i have been on this blog for five years.

crazy to consider, really. crazy to sit here and realize: i've been blogging for five years, here on this little corner of the internet. (we all call our blogs corners of the internet--how many corners does the internet have? is it a multi-dimensional shape?) 

so much has changed in that time. i'm not even close to the person i used to be. i know my younger self would never have imagined me being in college for history. in ninth grade, i didn't even know i liked history. now i'm a sophomore in college and i love nothing more. looking back across the years reveals so many things and it's crazy.

i'm still writing but my books have changed, too. my attempts to sound like other ya authors, to match their genius somehow by copying them--that ended so long ago i can barely remember it. i can take inspiration now without having to directly copy it. i no longer feel insecure reading a good book--now i want to write more, so that someday, i will attain my own level of quality in writing, and my books will be good in and of themselves. my stories are still melodramatic and contain too many love triangles, too many messy politics, too much inner monologue and not enough description. but i've learned so much and i've come so much further.

i think my books are less extensions of me, now, too. i remember writing an essay freshman year--a history of myself as a writer. it ended up remarkably raw. my professor read a line of it out loud anonymously, as he did with everyone else's papers, and i remember the embarrassment of having everyone else read it, even if they didn't know it was mine.

at the end of that semester, we wrote more essays about where we saw our writing in the future. mine included this line:

Maybe my books will be worth something, someday.

Even now, they mean something, for they are immensely valuable to me. I don’t know what I would do without my writing and I plan never to stop. ...And hard though it may be… I will fight for my own words. I will dust off the shelves and remind myself that just because I am busy does not mean I cannot write. I will fight for the chance to share my heart with the world, to try to shine the light into the darkest corners.

that's a promise i made. so much has changed over five years, but i want to say thank you to my readers. you've made this place possible.

i know i blog intermittently these days (college, man!) but i'm planning to work on that as time goes on. i have so many things to say, so many new WIPS to share. 

five years behind already. here's to many more.

 It has been a LONG time since my last life update. Like...years, I think. *checks blog* Not since...my 2020 wrapup post. oh my I don't know what to do with that? With how old I am? I am elderly.

I blog mostly when I have something to procrastinate on. Rn that involves my massive research paper. I will finish it. I have to have it done by midnight. But right now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table like I used to as a child, an IKEA bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee at my side, surrounded my textbooks. I am here. I have realized: There is more to life than deadlines. I will get this paper turned in on time though because I actually do care

So here it is. A photo dump (of memes) and also some lyrics and some life things.

i once believed love would be black and white//but it's golden (like daylight)//taylor swift

catch me floating in circles in my fishbowl//TOP

i spent a long time//substituting honest with sarcastic//and i cursed my tongue for being mean//Halsey

she goes at the break of dawn, the rays fall on her dress//she used to be a silhouette deep in the heart of stone//The Gray Havens

Life Updates:

-I am a declared history major! And soon to declare my minor in literature ^_^ my school is teaching me SO much about history and how to write well, and I really think it's having a very good effect on my fiction writing as well.

-Planning for the future is SCARY and I'm still working on it. But I truly believe that God has never failed and won't start now.

-Sometimes, I find, the best thing to do when you feel overwhelmed is to grab a pad of sticky notes and start writing everything you can think of that God has done for you. The list will ALWAYS be longer than you expected.

-Working on some long-term health issues--it feels very hopeful to know that there might be solutions. I've also discovered that it's better to listen to your food allergies than to force yourself to suffer through them for the theory of liking the food.

-There will always be more things to do than there is time in the day.

-Love is a wonderful thing.

-Cherish your friends, y'all. 

I have been cursed with knowledge.

There is not a dream any night, but there could be a dream upon any night. My dreams are like an assault, a frontal attack on my sanity and my heart. I am helpless to hold myself back against the knowledge of a threat. I will always fight for the helpless, the weak, the needy, no matter where I see them. It is why my father says I will be a weak king.

But seeing people in my dreams…

I thought it was a fluke at first. That when I saw one of the palace’s chambermaids bloodied and bruised, it was simply a nightmare from having brushed into her in the hallway. I never expected to see her looking just as she did in the dream when I saw her that afternoon.

Nor did I expect, the following night, for her to appear again and beg me for aid.