vetiveroil

November 29th, 2025 It's 2AM and I am thinking about the future I imagined I'd have at this time.  The nostalgia of what I used to know is eating me alive. I never noticed myself transitioning out of it. It's like I blinked and was surrounded by strangers. I'm circling this area between no longer caring about the ideals I made up in my head as a lonely child - but on the opposite extreme end, being extremely attached to those visions because it felt like a matter of life and death for me at one point.  I guess I wanted life to be light, and airy, and soft. The opposite of what life has been for me so far. Seems like I just can't escape it - I can't pedal fast enough to outrun it. It sticks to me.  I swore off wishful thinking and the pitfalls of nostalgia, but there are times when I wonder: 1.   Will I ever make up for lost time? 2.   Will I ever get those moments I missed out on? 3.   Is anyone coming back for me?  4.   Is th...

 November 27th, 2025 Today was Thanksgiving Day.  It's been a wonderful day, my mom and sister cooked, and I didn't really do much admittedly (#womaninmaledominatedfields). But I did wash the dishes and clean up to make up for it. I went to the gym earlier, but it was packed, so all I got was ten minutes on the stairmaster and so I went for a forty minute walk before eating.  When I got back from my walk, I realized I couldn't be more amazed at how different life looks for me today vs a year ago. Saturn stationed direct after months of being Rx, coincidentally, it's the 1 year official anniversary of my surgery and those two things seemed threaded together by more than a mere coincidence - but then again, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's finding meaning in the mundane. Sometimes I have to conjure it myself. GOALS FROM MID-DECEMBER AND ONWARDS: Today I think I made up my mind on what I'd like to do in the new year. School's been disqualified fo...

​ November 26th, 2025 I’m thinking about the year that’s been 2025 and how much of a shed it’s been.  As of the past few weeks, it’s been quite intense for me. Feels like a massive purge has been taking place and I’m only now coming to that realization.  ON SELF-BLAME IN RELATIONSHIPS:  A situation has come up recently that in the past would’ve had me blaming myself or wondering if I didn’t do my “due diligence” to maintain peace or the connection. As of this week, I’m realizing that I simply do not care. That I don’t want to connect with people who make me wonder whether or not I deserve to be on their “good side” - that I don’t want to suffer emotionally in order to stay connected. Suffering is sometimes intermittent so the high of being close again feels so good until you remember that the other shoe will drop, you just don’t know when. I don’t want to experience micro-doses of cruelty anymore. I guess that’s one area I’ve purged in.  ON FORCING CLOSENESS OR MAKIN...

​November 24th, 2025  Today I tried to remain present.  I tried to turn the toggle back whenever I noticed myself getting pulled back/forward - or even sideways for that matter. Sideways as in to something unsavory to give myself a rush.  I thought about what it meant to stay in the present - and also how I'd practice it in real time.  Instead of going back into my old self when something didn't work the way I wanted it to, I reminded myself that I am not that girl anymore , no matter how familiar the fear and pain started to feel - I simply was not that person anymore, and so by that token, it was like I never experienced those things first hand.  In a very weird way, I hadn't .  Similarly, I'm not yet all that I want to be, and until I am, there's no use in lulling myself into submission by way of fantasy.  A very concrete example is with a man I've grown to know over the course of several weeks. I came to terms today with the fact that simply isn't ...

 November 23rd, 2025 Is my life starting to revolve around food again? It's because I've become lonely and afraid again, isn't it? I'm uncertain about a lot, fearful of it all. School? Work? Men? Beauty? Desirability?  Why isn't therapy working for me lately? Why do I need the validation to feel human?  To feel like a whole person, instead of a fraction of one. I've come really far in my relationship with my body, But all I can think about is how to drop these last thirty pounds.  And how my breasts no longer look how they used to. And how my ass is shrinking.  And how I can't actually let anyone in until I look the way I want to. The way I'm supposed to. And how not to regain.  I guess my vanity is a proxy for connection.  I want to be beautiful. I'm working on looking my best everyday, That way I can't be rejected again, And if I am, I can be certain it wasn't because I failed to look good enough .  I'm struggling a lot to figure ou...

​November 23rd, 2025 Today I was knocked upside the head with some wisdom.  It’s related to a TikTok video I watched yesterday, in short, about how avoidant attachment style individuals are preoccupied with the past and their entire strategies are about avoiding past pain/shame from occurring again so they forego the present altogether. Interesting.  Then she discussed how for Anxiously attached individuals, they live for the future in order to escape the anxiety of the present moment. Their entire strategy revolves around imagining the worst (or best) that could occur in hopes of changing that outcome in the present. Also interesting.  I thought about how I’ve told myself in the past that I would try to be more present. How I tend to live on either side of time - but never the here and the now. It’s interesting because I notice both in me.  It’s difficult to tolerate ambiguity when an unsavory outcome could devastate you completely. Maybe that’s giving too much of m...

 November 16th, 2025 I woke up today meaning to do my laundry, study for my test tomorrow, workout, buy more ice cream sandwiches, and meal prep. It's going on 6PM and all I managed to do was meal prep. One less thing off my plate tomorrow.  I couldn't find the energy or will to get up and go run errands. I have no excuse, I slept nine hours and ate a big delicious breakfast, I simply did not feel like leaving my bed. I stayed home all day analyzing the prints I've been working on. Dissecting the conditions of this house and trying to figure out a plan out of it moving forward. I always hear people saying that progress isn't linear, sometimes it doesn't feel like progress is being made at all.  I feel like I stand in place and the world is spinning around me, but I haven't moved an inch. On those days, I tend to cry out of sheer frustration, and today was one of those days. You wonder, "what am I doing wrong?" or "what do I have to do to get past...

