i am sorting some things out...

well first what is my favorite song.. i've always said my favorite song is let it happen by tame impala and i think it is because i don't really let myself listen to it unless the situation calls for it like it's a very heavy feeling song for me. sonically my favorite song is shades of cool by lana del rey. but i think let it happen wins… that song would wake me up from a coma.

i imagine let it happen as a sunrise, starting out like a dark purple/maroon and slowly getting lighter and warmer as the song progresses. by the end its like a warm flashing yellow light like when the sun is beaming so much that it hurts to look at.

i don't see the stars often bc of where i live. when i do see them i feel like an intense sadness. space overwhelms me so i try to never think about it. i think about how beings from other planets who are looking at earth right now see how it was thousands of years ago. or they're seeing me, but they're seeing me as i am right now thousands of years into the future. so i'm seeing the stars but they don't see me back.

i don't want to be known worldwide or anything. i want to be known very well in my community (familially/socially but also industry wise). i think about this diagram about what getting a phd is about. i want to be known for making a big dent somewhere on that circle. obviously i want it to be in the ai/tech space but what exactly in ai, i'm not sure.

i really want to be remembered by my friends and family as a loving and passionate person. i want my kids to think that i was the best mom i could've been to them, and that i gave them anything i could in my life to make them happy and successful. i want to live in new york/that surrounding area possibly forever, and it's a big city, but i'd really like to be known as a regular or an active member in my community in some way. i dunno!

god i would love to have olivia hussey narrate my autobiography… truly my idol celeb crush etc etc and she has the most elegant yet sweet voice.

actually i change my answer. it's totally john mcenroe. if u don't know, he narrated devi's life in never have i ever. that's actually like my favorite voiceover casting choice ever. he would make my life sound way more entertaining than it actually is.

yes yes yes yes yes i believe this so strongly. i could write about love forever and i probably will make a separate post about it. i believe we were put on this earth to love and be loved in every sense of the word. love romantically, love platonically, love familially, love ourselves, love our earth and animals, etc. i think love ultimately conquers fear, hate, grief, war, everything. i think it's the most powerful emotion and that's why it has the power to make or ruin people's lives. obviously, loving someone won't bring them back to your life or magically heal wounds but i don't think it's meant to. some people and things are meant to be loved from a distance, or for a short amount of time, or in a way you can't feel back. but i think love is our greatest motivator and it's what guides our purpose.

being a kind person. and i know, kind people don't just go around saying they're kind. i'm not always the best at it but i try really hard to be kind. i would be really upset if i turned into a person who is gated or rude or angry by default. and of course it's out of people's control sometimes when they have been through so much that life makes them bitter or angry. i always think about my dad telling me the story of an elderly holocaust survivor that he knew in his neighborhood (my dad is very old) and how the man always screamed at the kids for any little thing. i don't know what people have gone through in their lives to make them the way they are, and that man must have had such an intense weight he was carrying on him all the time. i'm not saying i expect him to be otherwise, or that him being mean is some sort of moral fault of his. but in my own life i really really hope that no matter what i go through, i am lucky to still walk around trusting people and humanity and life enough to assume good intentions and kindness by default, and treat people with that in mind.

i think my golden rule is "what you put into the world is what you get out of it" - kind of like the actual 'golden rule' i guess, but i like to think about it in these words. i'm not religious in a traditional sense, i wouldn't even say i'm spiritual necessarily, but i feel like the universe itself has some sort of logic to it that we just don't understand yet. at it's most basic, i think if you put good out into the world, you get good back.

and reading this back, obviously it's coming from my place of privilege, too. many people who work so hard to contribute/bring something positive to the world struggle due purely to dumb random chance and where they were born and who they were born as. and there are so many terrible people who are in power... i don't know what i think about the unfairness of it all, and that's also one of the reasons why i don't really believe in a god. but - i think life rewards you and punishes you in some ways that aren't strictly monetary/physical. i'm kind of off topic.

