Admittedly, up until three weeks ago I’d never listened to good kid, m.A.A.d city from start to finish. Of course, I had my favorites from the project: Backseat Freestyle, Money Trees, m.A.A.d city, but 14 years ago I wasn’t really listening… I just wanted to dance.

It wasn’t until I pulled up to a listening session hosted by Cue the Record that I finally got to absorb, not just hear, the story Kendrick was spitting. In a room full of people bopping their heads and rapping along, with my eyes closed and my back pressed against the wall, I immediately understood why each track resonated so deeply with anyone blessed enough to experience the project.

Although I’d heard tracks like The Art of Peer Pressure and Sing About Me in isolation hundreds of times, it was something about this time that I couldn’t help but catch myself slipping back more than a decade to those teenage summer nights. The ones where I would ride in the passenger seat of my then-boyfriend’s silver Toyota Corolla, staring out the window as he rapped over lyrics about a life he’d never lived, and I imagined a future that I hadn’t yet figured out how to make real.

Coming of age in Silver Spring, Maryland wasn’t comparable to Compton by a long shot. Still, it wasn’t hard to relate to Kendrick’s adolescent struggle. I knew what it felt like to straddle the fence of who I was and what I had the potential to be. I’d played the game of tug of war between what my dreams were conspiring on my behalf and what the signs around me suggested would be my actual fate. I didn’t understand it then, but I now see how one small action could change everything.

If you’d asked 18-year-old me what I wanted from my future, I probably couldn’t have told you anything beyond what the next few days or weeks would have held. I didn’t necessarily love my life, but I also didn’t hate it enough to do anything drastic to change it.

There were no dream houses or cities that I fantasized about. I loved the idea of love, but there were no girlhood daydreams about my ideal florals or fairytale wedding dresses. I didn’t obsess over the idea of “making it out” or building a “better” life. Not because I didn’t think any of those things were possibilities for me, but because I didn’t think about the future in that way.

That is, until the moments when I would sit in his passenger seat.

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When we first met, he instantly became one of the most interesting people I knew. He didn’t smoke weed or have an aspiring rap career that he’d skip school to pursue. He was a college kid who played sports, owned textbooks, and attended fraternity interest meetings. Instead of filling me in on need-to-know neighborhood beef, he told me stories about dorm parties, football tailgates, and the madness that ensued during late-night food runs or student center spades tournaments.

The way he spoke about life after high school was underscored by so much freedom that it could make birds jealous. He often described time passing as a variation of choices that you got to make. You never had to be anywhere important before 10 AM if you didn’t want to. You only studied things in service of a subject matter that you cared about. You hung out with friends when you wanted to because they lived next door, not separated by traffic and train delays.

In the abstract, he was different than any guy I’d ever attracted. I wanted to do anything to impress him. Even adopt a future I had zero intentions of pursuing before that summer.

When August arrived, so did the evaluation of how successful this relationship would be with 6 hours between us. One particular drop-off, as we sat in the parking lot of the train station with a thick silence holding us hostage, I decided to clear the air with the only words I could manage to release from inside of me: “So what happens after this?”

With zero hesitation, almost as if the answer was sitting right there in the car with us, he broke his gaze to face me and declared, “You could just come here next fall,” as if it had long been decided.

I sat up a little as I started painting the picture of what that life could look like. Even though my academic track record said otherwise, I was flipping through every conceivable future to find the one where that idea was a reality. It was the first time I’d seriously entertained a life where things didn’t just happen to me but where I got to build them.

There was a future here.

I did everything to bring that reality to life. I attended college fairs and onsite admission events. I practiced an in-depth “if you accept me” speech that seemed to charm admissions counselors into looking past my 1.9 GPA. I kept a record of all 13 of the schools that said yes on my bedroom wall. I enrolled in Virginia State University for the fall.

What started as me taking note of how to turn a summer romance into forever became the architecting of a blueprint for a life I hadn’t really imagined but discovered could easily be mine. So even as the relationship crashed and burned, the new vision for my life remained clear as day.

I no longer wanted him as much as I wanted this.

Somehow, deep inside, that used to bother me. That being young and boy crazy created the conditions that became the foundation of my life today. It bothered me that at some point in this narrative, I only saw him, not an accomplished future. Instead, I crafted talking points that glossed over that fact. Ones that overstated the intentionality of my choices. That, when greeted with one of life’s major milestones, I made a decision on behalf of my future self and didn’t treat it like a throwaway plot-filler episode of a teenage rom-com.

Retrospectively, I just wanted my origin story to sound profound when it was played back. I wanted to say, “I always saw this for me. That’s why I did it.” But that wasn’t the truth.

Sometimes the truth behind the greatest moments of our lives, our most impactful decisions, our most memorable experiences weren’t a byproduct of the best intentions.

Sometimes the kids were born because you were lonely. Sometimes you moved across the country to escape, not expand. Sometimes you orchestrated your future around the idea that you liked a boy as much as he liked you.

As the album closed out with a prayer of redemption, with Kendrick choosing a different way, I rested in the reassurance that the catalyst for our journey doesn’t have to be noble for the outcome to be meaningful. Who we become isn’t contingent on where we were when we started or why we started in the first place. What matters is where we decided to take it once we realized that there was an opportunity for more.

Now, looking back at the notes I took from the session, I no longer see a few scattered thoughts. I see timestamps that reflect the people I knew, places I’d been, and things I’d done. I stare at them and no longer wish they were footnotes that would go unnoticed. Instead, I’m grateful for each and every one of those people, places, and things. Not because they were my best decisions, but because sometimes the greatest gift someone can give you is evidence that another life is possible.

There’s a difference between striving because you believe there can be more and striving because you believe what you have is never enough.

I was reminded of this while working on my latest essay as I stumbled into the memory of the first time I went hiking. I remember it because 15 minutes into the mountain, I discovered that it was indeed NOT a hike but a rock scramble.

After it set in that I’d been lied to, climbing over boulders and hitting real-life mountain climbers, I wanted nothing more than just to hit this peak so I could go home and never talk to these people again.

It was brutal, and I was uninitiated to this level of work.

When we finally got a chance to stop, I cried tears of exhaustion that turned into joy as I stared out at the most beautiful view. So imagine my surprise when, as we finished our conversation and started packing away our sandwiches and trail mix, I saw people pick up their bags, turn their backs on the scene we’d worked so hard to reach, and continue climbing.

All I could think to myself was, “What in the actual fuck! Have you people not had enough?”

“It’s not safe to go backward,” a woman called out as she saw me start to walk back down to the car. “But trust me… girl, that final peak? So worth it.”

I could have kept walking back and let gravity do its thing, but instead of busting my behind, with very little choice in the matter, I kept climbing.

The second peak came, and it unlocked an even better angle of the first view. The third peak came with a nice breeze that bounced off a cute little waterfall. When we got to the final peak just as sunset began, as promised, it was one of the most beautiful views of the day.

Beyond a good photo moment, at the top of that mountain I felt so free. I felt so accomplished. And despite standing 10,000 feet above the ground, I felt a sense of safety and assuredness that everything was okay.

This is probably one of the corniest ways to put it, but that day I didn’t just fall in love with hiking; I embodied one of life’s greatest metaphors, and it permanently shifted the way I framed success and accomplishment.

In today’s culture, there’s such a heavy emphasis on being in a constant state of improvement. We’re always in the mindset that we need to keep glowing up. We don’t sit in a milestone long enough before we’re striving for the next goal. The checklist is never completed because we keep adding new tasks and sub-items. That used to really put me off because it always painted a picture in my mind that I’d forever be running full speed towards a finish line that would never come. A race that could never be “won.”

I no longer think that’s the point of life. To win.

The only prize that comes with crossing the finish line in the race of life is getting to rest peacefully in a cool, satin-laced box.

So while I wrestle with the reality of the feeling of undone-ness that comes with an ever-moving goalpost, I also feel a sense of gratitude that, somewhere, someone sees fit to continue increasing my capacity. That, like that damn mountain, as I reach new heights, new goals appear.

They appear not because I want more; wanting more is merely moving from one place of lack and insufficiency to another. They appear because, at this new angle, I can see more and imagine more. I can visualize more than what was conceivable before this moment. But that’s what an accomplishment should do. It should change what you can see for yourself now compared to where you were standing. It should give you a new vantage point.

Striving for more was never about there not being enough, but about what you do once you have the ability to see beyond the threshold and can trust your capacity to hold it.

Success should widen your aperture, not tunnel your vision.

And so, as my draft stares back at me screaming to be completed, I’m enjoying the view from this newly reached peak. I can sit here and eat my trail mix while crying over this view, feeling proud of how far I’ve come, with excitement in my heart that there are still so many more peaks to go.

Not gonna lie, it was a lot easier to publish this Substack when I was simply writing to the void. There wasn’t so much riding on saying the most helpful thing, the punchy thing, the most agreeable thing.

It’s easy to say, "write like no one is watching," but there are now 750+ of you who have decided that my words are good enough to welcome into your inboxes. And that means something to me. It’s an answered prayer that I want to steward carefully.

Still, I feel unprepared. Like you showed up to the cookout “early” and caught me trying to get the last bits of my house together—even though the party technically started 20 minutes ago.

I’m ripping and running around, still finding my voice. Still tinkering with my format. Still understanding how I want to show up in a space like this. But now that you’re here, I have to take off my cooking sweats, put my party dress on, and show up in a different way. A more put-together way. The right way.

So I started looking to others as the blueprint:

• Reading every Substack about craft and growth that crossed my feed.

• Studying posting cadence, syntax, and newsletter formats of writers who were successful at this before me—bookmarking, highlighting, and underlining everything.

• Buying every tool that promised to help streamline and systemize my chaotic essay notes, mind maps, working titles, and fragmented thoughts.

• Adding new approaches I’d discover into an already overflowing writing practice.

• Adjusting my algorithms to show me all things writing, all the time.

I did what was asked of budding writers who are serious about their work—lean into the craft.

My most recent work is paying the price for it.

Looking at the folders filled with dozens of half-written drafts, it’s hard to see myself against the influence of others. Sure, my sentences are well-structured and sharp, but they’re equally lifeless and drained of meaning. Every thought fits nicely into the templates I created and follows the right rules, but they’re just sitting on the page, never really seeping into the depths of anything worthwhile. None of this happened before I put a measuring stick to my work.

