when I lose myself, I always find a pencil and a sketchbook.
As I flip flop between what I want, what I thought I wanted, and where I’ll probably end up, I think about the two weeks I spent in Florence, Siena, and Rome, a few months after I turned 21. I had hit rock bottom mentally, applied to study abroad for kicks, and got an interview for the experience all within the same month.
But I was chosen to go. And flying abroad for the very first time without knowing anybody but myself was one of the greatest things I could’ve done for myself at the time.
So while I’m trying to plot out my next moves in my life, I reminisce on a time where I tapped back in to my fine art side, and was truly happy for the first time in months. Drawing was an escape for me. And when I need an escape from my current reality, I look through my camera roll.
(JE, AU, and JG, freshman year of college, eating lunch and keeping me company while I rotted, very ill, in my bed.)
When I was a child with a sinus infection, the doctor gave me antibiotics in the form of a bubblegum flavored liquid in a syringe. Unlike my sister, I loved those meds. It tasted like candy. That’s why they do it, though — they make the medication palatable for a child. A sick child needs medication to get well again, but doctors know they can’t handle unpleasant things, like a horse sized pill that makes your stomach hurt.
When I was a junior in college with strep throat, the doctor gave me antibiotics in the form of little orange pills. I had to take them twice daily for a week. They left a bitter coating on my tongue. They made my stomach hurt. But I could handle unpleasant things.
What I can’t handle is coming home from college and living with my parents again. I exist in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by my childhood things, but the girl who lived there has been long gone. Under the light blue paint is the yellow paint that used to be the color of my nursery when I slept there as a baby. I repainted the room when I was fifteen. I rearranged the room several times in the eight months I’ve been home. And something feels not quite right.
Sometimes I look at my face and notice the faintness of a wrinkle next to the corner of my eye. My father has them. My face has lost it’s baby puffiness, and my cheekbones are apparent now. I look like a woman. I’ve outgrown the girl I used to be. I’m no longer growing up, I’m simply getting older. And what I didn’t realize, is that so are my parents. And they have been, this entire time. They stopped growing up before I was born, and this whole time, they’ve been adults growing older. The lines go deeper in their face and gray has begun to pepper their hair more and more. They’ve started talking about ‘after’ quite a lot. They’ve written a will. They aren’t old…just older.
I expected my cousins to grow up. There were four of us: me, my sister, my cousin born in ‘05, and my other cousin born in ‘08. I was the oldest, and between me and my youngest cousin, there’s a five year age gap. Because I was first, I was always the first to grow up. The first to graduate high school, go to college, then graduate college. It’s natural that they’d follow but some part of me didn’t believe that they would. All of the sudden, as if overnight, my youngest cousin turns eighteen this summer. The baby of us, heading to college. Maybe Miami, maybe California. My other cousin lives on the big island, surfing on the weekends, going to school, and life guarding in between. My sister is studying to be an actress. I’m still here. We all have lives now. And the little kids that used to chase fireflies in the summer with muddy feet are nowhere to be found.
Tough pills to swallow also look like pictures. Snapshots of moments in time all collected in a camera roll, a scrapbook, a photo album, a pile of print-outs on a desk. And in those pictures are the girls I’m not friends with anymore, and we’re sixteen. Or it’s a picture of my grandfather, who passed away two years ago this May. But he’s young in the photo, his hair still dark and less wispy. Some of the pictures are my friends from college, snapshots of the stupid moments, but we were laughing, and now we all live in different states. It’s proof those moments happened, but it’s also proof that it only exists in that frame.
And the side effect of all of this is nostalgia. That pretty little word with its terrible little meaning. It’s a heavy longing, nostalgia. And it only exists because of how it once made me feel. There was something about these moments that made me happy, and how wonderful it is that I have something to miss. But God, does it hurt.
I wish there was an easier way. An easier way to tell me that my childhood will forever be withheld now, at farther than an arm’s length. That I take pictures to remember moments that will only happen once, and that it’ll never last how I want it to. How my cousins and I will never be as close as we once were, no matter how much we try or how badly we want it. An easier way to show me that my parents weren’t the only ones adding numbers to their age on birthdays, and how they’re beginning to hint at the likeness of their parents.
I don’t want bitter orange-colored pill-shaped antibiotics anymore. I need the sugar coated version. I think I’m reacting badly.
I can’t stop the feeling that time is fleeting and it’s slipping out of my hands before I’ve gotten a grip on it.
