Hello beloved,

Writing for an audience is very different from writing. For example, I have literally never once started any conversation, written or spoken, with “hello, beloved.”

I am 22-years-old. For the sake of ease and being from one place, I’ll say I am from a once-small town in Florida. I attended Uni in a once-small-in-a-different-way town in Northern Florida (a region which may as well be a different state) until May of 2023 when I packed up a duffel bag and a backpack and headed to Auckland, New Zealand to start what, pre-departure, I un-ironically called, “my new and ordinary life.”

Privileged escapism at its finest.

I decided to start this blog on my 50th day in Auckland.

When I stopped in Fiji on my way to New Zealand, I met a young woman at my hostel who told me she had been journaling every day since leaving home. She seemed better for it and our conversation, exchanged in our 16-woman dorm room, endured, just like the scabies.

Every day, for the past 50 days, I have opened my leather-bound journal and spilled my guts on its sacred pages. A practice in reflection, this handwritten process has offered me comfort and structure and joy in all the right spots.

I feel ready to transcribe the best of what I have written to type.

There is for me only one certain thing about this blog project: I want my idea of a successful blog to remain within the confines of my own expression. I will write for the sake of creation. If I must, I will post and leave my words reader-less and lonely forever, as long as each piece has her own space to breathe. As long as the possibility of these words finding you and offering you something of value (or not) exists, I am satisfied.

I also aim for kinship, community, and connection — as we all do when it seems so easy to forget our oneness. Reach out if you read this<3

I dream for this blog to act as a skeleton for my book, these entries its bones, its lifeblood yet unimagined.

I, of course, dream of this being my start as a “real” writer.

How silly.

What is a fake writer?

Throughout this journey, you will participate in rather than read about my life; more importantly, you will witness the lives of the people I carry. Or if you prefer, those who carry me. Tanehesi Coates (see section “Great Artists Steal” below) gave me the language I didn’t know I needed and reminded me that I am a vessel made up of everyone and everything I love. So really, it’s all the same; you will know me through the stories I carry for others — the stories that hold me together.

This is my aim, at least.

A Map of Trying To at Twenty-Two: The Blog

Do you know those few-and-far-between feelings of intense understanding at those seemingly random, almost inconvenient moments?

Almost one year ago, I was a passenger in a rental car on its way from Sydney to Melbourne. The car also carried my mom, dad, and brother. It was one of the most silent road trips ever recorded in history — probably due to the fact that my parents had been for the past 4 months without much explanation living on different continents for the first time in 22 years and were now without much explanation on a family Christmas vacation together, with us, as one perfect couple and one perfect family.

In the silence, the voice in my head demanded of me, “Understand the depth of the phrase ‘Everyone is just doing the best they can do.’”

In that moment, nothing seemed more true. It was like that sentence had just been translated to a language I could fully understand, each word fresh and reimagined. It was like compassion had in that moment evolved from a lifeless word to a vital knowing. Something tickled my heart and I haven’t been the same since.

So this space is about doing the best I can do, instead of doing the best.

This space is about trying, sometimes just for the sake of trying.

This is a space made for expression, not production. I aim to post weekly. Sometimes more. Sometimes less.

I aim to post short, entertaining stories; I believe deeply in the power of poetry and the potency of brevity. But I can get wordy.

Supposedly, Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” As a product of an American education in the time of Wikipedia, I am hardwired to cite my sources. In each entry, I aim to share with you links and references to the creators guiding me at the present moment — these will live in a section titled “Great Artists Steal” at the end of each post. Here, find books, poems, podcasts and songs — recommended readings.

I aim also to record the week’s chosen coping mechanisms. These can be consumed as the advice or inspiration section of each entry. They will be listed under a section titled, “Until You Know Better,” to be read in Maya Angelou’s voice: Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. From this section, take what feels good and right, leave the rest.

xx

Until You Know Better

Yoga class — the 4pm one because the 6:30 class was just not in the cards for me this morning

Solo Movie Date on Unlimited Popcorn Refill Night — The Barbie Movie, obviously

Half a jar of keto caramel nut butter

Great Artists Steal

Read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche; I am probably starting this blog in an effort to live into my Ifemelu era.

Read Between the World and Me by Tanehesi Coates; more essential than recommended, this is like when the teacher used to tell the class what was going to be on the test by adding some oh-so-clever verbal cue like, “hint, hint, wink, wink” to the lesson. HINT HINT WINK WINK!