As I sit here wrestling with the stage fright of showing up authentically to a larger audience, I’ve realized that the work doesn’t need to be sharper, punchier, or stretched into New York Times-worthy potential. It only needs to exist — as mine, not shaped into a mold of what it’s supposed to be.

Creating something that’s “right” means crafting something that’s real, not replicated.

Honestly, having a little taste of virality on my last post has left me trying to capture lightning in a bottle. How the hell did I do that? What made that piece so special? But it wasn’t because I spent hours finding newsletter templates or sketching out narrative diagrams; it was because I shared something authentic. An experience that was ownable to me but equally shared by others. That’s the actual formula.

What I’m learning about creating is that it’s not some special white room in your auntie’s house designed only to be admired; it’s meant to be touched and truly lived in. Ideas are meant to be held, flipped around, and placed upside down as something better… or worse (because who really cares). It doesn’t matter how it looks; what matters is how it feels.

Today I’m reckoning with the fact that some sentences will be ugly. Some posts won’t reach the masses. But they’ll be alive. Not because they’re perfect or fit the idea of what they should be, but because they’re mine.

Thanks for reading! Marginal Thoughts is a bi-weeklyish compilation of working thoughts, questions I’m asking myself, and musings that’ve lived in my notes app for far too long. A home for the ideas that aren’t finished but are worth sharing anyway.

The first thing I saw when I opened LinkedIn was their face front and center. A mutual liked an announcement about their new business venture, lopping the post right onto my feed. The last time this happened, it was them being named an honorary judge for a well-known creative award show. The time before that, yet another promotion.

If it were a better person, literally anyone else in the world, I’d be happy for them. I’d probably like, comment, even message them to share how proud I am of their accomplishments. But it was them. The only person in this lifetime who’s managed to shank me, leave me for dead, and seemingly get away with it.

Instantly, an unjustifiable rage filled my chest, and with every exhale, it felt like I was blowing fire. I cooled this anger by telling myself that nobody’s life is ever as good as it seems. That people like them are secretly miserable on the inside and probably get validation from sharing their highlight reel on social media. I try to convince myself that nobody who has ever wronged me has ended up in a better situation.

The more I sit with that, the less I believe it’s true.

While I do align with the idea that every thought, action, or intention has a corresponding outcome, it’s hard to know if there’s always an eventual karmic balancing of the scales. It’s hard to be certain that somewhere out there, the universe is keeping a ledger of wrongdoings that deserve consequence.

Sometimes bad people get to live a good life.

And if that’s true, then the story I’ve been telling myself, that my justice is just delayed, starts to look less like conviction and more like a coping mechanism designed to make the pain bearable. How else could you explain why a terrible person, one who’s the least deserving, is the one the world has chosen to continuously reward?

Maybe karma is real because it seems to find me just fine. The quiet losses, the public stumbles, the seasons of falling behind — none of that has happened to pass me by. Misfortune always has a way of finding me and never the ones who truly deserve it. Either the universe is wildly inconsistent in who it chooses to punish, or I’m not as innocent as I try to believe.

To say that I’m flawless would be a reach. I know I’m far from perfect and have committed my fair share of offenses. In middle school, I went through a mean girl era. When I’m angry, my tongue can get quite sharp. I’ve told lies that I will take to my grave. My actions have hurt people. And I know with most certainty that I’m accurately cast as the role of a villain in someone else’s story. Yet, in spite of all those things, I still consider myself to be a relatively good person who deserves good things to happen to them in this lifetime.

But I need to think that about myself.

I need to believe that I’m redeemable.

I need the world to know that my faults were flukes.

Because I am nothing like them.

The pain they caused is too unforgettable to ever be forgiven. Even if I did release them in peace, the lies they’ve told, the things they’ve said, the embarrassment they’ve caused require them to feel that same hurt and shame. They don’t get to walk away without a scratch. They don’t get to experience a pain-free existence. Yes, they may have beaten me last time, but they don’t get to win this round.

It’s not lost on me that the idea that our lives should be exponentially better than the people who hurt us isn’t just born of ego but is rooted in fear. Fear that no matter how hard we try, we’ll never surpass them. Fear that the Lord forgot about the vengeance and retribution he said he’d give on our behalf. Fear that, for them, the world still rotates without a second thought about the damage they’ve caused because they can’t be impacted by a grievance they think nothing of. That fear, the one where our suffering meant nothing to someone whose imprint changed everything, is a sting that lingers.

It’s why we promise ourselves that the get back will be crazy. That our successes will be the source of their regret. We promise to show and prove that the blows from their weapons didn’t cause us to crumble.

Those promises keep us moving forward. It forces us to show up for ourselves in ways that we may have abandoned in their presence. It lights a fire in us so intense that it demands reaction. When our rage meets an insatiable desire to prove its validity, it feeds a muse that demands our hatred to fuel its existence. It’s a hunger that mistakes revenge for freedom. It feels powerful and grand on the outside, but on the inside, it’s a shell of a victory that rings hollow.

That’s not a comeback. It’s an emotional hostage situation disguised as ambition.

When our reservoir of momentum requires us to keep the wound fresh, and our highlight reel requires us to keep their influence buried somewhere deep in the credits, it’s time to let the muse mature. To work in favor of the release without waiting for the score to be settled. To live a life that’s focused on creating toward something instead of against someone.

At some point, I have to want more for myself than wanting them to lose. I have to want my own version of a resolution even when anger isn’t the one handing it to me. I have to imagine what it would feel like to want something for no one’s benefit but my own.

Truthfully, if I subtract them from the equation, it may mean a life of full uninhibited peace. It may finally be the forgiveness I’ve been told that I should give. My only hope is that it’s more than just the emptiness between vengeance and existing without a target.

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I spent $128 dollars on community events this week.

$2 on a lecture series, $10 for a vinyl listening party, $11 for a game night, $22 for a workshop, $36 on a catch-up lunch with a friend, and $50 for a networking mixer.

That’s… kind of mind-blowing when I look at the numbers laid out like that.

As a recovering homebody, if this season of intentionally trying to make (and maintain) community has taught me anything, it’s this:

It costs a lot of money to keep a consistent calendar.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting a return on my investment.

I don’t remember it always being this way. When I first moved to the city, it wasn’t hard to be such a regular at the coffee shop that the barista started prepping my order before I even got to the counter. When I’m back in my hometown, I can easily spot a member of my old church congregation just by the back of their head. When I worked at my local cycling studio, we bought the riders cupcakes for their birthdays and flowers to celebrate their milestones.

That was the beautiful magic of having a third space. It brought people together simply through proximity and created an ecosystem of unlikely connections just by sharing the same space. You honestly didn’t even have to deeply engage to feel like you belonged.

But something shifted.

Social anxiety keeps us too fearful to connect. We’ve lost the art of approaching strangers. Some people even take pride in being unapproachable. While several factors created this perfect storm, it wouldn’t be a long shot to say that a cultural shift towards a more individualistic approach to interaction is one of them.

Enter 4th spaces.

With the decline of organic, proximity-based interaction (3rd spaces), a new type of connection based on shared interests and mindsets started to emerge. Your book club, the photography meetup, and your run club started becoming a more surefire way to find a like-minded community. It felt easier to establish connections when you were near your people. But above all else, it fostered a deep sense of belonging. Belonging that, sometimes, came with an entry fee.

Because we are lonelier than we’ve ever been and yearning for spaces to simply be, we see no harm in spending $10 here, $20 there on an event. But over time, it starts to add up.

Connection isn’t cheap. But it is profitable.

That’s no secret. The hottest commodity right now is loneliness. So much so that it’s created an economic boom in the 4th-space and curated-community business. In 2026, the loneliness economy is estimated to be worth over $500 billion, with “emotional labor as a service” becoming more prevalent.

Brands have taken notice, too.

It’s not uncommon to see a rooftop yoga series curated by a major athletic brand or a listening party brought to you by a music streaming platform. Today, entire holding companies are being built, branded, and betting on your loneliness.

Ebooks, courses, and Discord servers are teaching people how to build and grow communities—not to connect, but to capitalize.

Since community has been corrupted by capitalism, it's now the perfect time to turn connection into a side hustle.

Let me be crystal clear, I’m not saying it’s wrong or immoral to charge for an event or a community experience. It’s the reality of the economy that we live in. Venue costs, F&B, DJs, the small details, that’s not cheap. What might be free to consume was not free to create.

What I am saying is that there is a growing disconnect between organizers’ intentions and community impact, leaving an overarching expectation gap that’s not being filled. When it becomes more about leaning into trends than building trust, about compensation over human connection, and about curating aesthetics rather than facilitating experiences, people have the right to be skeptical.

So, again, it begs the question:

Is there a return on investment in paying for community?

For some, it is.

The idea of community coming at a price offers many benefits. Cost creates curation, and curation brings guarantees. It ensures that everyone in this room actually wants to be here and is in alignment, whether that’s similar interests, a desired vibe, or a shared purpose—there’s no confusion about why we’re here and what we paid to experience. Knowing that the room is filled with like-minded people also takes something challenging—like approaching—and removes the awkward, making it feel more natural even if it is being controlled.

For others, the core idea of community is gone, leaving something hollow in its place.

Community was always a system of survival. It’s what got people through the hardest of times and kept them together in the good times. That system today has been colonized. Gatekept behind a glass made up of high-priced tickets and unjustifiable membership tiers. In order to access that connection, you not only have to pay to play, but also pay to stay.

For me, it’s been a push and pull between what’s real and what’s simply marketed to my loneliness.

I’ve met some of my closest NYC friends in 4th spaces that didn’t cost a dime to get into. I’ve paid $100 for experiences that promised a real connection, and fully delivered on that promise. I’ve been to both paid and free experiences that were subpar, money-grabbing grifter gimmicks disguised as community and “culture”.

Every experience, however, leaves me asking if this is really the future of what it means to find belonging.

If something as natural as connection can really be quantified by dollars and cents.

If the cure for loneliness really is on the other side of a Posh link.

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While reading Nancy Doyle’s book, Learning From Neurodivergent Leaders, I leaned back a little when she used the word “unalive” to describe her struggles with mental health. Her statement — a deep, powerful, and resonant analysis on the weight of grief — instantly lost its power.