my mom always says to me that the universe has a sense of humor, like, your life tends to play out in ironic ways. this has happened so many times in my own life that i believe it as well - something like a situation that really sucked despite all my best efforts, then turning around and giving me satisfaction and closure years down the line even if it's not immediately apparent. i have hope in things all 'working out' as long as i try to do the right thing now.

i find it hard to understand why i always feel so… out of my body or like i don't belong, wherever i am. also i don't want to be like oh i'm so unique and quirky i just don't fit in anywhere because i love to conform!!!! i am pro conformity (for me, not everyone else) because uniqueness is not something i value in myself super heavy, like i don't really care how different i am from other people. in fact, i'd say i much prefer having shared interests and life experiences etc with the people around me. but regardless of this i still FEEL different. i'm always walking around with this chip on my shoulder worrying almost as if someone is going to find something out about me, but i don't know what. like i am wearing a mask all the time, and someone's gonna notice the mask slip. but i'm not consciously putting a mask on.

i'm a very 'up in the clouds' kind of person, so there is little to no connection between my head and my reality. what i'm thinking and what i'm doing never really aligns, and so it makes me feel disconnected from the physical world around me. i've also had some problems with disassociation in the past, so that's a whole other can of worms.

this is an easy one for me. i know a risk is worth taking when i really really don't want to do it. i am very risk-averse by default, i'm a taurus and while i don't necessarily believe in astrology, i do very strongly identify with the stubborn 'earth like' taurus personality. i'm kind of a hedonist sometimes in the sense that i prioritize comfort and immediate satisfaction even when i know deep down that i need a change. within myself, i can cleanly tell the difference between risks i don't want to take because they're actually harmful or dangerous, and risks i don't want to take because i'm just a bit scared of the outcome. actually, the more harmful risks are ones i'm less anxious about - like… substances, or risky social situations or even rollercoasters - because i'm also somehow very impulsive in those aspects. those are the ones i actually need to reel in. when i start making up a million bullshit reasons why i don't want to do something, that's when i know i need to do it.

it was one of those quick frustrated cries that just comes out. i used to be a huge crier, i cried probably 5x a week when i was little. my meds make it a bit harder to cry, which i'm honestly not a fan of because i feel like i can never really get all my sadness out without a crying session. anyways, it was just the last time i was home which is all i'll say.

quite honestly, the one i'm in right now! my life hasn't been constantly on the up. but it got better when i moved to the us, it got better in high school compared to middle school, it got better in college, etc. i'm bad with romanticizing past phases of my life and making them way better than they actually were - especially because sometimes i find comfort in those really dark times. everything's going wrong, so it's like.. i know what to expect every day, and i can romanticize everything bad and turn it onto myself. when things are going well, that's what makes me nervous! because then one bad day and i feel like i messed everything up.

ummm anyways… this current time in my life for the past year or two has been the best it's ever been. in my dream school and my dream city i feel really free to find the most real version of myself. also anti depressants are wonderful. i hope that i don't peak right now, though. life post-grad is so open-ended and scary but i remain hopeful.

let it happen… not to be bleak, but if i had to choose one last song to listen to before i die, it would be let it happen. it's become a mantra for me, like the 'i cannot vanish, you will not scare me' etc part. i like to listen to it when something really important is happening in my life, like when i graduated, when i moved into college, etc.

relationships: i have a hard time saying no to things, and people. being in a relationship or situation or whatever makes my people pleasing tendency multiply by 100. i care a lot more about my partner being satisfied or cared for or happy with me than my own happiness in the relationship, which is something i'm trying to get better at. for so long i genuinely wouldn't consider my enjoyment - it would just be like, 'is he happy with me?' 'is he able to brag about me to his friends?' which is just…. so not what a relationship is supposed to be about. oh, also, i learned that even though most of the time my attachment style registers as avoidant, that's only if i'm deep down unhappy or trapped in the relationship. (which tends to be pretty often). turns out i can be anxious as fuck if i really really like a person.