 November 14th, 2025 They say Rome wasn't built in a day.  I guess I am taking that to mean great things are built , and not given or magically conjured.  To build is to craft, to tweak, to work at something until it comes to life, and maybe even past that point.  I fell asleep at around 1AM last night (rather, this morning). I never set and alarm and nearly overslept. My phone started vibrating and it woke me up at 10:06AM. Strangely enough, I couldn't figure out who actually called me, it didn't show in my call log. I blew out the candle on my nightstand that miraculously didn't burn down my room as I slept. I woke up and made breakfast, finished the Brazilian TV show I was re-watching while getting ready, and left the house for my slew of errands and appointments. At my yearly check-up, the PA called me a "success story" and I got a few compliments from a girl I had seen before, a year ago. I walked out not feeling the dread I've felt growing up about ...

 November 13th, 2025 Another day has passed in this strange house. I'm oscillating between frustration at still being here, and simultaneously feeling gratitude for the growing capability to demolish what's there and and build a home of my own. Grueling as the process has been, I am breaking through - excruciatingly slow. I took off work tomorrow for a slew of Doctor's appointments, I am excited to sleep in, even if just for a bit more. I managed to clear off my plate at work, so I can enjoy my weekend with minimal guilt or dread at what I have to do come Monday. That's the way I like it. ♦ ON DESIRE: All day today, I was semi-distracted by this feeling of desire . It was raw desire, this time.  Usually desire is a strand - accompanied by two others: guilt and shame .  They fuse together in my chest, my stomach, the back of my neck, and at my temples, like a long cascading braid: ♦ Desire,  Guilt,  Shame,  Desire,  Guilt,  Shame, Desire,  ...

​ November 11th, 2025  My home is spacious.      With soft sheep's-wool rugs, Warm overhead lights, An intricate hand-meshed mosaic at the entrance floor, My home is heated with love . My home is safe.  My home has depth .  Character.  Everything in it was intentionally chosen . My home has beautiful wooden doors, like those found in Zanzibar.   Console tables cut from petrified wood.  I have a garden full of terracotta pots and blooming plants.  I can ask for anything I want in my home.  I can ask for my needs to be met, I can ask for support to be extended, I can ask for affection to be provided, and I can share that warmth back.  My home is fueled by  ritual  - I practice them with intention, because they give me  meaning . My home smells like vanilla, and sandalwood, and vetiver, and star anise.  I play with my cat and my rabbit.  My home is filled with friends who love me.  My friends are kin...

November 9th, 2025 Pick me. Like I picked you . In a room full of people, look for me first . Memorize the tone and varying inflections of my voice, Memorize every speckle in my eye, Refuse to forget how the scent of vetiver sticks to my skin, Think of me before you drift off to sleep, Think of me while you work,  Ask me about my feelings, See me as a person, not just an object of desire, Be curious about me,  Prod at me, even when I am reluctant to respond, Lean in , even when I lean away at first, Initiate touch, even when you're unsure.. _ Am I asking too much of you? Have eyes only for me, Like I am unique and not just nice to look at , Sit with me, even in the heaviness of my silence, Don't flee when I ask you to be honest,  Come into my home when I invite you, It's just me in here, but make yourself at home, Notice the effort I put into it, Care about the things I ramble about, Watch this documentary with me, Look out of this massive window with me, Don't prete...

 November 9th, 2025 It hit me like a ton of bricks today that 2026 is a mere 53 days away. That's more than half of the decade I've lived through, Next Summer, that'll be half of my twenties I've gone through,  I remember being eighteen, just leaving the town I "grew" up in,  The town that I refused to make a home out of,  I felt at that age that I was just on the precipice of my life.  Telling myself that made the negative experiences so much more bearable - I could accept those circumstances if I felt I had a chance to overcome them. Today, I asked myself if I'd lived at all. I know I've been alive , but I do not think I've lived at all. It made me feel sad, because I feel as though I've been forced into a house I didn't build. A house I didn't agree to inhabit.  For the past six years, I've been going through each room, finding so many locked doors,   I have no keys, I'm just going door to door trying to see what opens. It d...

 November 8th, 2025 Today I had a good day (though it is still ongoing).  I woke up and ate, and rot in bed for a few hours. It was well after 2PM when I finally left the house and did my laundry for the week. I stopped by a Jeweler to finally get my beloved gold necklace repaired, it cost me $25 which doesn't feel bad at all .  I 'm picking it up sometime next week.  I went for a walk while my clothes were in the dryer, I was able to get in a mile and it was sixty-something degrees, so I basked in how good the sun felt on my skin. Afterwards, I went home, made my bed, ate an orange, and took my supplements before heading to the gym. I had the best workout! I don't know if it was the fact that I ate beforehand, but I had so much energy.  I reminded myself to it more often when my schedule freed up.  During the 35 minutes I was on the treadmill (sweating bullets from all of the carbs, sugar, and salt I've been eating this week) my mind was darting around ...

 November 7th, 2025 I haven't been happy lately.  Today at work, I thought I'd have a nervous breakdown - probably my 3rd or 4th in the past two weeks. It all just became too much and next thing I knew I was at or past my capacity.  Life has been both overwhelming and underwhelming. Not a good combination.  I'm overwhelmed when I think of all of the effort it has required, continues to require, and will continue to require to pull myself out of this dark place I have found myself in, and keep finding myself in.  And yet, when I take stock of all the results from that constant output of effort, I am underwhelmed by the results. It seems so tiny, so insignificant in comparison to what it took.  I feel like I sold my life's savings for a children's game, and now that I'm sitting with it, trying to make it all add up, I can hardly stop the tears from forming at the back of my eyes.  I hate feeling sorry for myself. I hate sitting and wallowing about what's...