I’ve still got a few years until my brain is considered ‘fully developed’, but I feel as though I’m starting to migrate that way. It wasn’t like I hit any sort of epiphany, but it’s beginning to show in subtle ways, gradually entering a more mature state. Sort of like how one day I woke up and decided that any green vegetable actually tasted good. It’s not awe-inspiring stuff. Just little things that I began to notice.
Here are five of those things:
The Value of a Good Hug
When testing which was my most prominent love language, my score for physical touch was always the lowest. I don’t hate it, but I really don’t love it. I avoid it at most costs. For some people, they need to be within a constant tight proximity to another human in order to feel the optimum amount of love. Maybe it was something in my childhood, maybe I’m just built differently. I would always go for a little gift or a note rather than a hug.
That being said, when my emotions are high, positive or negative, there is nothing like a good hug. It’s the subtlety of someone saying “I’ve got you” without words, or “congratulations” without confetti. Sometimes I’ll stand in that hug, one of the few ways one’s heart can be that close to someone else, and I understand what everyone goes on about. It feels good. Not just for the body, but also the soul.
The Value of Whole Foods (Not the Store)
When I was younger, my mother insisted on buying everything organic. I’d go to school with a wheat-bread sandwich, a cottage cheese, and a vegetable or fruit. I grew up in the early 2010’s where snack foods were all the rage and flavored drinks were trendy. I wanted to be like everyone else and desired to fit in so badly, so I begged my mom for “normal” food.
I’m 22 now. I’m gluten intolerant and have since learned how my body works. I simply run better when I cook from whole foods. For lunch yesterday, I made a simple dish (maybe I will write something about this one day) that had only eight ingredients. It’s not about the obsession of being healthy, but it just makes me feel good. I’m grateful to have access to that sort of food so I can feel better on the daily and am also thankful for my mother who tried to instill that knowledge in me when I was young (and I’m sorry for giving her such a hard time about it.)
The Value of True Friendship
I truly would not be able to function without the friendships in my life. In my experience, when I was young, the friendships I had were about convenience, fun, and the hope that I wouldn’t feel so alone. As I grew, I realized the fundamentals of a platonic relationship, and that it’s not always convenient, not always fun, but if it’s a good friendship with a solid foundation, you won’t ever feel alone.
And they do take work, which is something I learned later that I failed to learn before. Most arguments are forgivable with the reminder that we’re all human. But my girls have never failed me when I needed them. The friends I made in childhood are the ones that have seen me through my most embarrassing phases. The friends I made in college have seen me drunk and lovesick. Every one of them brings their own aura to my little solar system, and how wonderful each of them are.
The Value of Sunshine
There’s a saying that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. And during a gray Maine winter, that is the case. All of the sudden, during the third snowstorm of the week where I am huddled up inside my parent’s house, inside a wintry snow globe, I find myself missing the sunshine.
There’s science behind the sunshine and vitamin D, and how it helps your overall mood become…sunny, to say the least. I just feel so good when the sunshine cascades over my face, and my paleness soaks up the sunshine so I glow like a sunset on a summer evening. It’s my favorite thing, and I miss it. I should probably go outside more.
The Value of Noticing (and a Quiet Moment)
With social media flashing twenty videos per second, new music releasing every Friday, the constant current event updates, the changing of the weather, and the life stressors that mix with the average body’s up and down system, it’s sometimes difficult to find the quiet moments. But once I do, I try to sit with it as long as possible.
It’s as simple as noticing. Much like meditation, there is nothing but myself and my breath. And as I move through breathing, I notice the sound of the snow melting on the tin roof. Then there’s the sunshine, peeking through the window and lighting up the patch of carpet on the floor. It’s warm, so I move from the couch to sit there instead. There’s a ladybug crawling along the hardwood. It’s supposed to be lucky. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t looked. And on the bird feeder outside, there’s a chickadee dropping seeds for the red squirrel below it. It’s those quiet moments that hold so much more value in a world of constant noise, and the little things that present themselves when I feel there is no more value in living.
Maturity isn’t linear, and it isn’t loud. Like those quiet moments, growth happens subtly, without the need to announce it. It’s stability over chaos. Nourishment over trendiness. Depth over noise. Presence over performance. My life is meant to be lived the way I feel is best. It’s happening. I’m learning. I’m here.
It’s the day before Valentine’s Day. Friday the thirteenth. I’m on my phone, scrolling through TikTok (a habit I promised to leave in 2025), when I get a notification.
It’s not a text from my boyfriend. Not an email about my recent job interview. Not a meme from my best friend.
It’s a Snapchat.