friendships: sometimes i am a really shitty friend! i am not good at communication, especially if it's confrontation. i get defensive when i'm confronted, which is hypocritical because i easily confront people and assume they won't take offense to it. mostly i'd sum it up by saying that i learned friendship needs to be actively supported regularly by both people. in the past, i would get distant or ghost and just expect people to remain equally close to me. it seems obvious, but i'm never really a 'words of affirmation' or even 'quality time' kind of friend. okay now i sound like a terrible friend. i show my love physically, and through acts of service, and i can't just assume that that's enough for every kind of friend.

peace is not an emotion that i ever feel. i am constantly worried about something. if i had to pick something, it would be any scenario in which my head is completely in its own world. for example... i really like writing fiction. i actually can't physically picture things in my head (i am a 5 on the apple scale), so i can't imagine the world i write to the fullest extent, which suckssss, but i still am able to feel all the emotions and sensations as if i was there. or coding, too. that brings me the same 'lost in my thoughts' feeling, except it's less of an internal dialogue and more so just hyperfocus on a specific problem, and it's almost like a game. and blogging of course. getting thoughts in writing is very very helpful to quiet all the noise in my head.

brother louie by modern talking reminds me of my mom. octopus's garden by the beatles reminds me of my dad. down by jay sean reminds me of my sister.

just a dream by nelly specifically is actually a song that makes me so nostalgic i lowkey can't listen to it without crying. i totally forgot about it for a while until writing this, and i don't even exactly remember why. i just remember hearing that song for a while when i was around five, coming from my sister's room. i think she was practicing singing it or something. it's kind of silly because it's not that much of a sad song lyrically but it just reminds me of so much from my childhood at once. like baking cupcakes with my sister, or sitting in her chair while she does my makeup for recital, or just sitting in my room when it was all green and pink and full of stuffed animals and reading or playing webkinz. it's very bittersweet. also this made me text my sister.

any youtube rewind or annoying orange song or specifically the annoying orange and fred 'friday' remix reminds me of bothering my dad while he was in his office and forcing him to watch those stupid little videos and laughing at them together. honestly, i know my dad well enough and i do think he actually liked them and wasn't just faking it to make me happy, but either way it's a really sweet memory.

okay, i'm just writing about a couple lol. because this list would go on forever.

overwhelming joy to the point where it's bittersweet - i have a love hate relationship with this emotion. to me it's the kind of joy that you try to absorb as much as possible because you know it won't last forever, or it'll be over soon. i'm not really sure the last time i felt it. it might've been at my high school graduation or the afterparty, just being surrounded by every person i've known since elementary and middle school, and my parents watching, and this giant part of my life just coming to an end all at once. weirdly, i don't think i've felt this in college yet. but it's not really an emotion you can force - the circumstances kind of have to be right, you know?

love, or what i thought was love - i don't know if i've ever been in capital L Love. but i definitely thought i've been in love, at multiple points in my life.

in one of them, everything was so new that i didn't actually have another example to compare it to, so i assumed it was. in retrospect, it wasn't, but in the moment, it still felt nice. warm and fuzzy, i guess, and comforting. but even though on paper that was what i wanted, it started to get suffocating. i felt like that person was loving some entirely alien version of me and the closer they thought they got, the more disconnected they actually were. but like i wasn't an angel either. i kept so much of myself locked away or even lied about it, just because i didn't feel safe enough to unload it all. i realized it wasn't love only in retrospect, just based on the fact that i wasn't seen.

in the other one, i really really don't want to call it love because i feel stupid doing so. but it probably was my teenage version of it. that one was so strong it was painful, like actually i felt sharp pains in my chest, all the time. looking back on that one, it had nothing to do with the person and everything to do with what i needed to feel and hear at that point in my life. that's what made it feel so intense and overwhelming. but that emotion felt good because it was like being on a constant roller coaster (and i love roller coasters!). the problem is that eventually, someone needs to get off of the ride.

