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ever since my kindergarten teacher staged a leprechaun break-in i’ve been pouring over clusters of clovers trying to find one with four leaves. as i got older, wiser, and more embarrassed, the desperate scrounging for grade school fame morphed into passive glances of curiosity with a dash of longing. a few months ago, at my mom’s birthday, i saw a lonesome patch of clovers in a sea of other, less interesting plants. i don’t know what came over me, but instead of the glances i’d become comfortable with, i got down and i looked. i saw it instantly, like my eyes had been trained specifically to find it. there it sat, utterly incapable of comprehending of how special it was. the treasure i‘d been searching for. my white whale. i shot out of the squat that i was in and showed it to as many people as possible, but to my absolute shock, nobody gave a shit. nobody shared my excitement, nobody thought it was especially cool. this quest that i’d silently been on for the better part of my life was complete, yet there was no fanfare, and i’m okay with that. sometimes you’ve just gotta be happy with yourself.
if you’ve given yourself to something, and it means the world to you, the only person who can decide what your labor is worth is you.
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been feeling v compelled lately to practice self-respect in the form of dedicating time and energy into honing my creative skills despite the loathsome grind of my 8 - 5 job.
i spent a lot of time and money and emotional energy to get the job i have now and i don't hate what i do but i do know that there's more to all of this beautiful life than playing it safe and getting sucked into a monotonous cycle.
loving and respecting myself means devoting myself to my higher aspirations. deep down i know my soul glows brightest when i create and i'm seen thru that work.
i'm on a ferocious pursuit to brighten that glow every day and i hope you are too if you feel that same impulse.
Feb 13, 2024
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working from what may seem like very surface level cliches but stay w me here
((tldr: why not just believe that its all working out for the better, even if thats not what you planned? also, empathy and objectivity are a solid duo that id like to see in combination more frequently.))
putting this at the top because this is a dissertation, at best; psychosis, at the other end of the pendulum.
sooooooo the fact that u have no control over life liek At All. has been a consistently terrifying concept for FOREVER as a shorty who is Clinically a control freak, but realizing that the unpredictable essence that makes all of this shit unnerving is the very thing that can take the weight of life off of your shoulders has been pretty revolutionary.
im still digesting/integrating it one bite at a time, for sure, so call me a hypocrite ESPECIALLY if you know me personally. when in clarity, though, its been so pleasant to realize that since Nothing truly matters that much since nothing is set in stone anyway- w regard to action, approach, fulfilling temporary expectations of yourself, whether or not you reach short term goals, etc.- living life completely and utterly for yourself and whatever that means to you at any given moment will likely ultimately be the plan that brings you most fulfillment, when all is said and done.
whether that means taking the risk and changing your major, taking that freaky elective bc it sounds cool, moving in w some randos in a townhouse, quitting your job and starting something new- maybe it winds up being an epic fail, who knows? as long as youre setting goals that align with an ultimate sense of who you are and what youre looking to get out of life, which i presume can be solidified further by pursuing said experiences just for the sake of it? right? helps u figure out what u actually want? and as long as you keep bareback essential priorities straight (financial and emotional stability come to mind), then theres no reason for impermanence to work against you.
this also counts for people, as well. i feel like we hold others to critical standards, as we should, but contemporarily tend to neglect the fact that people DO change. morals/how you view the world are impacted by experience, and we are all fruits of very very different trees. completely dependent on circumstance, of course, empathy/understanding/consequential second chances are side-swept under the premise of respect/accountability. accountability is CRUCIAL, but i feel like so many of us (myself included) take that to heart and forget that figuring out how someone got to some place is a key aspect of understanding whether or not their position was truly from a place of lack of respect? if that makes any sense??
i also have been thinking about this a lot: my best friend throughout middle school and i fell out the summer before sophomore year over…nothing? idk, 3 years of seeing each other every single day (neighbors) to no contact until senior of high school- still weren’t talking regularly or anything though.
2 years ago, she turned 20. i posted an old photo of us because, despite everything, 20’s a big one.
this year, we’ve spent late nights on facetime, drove to watch the sunrise after hours of catching up on god knows what on the hill where we would listen to music while her mom cooked dinner, and she’s been my go to for any necessary bitching/ranting during whats been the worst year my mental health has ever seen??
time is your friend, if you let it be. connections arent a race in any dynamic, and it’s never over if it’s truly meant to happen.
let life change. i think.
Dec 5, 2024
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I’m not going to call this gifted kid burnout which I think is often just a symptom of the popping of the bubble of people’s confused delusions of grandeur because they didn’t realize that gifted education programs are at best a way of giving specialized and individualized education, and at worst a way of achieving legal segregation in schools.
Not to brag, but my therapist who specialized in EMDR therapy for treating people with trauma told me that I had the most difficult childhood of anyone she had ever treated. It was also filled with beauty and I was encouraged in my many skills and pursuits early on, but the inner rot of compounded repeated traumas, keeping secrets, and hiding my suffering eventually took hold.
I was always a good student but as things at home intensified I cared less and less. A teacher noticed this and tried to take advantage of my vulnerable state. This made matters more complicated for me because still to this day he’s my favorite teacher that I ever had; he taught me much of what I know about writing and helped me to develop my skills.
After that, I spent my time in school just coasting along, putting in the minimal amount of effort to no fail. I had no goals or ambition. After graduation, I flitted from service job to service job. I started seeing my therapist and thinking about what I actually wanted to do.
I realized I had one exceptional skill which could be monetized to my advantage and I threw myself into it, grinding to make a living and improve my station in life. This worked and I live in decent material comfort, but I’ve realized the lifestyle I always thought I wanted isn’t what I want at all, so I’m reevaluating that and beginning to explore what that looks like.
There are several different exciting paths of progression my career could take, but I’m also finally working on creative projects for the first time in about a decade, so I’m going to see where life takes me. My best friend tells me I should become certified as a yoga teacher, and going back to school to study psychology and become a therapist would also be tight. I would love to seek a second career.
It took me a long time to get here but I’m trying to actualize and find purpose… Something something Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
May 26, 2024
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