Dear Digital Diary

thoughts and thinkings of a woman navigating her twenties

occasional diary entries. sometimes in the form of handwritten notes. some extra words posted in between.

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  • I Need Space

    Dear Digital Diary,

    Winter and I are not getting along, but I think we can make it work.

    It’s currently winter in Maine. If you’ve never been to Maine or never felt winter, it sort of feels like when the sun sets on a Sunday. You have work the next day at a job that makes you go brainless in an office where the walls are gray. Every day of winter in Maine brings the essence of the Sunday scaries, mixed with some soggy slush, a bad case of the flu, and skin so dry you worry your face will crumble to dust.

    I’ve decided winter is the long-distance, low-commitment, love-bomber boyfriend. One day, the temperature will hover just above freezing, and it’ll be sunny out. You smile again, you’ve got that usually unattainable zest for life, and it genuinely feels like summer. Of course, it’s the bare minimum, but it happens once in a blue moon, so everything’s great. Then the next day, it’s frigidly cold, spewing out hours of snow and freezing rain, and then you slide into a telephone pole while driving as carefully as you can.

    Naturally, I have a love/hate relationship with the season. I loved it as a kid, and then I grew up where life feels horrid, so the weather is supposed to compensate. I need warmth now, sunshine, a sprinkle of beach sand, and, honestly, an endless supply of margaritas. But since I cannot have that, here’s how winter and I create healthy boundaries of distance while also coexisting.

    1. I’m staying off of the media for most of the day.


    I’m high-key proud of myself for this one. I usually spend less than four hours on my phone as of twelve days ago. The media only offered a glimpse into the outside world, where winter feels like quarantine and other people’s warm-weather vacations are Disneyland. It’s not healthy, and I find myself wasting the day and letting it drag on. In the past, I’ve found it makes the winter months feel like eight full years.

    2. I’m tapping back into old hobbies that I set down in the summer.


    In the summer, there are many outdoor things to do. I live by the beach, so I usually wind up there. I surf, I swim, I lie in the sun. If not that, I’ll go on a walk, on a drive to Portsmouth, or I’ll make a salad and eat it outside. But winter is the hibernation season. That doesn’t mean I sleep for eons, but I do things that I usually wouldn’t do in the summer months. This means reading in front of a fire, painting, writing, going to the movies when it’s crappy out, or working out. I’ve read four books in the past two weeks, and I probably read three books for the three months of last year’s summer.

    3. I make plans.


    I’m usually super bad about this. I’m independent and type B – so badly that I think it’s chronic and may cause me to lose years off my life. But I’ve found that having friends to hang around with makes winter less dreary. And not only social obligations, but I plan out work things and trips I’ll take. In that case, it’s something to look forward to. In February, I’ve penciled in the days that I’ll submit papers and reviews, and journals. In May, I might travel to Honduras to visit some college friends.

    4. I listen to music that makes it feel like summer.


    It’s sometimes a little whimsical to lie to yourself. Recently, among my laundry list of boy rap and songs from 2016, I’ve been listening to playlists that I’d play at the beach, or when I lived in the South when it was actually nice and warm in February, or what I’d play when my family drives to the lake in New Hampshire. If you don’t have such playlists, I’ve got you. (Refer back to #2, making Spotify playlists is one of my hobbies.)

    The Weather’s Getting Warmer (it’s not but a girl can dream)

    Jamz (the playlist I play in my car in June)

    Smokin A Joint In A Beat-up Bronco (the essence of chill)

    My Job Is Just BEACH (just like Ken said)

    Nature Valley Granola Bars (my crunchy Maine playlist for the outdoors)

    The thing that’s most important about all of this is that winter is just a season of the year, and a small fraction of life. Feeling miserable doesn’t mean that everything’s miserable; it just means that things might have to adjust slightly to feel more comfortable. And that’s okay.

    We’re in this together.

    Unless where you live is sunny, and if so, I’d love for you to mail me a pocket of sunshine ASAP. Thank you.

  • New Year’s Resolutions

    Dear Digital Diary,

    Just kidding. My only resolution is to complete my bucket list. 

    When I was younger, my family would set goals for the year. It wasn’t ever called resolutions, so I wasn’t super aware what that all meant until I got social media in eighth grade. The concept of it was always to lose or gain something else: lose fifteen pounds, get better at french. 

    I never understood exactly why it was designed this way, losing or gaining, and purposefully making note to begin this new endeavor over the start of a new year. 

    I believe that a new year is a new opportunity. Not to lose or gain necessarily, but a chance to live another year to the fullest. And thus began my yearly bucket list – it’s not a list of requirements that I feel are necessary for me to achieve to prove I lived out my year by productivity, but a list to show just how much one can experience in a year. 