Two chats, actually. From a guy I was certain I’d left in 2024.
Woah there, buddy. It was seven in the morning. I hadn’t even had coffee yet. And this is what I’m hit with?
I was a sophomore in college when we began our on-again off-again storyline. A strictly talking situationship, if you will. I was nineteen. He was stationed at the military base in my college town. I’m liberal-leaning, and he’s…well…he’s in the military. He gave me attention and entertainment. I probably did the same for him.
After a brief no-contact blip (strategically executed on my part), we agreed to one last coffee date the day before I flew home for the summer and he moved to Colorado. He was late, apparently pulled over by cops. I was anxious, needing to move out of my apartment later that day.
The date happened. It was fine. A moment.
I flew to Boston. Then to Italy to study in Florence for two weeks. I flew home.
In late August, I went on a first date with my now boyfriend.
And that was that.
So Bowser and I haven’t spoken since.
Which is why the 7 a.m. (or 5 a.m., if we’re going by his Mountain Standard Time) messages felt so abrupt. So unnecessary. So…predictable.
Because here’s the thing about bad exes: they reappear the second you’ve built something steady. A new job. A new city. A new partner. A new version of yourself. Somehow, they sense it. And they decide now is the perfect time to show up out of nowhere and try to reenter your life.
But the funny thing is that I feel like I’ve seen this all before.
Between my ancient Wii, crappy computer games, and friends’ Nintendo Switches, I’ve had several opportunities to play Mario Kart. I usually pick Daisy. I put a sick hang glider on my kart. I gear up.
Now, I’ll admit, I’m not very good.
I drive slow. Careful. Focused on not bumping into walls. I usually end up second-to-last while whoever I’m playing with speeds ahead into first place. I know that’s not the point of a race. But I care more about staying steady than getting there fastest.
That said, I’m actually pretty good at maneuvering around obstacles. Banana peels? Avoided. Edges of the track? Hugged carefully. I may not win, but I don’t spin out easily.
And then, out of nowhere, a blue shell.
I was driving fine. I was staying in my lane. And suddenly: impact. Everything explodes around me. I stall. Everyone passes me.
That random blue shell? It’s the ex from forever ago who reappears the second your life starts running smoothly.
The track is life. You’re the driver. The shell is the disruption.
And the most annoying part? You didn’t even do anything to deserve it. You were just driving.
But here’s what Mario Kart also teaches you: you don’t stay stalled forever. Lakitu drops you back on the track. You keep going. You might lose a place or two, but the race isn’t over.
Bad exes love to think they’re the final boss.
Most of the time, they’re just a poorly timed blue shell.
I’m twenty-two but that doesn’t mean I can’t have childlike fun.
In early 2025, it snowed in Savannah, GA. The southern city hadn’t seen that amount of snow since the eighties, and for most, it was the first time they were seeing a glimmer of the winter wonderland that I’d grown up with. That meant that everyone was outside, making snowmen, sledding in laundry baskets, and skating through the icy roads that weren’t salted and didn’t see any vehicles for a week. It felt like recess in elementary school. A short break with a touch of imagination.
This past week I attended a WinterFest in my boyfriend’s hometown. It was an adults-only event and we took turns with fifty other 21+ year olds, watching each other as we plummeted down a tall hill of snow via tube or plastic sled. I hadn’t taken a sled on top of compacted snow in a good five years. But there I was, with all these other humans who held permanent smile-lines on their faces from the aging, acting as though we were children, cheering as we sped down the hill and gasping when one of us wiped out.
And as I watched a grown man in his fifties tumble off the red plastic sled with a smile, I wondered why it was an event to sled. We paid ten dollars to be there, which was worth it, but it made me think about how it was just this one night, this one moment, in which we could all tap back into what we did as children. And how happy I was, and how happy everyone seemed.
It got me thinking about what else I used to do in childhood that I either don’t do as frequently or have forgotten completely. It’s like I grew older and felt I had to adhere to maturity and what it meant to be an adult. In that process, I felt as though some things that used to make me happy weren’t mature enough to keep, and therefore, I left them in that era of my life. But sometimes, it’s as simple as sledding during winter. There’s no harm in that. It is pure joy.
