week one researcher can share their work. They provided us with prompts for our daily posts, so I had to reflect on almost half of my life to answer the first prompt. What is my motivation to do research? Unlike my sister, I do not have any concrete dreams nor goals. I just always wanted to explore, and see where the days and the nights can take me.

But as I wrote short stories of conversations I had in the last ten years or so, it dawned on me. I was almost always walking towards this path. I didn’t know, but the people around me did. So I created a short story series to share how being here today has been a long struggle, but one I needed to take. I decided to share stories, because as human we seek stories. We are drawn to conversations. We seek stories of hope, of despair, of fighting, of being.

So here is a mesh of stories from my past until today: Catharsis.