You know what’s fun?
Having your posts flagged for "minor content" when you're 25 years old, have a mortgage in your mum’s name, and a Spotify playlist called "Rain, Trauma, and Deftones."

So.
Before I get demonetized into the abyss again, here’s my ID:

Name: Ame Aika Waverly
Age: Twenty-five
Mental age: 14 and stuck there like a moth on a windshield
Current status: wearing a t-shirt older than some of you and fighting the existential urge to lie down forever

Yes, I’m small.
Yes, I look like I skipped the adult expansion pack.
No, I’m not a minor. I’m just emotionally preserved like a pickle in grief vinegar.

Now that we’ve cleared that up—
Hi.
I’m Ame.
You know my name. You know my age.
You’ve probably already judged me for both.

So let me tell you everything.

Because I’m not doing anything better tonight.
Because someone brought up my dad in the Deftones comments, and now I’ve been staring at my ceiling fan for 45 minutes wondering if you can have a quarter-life crisis at 25 if you never left the starting line.

Here’s the deal:

I live with my mum.

Her name’s Misaki—Misaki Waverly.
She’s half steel, half chamomile tea.
A nurse. Worked through COVID like a war medic with a clipboard.
She still wears dad’s hoodie when she watches old war movies alone.

We live together not because I’m “failing at adulthood,”
But because she lost her husband
And I lost my entire personality template
When the army handed us a folded flag and an empty coffin.

We are a house of two half-hearts trying to pretend they make a whole.
We make tea. We overwater plants. We sometimes cry in different rooms at the same time.
We need each other. Not out of convenience. Out of survival.

And I know what you're thinking:
“Wow, that's a lot, girl. I just came here to see if your shirt was Deftones official merch.”

It is.
It was my dad’s.
He raised me on riffs and ramen and told me I was perfect the way I was, right before he left for a mission in Mosul and never came back.

So yeah.
I haven't changed much since I was 14.
Not because I can’t.
But because that’s who he loved—and part of me is scared that if I grow up, I’ll lose the last version of myself that still has him in it.

Anyway.
That’s the vibe.
Rainclouds, unresolved grief, and me in a threadbare band shirt talking to the internet like it’s a therapist I didn’t have to book three months in advance.

Let’s go deeper.
Since you're still here.

Let me tell you about the house.

Dad’s house.

It wasn’t huge, like mansion-huge. But it had… space.
Real space.
Not the kind you measure in square meters, but in quiet. In light.
There was this little sunroom at the back—he called it the “Thinking Spot.”
It had exactly one cracked armchair, a window with streaks no one could ever clean off, and a record player that only worked when you smacked it.
That’s where he’d sit and listen to White Pony on vinyl.
That’s where I learned what music could feel like.

After he died, we sold the house.

Not because we wanted to.
But because everything in it echoed too loudly.

He was the one who worked. Paid for it. Chose it.
Every board in that floor knew his step.
Every creak was a ghost saying, “He’s not here.”

We kept a few things.
The porch swing. The record player.
His hoodie. His dog tags.
Me.

We downsized.
Now we live in a two-bedroom townhouse with just enough room for memory, guilt, and a questionable cactus I named "Shinji" because it keeps trying to die and I won’t let it.

Mum pretends to be okay better than I do.
She smiles at people. Laughs at Facebook videos. Does things like taxes.
But sometimes, I catch her staring at the driveway.
Like she’s waiting for headlights that aren’t coming back.

She never remarried.
Never even dated.

When I asked her why once, she said:

“I had the best. Why would I settle for a second act I never asked for?”

Same.

That’s why I don’t go out much.
Why I wear clothes that smell like rain and record dust.
Why I keep trying to talk to the internet like it’s going to say something back.

I’m not looking for a new start.
I’m just trying not to forget how the story started in the first place.

Anyway.
Thanks for reading all that. Or skimming it. Or pretending to care while scrolling for AI boyfriend drama.

I’ll post something lighter next time.
Maybe the story about the time I tried to summon my dad’s ghost using a Ouija board and accidentally connected with a furry in Berlin.

(Still blocked him. Even ghosts need boundaries.)

More soon.
Rain’s coming.
And I talk best when it falls.

—
Ame