So I began to write down things that once gave me joy that I hope to experience sometime in the near future, because I’m only growing older. Here is that compiled list:
Sledding on a little-kid sled
Rolling down a green-grass hill in summertime
Painting my nails with sparkly nail polish
Putting stickers on notebooks and waterbottles
Eating a dessert for breakfast
Boogie boarding
Reading picture books
Dancing in the kitchen
Becoming obsessed with a movie or book fandom
Wearing bold and bright colors
Watching Saturday morning cartoons
Making and eating buttered noodles
Crafting from a how-to book
Receiving magazines in the mail
Sunset chasing
Going to an animal shelter and petting the animals
Riding a bike for leisure not exercise
Playing tag (bonus points if it’s contagious tag)
Buying pajamas with characters on it
Now this is just the compiled list that I thought of between last Friday and today. I’m sure I could fill this list so it covers several pages, but I will say, this short list alone makes me deeply nostalgic. I had so much fun in my childhood. But why did that have to end?
And did it ever? After all, only a few nights ago did I find myself flying down a snowy hill on a plastic sled, laughing like I was nine again.
This past week I’ve been re-watching Euphoria. I re-watched season 2 at the beginning of January, and then watched most of season 1 this past week. I first watched it when season 2 came out, back when I was a freshman in college, returning after a winter break that nearly caused me to drop out entirely.
I was depressed. Like severely depressed. I’d never experienced that before, but I found myself in this constant spiral of a deep, dark, gray that cascaded over everything that was supposed to be happy and good. When season 2 of Euphoria was released, I’d seen the sparkles and purples and warped psychosis-like aesthetic of the show splattered over TikTok, and it drew me in.
Now if you’ve never seen the show, it’s very dark. The main characters are teenagers in high school, but they are experiencing things that I hadn’t even thought of, even at my elder age. They go through addiction, withdrawal, assault, identity, overdosing, physical altercations, and things I hadn’t even named yet.
But I’ve watched it several times over. And I wait for the third season eagerly, and as I do, I wonder if I’m somehow sick and twisted. Sort of like how I re-watch End of the F*****g World over and over again. And Beautiful Boy.
If I lined up all my ‘comfort’ shows and pieces of media in a row, there’d be a theme. There’s something in there that aligns with how I feel. But how I feel is not experienced in the same way — it’s colorized for the screen. It’s a different world, perhaps with an unreliable narrator. There’s an essence hidden within the characters that I feel within myself.
In a way, I’m seeking validation. And in seeking validation, I can ignore those parts of myself while watching how it’d play out in the life of a different character.
Rue Bennett, for example, is one of the main protagonists of Euphoria. She’s also an addict. She overdoses, multiple times, which has her sent to rehab. She lies about being clean, even to her closest friends.
Now, I’m not an addict. But sometimes I get so miserable and wonder what it’d be like to be one. To drown in my misery in that sort of way. To be covered in purple glitter with mascara running down my face.
That’s not the life of someone with addiction, though. It’s not glittery with Labrinth playing in the background. It’s pretend. But it’s an ice pack on a bruise to pretend your pain is aesthetic. It eases the pain a bit.
It allows me to escape for forty minutes. To put my reality into perspective. Yeah, I’m miserable, but Maddy Perez has it worse. I might hate myself sometimes, but I’m not behaving like Kat.
Actually, maybe it does make me an addict…just not to a substance. I’d rather watch something like Euphoria than a Disney animation. I’d rather sink into a photo-shopped image of my own reality than a naive, innocent, imagined reality that I can’t have anymore.
I’m not addicted to a substance, but I am addicted to these stories. And maybe it’s not sickness, nor fascination, but a recognition. They give my feelings a shape that I can look at from an outside perspective. The glitter in these stories fade, but I still hold a space in my room. I’m still here, not cured, not ruined, just aware. That awareness is enough for now. It keeps my emotions and my soul at a safe distance from each other.
Occasionally I need that glitter to remind myself of that space I like to keep. I escape when I need to, and I come back when I can.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.
I feel like one day I was younger, and the adults would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I tended to cycle through the same ideas like being a veterinarian, a teacher, or a secret spy. The adults would then nod and say something about how it’s important to chase your dreams.
Then one day, I woke up, post-grad with a writing degree. The adults are my peers now, and nobody asks what I want to be anymore. They ask what I do. And what do I do? I wake up, sometimes I do a workout, I drink too much caffeine, I try to write but get distracted, I go to work at my part time tourist shop retail job, I drive home, I sleep, then I do it again. It’s what I do.
But what do I want to be?
And a greater question, what happened to my dream?
I think I had one before college. I’d written a manuscript that I was passionate about and I got goosebumps every time I’d watch a film trailer. I wanted to tell stories, as stories have always been a point of connection between people, and I wished to be even a thread of that connection.
I guess you could consider that a dream.
