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as i sit on the eve of my 32nd birthday, i'm not really too worn down about the actual age. it's more everything that's to come that stresses me out. feeling like i've worked hard for what we've always known to be the way we currently live, and knowing that each day we sleep walk into a future less and less like our past. i'm not against change, but i want some things in life to retain the promise of what we grew up with. i hope i can rid myself of everyday social media this year, hope i can only browse on my computer and not my phone and remember the days of logging into facebook on a fake android and it taking days to give you a single status update. how frustrating it was, and we didnt know it was bliss. maybe thats the lesson!!
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happy (early?) birthday!! 🎉 Idk what advice to give because i feel like the 20-somethings now are more emotionally aware than the 20-somethings from even as recent as a decade ago, but tune into your body, give yourself grace, and listen to others’ stories without feeling pressured to model your life after someone else’s. & if you don’t know what you want your life to look like yet that’s okay! ❤️
At 21 I was in my senior year of college and engaged to be married within the year after graduation. In the southern religious environment we were in this wasn’t abnormal, but in retrospect that was soooo young to get married and I don’t think I would have so quickly if I hadn’t been so desperate to get out of a problematic family situation that involved some financial abuse. Despite changing A LOT over the past decade+ my partner and I are still together, and I look back at 21 as a time when I most followed the social script expected of me and coasted on that for a while, until it all started to fall apart (in an ultimately good if devastating way) when I became a mom at 24.
tl;dr: my 21 was tame and mellow and happy but i had no idea who i was or what i could be and now i do have a stronger sense of that at 32 and that feels better
Jun 11, 2024
I typically feel a little weird and off on my birthday, but today I am really striving to sit with myself and take stock of how far I have come thus far in this little life. I am living the life that young me had always dreamed of. I have my independence, my own apartment, an artistic practice that excites me and gives me comfort and release. I have some of the best friends any girl could ask for. A family that loves me fiercely and that fully accepts and celebrates my love in return. I have worked hard to replace bad habits with healthier ones, and a lot of the time my habits have slowly changed with me hardly noticing. I’ve simply walked into more health and self-respect with the passage of time, and that feels really good. I may not always feel like I am exactly where I want to be, but then I sit back and remember that in many ways, I am, and always have been. And anyway, the best part of life to me has always been arriving, being on the path towards something and relishing the journey.
I took this photo in Joshua Tree last April during a solo trip out West❣️
Mar 18, 2025
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im turning 30 this year and im literally so excited... life has never felt as peaceful or made this much sense before. im really looking forward to my 30s and beyond, the hardships still come of course but i am way better equipped to handle them. 20s is/was so stormy and unstable constantly and my mental health was very poor (though i will always struggle in this sector i have way better techniques that i could have only gained through experience!) i feel overall happier and more capable than ever, truly grounded, and ready to keep growing in this direction. i know aging is never super fashionable but in my experience it's been nothing but positive. so don't be afraid if u are someone who feels anxious about it!!!
Feb 3, 2024
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in what was a euphoric 5 miles on the lost coast trail, nepenthe was my only soundtrack.
until i ate shit and hobbled back on a second degree ankle sprain and questioned all my life choices lol
May 25, 2025
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i was 9 years old when my next door neighbor showed me the delightful scent of a laundry detergent tab. she liked sniffing it and i couldn't agree more with her take. we didn't have that sort of thing in my house- mother was liquid. but we did have solid washing machine detergent, so i supplemented my new interest with that and toted around the solid detergent in my school bag- smelling it when i needed a bit of comfort, kind of like a blanky, which yes obviously i had one of those too. unfortuately, the little cube started to crack in my bag, covering everything, including my snacks, in weird soapy crumbs. i started to feel insecure about the whole thing, like is this kind of weird that i'm carrying solid detergent now to school? So, i put it in the trash. i walked there quietly, wrapped it up in a piece of paper and threw it away and went back to my seat. for some god forsaken reason, my teacher that day decided we should do a lesson on trash. so she emptied out the can on a table and went through everything that had been thrown away that day; apple cores, pencil sharpenings, and unfortunately, my mother's solid dish washing machine detergent. i wish i was kidding.
i agonized watching the table, the detergent like a lightning bolt, the only thing i'm looking at, seizing every ounce of my attention. hoping to god she just misses it. she doesn't. in fact she picks it up, sniffs it. starts saying "WHAT IS THIS" and saying "WHO THREW THIS AWAY" and the whole time im silent. sitting there in fear. i'm sweating. no one says anything. everyone is looking at each other and i continue to omit, an important distinction- not a lie. it's stressful, it feels like it lasts an eternity. she's looking at us all in the eyes wondering who is gonna crack. she will not let it go. continually, at least in my memory, WAILING. and if there was one thing i was sure of, it was that if i did confess, my new name would be soapy or something idk lol
so i sat there. let my back cover in sweat. poker face. poker face mary they could have called me. she finally relented. we moved on. i was free. but i will never forget my first mass omission (again not a lie.......... )
weirdly the teacher later died of slurping on a tide pod on one of those challenges in 2018
ok that bit isnt true
May 28, 2025