    The Bucket List of a 20-Something Year Old in Modern America (2026)

    • Travel to an island
    • Go camping
    • Sleep underneath the stars
    • Publish something
    • Visit a new city
    • Travel outside the country
    • Get a job that I enjoy
    • Go to a concert
    • Take a road trip
    • Go swimming after dark
    • Surf a wave
    • Take a dance class
    • Get an apartment
    • See a show
    • Learn to sail
    • Sell my art
    • Swing on a swingset
    • Snorkel
    • Participate in a wine tasting
    • See a bear
    • Go to a sports game (and see my team win)
    • Go somewhere where French is spoken
    • Plant a plant
    • Travel somewhere with my favorite cousins
    • Ride a horse
    • Stay by the seaside
    • Get film developed
    • Take a trip in a van
    • Take a train in a foreign country
    • Watch a film that my sister is in
    • Get a new therapist 
    • Write a letter
    • Make a birthday cake
    • Freelance
    • Visit a friend in another state
    • Sing karaoke 
    • Paddleboard 
    • Celebrate my birthday with people I love
    • Watch a new Marvel movie in theaters
    • Go on a trip with my sister
    • Buy a new record
    • Take a ferry
    • Hike a mountain
    • Enter a contest
    • Celebrate an anniversary
    • See a lion
    • Attend a wedding (or crash one) 
    • Read at least 26 books
    • Teach something

  • Happy…December 32nd

    Dear Digital Diary,

    what would happen if, at midnight, the year just…kept going?

    “December 32nd” – Short Story

    Don and Cass shared a small apartment tucked away in the shadowed corners of Manhattan. They’d started renting it a few years ago, hoping that it’d just be a landing spot until they could find a house in the country. I don’t think they expected to be here this long or spend the last half of 2019 hosting their longtime friend on their living room couch during his depressive But with all inhibitions aside (and the couch free of spare blankets and pillows) I made it a point not to seem emasculated by my ex-girlfriend and decided to attend Don and Cass’ impromptu party. The party had started at eight, just four hours before midnight, but I found myself drunk off of gas station champagne a mere hour later. By ten, I was absolutely plastered and trying to talk up some girl. 

    “She just left me,” I slurred, emptying the last bit of champagne from my flute in a singular gulp. “It’s crazy ‘cause you kind of look like her.”

    She blinked at me and arched an eyebrow. “Right…”

    I leaned in close, closer than I intended, and could smell her perfume. Something French probably, a hint of rose. “Bet you wouldn’t break my heart, though.”

    I felt a hand on my shoulder then, and tried to look at it: stubby, masculine, fingers gripped into the fabric of my t-shirt and I frowned.  

    “Alright, buddy. I think you’ve had enough,” the man said and grasped my other shoulder, steering me away. It was Don.

    Once we made it through the crowd of party-goers to the opposite end of Don’s living room, he flicked the middle of my forehead. “Dude, you’ve got to stop harassing girls.”

    He didn’t flick me very hard but the slight force sent my head back so I was looking down at him over my nose. Don shook his head and looked at the plastic flute in my hand. He plucked it from my grasp and stuck it in front of my face.

    “And how many of these have you had?”

    I ignored him and tried my best to crane my neck, searching for the Girl From Before, but the room spun and I stumbled sideways, nearly falling if it weren’t for Don who caught my shoulder. 

    “Don. She looked exactly like Zoey.”

    Don righted me and turned, only glancing briefly at his party before slowly shaking his head. “No, she didn’t, man. She wasn’t even brunette.”

    “She wasn’t?”

    Don shook his head again before Cass appeared behind him, her short red hair tucked behind earlobes that occupied heavy disco ball earrings. She wore those cheap Party City glasses and had ropes of twinkly necklaces hung around her neck. 

    “Hey, Babe. What are we talking about?” Cass asked.

    “Harry thought your friend from work was Zoey,” Don said. 

    At the mention of her name, my stomach did a forward roll but I swallowed the contents back. I shrugged. 

    Cass looked behind her shoulder before turning back and giving me that frown that people do when they feel bad. She patted the side of my arm. “Yeah, sorry, hon. That’s Reese. She’s my new assistant.”

    I nodded, but couldn’t shake the feeling. I stole a glance at Reese. Even though she no longer looked like her, I was now thinking about Zoey more than before.

    Zoey and I dated the same amount of time that Don and Cass did. We did the double date thing and she and Cass were always at our dorm room, and then after when we got an apartment. We were all friends. Then Don and Cass got engaged this past summer, whereas Zoey deemed that season to be my most miserable, and told me she didn’t love me anymore. And because it can always get worse, she thought it even better to say she didn’t even really like me, and she hadn’t for a while.

