#15 Hurts to Forget
Grief is non-linear. This year, I experienced real grief for the first time—and I know it’s the first time because I’ve never felt anything like this before. I never realized how completely disconnected from myself I could become. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so far away from other people. I never imagined change could be this disorienting, this devastating.
I’ve become frayed.
I don’t know how to begin writing this—how to write about January, or the year that has followed. To write about my house and neighborhood burning to the ground overnight means revisiting the sheer dread of it all. And that dread still haunts me. I don’t know how to write about the hiking trails I loved so deeply—trails that healed me—now reduced to ash. I don’t know how to write about the same fire taking the homes of friends and neighbors. The entire town I was raised in. The homes and streets and trees I knew by heart. I had hoped to one day show my children—my newborn niece, the men I fall in love with—the most beautiful place in my life.
Altadena burned to the ground in a single night, and it will never look or feel the same again.
I’ve been writing about change for years. Each one of these blog entries discusses my relationship with change. But this…this is not a change I could have dreamed of, even in nightmares. It’s not one I could have anticipated, nor one I ever imagined I’d be forced to accept.
This change has been, to say the least, painfully formidable.
This blog entry was hard to face and unimaginable to write. Prior to this year, I spent a full year writing and publishing entries every month and I am proud of myself for that. This routine of writing and sharing my life and my feelings, what once was such a joy for me, has felt like a chore this year. Because to write about the month of January means to address the fire. To write about the month of February means to address my grief. And if not for the fire, in February I would have written about how it had been a year since my breakup. And about how much I've grown as an individual since then. I would have applauded myself and reflected on the ways in which I've embraced my life and my growth. I’ve grown and learned so much about love–about self love. About relationships and friendships. About the world around me while considering only myself for a change. The reality of February was that I felt that I had regressed into longing for the comfort of someone, to be held, to cry in someone’s arms and to be hushed with kisses and laughter. So, while all the above is true, my focus was not on acknowledging my growth in the year past. Instead, I cried myself to sleep night after night in a home that was not mine. Surrounded by other people’s memories and love letters and comfort. To write about the month of March meant writing about my anger. To write about the month of April meant coming to terms with my reality, and so on. This grief tied my hands behind my back and forced me to be present with my reality. It felt impossible to write about these things for anyone other than myself.
Because of that, this blog you are reading is a cumulation of my journal entries from the year—along with my usual stream of consciousness, which once I began, only maintained in small fragments. This blog is meant for me to let go of the pain and to share a glimpse into my relationship with grief and the memories I struggle to hold on to.
All the text on the right margin is a journal entry.
January 22, 2025
12:45 a.m.
I want to remember it perfectly but I know I can’t. Every night, I close my eyes and try to fall asleep by imagining everything exactly where it was. I walk through my front door. I see it all. I walk to my bedroom and see my cats asleep on my bed, waiting for me to join them. All of my little trinkets and poetry notes are scattered on my desk. My parents are in the kitchen laughing. My uncle is watching TV in the living room. I walk through each room in my mind, trying to preserve it. Because I’m closer to the memory of my home today than I will be tomorrow or the day after that. That’s just how time behaves. It’s simple like that.
And it hurts.
I end every day really, really sad. I miss my house. I want my house back. There is no greater feeling in me lately, no other thought that takes up more space than the desire to remember it as it was.
And it’s hard and easy and hard and easy and somehow just as sad either way—because it’ll never be what it was. That’s just something I keep trying to accept. That’s something I am forced to accept.
January 29, 2025
10:59 p.m.
Lately, I’ve been doing everything I can to not think about my house.
I’ve been staying away from Pasadena—and there’s no reason to even go to Altadena right now.
I don’t look at photos of it. I haven’t been writing. I haven’t opened my poetry or practiced reciting any of it—most of which I wrote in my room or in the backyard, lying in the grass.
Most of my poetry was inspired by the things I kept in my room. By the garden in the front yard. By my comfort hike, which is gone too.
I don’t even let myself think about how sad I am.
I just wake up really late, feed Bailey’s cat, do meme research, dance to loud music, walk to the coffee shop—and fill in the blanks with friends, when I have the energy.
And I’m so grateful for my friends. For their kindness. Their patience with me. I don’t have much energy to share.
February 3, 2025
12:05 a.m.
A few years ago, my mom gave me a silver necklace with small garnet beads spaced delicately all the way around. It was dainty and sat close to the base of my neck, like a choker.