for characters: a rapid fire list of abby littman from ginny&georgia, cassie howard from euphoria, blair waldorf from gossip girl, gretchen from donnie darko, alaska from looking for alaska, uhhh nancy wheeler from stranger things, april from palo alto, and sweetie bot from my little pony friendship is witchcraft…

for songs: i feel like i'd identify with all of lana del rey's honeymoon, but also some ravyn lenae and clairo as day-to-day songs, and maybe some of the animals and the rolling stones in more dramatic moments.

as a man - i would end my life. sorry that's not funny at all but i really really enjoy womanhood.

as a deer - i guess i kind of need to do this one. the deer where i'm from are kind of - different - i'd say, from stereotypical deer. they're much more fearless and integrated with humans around them. i'd want to be like that. i imagine myself as a baby deer. i'd really like to be grazing around and stumble into some rich house and have them take me under their wing. obviously i'd still want to be with my mama and dada and the rest of the deer tribe and all that, but it could be fun to stop by the house and get petted and get some milk and enjoy air conditioning. i would absolutely love to be petted if i was a deer.

first, please don't try to put me into a box because i don't even know what box i'd put myself in. i have no idea who i am at my core, i feel like a compilation of a bunch of mismatching identities rather than one whole person. but when you reduce me down to just one thing i completely write you off because there's nothing that bothers me more than someone who thinks they know me but they don't.

second, i am trying really really hard all the time even if it seems like i'm not! everything i say or write or do has been picked apart and criticized a million times from all angles before it even comes out.

third, i need a lot from people but i hate asking for it, so i won't ask. that's obviously my fault and i can't expect people to be mind readers. but i also wish someone knew me well enough to know exactly what it is i'm asking for, even when i don't really know it myself.

the way i do my makeup... every single step is calculated and i can notice one tiny little thing that's off and it throws off the whole look. i tend to be a perfectionist more times than not..

it depends on the issue but if it's a little thing that can easily be fixed in a couple of minutes or in one conversation, i put it off and don't want to think about it because taking that first step makes me nervous. i'm trying to be better at being honest with things that bother me upfront, because otherwise they just end up exploding later down the line in a way that's not fair to anyone around me.

issues that i either can't fix or don't know how to fix - i never let these go. situations where there is nothing i could do to fix a problem haunt me and keep me up at night etc. they shouldn't, but they do. i try to make sense of it in my head a million times over and imagine all the ways in which it could go right.

physically: i love my eyes! my eyes are my favorite part of my face. they're the same color as my mom's and dad's and i just like that they're kinda green with a bit of blue. and i like my eyelashes and that surrounding area. i think my eyes are very expressive and i'm very attracted to eyes in other people, i like communicating through eyes.

emotionally: i think that i am honestly very good at meeting people where they're at, mentally or emotionally. not just empathy, but literally putting myself in their shoes and trying to almost logic my way into understanding why they feel and act the way they do.

my anger, because i inherited my dad's temper and i can lose control of my anger very very quickly in some cases. a lot of the time i don't even realize i'm coming across angry or aggressive, because my family has always just kind of talked like that without it being malicious. but i see how other people react to it and i never want them to feel like i'm screaming at them. i get passionate and heated about a lot of things. point is i'm trying to improve with this.

the word that most plainly comes to mind is safe… i want people to feel comfortable being their true authentic selves. sharing intense or tmi stories, disagreeing with me, calling me out, confessing things. there's not really much that would turn me away from a person and i feel like i've seen a range of life experiences and personalities in my lifetime so far. i hate when i feel like someone's putting up a wall (even though i totally do the same thing). especially when they worry that they would be judged. i feel so strongly that i would never judge someone for anything as long as they're not hurting anyone (and even then, i feel like i'd want to hear them out).

