July 29 2026 got into an awesome grad program at an ivy league school last night, feeling great about that but worried about money. i hope my bitchy aunt finds out somehow; there was one time in high school where i called it “upenn” and she corrected me and was like heh, ok sweetie, i get you were raised in squalor, but here in rich suburban pa we call it “penn”. it’s not like she or anyone in our family ever actually went there…i vowed that day to be the first bc a) i’m really petty and never forget when anyone wrongs me and b) i know that when it comes to my brain, i can accomplish anything. on that note, it’s kind of shocking how incredibly capable i feel intellectually vs how hopeless i feel sexually. i feel like i can literally do anything i put my mind to when it comes to academics or career stuff, but that i genuinely couldn’t bed someone i was interested in to save my life. what’s up with that? i just saw the odyssey last night. i really enjoyed it + i saw it in a movie theater i somehow never knew existed, so that was really fun. but it’s a fun thought exercise to think of myself like a character from a greek myth. like maybe im just blessed by athena and not aphrodite. everyone has their path i suppose. anyway, im excited for grad school. its a big deal. shoutout me. July 28 2026 might need to go my own way and do a total lifestyle goals and spiritual goals pivot. maybe i need to stop being a social person altogether and become a sort of aloof and reclusive person. July 27 2026 been hitting the gym like mad lately—my muscles are sore but in a good way i think. had an interview and was basically told i got into the masters program i applied to and i kind of don’t care and i don’t know why... for a long time i thought going to penn was a dream and going to grad school was a dream so this should be awesome news but i feel meh about it. i took a sick day from work today and am letting my muscles heal and napping a bunch. still feeling extremely anxious about europe but also letting myself get excited too. it feels like if i let myself be excited i will be smited but theres no way thats true. July 26 2026 still thinking all the time abt being ugly and hating myself but trying to not let it get unhealthy. i love my partner so much and they hold me while i cry like a child about it. it’s something my parents never did much with me so i really feel like a little baby when i sob into their chest. it feels amazing to be held; i cant believe some people just got this their whole lives. i remember this one specific time when i was maybe 9 or maybe 12–CPTSD makes it hard to place memories correctly—which was the only time i can remember where i cried in my moms arms. my dad had just beaten me pretty badly and i was an absolute mess. my mom normally avoided acknowledging when stuff was happening and stayed catatonic in her heroin den watching tv in the dark in bed. but this time was so bad that she actually came to get me after. she scooped me into her lap and wrapped her arms around me and called me her baby and pet my hair and let me sob and sob and sob into her shirt and she rocked me. i remember even at the time thinking that this was what it must feel like to be a safe little baby with a mommy who loves you. i wish so badly that she protected me more, and i really wish she didn’t spend so much of our time together calling me a fat disgusting pig. i wish she gave me a reason that i could love her, forgive her, let all of this go. but i carry it in me and to this day it leaks out of me in tarry mascara stains on tim’s shirt. i wish i had more outlets to talk about being abused. i feel like no one understands how hard it’s all been and i really wish they did. i feel like no one understands how sad and fucked up my life would be if i didn’t work so hard every day to slap on a smile and make it better. how do i end this on a positive note, or at least not a massive bummer? uhhh i love my clean home and being an adult with a job and a bank account and legal autonomy. i <3 being physically safe from men. my mom and my dad are both dead and im not and every day is a new day July 22 2026 been thinking constantly lately about feeling ugly. don’t know how to stop. it’s been making me really sad, i just really wish i was prettier and feel constantly confronted with the fact that others don’t see me that way. i wish i didn’t care so much but i do and i always have! the worst part is is that i know my insecurity is even more cloying but i can’t help it. googling: how do i get over myself and accept im not hot and feel ok with that. July 21 2026 i wanna have sex so bad. i think i am just going to start going out every night until i have sex with someone i meet. im currently in a random ass pizza place after striking out in bar #1. i’m on my way to bar #2. what’s wrong with me? is it really just that i’m fat? why does no one want to fuck me ??!?!!?!?! July 18 2026 Only one more day to go until I’m done watching these bulldogs. I do love them but they are very poopy and I am ready to go home. I am hemorrhaging money this summer so badly. I am extremely bad with money and impulsive spending and also the economy is in shambles. I have not rly been saving money to pay my taxes on dog sitting this year and i’m like uh ohhhh lol but I’m gonna travel while I’m young and that’s actually pretty important. I want to fuck so badly btw. A couple of people in particular. I am notoriously bad at sealing the deal though—can everyone reading this help me manifest? I’ve been feeling drawn to sex with men lately