    “I just need to…” I trailed off, stomach twisting again. I deeply inhaled through my nostrils. All I could smell was the sickly sweet champagne on my breath. “I just need a new beginning, you know? Where she’s not in it…”

    I would’ve kept bullshitting my life’s redesign but the room had begun to spin. Cass and Don’s faces started to melt together and swim before me while my mouth filled with saliva. 

    “We get it, Harry. You just need a new year,” Don said. “Lucky for you, it’s New Year’s Eve.”

    I nodded slowly but could feel my face drain of color in a sweeping motion. Cass titled her head. “How about you take a minute outside, Harry? A walk to righten you up?”

    I pressed my lips together in a forced smile and my stomach lurched again. I knew I had less than five minutes before I could no longer hold back the flood of champagne and finger foods I’d consumed all night. 

    I put on my jacket before Cass pressed the spare apartment key in my hand, ushering me towards the door. “Just be back in time for the ball drop or Don might kill you. You two haven’t done a New Year’s apart since middle school.” 

    Don never wanted to live in the city and I hated visiting him there, but the nice thing about being in the Big Apple is that you can puke on the sidewalk and nobody gives a damn. People yak on the street like they’re doing the city a favor, and it just becomes one with the cracks in the asphalt. 

    I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and then pulled my sleeves over my fingers. It had begun to rain, the cold, icy bullets that chill you to the bone. I would’ve gone back inside to warm up, but the honey in my brain was pressing me onwards, towards central Manhattan. I needed coconut water — or something with electrolytes — and I made it my mission. That’s what Zoey used to drink after nights out and she was never hungover. 

    I threw up twice more on the twenty-minute drunk-stumble walk to the inner-city convenience store — once onto those mental grate covers where I watched it drip onto the slushy waste below while I caught my breath, and the second over a trash can just outside the store. 

    The bell on the door jingled when I walked in, my sickly self meeting the gaze of this short woman at the counter holding a cigarette. She took a drag and made a little grunting noise before focusing back on the television wedged into the far corner of the ceiling, set up like it was 1995. Anderson Cooper, in his thick glasses and snow-white hair, held a mic and was talking into it deliriously like he’d had a few too many. Good for him. 

    In the back of the store, there was a poorly stocked refrigerator, and the closest thing to a coconut water was a blue raspberry Powerade. The sheer blue of it made me nauseous but it was the best I could do, and I grabbed it, browsing the snack rack for something appealing. There were Doritos (too much flavor), Cheetos (too orange), and Smartfood popcorn (kind of bland). I blinked at the three snacks and finally decided on the popcorn. 

    That’s when someone screamed. 

    It was the shrill, static kind, so I knew it was coming from the television. I tried my best to wobbly sprint towards the front of the store. 

    The cashier’s cigarette hung out of her agape mouth and she stared at the screen. I turned slowly. I think I expected it to be a bomb or something of the sort. It’s New York, after all. 

    But it was far from that. 

    Anderson Cooper’s back was turned and above him, cinematically, was one of the Times Square billboard screens, announcing the new year. But it didn’t read January 1st. Anderson Cooper turned, his finger pressed to his ear, and said quietly into the mic, “The billboards are saying December 32nd.”

    I blinked at the television. I turned to the cashier, whose face was still frozen in shock. And then I bolted out of the store, Powerade and popcorn in hand. 

    I sprinted through the halt signs, across the busiest streets, and hastily hopped over the blockades until I was at the center of Times Square, packed with people watching the screens in horror. It was plastered on every single billboard. The date had changed, but to a date that had never before existed. 

    I pulled my phone out of my back pocket where I found a missed call from Don, and all-cap texts from Cass, just before midnight. Above those notifications, it was 12:06 am, Wednesday, December 32nd.

    With the final kick of strength I could muster, I then ran back to Don’s place, taking the fire escape stairs instead of the elevator, and hopping up two at a time. 12:21 am. The hallway was silent except for my heavy panting and squeaking shoes as I fast-walked to their door. I shoved the key into the lock and pushed the door open. 

    I spotted Don immediately, who stood over Cass, who had makeup running down her face. I ran over to the pair.

    “What’s going on?”

    Cass sniffed snottily. “I don’t know,” she choked. “But I already have my wedding invitations printed!”

    I looked at Don, who shrugged, eyes wide.

    “So?”

    Cass glared at me. “What if tomorrow is December 33rd, huh? And then December 34th? What if it just keeps going? The wedding is in February — the invitations say February!”

