February Reviewed: Almanac of a Woman in Bloom

(Or, at least, trying her best to be)

Below is a loose record of my thoughts, happenings, comings, goings, and hopeful inklings of actual growth from this past month away. Possible contradictions and sappiness ahead. 

♡ February 1, 2025♡: are we really going to stick with this whole “No Twitter until the end of the month” thing? 

♡ February 4, 2025♡: what’s that song that has now become a semi-well known Tiktok audio (DAMN myself for deleting that app; I swore up and down I’d never want it again and now look)? “Everyone is falling in love and I’m falling behind….” 

♡ February 5, 2025♡: watching Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997) to feel something. Letting my mind be open to the possibility of love from both high and unlikely places. 

It's possible for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage.

It's possible for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage.

And four white mice are easily turned to horses

Such fal de rah and fiddle dee dee of course is 

Quite possible!

It's possible!

For the world is full of zanies and fools

Who don't believe in sensible rules

And won't believe what sensible people say

And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes,

Impossible things are happening every day.

Let’s hope. 

♡ February 6, 2025♡: I don’t have to be sad anymore if I don’t want to be. Right? Is it a choice I’m actively making? 

Sometimes when your life is full of so many blessings and bright spots, when so much of the sun is shining down on you, it makes the small dark smudgings and irregularities all the more blatant. The weird paradox of a truly blessed life; leaves you in a limbo of gratitude and (self-)loathing. 

I have been trying, and I have been progressing, and maybe I deserve to celebrate that instead of lamenting it. Trying to run marathons in a 30-second sprint just leaves you breathless and with shin splints. 

♡ February 8, 2025♡: behind on studying today because Mom and I had one of our Arguments™ – which is really just her way of loving me in the only way she knows how (AKA making bold, unflinching, sometimes hurtful declarations about my life as some type of method to wake me up yet often makes me want to curl up into a ball and hide my shame). Later, when things were more subdued, Mom showed me an old video of me in undergrad, performing a musical theater track in front of a small audience. My choir days. My voice was a bit wobbly and dry from the nerves, yet powerful. My gestures were impassioned and a bit awkward, but it’s all so genuine that the cringe factor is ultimately miniscule. The feeling hits like a ton of bricks while I’m watching; tears well up and I try not to look away. This young girl still lives within me somewhere, and even in all of her awkwardness and trepidation and aching so badly to be validated, not only did she deserve love and acceptance — she already had it but just didn’t know it. And why couldn’t she see it? For what? Why did she – I – resign her(my)self to a life of grey solitude and mundaneness and ambivalence when she is (and deserves) anything but? 

I also just finished Good Material by Dolly Alderton, the first five-star book of 2025 (reminder: *Finally* finish Everything I Know About Love and log rating and review in GoodReads). Dolly, Dolly, Dolly, the woman that you are…to date, I can really only name, like, three other female authors who so perfectly encapsulate the complex, confusing feelings and states of being of young women in their 20s and 30s. 

The majority of the novel is from the point of view of tortured mid-30s male comedian, Andy, as he reckons with the “sudden” (in his mind) breakup with his beautiful, enigmatic, intelligent girlfriend, Jen. Toward the very end of the novel, the POV shifts to Jen, and we see a sweeping narrative of her perspective of her relationship with Andy from its trepidatious beginning to its definitive end. 

Right before Jen’s first meeting with Andy, she’s in her early 30s and at this point in her life had only ever casually dated in the midst of her ever-heightening career and frequent travels. During a girls’ trip at a cabin in the woods she has a realization about herself in relation to her friends’ lives – and loves – that I believe crosses the minds of many women (but only few, like Dolly, are confident enough to voice through pen to paper): 

“Every night, the conversation would turn to all of their partners and I listened to these women I love talk about the men they love with despair and adoration and amusement and frustration. And I realized that this was something I wanted to try – not just being in love, but being in this club…I wanted to try this thing that had absorbed most of my friends for years: being someone’s girlfriend and everything that comes with it.

