Hi there! I wanted to try out something new where I share some excerpts from my personal journal. While the babblings substack is my version of an online journal/blog, my first love is just scribbling unfiltered thoughts, pen to paper. Sometimes hidden in the nonsense are some nuggets of wisdom:)
I wrote this on my 25th birthday and while it’s about turning 25, it’s really a reflection on the year I spent as a 24 year old. That year I took my life back, ended things I thought would go on forever, and started things I never even dreamed of. This version of me is so important, I look back to her for advice all the time. She helps me shed light on the path ahead. This birthday in particular was so fun, I was still living in Ohio and a bunch of us drove down to meet people in DC. We had a crazy jam packed weekend celebrating my 25th and my moms 45th birthdays. Saturday night at the club was the highlight, except I got pretty high on mushrooms and hid in the bathroom for 15 minutes because I was SURE everyone was conspiring against me and mad at me. They weren’t. Comment your craziest birthday stories!!

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May 4, 2023
3:50pm EST
Violet Rd Park

“the more answers I get the more questions I have. will this be forever? it’s easy to get stuck there, to forget the momentum of life things always changing, the moon forever cycling. maybe the change is the monotonous part.

to be ever evolving, to understand there is no end, there is no final piece. no person. no situation or job that makes it all complete.

I always find I’m waiting. I’m waiting for “THE END” and “they lived happily ever after” always running towards a goal, never thinking of after because as much as movies may say differently… the reality is that the end is just that. an end. death.

we’re ever evolving creatures, desperate for a stableness, an ease, that only comes with death.

my thoughts drag me away to a daydream, a wish I want. it’s hard not to get lost in my thoughts, they’re dreams, they always become dreams, fantasy. I suppose daydream and fantasy are fine. It’s the anticipation of something to happen in real life that’s hurtful, hindering, it holds me back. It turns to worry. Will it happened, how will it happened, when will it happen? Will I say just the right things, how can I prepare, will I do good enough? I focus so much on build up the what, when, where, how, that it comes and I hardly enjoy it. I get whiplash and am left with this feeling afterwards. because the anticipation, the anxiety took up so much space that I didn’t think about after. I didn’t really think about it.

because in the movies, maybe there’s a sequel or four, but it ends, the story ends, they’re happy and it’s all we know.

all this time I didn’t realize how deeply I was wishing for death.”

Let me know your wild birthday stories and when you realized your frontal lobe was finally forming!

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xoxo,

Ali Ann