after a five year break from that. I think it’s rooted in the old wounds of insecurity I’ve been feeling lately—interesting how tied my attraction is to self image. The non nerd speak for what i’m trying to say is I NEED SOME DICK ! July 13 2026 so many people are ghosting me right now i’m ill. i don’t understand what ive done and why this is happening. i keep having dreams where im in new love with someone and wake up yearning. i miss that feeling. i love the amazing race so much and i think its doing wonders in helping me feel less scared of going to europe. July 5 2026 partner and i had such a nice day yesterday but today they just pissed me off so badly i don’t even want to make up GODDDDDD. it was the stupidest fight. they were complaining about taylor swifts wedding using too much electricity and i was like idk i don’t think it’s the biggest deal to use a lot of electricity for ur wedding. and then they were like well new york is in an electricity shortage and she has the money to do it somewhere else remote and fly all her guests there. and i was like well then you’d be criticizing her for all her carbon emissions and flying too much… and idk they were just speaking to me really rudely during this interaction in a way that felt fucked up. then the fight climaxed bc i was like idk sometimes you criticizing taylor swift specifically for every single thing she does feels like it’s lowkey rooted in misogyny and that makes me uneasy. and then they were like well it’s annoying that you defend her every time i criticize her. and im like thanks for calling me annoying then bro! and kicked them out of my room where they have been sleeping for like a week straight bc they keep procrastinating buying an air conditioner bc they are nowhere near as much of an organized adult as me. questioning the entire relationship right now. i didnt like how they spoke to me and that they would call me annoying for politely disagreeing. i do think i couldnt do better though!! # fear # fat # been rejected by 99% of the people i’ve ever liked update: they apologized and said they just woke up in a funky mood…. we are ok… July 1 2026 Been super into watching the amazing race lately. Been feeling depressed and anxious. i love BB very much. i think the guy i liked just sees me as a friend; it’s stirring up old feelings of low self esteem. it does often feel like i get rejected more than my friends do, but maybe that’s in my head. have a big europe trip coming up and im not as healed as i hoped to be before it. i hope that that changes and i can have fun while im over there. June 22 2026 just got back from a really lovely lake trip. i struggled with anxiety for a lot of it, often worrying it would claw its way out at the wrong moment; but it never really did any thing bad to me, and i did genuinely have a lot of fun. happy to be home and reunited with the bb tho. let’s play rose-bud-thorn for this trip: i loved nightswimming in the lake sooooooo much; i want to do more of that this summer. it’s interesting how you carry a vague concept or memory of an experience but it’s totally life changing to do it as an adult. doing more nightswimming this summer is my bud. (sadly, i saw a shooting star one night and made a wish on it that has already not come true. so in case you were wondering if that ever works, it doesn’t :/ ) the rose from this weekend is i helped to save a dogs life!! i’d been sobbing over an especially sweet and tragic shelter dog named Gummy Bear who was set for euthanasia on the 20th, and I worked over time to share his information throughout the community. he got adopted and has a forever home now!! i think my life’s purpose might be animal rescue work, and i want to take up fostering. the thorn from this weekend is that i had a big crush on a friend of mine and it seems like it is not mutual :( idk, we’ve been talking basically every single day for hours at a time for weeks!! and he has really tried to ask me deep and personal questions and if i don’t reply to something he’s double texted to keep talking to me, which feels very intentional! but then the other day, i asked him what he was up to that day, and he very matter of factly told me he was going on a date, and it felt very record-screech to my vibe. (to quote rae sremmurd, “killing someone’s vibe should be a fucking crime”). obviously i’m in a whole ass open relationship, so it’s not the date itself—it’s moreso the fact that he said it the way that he did, like without concern about preserving a sense that he would also want me. it made me feel like the vibe was that he was friendzoning me. it’s pretty depressing but we carry on and at least i have a new friend. tho i honestly don’t understand talking to someone constantly all of a sudden and not viewing it as a flirty vibe. some people are crazy tho so who knows. would love to beat this dead horse so @ me if you wanna offer your perspective. that’s all for now! June 18 2026 im baaaaack whats new? i think im still not 100% better but that lexapro is helping my panic attacks a lot. however i am still twitchy as fuck and dont feel “healed”. i also am having tons of bad side effects from the lexapro still—i am so sleepy and find it hard to motivate myself to start work. it makes me really brain fogged and unmotivated. i also am having the worst SSRI horniness impact ive ever had—libido is at an all time low. however, that hasnt stopped me from randomly getting a crush on a friend. im having fun with it—i love the game of overanalyzing texts and guessing if someone likes you back. even if