i started really developing my own mindset as i got out of my depression and just generally exiting my teenage years. i went through a long nihilistic and cynical phase in those days and i've overcorrected it myself in the opposite direction because i got so tired of acting like i didn't care about anything and twisting everything into sarcasm and suspicion… my favorite word i try to live by now is earnestness. i think we're sorely missing earnestness because we're all burnt out from current events and used to dunking on each other on social media all the time. all the emotions i feel, all the opinions i have, i try to present them earnestly. i think of myself now as an overly positive person, like i'll always force myself to see the upsides in any situation, i try to be friendly and trusting by default. but i know that's an active choice i'm making, i wasn't born or raised that way. i think life is better lived earnestly though.

i find it easiest to express myself through my writing. writing it down is easier than talking face to face because i go on long trails of thought (as you can probably tell by my writing style). when i read my writing back, i can put myself back in the frame of mind i was in when i wrote it, so it's like a time capsule that preserves my feelings in a snapshot. i write in the hopes of connecting with other people who might think similarly, and it's usually when i'm feeling sad. i always think about richard siken's response to someone asking him why it's easier to write when they're sad: "because the vocabulary of joy is grunts and moans and the vocabulary of loss is the dictionary."

i really wish i was a better video editor, but regardless, i like making little video mashups when there's something i can't or won't put into writing. i put them on my moodboard tab. it's identification with certain characters, songs, aesthetics in general that i like to express.

i wish i could express myself through my clothes too, but i don't have the closet for it (yet), so i try to do it through my hair and makeup.

my love language is physical touch by a huge margin. for a person who loves love so much, i'm not really the best at showing it in other ways… i get nervous and embarrassed with words of affirmation, i'm not a great gift giver unfortunately, etc. physical touch is what feels right to me. i love hugs and i love cuddling and i like casual touch as a way to remind the people i love that i love them! i pat people on the head a lot, not sure why but it reminds me like… you're real and i can feel you. when it comes to romantic love, kissing is special to me. i always trust my body to figure out how i feel about a person, and that touch makes me feel a lot more loved than just words or actions do.

all over the place. i feel a lot, all at once. i am consumed by my emotions for a lot of my day to day life. i'm the kind of person where i can't focus on anything else if i'm sad or lovesick or angry or any other strong emotion. emotion also turns off logic for me very easily, and i'm trying to get better at that.

i am told i wear my heart on my sleeve. i physically can't hide my emotions on my face or in my body language, which is a blessing and a curse sometimes. i don't cry easily at other people's words, but they can definitely tell when i'm upset instantly.

if i answer this honestly right now? it's basically a person who no one in the world has anything bad to say about. a person who everyone loves or likes or just points to and says, "yeah, she's nice". i know that that's impossible. you can't make everyone like you. and obviouslyyyy when i say this, i don't mean i want to be liked by literally everyone - i don't want mean, horrible people to like me because that reflects something mean about me too.

in my need to be liked by everyone, i lose a lot of myself. i am a very opinionated person, but sometimes i don't express those opinions strongly enough in the fear that someone will get upset, and that's silly. in high school this was a bigger problem though - not wanting people at school to make fun of you - and now that i'm in new york city this part never crosses my mind, which is great. this is why i love being in the city so so much. i have so much more freedom.

so at the same time, i wish i was the kind of person who didn't trap themselves in this people pleasing spiral. i don't know how i hold both wishes at the same time.

a stronger drive… my mom and my sister are such hard workers and hustlers. it's kind of a product of necessity, with my mom growing up in the soviet union and working her way out of it, and my sister just having a tougher upbringing than i did. i'm such a pampered american in comparison to them.

i think i could achieve so much more if i stopped being so lazy all the time. i just love comfort and security and safety too much. but this is my fault, to be clear. i'm medicated, i'm privileged, i have support systems - i just need to stop my brain from being in self-preservation mode all the time.

for myself: right now, i'm trying to treat myself the way i treat my best friends. i really want to love myself from the inside out and be 100% secure in my own company and my own brain. i think i've gotten way better at this in terms of cutting out negative self-talk and just general ... self harm . i'm trying to live my life the way that my past, present, and future self would be proud of.

