I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

I still think about you.

And I don’t say this out of scandal, because I know we’re both taken.

And I don’t say it because I think it will change anything.

It just is what it is.

And maybe it’ll always be this way.

I’m learning to be okay with that.

Maybe it’s this time of year, like muscle memory.

Our brains seem to be good at remembering things we try to forget.

But I wouldn’t want to forget.

Sometimes I think, “maybe someday, in another time or a different life.”

I’m learning to be okay with that, too.

May 8

It’s been awhile. I don’t know what prompted me to try to sign into this account, but I was somehow able to find a way in even though I forgot my password and the email I used back in high school wasn’t even a real email lol.

I’ve been wanting to journal lately, but it feels so intimidating to try to physically write something down. Not so much the writing part, but putting pen to paper about what my thoughts have been lately when they’ve been so…much.

Growth really keeps us on our toes, because you’re always finding out new things about yourself and changing your mind about things you never thought you would. In the same vein, this is also what can make it overwhelming or scary.

My mom had brain surgery at the start of 2022 and almost died. It was the tensest, scariest couple months of my life and she’s still recovering. Thankfully doing better and better each week, but with what she went through, the surgeon advised it would likely be a year long recovery. I feel like this is part of the catalyst that made me start to question, well, everything. My mom was prepping to retire before her surgery—a time she likely assumed would be dedicated to relaxing, gardening, traveling, shopping, etc. and then she got sick. And now she isn’t able to do the things she so easily used to do, like driving to the store by herself or making our Christmas dinner for when all the aunts, uncles and cousins come over. We’re hopeful that she’ll one day be able to get back to all the stuff she loves, but it made me realize how not guaranteed anything is in life. It’s common knowledge that we never know what tomorrow brings, but going through something like this really serves as a harsh reminder.

And this time last year I was so focused on healing myself after becoming sick from living in toxic mold, that I wasn’t really focusing on wants, ambitions, dreams, etc. Now that I’m beginning to feel better and closer to being back to my “old self”, combined with the crushing reminder that life is short and fragile, I find myself wanting to start over—in more ways than one. My job, which used to be an office 9-5:30, with the pandemic now has the ability to be fully remote, so that leaves quite a lot of possibility I feel I’d regret not exploring. I also find myself questioning my own definition of freedom and how I want my life to look in the next few years. Like a couple years ago, I thought I wanted to get engaged, get married and (maybe??) have kids. Now I am very up in the air with all of it (I sound like I’ve reverted back to my early 20s lmaooo).

I have no idea what the next 1-2 years will look like, but from my “back of the mind” thoughts becoming increasingly “replaying at the front of the brain” thoughts, I think it’s going to look different than I’d ever imagined. And I’m terrified. But excited. Or at least I will be once I figure some things out.

P.S. hope everyone’s well!

P.P.S. This love IS good, this love IS bad. This love IS alive back from the dead. These hands had to let it go free and THIS! LOVE! CAME! BACK! TO! ME!