First Drafts

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft."

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Thirty Two

What is it that I want to do

when I’m thirty two?

Who is it that I want to be

what is it that I want to see

before I’m thirty three?

The decisions I have yet to make

risks that I have yet to take

wait patiently while I learn to be

my favorite version of me.

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Driver of Life

The one behind the wheel

making decisions

wrong turns.

I don’t mind if they’re wrong

as long as they’re mine.

Let me prepare my lunch

add spices, pack containers

for transport. Let me

carry, endure

let my efforts fuel me.

To coast and glide

passive eyes idling by

there is no pleasure in ease

when it steals the opportunity to achieve.

I am ok with falling. Failure is my teacher

guiding me for next time.

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Middle of the Night Thoughts

I used to be way braver. Put myself out there more. I don’t think I *knew* I was being brave/vulnerable, though. I think I actually *didn’t* know. So is it really courageous if you don’t even realize you’re doing it? Accidental bravery?

I don’t think I was aware of any potential humiliation. I was very much my raw self because I also lacked self awareness. It didn’t occur to me that I could ever *be* humiliated, I don’t think. I was blind, a little bit. But at the same time it helped me put myself out there, even if I didn’t realize or fully appreciate what I was doing. Does it still count?

I wish I could tap into the ability to hack my way through the weedy jungle of life with that youthful gusto while maintaining an awareness and respect for how royally I could mess up. I mean, I think some fear is good because it means you appreciate and want to keep what you’ve earned. There’s something to lose, at some point.

Maybe back then I just didn’t have anything to lose yet.

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The Stories We Choose to Believe: My Joyful Reawakening

Upon reflecting on not just 2025 but 2024 as well, the standout truth is I was amazing at gratitude in 2024. I consistently practiced it week after week through a project of posting photos of mundane moments to Instagram - my regular collections of everyday glee, sometimes paired with thoughtful words and sometimes not. In hindsight I can see that I became better for it at the time. But I felt silly for it, too. Like the things I savored and cherished were too minor, too obsolete to matter to anyone but me. No one else was expressing their joy like I was. Only major milestones were “post-worthy.” Unfortunately I didn’t feel unique in a positive way, I felt othered; unaccepted.

It’s hard to believe in the value of simple pleasures when everything feels like it has to be “worthy” of being shared. (Does this mean we’re not worthy as we are?) Because my routine of sharing unremarkable snippets of joy so forwardly and so often was unusual for the platform (or at least to my audience), I was convinced I was being silently judged and probably laughed at or simply ignored. I didn’t feel the sense of understanding or connection that I craved and I certainly didn’t feel like living with gratitude and simplicity was honored in a space that felt so performative and competitive. Despite my best efforts to confidently be myself and disregard outside opinion that might be less than supportive, it was lonely.

Eventually, I believed my doubts and insecurities and stopped sharing my weekly little joys. I thought I was irrelevant and laughable. While I was probably (definitely) distorting my reality as an attempt to protect myself, the perceived rejection was disheartening and hurtful. Whether hurtful just to my ego I can’t be sure, but it was enough for me to stop the project after the year was over and remove myself from social media entirely.

My year of privacy in 2025 was healing and relieving but also shrunk me a little in ways. It was a respectable way to hide from discomfort, but in my cozy bubble of invisibility I lost touch with getting regular healthy doses of social exposure. Posting was vulnerable and it kept me honest and exposed. Even if it didn’t result in the deeper connections I wanted, it was a useful practice in putting myself out there, and also in gratitude. After over a year of privacy, I can see my walls have rebuilt, for better or worse, and I’m not in the habit of paying attention to my life in the ways I used to. I don’t routinely reflect on (much less share) moments that no matter how small, unarguably made my day brighter.

This year I’m deciding to challenge my embarrassment. To begin rewriting the stories I choose to believe, and to question the power I’ve historically handed others. I’d like to notice the most mundane things again, to focus on and appreciate them, and to not hide that appreciation. It’s okay to be bright in a world that tends to focus on the bleak, to be sensitive when there’s so much to be desensitized to. I know that when I’m courageous enough to wield them, my strengths really are my superpowers, and they’re mine for a reason.