for people in my life: i don't let new people into my life easily. i love making friends and meeting new people and socializing, but to really let someone in to my life is a lot because i'm good with the people i have already. my family and my friends are awesome and i love them. when i do let someone in, they are lifers in my mind. i'm not really the type to ever cut people off - really for anything - but that's mostly because the people i am surrounded by are so wonderful that i would never dream of doing that. but i meet a lot of new people in the city. so yes, the question…… i guess the standard is people who make me feel safe. that's really important to me. to feel comfortable being myself, and to trust them to stick around, and that they are the kind of people who bring joy into my life.

how to code… i've had these conversations often recently lol. i believe coding is something that is now as fundamental as knowing how to read or do math. and not in an 'ai is going to replace you if you don't know how to build a website or an app and this is the only career left' sort of way. i really hate the fact that this has a bit of truth to it.

i love computer science so much because it's how i like to think. it's what i wrote my college essay about, actually - when my dad got sick, thinking like a programmer in terms of step-by-step algorithms helped me made sense of how his brain worked. i like the certainty and simplicity and beauty of it, and how you can communicate to a computer by learning how to speak its language and translating what you want it to do for you… maybe this sounds ridiculous to people who aren't really into computers, i don't know.

i really believe absolutely anyone can code. maybe it's because i've been coding for so long even in the simplest forms like drag-and-drop blocks in scratch in elementary school that it kind of rewired my brain. but as someone who grew up on the internet and little websites and apps, i love that i can understand even a little bit how the whole internet was strung together by very smart people. it's fascinating to me that we are able to connect the entire planet, talk to anyone, make anything we want, just because we made languages out of patterns of on/off signals. and now the fact that we made technology that can think step-by-step like humans do, or contain the world's knowledge in a bunch of vectors, is mind-blowing. i think it's a testament to how much we as a species crave connection and understanding and learning.

"life isn't fair". i heard that a lot growing up, not in a mean way, but just in a 'bring yourself back down to earth' way from both of my parents. i wish i remembered exactly what i said that they were responding to, but it was probably something silly and naive. you know how kids are.

it used to piss me off when they said that. like a smart ass, i would always respond "well, why isn't it?" and there's nothing to really respond to. like - because it's not. that's the way it is. i know now that it's true and that's just one of the facts of life regardless of our best efforts. life is not going to be fair to everyone, all the time.

i don't have anything profound to say to it in response, i really just don't like thinking about that even though i've accepted it as truth. because what is the point of doing anything if life isn't actually fair at all? you could put so much in and just get nothing back and things can fail and blow up in your face and maybe the yellowstone caldera will erupt tomorrow. so i haven't found a way to make peace with it, and i just try not to let it get me down too much.

since we're being honest and everything, i feel most beautiful when i do my makeup and my hair and wear a really nice outfit. maybe that's not the right answer for this question and it's something like "when i'm smiling on the beach with my friends" but like.. that's not true, because i get self-conscious of how my smile or my teeth look or how my bikini fits in that situation…

when i put all that effort into my appearance, i feel more connected with the version of myself inside my brain. i've been wearing makeup for so long that the all-natural bare face version of me doesn't really look like the me in my head. i feel like i look like a baby without it, and when i look in the mirror i just see my awkward 12-year old self.

this is unfortunately not the positive answer i usually strive to give but hopefully when i get older and more confident and self-assured, i will feel most myself and beautiful exactly how i look when i wake up in the morning.

the truth… exactly why they decided to leave and not just the answer that makes me feel better. right when they started thinking it, not when it was too much to ignore it. i wish i was told plainly that they don't care about me and they never cared and that i should just forget about them and move on, instead of being strung along for a while. it would be a lot easier to detach if i was told that to my face. i know i should assume that anyways, but it's easier to delude yourself when they never actually said the words.