She’d had it since she was a little girl, and it was the one thing of hers I thought I’d saved from the fire—something I felt lucky to still have.
But then I realized it wasn’t in any of the things I’d packed.
It was still on my nightstand when the house burned. I can picture exactly where I left it.
I don’t have the things my mom passed down to me. And just days before the fire, I remember feeling staggered by the fact that I owned nothing of my father’s because he’s never given me anything. But my room was filled with beautiful things from my mother, and that felt so special to me, as a young woman.
And then—it all turned to ash.
—Come to think of it, I actually did have one single thing from my dad.
When I was a little girl, he wore a cologne I loved. When he finished the bottle, he gave it to me. There was still a thin layer of liquid at the bottom of the glass.
I kept it in the bathroom cabinet behind the mirror, and sometimes I’d pick it up and smell it. The scent was still sweet and strong and made him appear—like a genie. I wish he would appear.
February 12, 2025
4:06 p.m.
I’m here at what used to be our home—now just ash, dirt, and almost unrecognizable of what once was.
Broken bones of a home that once felt so strong and invincible.
I haven’t been here in weeks, and it’s still shocking to see the ruins of our beloved life here, the sanctuary it was. It’s shocking and feels like the first time, every time.
I spend a lot of my time picturing it whole. It’s the only way I can feel anything other than fragmented.
February 22, 2025
Someone texted me in early February—after they lost a family member—and said, “worst year ever.” I tried to sympathize. I really did. But I could only understand my own grief.
Still, it felt like someone might understand how I was feeling too. Like maybe I wasn’t alone in this version of a “worst year ever.”
But then, that same person—someone I thought understood the nuance of emotion, who had known their own grief—later minimized mine.
They dismissed the depth of what I’d lost. The loss of not just a home, but a world:
my neighborhood, my childhood, every physical memory of both.
My house.
My comfort.
My bed, my photos, everything I’ve ever written.
Everything I ever owned.
Everything my mother ever owned, loved, saved—for me, for my sisters, for my niece, her first grandchild. For my own children, one day.
Both of my mother’s parents are gone. She lost every object tied to their memory. Generational belongings of both my mom and my stepdad. And I didn’t even recognize, until June—six months later—that I’d been quietly carrying the insecurity of being judged or ridiculed for still grieving. That realization turned something in my brain. Because I’ve come to understand something: People will see my grief as weakness. They’ll wonder why I haven’t moved on. Why I still talk about it. Why I let it affect me the way it does—this far out. Which isn’t very far. 4 months later. But the truth is, I don’t have the luxury of distraction or of forgetting. I only have one option and that is to move through it. This loss surrounds me. It inhabits my days. And even though I’ve remained remarkably optimistic—because I have—my bones remember the dread. And my heart is still broken. I live a very ordinary human life, with very real joys and hardships and tenderness. I have a father who chose not to be in my life, who has never made me feel genuine support or security. I have a career I’m trying to define, a family I’m always balancing, and now, the sweet new life of my niece—a little light in the middle of so much loss. This perfect new human, born into the world just as mine was unraveling.
I’ve always empathized easily, and joyfully. Empathy fascinates me. I learn about myself by practicing it.
But it’s more than a feeling. It’s a kind of energetic transfer—something foreign that becomes part of you. Almost like telekinesis. That connection, that alchemy—that’s harmony. And I think we need more harmony within ourselves if we ever hope to understand each other. Because otherwise…what is the point of all this?
March 7, 2025
1:13 a.m.
I’m here at our home again. I’ve been coming here often lately. I don’t even know why. Maybe just to say I was “going home” and actually mean it—for once, in a long time. I needed the familiar drive; it’s been so long. I’ve trained myself to forget the usual freeway exits and street turns, just so I don’t accidentally end up here at the end of a day. Nowhere else feels like home. I don’t even use the word. It’s like something from a nightmare—the way a place of such warmth can turn into…whatever this is now.
March 12, 2025
12:23 p.m.
It’s hard to find comfort anywhere lately. I’ve been keeping busy so I don’t have to stay in any one place for too long. It hurts to remember. It hurts to forget.
Last week—March 31st—I decided to allow this life change to change me. Again.
It’s something I’ve noticed about myself: I don’t need permission to change, but rather, acceptance.
An acceptance of what’s inevitable. Because isn’t that what we have to do? When life challenges us, we either resist it or accept it. And if we want to progress—even in the smallest way—we have to accept it.