    I backed up then. Cass was adding more crazy and I couldn’t take it.

    It could’ve been the fact that my blood ran thick with champagne or the fact that the year hadn’t changed over but was a sick continuation of the previous, or both. Either way, I decided to draft a text for Zoey. I turned and jumped. 

    It was Reese, her blue eyes bugging. Up close, she most definitely did not look like Zoey. 

    “Hey, you!” she said. I tried to fake her out and dodge around her but she blocked me. “You better repent now. It’s the second coming.”

    “What?” I yelped. 

    She jabbed a finger into my chest. “I know a sinner when I see one.”

    “Get out of my way!” I said, pushing her to the side and bolting.

    Cass and Don’s apartment was a singular floor with a limited number of rooms, so I only had so many options to hide. But since their friends were still freaking out and hadn’t gone home, it wasn’t difficult for me to slip away inconspicuously and then beeline it to the bathroom. It was empty. 

    I locked the door and didn’t even put the top of the toilet seat down before I sat on top of it. I unlocked my phone, which glowed in the darkness. 12:45 a.m.

    My notes app wasn’t cluttered compared to most. I had three notes: one grocery list that I tended to reuse, a list of Zoey’s favorite things that I couldn’t get myself to delete, and the drafted post-breakup text that I did end up sending. She’d read it but never responded. Perhaps she’ll respond to this one, in light of the chaos, and like Reese said, the world could be ending.

    I started to type, my fingers flying over the digital keys. It was muddled thought, a word-vomited haiku of my feelings that quickly became a longer work of bullshit that I guess had been ruminating around the cavity of my head for a while. 

    A list of red flags I’d always seen in her, but ignored.

    Things about how I’m glad I kept Woodstock, the cat we’d adopted together because he always liked me better. 

    How pissed I’d been after I found out she was cheating because she hard-launched her new relationship with her personaltrainer just a few weeks after she told me our relationship was essentially a scam. 

    But then I wrote how I still loved her, in the end, and even though I hated her existence, I’d also take her back because love and hate tend to coincide with one another, and these past months were brutally painful and emasculating and I wasn’t the same without her. 

    By the end of my rant, I’d typed out several nasty paragraphs with surprisingly few red-underlined typos.

    I selected the text and then copied it. 

    12:57 a.m.

    I moved my thumb over my phone screen and hit the message app. I only text four people regularly — Don, Cass, my mom, and my boss — so Zoey’s name wasn’t hard to find. I pasted the copied text in the message box. I almost hit send but someone banged on the door and I jumped, dropping my phone and watching it skid across the floor. 

    “They fixed it! Harry, it’s next year! Come on out!”

    Cass had the TV on when I went back into the living room which read Glitch in System Fixed After Fifty-Eight Minutes. Anderson Cooper looked a little flushed but he was saying something about a foreign hacker. 

    I took my phone out of my back pocket (which now had a cracked screen over the middle) and looked at the time for confirmation. I let out an exhale. 

    I then opened my phone and deleted the Zoey Notes, including the one I’d just written. For good measure, I also deleted her contact. I stared at the screen for just a moment before slipping it back into my pocket. 

    It was officially January 1st, 2020 — a clean slate.

    *This story is original work, and therefore cannot be used for commercial or individual use.

  • The Return of the White Rabbit

    Dear Digital Diary,

    I’m writing from Wonderland.

    In a storytelling sense, the white rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a metaphor for passing time, a reminder of it, and a symbol of curiosity about the unknown. On TikTok, as of late, the rabbit represents more of a ticking time bomb and a greater reminder that in this world, what is both good and bad must always come to an end. 

    For myself, I’ve seen that rabbit. I saw him with his little ticking clock and chose to follow him that first time, but it was not the adventure I expected. Down within that hole under an oak tree was not a wonderland, but instead, an homage to my depression, my anxiety, and a comfortable habitat in which I could brood under the surface of reality. 

    At this time, the rabbit tucked away his clock in the folds of his coat, and I was no longer curious about time. What I’ve found now is that depression and anxiety become comfortable. Sadness becomes comfortable. While it is difficult to get out of this mental state, it’s easier to stay in it and suffer. And as I did so, I wasn’t aware how much time had passed. 

    The day I woke up was a sunny day in March in Southern Georgia, four weeks after I started antidepressants. I’d slept through the night without unusual dreams, I no longer felt nauseous, and my head felt clear. I was in my body for the first time in eight months. I felt the blood pumping through my heart that extended to my abdomen, my fingers, the top of my head. I went to the gym that morning and sprinted on the treadmill as fast as I could, and I felt the air expanding in my lungs and the sweat running down my forehead. I was alive, just as I had been, but this time I felt it with every cell of my being. 