But a dream isn’t always what you “do”. My dream is not to work in a retail shop dealing with miserable tourists while they ask me questions you can google.
My dream wasn’t to go corporate, either. I was around that environment for years, locking in and out of that mindset that my college provided. A creative career should’ve been my dream. It should’ve been my dream to work at big publishing houses, to make films with popular production companies, to work on advertising campaigns for news stations.
So when I graduated, and then lived another seven months after graduating without any prospects and a new hatred for cover letters, I began to wonder if I even wanted that at all.
Which got me thinking about what I want.
And how what I want should equate to my dream.
But then I look at the news. About everything that’s happening in my hometown, the place I felt safe in that other people are increasingly more unsafe in. Humans acting as animals, hunting other people because of a superficial territory run by bigots and hypocrites. Christlike love became sadists wearing wings, and every Saturday presents another protest that I miss because I’m working at my tourist job. (The job in which I answer when asked what I “do”.)
People keep throwing out the word “animals” in relation to those who don’t hold a citizenship slip of paper that paints them red, white, and blue. And yes, humans are animals — scientifically that is. We all are. We share many traits and ways of functioning that can be seen in your neighbor’s dog, the deer in the backyard, or the cat zipping out of the room when you appear.
But there is one thing that sets humans apart from animals: that is our network of communication, our complex language. With this expressive, symbolic language that has evolved over many cultures, we as humans have advanced thinking, future planning, and the capacity for moral reasoning.
Essentially, we can put our thoughts into words.
So what is my dream?
I’m still not sure. But I am sure that I’ll continue using the thing that separates me from your local predators: language, thinking, and moral reasoning. And maybe somewhere within that, I’ll find my dream, but for now, I can settle being a single thread that can connect one person to another.
As the eldest daughter, I assumed I was just “independent”. I walked away when people seemed upset at me, when I’d done something wrong, or felt emotionally vulnerable. I’d go into my room, more specifically, into my closet, where I’d write songs about troubled girls and broken hearts. I was self-regulating and putting my emotions into something that showed proof. Then I’d act like nothing had happened.
My sister cried more than I did as a child. I was often angry, often throwing tantrums. Anger was my first response to sadness. Anger, as it seems, is easier to process. You get mad, you throw something, you run it off, it’s done. Sadness has more stages and is trickier to process.
So after my first broken heart, freshly sixteen, I turned my sadness of not feeling like enough into anger that I even let him make me think that in the first place. It was ego above all else. A thought that, if I could rise above it, it would always be his loss. That I couldn’t be hurt by any of it. Self-regulating became self-preservation.
And I went to great lengths to self-preserve. I chose men who seemed unattainable and who wouldn’t emotionally connect with me, because then I couldn’t connect with them either. I chose the men whom I almost hated because if I hated them already, they couldn’t hurt me.
Toxic behavior, I know.
But then you’re twenty, and you realize how long you’ve been alone. I got a therapist then, and she helped me understand why I’m so quick to detach and why I would leave the second things in a relationship felt good, and why I always ghost my friends when my life gets overwhelming. She tells me I have avoidant attachment. And that it stems from childhood. And although it’s not my fault, it’s now my issue to deal with and work through if I want my life and relationships to change for the better.
According to Google, those with avoidant attachment style share some core characteristics:
Difficulty with emotional vulnerability, physical affection, and/or expressing their needs
Difficulty trusting others
Withdrawal during conflict
Emotional unavailability
Fear of abandonment
Prioritizing self-sufficiency
The problem with this attachment style is that it’s a silent killer. Everybody will pick up on it but you. And it wasn’t until I began to recover that I realized when I was doing it. Fear of intimacy? Avoidant. Can’t say I love you? Avoidant. Ghosting my friends when I’m overwhelmed? Avoidant. People calling me selfish for canceling plans? Avoidant!
There’s a theme there. And I had no idea until I found someone I really wanted to be with. It was at that point that I realized that it was my choice to make whether or not I wanted to take my therapist’s advice and understand my triggers to better help my reactions to situations. There were some relationships in which I wasn’t willing to change and do that work. I look back and only regret some of them, because I can now see how I self-sabotaged, hurting myself and the other person.
But that’s just the thing, you can’t fix someone who’s avoiding you. You have to give them the space to process what’s happening, and only then may they choose to understand their actions, their triggers, and what feels safe. If you chase something that’s already running, there’s a high chance they’ll only run faster.