It’s all eventual. So, I decided to accept this transition. My mom told me I should call this depression a “transition.” And on that Monday, I realized I was now entering it. That realization alone hurled me into a spiral. It’s intimidating—watching yourself edge toward a depressive pit. I’ve been there before. That place is draining, consuming, inevitable. But after talking with my mom, and after rebranding the pit as a transformation, something lit up inside of it. A small glow of light, and I saw it.
April 29, 2025
9:56 p.m.
It hits me in waves. All at once. And I’m reminded that I have no home. I have nothing I once loved and collected and saved and bought and was gifted. And then nothing feels comfortable anymore.
Every place I go, every person I talk to, every bed I sleep in—it all feels strange. My comfort has been challenged. And so has my safety. And with this trauma of losing my home to a wildfire comes the anxiety of losing anything else. Everything else. Or of being lost myself. This kind of disruption is difficult to ignore. And when those waves come, I tumble below them. I can't stop them from crashing into me.
Where can I go, and what can I become, to make this all make sense—to give it even a semblance of purpose? I ask myself that every day.
Grief makes time shift rapidly.
I blinked June into orbit.
Back in January, right after the fire, I was on the phone with my friend Salim. He asked me if I felt like time had stopped for me while it kept going for everyone else. At the time, I said no—time had nothing to do with it, because people were reaching out, showing empathy, acknowledging my grief. But now, six months into the year, I realize that what he said is exactly what’s been happening. Time has absolutely slowed for me. And it made me realize: I’m still grieving. I’m still talking about it. I’m still screaming through fucked-up thoughts and remembering things I wish I could forget, or relive. I’m still crying whenever I’m alone. But what people don’t understand is, there are so many steps to rebuilding your life after it’s burned. And not only left to deal with grief. But also trauma. And with no choice but to evolve, I have been changing and changing and changing.
I’m grieving an old version of myself.
I’m grieving for my mom and my stepdad. It’s been hard to watch them have nothing.
I knew their routines. I knew their favorite mugs for coffee and tea. I could tell who was walking down the hallway by the sound of their footsteps and the creaks in the floor. It’s been hard seeing them live in someone else’s home. Wearing clothes that aren’t theirs, that don’t feel like theirs. It’s hard noticing the small movements and quiet gestures that tell me they’re sad too, because they don’t really talk about it. It’s hard seeing them without the things they loved. The things they gave each other. The things that brought them joy, or invited warm memories.
When I was really young, my stepdad had to leave town for a work trip. I don’t remember how long he was gone—maybe a weekend, maybe a week. Before he left, he cut little pieces of yellow notepad paper into squares and wrote messages on them: “You are so beautiful.” “I love you.” I don’t remember exactly what all of them said, but I remember the feeling. He taped them all around the house for my mom to find. I found them too. They were still there—faded, curled, fragile—taped in the same spots, all these years later. Until the very second they turned to ash with the rest of our home. Memories like that distract me in the middle of the day. I get stuck inside my head and find it hard to return to the moment. But sometimes, the best I can do for myself is to be so in the moment that I have to narrate it just to get through.
Okay. Stand up. Stretch. Now drink a cup of water. Now sit down and check your email. Okay—close your email, because that is way too overwhelming right now. Check your phone. Respond to the 3 texts you missed yesterday. There’s more than 3, but 3 is all you can manage right now. That’s okay. Okay. Stand up. Walk to the bedroom. Take off your clothes. Get in the shower.
And so on.
I’ve always been a list-maker. But my lists this year have been extensive, down to the smallest actions, because if I don’t guide myself through the day, I can’t be productive at all.And still, most of the list doesn’t get checked off. I’ve had a hard time being decisive. I’ve had a hard time keeping up with work. And my memory is pretty fucked. That’s what grief does. It makes everything inside of you feel unfamiliar and fractured and foggy and turbulent and frayed.
I remember when my self-esteem plunged back in March. It felt so visible. Like people could see it. And that made me insecure. I felt really ugly. I felt lonely. This was hard to accept; on top of every other change surrounding me. It wasn’t just the sadness and grief that was uncomfortable. It was not having my own room, not sleeping in my own bed, not wearing clothes I was used to, not having fun with friends the way I once did. I felt unfamiliar with myself—my life. I felt angry about all of this. None of my friends understood the way I felt. And that also made me want to be alone. It all made me feel so low. So isolated. I recognized all these feelings right away, and it made me even sadder that I was seeing myself like that. The night I noticed this change, I got in my car and drove around aimlessly for 45 minutes. I listened to Blade Bird by Oklou on repeat the entire time, and I cried so incredibly loud.