    That day in March was in early 2024. As the seasons slipped into one another, I didn’t see the white rabbit. There were memories of him, like a pair of rabbit-sized slippers, but I never fully saw the rabbit with his crazed stare and pocket watch. I was certain, at this time, that I’d outrun him. 

    In Maine, the seasons changing from summer to autumn feel as abrupt as night and day. As if someone took a leaf blower and, overnight, crept into every yard, every forest, and sent every colored leaf off of the trees to rot on the ground. I awoke on a cold morning with torrential rain on the forecast, and a grey, cloudy sky that acted as a canopy over someone who would rather not see the sun. But I need the sun. 

    My undereyes turn borderline bruised, my skin pales to an unhealthy yellow, and my lips are dry and cracked. I look ill because I feel ill. But in years past, I was only subjected to this weather for the six weeks of winter break, which I spent back home. Then I’d return to my sunshine. But not now. Winter looms on the horizon, and those from New England know that winter is only over once the last bit of slush has melted. That’s usually sometime in April. By then, I’ll have turned 23.

    I was visiting someone in the hospital when I saw him. I suppose it’s only fair that the white rabbit could be there, while he waits for those who wish to join him in that subconscious area between life and death. It was early October, and I was sitting on the end of the bed, quite uncomfortable with the sterilized surroundings that had an undertone of bleach and that sickening smell of illness that can’t be cured. A nurse came in to tend to the man on the other side of the curtain, the bed closest to the door, and following the nurse was the white rabbit. The same white rabbit from over a year ago, with that same crazed expression, and his stupid ticking timepiece. A reminder that time is passing. A reminder that I had not outrun him as I’d thought I did.

    There are three human stress responses: fight, flight, or freeze. Most times, I harness the powers of flight. The second I feel off — unnecessarily blue or shaking so badly that it appears that I’m unusually cold — I decide there’s nothing better to do than to run away. I decide I’ll flee the country. Quit my job and start anew where English isn’t the first language. Maybe while I’m there, I’ll also change my name. I’ll rid myself of who I was before in the hope that I’ll also shed whatever disease had been making my mind so sick. 

    Except it never works out that way. I cannot rid myself of myself. The sickness is in the mind that is trapped in my body, and it’s the mind that reacts in ways that make itself the enemy. 

    By this time, I had run away. But I hadn’t gone to Italy or Crete or Brazil. I’d followed that damn rabbit back into the place I’d once visited for an extended time and promised myself I’d never go again. Yet there I was. There I am. Back in that chamber that some call Wonderland, and it may be, to some. 

    And so the white rabbit caught up to me. He and I sit on opposite sides of the living room, reading yellow-paged books in front of the warmth of the fire. He’s no longer reading, but instead has drifted off to sleep with the book flat on his belly. It’s only fair that I no longer read and have instead begun to write. And while the rabbit tucked away his reminder of time in his coat, I still hear the ticking of a clock. 

    I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but it’s there. That is enough.

    – Mia

  • Miss Merlot – A Poem

    Dear Digital Diary,

    I haven’t written anything of importance in a little under a month, but I did write a poem.

    Miss Merlot

    As a child I skipped to the playground

    Sick of being inside 

    To which I now only venture when I’m

    Brain-sick or

    Belly-sick.

    I resort to the sway of a swingset and

    Casual conversation with my best friend —

    She and I don’t talk much but

    Silence settles me.

    She’s a dusty bottle of Merlot

    That lives on my kitchen counter

    Behind the 

    My real best friend

    Lives in Crested Butte.

    She talks better than Merlot.

    As it turns out

    No child plays on the playground in winter

    Like they used to.

    Instead they go and

    Slide down the tallest hills with 

    Neighborhood kids they didn’t

    Know yesterday and 

    Fall into the powder that

    Towers over their heads.

    Snow gets into their boots and

    Clings in clumps 

    On the fibers of their gloves when they 

    Go inside to shake off the outdoor chill —

    Faces tinged pink with 

    Snot running down frostbitten noses

    That start to bleed from the cold —

    Yet they laugh.

    It’s precipitating now.

    I swing back and

    Forth and 

    Back again

    Merlot tossing about in the bottle

    Sloshing over the sides

    Splattering deep red over the back of my hand and

    Into the snow —

    Maroon meant for my tongue 

    Melt the flakes in an instant

    Bleeding into the soil of the earth where the

    Flora grows in springtime and where 

    The worms thrive and 

    The dead things decompose

    Somewhere six feet under.

    I stub the toe of my shoe 

    Into the ground

    Where the Merlot sank

    Until I’ve dug up a beet-sized grave

    Realizing I’ll return anon

    To the body of The Mother

    Sooner than I’d like.

