9/22/25

I think about everything, and I do it all the time. 

For the last few weeks, All I have had to do is think. I think about what I'm doing - with my career, with my love life, with my family. I think about my job, the hours I have, the hours I want, the pay I want. I think about money and how much I'll have to make to do what I want - live how I want. I think about my friends and what they're up to. I think about whether they're feeling the same way right now or if they're thinking about me wondering the same thing. I think about my family, when the last time I saw most of them was, and when I should reach out to see them again. When I walk into work, I become less of a human than I have ever been. I do tasks, I greet people, I take plates, I fold clothes. These aren't bad things, nor things that are particularly grueling, but every semblance of what makes a person a person - what makes me me - gets left at the door, and beyond the rare stray from the scripted conversations I have with every customer, I remain on autopilot, and all I have to do for six, seven, eight, nine hours a day, is think. 

Last week, I had my first day off in the two weeks prior, and I decided to treat myself. I went online, scoured for deals, and bought a round trip to New York City - largely to visit my friends, but also because I knew that seeing the end goal in person might assist me in staying motivated to make it happen, no matter how grueling the in-between has been thus far. Though New York is not far, especially by train, its just far enough that some packed entertainment is necessary. With charged headphones and a crochet project in hand, I boarded, eagerly anticipating both the journey and the destination. I decided that, for once, I wasn't going to download a show, nor read a book, I wanted solely my mind as company. I sat listening to Takanaka, Sade, Minnie Ripperton and Marvin Gaye for three hours and 50 minutes, crocheting each thought that crossed my mind into my ongoing project. I thought about what it's going to take to get me to be taking the train in the opposite direction - how long would it be until I was visiting my Mom in Pennsylvania on my days off, rather than a 24 hour spurt spent in the city - one row. I know I'm capable of working hard, I've done it many times before, but for the first time, the center of my work is not my career. It isn't focused on fashion, or writing, nor does it feel like I am taking any steps in that direction - a second row. Right now, my focus is on money, a subject that, no matter how hard I try not to let it be my sole priority, continues to barge into the forefront of my mind when the day goes quiet. For the last four years, weekdays have been for classes, evenings have been for homework or projects, mornings are for working out, and weekends are for writing. I found ways of managing my time so that each shred of myself - romance, fitness, literature, fashion, friends, family - gets their attention. Now, I have none of that - a third row. By the time I got to New York, I had substantially thought myself into a spiral, and run out of yarn to crochet. 

For the last four years, my mind has clung on to certain aspects of my own identity as ways to validate my position in the world. I don't have any professional writing experience, but I write more than I do most other things, and more consistently than any other hobby I have ever attached myself to. I may not be a great designer, but I have the training and education to back up the opinions I have on why I design things the way I do - and why I feel the way I do about them. I may not always come off or appeal in the way I long to, but I know that, deep down, my heart and mind are connected in the right ways, and its just a matter of getting them to behave accordingly. I have these objects in my life that I use as validation for where I want to be, who I want to become, how I want to appear. But for the last month or so, I have found myself struggling to connect with them. In many ways, I simply don't have the time. I go into work around 8 AM, I come home around 5 PM, and by then, all I want to do is shower and sleep. I know that I have enough time to do more, and that if I had the drive that I know is required of me to be successful, I would do it anyway, but I simply cant bring myself to have the energy. So I just think. I think about what's different between me and them; what separates me and my position in life from those who I know are in the same boat, but don't appear to be struggling to paddle forward in the same way I am. I think about what I need to do differently - how can I improve?

My thinking - or rather, overthinking - never stops at just one subject. Though money, my career, my education, and my job continue to circulate most prominently when my days wind down, it can never be that simple. As I strut the streets of NYC, reunited and accompanied by my other half, my mind examines every nook and cranny of the steps that need to be taken in order for these streets to one day become my own. I find myself wondering about the next chapters. Right now, my savings account is, unfortunately, the only priority. Make money, save it, and wait. But as I edge closer to the time in which I will force myself to once again uproot my life in order to improve my way of living it, where will I be? Will I have the savings account to back up such a long stride? Will I still be working retail? Or will I have found a better, more transitional avenue to lead me up North? We pass cafes, bookstores, flower shops, restaurants, and clothing boutiques, and every one translates as a possible place of employment. When I move here, will I once again be in a position to take any job that pays my rent? Or will I have had enough time and enough money saved up to search for one that fulfills those parts of me that I am already denying more than I can stand? We turn a corner and suddenly New York City looks like what native New Yorkers fear every day - populated almost exclusively with Rick Owens steel toe boots, Ann Demeulemeester jackets, and Miu Miu skirts. Every man has a mustache and every woman has bangs; knee length camo cargo shorts paired with an oversized Giants jersey and an ushanka cap. My thoughts transition to a much deeper place, one of existentialism and hate-fueled internal questioning. It took me four years to make a group of solid friends in my college days, and that was largely thanks to the one friend I had had for the three years prior. I made a few friends in high school on my own, but a lack of self regulated spiraling and miss-placed trust resulted in an eye-widening post grad separation. I've talked before about the fear of making friends without the confines and forced socialization of a dorm or classroom, but in the headspace I currently occupy, my mind settles into a different kind of relationship. 

