Things that feel easy but are difficult ‒ Packing your entire life into two suitcases and stepping alight into a country that does not know your name yet. Leaving behind your parents, your siblings, your childhood friends, and every familiar comfort to build something uncertain and new. Saying goodbye to your parents for the second time, when the silence afterward lingers longer than before. Learning not to miss the life you once had, even after building one that is better, yet different.
Realizing you are no longer a child the day after your eighteenth birthday, though the world looks the same. Closing a good book that once carried you far away from the noise of your own life. Letting go of people who once felt like home, even when they hurt you. Trying not to feel the quiet ache that follows when you choose yourself over those who cannot.
Inspired by Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, especially poem 68, “Things That Cannot Be Compared.”
Vedi Patel is an architecture student, writer, and visual artist. Originally from Gujarat, India her work moves between design, fashion, and storytelling, often exploring memory, identity, displacement, and the emotional tension hidden inside ordinary moments. Influenced by architecture, classical dance, visual art, and personal style, she is interested in how people express themselves through both space and appearance. When she is not writing or designing, she is usually collecting inspiration from books, conversations, clothing, cities, and the small details people overlook.