biting the apple

Admittedly, I haven't been fully confronting the reality of my age. Not because I'm afraid of mortality or trying to outrun it, but because growing older never hit me the way I thought it eventually would.  At least not until recently.  Something about entering my mid-30s has made aging feel less like a milestone and more like a slow awareness of simply existing under expectations I never fully agreed to.  Society tends to treat life like a sequence of checkpoints, measuring people against a rigid timeline as if there's a correct order to becoming someone worthwhile.  But I drifted from that path , n ot exactly out of defiance, but mostly through a mix of circumstances and my own poor choices.  I couldn't say it's worked out fine, or  confidently claim that I've only benefited from it. That would make me a liar . Becaus e we live in a system that rewards productivity above almost everything else, and I've never really been someone who fits neatly into that ...

Somewhere between my second iced coffee and fourth doomscroll of the day, I came across an Instagram reel suggesting that if you're between 32 and 39, you're essentially living season one of  Sex and the City . Which only sounded glamorous for exactly four seconds before reality hit. Because unlike Carrie Bradshaw, I don't have a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment, a closet full of designer things, or a newspaper column that somehow funds both. But I couldn't help but wonder, are we actually living the plot, or have we just become really good at narrating our own chaos? Ultimately, it's still just a TV show, not a blueprint. The storylines were built for drama, not instruction manuals for adulthood. And yet the comparison sticks. Not because our lives literally mirror the plot, but because certain stories tap into the same uncertainty and low-grade existential confusion that seems to follow us no matter how old we get. In that sense, I've found myself thinking ...

I want to preface this by saying I am  NOT  an arbiter of good taste or style or anything in that realm. Still, it's hard not to notice the group of college kids sitting across from me in this Starbucks, all dripped out like they came from the same hyper-curated Gen Z Pinterest board. The same muted tones, oversized fits, carefully disheveled hair that probably took longer to arrange than the "effortless" outfit underneath it. They don't look bad. They just look... dull. Like the Avengers of being okay. What's supposed to signal individuality ends up feeling like performative uniqueness. All style, no sauce. Aesthetic expression that forgot to express anything in particular. Yeah, I'm a bitch. Individuality today feels less like something you discover and more like something you select. We still use words like  unique  and  authentic , but they increasingly function as branding terms. Everyone is different in the same marketable ways. A lot of this comes down ...

Every year, approximately 10 trillion songs get released into the wild and pop up on streaming platforms. And somehow we're all expected to remember which ones actually slapped and pretend we'll remember any of them in 12 months. This list exists because I did not, in fact, remember most of them. So this is my brave and slightly chaotic attempt to separate the absolute bangerz that actually stuck from the "why the fuck am I listening to this?" moments that lingered for only a brief moment in my sad life. There is zero logic behind this list, just maximum delusion, and the firm belief that if it went platinum in my room, it meant something. No charts were worshipped, no algorithms were consulted, just pure vibes from moments of intense overthinking. So welcome to the Best Songs of the Year, as decided by one person, my AirPods, and an entirely subjective taste. Your favorites may be missing. That's fine. I've already made peace with that. Yamaha - Dijon Abso...

I still don't understand how someone I barely knew could leave this much behind. We never dated. There was no beginning to ruin, no ending to explain. Just a short stretch of time where something felt real, and then it was gone. It was small things that did it. The way talking felt easy. The way I didn't have to try so hard to be myself. For a moment, I felt seen, and that feeling dug in deeper than I expected. I think my heart noticed before my mind did, and by the time I caught up, it was already too late. What hurts most is that nothing actually happened. There's nothing to point to and say, this where it went wrong. It just... it didn't go anywhere. And I'm left carrying feelings that had nowhere to land. Loving someone quietly, alone, is exhausting. It feels embarrassing sometimes—like I made it all up, like it meant more to me than it could ever have to them. I replay moments, wondering if I imagined the connection, or if it was real but only on my side. I thi...

I feel burdened by the weight of being seen through someone else's eyes, and by how much space their opinions can take up in my chest if I let them. There's a quiet pressure in being perceived, of being labeled, remembered, and reduced to versions of ourselves we've already outgrown. Sometimes I catch myself believing the way others see me must be the truth. That if enough people misunderstand me, maybe I really am what they think. But perception is unstable. It shifts with mood, memory, and assumption. It often reveals more about the observer than the subject, though not always, because sometimes it's simply incomplete. I remember a moment when this became clear. Someone I care about brought up something I said years ago, as if it still defines me. I tried to explain that I no longer think or feel that way anymore, but I could tell they were speaking to that older version of me instead of the person I have become. I left that conversation feeling strangely invisible, l...

Thursday afternoon. The light outside is soft, almost kind. I wish I felt the same way. I'm drowning myself in music, still looping the sad playlist I found last night. It offers a kind of sadness that doesn't ask questions. It just sits with me, giving me enough stillness to write. I'm not looking for sympathy, just some release. Maybe I've run out of ways to say the same things without feeling ashamed. I hate how often I've had to unpack everything onto the same few people. The same thoughts, the same grief resurfacing, the same quiet unraveling. It's gotten to the point where vulnerability feels like embarrassment, so I retreat to this instead. I've been trying to learn how to let go, or move forward, whatever that's supposed to mean. Everyone says it gets easier. I'm still waiting for that part. Some days I convince myself I'm okay. That I'm past it. That I've accepted what happened. But if that were true, I wouldn't feel this def...