I could understand if we were trying to skirt past the algorithm on TikTok. Or if I were talking to my middle school-aged cousin. But this wasn’t the language I expected to hear from an academic in a psychological text, no less. I initially questioned her choice of wording. Why use “unalive” when “death” was equally, if not more, appropriate?

I soon realized that I do it too. Responding “period” to affirm a coworker’s Teams message or bringing an online meme into a real-world context. Our approach to everyday language has shifted into something so algorithmic. TikTok has become an etymological source, bringing with it the collapse of context.

The acceleration of online words getting offline meanings not only causes semantic dilution but also leaves subcultural communities holding fragments of their own creations. Flattened into a trend. The words may not be lost, but control is.

The DoubleClick:

If everybody gets to say it, nobody has to understand it.

In the early 2000’s, regionality determined what you said, what music you listened to, and what you wore. You could instantly identify someone based on the cultural codes they embodied. You’d never hear the word “jawn” outside of Philly, never see a candy-painted Chevy outside the South. While television and music may have popularized many of these signatures, it was unmistakable who held the source.

Today, virality has erased those boundaries. It’s not uncommon to hear your cousin in Texas say, “you moving mad weird,” embodying New York lingo, or your heterosexual white coworker tapping two fingers together, telling you to “clock it”. The interconnectivity of the online world means words and codes travel faster than their meaning can — and further than their community intended.

What used to take years to cross state and cultural lines now only takes hours to go global, hitting your grandma’s Facebook feed in a matter of months. As the wildfire spreads, it is actively erasing the languages that communities like ballroom culture and AAVE have built.

Other times, it’s spreading harmful, and sometimes dangerous, rhetoric without knowledge or care about its origins. It’s how words like looksmaxxing or Tradwife, born from incel and alt-right forums on platforms like 4chan, get sanitized and repackaged as trends. Making it easy to rebrand them as harmless lifestyle choices, TikTok hype, and brandable content.

Adam Aleksic elaborated on the mechanism by which internet language became so monolithic in his TEDxPenn talk and how social media is changing the way we talk. The answer is hidden in our relationship to algorithms. Like a game of telephone, the algorithm sees a code, interprets its high usage as a trend, and spreads it wide enough for people to latch onto it and boost its popularity.

But algorithms have no social code. It’s not bound to preserving culture or protecting nuance. All it needs to know is that people want this, and what they want it will give them more of it.

Digital lexicons are here to stay. Their adoption into the mainstream means that soon we’ll all speak one universal flattened dialect built by algorithms, ripped from communities. The question isn’t whether it’s coming; it’s already here. The question is, how much further will it go?

When words mean everything and nothing all at once, we inherit a language that’s consumable by anyone, and seemingly owned by no one.

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Sitting on the floor, clearing off my bookshelf, I found myself rereading my notes, old journals, and notebooks. In them I’d written so much about my desires, not just for partnership, but for belonging, for purpose, for things unseen but close enough to touch. I wrote of cities, people, accomplishments, goals – some that came to be. Others that have gone unmarked year after year, entry after entry.

Something in me felt ashamed of that.

Ashamed that I still wanted the same things in 2026 that I did in 2019. Ashamed that over time, some of my longings were slipping into desperation. Ashamed that somewhere along the line, I let logic, reasoning, and the intellectualization of my emotions seep in and poison my belief in the magic of what could be.

This week, during my Bible study, I found myself in the Song of Songs. It’s a beautiful book that is often overlooked outside its application to romantic partnership. It isn’t just a set of poems from two people deeply in love with each other, longing to be together—it’s a powerful meditation on waiting. It holds the tension between yearning for what you desire and trusting that it will come at the right time.

What stuck out to me wasn’t just how adamant she is in her desire for love, but how disciplined she is in waiting for it.

Her call to not awaken love before its time sits at the heart of yearning – balancing her real, urgent, and undeniable desires with the recognition that timing matters. Circumstance matters. And desire that is forced too soon risks collapsing under its own weight.

That, to me, is the beauty of yearning. The very fact that you don’t have it and can’t get it. The ache for something that is so out of your reach yet essential to your existence. That’s what makes the feeling so powerful.

The art of yearning has almost gone out of style. In an age of instant gratification, where nearly everything is available on demand, why wait, why risk, why long, when you can get something more attainable at your fingertips? We’ve grown to prefer outcomes we can control rather than sit in the tension of wanting something that may never come.

To yearn is to open yourself up to the disappointment of the unknown. To dream and work with no guarantee. And that goes against how most of us are taught to live. Waiting for what you cannot force is an acknowledgement that not everything worth having can be controlled.

The beauty of yearning is not only in its absence but in its honesty. It forces us to confront the vulnerability we avoid admitting to ourselves. When we allow ourselves to want deeply, we uncover truths about ourselves. We see what matters most—what cuts through distraction and comfort and says, “This, I cannot stop wanting, and I don’t know who I’d be without it.”

This realization can be liberating, but it also begs a terrifying question: Does what I want want me back? It places us on the fragile edge of longing. To yearn without reciprocity is to sit in potential heartbreak. And so many of us, myself included, avoid yearning because we do not want to confront that uncertainty. We wrestle with the possibility that the doubts we have in ourselves, the ones we bury deep inside of us, may be true. Why long for intimacy, for purpose, for belonging, if it may never look back at us with equal intensity? Why risk being unanswered?

But what if it does want to hold you? To yearn is to have faith in the risk of believing that someone, something, might also be reaching back in return. That we are indeed worthy of receiving the desires placed in our hearts.

Maybe our yearnings are not accidents but alignments. A call towards our deepest desires, placed within us by God, to shape us, to draw us closer to what He intends. If so, then yearning is not just about what we want, but about trusting that what we long for also carries a divine echo—what we long for isn’t just desired, it’s designed. As I sit patiently in anticipation of what’s for me, I lean into the comfort that time waiting isn’t time wasted. The act of patience is in itself the beginning of faith. The tension between desire and fulfillment, between absence and presence, is the very thing we need to still believe in possibility.

Sitting back on the floor with my journal spread around me, I found pride in the realization that I want it. I’m going to keep wanting it. And there’s no shame in trusting that the wanting itself means something.

Preemptive rejection is probably the hardest kind there is to navigate. Bracing yourself for a loss that might happen eventually, or maybe not at all, is overwhelming. My emotions are all over the place, feeling hurt and betrayed while also understanding and motivated. Underneath all of that, I feel grief. Grief for something that has yet to die, and I am willfully choosing not to save because even if it were revived, nothing about it would be the same. Every moment would be full of resentment, knowing that deep down there was the consideration of being discarded.

I imagine it’s how Isaac felt about Abraham after he said, “lol nvm,” when he was gonna sacrifice him on that mountain. That doesn’t just go away. We don’t get to pretend that you didn’t just raise a knife to my throat.

So, I’m choosing to let it die.

The choice to lean into my mourning was born out of not choosing to perform love or loyalty for something that has proven none to me. The idea that by virtue signaling my devotion, I will somehow salvage everything is not only absurd, but it sets the precedent for an existence I can’t live in forever.

Grieving something that’s still very much alive isn’t easy, but it does have its benefits.

The nice thing about mourning something that is still alive is that you have time to prepare to take the blow. You have time to gather resources, reinforce your life, make adjustments, and mentally prepare. You’ve cried so many tears in anticipation that when it happens, you can fully accept it with peace in your heart. Just like a tornado warning — it doesn’t stop your house from getting blown away, but it does help you make it out alive.

There’s also something beautiful about the whole ordeal. Like a little gift from life. The gift of knowing that death will come sparks something in you to live. To enjoy life to its fullest extent while starting to plan what life looks like on the other side of this. There’s a popular question: would you rather know how you’re going to die or when? Knowing that the time is coming inspires you to make every moment in between count.

It’s not all easy, and honestly, quite foolish to think that this level of loss carries no impact. The hardest part of knowing the end is coming is the mask that must be worn in the meantime. Hiding the truth. The tear that can’t slip. The attitude that can’t fluctuate. The person who can’t crack. The sense of normalcy that is required, not because you don’t want to let on that you know, but because it hurts to touch the raw reality of the saxophones that are getting louder.

I do take comfort in knowing that these realities haven’t changed my heart posture. The thing you love, the person it made you, none of that changes just because a person, place, or thing is gone. Loss doesn’t change the purpose of life; it reinforces it. It proudly proclaims that even if it’s not with you, this outcome is still mine. In fact, it’s never felt more mine than it does right now.

I know grieving the living is a hard thing to swallow, but it is digestible. And as cliché as it sounds, it’s inspiring me to live the truest, most honest version of myself that I’ve neglected and boxed up. Making the most of what I have till it’s gone.

I will survive, I will survive. As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll be alive.

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You asked me, “When did I know I was a woman?” and that’s a question that’s as heavy as a day is long.

The answer lies only in a story about a girl I used to know.

She was just like you.

In many ways, she still is.

See, for her, girlhood never truly ended. It just became layered.

Going deeper and deeper.

Calcifying itself on the way down.

And her memories, while nostalgic, are shaped by rules of survival.

I can still see her legs swinging on the edge of her grandma’s table with Blue Magic and bow bows in her lap on a Sabbath morning before church. For the first day of school, her cousin plaited 1B Kanekalon into rows down her back. The kitchen served as a sacred space for this ceremony of femininity. With hours spent over the sink and under hot combs, stories shared here were full of history and heart, orated with love. And within each part, each twist, each braid, a lesson was embedded.

It would be the first place she learned that pain and beauty were intertwined.

Those Saturday morning church services were where she’d learn to be a lady. Hem to the knee, stockings that mimicked skin, “the higher the heel, the closer to heaven”. In those pews, she’d come to know that appearance was more than reverence to God but esteem in herself.

At home, within closets and bedroom corners, she’d orchestrate her dolls to act out narratives of what she’d seen and heard. Creating worlds where, for once, she controlled the story. Not realizing that her imagination wasn’t just an escape, it was preparation.

Girlhood for her was messy, it was whimsical, but most of all, it was complicated.

