A year's worth of overshares...
In one email 😅
Before we get started, congrats to Alaysia! She won last week’s giveaway and will receive a $20 gift card 🥳. I love giving things away randomly. Thank you for rocking with me and reading my thoughts!
Now, to the overshares.
My birthday is on Friday. My dad’s wake is on Saturday. I’m not sure how I feel about either, but I’m currently with family and reflecting on a lot.
I came across a TikTok where Eddie Murphy walks and talks to a camera, telling the audience that you only get to see 75 winters (if you’re lucky), so live in the here and now—don’t waste time. That really stuck out to me.
Do you want to waste a handful of winters holding yourself back? Making poor choices? Being scared to speak your mind? Wallowing in the past? I don’t.
Embracing my weird
I’m an awkward adult doll collector who loves cartoons and talking about feelings. I know I’m weird. I’ve known my whole life. And I like who I am. But every time I enter a new environment, I’m fighting for acceptance all over again. I’m explaining my social anxiety all over again. I’m defending my fashion choices all over again. I’m dodging judgmental remarks all over again.
It’s getting tiring.
When I was a child, those words hurt me deeply. I couldn’t understand why I felt so different. I turned inward and kept to myself, only expressing myself with communities I found online. In corporate spaces, I struggled with my anxious personality and my lack of understanding of made-up social hierarchies. It was like being a kid again…but 100000x more painful because more was at stake.
I escaped those spaces, embraced myself, and then….I moved. I wanted to escape depressing memories and start fresh in a more creative city. I’m still new, so I’m giving myself some grace, but the magic has worn off, and the missing of my old life has settled in. I’m back to defending who I am to everyone. I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s in my nature to explain and explain myself. But I’m trying to learn to let people hold their strange perceptions, even when they make it a point to tell me they think I’m weird. I am weird! And if you’re close enough to tell me, I have news for you, bucko. 😆
Anyway, I’ve realized I’ve been slowly fading the color from my wardrobe. The weird patterns. The jean on jean (lol). Look at my Instagram. When I was in my element at New York Comic Con, I was draped in pink and smiling my ass off. Then I left, and I’ve been wearing muted colors since. I know it’s because deep down, I want to be accepted in this new place. So I’m dimming my own light. I want to go back to dressing like a retro Rainbow High doll.
I think I’ll be spending more time with myself. No more attempts at making friends. Although many of the people I did meet have been cool, I’m just exhausted.
I Live to Serve the Witch
Still finishing up this book! I’ve been delayed by sad times, new work, and unexpected travel, but I’m so excited for everyone to read. Here’s a sample no one’s seen yet!
By the time the witch had donned her dark cloak and satchel, the cottage was spotless.
“I’ll be out later than usual,” she called out to me while rummaging through the slender closet beside her endless chest. “I’m traveling much farther than I ever have.”
In the closet sat an array of wooden brooms of all shapes and sizes. She pushed aside each one until she found what she was looking for—a gnarled dinosaur of a broom with jagged nobs and a mess of tiny twigs splaying from the bottom of the handle.
“You’re riding a broom tonight?” I asked, now more curious than ever.
“Mhm. There’s no visible moon in the sky. Perfect for flying.”
“Could I come with you?” The minute the words left my lips, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Has my life been changing?
Back in September, I wrote about how One Piece inspired me to sit down and change my life…and my life has definitely changed! Have I figured out my ultimate goal? Not yet. But I am walking away from this year with a completely different mindset than I entered it.
When I started this newsletter in January, I was deeply depressed. Jaded. Frustrated with feeling like I’d failed at adulting. Wanting to perish. It reflected in my book, my content, my aura. Everything was doom and gloom over here.
Now? Those thoughts have been wiped from my mind. I still feel frustrated about frustrating things. Or sad about things that call for sadness. But that ever-present weight of depression that kept me chained to my bed is gone.
I’m not sure if I altered my own brain chemistry or if I was so traumatized that my mind created a pink-painted fence around itself to protect me from, well, me. Whatever it is, I’m grateful! Because I wouldn’t have been able to navigate this time with the mind I had before.
Saying no to romance
I am taking a step back from dating. This topic is for exclusive Sadgurlz because it’s personal.