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An Aimless Endeavor

Somewhere along the way I felt my creativity plunge. No, not plunge. It wasn’t that obvious. More like slowly drift further from view, becoming an amorphous blob, shapeless and somewhere just out of reach.

The longing to express did not fade with it. I long to connect. I long to say something in a way that represents my existence and maybe resonates with someone else too. To find understanding and humanity in this world. The older I get the harder it feels to take steps into the creative unknown. Daunted by freedom. Paralyzed by options.

My logical mind says I need to start before I’m ready, to take a step before I can see where the path leads, or confirm that a path exists at all. To channel my inner Anne Lamott and keep driving down the dark highway, headlights illuminating only far enough so that I don’t crash. Who knows where the end of the road is? Who knows how it might twist and turn or what it looks like in a mile or two or two hundred.

But my doubts remind me that creating can be so lonesome, even when you do feel as equipped as you’ll ever be to make something. What feeling hasn’t already been expressed? What medium hasn’t been tried? How can one be original in this life? Is originality even the goal? What is one supposed to do when valuable output and real connection feel impossible?

The aimlessness is overpowering. As much as it feels like everyone else was at some point handed one while my back was turned, I most certainly don’t have a map or a destination. I don’t have a quest, a journey for my inner hero. I long for the day where I hear the loud and clear bell of inspiration clanging, signaling me to create something purposeful and personal and complete. Does this exist? Does anyone accomplish such a feat?

And where to begin? Where is my creative voice? Is it hiding in a pen, trembling in a musical instrument? Wherever it is, I can feel it straining and holding back what could be something - perhaps not beautiful, but at least heard. Seen. Out there.

I’m telling myself that this is my attempt to challenge my fears. My honest try to pick up my rusty pen and start stretching my weak creative muscles. Time to turn on the faucet and let the dirty water sputter out until it finally runs clean and clear again. My antidote to artists block: hope, and embracing the aimless. I might not believe it yet but I must have something worth sharing.

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I don’t want

to obsess, to repress, to guess

my worth, my value, my life

is a mess. I don’t want to feel

jealous

resentful

thoughts intrude my mind, invading the peace

I worked hard to find. I don’t want

to succumb, to settle, to become

numb. emotions flood 

some sink, some float, some drift

fast and then slow. racing, waiting, always

there.

There, there.

I don’t want to wonder

what I mean to someone else

who isn’t myself. I don’t want to

want. I wait for feelings

to pass through. Always

passing through, never staying, never 

really leaving either. I don’t want

to feel nothing. I guess

this is better than that.

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Why am I so obsessed with reinventing myself all the time? So concerned about the accuracy of my self image. God forbid I misrepresent myself and give people the wrong impression, one that contradicts the essence of my true self.

I wish I were a more private person instead of yelling my feelings and thoughts into the social media void all the time (I ironically post on a social media platform). Tumblr doesn’t count because nobody knows me.

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“There are people less qualified than you doing the things you want to do simply because they decided to believe in themselves. Period.”

— Unknown

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Super negative post about my dreams that I'm too scared to follow!

Sometimes I forreal want to get out of my own goddamn way and actually pursue science studies but then I remember that I'm a moody impatient anxious person and would self-doubt-talk my way the whole goddamn time, and then quit and feel like a quitting loser.

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I want to be better at being nice. I want to be better at, like, spreading goodness, or whatever. It doesn’t come naturally to me unless I just met someone and I’m being all open and giddy. Once I turn into my introverted shell of a human being, I’m not good at spreading the good and being kind to the people around me.  How do people do that???

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Be Patient (Haiku)

I believe in grace.  Softness gradually sands down rough edges. Time heals.

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Haiku on Internal Healing

You’ve heard it before - hurt people hurt people. Now let go of your pain.