  • Holden Caulfield & the Grand Canyon

    Dear Digital Diary,

    Last week I was standing over the Grand Canyon. 

    The rocks were painted red like bricks, but there was nothing artificial about the miles and miles of peaks and valleys and pure canyon. I could barely see the trees that sprinkled the earth below, but I could see a hazy green. Someone next to me — who’d smartly brought binoculars — said they could see horses and a cabin. But to me, I saw nothing. 

    In retrospect, I was barely above the canyon. I wasn’t up in space, looking at the planet from a ship and reflecting on how everything I’d known is dust. Yet I did reflect. And it’s not only that I am dust, but nothing I can do can really matter. 

    I promise this isn’t a doomsday post. 

    It’s sort of like how you can have two takes on unemployment: on one side, you’re unemployed and you have no idea what’s next. On the other side, there’s an immense amount of freedom that has just been placed before you. 

    I should rephrase my previous statement by saying that nothing I can do matters to everyone. Not even the most powerful, most influential, most arrogant billionaire in the world could really do something that harms or benefits or matters to every single person. Even Taylor Swift doesn’t exist to certain people. 

    Today I finished reading The Catcher in the Rye for the second time, which is also what got me on this spin of thoughts.I’d read it in sophomore year of high school, which was the only book that stuck with me besides Gatsby — I love the classics, what can I say. But I’m not an adolescent boy, so there was nothing about Caulfield that really called to me. I wasn’t chasing anything like he was — women, freedom, violence, etc. Instead, it was the fact that I was reading about him: his internal monologue, raw and unfiltered. And in him, the way his dialogue ran through the pages, I saw myself. 

    It’s controversial to see yourself (a now twenty-two-year-old woman) in a fictional teenage boy. But there was something about him that made me realize that I think and feel the same way. My brain runs selfishly, and I put myself first. If you were to suck out the thoughts from my brain and tap them onto a piece of paper, the things that would be apparent after the dust settled would be 99% about me. 

    And honestly, forgive me if it’s selfish, that’s the way it should be. 

    It’s my world, and you just live in it. 

    It’s your world, and I just live in it. 

    Or, even better, it’s your world and I’m just a writer you read words from on a Monday and then forget about. 

    What I mean is that your life is your own. You and I exist here at the same time, but we don’t have the same experiences. But if a third person went up to space and looked down on the Earth, they wouldn’t even see us. Hell, they wouldn’t even be able to tell where we were on the planet, even if you owned the biggest house and I owned the biggest boat. From up there, you can only see the sea and the earth, like how, above the Grand Canyon, you only see the red and purple rocks, and how far down they go. 

    Nothing you do matters to everyone. But everything you do matters to you. Which is why living as close to my authentic self is important to me. If I’m not making choices that make me feel close to my soul, then who am I making choices for?

    You’re nothing but a speck of sand. An ant on an anthill. A fictional character in a book nobody cares to read anymore. You’re a tree at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And although that seems harsh, it doesn’t demean the importance of your soul. You are supposed to be here, but you are supposed to be just how you choose. Your soul is only as important as how you make it. Saying you are small in a big world only takes the pressure off. 

    And when there is less pressure, that is when I can truly breathe. 

  • October 14, 2023

    Dear Digital Diary,

    this is what I wrote on October 14, 2023.

    “I think it’s funny that you think your mind will grow as you do, but it doesn’t. I’m chronically seventeen. And I still feel as I did when I first started writing in journals just after I turned eleven.

    The thing is that I don’t think it’s all bad that I feel mostly the same. It means that, at my core, I really haven’t changed much. But it’s still sad that I dislike myself like I did at 11 and that I still feel insecure about how other people think about me even though I really shouldn’t care. Most of the time I don’t show it because I’m really good at saying no. Apparently it’s a quality of mine that people wish they had. Like I take a mental health day if I need it, or I don’t go socialize if I’m not feeling it. And I do like that about myself even though I was made fun of for being an introvert. I’ve found that a lot of my insecurities have changed and, while I have new ones, the other ones don’t bother me so much anymore. I like that I’m an artist, that I know when to take a break, and that I wear what I’m comfortable in. I’ve learned to like my hips and my teeth and my eyes and my lips. Like even at one point in first or second grade I thought people would think I’m prettier if I held my mouth smaller. It just shows how insignificant everything small is. Life isn’t just about how you look.”

    – Mia

  • Fairweather Friends & Flower Gardens

    Dear Digital Diary,

    I can’t keep having the same conversations. 

    I’m really good at buying plants and planting them and watching them for a little while, but come the colder months, I tend to pay less attention. 