“‘I think I’m ready to meet someone this year,’ I said at the end of a drunken night in the birthday cabin. They all seemed excited, like I had announced my intention to move to the same neighborhood. Which, in a way, I did.” – Good Material, p. 283. 

DOLLY ALDERTON, THE WOMAN THAT YOU AREEEEEEEE>>>>>>

In the spirit of Dolly and Good Material’s Jen, I’ve decided that this year is the year I really start dating with actual intention. No apprehension, fears suppressed. I’ve decided that I want to share my life with someone and I’ve decided to no longer apologize for that or be ashamed of that. I’ve decided that I can grow just as much with someone as without. And, yes, I’ve decided that I want to be part of the club and symbolically get my keys to finally join the neighborhood, so to speak. 

♡ February 9, 2025♡: I forgot that lil stank ass Super Bowl was today. PRAYING THE EAGLES WIN!!! PRAYING ON THE DOWNFALL OF KANSAS CITY CHIEFS!! 

♡ February 11, 2025♡: The Eagles won, thank God. 

Also, I don’t know what it is but men just really do not know what to do with me LOL. I’m surrounded by men on my (GRADUATE SCHOOL PROGRAM) campus who are either almost completely maladjusted and completely inept with women entirely or they just walk around with what I like to call “RAF” (Resting Asshole Face) and they are completely unapproachable until they open their mouths and then I realize, “oh! You’re actually not a complete dickhead.” (I heavily emphasized “graduate school program” above because you’d think that men in this environment would be a tad bit more astute and perceptive in their dealings with women, but evidently not.) 

I just had a guy yesterday tell me that I looked tired and dehydrated all because I…*checks notes* didn’t wear makeup that day?? Why do so many men think it’s okay to say the most socially inept, antisocial, unnecessary things to women? Did any of them ever learn the rule, “Don’t comment on someone’s appearance if they can’t change it in the next minute”? 

Oh, and I can’t even tell you how many men just this month have made the assertion that I am “intimidating” even without me opening my mouth. 

Lord, the grown ass men you sent to protect and provide are scared of women and bumble around us like fools. 

♡ February 12, 2025♡: Reflecting on my life and how blessed I am. 

My mom has been volunteering at a local after-school/not-for-profit program for at-risk youth (for privacy’s sake I won’t disclose the name or location). Almost every day, she comes home and tells me some harrowing tale of trauma or violence that kids as young as 5 or 6 years old are experiencing. It’s been both harder and easier to sleep at night in my plush bed, surrounded by air conditioning and a plethora of Squishmallows, where most of my issues seemingly stem from inside of my head. Through this experience, however, I’ve found that our relationship is surprisingly strengthening – she is really showing me firsthand the values of gratitude and service. Our relationship will never be perfect, that’s for sure, but I believe that we are finally starting to understand each other for the women we are, and we are giving each other more leeway and understanding. 

♡ February 14, 2025♡: For Valentine’s Day, typically fraught with much emotion, here’s a slightly out-of-context quote from Good Material’s main character, Andy, upon being faced with a conflicting mixture of feelings regarding the awards triumphs of his more successful comedian peer in the wake of his own personal tragedies and setbacks: 

“I know at the very base of my feelings, there is pride for him. I know that’s the feeling holding all the other feelings up. But all I can acknowledge right now are those immediate, fleeting top layers that make themselves aggressively known. Inadequacy, jealousy, resentment.” – Good Material, p. 142. 

If you want to know the feelings that arise as of late when seemingly everyone else around me seems to be finding their person, falling in love, and getting married and the like, this is it. 

To my friends and acquaintances currently bitten by the love bug, struck by Cupid’s bow, whatever, I’m not saying never tell me about your successes in the world of love and romance – I’m your friend, and I want to know what’s going on in your life. I’m not even saying that I’m tainted with jealousy. I’m saying that my inadequacy can’t help but (re)surface in the wake of others’ moments of glory, even when I am actively and genuinely reveling in your joys with you. I apologize if it seeps out of my pores like polluted, venomous sweat. 