• i care about you
• you make me feel safe
• i feel like myself around you
• i would do anything to make you happy
• you are the only person who gets my sense of humor
• you are the first thing i think about in the morning and the last thing i think about before i go to sleep
• i want you in my life forever

honestly probably right now… i tend to be usually disappointed in myself because i keep my mom's voice in my head. well, right now, i have good reason to be because i am supposed to be doing my internship work and i am in fact just writing the answers to these questions and sitting and thinking. this isn't what i should be doing with my time, but for some reason, this is the only thing that feels right for me to be doing right now. i have to get it out y'know…

i don't think i could ever run away proper… especially because i need my family, and in the future, i want a family of my own and i could never leave them. uh maybe i'm reading too much into this question.

it would be nice if one day me and the love of my life could just run away for a bit of time out into some tropical place away from all the noise and action of the city. maybe we'd go to one of those fancy vacations where we're out in some cabana standing in the middle of the ocean, but i think that would get a bit boring.. or maybe we'd go on a world tour in a bunch of countries, just landing right in a new city and going wherever the day takes us.

or maybe i could take my mom on a vacation one day when i'm settled and have enough money to not worry about anything, and in that case i'd probably take her to somewhere like paris or florence or venice. and we would just hang out, the two of us, drinking wine on a balcony somewhere, completely at peace because we don't have to worry about anything.

my favorite artist is lana del rey of course.. my favorite lyrics from her:

• "if you weren't mine, i'd be jealous of your love" - venice bitch
• "am i that girl that you dream of / all those little times you said that i'm your girl / you make me feel like your whole world", - pretty when you cry
• "don't say you need me when / you leave and you leave again / i'm stronger than all my men / except for you" - pretty when you cry
• "i mean look at my hair / look at the length of it and the shape of my body / if i told you that i was raped / do you really think that anybody would think I didn't ask for it / .. i won't testify, i already fucked up my story" - a&w
• "you're hot, weather in the summer / hot, neglectful lover" - shades of cool
• "you wanted me sadder" - fishtail
• "just do it, don't wait / if hello just means goodbye then, honey, better walk away" - thunder
• "there's no release, i feel you in my dreams / telling me i'm fine" - dark paradise
• "you should have known better than to have / to let her get you under her spell of the weather / i got you where i want you, you're deader than ever / and falling for forever" - the blackest day
• "nothing gold can stay … / it's all a game to me anyway" - music to watch boys to
• "i live to love you / and i love to love you / and i live to love you, boy" - music to watch boys to

outside for the entire time, hopefully it's a beautiful warm sunny day. surrounded by my family and friends, either calling them or having them next to me, and just laughing about everything, so hard that it hurts and we have tears in our eyes, without even thinking about the time. hopefully eating some really good food… i'd love some tiramisu, a really good tomato with basil and mozzarella and all that, some really nice wine or champagne. i'd hope my dog is there with me and that he's nice enough that day to actually settle in my lap and cuddle with me. honestly another thing coming to mind is roller coasters, but i'm not sure how that'd work geographically, but i'd love to ride all my favorites all at once with my friends. i'd finally go on that slingshot ride that i am absolutely horrified of, because yolo! i'm not sure what else, but that would all be really nice.

i want to say pink because it's my favorite, but i think it's actually green… not sure why. my eyes are green. i like the range of green that exists in nature and i think it's a color that's just kind of always around you. the shade of green says a lot about the environment you're in, and it's kind of sensitive. like if you don't water your grass enough, it'll start losing its green. it comes in waves, too, like the green always disappears to let the autumn colors and the snow come in, but then you can count on it to come back again when the time is right. haven't exactly figured out yet why that feels like me, but it does.

these are all from pinterest with mostly unknown (to me) origins but a couple:

• "i get to be a little girl again" from an interview with pamela anderson
• "a ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for"
• "here's the life i always longed for → i will make it mine" with that dog getting out from behind the fence
• "people say 'phase' like impermanence means insignificance. show me a permanent state of the self."

