11.3.24 broad swathes of life pass by with little introspection or examination. there is just no time. there used to be time, but there is not time anymore. i want to recall the texture and feeling of these recent periods of time that i did not document very thoroughly. starting with the spring of 2023, i remember feverishly running up the carpeted stairs of my old apartment. i remember the smell of certain perfumes and herbal elixirs. there is one perfume, particularly, that reminds me of this threshold in my life. i remember not having enough space in my apartment, nothing ever fully in place, stacks of books loitering in the corners of my bedroom and household items i had no place for taking up space on the kitchenette floor. i would leave the blinds open even though my unit was accessible and visible from the street. i did not care. i used to walk to the park to go running when the days were long enough still, and i would walk to the library to pick up the books i'd placed a hold on and seldom have time to finish before needing to return them to the library. i would come home from work and make a smoothie or salad. i was too happy to have much of an appetite. in the summer of 2023, i remember eating really good bread from the farm stand near my mom's house. i would prepare it toasted with peanut butter and honey and have it with coffee for breakfast while i stayed at my mom's house for a week to help her after her surgery. i remember riding my bike to the grocery store with a tote bag to buy flowers to put in her room before she came back from the hospital. my boyfriend came with me the first weekend i was there and i remembering laying down on the bed in the ADU in the pitch black of night. the bedsheets smell kind of dusty because usually no one stays there or has a reason to go in there. i laid in the grass of the backyard and read moneyless society by matthew holten. // (⌒o⌒) 10.30.24 i used to write prolifically as a child, teenager, and younger adult. every time i reach for my journal or open a blank page online, i have no idea what to say. i feel like i start every journal entry with "i don't know what to say", like a mantra, a spell that allows me to then proceed with my thoughts. once i get that over with, it becomes easier for me to figure out what i am actually thinking about or feeling. i often write in my journal that i believe living as a wage slave under capitalism has caused me to become somewhat disenfranchised from my emotions, whereas before, growing up, being in school, and not having to spend the majority of my life doing mindless work in order to not die, i was very powerfully informed of my own thoughts and emotions and could express them with ease and occasionally with skill. i sometimes mourn and regret my changed relationship with the act of writing and introspection, but i am also glad that the focus of my life has shifted or grown such that much of what i do is motivated by a sense of connectedness with all things. i no longer exist or experience just my literal self; rather, i exist for the sake of all things, as my sense of self radiates outward to include as much of the world as possible.