    The plants, if pertaining to my life, are the friends I collect. I’m great at finding them, maintaining them for a little while, but when I find that, when I’m mentally in a “cold weather” month (or week or day), it’s difficult for me to check in and make sure the plants are still doing alright. 

    See, if it happened for one singular season, then it’s whatever. But I’ve had a few of my plants from my garden tell me they wish I paid more attention to them. And while they’re in the right, that maintaining consistent effort helps them to grow, am I also in the right for not trying to tend to my garden when it’s wintertime?

    What’s a Bad Friend?

    It was the fourth time a friend had come to me saying she wished I put more effort into our friendship that I realized, perhaps, I could be a bad friend. If my friends didn’t feel I cared about them, then was I really their friend at all?

    But technically, I wasn’t a bad friend—not entirely. I’m not abusive, not narcissistic, not only using them for leverage or money or to provide free therapy. Now that being said, I’m not saying I don’t have the flaws that some bad friends have. I’m a notorious flake. I know this. I disappear when I have a mental health flare, and I have horrible communication skills. I’m not great at balancing my feelings versus the feelings of others, so there’s a time when I pour into their cup and everyone else in my life so much that there’s nothing left in mine, leaving me drained and in need of rest. 

    So I step back for a moment without realizing it. I need alone time. Now that looks different for everybody: for me, that looks like running errands, going to work, reading a book, or running all by myself. For my sister, that’s knitting under a tree in the backyard. For my boyfriend, it’s camping deep in the woods for days. 

    Alone time is not only normal, it’s a necessity. Some people do need it, though, more than others, and if you’re on the lesser scale, I’m sure it’s hard to understand. But that doesn’t make me a bad friend.

    My Priorities, Your Priorities

    I’m not one to text 24/7. Besides Spotify and social media (that’s just me posting and beating the algorithm to see if I can make some quick cash), I avoid using my phone as much as possible. I’m also someone who kind of does their own thing on most days. And even if I post, nobody really knows all that’s going on. I know we all know the concept that social media is fake, but then when we apply it to real people in our lives, we can sometimes forget.

    So I don’t text. But I also never forget a birthday. I may not make plans, but I’ll send gifts in the mail for no reason. I won’t be attached at the hip, but I’ll always be there when you need me.

    And maybe that’s not the friend for you. I’m an air plant type of friend. I don’t need water to keep me alive, or in friendship terms, I don’t need constant attention for the friendship to be maintained. But some people are more like sunflowers, who need a fair amount of sunlight to function. And then there’s a parlor palm, which doesn’t need a lot of sunlight and will dry up if it gets the same amount as a sunflower. 

    Sometimes it may be hard to coexist with each other.

    A New Age

    Despite the fact that we think we know everything at 18, then nothing at 22, we’re all learning at different rates, with unique experiences and individual anxieties. The one thing we should all have, however, is empathy. Empathy for the fact that friends won’t be carbon copies of yourself, and while friendships are relationships, they are usually based upon proximity as opposed to similarity, meaning your friends will be different from you. 

    And with age comes the ability to practice agency. If it’s not working for you, then don’t entertain it. But perhaps open communication would be effective. 

    Because nobody likes finding out from a TikTok repost that you’ve been purposely not texting as a way to test if they’ll text first. What a juvenile practice that is, while also holding the expectation of an adult friendship.

    – Mia

  • Six Things I Believe to Be True

    Dear Digital Diary,

    it’s interesting what happens when you’re no longer told what to believe and realize you can choose to believe what you wish.

    I’ve recently been thinking about why I believe what I believe.

    In the winter of my junior year of college, I took a linguistics anthropology class. It was 100% to fulfill a credit, but I ended up loving the class. Not only was it about language, but also about how humans connect with one another.

    To open the class, the professor asked us to write down six things that we believe to be true. After, we would share our top three that hadn’t yet been mentioned — proving that the belief system, while being one of the things that unites us, is also highly individual. 

    And for kicks and the purpose of highly educational text, here were my six truths:

    1. Karma.

    What you give is what you get. You give good, you get good. You give bad, you get bad. It’s a simple concept — which I feel is the secret to the truths of life and the point of why we’re here. The meaning of life isn’t complicated; it’s simple, just as karma is. 

    Now, if you put out bad energy by accident, that’s different. That’s a learning opportunity. But putting out bad on purpose (cough, cough, some people in politics), then karma will come back. I swear it.

    2. Both God and the Universe exist as separate powers — it’s neither one nor the other.

    This one is tricky. I grew up Mormon, a rather new religion with structure, specific teachings, a specific God, and, of course, Heaven and Hell. But as I grew, I didn’t believe in some of those concepts so much. There was much more power in Mother Nature than Joseph Smith ever had. The things of the earth belong to the universe.