In her later days, she’d run home desperate to check her MySpace, feeding her growing desire to be seen, to be chosen, to matter. Her top friends were a collection of the people in her world. Her screen name served as an alternate self, but it was nonetheless the truest reflection of who she was. Her status became a look into the most honest parts of her soul. Red bubbles would be her first confirmation that she belonged.

In the background, bootleg mixtapes rapped lyrics she honestly had no business listening to, absorbing adult emotions before she could fully understand them. Music was emotional education. Portals to worlds she’d never been to and lives she’d never live. Those voices taught her how to feel and defined what was real.

She’d unpack her bag and smooth out the notes that were previously tucked into her locker and then shoved into the crevices of binder folds. They held the secret language of friendship, “Thx 4 coming today. I rly hate this class,” and memorialized her first brushes with puppy love, “I think you’re cute - xo, anonymous.” These notes were an underlying lifeline to social connection, “Vending machines at the bell, k?”

Despite all of this, she still fantasized about being the Black girls she’d seen on TV, living lives she wished were hers. As stylish as Raven Baxter, as quirky as Tia and Tamera, as smart as Moesha, as grown as the women on Girlfriends. To her, real Black girlhood was a possibility… elsewhere. And she longed to one day be her, whoever she was.

That day would never come.

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When she graduated to her first acrylic set, she would find her armor and power in every shade of pink and purple OPI she could find in the salon. Quick weaves wielded alchemy she’d never trialed before.

She couldn’t have known then that the magic of girlhood would soon teach her spells she’d never forget.

Spells designed as warning signs for places one should never go.

Sorcery crafted to protect her from a world that wouldn’t.

Wizardry that taught her that who she was without it would never be enough to survive.

There was the incantation to ‘Always be a lady’: Soft. Gentle. Likable. Never gaudy. Well-kept. She never questioned who decided what a lady was, but she always wondered why she looked nothing like her. She learned to shape shift before she had a name for it, and suffered from the exhaustion of constant calibration into different selves for different rooms.

She adopted the ancient mythology that Black women should always be independent and can do for themselves, but never be too masculine or overbearing. Self-sufficient but still malleable. Capable but not threatening. She learned to walk the tightrope of being everything and nothing all at once.

She honed the craft of being “twice as good.” Working harder, being better, to prove her worth without making anyone uncomfortable with her excellence. She kept quiet even when she knew the answer. She asked questions and sought help for things she’d known how to do on her own a long time ago. She softened her talents because who cared about the specialties of a little Black girl anyway?

When her body developed faster than the language to discuss it, she mastered the art of invisibility on her own. Trying hard to heed the warnings about the powers held within her hips. She knew desire was deadly, but soon enough, curiosity would breed danger, and exploration would breed shame.

Girl politics and first heartbreaks would teach her the inevitability of betrayal from the coven. She’d discover that all the magic in the world couldn’t protect you from discovering that love could hurt. She’d learn to cry alone, to perform when she wasn’t fine, to build armor from scar tissue, with one lesson to rule them all: never trust too much.

And to her dismay—when the shimmer tarnished, when she discovered that who she was would always need protection, when girlhood began to ache—is when womanhood began to take shape. The brutally honest acknowledgment that strength was birthed through damage.

Soon enough she’d be instinctively applying lipstick shades and putting on mini skirts she never wanted to wear. She’d work hard to establish herself on her own but would always save a little room for the man she hoped would one day come—and stay. She’d abandon the complexities of community because all she really needed was herself at the end of the day.

One day the little girl inside her slowly faded away. Pushed to the side to make room for the woman she seemingly became overnight. The one they’d told her to be. Her body forced into submission before her mind could process.

Was this what womanhood was designed to be? Emotions buried under busyness, joy hidden under ambition, yearnings surrendered to deflection?

How could she stand face-to-face in front of that little girl with the task of delivering disappointment?

Disappointment in the exhaustion of code-switching so often she forgot which voice was hers. In the weight of carrying everyone’s comfort but her own. In the quiet rage of being told she was “too much” and “not enough” all in the same breath.

What if instead she could tell her that she did not have to live with shame in order to keep herself safe. That she did not have to embody protective mechanisms that would become prisons, or to take on second-guessing as a survival strategy. That she could find a way to craft meaning, define life, in her own way.

What if she could tell her that girlhood still lives—in her laugh, her dreams, her imagination. That in many ways, it never leaves. It’s not a phase you outgrow. Instead it evolves, gently nudging to move through the world with childlike wonder. That she should be herself and herself alone. Not the version they want, but the full, complicated, messy, magical. Remind her that she’s worth defining.

To become the woman I am I had to stop trying to silence the girl. I learned to listen to her in my mirror when I’m getting ready, in my voice when I’m loud about something small, in my fear when I’m unsure of what’s next, in my joy when it all works out.

One day, when you’re grown, you’ll have your own version of this conversation: with yourself, with your daughter, with the next generation. You’ll see her, the girl you were, and understand that she never ended. She echoes. In your walk, in the way you still believe—despite everything, against all evidence—that magic is real.

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Two years ago was the perfect time to get sober. Everyone was exploring the idea of leaving behind bad habits. There was the rise of sober curiosity, challenges like Dry January, and (for better or worse) the desire to have the clean girl aesthetic. Of course, brands and marketers ate that shit up. I saw far too many zero-proof menus that doubled as an excuse to squeeze $15 out of you for craft juice. Some of it was authentic. Most of it was for show and sales.

While I’d love to say that my journey was built on aesthetics, in reality, my path was more about recovery than trend. Still, I do, in part, have to thank the success of my sobriety on the performativeness of others.

When others performed, it made it easier to blend in. It made it seem like I was riding the wave of influence, just following the crowd. That perceived performativeness, however, also meant that my timing couldn’t have been worse. People used sobriety as a status symbol. A marker of superiority. They wore the badge proudly while attempting to mark others with shame.

As I waded into the waters of this new lifestyle, I had to work hard to convince myself, and others, that my choice not to drink wasn’t a virtue signal for my morality. I remember being turned down on a date because he felt like, as a sober person, I’d always be judging him. Which was incorrect, but fair… I guess.

It wasn’t just him, though. As weeks turned into months, I got comments like, “I’m surprised you’re still doing the whole sobriety thing.” When I’d turn down a round of shots, I got responses like, “Oh shit… you’re really doing this.” Or when I’d initiate a night out, I got responses like, “Why go if you’re not going to drink?”

I still remember the first time I marked “Non-alcoholic beverages” as my dietary restriction at work. I felt like the biggest grifter. Do they really need to know? Will they actually even care? What if they think I’m faking it? Or worse, what if it doesn’t stick and I’ve wasted everybody’s time and brought unnecessary attention to myself?

I knew my journey was real, but at every turn, it felt like I had to verify the authenticity of my actions.

I even felt that pressure in the Zoom rooms. I read the daily reflection like gospel. I worked hard to embody the Serenity Prayer as a way of life. I tried (poorly) to work the steps. I’d share my lukewarm stories. There were plenty of days when I felt like I was cosplaying.

How could I have been struggling and still partying? How could I have been struggling if I gave it up so “easily”? Why was I claiming it when people had hit rockier bottoms? Why was I trying so hard to be a sober person?

All around it felt phony, fake, performative at best—until it wasn’t.

Fast-forward to 2026, and the need for proof of validity still stands. While authenticity is all the rage, it’s also one of the most policed things about us. We’ve all become experts at sniffing out the fake—or at least what we believe to be fake. We demand proof of realness before we deem someone’s journey as legitimate. And when we catch someone’s shift in real time, we shame them and call it a fraud.

This fear of being viewed as performative not only paralyzes people from trying out loud but also stunts them from experimenting, discovering, expressing, and even becoming new versions of themselves.

And because we don’t want to get caught looking like performers, called out as frauds, or dragged for attempting, we never really become anything.

Yes, everything we perform isn’t what we become, but everything we become is because we performed.

We’ve always been performing

We may not want to admit it, but social life has always been about performance. Sociologist Erving Goffman argued in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life that every social interaction is a form of performance. His theory can be summarized by three key points:

• Performance is universal: We’re always “on stage,” presenting a version of ourselves shaped by who’s watching and what we want them to think about us.

• Stigmatized people perform harder: If people could discredit your performance, you have to work harder to manage how others see you. You can’t just “be yourself”; you have to prove your legitimacy and manage others’ perceptions of you.

• Identity isn’t revealed; it’s built through performance: Contrary to popular belief, you don’t just one day discover some hidden version of yourself; you build it brick by brick by performing those behaviors.

This challenges our idealized narrative of what it means to be authentic. We view it as something innate and organic. It’s spoken of as if it’s the undercurrent of our DNA. Something that just is. But, according to Andreas Reckwitz, it’s all ‘performative authenticity.’

In today’s world, being authentically yourself has become an obligation, not a choice. Authenticity isn’t just something you have; it’s something you must demonstrate and broadcast. And that broadcast must be unique, it must be special, it must be different than anyone else’s. But God forbid anyone catch you trying to figure out what your version of authenticity looked like—that would be marked as inauthentic. Authenticity must be curated and performed visibly while appearing completely unperformed. The effort of being you has to appear effortless.

There’s no denying that some performances are hollow. But can we always tell the difference in real-time?

Calling people out isn’t protecting authenticity—it’s gatekeeping who gets to change.

The authenticity trap

This isn’t just about sobriety, though. The authenticity paradox shows up everywhere, and always in the same way: we celebrate the outcome while sneering at the process.

I think about conversations like the performative male. In a time where men are told that they’re not emotive enough, that they’re shallow, and don’t have genuine interests outside of typical masculine things, when they do begin to explore a variation of themselves that’s different than the norm, they’re shamed for it.

Or consider the rising literary crisis. People are shamed for not being familiar with certain concepts, not having read certain materials, or not being exposed to certain media, yet at the same time are shamed for wanting to educate themselves or acknowledging publicly that they don’t know what they don’t know instead of pretending they do.

Even as trends like offline become the new high-value status symbol, if analog living isn’t embodied or expressed in a certain way, it’s not authentic enough.

In every case, the pattern is the same: We demand transformation while criminalizing the visible labor of transforming. We celebrate authenticity while punishing anyone caught becoming a more authentic version of themselves. And the people hurt most are those who actually want to change. The man who genuinely wants to unlearn toxic patterns, the person sincerely trying to expand their knowledge, and the person who truly wants to evaluate their relationship with digital spaces. They’re paralyzed by the fear that their clumsy first steps will mark them as frauds.

