there is only yourself.

 do not trust anyone to the point where you depend on them. you can let yourself trust a bit, but do not depend. if i have learned anything from this lifetime, it's that you only really have yourself. no matter how much that hurts. 

i choose to live and grow

one thing i somehow forgot about working in animal hospitals is how good it is for putting ego aside. 

you can't make anything about yourself. you can't ruminate and drown in your thoughts and feel sorry for yourself. there's no time.

you have to be present and engaged and on top of it all. it doesn't matter how tired you are, and it especially doesn't give a fuck that you're tired for the wrong reasons. there's no time. 

you can't sit in your own sadness, as there's always someone there suffering with something so much more tangible and heartbreaking. it can't be about you. there's no time. 

once you get home, that's another story. but i will always be grateful for what emergency veterinary medicine has taught and continues to teach me every day. time is what you make of her.

i'm just a little star in this vast galaxy. as it should be.

can't always get what you want

 i'm actively working super hard to stay positive and grow and appreciate everything, even though 2025 has been a nightmare so far. i'm training at a new job and so grateful for it, even though it means a pay cut for a lot of difficulty. i'm also really confused, as i'm feeling more on an island than i have been for ages. i thought i was setting the right boundaries for myself in order to take the space i needed to learn about myself, but lately it feels like i've detached from people who do care because i made the wrong choices. 

i can survive alone; i have before and will again. it's just tough to acknowledge that i finally let myself trust and sometimes that trust means what you get from it is trust is sometimes accepting that people give you  what you need and not what makes you feel better. 

in shadows

 it's 2025 now. most of my soul is grateful that i'm still here. the rest of it is kind of confused as the handful of people i've reached out to with genuine vulnerability in my unsteadiness are either frustrated with me for not being who they want me to be, or here only as much as i can be there for them, or not in a place where they can healthily listen to my bullshit (that one's understandable). 

what about me, though? i know the goal is to not need anyone else's approval, but sometimes we all need to hear we're okay and enough, right? that's not weakness, it's humanity. 

on grace

 in a few hours, it will be the fourth anniversary of the day my dad died. my dark humored self calls it my dead dadiversary. whatever gets you through, right? i'm grateful thanksgiving was so late this year to where i just got back to new orleans from visiting my family the last couple days. a lot of things have gone wrong this week, but the little things that went right outweigh them all. i could complain, but i won't. i am going to instead refocus on the bits of kindness this past year have given me and helped me to round myself. i'm nothing if not grateful. 

thank god that you love at all

i spent most of today worrying about the three or four things i had agreed to do and attend and how i normally would have just done them whether i wanted to or not out of obligation. but i'm learning boundaries and paying attention to what i need to survive and took care of myself alone at home instead. i'm feeling more centered now and somehow incredibly not wanting to be alone anymore, but i also don't think i can take a big group without putting a mask on. 

i'm okay though! i'm always okay. i'll figure it out. i always do. it's just especially a tough realization always when you do reach out for guidance or help to those you hold closest and finally understand that they have to do the same for themselves and can't always bend to your every whim, no matter how much they have your best interests at heart. i'd like to absorb that comprehension as a solid acknowledgment of growth, yet it doesn't make the aloneness any easier. 

and so it goes. i think i'm gonna order a pizza or some shit because i don't eat enough unless someone makes me these days. until then, i'll stay sprawled on this little blanket outside and watch the sky stay still. 

getting the point

timing is everything. and sometimes that means understanding that you can mean nothing. that's okay too. the metaphorical you exists, even when you don't feel up to it. the whole point of this journal is to try not to disappear, no matter how much i feel i do or want to, even when i try so hard and no one gives a shit. sometimes it's intentional because they don't want you to. gotta learn to accept it.