(Truth be told, I wrote the Valentine’s Day segment a week ago on the 6th or 7th of the month, but I thought that the content fit better on the actual date. Also, I met one of my goals today – there’s this barbershop full of gorgeous, manly, tatted men (just my type) a few shops down from where I work on the weekends. I finally stopped in and asked for a business card so I could refer them to my dad who desperately needs a new barber (he doesn’t). My heart was racing, I was sweating and shaking, but I did it. Not gonna lie, it feels bittersweet. Every time I make one of these little goals for myself and actually go through with it, I celebrate, but at the same time, the fact that at 24 years old I have to psych myself up to just speak to men as if it’s some grand milestone while it’s commonplace for other women is really sad. I’m trying to just accept that I started on certain things a little bit later than others, that this is my journey, and everyone has to start somewhere.

Admittedly, for years now I’ve been watching movies and shows, listening to podcasts, reading self-help books, publications on Substack or otherwise as well as books on philosophy, psychology, spirituality, religion, and sociology, all with the goal of wanting to learn how to be a more sensual, “real” woman, a better lover. I think the gift I can give to myself this Valentine’s Day as my own lover (cringe. Lol) is to set those things aside and be at peace with the fact that there’s nothing else to learn, nothing else to do or study or adopt…all I have to do is just exist as myself, and that will be more than enough for the right person.) 

♡ February 15, 2025♡: Reflecting on whether or not I will ever, ever be enough. Reflecting on how things never, ever seem to line up the way I want them to. Reflecting on how I never really seem to quite receive what I’m praying for. Reflecting on no matter how much I try and grovel or pray or beg or withdraw or do anything, I never seem to get what I desperately need from those around me, those who are supposed to be my number one supporters, those who are supposed to love me the most. Reflecting on if it’s too late. Reflecting on if this life is still worth living. 

I don’t know what’s more pathetic. The things I’m actively dealing with, or the fact that I have so much going for me in my life and yet I continue to lament over things that ultimately don’t matter. 

Does continually reprimanding myself solve my problems when I try to pull myself out of the darkness yet simply cannot? No. Then why do I continue to do so? 

♡February 19, 2025♡: Reflecting on why Gen Z is so connection-averse even though we claim to be the most “connected” generation. 

Watched a very astute and timely video on this subject – linked here/below. One of the top comments under the video said it best – “Everyone wants a village but nobody wants to be a villager,” and that about sums it up. Zoomers are also terrified of doing anything that makes them look “uncool” or “cringey” or “nerdy” – that is, the level of nerdy that drives one beyond the label of “fuckable” and still “cool”. No one wants to do anything that would make them even the slightest bit uncomfortable, even if it meant that they would finally receive these genuine connections they’ve been yearning for. No one wants to do anything that inconveniences them – why? Because “no one owes anyone anything.” 

Zoomers, how’s that working out for us? We’re constantly complaining about situationship culture in which romantic relationships are essentially watered down and commodified; cancellation culture (not “cancel culture” as it’s widely known today, but literal cancellation – the almost chronic epidemic-level phenomenon of making plans and canceling them, of which I, admittedly, can be guilty); as well as the detached, emotionless “therapy speak” in dealing with those we have connections with as a way to emotionally remove ourselves – and our empathy – from even the slightest risk of conflict. 

There are many reasons behind this phenomenon, and I do think that, by and large, it is that damn phone, as many of our mothers and grandmothers would say. I think a lot of it, though, has to do with how COVID has isolated and mentally, emotionally, and socially stunted all of us to the point where we’ve missed out on key social interactions for two to three years, depending on how deep you were into the lockdown stage. We retreated into ourselves and let ourselves lose our humanity, both within ourselves and with each other. 