Meanwhile, the gatekeepers, those who’ve already made the journey and forgotten what it looked like to be unseasoned, police the boundaries. Their own messy becoming is invisible to them now that hindsight turned into a narrative of natural, effortless authenticity that was always there.

When fake becomes real

When I think of my own sobriety story, I can’t tell you when things stopped feeling fake and started being real.

Some things I adopted from those early days, I kept—the daily check-ins, the honesty about triggers, the boundaries around specific spaces. Some things I adopted, I abandoned—the rigid stepwork, the prayer language, the performative gratitude that felt hollow.

But all of it was worth trying on at least once.

The performance didn’t become reality in a single moment. It accumulated until one day I just realized I wasn’t pretending anymore, or maybe I was still pretending in some ways, but it didn’t matter because the pretending was doing its job. I had become a sober person, not by uncovering some hidden, authentic self, but by performing sobriety until the performance and the person were indistinguishable.

I think about this now whenever I see someone embarking on something new. The person on their fourth attempt at weight loss. The one starting a podcast with zero audio skills. The person suddenly obsessed with the latest productivity system and posting about their 5 am routine.

I used to roll my eyes and think ‘here we go again’ or ‘this is just for show.’ As if I could tell. As if the difference was visible from the outside. As if my judgment even mattered.

But now I realize that I looked exactly like that. Performative. And if someone had called me out, if someone had said ‘you’re just doing this for attention,’ I might have believed them and would’ve stopped.

So whether they choose to keep going or change their minds after they stop pressing record, it’s not up to me to dictate who or what they are allowed to become.

Instead, I choose to protect the messy middle. Not comment on people’s visible trying. Resist the urge to determine whether it’s real, because I don’t know. I can’t know. And my skepticism might be the thing that stops them.

Don’t let your gatekeeping keep you from remembering that to someone, you, too, were a performative mess. You might still be. But that didn’t stop you from becoming who you needed to be.

What if they become it anyway? What if, like me, they look back in two years and can’t tell which parts were fake and which were real because it all mattered? What if your silence is the permission they need to keep growing?

Let people get caught trying. It’s the only way any of us become anything at all.

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This week I turn 32, and something about it just feels… right. I don’t feel rushed to do any crazy last-minute solo trips to celebrate. I don’t feel pressure to do anything major with my friends or family. I just feel at ease about flowing into my birthday in a way that I’ve never done before. Quietly.

32 feels like a sigh of relief.

After fighting so hard to shift, shape, and structure the future, I’ve accepted that there is only so much I can control. I feel a renewed passion and energy in my soul that I just find so inspiring. It’s comforting to know that the best years of my life are not behind me; they’re still being formed right now.

That’s why I hate that the thirties have gotten such a bad reputation, and we don’t do much to help it. Content and conversations about this age seem to be shaped around how much time’s been wasted, how to reinvent yourself, go harder, or flat-out contempt for the twenties. The obsession with things like 30 under 30 or holding tightly to looking and feeling younger than your age has led us to believe that when you reach this age and don’t have anything to show for it, then your life is somehow going downhill.

You mean to tell me the highlight of your entire existence was at 25?

I refuse to believe that.

Something about the deep disdain people have for their 30’s reminds me of a moment from the last day of grad school. After the final assignment was turned in and our 60 weeks were over, through a teary-eyed farewell, our professor shared one last token of wisdom that’s followed me for years: “Don’t peak too soon.”

At the time, it just sounded like a clever thing to say in the moment.

I’m starting to fully understand it now.

The assumption is that the peak marks the beginning of the downfall. I think the reality is more complex than that. Peaking is the moment when you’ve become so comfortable, so familiar, so nostalgic for a moment that has come and gone that you refuse to accept what is. It’s about staying in the past as much as it’s about trying to force a future. Peaking is scrambling to believe that any moment but this one is where you belong.

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Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never put that much stock into my age. It just was what it was. When I attended a housewarming party over the holidays, something about that mindset shifted.

As the afternoon went on, the conversation drifted to life milestones and trading stories about the worst age we’ve ever been. Heartbreaks at 22. Uncertainties at 25. Stuck at 27. I listened intently to their stories about what it felt like to be in their twenties, and I joked about how most of that changes in your thirties. It was just an offhanded remark until the energy in the room shifted onto me. “Do your thirties really feel that… different?” Someone asked, “No, but it feels better.”

The thing about ‘better’ is that it isn’t a destination you arrive at. It’s the subtle shifts you notice over time. The fear that melts away when you’re faced with a familiar challenge. The way you summon your inspiration back when it’s blocked. The sweetness of the work returning after rest from burnout.

The situations you face don’t change—you do.

But something about that conversation made me think back on all the times life felt like it had reached its peak. Like it was “as good as it was gonna get.”

When I was 22, graduation should have been the highlight of my life, but I was an emotional wreck. I spent most of my time in one spot on the couch, sad and scared about what was coming after undergrad. As my friends got job offers and grad school acceptances, I had nothing. It felt like they were peaking, and I was being left behind. Not realizing that my path was just different from theirs.

By 25, I started working at one of the top advertising agencies in the industry and was thriving. But something felt like I wasn’t supposed to be here. So I went looking for my place. Agency after agency, I slowly chipped away pieces of myself, my confidence, my fire, until eventually there was nothing left. I thought this was what my career was just going to be. If I had peaked then, I would have stayed in those places that weren’t meant for me, wondering what life could have been, and never seeking more.

When a pandemic hit, I was lying back in my childhood bedroom at 27, still crying over stupid boys in the same spot from 10th grade. I was deeply disappointed in myself. Like I’d never really grown up. I didn’t know what life could be on the other side of that. Until I discovered that rock bottoms were the perfect foundations for building something better. Had that been my peak, I’d probably still be in that room today.

Truthfully, it used to bring me so much grief that those moments shaped my twenties. So much so that turning 30, I didn’t know what to expect. Another decade of burnout? Fear? Heartbreak? Maybe. But while the challenges may stay the same, the lessons I learned have hardened into pillars of wisdom that keep me grounded this time. None of that would have happened if I peaked too soon.

I see things differently now. The dreams I’m building at 32 would have never been possible ten years ago. The wrong people and places taught me all the right things. Focusing on my own pace gave me confidence and trust in the race that I’m running. And I grew secure enough with myself to understand that a table for one is better than no table at all.

It’s a privilege to age. It’s something many people don’t get to do. And with it comes the realization that the challenges we face and the shifts we go through are proof that we’re still growing.

Thank God I didn’t peak at 22.

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I just finished watching 11.22.63 on Netflix and baby…**chef’s kiss**. It was your typical time-travel show: a man travels back in time to save JFK and hopes his decision will make the world a better place. As I watched the finale feeling satisfied, it made me turn the question back on myself: if given the opportunity, what moment, what decision could I go back and change that would’ve made all the difference?

I know enough about time travel to know that changing even one small thing—the path I took that morning, a flirty smile that stayed straight—would change my life forever. But the question still intrigued me. So many moments could have been when everything shifted, for better or for worse.

I was flipping through the Rolodex of memories in my head and thinking about what life could’ve been like when my mind quickly took a sharp turn. What was fun and playful imagination transitioned into an equation made up of pain, longing, and regret, all adding up to one five-letter word: Grief.

I began mourning the places I thought I’d be by now, people I thought I’d have met, experiences I thought I’d have had. The disappointment that those things may never happen carries a weight heavier than a burden, but for a long time, it felt like something best ignored.

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I never learned how to grieve.

I learned how to move on. Learned how to keep my head up. But I never learned how to look my younger self in the face and acknowledge the heavy heart she carried.

I never told her that, even though we turned out fine, I’m sorry for all the ways I disappointed her by taking this path instead of the one she laid out. I didn’t stick to the plan, and I owe her an explanation as to why I had to make the choices that led to these outcomes.

It saddens me that even with all the reassurance in the world, I can’t promise her that what lies ahead are greener pastures. All I can give her is comfort and encouragement that we’re exactly where we need to be. But comfort isn’t the same as a guarantee.

When I was 17, Beyoncé taught me to embrace heartbreak as the best thing I never had, but now, as a grown woman, gratitude is showing me how to grieve and accept that this life might be the best thing I never wanted.

The bodega man who knows my order and compliments even my bummy outfits, being packed shoulder to shoulder on a Brooklyn-bound A train, the picturesque view of the skyline in an Uber after a great night out, wasn’t the life I imagined. It was better.

And even on the worst of days, when the car wires get chewed up by city rats, when the door clicks before realizing the keys are on the other side, I take in the vastness of this city and am met with the freedom to reinvent myself over and over each day.

Some nights when I’m alone in my apartment, I still play the “what if” game. I still feel that place in my heart fill up with resentment. But when gratitude meets grief, it creates room. Room to honor what was given up while acknowledging what was gained. Room to learn how to live with the choices we’ve made.

I may never time-travel to the moment when it all happened, but even if I could, there’s no reason to go back.

The life I wanted wasn’t wrong; it just wasn’t mine.

And I’m better for it.

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As a systems thinker, I plan a lot of life before I live it. I dive deep into theory and concepts, love a rule, and appreciate a nice set of guidelines. Like any good strategist, I sit down and think through a plan for the variables and things within my control. But when it comes time to apply the experiment… testing for potential outcomes becomes a different story.

This freeze shows up in many places: work, friendships, setting goals—but the place it’s been showing up the most is in my dating life, or rather, my dating expectations.

I know more about how to date than I’ve actually dated.

Every time I open an app, it doesn’t take long to scroll and find a date gone wrong story time on my feed. I’ve heard and, for the most part, heeded the warnings and antidotes of what to look out for from the people around me. I’ve even gone as far as to read thorough, research-backed essays on why things are the way they are. I’ve trusted these sources because even if it wasn’t my experience, it was somebody’s truth. While there is validity in hearing someone else’s story, there’s a difference between collecting information and taking on their outcomes as your own.

That thinking led me to adopt theories about men who matched certain criteria. When I met someone who carried those characteristics, my first instinct was to run. This time, something in me decided to test fire, to see if what other women said was true. In this instance, it wasn’t.

