ON THE CUSP OF TWENTY-FIVE

August 9th, 2026

My birthday is quickly approaching!

I can't believe soon twenty-four will be distant memory. A year is simply a series of weeks, and that's become so much more evident since I reached adulthood. 

I've recently made it a habit to highlight the goals I've accomplished off my physical vision board. It's a visual reminder that I am getting these things that I desire, maybe not all at once, but I am getting them. That feels really good. For instance, I wanted an Oura ring, and my sister got it for me. I wanted to pay off my CC balance, and soon I'll have the means to do that. I'm grateful! Even though I have been tweaking out the past week or so regarding my life, my future, and so on. I am both far from where I want to be, but also, the closest I've ever been so far, and that feels worth the mention. It took a lot to get here. It'll take a lot to get there, but my trajectory seems to support the conclusion that I will get there, eventually.

The effort won't be sudden, nor will it be required all at once, but in spurts. 

Last night I got upset with my mom, and it opened a big can of worms for me. It served an important purpose, which was giving me a glimpse into my own attachment framework. The reason I got upset with her was that I felt betrayed and disrespected by her. That's not unusual, but it has been years since I felt attached to her enough to feel betrayed. When I got down to it, I realized that it'd been closer to a decade since I felt any signs of closeness to her. Seems we've just been living in a phantom relationship since. In the same home, but worlds apart. 

I had a flashback of being a pre-teen, and being bulldozed by her during disagreements, and not being able to speak up and defend myself. How that experience led to me developing the habit of dissociating and simply icing people out during or after conflicts. Such an extreme act, and yet I am so desensitized to the behavior that it hardly even registers when I am doing it at all. It's a shock to see that it registers for people, when it feels so normal to me. I thought about my motivations behind it - I guess on some level it is meant to be punitive, but mostly I see it as a principled form of protest. I guess in my mind, it reads as:

I can't defend myself, I can't act without risking my safety, no one listens to me, and nothing I do seems to make this better, so I won't do anything at all. In fact, I'll communicate my displeasure in the only way I know how, which is disappearing. 

These days, I am learning a lot about myself, my origins, and my own history thus far. I'd like to think it's not too late to shift my trajectory in a different direction, I really hope it isn't. I think the funny thing about all of this is: I am both overly sensitized, and desensitized by the wrong things. 

It was hot as hell today, humid, too. But I went for a 3 mile walk. I have nothing else worth writing down for today, I am on the cusp of twenty-five, and so I am going to savor whatever's left of twenty-four. 

- vetiveroil