it doesnt go anywhere im having summer fun :P May 11th 2026 me and my partner got into not even really a fight last night but had a conversation that felt bad and things are a little weird now. they asked if we can talk it out later so i know it’ll be ok at some point but feeling uncertain of how to proceed. i actually wrote an incredibly long and detailed entry about the particulars of the situation that i second-guessed posting to the internet. but the essence is that i think i feel unwanted sexually and by extension emotionally. also, we’re very different; sometimes i feel like they balance me out and other times it feels like incompatibility. how do you know whether or not you’re happy May 6th 2026 I feel so lonely all the time. I feel like everyone likes each other more than they like me and there’s just something wrong with me. Am I loved? Am I treasured? Is it all in my head? I keep waiting for things to get better and they haven’t. My stomach literally churns out of fear that I can’t control every time I have to do anything besides sit in my house. Dark days. I hope the summer brings love and connection and peace. April 29 2026 I have been joking about it but I kind of developed an actual crush on my professor. I knew obviously nothing would come of something like that…But the heart wants what it wants. The fact that he’s leaving the country has honestly been bumming me out more than I care to admit. I’ve been sullenly and secretly nursing a minorly broken heart. I think part of why I was so attracted to him is that he was so intelligent, well-read and worldly in ways I wish to be. I’m more addicted to my phone and screens than I want to be, and kind of struggle to actually sit down and read a book. I was covetous of how addicted to reading he seemed and that it came naturally to him. I was also really attracted to his fearlessness around travel and completely starting over. He’d been seemingly everywhere and had stories for days, and spoke 10 or so languages. It was everything I want to be, and yet I can’t seem to summon the bravery to empty my bank account and leave Philadelphia. I worry I’m going to die here- that I’ll keep telling myself “next year” until the year I drop dead. I tell myself I’m only 25, which isn’t that old. I had a rough start in life that didn’t give me a lot of options other than working for survival and to build something for myself, which is what I’ve been doing and doing beautifully. But I often feel like a townie failure; that I’m as boring and cowardly as the glory day talkers in the local dive. And soon I’ll spend the last of the currency of my youth, and with it, all chances at an extraordinary life. Maybe I hoped he could fuck a sense of adventure into me. Maybe I’m over-intellectualizing things as I often do, and I was just horny. In any case, I’m left wanting. April 23 2026 I’m signing up for life insurance and listing my older sibling as the beneficiary. Our relationship is complicated like all siblings but I feel weirdly paternal about them in a way that’s especially odd as a younger sibling. I think because I’ve done the things I need to do to set myself up to be taken care of in vulnerable situations—I have a retirement fund that I pay into, an emergency fund, a partner with a family that is willing to provide support for us if there’s an emergency, etc. And it makes my heart ache to see my sibling always stressed about money and without a real safety net. I worry about them all the time, I wonder what’s going to happen to them when they get old, or if they break their leg. They can be a lot to deal with sometimes but I literally don’t know how to rationalize being alive without them. They’re the first person I probably ever realized existed and i can’t imagine ever living in a world without them in it. I love them very much. I feel like I have to try to take care of them since no one else has ever taken care of us. It sometimes feels like I’m trying to vicariously parent myself. Also, I saw Project Hail Mary in the theater last night. Beautiful movie—couldn’t help but feel icked out though realizing it was a movie made by Amazon. The German lady was so gorgeous I almost died. It reminded me of Anora where they pulled off this reality-adjacent magic of making a character you previously overlooked slowly come to the foreground as somebody desirable and sexy in a way that captures real life crushes and how they feel. I haven’t been to the dentist in a while and need to go. I actually lowkey got banned from my dentist for last minute cancelling too many times—they left me a voicemail though saying they’d give me one more chance. April 22 2026 I feel so much. Not having a best friend has been on my mind lately. I feel like I have people I care about who care about me but they all have a best friend who isn’t me. I feel like I always make everything awkward, weird and uncomfortable. I really yearn for people to know that I care for them and accept them regardless of if I can act strange. I am bad at expressing that because it feels very vulnerable. Part of me wants to embrace the distance I feel from everyone and everything. Maybe this is a good time in my life to pack up everything and move to California. I worry if I don’t leave first that one day I’ll look around and everyone else will have moved on and forgotten me. I have never been good at knowing what to do or trusting my gut. I think that’s supposed to be an abuse thing, that it shakes your self confidence. If there’s one thing I don’t feel right now, it’s confident about anything.