    My concept of God came next, and that being is the umbrella over everything else. If Mother Nature and the Universe are the now, God is the past. My truth is that there is more than just our solar system, so something had to have created all of that before our Universe existed. 

    3. Humanity has been ruined by the implemented biased government systems.

    Humans are humans. We’re all here for the first time (unless you believe in reincarnation), just trying to make it. Some are richer than others, though. Some are treated better because of their skin tone. Some are treated worse because of where they’re from. Society, right as it began, created a bias. The governments only made it worse. 

    There’s a hierarchy in every society. This much is obviously true. But you add a government that tries to make the majority happy, but it’s never the case. And suddenly, humans are pitted against one another like we don’t all bleed the same blood. Sides are taken based on what you believe about people. 

    If you’re reading this and you’re up to date on American politics, you can see this bright as day. It’s Democrats vs Republicans. More recently, morality vs no morals. Blue vs Red. Either way, it is human against human. All are just trying to survive. In a place where we used to sing and dance and tell stories and make art, we’ve created a war. But you can’t win a war when it’s you vs you.

    4. Dreams unlock the subconscious.

    Say what you want about your ability to suppress emotions until they cease to exist, but I swear they will always bubble up. This comes from someone who chronically overuses the words I’m fine and acts as though things that bother them don’t bother them anymore than the shower faucet running cold for the first fifteen seconds of the water being turned on.

    I’m not in on the philosophy of the mind. I smoked far too little weed and didn’t take a lick of hard drugs in college, so I believe that part of my mind is not unlocked. But I know enough to understand that the dreamscape is a completely separate universe from our own reality — a separate universe in the sense that our reality created it. Your brain can’t just create a face, so every face you’ve seen in a dream has already existed. But this mind wanders, unlike reality. In reality, what is happening right now and in the past is and has happened. 

    But the dreamscape? The dreamscape is all of that plus more. In the dreamscape, the mind can problem-solve. And what better problems to solve than the ones buried so far down that the mind needed to be completely exhausted of your current reality to find them. It makes you face things in your sleep that you refuse to face in your reality.

    5. Religion is flawed because people are flawed.

    While I believe in the concept of God, I cannot believe in religion. I believe it stemmed from the fear of not knowing — not knowing where we came from or where we’re going. As humans, we love to know things — we’re curious by nature — but the not knowing of the beginning and the end kills us.

    So for years and years and years we’ve workshopped what could happen and what could’ve been. For example, in the Mormon church, I was taught that I chose to come to Earth and I chose my parents. And after you die, you have to be baptized to get to the highest heavenly kingdom. There are options, though — think of it as Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Bronze is Hell. 

    Hell was created because we got bored. We created stakes, created a black and white, good vs. evil type of protocol.Those who lived their lives believing in God live well after death, but those who don’t burn with Satan. But these good vs.evil lists vary between religions. Some might go to Hell if they drink coffee, while others will join them if they have premarital sex. Others may only burn if they kill someone. Confusing, right?

    Humans aren’t perfect. That’s a fact. And because humans aren’t perfect and each carries their own set of beliefs and experiences, one who creates a religion creates a flawed one, my fault. There is no perfect religion.

    And I must say, this always led me to question why people (me included, for a bit at least), get so obsessed with trying to find the “perfect” religion.

    6. Sixth senses.

    Call it manifesting, call it your dreamscape, call it a sixth sense. Either way, I feel as though I and many others have a sort of predictive power about us. I’ve predicted jury duty for three different people. My friend Rosie has a sixth sense about numbers. And I’ve had a few times where I’ve written stories based loosely on the people in my life, and it’s come true. 

    Now I don’t know what causes these senses. I’ve wrestled with the idea that perhaps we saw a preview of our entire life before we were even born, and we get some sort of weird deja vu before the event takes place, hence why I returned to my belief in the concept of God. But wherever it comes from, whatever it’s caused by, it’s no fluke. You’ve got five senses…and then a special sixth sense for good luck.

    Anyway. I grew up believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Zeus. Now I’m here.

    I prompt you with this: what are six things that you believe to be true?

    – Mia

  • The Summer I Turned Insane (Because of a Drama Show Made for Teenagers)

    Dear Digital Diary,

    in a world of Conrads vs. Jeremiahs, I feel there’s an obvious answer.

    There’s still three episodes left of S3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty (thanks Ms. Han for the cliffhanger) but I assure you that I’m hopeful Belly will choose the correct Fisher brother.

    – Mia