Although it didn’t end in a love story, it did provide a new perspective. It exposed new dealbreakers and shifted the necessity of others. It expanded my understanding of the “why” behind certain actions. Most importantly, it provided me with first-hand data drawn from my own conclusions, not from the peer reviews of others.

Theories are sometimes wrong.

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Experience gives us what theory alone can’t: Practice.

The taboo part about practice is that it often reveals the limitations behind our theories. It shows us just how wrong our assumptions were, requiring us to adapt. That’s just how it works. New experiences are supposed to provide you with new information. New information is supposed to change you.

While theory lets you live comfortably in the space between knowing and doing, practice collapses that space entirely. It requires more. It asks you to give yourself permission to be wrong in real time. It asks you to trust yourself, knowing that you don’t know the answers. It asks you to challenge the limits of what you believe to be true. Herminia Ibarra has a quote that actually sums it up perfectly: “We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.”

It’s easier to get caught up in how life should work instead of what really happens when we take an action. A part of healthy growth is to learn more about ourselves, dispel our fears, and, for better or worse, form opinions based on firsthand experiences.

When I reflect on where I was three months ago, I realize that much of what I understood about life was all hypothetical. It was based on ideals, concepts, and rules that I’d adopted because society told me so. The price of living a hypothetical life is never knowing what it truly feels like to live on your own accord. To collect your own lessons. To make your own decisions regardless of public perception.

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Life moves fast.

Sometimes so fast that you look up and realize that you’ve been everywhere but inside your own life.

Just as soon as I’d gotten settled back into my routine, I was already on the move again. I’d just gotten back from Mexico City (which somehow was a month ago). As I write this, I’m currently on a flight back to New York from San Diego for work. Next week I’ll be in DC until the new year. And in two weeks, it’ll be 2026.

Add in all the work that has to happen between now and then, and the timeline feels impossible. But it’s also proof of how fast life can happen without you really noticing.

This year, I made a conscious effort to break the habit of hesitancy I’d adopted in my life. I had grown to overthink everything. I made plans. I put together outlines. I did everything to avoid actually doing the thing. So I took on the mindset of momentum. I began taking swift motions, putting one foot in front of the other, and let it carry me over the last 12 months.

I got pretty far. I quit a part-time job that was no longer serving me (or I it), I was creative lead on my first activation, I put a major dent in my debt while also putting a significant amount into my savings, I’m thissss close to reaching my weight loss goal, began decluttering my home, got my first paying client as a freelancer, filed for my LLC, and crossed five new cities and one country off my list. 2025 was one of my most consistent, goal-hitting years in a long time.

What troubles me is that I barely remember any of it.

If not for check marks on the vision board above my desk, when I think of the story I’d tell about this year, I can recall all the things I’ve done, but I can’t really remember how any of it felt. Just as soon as I crossed one thing off the list, another thing followed right behind it. It’s almost like I went on this amazing journey with my head down, so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that when I looked up, I’d arrived at my destination with no recollection of how I got there.

Looking back on this year, having momentum was great. Momentum was necessary. But momentum without memory, just fast movement, starts to ring hollow after a while.

The practice of presence is a skill I’ve often mistaken for stagnation. When I’m so busy prioritizing what’s next, sitting still feels unnatural, irresponsible even. The moments when I’m not in motion, when time stands still, feel like wasted opportunities. I always feel like the idle time could be filled with seeing more, doing more, and being more. But this year, for the first time, I started to notice just how important it is to really take it all in.

When I filed for my LLC a few weeks ago, I was surprised by how quickly the process took. On a Sunday afternoon, I sat at my laptop and, within moments, became a business owner. There was no experience. No euphoric feeling. Just another item on the to-do list marked as done. Another achievement was added to the board. I was excited, but as quickly as the feeling came, it went. I’m tired of it all feeling so fleeting.

The right now is arguably the most important moment in time I’ll ever live. It’s the only moment that I can reach out, touch, and feel. If I’m spending all of my now focused on accumulating achievements and not investing in the experiences, I’m missing the point of life. My achievements will tell the story of what I’ve done; my experiences will bear the proof of who I was while it was taking shape.

To have the memories, I have to learn to live in the experiences, the micro moments, that create them. I have to register it in my mind, imprint it into my soul, and settle into the feeling before I rush off to whatever comes next.

As I reflect on what I want for 2026, I want to spend more time living in the moment rather than reflecting on it in hindsight.

Next year, I want to spend more time documenting, collecting, curating, and sharing as an act of being awake in my own life. I want to stop looking at my goals as obligations. I wanna look at them as individual moments, things that I can experience, and take the time to embed myself in those experiences fully. I want to experience all life has to offer, not just survive it.

I still value putting one foot in front of the other, but now I trust myself enough to walk without blinders.

I want to build a life that’s lived and not just checked off. 2026 is inevitably going to come and go, and I don’t want to know only what I achieved. This coming year, I want to get in there and get my hands dirty, walking away with the feeling of having fully invested in my life.

So I ask you, before you step into 2026, what’s one moment from this year you moved through but didn’t fully experience? If it showed up again, how would you respond with greater presence?

Your next experience deserves your whole self, not just your momentum. Let presence be the thing that changes the next moment for you.

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I felt his eyes from across the restaurant while I sat there sipping my drink. For the first time in a long time, I could sense the unmistakable heat of being seen. The thickness in the air, the awareness of your movements, knowing someone is watching, thinking about you. I’d typically try to dismiss the sensation, but something about this felt different, like I’d lived this moment in another lifetime. With a wave of seduction rushing through me, I fixed my eyes back on his to command him to come here, and he did. Stood right up, walked across the bar, and asked to join me. It felt electric and powerful. Like I’d just conjured magic.

Nine months ago, that wouldn’t have happened.

Not because I wasn’t warm, witty, or interesting, but because the world didn’t see me as someone to cross a room for. Being stopped on the street, approached at the bar, or having someone slide in my DMs felt foreign because for most of my life, I’d always been on the “wrong side” of size. Heroin chic, low-rider jeans, and baby tees were never my style because I couldn’t fit them. At 8 years old, I’d never owned clothes from Limited Too, but could work my way around a JCPenney’s petite section. The dressing room mirror, especially, was my enemy. While other girls compared colors and patterns, I was looking for what would “hide” and “smooth.” I was aware that they lived entirely different social lives. They experienced the boy asking them to be their valentine, approaching them at the dance, going on their first date. They owned their desirability without apology, while I was told it’d happen “one day.”

Adulthood brought with it a different reality. One that was harsher, more direct, more obvious. Comments like, “I didn’t know you were into big girls” to men I was dating, or family flat-out saying, “You getting a little big there, ain’t you?” every time I came home to visit. The words were etched into the back of my mind. It was devastating, but not surprising. Part of me had internalized their words as truth. I’d settled on the idea that I was “almost.” Almost pretty. Almost enough. I mastered the art of shrinking myself emotionally since shrinking physically felt impossible.

That is, until now.

Sitting across from this man whose smile lit up the entire bar, I thought about how this conversation wouldn’t have happened fifty pounds ago. Him leaning in, laughing, flirting. Suddenly, I was approachable, visible, and radiated an undeniable confidence. It was exciting, but it was also confusing. A mix of joy and validation for finally being accepted, but anger and grief in realizing how conditional it all was. There was satisfaction in the glow of being “seen,” but the ache of knowing I had been worthy long before this moment, and people refused to see it was something I couldn’t unfeel. Sitting there stirred up complex emotions. Not because it wasn’t enjoyable, but because there’d been such an internal battle on my own attractiveness that I’d honestly convinced myself that I didn’t meet the criteria for companionship.

At first, I fought hard against the belief that I had to qualify for connection. I kept looking, swiping, going on first (but never second) dates with the idealistic mindset that we are all treated the same for who we are, not what we look like. I showed up as my authentic, true self, rejecting the idea that I should adjust who I was to attain adoration, much less that of a man. But even in rejecting it, I’m still living inside it. The narrative that when you look better, you’re treated better. That worth is something you earn. Each date felt like a reminder that those things were real. Whether I chose to accept it or not, there was a privilege afforded to people who fit the mold. A mold I had to force myself into, but for them it seemed to flow so naturally.

As time went on, I struggled to assimilate into what the world expected from women like me. It felt like no matter what I did, there were measures I just couldn’t meet. My style, my interests, my mindset – there were things about me that desperately needed to change if I ever wanted to play this game and win.

When you’re taught that desirability is something you earn through beauty, success, confidence, even healing, everything about your life becomes a self-improvement project. Dating then becomes a performance review. If I fix this, then I can date. Once I earn this, then someone will want me. When I check all the boxes, then I’ll be ready. It felt like it’d never be enough. Instead, I taught myself to prioritize hobbies, lifestyle goals, and career milestones, not because they’re inherently better than companionship (though they are fulfilling), but because they’re a safe distraction from the question of why no one was choosing me. I protected myself by withholding myself. When I was asked about my love life, I pretended that dating was unimportant, that I didn’t care anyway, so no one noticed how being overlooked hurts.

But should I care? Should I want to live a life where my moves are bait to get someone to take an interest in me? Is it shameful if I do?

The desire to be wanted carries with it a subtle embarrassment. A fear that wanting to meet the mark, wanting to be chosen, looks desperate. Like the desire for companionship is a symptom of a broken sense of self-worth. You start wondering if wanting connection makes you appear needy or thirsty. Even admitting to my friends that I was tired of my singleness felt like confessing to a wanting that we agreed we were well above. Yearning was reduced to something that should’ve been outgrown. Desire became a signal of personal failure and not a human need. Wanting to be wanted not only felt isolating, it felt like self-betrayal.

It took a long time to realize that these scripts about the criteria for companionship were not my own. They were inherited from online conversations, my closest relationships, and invisible social contracts. They were metrics no one actually agreed on and requirements that felt impossible because they were designed to leave us waiting for a moment of perfection that would never arrive. Rules that were made to keep us reaching externally for worth that could only be born and nurtured from the inside out.

