Problematic

 Love is Blind is what I am watching right now. It's scratching a morbid itch. I appreciate the neediness. I recognize it inside myself. The level of desperation that wants someone to choose them and also wants to have, potentially, the adoration of all Netflix subscribers. I remember the age I wanted to be famous. Sometimes I still dream of writing something so interesting and insightful I am catapulted into the spotlight as I assume Lena Dunham felt when she called herself the voice of our generation. Or whatever. Don't quote me on quoting her on that. I'm probably still at the age as well where I want someone to become obsessed with me. Yet, I'm also at an age where I feel deeply judgmental about this unhinged behavior in other people. I have a weird habit of repotting my plants without gardening gloves. So I have dirt under my nails. After getting ringworm from Little Gray Cat when she came inside, I realize that I am playing with ringworm fire. As with most things,

 Wow. It's been a really long time. I have 4 cats now. Still one boyfriend. 2 mostly virtual friends. 2 friends IRL, but at least 1 wants to leave. A job I possibly hate because I don't know where I fit in or how to be effective. It's probably been over a year since I had 5 friends. I grow more and more concerned that I cannot genuinely connect with the people I used to love. Even if we have similar political views we handle them in different ways. We have very different problems even though we're in ostensibly similar periods of life.  My life now is trapping and caring for community cats, and being equal parts over involved and flaking out on the community. Who even is the community? I think before the pandemic my friends were my community. I lived myopically. My vague sense of purpose to make things better in some undetermined way. I'd figure it out as I grew up, I guess. But now I am growing up, and the way to make a difference has never been so opaque. Around 1

 I'm watching a Korean drama about a man who has been living a lie and I feel like I'm drowning. The depths of my lack in direction and success are boundless. I'm almost certain I'm headed toward a point where only two people and four cats truly want to be around me. Even then I'm sure two of the cats could take it or leave it.  I buy imaginary things and crave boba tea constantly. Pretending small indulgences don't add up seems to be the only way I know how to survive and it's sure to kill me eventually.  I've been 35 for two months and a college graduate for two years. I have this elevator pitch about it. I talk all the time about not having the guidance to navigate higher education and how much it made me value educational equity. I'm always mentioning how my parents didn't teach me Spanish because they didn't want me to be discriminated against. Now I mention community building and community meetings every chance I get. Everyone at work i

I think I might finally be at the point in my life where I am ready to be loved. It's also one of the points I have felt most isolated. I have felt so inauthentic. I'm no longer prepared to be honest. I have so little to lose at this point in my life, but everything feels so much more shameful. Everything seems to have so much more weight as I'm aging. I'm going to be an age soon I previously couldn't imagine wanting to live to see. And I've accomplished none of the fantastical things I thought would make dying a young artist romantic. I don't even make art anymore. Motivation is a rare find. In many ways I'm losing my voice. I haven't been able to sing because I have spent so much of the last few years throwing up and letting allergies close my throat. Finding notes is a struggle. I'm not sure what the point would be to finding a vocal coach besides my own happiness. Happiness is such a foreign concept I can't entertain it as a real reason t

 I went to therapy recently. Friday, specifically. I also bleached and dyed my hair. That happened earlier. I feel like that was more impactful on my declining mental health. It did take a few tries though. I went through a couple of cycles of bad dye before landing on Manic Panic, which I had never tried before. It bleeds out every time I shower, but the color still seems pretty bright and closer to what I was envisioning. Anyway, my girl group has broken up. I think? Kind of. For all practical purposes at least, at the moment. I don't think it can be narrowed down to any one moment. It doesn't seem to be anyone's fault. It seems over the course of the pandemic we found ourselves in very different places in life. A few friends lost really important people lately. It was hard enough to get everyone together before, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for scheduling around grief and tragedy. We all have very different habits now. It felt very rare we were all up t

I both am and in a nightmare. I both am and am in a nightmare. I am in, and am, a nightmare. I'm in a nightmare. I am a nightmare of a person. I am not sure how best to capture the sentiment. I'll be brief about it. The last few months have been a slow spiral in the wake of my best friends experiencing personal misfortunes on a larger scale. I probably haven't been accurately expressing how volatile I feel because I don't think there's space for it in anyone's life. There's no space for it in my life. It feels like there's a higher unspoken level of strain everyone has been under that's causing us all to snap, but quietly repair ourselves mostly off-screen, then reenter the scene because there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. No one's been allowed a break. I feel like a lot of my feelings are secondhand anyway. I probably need respite the least. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be any to snatch up, so I'm not being greedy about i