♡February 25, 2025♡: I’m kind of sick of everyone, to be honest. But I also feel like I understand humanity a lot more than I did before and therefore love it more as well? It’s weird. Maybe my frontal lobe is finally starting to develop. And I don’t know if it’s just because I see people going through real life things that actually matter as a result of the service work I’ve been doing as of late, or if it’s because of some of the thinkers and intellectual voices I’ve stumbled upon in my quest for knowledge, but my eyes have really been opened to just how stupid, retarded, ungrateful, lazy, and self-loathing most of you people really are. 

Aren’t we sick of talking about the same issues over and over again? Aren’t we tired of rotating between the same four conversation subjects? And, arguably most annoying of all, aren’t we sick of some stupid B-level controversy or “scandal” rocking the Internet streets that ultimately doesn’t mean anything? 

I don’t know how many more YouTube shorts or Tiktoks you can post about your dating preferences or *hot political takes* or your opinions about the gender war that only exists online before you start feeling sick – like that queasy feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you eat too much processed food. It’s the same fucking bullshit every other week, and I don’t get how you dizzy, dumb bitches aren’t bored to DEATH of talking about the same thing. As someone in a professional academic setting, literally no one in real life gives a fuck about someone’s body count or whether someone is a so-called “whore” or whether 50/50 dating or traditional style courting is the superior relationship style. And even with politics, many people in my class are all across the political spectrum, but – GASP! – we’re all able to have conversations and exist in the same space together, peacefully and as acquaintances or friends, because we’re adults. Such a foreign fucking concept, I know. 

You know what? Here’s some of my hot takes. 

• Eating 1000-1200 calories a day and only eating when you absolutely need to eat is not an eating disorder. Y’all are big backed fat fucks for stuffing yourselves silly with three to four giant meals every day. Humans were not meant to graze all day; we were meant to fuel ourselves as necessary and be active, often. 

• I know I touched on this a bit earlier, but the dating advice a lot of y’all are shilling is either just a blatant grift or extreme projection. Also, a lot of women purposefully give other women “dating advice” that is fucking TERRIBLE and it’s literally just intrasexual competition. You bitches aren’t slick.

• It’s extremely fucking stupid to get online and complain about your mentally and physically neglectful, selfish, weaponized incompetent, borderline emotionally abusive spouse but then have the gall to look down upon those of us who are single because somehow, it’s some kind of badge of honor to be in a relationship. Also, why post about how terrible your spouse is and air your dirty laundry out for all to see, only to keep defending him or her whenever people make comments? Do y’all not realize what happens when you post things on a public forum or are y’all genuinely that dumb? 

• A lot of you follow certain social media accounts and follow their words as if they’re God and it’s pathetic. All you do is fucking consoom and consoom and consoom. No mind of your own, no beliefs of your own, just parroting the beliefs of people who have more than 20,000 Twitter followers and deplorably lapping up their cum. Pathetic pieces of shit. 

• More on the consooming: why do none of you fuckers ever pick up a recipe and start cooking or baking? Making jewelry or doing arts and crafts? Picking up a pen and starting to write? No one has hobbies anymore, all you bitches do is scroll. Being off of Twitter for this past month has made me realize how boring and dull and one-dimensional we all purposefully make ourselves. SPELL THE WORD “PHARAOH”, BITCH. 

• As an American, you’re a retarded fuck if you’re an ardent supporter of either of the major American political parties as well as anyone who’s ever been in [the Oval] office. In 2025. Like just say you’re a fucking mind-controlled cuck letting old, corrupt politicians dangle your rights and autonomy in front of you like a carrot on a string.

• As someone who is simultaneously pro-life for herself yet also believes in a decentralized government, it’s not for me, a non-lawmaker or legislator, to say that abortion should be fully outlawed. And as a flawed human being, it’s ultimately not my place to judge people’s choices or their lives. But if that’s what you choose to do as an adult of sound mind and body, accept the fact that you are removing a human life from this earth when you make that choice. Contend with your decisions, no matter the reason behind them, and stand by them for what they really are – as we all have to do, once it’s all said and done. 