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emotional vomit

Things that I think about that make me feel nervous and twisty inside are: social anxiety, approaching people, going out by myself, going to events, not knowing who my friends are, wanting friends but not wanting to put in the necessary work it takes to maintain friendships, sometimes money, not knowing my ultimate career path/goal, feeling like I’m not doing enough with my time, not being a nice person, not being seen as a nice person, worrying about how I’m perceived, not wanting to sever relationships but also not wanting to cultivate relationships, being jealous of people, wanting to be better than other people, not knowing which direction to go in professionally, feeling like I’m not worth very much because I don’t feel well-liked, needing reassurance that I am liked at all, low self esteem paired with the feeling that I’m somehow better than people, envy, bitterness, longing for close friendships but having a hard time seeing the best in people and trusting that the friendship is real after a certain point, over analyzing peoples’ intentions, not wanting to be seen as mean, not knowing how to see my own worth therefore needing to feel better than people to feel valuable, wanting to be noticed but not wanting to admit that I want to be noticed, also, not wanting to be noticed, wanting to have a private life but feeling like it isn’t valid if it isn’t known by others, not knowing who my friends are, wishing I had closer friendships but feeling like I’m mean and drive people away, wishing I fully loved myself so I wouldn’t feel the need to put people down in my head, believing that people are being “fake” when really I’m probably envious of their happiness, not knowing when people are being “genuine,” not being able to recognize my talents, feeling like I don’t know how to accurately express myself, feeling nervous around people, wanting to fill any role just to live up to others’ expectations, not knowing who I truly am, not knowing how to be kind to myself or others, feeling like a quitter, feeling worthless, feeling like I want to be invisible but then feeling sad because of that, not feeling confident in my own skin, now knowing what I want to really do, feeling like I ruined friendships because I am the toxic person, feeling like a toxic person, feeling like I want to start over all the time because of feeling like I mess up all the time, not feeling deserving, feeling wounded, feeling small, feeling like I want second chances, not feeling strong, feeling like I control others people and other things because I’m insecure, not knowing how to express love for people, not knowing how to be affectionate in a normal way.

I didn’t plan on writing all of that. Guess I have some things to work on.

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#306

We live in a three-story apartment building with an Armenian school on one side and a preschool on the other. Parking is difficult. One side of the street doesn’t allow parking, because of the schools. The other side requires all cars to be moved between 12 and 3pm on Wednesdays for street cleaning. All the streets in our neighborhood are like this. Our apartment is smaller than what we had in NM, and it costs about 3 times as much. I sold my car. We do not live close to the beach.

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deep breath, go.

Here is an honest post about my life.  I have been living in LA for over a month now, and it’s ridiculously expensive. Moved from New Mexico. I was able to land a part-time job as a Museum Educator at a Children’s Museum in Pasadena right as I hit the one-month mark. I’m grateful for that. I have been reading more these past few weeks. Finally read Slaughterhouse Five. Finished The Whale, a book about the love story of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. Who knew? Just finished reading Wonder the other night. That was a tear-jerker, good god.  I feel weird here. I went through a bit of .. I don’t know if depression is the right word but I guess I will use it. A bit of a depression for a couple of days. Didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to do anything, didn’t want to get dressed. I could blame it on a million things - the stress of moving, the change in lifestyle, my period, even - but who the hell knows why I got that way. I’m feeling better now so I’m going to just move on for now, without forgetting but also without dwelling.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m spending my time in the right way. I don’t even know what that means - the “right” way. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting my time. Like I’m not taking advantage of where we are. But I also don’t know where to start. I do sleep better here. I think it’s the humidity. Mostly I’m not sure why we came here sometimes. My guy is in film, so that’s the reason I’ve sort of been telling people but also, he hasn’t even found a project to work on out here. He was getting loads of work in New Mexico, was tight with the Union crew there. He’s still in the same Union and has all his equipment and whatever but out here, he doesn’t have the same connections. So why did we come? I have been asking myself the same question.  It sounded romantic, I think. It sounded exciting and different and like an escape. I hated my job, I was tired of the location, of the weather, of everything I knew. I wanted something different. And now that I’m out here all I have is what I had before - myself. There is no escape from that. 

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Moody, broody, trying.

I’m moody, complicated, rude, imperfect. I do not boast these imperfections, though they are necessary to mention, mostly because I need practice at that. Practice at facing the aspects of my character that are truly disgraceful.  I read in a book the other day that when one has the choice of being either right or kind, to pick kind. That sounds nearly impossible to me. And that should illustrate how important it now is for me to try being kind.

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So human is the desire for connection, and so human to leave