June 3, 2025
For a long time, I felt dead inside.
And now, I feel like I’m starting to wake up again
to awaken joy, to awaken inspiration.
And while I try to navigate both a new life and a new brain, I’m also trying to live a normal life. I left the job I was working for the past two years. Which gave me space and time to become again. Now, I’m styling freelance. Writing freelance. Working on passion projects full time. I’m spending time with friends. I’ve even tried dating...which has felt sweet. And extremely confusing. Being confused because of a boy is literal purgatory. I hate it! But I embrace all feelings as they come. So the dread that comes with liking a boy and having a crush and yearning for intimacy is fuel for my imagination and love and learning process. My house burned down this year…if I can process the feelings that come with that, I can get over a boy.
Still, there is an insecurity within me about this fire in correlation with dating. I wish people could simply read my mind sometimes. Because I live in my brain and the centerpiece these days is this machine within me that is processing the grief—which has reset almost everything I know, including my routine, mental health practices, physical health practices, etc. And it’s so hard to explain or express myself to people. But I just want to be understood and held. And boys are too dumb and confusing to understand. That’s a blanket statement that is extremely immature, I know. And I don’t even mean it. But you know what I mean.
Still, while this grief remains, it hasn’t looked like moping around.
It hasn’t looked like feeling sorry for myself. I wake up every day and make sure I have something to do. At first, it was hard to even get out of bed. I’d wake myself up crying and I’d sleep in until 2 p.m. But quickly I realized: I couldn’t let myself fall into depression. I had to just ride out the pain. And live life as normally as possible. This grief is sustained by how profound the loss is. Not because I’m inviting grief into my life every day. Not because I’m clinging to it.
Does that make sense?
The adjustment has been perpetual since the day it happened. I’m still living in someone else’s space. Still living out of bags and suitcases and owning nothing more than what’s in those bags and suitcases. Still working my ass off. Still adjusting to this change, to this heartbreak. And grieving doesn’t always look how people expect. It doesn’t mean I’m not providing for myself. It doesn’t mean I’m not working toward a better future. This grief simply exists alongside me. And every day, I work to move further from the feeling. It’s a part of me now. And with time, I’ll make space for it. Space for it to transform into something new, and better, and loving.
June 25, 2025
11:36 p.m.
I miss the desk I used to write all my poetry on. It was piled high with notebooks and scratch paper, scribbled with bits of brain and heart. It’s been really easy to feel alone—even when I’m around friends—because I’m stuck in my head, just missing it all. Even passively.
Now, I can only write poetry about it all. I’m sitting in my new bedroom. Boxes and bags line the walls. Clothes are scattered everywhere. I still have no furniture. And when the sun goes down, I get depressed. From the surface of my bed, tucked in the corner beneath three large, old glass windows, I watch the light disappear—and I hate to see it go. The empty walls stare back at me,
and I am too tired to fill them. Too tired to unpack boxes. Too overwhelmed to buy new furniture.
The sun seems to set faster and faster each day— I guess that’s just the waning of summertime.
While I anticipate the new month ahead, I want to bury myself in this mess—because I cannot imagine dealing with it. And the thing is, I do it all alone. I make myself do it alone. Why do I do that? It’s so hard to ask for help.
I hate my dad. He hates me back. Good. I’m glad he’s not around for this pivotal turn in my life. He doesn’t deserve to feel needed by me. And I don’t hate him—I’ve just learned to forget. I’ll do better without someone so confused about whether or not they want to be in my life.
[I just watched my room get dark. That is so depressing.]
August 5, 2025
11:13 p.m.
I am so haunted by the passage of time. Mostly because I just want to feel the way I want to feel. All year, I’ve been trying to push through the day just to get to the part where I can crawl into bed—and then I wake up and do it all again. Again and again and again. It’s become a pattern I recognize but don’t know how to escape.
Until today.
Today, I woke up and had the best day I’ve had in a long time. I spent it entirely with my mom. And I kept hoping that the goodness of the day would follow me into sleep. But here I am, awake and restless, and the feeling didn’t last.
So yes, the passage of time haunts me—because I know how much of how I feel is in my hands.
And yet, some days, no matter how much effort I give, I still feel low. Right now, I think my feelings are hurt. This year has made me feel everything with sharp edges. But I do think this heightened sensitivity has somehow made me stronger. And still—time feels small while I’m inside it. And I always fall for its trick: that there’s more of it. That it’s waiting for me to catch up. It’s not.
