Today is Saturday October 24, 2026 2:00 pm as I sit down to write. I got the flu last weekend and missed an entire week of work. I was riddled with guilt for missing so much time, and anxiety for not having control over how the plans were to go. I now have the dread of going back weighing on me, and instead of working on the lessons this week and taking a look at what I missed in the meeting, I’m telling myself that if I express myself creatively first I will have more mental space to think about work.

Today is the first day I feel somewhat normal after spending a week on the couch going in and out of fever dreams. One nice thing about being sick is that I was too sick to care. I was in immense physical pain, but I wasn’t contorting with constant anxiety that keeps me up at night and paralyzed during the day. I was able to peacefully drift into sleep before 2 am, and sit still enough to watch entire movies without taking frequent breaks. I blame my phone, and a lifetime of screens for my severed attention span, but when I really put my mind to it, I am able to focus for long periods of time. I just feel that lately I am more addicted than ever to cheap and quick dopamine, and with my new job I am so mentally and physically exhausted after a shift that I don’t have the energy to take care of myself the way I would like to. I’ve been trying to give myself grace as I am going through a transitionary period in my life with new beginnings in every aspect. A new home, new friendships, new routine, and a new job.

Before getting sick I was making progress in coming back to myself. I made little goals such as making sure I put my laundry away when it’s taken off of the drying rack rather than letting it sit in that chair for the entire week. I started working out again and cooking more. I went out alone for the first time in a month to a social event where I made promises to see everyone next week. Then I got sick and I also had to miss the first day of the sewing class that I signed up for. Since today is the first day that I feel well enough to move and go out without being an infectious burden to society, I am trying my best to fulfill the promises I make to myself and break over and over and over again. I realize I’m not doing that badly, and I am trying my best to take care of myself, but the one promise I continually disappoint myself with is not using my phone in the evening and it’s the one that leaves me feeling the most stupid and exhausted, yet I’m not strong enough to pull myself away.

At night I tell myself, I’m too tired to enjoy reading or remember anything that I read, but it’s an excuse that my little rat brain makes to get what it really wants. And it’s a way for my anxious mind to avoid what really makes me scared. I hate falling asleep because a part of me dreads waking up to a new day. One day closer to the work week, one day more of having to face the fears, worries, anxieties, and faults that I ruminate over everyday. At night when the day is over and nothing is expected of me I feel like I can truly be myself and relax, but I don’t want that peace to end, and the longer I put off rest, the more I can indulge in the time where I don’t have to be productive, social, or active. I can just lay down curled up in a ball and no one is bothering me. Especially now that in my job I have 100 little voices calling my name all at once repetitively until they win my attention.

Ever since I graduated college I have felt lost and unsure of where any of this is leading me. The struggles, the isolation, the mistakes…As I wrote those words I felt a tiredness come over me. It’s depressing. What keeps me going is a deeply rooted seed of hope and faith in God’s or the universe’s plan. I know I can’t just sit on my butt and wait for the rest to unfold, but I have a feeling that I am moving in the wrong direction and heading towards a dead end. A little voice has been bothering me for quite some time now insisting that it’s time for a change, but what change? Do I just need to cut and dye my hair? Or do I need to completely uproot my life and destroy everything in my path like a slash and burn mission again? Why am I so uncomfortable with who I am and where I am at this moment? Is it because it’s all wrong and everything needs to change, or do I simply just need to accept this as my reality? I struggle between these questions everyday. The only thing I know for certain is that I need to create something, although what I make may be pretentious, boring, shitty, unoriginal, I need to make it and get it out of me.

That’s why I’ve come back to making a digital space where I can share things. I need to start somewhere even though I don’t feel ready or good enough. It doesn’t matter anymore if nothing comes from it, but I know I will hate myself for the rest of my life if I don’t allow myself to do this, to share what I create. As much as I struggle to like what I make and see the value in it, or think anything good about it, I have also come to accept that I have this urge to make and exhibit myself, and I feel like a neglected houseplant, weak and withered, if I do not do this for myself. I can’t keep ignoring the things that I actually want in this life. My entire life I have told myself, I am not this enough or that enough to do what makes me feel alive. I have been a stranger to myself for as long as I remember, and now I can see myself becoming one of those bitter old people that didn’t live the life they wanted to. I can’t go on like this anymore, because I can’t see myself going forward without numbing myself to the dreams and desires that are screaming for me to look at them.

Growing up I was told by my mother that idealism is for young people and when you get older you become more realistic. I can feel myself becoming more “realistic” and I’m miserable because of it. Becoming realistic means sacrificing your dreams for yourself, and the world so that you can just survive the day to day. I have nothing to lose at this point. The “real world” will always be here if I fail. Maybe I’m already too old to go back to the world of dreams and fantasies, but even that thought is one of a realistic person. I don’t want to be realistic anymore. All of the great things that I have accomplished in my life have been a result of living in a chronic daydream and having delusional ideas of what is available to me. Even when I moved to Spain my mom said that one day I will come back to real life, that my life here is basically a fantasy. Little does she know… At times real life seems more difficult and painful here than if I were back in the States. I think I’ve forgotten why I am here, so far from my family, community, and language, in the first place. I forgot that I wanted to do something hard to see what I am capable of, and it doesn’t feel like it’s time to go back yet, even though it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere here either.

All I know is that I have to do something and I can’t keep doing this anymore. Being realistic and having realistic goals has never worked for me. I can’t live in the real world without becoming so incredibly depressed that I can’t even take care of my basic necessities. I have to go back to the dream world, and meet myself there again. Maybe some people might not understand, or be able to reach me in the same way, but I can’t keep myself here to make myself more accessible to others. I have to float away again and live in a world of my own creation, because the realistic one makes no sense to me. I just pray that I can keep this promise and allow myself to grow into whatever I imagine myself to be.