just some thoughts

1. My new DIY “Brick” for my phone, magnetic, so it can affix itself to my metal bedside table

For the past year-ish (but on a larger scale, perhaps for the last decade) I have been bumping up against the wall of "traditional life." Trying to fit myself into this box of marriage, family, cohabitation, career, ambition, expectations. Comparing myself to other people, measuring myself against arbitrary milestones, struggling with this push and pull between what i want and what i expect.

I tried dating men, and I hated it. I cohabitated for many years and got engaged to a woman, then I left her. Then, in the aftermath of my life exploding, I fell in love with a complicated and unusual woman and started a very happy and satisfying long distance relationship. Due to very practical circumstances, our relationship must be long distance for the foreseeable future. Yet people constantly ask us "will you get married? when will you move to the same place?" and so I find myself asking the same question, without considering if I really want that. I feel like it must be the natural next step because that is "normal," that is what is expected, that is obvious to other people and so I think it should be obvious to me.

Recently I have been pushing myself to imagine what my life would look like if I was freed from all expectation. what would I do with my time? who would I be? what choices would I make? sitting with these questions has allowed me to imagine a vision of the future that would have never occurred to me otherwise. and I feel like I have saved myself from falling off a precipice into an abyss.

Results from friend craft night!

we made these DIY “Bricks” for our phones using NFC tags. the NFC tags were really cheap on amazon, setup was shockingly easy (we used the free app Foqos) and the craft itself was very fun (wood shapes, stickers, acrylic paint, magnets glued to the back, and a layer of UV resin on top to give them an extra shiny finish)

now my social medias are locked down and i can ONLY unlock them by getting my NFC tag and clicking it to my phone.