I’m releasing myself from the narrative that requires me to second-guess myself into a version that’s easiest to receive. I’d much rather move through the world without the need to defend my right to take up space in someone’s orbit. Removing the weight of overthinking that shaped the way I showed up for something as simple as human connection. No longer am I falling for the lie that I’m “almost”. The idea that I need something other than who I already am to be enough.

Back at the table, thirty minutes had quickly come and gone. As the conversation wound down, I felt a quiet reclamation rise up, as if something I’d long surrendered was finding its way back to me. Sitting across from him, I heard a voice of certainty whisper: You’ve always deserved this. And with that realization, I knew that companionship could have held me long before I felt ready. How many opportunities like this had passed me by while I convinced myself I needed to become more? How many connections had I missed, wondering if I was qualified? If I met the criteria?

But there is no criteria for companionship — there are only people trying to feel worthy in a world that keeps telling them they’re not enough yet.

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The train is where I do my most reflective writing. It’s something about the buzzing of bodies, each tuned into its own world, that makes my mind move at rapid speed. I then tune in to myself. Music thumping. A song that I’ve never heard, but words that I’ve always felt. Words I wish I’d written myself.

I want to make things that have meaning. Things that have gravity. Things that hold weight. Not in a way that leaves you heavy when digested, but grounded and rooted in reality, life, truth.

When I started writing, my biggest fear and strongest setback was being seen as “fake deep”. The last thing I wanted was for my writing to sound like an advice column or, worse, be read in the same cadence as the stereotypical influencer voice. At first it was. I was trying too hard, and I knew it. I just wanted to move people and make them feel inspired. I wanted to be viewed, shared, and most importantly — liked.

So I did what others did. I spoke their language and adopted their voice. She writes like poetry — I must write like poetry. She opens her soul for the world to see — I must bear my mess. But I didn’t want to write like poetry. I didn’t want to share half-truths about lies I was comfortable living. I just wanted to get the words out of my brain, onto the page, and into the world.

But I’m not. And that bothers me.

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It bothers me that I optimize my subject lines to increase open rates. I shift my cadence because my beloved em dash, Oxford comma, and triplet have been compromised thanks to ChatGPT. It bothers me that it takes weeks to write ideas that took seconds, only to never share them because they feel too raw and honest.

But do I really need to leave you with five tips on how to be confident even though I’m not? Do you really care how I plan to be more optimistic this season, even though I’m about as pessimistic about the state of the world as they come? Do I really give a damn if you find my words prophetic?

(Okay, maybe I do care a little bit about that last point.)

Nonetheless, as I come up for air from being deep in writer’s block, I’ve been sitting with the perceived value or usefulness of my work. I’ve spent hours re-strategizing my thesis, infusing meaning into every sentence, stressing every detail, worried that it wouldn’t be of use to anybody. Eventually, all that stressing led me to a simple but liberating thought:

My work doesn’t need to be useful.

My words don’t have to strike a chord every time, or anytime at all, for that matter.

Who cares if I can string together complex phrases that convey the depths of my lexicon? Who cares if I can make my words dance and jump off the page like whimsical schoolchildren?

They’re just words.

But then, you might ask, what’s the point? Why write if not to make an impact? Why do this if it’s not meant to inspire or uplift others? Honestly, I don’t know.

I do know that we make too big a deal of the imprint we want to leave on this earth.

We have a narcissistic fixation with how we want history to see us as individuals. We believe that our version of a thing won’t just make a ripple in time; it’ll be the ripple that shifts the entire paradigm. We’re doing it for the spotlight. We’re doing it to appease a part of our ego. We’re doing it for the wrong reasons.

And I fear we’ve lost the plot.

In the grand scheme of things, your work might mean absolutely nothing to the history of the world. But it means everything to you right now.

Art was never meant to save anyone but the artist.

So create. Create because it comes as naturally as an exhale. Make things that can be felt deeply, honestly. Make things because you need them to exist, not because the world needs to receive them.

Create for truth, not for usefulness.

The world has enough content, but it’ll never have enough you.

Welcome to Volume 001 of A Read Between The Lines, a reflection series that’s more catered to musings than meaning. These in-between posts are a collection of thoughts that you might see again later in new essays or very well may never read again. It’s an emptying of my notes, a clearing of my tabs, and a dumping of my brain all wrapped in one.

I hope this can be a more interactive departure from my regular stories and essays, where we can have a conversation and exchange the things that we’re thinking with one another. Still Unlearning was always designed to be a community, and A Read Between the Lines is the invitation in.

So let’s go! Here are five micro thoughts from this week:

1. On creativity: Sometimes we care about things that hate us. Love them anyway.

2. On dating: Finding a good playlist is the key to a successful delusion.

3. On wanting more for others: Maybe we should give the whole legacy thing a rest.

4. On self-improvement: Become who you were meant to be by being jealous of the ones who already know.

5. On donation bins: Your past deserves more than being relegated to a box in your closet.

Ready to dive deeper?

1. Key takeaways: I don’t have to like you to love you.

I’ve been back on my binge-watching game. If you haven’t watched Wayward on Netflix and are a fan of thrillers minus the spooky jump scares, I highly recommend it. One episode that stuck with me from the season was “Mirror,” where Rory reflects candidly on his relationship with his roommate, Riley, during the hike. As he talks to Abbie, he says something to the effect of, “I cared about him, and he hated me. But everything you care about doesn’t need to care about you, too.”

I’ve talked about it a lot recently, but right now I’m in the maturation process of my artistry where my work hates me, and I hate it. Like a bratty teenager, the words won’t cooperate. They’re demanding a freedom I don’t think they’re ready for just yet, and I’ve tussled daily with my latest pieces over the most trivial things. I absolutely hate it here.

But I hate it because I love it. I care for it deeply. I know what it can become. And oddly, that feels like enough reason to still show up for it.

They say making art means agreeing to a lifelong argument with yourself, and I couldn’t believe in that more than I do today. Creativity isn’t always kind; sometimes it’s a battle between you and the work until the tension turns into understanding. I hope we reach an agreement soon.

2. Tunes: Lover Girl playlists, the soundtrack to my delusions

Date: 10/12/25

Time: 5:28 pm

Location: The backseat of an Uber

Song: Fantasia — “When I See You”

The next tab open in my brain is a memory of probably the most headass thing I think I’ve ever created in my lover girl career: A mixtape with hand-drawn cover art where each song title was integrated into a sentence to form a love letter 🫣. It was creative. It was cute. It was also very, very cringey to read 12 years later. But it was full of a young optimism about love that I honestly thought I’d lost.

There’s something so delusional about a love song. That level of romantic hope is irrational and somewhat foolish, but necessary to truly tap into the vulnerability and openness that leads to ever afters.

The last few men I’ve met have taught me to approach dating with strong caution and the utmost logic. The program is pretty strict over here these days. But now and then I like letting delusion win — and the key to a proper delusion is a good soundtrack, right? So I’ve been curating a collection of tunes in no particular order and about no particular person, just a cutesy vibe to daydream to and relive that middle-school crush feeling while putting on my makeup and cruising in the backseat of Ubers headed over to my next date.

I’m hoping that as I grow my relationship with my own heart, my delusions grow even wilder.

3. Throwaway thoughts: Let tomorrow worry about itself

Speaking of delusions, I think my expectations of people are a little too grand. In the last month, I’ve been overwhelmed with worry about helping people in my family prepare to step into their next phase of life. It’s so hard seeing someone bright and full of life seem unsure of their path. It makes you want nothing more than to step in and offer all the life lessons you learned from that era in one major download. After a long conversation with my dad, Matthew 6:34 popped up in my notifications, and it got me to settle down just a little. The verse reads, in part, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself,” and gave me a gentle reminder about legacy and the hopes we have for the next generation — it’s not ours to define.

Three additional thoughts came to me as I read that verse:

1. Inherited expectations are just as burdensome as inherited struggles. Generational trauma and hand-me-down ambitions may hold a different weight, but both are still heavy.

2. Let people choose their own adventure. If given directions, they’ll go where you say. If given a map, the journey is their own.

3. Your vision isn’t the only way. Just like a forest is more than one sown seed, a legacy is more than one dream fulfilled.

4. Inspiration: Use jealousy as kindling for your fire

Earlier this week, I shared a post about becoming who you would have been otherwise, but one thought didn’t make the cut — what do you do when others around you are sure about who they are?

Here’s a wild thought: let yourself get jealous.

To me, jealousy is such a necessary but often misunderstood emotion. Some view it as a negative mindset towards others — and unchecked, it can be — but in the right light, jealousy is your potential screaming at you. If we let it, that emotion can take us beyond just wanting what they have or what we assume they’re feeling. It can lead us into a territory where we can become all the things we desire to be now that we’ve seen it happen for others. Even envy can grow something if planted right.

A lot of bookmarks on this one, but some soundbites I picked up from my digital gardening are:

• “The thing about jealousy is you can only be jealous of things you actually want… What if jealousy didn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you, what if it’s a signal from your values?” — What Your Jealousy Is Really Telling You, Mel Robins

• “Good things don’t exist in finite terms that means that if someone else has this, I can’t have it. Good things are abundant — there’s enough good for all of us” — Jealousy Is Okay, Acting On It Isn’t, David Larbi

• “With envy, you can envision a better version of yourself, which is a bittersweet realization. Envy is a negative feeling, but it serves a purpose. Sarah Hill, a professor in the department of psychology at Texas Christian University, says, “It’s kind of like experiencing physical pain. When we touch something hot or we stub our toe, that sort of thing isn’t pleasant, but ultimately it provides a useful, adaptive function.” — How to Get Better at Being Jealous, Kristin Wong

5. To-do lists: Keep only what sparks joy

My last thought is on clutter. Right now, seven journals, 13 notebooks, and 25 books all lie in a pile on the floor waiting for me to decide what I’m going to do with them. I’ve been saying I was going to digitize my notes for ages, and now that ChatGPT exists, I very well could do that, but maybe this is just another kind of delusion, me thinking I’ll one day come back to every version of myself I’ve written. The real work ahead of me is deciding what actually deserves space, both on my shelves and in my mind. I’ve been sitting down and reading through each one, and every page makes me realize that these words, these ideas, deserve more than collecting dust in the back of my closet for another 5 years.

So I have two choices: thank them for their purpose and release them, or give them a second life. I choose life. What that 2.0 looks like, I don’t know yet. A memoir? Source material for a work of fiction? Time will tell — and soon, so will I.

