The line between truth and noise isn’t as clear as it used to be. At least, not to me.

Featuring: reversing at red lights, a permanently damaged T.V., and a very short-lived trumpet career.

“I know my rights!” I screamed.

That’s how it started.

This is a story about becoming someone you don’t recognize.

I wrote about my time in a psychiatric ward.

My pants started falling down in public and I had to pretend everything was fine.

Anyway, here we are.

AI can write something that sounds like me.
That’s the problem.

It can get very, very close.
It’s still not me.

Another confession:
I can follow instructions. I just don’t know which ones apply to being a person.

Another confession:
I tried to break up with myself.

Turns out I’m harder to leave than I thought.

This one’s about overthinking, identity, and all the versions of us we almost become.

OK, confession time: I’ve been using AI to help me write.
I think it’s making me better.
I also think I’m cheating.

So… who’s the real author here?

I went to Whole Foods to return a computer I never even opened.

I left wondering if there’s a return policy for anxiety, bad decisions, and misplaced self-worth.

My computer died yesterday, and I sat there staring at the blank screen like it might come back to life. Outside, the tulips were already up—even though it’s barely spring. I noticed them, but I didn’t get up to look.

It made me realize how often I do that—stay just outside my own life. Close enough to see it. Not close enough to be in it.

Okay, I need to say this very loudly. Are you listening? Are you there, or just staring into the same void I am? Is this thing on, or am I talking to myself again like a person who’s one step away from narrating her own life in third person?

I’m tired.

We pay our bills, but we don’t pay ourselves.
Maybe it’s time to stop being so aggressively normal—and start asking, “Am I alive?”
There’s a debt you can’t clear with productivity.
Only honesty. Maybe a little weirdness.

I catch myself thinking about him watching over me. He was blind for so long, but I like to believe that wherever he is now, he can finally see—really see. Not just the surface of things, but through them. Through me. The way you can see through water. I think he can see through my grief and recognize it for what it really is: love.

I like to imagine that the people we lose can somehow see the truth of who we are, beyond all the noise and performance.

And yet, if I’m being honest, I also feel like I don’t have my sh#t together at all. Like I’m still pretending to be an adult instead of actually being one. Everyone else seems more solid, more certain. Meanwhile, I’m over here improvising, hoping no one notices I’m just making it up as I go. I have an almost comically high level of impostor syndrome when it comes to being human. I don’t feel like an alien exactly—but I also don’t quite feel like everyone else either.

Listen, I recognize I’m the most inconsistent fool on the interwebs. I mean, who gave me permission to have my own website? Who allowed this? Who signed off on this level of public spiraling?

I have 66,159 unread messages in my email account. How is that even possible?

I know, I know, I should not be allowed near technology. My question is, why isn’t Gmail asking me every year if they can just erase these unopened messages? I would totally agree. Why are they wasting their space on me? You see how this is not my fault?

Ok, so this century is only in its mid twenties, that explains everything.

Do you remember how dumb you were when you were 26? Now I’m not ready to write off this entire century, but do you remember the 1900’s? 

I know, I know, I’m stuck in a nostalgic trap, I can’t let go of the past. But honestly, can you? Remember when the presidency was noble? But then again, gay marriage was illegal. I don’t know if racism was better or worse; maybe we just glorify the past because the present seems to be so terrible.

Ok, if you are anywhere from 46-61, you are generally considered part of the GenerationX crowd.

What does this mean, you ask? Let’s just say it was different when we were kids. See, when I was a kid, there were like four TV channels, and there was no remote control; we also only had one TV. Since there were very few choices of what to watch, you would watch whatever was coming on at whatever time it came on, with commercial breaks. 

“What is love?” I asked.

“That’s the problem, right there. You guys keep doing this thing where you think your symbols, your words, mean something. Your words are only pointing to a meaning; they are not the thing itself. Love is not the word love. It’s a feeling that cannot be captured with a few letters.”

It seemed like he was singing that to me. Those words.“What is it then?” I was puzzled.

“It’s not just a feeling; it encompasses all that is; it is an energy, it cannot be put into words. You are love. Can you find a word that encompasses all that you are? Love is like that; it is complex and real.”

Okay, so my backdoor neighbor may be raising chickens. I’m not sure how legal that is in my city, but he doesn’t exactly seem like the law-abiding type.

He usually shows up at my front door every now and then, and if I don’t answer, he will call me and ask me to hang out. Along with the chickens, he kept a broken boat in his backyard.