A memory I think of quite frequently when recollecting the duration of which my conscious mind has been the burden it continues to be today - a burden that leads me not only to journaling, but sharing said journal with as many people as possible on my very own domain website - is a day in second grade. At my very young age, I repeatedly found myself in a love triangle that I had very little interest in being a part of. I had a crush on a girl, who had a crush on my best friend, but the three of us often switched between crush, best friend, and 9-year-old boy/girlfriends. At the time, she was dating my friend, and I was determined to win her back. That morning, with my radio playing Elvis Duran in the Morning, I lied awake, reciting over and over what it was I was going to say to her to win her over. I planned a recess rendezvous, just the two of us, and a long talk about my feelings for her. When the time came, to mine and my friends surprise, it worked, and we were once again boyfriend and girlfriend - the way God intended it. However, that very same day, I sat in the back of my Grandmothers car on the way home from school, and couldn't shake the deep-set feeling, lodged somewhere between my stomach and my heart. The sheer discomfort of it created sirens in my head that begged to be listened to, and pondered about. Something was wrong - I was wrong. I didn't want to start all over again, I didn't want my friend to now have to win her back once more. I didn't want it. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. What is this feeling? How do I make it go away? If I ignore it, will it dissipate, or get worse? How am I going to tell her? How did I get myself into this situation? This memory sticks out to me because in the mind I have today, this was the first time that the way I think caught me, and decided to change the way I behaved for the remaining years of my life. I was nine and thinking about how bad of a person I was, how stupid I had been, thinking about all the ways things could go wrong and all the ways I had lead myself to failure. I was nine and thinking so thoroughly and concretely about a 2nd grade relationship that I was getting nauseas in the back of my grandmothers car from the sheer anxiety and inescapability of my thought processes.

As we crossed through Madison Square Park down through Noho, I thought about every single person we passed. I thought about where they were going, where they had left, where were they living and how could they afford it? But more so, that nine year old version of me took the reigns for a while, and held them tightly. I thought about how I would make friends with them, whether or not we would connect. I thought about who amongst them I could date, I thought about where my own love life would be by the time they and I walked the same sidewalks, and took the same subways. I thought about my relationship-turned-situationship, and where that will stand in a years time. Should I be paying attention to them at all, and why do none of them stand a chance against the competition? I thought about my own friends, and who of the strangers I would one day meet at a speakeasy we were both invited to attend by my former roommate-turned best friend. They all seemed so sure of themselves; confident in their strides and firm in their footsteps, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was a necessity of living as one of them. Would I one day have to find a way to nip such powerful overthinking in the butt in order to make it in such a make-or-break city, or are they just simply better at hiding their uncertainty? All of these thoughts raced faster, and stronger with each step we took, and the writing of this blog found its way into my minds circulation. I find it so neccesary to write because in many ways, I find it to be the only way for me to move onto the next chapter. I get stuck on a thought, on a feeling, in a spiral, so much so that the only way for me to bring any form of new information in, is to take some of those thoughts out. I need to put them somewhere, to keep them stowed away, under lock and key (URL). 

For the last month, all I have had to do is think. I think about the orders that need to be taken out, the clothes waiting to put folded and put away, the next shift I have and the next time I can take a smoke break. I think about how long Ill have to work here until I can look for something better, and how long Ill have to work there to start feeling fulfilled. I think about who I will be coming home to, and why it cant be the people it once was, or the person it could have been. And for the last month or so, I haven't had anywhere to put it. For lack of better - or more creative words, it has been killing me to not write. It has been killing me that all I do is work and eat and sleep, because I know what that rhythm does to people; I know how easy it is to get stuck. This blog, my clothes, my books and my yarn, they are the things that keep me moving. My friends, my partners, my parents are what keep me motivated to do so. And I'm now doing it accompanied almost exclusively by some of the most unhelpful and unproductive thoughts imaginable. I want to write more, I want to post more, I want to make more, I want to talk more. I want to be the versions of me that let me know I'm doing something, but for the last month, I've struggled to find him in the same ways.