That’s it for this week’s notes. Just a little mental clean-up before the next round of overthinking. But now I’d love to hear what you’re obsessing over. What delusional thoughts are keeping you dreaming?

Hit reply, tell me what’s been living rent-free in your head, or just come back next time for more in-betweens. 🫶🏾✌🏾

The synopsis is what drew me in:

“Imagine a world where one day all the white people died, and Black people were left to redefine society.“

Um, hell yeah!? This is the afrofuture shit I live for. Add to cart. Immediately.

Not only is the writing phenomenal, but it’s been a long time since a book has left me with so many pieces of myself to reflect on. The biggest of them being, what would you do if one day the one thing that held you back just up and disappeared? What reason then would you have not to become who you always could’ve been?

No spoilers, but there are a lot of things in my life I wish would walk into the Hudson and drown themselves. Fear, anxiety, worry — all things that weigh me down. Take writing as an example. If I had to describe my typical creative process, it’d look something like this:

• Come up with a dope concept, then doubt it has much value.

• Write it anyway, but worry it won’t be received well.

• Stare at the finish product in fear, and still find the courage to execute.

It’s not productive. And yet, something about this cycle provides a comfort I can’t really explain. The barriers have become expectations, and without them, the flow feels unnatural. I hate it, but I’ve come to accept it as just another part of the process. My known unknowns.

Barriers are great excuses that way. They make failures feel justified and hesitations feel rational. They give shape. Something to fight against, something to prove. But as I sit with the core tension of the book, what would you become in the absence of your barriers, what should feel like freedom actually feels like restriction.

When confronted with the question of who I am without my limitations, I’m stuck with the realization that I don’t know how to move when nothing’s holding me back.

“Same as you were? Or everything you would’ve been otherwise?”

That’s the phrase that’s been wrestling back and forth in my head because if given the opportunity, who would I be otherwise? When there is no need for resilience because there is no resistance. No fight for peace because there is no war. No one to tell me who to be, so I become what I want. Without an enemy to fight against, at best, I might feel liberated; in reality, I think I’d feel undefined.

Truthfully, I don’t know when my identity became so tied to my struggle.

Maybe when every win started to feel like it needed to be earned, or when my worth became measured by how much pressure I could push through. Because the only thing worse than getting something through privilege is getting it through perceived laziness.

That’s why when I hear things like “without struggle there is no progress” or the idea that I have to “get it out the mud,” intrinsically, there’s this need for validation. To walk away with bruises is confirmation that you fought for what you have. And if struggle is the prerequisite for progress, then if something doesn’t make you push or suffer, how can it possibly be valuable?

So I started believing that work is supposed to hurt a little.

That tension is proof I’m doing something real.

If I ever did stop measuring my worth by resistance, I think I’d measure it by how much joy I felt or the consistency it inspired instead. How fully I could show up to the things I love. The way ideas move freely from my mind to my heart and then out into the world without needing to break through fear or doubt first. That kind of progress would feel like flow.

But when I picture who I’d be otherwise, I don’t see some alternate version of me. It’s the real me standing in full force. Soft and trusting, the woman who moves through the world with an open heart, the one who’s fearless because she believes in magic. Someone who doesn’t need to earn her own approval. Who I would be otherwise is the part of me that’s always been there waiting for permission to live without her armor.

On the other hand, I enjoy the work. I crave the high that comes after the fight. I love the win as much as I hate the battle, and without that, I don’t really know what would fill the gap because effort and striving are the most satisfying parts of the climb.

Maybe that’s what’s so haunting about the question. The realization that who I’d be otherwise is the same as who I am. And I don’t know if that’s comforting or terrifying.

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“I’m not trying to bury the life I have; I’m trying to build something bigger with the foundation I’ve already set.”

Every few months, the internet spits out a new challenge, and honestly, I’m here for every one of them: The 12 Week Year, 75 Hard, Winter arcs, and now… the Great Lock-In.

But as much as I’m a sucker for a good productivity trend, they also bring with them a very anxious energy. It always starts with a massive rush of pure excitement, but ends up being fueled by unsustainable motivation, most of which doesn’t move me very much.

Phrases like “your new life is gonna cost you your old one” give me the ick. Not because it’s not valid, but because it frames growth as a form of erasure rather than an act of expansion. It pits your future against your past, as if they need to be at odds with each other. I’m not trying to bury the life I have; I’m trying to build something bigger with the foundation I’ve already set.

But I do feel that, to some degree, I need to lock in. Maybe not to chastise myself into being a “better me,” but to trim the fat and get down to the meat that really matters. I want to do so in a way that, come January 1st, I’m not drained and depleted, beating myself up for not hitting yet another milestone.

This year, despite my word being “momentum,” I’ve realized that I’ve benefited most from slower, more gradual climbs. That one foot in front of the other, next best step mentality that eases into the growing pains.

Slow work is still work, after all.

And I really like this new pragmatic mindset. It’s led me to shift the question behind my lock-in from “what parts of me need to die” to “what do I need to create room for so I can live?” It’s helped me ask myself what’s really worth locking in on before I fully commit.

The three key things I’m now asking myself are:

1. What level of discomfort can I willingly tolerate? Yes, locking in comes with growing pains, but everything that needs to happen doesn’t have to happen at its highest intensity. Sometimes I can withstand a spicy 10. Other times, I’m a mild five at best. But each time, I go with — not against — my tolerance threshold, because at both levels, the work is still getting done.

2. If it doesn’t happen in my timeframe, will I agree to keep showing up? Most things in my life haven’t happened in the time box I placed them in, and typically, I’d turn around and walk away from them. But honestly, I’d hate for my breakthrough to come on day 377 and I’m not around to welcome it. I’m learning to treat my timeframe like a mile marker, not a finish line.

3. Do I have the capacity to maintain this? The worst thing I can do with this lock-in isn’t starting something that can’t be finished; it’s starting something that can’t be maintained. I’ve made this mistake quite a few times, being eager and ready for the process, but unable to manage the upkeep. So now my momentum must be met with maintenance. If not, what exactly was the point?

After these questions, a lot of things hit the cutting room floor. Goals that sound good in theory and look good on a vision board, but make no sense for me right now.

Good.

Let them fall away.

Instead, I’m focusing on bringing to life the visions that are truly ready to be here and leaving the rest behind. It might not be as sexy as a new planner or well-curated spreadsheet, but locking in is more than just finishing strong and leaving our old selves in the past. It’s using who we are as a firm foundation to start building up towards something greater.

If you’re also all in on this final push of the year, I want to hear how you’re not just locking in, but staying in.

I’m looking forward to seeing how it all expands.

One of the questions that was pulled touched on a feeling that had been rumbling in my spirit for a while, but I’d never been asked to put it into words.

How does life feel for you right now?

I told her I felt stable but uncomfortable. And that felt honest and true.

My mental health, stable.

My career, stable.

My relationships, stable.

Even my finances finally feel stable.

For the first time, my life has felt steady on all fronts.

And yet, something about that stability feels unnerving. Not because I’m waiting on the other shoe to drop. Not because I’m afraid of going back to start. But for the first time, I can see the machine of life and its intricacies all working in sync with one another.

For the first time, I see the roots connecting it all together.

It’s beautiful. It’s majestic. And it makes me uncomfortable.

The discomfort can only be described as feeling like you're catching something in the act. Like how the wizard felt when Dorothy pulled back the curtain or when Adam and Eve discovered they were naked — the awareness feels almost sinful, as if I’ve walked in on the creation of something divine and holy.

Strangely, it’s the closest I’ve felt in communion with God. Like I’m sitting at a bird’s eye view watching him do his mighty work.

It’s beautiful. It’s majestic. And still, it makes me feel so uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable because it all feels so ordinary. No real extremes to swing between. Where a few years ago every day felt like stepping into a haunted house with terrors behind every corner, this feels like standing against the clearing of a pond – the wind a soft, consistent hum. And like the legs of a duck out on the water, floating seemingly by magic, the machine behind the mundane is quietly working away.

That’s the paradox of an ordinary life: realizing that underneath the unassuming there is an entire infrastructure, a full-blown ecosystem, working feverishly behind what appears to be smooth and steady.

It’s subtle. It goes unnoticed—as it’s supposed to. But it’s always moving. That’s its job.

Stability, then, doesn’t happen by chance. It’s curated and orchestrated. It’s managed and maintained. One missed step and it all falls apart.

So, stability is good.

But is good, good enough?

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I recognize that the peace of stability is a vantage point that many people work their whole lives to experience. It’s not lost on me that plenty of them never will. For some, there is no choice between chaos and consistency. No moment to sit back long enough and watch the gears turn.

But for me, stability is equally a miracle as it is a trap. It’s both an answered prayer and a haunting question of who am I outside of the rhythm of chaos that I’ve learned to dance to?

It’s a question I’m asking myself a lot lately.

When the therapy sessions turn into maintenance instead of crisis control. When the career opportunities seem endless. When the talking stage goes smoothly. What does that mean for life?

I think we all want a soft life. A good place to land. A resting place. But this feels like less of an ending and more like a crossroads between two truths — that I wanted this, but I don’t know if I want this. Not forever at least.

“it’s okay to be two things at once. Every day that a tree is growing, it’s dying at the same time. If it can do that, then a very sad thing can also give you release.” – Ethel, Sky Full of Elephants

The reality is I don’t know what’s next, but what I do know is this: Stability is both an anchor and a weight. Like a fence that keeps you from wandering, it’s both freedom and confinement.

And while that contradiction unsettles me, there’s something comforting about its design. Stability gives me permission to breathe, but it also challenges me to ask if I’ve stopped reaching.

And maybe that’s the point: to accept that stability will always be both. A structure that steadies me and a mirror that makes me confront my desires. A reminder that the ordinary is never just ordinary — it’s layered with the unseen work of holding two truths at once. The infrastructure behind the ordinary is proof that my roots have taken hold, but it’s also a challenge that dares me never to stop moving.

So I ask you, where might comfort be keeping you from reaching further? Where might the idea of ordinary be holding you steady while daring you to want more? Whatever your version of stability looks like — gift, trap, or both— I hope we all stay uncomfortable enough to keep growing.