Happy 2026. It's been a long time since I wrote in this somehow. I feel like as I get older time oscillates between going very fast and feeling very slow. Sometimes the switch feels almost violent and happens within a day. Still not used to it. Still feel like somehow I should be 23, not 34.

Anyway.

It's really hard for me to give myself permission to rest and relax sometimes. I have a big chip on my shoulder about wasted time. Don't want to get into specifics but I did a lot of stuff in my 20s that I would consider wasted time. And no, I wasn't having fun for a lot of it (I hear a voice in my head saying "if you were having fun it's not wasted time!!! durr hurr!"). I guess I did learn a lot of things due to my decisions back then, and wouldn't be the same person I am now if not for those experiences, but still. I have a lot of regret about the way I spent my time back then. Things I did. Things I didn't do.

Due to this I feel like I MUST maximize every possible moment of my life. I must be productive, I must do things and spend time with people and go to the gym 2x a week and stream 3x a week and also do all of my hobbies, tend to my relationships, make time for piano and drawing and exercise and tree hugging and all the other things I value. It's a lot to squeeze into the remainder of my days after work. Then I end up burning out and my body forces me to rest whether it's through coming down with a sudden sickness (hello Hawaii trip I never got to go on) or just a trash mood out of nowhere in the middle of the day taking out my evening plans.

I'm really not saying anything revolutionary here, I feel like this is a common sentiment in this day and age. Work sucks. The amount of time work takes up sucks. I just want to have enough time to do all the things I want to do. I also want time to just do nothing. Because sometimes that's really what I need.

I've had a lot of trouble putting myself first in life. It took me a long time to be comfortable doing it. Sometimes you make people mad as a result of putting your mental health first. Sometimes you gotta say goodbye. Whether it's for a little while or a long while, it doesn't have to be bad.

Over the years, there have been so many friends I've lost touch with... so many faces and names I'll probably never speak to again. So many eyes I've forgotten.

I've come to terms with this.

Hello here I am almost a year later with an update. Lots of life happened! Turns out I go through phases with this site, where I'm really into maintaining it for like a week or 2 and then I fall off again (it happens with lots of my hobbies).

Anyway, I've been feeling fall in the air, especially today. It was rainy, dark, and the sun is going down earlier and earlier. I decided to skip going to the gym tonight to have some time to just decompress. I played some Final Fantasy 2, ate some homemade cookies, and then just sat and thought for a while, listening to the rain.

I was kind of thinking about writing. Well not kind of, I WAS thinking about it. Ya see, almost my whole life I've sorta identified as a "writer" -- I loved writing stories when I was a kid, to the extent that I would write like 40 pages for my creative writing assignments in school when maybe it just had to be a few pages. Just going way overboard like that.

Then, of course, I started writing fanfiction - neopets and pokemon stories mostly, and that continued until the end of high school. I took a lot of joy in writing these stories, but most of all I think the thing that excited me the most was hearing what people had to say about my writing. One time this person reviewed my neopets story and told me it was one of the best things they've ever read, that it touched them deeply, made them cry, etc. And hearing that just made me feel so... I dunno? Powerful? Powerful seems like a weird adjective for it. Important? Still doesn't feel right. I dunno, it just made me feel like my thoughts and words really MATTERED, and that was one of the greatest feelings I've ever had. So I continued to write in hopes that I could continue to strike those kinds of chords in people.

I sorta had a lightbulb moment tonight, though, when I was thinking about it. I don't think my love of writing was ever strictly about the... writing part. I was never too good at plotting or creating storylines... my writing was always characterized by passionate characters, drama, and extreme ups and downs. I didn't really know where I was going with any of it, I was just kind of riffing. Putting my thoughts and feelings down and hoping that maybe someone might be able to relate. And I think that's really what my love of writing was always really about - the ideas, the emotions, the connecting with people.

Over the years, I stopped writing as much. I still journal a lot, of course, but I kind of stopped writing stories and fiction. And it always kind of bothered me. Because I had always identified as a "writer" - I felt like I had abandoned a part of me, that I was wasting some sort of potential and now the writer part of me was just wasting away inside of me. I felt really bad about it for years.

But honestly, I don't think that part of me ever actually went anywhere. The writer just got transformed into other things. Whether it was other forms of art like drawing or painting, playing the piano, or even just the way I lived my life - the Thing that made me love writing was still coming out in other ways. I think it even comes out when I'm streaming, and that's part of why I love streaming. Instead of writing a whole thing and then waiting for people to read it, I can just share my ideas and experiences with people and they can do thte same and we can talk about them in real time? It's the best thing ever, honestly. Looking at things in this way has made me fall in love with streaming all over again.

I've never been super into putting labels on myself. Even when I was writing a lot it felt semi-weird to call myself a Writer, because I kind of felt like I didn't take it as seriously as some of my peers who were really into it. Dunno if that makes sense. Either way, maybe my aversion to labels is just a way of reminding myself that I don't need to limit myself. I can be whatever I want to be, whenever I want to be, and it's okay to change my mind. Labels feel so final, and I like changing my mind. Life kind of feels like an experiment, in that way.

Wasn't really sure where I was going with this but I wanted to get it down so I don't forget. I do still love writing, and maybe one day I'll write the book I've always wanted to write. But I don't have to be a Writer with a capital W -- it doesn't have to be my life, and maybe it will never be as big a part of me as it was when I was younger. But I can still enjoy it and come back to it whenever I need to. It's like an old friend: even if we don't necessarily spend a ton of time together anymore, it'll always be there for me.