I’m learning that we have to get used to being misunderstood. Or at least learn how not to let it swallow us. We can’t carry the weight of other people’s perceptions. We can’t let their inability to understand dictate our sense of self. But it’s hard. It’s especially hard when the misunderstanding comes from someone close. Someone you thought understood you, or at least tried to. It hits differently when it's a friend. Or someone you’re dating. Since the fire, I’ve felt that misunderstanding more than ever. It makes me quiet. It makes me crave solitude. But not in a way that feels freeing, not always.
Lately, I’ve been craving three things: solitude, comfort, and a sense of freedom. And the only time I’ve been able to feel all three at the same time is when I’m around people who genuinely understand where I’m at right now. Not just emotionally. But physically. Mentally. Financially. My mind feels fragmented, thin in places, heavy in others. Still, I know harmony is possible. I feel it in glimpses—when I’m alone, but not lonely. When I’m cared for without having to explain myself. When comfort arrives quietly. But those moments have been rare this year.
August 7, 2025
I remember it so clearly—through clenched teeth.
The night of the fire.
My anxiety that night was wide and feral, a thing with fangs. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life, but that night it became a new animal.
It swallowed me.
I was at my sister’s house, watching over it while she was away. I was there alone with her cat Nova. My friends called me to check on me. I was on the phone with Malik laughing for an hour at the beginning of it all, speaking words of hope for Altadena. But the night progressed. And when I wasn't on the phone anymore I was still glued to the fire watch app, watching my city burn through an updating graphic on a screen. And then my street was in the red zone. And I was far from home. And I was alone. I didn’t get to go home before the fire. Didn’t get to grab anything. Didn’t get to say goodbye. I was alone. And I remember how alone I felt. It physically hurt me. That night built a version of loneliness I’ve been trying to climb out of ever since.
To this day I know that I was not meant to be home at the time of the fire, even though there is so much that I regret not being able to save from the flames. If I had been there, I would not have wanted to leave. I know myself. I would have had to be dragged out of my home. I would've screamed and cried and cried and cried. I’d be scarred more than I am now.
I know myself.
No one really knew what I needed after the fire. I didn’t either. It wasn’t just a toothbrush, or a towel, or clothes. It wasn’t even the things. I needed to be held. I needed to sleep beside someone who made me feel safe. And kissed—maybe. That would’ve been nice. But mostly just held. Everyone had someone. My mom and my stepdad had each other. My sisters had their partners. And I had sweet, sweet friends. But I didn’t have that kind of comfort.
That kind of closeness.
I lost a home, yes—but I also lost the container that held me, shaped me.
My bed. My desk. My books. My journals. My poems. Every piece of comfort I’d built with intention. I was sleeping in other people’s beds for seven months. And I tried so hard not to need anything.
I’ve tried so hard to be strong. But it’s not too much to ask for comfort. It’s not unreasonable to want warmth in the absence of all your anchors. To want a person when you’ve lost everything else that made you feel grounded. Of course, yes, solitude gave me space to unravel. To scream. To cry loud and ugly and unfiltered. To process. To meet myself in the wreckage. And I don’t feel sorry for myself. Not even a little. Because I know some things are meant to be faced alone. I know I was meant to become someone new in the firelight. To be rebuilt through it. And even in the dark, I’ve found something solid in myself. Something unshakeable.
August 7, 2025 (continued)
And while we’re here, looking for light in all this darkness, I can say honestly: I do feel proud of the person I’ve become through all of it. I do feel like someone new is stepping forward. I understand that the value of life isn’t in the things. Not in the shelves of objects or the drawers of memory. I know I didn’t lose what matters most—my life, my people. But I also know: I lost the life I built. The rooms I filled with my heart. The scents that comforted me. The objects that marked time. The quiet little corners where I grew into myself. And what I can’t shake, what I’ve said over and over again this year, is that the most heartbreaking part of it all is losing the memory of what I had. That memory feels so far now. Like a dream I had when I was small. Aplace I once lived in a past life.
But. This year taught me to hold on to what’s real now. To look forward. To keep some softness even in the hardest parts. I don’t think I’ve ever been this optimistic before. I don’t think I’ve ever had this kind of confidence in myself before. And that… feels like something worth holding onto.