i'm going to give a very terrible intro to philosophy answer to this, but it's mine… i don't think there's such a thing as absolute reality, period - not in a way that humans understand. every lens by which we experience the world around us is biased or tinted in some way - what we see, hear, smell, etc, the way we describe things depending on the language we use, the fundamental assumptions that we build from that we don't even know are true to begin with. i think a lot about how in russian, there are two separate words for just 'blue' - not gonna type them here because i don't remember… but this is true. so russians see a wider range of what english speakers consider just 'blue'. or how we experience time in a certain way only because we chose to split the time between sunrise and sunset in numbers divisible by 12. and how we just came up with the number 12… it's little things like that that make me think everything is subjective. i can't think of a fact about the universe that is truly absolute. but if you find one, let me know!

even though i strongly feel everything is subjective, i don't think that makes our experience on earth any less meaningless. and i kind of resent the 'this is all a simulation or a floating rock in the middle of space' mindset. i can see how it's useful in reducing anxiety sometimes, but i mostly don't like to think about life that way. it might all be a simulation, but if under our simulation we feel love and anger and pain and can taste food and speak our own languages and make families with each other, i don't really care what the source of all those experiences is. i don't care if someone is pressing some buttons in another dimension to actually make us feel those things, because we feel them and understand them as if they were our own doing, which is what i think matters.

yesterday! i had such a nice evening with my friend elena and my roommate. we went to her place on the lower east side and sat on the beautiful porch and drank wine and i ate a bunch of pickles. we just talked about everything, and elena is such a positive and always smiling girl. we saw the tip of the world trade center and it was rainbow colored for pride, and on the train back, we saw all the people coming back from pride with their outfits on and with flags wrapped around them, and it was really awesome, the city felt very alive. we took a taxi back, which was rare, and it went all the way up riverside - which is one of my favorite avenues of the city and i loved that.

my dad's illness is the hardest thing i've ever had to overcome, and i don't know if i'll ever really be faced with a situation like that again. i don't love writing about it, even in my own little journal, because first, it still stings like it's fresh even if things are better now, and second, i feel weird sharing that part of me and my family. but i won't get into the specifics because it's my dad and i want my dad to be remembered for his best parts. i also hate writing about this as if it's something i had to overcome, when it's actually been the hardest on my dad and my mom, and i'm just one part of the puzzle.

anticipatory grief is a very tough thing to deal with, and alzheimer's is a cruel and terrible disease and i hate that it exists at all. what is the hardest is forgetting the version of him i had before everything happened. i work to forever remember it, but holding both realities at the same time, especially as his illness progresses and his baseline keeps changing day-by-day, is hard to wrap my head around. it made me come to terms with the inevitability of change and hardship and death in the people i love most. my dad is very old, and we've always loved this and joked around about it, but that also means the end of his life is something i've been thinking about since i was very young. and he's always been so open and at peace with it, which i find incredible. he says, "i'm an old man, and i've lived a long and happy life", and that's just the way it's always been. talking about his eventual end of life wasn't taboo or morbid in our house. i remember sitting and helping him fill out his will, or him casually bringing up what he'd like us to do after it happens, and it numbed me to that reality.

what is hard, besides the obvious, is losing a father figure. and that's not to say he's not a wonderful part of my life, still, because he is. i've written about this already and i'm sorry for repeating myself… but when i was still a teenager, i had to become the caretaker for someone who i still viewed as a guiding all-knowing paternal figure, and it was a strange balance for a bit of wanting his protection while being the one to give it to him. i admit it was traumatic to see the shift happen and watch things get worse before they got better. but that's not anyone's fault but that of the disease. it's been a catalyst for a lot of my issues, and i took a lot of grief and pain out on myself for a while. it's been hard to get out of that cycle and stop using those coping mechanisms for a situation that continues to get more serious, but i'm doing a lot better.