summer diaries #1: mauritius travel diary 🦤

9th Jun 20268th Jun 2026 maya rajesh9 Comments

It’s that time of year again: two long months stretch out ahead of me, and I, for the first time in two years, have nothing to do. A long, long series of exams has finally ceased to torture me with their monotony and this… this void is aching to be filled with life, laughter and learning. I’m insanely excited for what’s to come.

I’ve never experienced this sort of freedom, never before. It’s the end of high school, it’s the summer before college—something that terrifies me and fills me with excitement all at once.

Last week, I was ever-so-lucky to be taken on a spontaneous, whirlwind of a trip to Mauritius. It’s an island country off the coast of Africa, and it’s absolutely stunning. Easily the best week of my life all year. I was in this state of unadulterated bliss because, yes, of course, it had been two forevers and a tomorrow since I’d been free… but mostly because I missed travelling. It is so my favourite thing to do.

So here it is: a travel diary of my incredible week in Mauritius with my parents and sister ♥

where the colours don’t go 🌷

25th Feb 202626th Feb 2026 maya rajesh10 Comments

The waiting is very nearly numbing.

I repeatedly tell myself that the end is in sight—but what is “the end”? December 31? The last day of high school? The day I go to college? The day I get a job?

The concept of “the end” is so trite, in hindsight. It’s almost juvenile. But if I’m forever waiting, I’ll never take it all in. I’m waiting for something to end to start living life. It’s silly because life is supposed to be lived in the interstices.

I feel I’m forever in this tornado of chasing the next goal and fixing what went wrong. Forever on edge. Forever comparing myself, and somewhere along the way, I turned on myself.

Hi there. I haven’t called this place home in nearly a year, and I’ve no one to blame but myself. This singular post has been in the drafts for over a month, and I tell myself I’ll write after this, and after that… but there’s always an after. There’s never a right now.

So welcome to right now. It’s messy, emotional and raw—but it’s full. It’s full of life.

summer diaries #1: the summer that never was

22nd Apr 202522nd Apr 2025 maya rajesh16 Comments

To me, summer isn’t really the weather getting warmer or the days getting longer.

To me, summer isn’t beaches and mocktails, or brunch.

Well, it isn’t just that.

Summer is the lack of obligation for me. And I simply don’t have that this year. With finals leaking into March and the SAT, and another set of tests up until April, which—you’ll never guess!—is when school restarted, I am anything but unobligated.

And here we are: the penultimate summer before I leave for college. The very last year of high school. And then it’s all over. I’ll probably never see some of the characters in my life after this, for better or worse.

But is it wrong that I want it to end? Is it so terrible to want to move forward for once and yank myself out of this endless loop of tests and revision and the same rectangular hyperbola with eccentricity √2?

Well, they say we craft our own destiny, in one way or another. But some small part of me still holds on to the belief that it’s all already laid out for us. It’s an odd sort of juxtaposition: the fact that we have control over the rest of our lives, but at the same time, we end up exactly where we were meant to be.

I’m taking the reins again, in a way. Drawing fate into my hands. And, for this last year, I’m giving it everything I’ve got.

bigger than the whole sky 🌥️

11th Feb 202511th Feb 2025 maya rajesh11 Comments

[31.1.25] Grief.

It’s intangible, all-encompassing and frankly, difficult to experience; regardless of how you process it.

My pet guinea pig, Coco, passed away yesterday. She was, of course, very, very old and we’d taken her to the vet a couple weeks ago. We knew it was time. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

We’ve got only one left now: Butterscotch. He’s nearly 8 years old; like a hundred-and-twenty in human years. He outlived his entire family; we often joke about his almost disconcerting longevity.

But yesterday, when she died, I didn’t cry. I felt hollow inside, but I couldn’t cry. And it bothered me to no end because my sister and mother could display that emotion and I couldn’t. I didn’t not care, obviously. What was wrong?

I’ve spent the last 24 hours processing and I’ve come to the conclusion, that I was and am grieving — just, differently. Not everyone grieves in the same way. Grieve. Such a horrible word, but it tells you more than any other word could.

It tells you that you cared.

bali: a travel diary 🌴

23rd Nov 202422nd Nov 2024 maya rajesh14 Comments

Two weeks ago, I read an article about counterweights. The concept is simple: they’re something to balance out the messy, wild parts of life we cannot control. Something you can control.

But I also see it as a force of nature instead of something we create. For every disappointing, scary, sad thing that happens to you, there’s a little magic waiting on the other side of the hill.

The past six days in Bali was that magic for me. It had been uncharacteristically hard for me to take a break from my routine and life at home but I’d rather not be in the frankly self-deteriorating headspace I was in before the vacation.

I think that’s what taking a break does: it alters your headspace. And often, it’s for the better.