Feelings that the fire burning down the home and city I lived in has brought me this year:
Guilt
Heartbreak
Anger
Uncertainty
Trauma
Insecurity
Low self-esteem
Optimism
Depression
Fatigue
Seclusion
Reclusivity
Diligence
Hope
Shame
Isolation
Yearn
Perseverance
Self-judgment
Obsession
Confidence
I remind myself every time I think of this, though, that there are some things in life that we have to do on our own. This Great Change and challenge is for me to learn and grow from. But I don’t want to feel alone. Or unseen. This is not a lack that I consider in my daily life. I think any single person, at times, wants to spend moments with someone they feel comforted by. But, it becomes spotlit when connections fail to provide that comfort. Recently, I was seeing someone I had a significant crush on. It felt mutual for a brief time, almost whole, but never quite reached a place of true intimacy.
That lack of depth, I think, ultimately created a disconnect. But for me, the deeper rupture was in the absence of genuine comfort the connection failed to offer.
When it comes to sex, I can't engage unless I feel truly safe and at ease.
And comfort, for me, is born from intentionality—from carving out time, from steady reassurance—not just in words but in consistent, meaningful effort. It doesn’t take months to cultivate that sense of ease. When the connection is right, it can emerge within weeks, sometimes even days.
Comfort has become an especially complex and elusive thing for me lately. Grief is no longer a visitor, it’s a constant companion. And now that we coexist, my emotional needs have shifted. I need to feel that someone understands my reality: that my life has been radically altered, and that every day I continue to face that truth. That I am triggered, repeatedly, and yet I persist. Not as someone seeking pity, but as someone undergoing continual transformation. I don’t crave recognition for that. I crave quiet, intentional care. A gesture. A moment. A sentence said with presence. Something that signals—without grandeur—that someone sees this silent struggle, and wants to lighten it. I don’t need rescuing. I don’t even need fixing. I just need to feel cared for, especially when everything else around me still feels so uncertain and uneasy.
And if you know me well, you know that what I value is the dynamic between two people who simply enjoy spending time together. It doesn’t need to lead anywhere specific. It can start and end organically, or evolve slowly. It can be casual, or consistent. There are no strict rules—only boundaries that reflect where I am in my life right now.
Mutuality.
Comfort.
Silence.
Today is September 9th. It’s my 28th birthday. I feel so young—like a baby, really. I haven’t been writing much lately. Life has felt overwhelming, but more than anything, I feel deeply grateful. More than I ever have before. I do think I’m in another transition, not only because it’s my birthday, a time that always turns my thoughts inward, but because that’s the nature of grief. It’s non-linear. It doesn’t follow logic. It arrives, departs, returns, then lingers just long enough to feel like it’s here to stay. And funny enough, it is.
Birthdays have always had a way of clearing the energy. Regardless of how I spend the day, there’s always a subtle shift afterward—a quiet refinement, a fresher rhythm. And I’ve noticed that I’ve come to appreciate that shift more since becoming single. There’s no longer any expectation for someone else to show up for me, and that has been strangely freeing. This year, I spent most of my birthday alone. I bought a round-trip Amtrak ticket and took the Surfliner to a tea house in San Juan Capistrano. I agonized over how to spend the day and who I should spend it with—so deciding to do two things I absolutely love, and doing them alone, felt like the most aligned way to celebrate. Being alone that day felt sweet. I cried on the train, not out of sadness, but from a rare, crystalline joy and deep, full-bodied gratitude. And what made me cry, too, was how fleeting those feelings are. How difficult they are to hold onto. How hard it is to just be in them while they’re here.
I feel cleansed and freed from the illusion of forced productivity, alignment, and initiative. The new year always arrives bearing promises of hope and momentum, doesn’t it? My birthday marks my personal new year, and this time, all I can offer myself is brutal honesty. A tempered hopefulness, subtle and restrained. I no longer harbor the same expectations for a bright year ahead. Just seven days into 2025, my life was irrevocably altered. How can I summon hope for an entire year as a whole when certainty has become elusive?
What I truly aspire to feel is gratitude—gratitude for each breath, every day I share with loved ones in sight, touch, and conversation. For every kiss, every word I write, my health, my niece, moments of solitude. For each growing pain, every lesson life imparts. Sometimes those lessons cut deep; the pain lingers, carving and shaping us. And as I move through this chrysalis, I want to honor that pain as it comes. I want to honor the grief I'm forced to share my days with, for it is simply part of even the most beautiful life.
*song of the year*: (there are so many but I had to choose 2)
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Love 4ever,
Blair