Did any of us ever actually get over Angel?

I'm finding it impossible to write anything about myself these days.

I did it for decades - on one blogging platform or another. Daily, at times. But it became tedious. At some point, you had to start using subheadings and breaking your posts into bite-sized chunks to make it lazier to read. (Don't forget the gorgeous visuals.) And then everything you had to say had to come with a tutorial or a recipe to make it pin-able. What was the point of saying anything if you couldn't find a reason to add it to Pinterest?

Eventually, every thought needed to fit into an Instagram caption. And then it needed to be read to you or shown to you in video because, who has the attention span for reading anymore?

Pretty soon, YouTube videos became too long-form, and in walked TikTok and Instagram stories, and now Reels. (Reels are the worst of the bunch!)

And I'm not boo-hooing or bah-humbugging any of it. I'm not anti-technology or change or growth. I have fun with all of it. (Except you, reels - you can go to hell.) 

It's that there is no joy, no passion, no fun, in formatting what I have to say or share to fit the tiny little bits and pieces of what our brains now deem consumable. When I consider pouring my heart out into a post and then finding a way to chop it up and pre-chew it and slap a fitting filtered photo into the middle of it, it feels exhausting. So I don't bother.

And it sucks a little, because I always have so much to say.

I suppose it's kind of liberating. Knowing that my blog isn't consumable enough for the masses so I can sort of slip into obscurity right in front of everyone. I suppose that has its merits. But I also sometimes wish for the type of camaraderie I don't have to pay for. (Don't get me wrong, I love my therapist, but there's something gritty and deeper about chatting at will with someone that might get it without being trained to understand getting it, ya know?)

So. Anyway. 

I've been writing things through fictional means instead. And through the slow, meandering process of junk journaling. (I only learned what it was this summer and have since jumped in head-first and now have a gold colored journal filling up that almost feels like a work of art. Obsessed.)

But I'm here, because I'm trying (at a lot of things), and while the world may have moved on, I still love blogs. And I miss it.

It's been a sweltering, humid day, and now that it's dark, I'm sitting here with an ice pack on the top of my head, thinking about life. I've been struggling with a bizarre hormone migraine this week while slogging through back to school preparations, and I'm pretty beat. Physically, mentally...with this world. All of it.

I'm just tired.

And I guess the stars aligned in such a way that I am meant to get weary and maudlin about my birthday. (Something my therapist and I discussed this week, actually.) With only two days left, it's settling over me. The things I'm leaving this year with and without. The things I hope I get to harvest from the next. The overarching sadness of feeling like at a core level, I am wildly disconnected from the majority and not understanding why. 

It's just all kind of a bizarre existence at the end of the day, isn't it? Even after 37 years and 363 days, I feel like I barely grasp it. It doesn't all align. That's probably my neurodivergent brain talking. But it all just feels so...disorienting. The idea that we've been all these different versions of ourselves and the little reminders that take you back to a different one of them, or that show you certain things that were always meant to be. The older I get, the more I feel like time is such an unknowable thing - or that we've been really sold on this linear idea when it's really just always buzzing around you in different forms.

Or maybe it's the headache talking, who knows.

Lately I've been watching old Buffy episodes like I'm 13 again. The way it's transporting me...I don't know, maybe that's really to blame for my confusion. I'll say this, though. For all the things they say that they shouldn't say and the plethora of 90's babydoll graphic tanks, one thing stands: David Boreanaz can get it.