Currently Reading: Les Fleurs du Mal, By Charles Baudelaire

I will miss 2025. She was good to me. Graduation, starting college, friends, work, purpose, lover’s trysts. A glimpse of what life is “all about”: self-actualization, experimentation, freedom… And then 2026 bursts in rude and harsh with the world on its shoulders to bestow upon all those hopeful dreamers lost in the bliss of routine. Myself included. Leaving me empty-handed, doomed to start over.

I am not foolish enough to charge blindly into a new rotation of the Earth with optimism and cheer. I understand now that this is not “my year” but the year of my servitude. I will trudge forth with an attitude of fatalism. An overbearing sense of this-is-the-way-it-must-be. The mantra is to adjust, acquiesce, and most of all endure. Uprooting myself from home and moving far away from what I know, I do so with the bittersweet knowledge that I will live “my” life again one day, while understanding that for now I must sink into the role set out for me by family and fate. Capitulating one last time to the cry of “what’s best”.

In my last days here as a Californian, I have found myself ill at ease. My current state of mind is discordant, sluggish, and agitated. Between sly attempts to fill otherwise empty time with friends and events, upon the inevitable splotch of blank scheduling, the bleakness in my mind convinces me there is naught to do but sleep through the day and writhe in bed, making friction against insomnia by night.

On these occasions, I leave my bedroom only for the dog who keeps watch over me like a loving sentry. Rising early for my duty to feed him and walk him numbly in the crisp morning, rewarded by his puppy grin and wagging tail. Purposely I turn blind to how he seeps concern—dumb and animal— as I lumber back into the messy nest of sheets and pillows at our return to the apartment. Succumbing to the urge to waste away as long as the sun shines.

When darkness falls and I can force my eyes closed no longer, I make strong tea and—on occasion— a saccharine drink that mimics wine only in color and reeks of bourbon. (I’ve never been a fan of brown liquor but beggars cannot be choosers...) Occupying aimless time I putter about, listening to The Secret History on a audiobook file. In this time I suppose it is worthwhile to mention I’m supposed to be writing another book, a task to fill the chasm of paused school and work. A void made necessary in my pursuit to move cross-country. Yet for reasons inexplicable to those around me I simply cannot get my foot in the door to begin.

Writing this now, the dog gazes curiously (and one must imagine slightly irritated) by my sudden nocturnal habits. Reading, cooking, baking a singular cookie, cleaning (endless cleaning), rearranging the bathroom, watching the same three movies on repeat, singing, crying… the list goes on. Mindless diversion in pursuit of avoiding my writing like the plague, doing literally anything else because to write again feels like purposely inducing a hemorrhage; only instead of blood it’s emotion. Overwhelming and irrational. Sweeping over every moment in a flurry of obsession and wild frenzy. Simultaneously as close to euphoria and absolute agony as it gets. Like Fitzgerald I draw upon my own life heavily and would dredge up things I purposely obfuscate in my memory. Places, people, and happenings that would manifest as setting, character, and plot. Or otherwise prose-ish poetry I’m not entirely sure has more than one leg to stand on.

In other words I’m entirely unsure of myself. A feeling I am frustratingly familiar with.

But I can’t leave my first diary entry of the year bleak and sullen, so I feel led to create a list of things that have brought a little joy into the fogginess of this February.

1. I have found a place that sells 2 pound cinnamon rolls and currently have half of one in my refrigerator

2. Lush’s Valentine’s Day collection of bath goodies were released, which I subsequently bought out whilst my employee discount was still intact. (Alongside a bath bomb I found named “narcissus” to my nostalgic delight)

3. My dog has taken to sleeping beside me as opposed to at the foot of my bed, no doubt sensing my need for company. Which I find endlessly adorable and sweet

4. I’ll be visiting the Getty for the first time in a matter of days, I love museums and I will report back on my findings there.

5. A lively brunch with my (soon to be) old poetry group for Valentines, I haven’t seen many of them in ages and I’m excited to catch up one last time.

Anyways, despite my bout of pessimism I know that there is a purpose in everything. And eventually I will become privy to it.