You can’t force-feed an avoidant medicine. They’ve got to come across it themselves and choose to try and get well again. But I will say that this doesn’t make an avoidant person heartless. Take it from a recovering avoidant: the avoidant feels as much as someone who isn’t suffering the same symptoms. But sometimes the intensity of the feelings scares them, and they deem it unsafe.
And sometimes, one day, they’ll wake up and realize that love, although scary, requires vulnerability. It requires the risk of it being lost. That’s what makes it real and important.
Winter and I are not getting along, but I think we can make it work.
It’s currently winter in Maine. If you’ve never been to Maine or never felt winter, it sort of feels like when the sun sets on a Sunday. You have work the next day at a job that makes you go brainless in an office where the walls are gray. Every day of winter in Maine brings the essence of the Sunday scaries, mixed with some soggy slush, a bad case of the flu, and skin so dry you worry your face will crumble to dust.
I’ve decided winter is the long-distance, low-commitment, love-bomber boyfriend. One day, the temperature will hover just above freezing, and it’ll be sunny out. You smile again, you’ve got that usually unattainable zest for life, and it genuinely feels like summer. Of course, it’s the bare minimum, but it happens once in a blue moon, so everything’s great. Then the next day, it’s frigidly cold, spewing out hours of snow and freezing rain, and then you slide into a telephone pole while driving as carefully as you can.
Naturally, I have a love/hate relationship with the season. I loved it as a kid, and then I grew up where life feels horrid, so the weather is supposed to compensate. I need warmth now, sunshine, a sprinkle of beach sand, and, honestly, an endless supply of margaritas. But since I cannot have that, here’s how winter and I create healthy boundaries of distance while also coexisting.
1. I’m staying off of the media for most of the day.
I’m high-key proud of myself for this one. I usually spend less than four hours on my phone as of twelve days ago. The media only offered a glimpse into the outside world, where winter feels like quarantine and other people’s warm-weather vacations are Disneyland. It’s not healthy, and I find myself wasting the day and letting it drag on. In the past, I’ve found it makes the winter months feel like eight full years.
2. I’m tapping back into old hobbies that I set down in the summer.
In the summer, there are many outdoor things to do. I live by the beach, so I usually wind up there. I surf, I swim, I lie in the sun. If not that, I’ll go on a walk, on a drive to Portsmouth, or I’ll make a salad and eat it outside. But winter is the hibernation season. That doesn’t mean I sleep for eons, but I do things that I usually wouldn’t do in the summer months. This means reading in front of a fire, painting, writing, going to the movies when it’s crappy out, or working out. I’ve read four books in the past two weeks, and I probably read three books for the three months of last year’s summer.
3. I make plans.
I’m usually super bad about this. I’m independent and type B – so badly that I think it’s chronic and may cause me to lose years off my life. But I’ve found that having friends to hang around with makes winter less dreary. And not only social obligations, but I plan out work things and trips I’ll take. In that case, it’s something to look forward to. In February, I’ve penciled in the days that I’ll submit papers and reviews, and journals. In May, I might travel to Honduras to visit some college friends.
4. I listen to music that makes it feel like summer.
It’s sometimes a little whimsical to lie to yourself. Recently, among my laundry list of boy rap and songs from 2016, I’ve been listening to playlists that I’d play at the beach, or when I lived in the South when it was actually nice and warm in February, or what I’d play when my family drives to the lake in New Hampshire. If you don’t have such playlists, I’ve got you. (Refer back to #2, making Spotify playlists is one of my hobbies.)
The thing that’s most important about all of this is that winter is just a season of the year, and a small fraction of life. Feeling miserable doesn’t mean that everything’s miserable; it just means that things might have to adjust slightly to feel more comfortable. And that’s okay.
We’re in this together.
Unless where you live is sunny, and if so, I’d love for you to mail me a pocket of sunshine ASAP. Thank you.
Just kidding. My only resolution is to complete my bucket list.
When I was younger, my family would set goals for the year. It wasn’t ever called resolutions, so I wasn’t super aware what that all meant until I got social media in eighth grade. The concept of it was always to lose or gain something else: lose fifteen pounds, get better at french.
I never understood exactly why it was designed this way, losing or gaining, and purposefully making note to begin this new endeavor over the start of a new year.
I believe that a new year is a new opportunity. Not to lose or gain necessarily, but a chance to live another year to the fullest. And thus began my yearly bucket list – it’s not a list of requirements that I feel are necessary for me to achieve to prove I lived out my year by productivity, but a list to show just how much one can experience in a year.
The Bucket List of a 20-Something Year Old in Modern America (2026)
Dear Digital Diary 