• Christianity has made a lot of y’all unbearable, boring, judgmental hypocrites of the highest order. I’m Christian[-adjacent] and was raised in the church, so I can say this.

• This is a reminder to myself as well: STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING. And also, if you have an idea for something you want to do or create – a book, a business, an album, whatever – do it before God bestows it upon someone else who was courageous and ballsy enough to bring this creativity, this life into the world. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in Big Magic. 

Despite how this rant sounds, I’ve honestly never felt more awake and more alive and more in love with the world. You kind of have to hate this world to a certain extent if you want to fix it, because you love the people in it even though you hate what they do. I don’t know if I want to eat the world straight, no chaser, or I want to let the raw, primal love inside of me explode out of me to every corner of the universe. 

[Later] Ok sometimes my misery does indeed seep out of me, like sticky, bitter sap from within a dying oak tree. Much of it is temporary – righteous indignation, purposeful bemoaning that feels good, and perpetual guilt that feels bad but I welcome it by default since I can’t seem to get rid of it. There is a certain, nameless something that I can’t seem to reach or achieve because it seems as though there is always some other intangible something that stands in the way, and I can’t seem to figure out if it’s my mother’s codependency, my life circumstances – the fact that I’m in a “golden cage” – or if it’s just myself and my own self-imposed limitations out of fear, apathy, mental illness, or some secret fourth thing. 

Lol, this is kind of a far cry from where I was when Valentine’s Day rolled around. Thanks, follicular phase. 

♡February 26, 2025♡: “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” presented without comment. 

Also, below are some highlighted soundbites from this week that I cherish. 

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” 

-Matthew 7:7 

Like the scar of age

Written on my face

The war is still raging inside of me

I still feel the chill

As I reveal my shame to you

I wear it like a tattoo 

-Sadé, “Like A Tattoo” 

“I mean, I was Josh Safdie’s muse when he wrote uncut jæëmz…” 

-Julia Fox 

“When you hold onto your history, you do it at the expense of your destiny.” 

-Bishop T.D. Jakes 

“The jurors in this case were smoking dope!” 

-My civil procedure professor

There's things I wanna say to you

But I'll just let you live

Like if you hold me without hurting me

You'll be the first who ever did

-Lana Del Rey, “Cinnamon Girl” 

“You need to not be ugly, you need to not be woke.”

-Alexandra Locke-Pierce of HRH Collection 

"Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it."

-Psalms 34:13-15

♡February 27, 2025♡:

Random thought: right wingers are really weird about sex. And left wingers are downright detached and sad about sex.  

Also, I am at the point now where I simply do not care to be around or associate with people who have limiting beliefs. Their anxiety, misery, and pessimism are so palpable that they eventually start trying to limit the beliefs of those around them. Why is it that when I have a certain goal or aspiration or just a deep inner knowing that I’m going to have a certain experience, people like that immediately jump in to give me all the reasons why it won’t work, or why I need to be “realistic”? We are powerful enough to construct buildings as tall as the sky, to walk on other plants amongst the stars, to compose music and write songs that people sing and perform for decades if not centuries, to bring new life into this world, and you mean to tell me that my dreams aren’t “practical” enough? Well, with the way I see it, you’re just not alive enough. You just don’t want it enough. And this is coming from someone who is a reformed (or, rather, reforming) master of pessimism and pity parties. 

I am so sick of focusing on what I “don’t have”. Because what, really, don’t I have, when I live in a world where everything is available to me right at my fingertips?  

I recognize that this edition of my newsletter is full of messy contradictions, but what are all of us if not just that – messy contradictions? I don’t care. I like reveling in my own beautiful chaos, in owning it proudly. I am committed to reminding myself of the innate, objective nature of that beauty on days when I might not recognize it as easily as I do today. 

♡February 28, 2025♡:

I don’t know what else to say here. I’ll just say whatever else I need to say on the timeline. 

BYE!!