february 9th, 2025

i have a pounding headache as i write this, most likely brought on by the adderall i took this morning. usually adderall = productive day for me, but somehow i got carried away and then next thing you know, i'm looking up from my phone and laptop and realizing i've been doing nothing for the past 4 hours. i went to a friend's place for a super bowl party but by then the headache had started and i was already sort of sad. i just decided it'd be best for me to go home.

new york winters bring a mix of emotions for me. i love when the snow falls, but hate the next day when it's slushy and slippery and my shoes and socks get soaked no matter how hard i try to avoid puddles. the cold is depressing and brutal, but a welcome, tangible indicator of change and the passage of time. two years ago i got my heart broken during a new york summer and since then, i find relief and comfort in the other three seasons. by the time summer rolls around again, i am reminded of two years ago, and then a whole different mix of emotions comes.

i moved to new york city five years ago as a wide-eyed, determined, naive, highly-motivated 20-year-old girl with dreams of working in fashion. i was born and raised in a suburb in northern california, largely quite sheltered and without any real-world experience. i still cannot drive. back when i first came here, i was very excited about life and my future, albeit very very very anxious and clueless. i had good intentions in everything i did, and still now, if one thing about me persists, it is that.

today i am 25 years old, working a 9-5 fashion job. unfortunately and disappointingly, i am much less concerned with my career as i used to be as it's taken a backseat to my never-ending struggles with mental health. most big dreams i had have been extinguished by reality and the ups and downs of life. i think also, maybe as i've gotten older, i've found that simple pleasures are enough to keep me content. maybe that is cope, i am not sure, i go back and forth on whether i am lying to myself because i've half-bakedly accomplished some of my dreams and realized that some may never come true. but that's another internal dispute amongst the thousands i must filter through every day of my existence.

when i got my heart broken two years ago, it was like a big bang of sorts for me - the breaking acted as a catalyst for lots of internal change, tough conversations with myself, and self-discovery. somehow i pushed through the excruciating emotional and existential pain and in the time after, i was able to build myself up from scratch. in that painstaking building of self, i became confident and assured of my identity, my core, my values, who i was and who i am. i had spent so much of my life trying to transform myself into what i thought others wanted me to be, so to get to a place where i was myself and no one else and i was happy to be myself... it was very unfamiliar and unprecedented for me but also very exciting.

but that newness has faded as life has continued onwards. there's a quote from the bible that says "as a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly". romance has always been THE dictator of my life, cruelly deciding my mood, my purpose, my worth, etc. in short - i have reattempted to find love over the past two years only to be left disappointed time and time again. each failed relationship has left a chip on my shoulder, and all the cracks in my form have caused me to break once again. my niche micro-celebrity crush recently tweeted "everything falls apart all the time" (and he plays a larger role in my recent "breaking" that maybe i will one day have the courage or lack of care to share). but he was right. everything has fallen apart for me. i'm holding on to three pieces - my family, my friends, and my work. i can't even remember what my original shape was. i'm just gripping these shards as hard as i can and they're slitting my skin but i won't let go. they're all that i have.