There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from being emotionally manipulated before you even sip your coffee. The kind of exhaustion the internet now serves as a daily appetizer. Open any app and you’re greeted with content engineered to make you angry, insecure, overstimulated, under-rested, or existentially unhinged before your feet hit the floor. Congratulations! You’re officially a character in the Algorithm’s Hunger Games.
Day 16 — December 9, 2025 - Today was a fever dream. Not bad. Not dramatic. Just deeply, profoundly feral-brained. I woke up, took one look at my coffee, and my body said, “Nope.” Didn’t finish it. Didn’t even make eye contact with it after the first sip. That alone should’ve been my omen. Like the universe whispering, “Sweetheart… brace yourself.”
Meditation? Gorgeous.
Workout? Great.
Productivity? High enough to impress any therapist.
Day 15 — December 8, 2025 -
Mondays.
Bah. Mondays.
Fear lived loudly in my mind today. Not in the “hide in the closet with Roger and pray for reincarnation” way (mercifully), but in the awareness way. The reflective way. The kind of fear that doesn’t scream. It just stares back at you, waiting for acknowledgment.
I kept thinking about the hold it has taken on me.
Not a gentle hold, a chokehold.
A grip with its own agenda, one I never asked for and never consented to.
I change my mind weekly. Honestly? Lately it feels like hourly. The holiday season does something to the brain. Like someone plugged my internal compass into twinkle lights and now everything short-circuits at the faint smell of cinnamon. One minute I’m determined to have a calm, organized December. The next minute I’m in the corner of Target clutching a throw blanket I absolutely do not need, but suddenly feel spiritually connected to.
At some point you have to look at your life and admit: You’re not “living.” You’re submitting an endless selfie video to the universe, hoping one day it emails back: “Congrats babe, you booked the role of Yourself.” Meanwhile you’re performing calm. Performing chill. Performing “I’m so low maintenance, please love me, I barely exist.”
Day 14 — December 7, 2025 - Today was different in a way I can’t neatly explain. I woke up with the same fear and dread that’s been living under my skin for a year. That familiar, heavy, predictable creature. But it didn’t knock me down this time. It didn’t send me back under the blanket with Roger curled into my stomach like a furry shield. It didn’t make me cry. Mind-blowing, truly.
Day 13 — December 6, 2025 - Today was strangely reflective. The kind of reflective where you catch yourself staring at the wall like you’re in a dramatic indie film, except really you’re just thinking about twelve things at once and none of them are subtle. I’ve been busy. Busy in that “driven by an unseen engine” way. Busy in that “I should be on the floor but instead I’m building a website” way. Despite everything in my body screaming for stillness, screaming for rest, for escape, for softness, I’ve been moving forward all day. Relentlessly. Almost unnervingly.
Day 12 — December 5, 2025 - I’m not even sure how to talk about today. It was Friday. That’s about the only neutral fact I have. Everything else felt like a tight, shaking breath I couldn’t release. I still haven’t heard anything. Nothing from the detective. Nothing about the case. Nothing about the man who changed my life in ways I never asked for. And silence is its own kind of violence when you’re trying to heal.
Day 11 — December 4, 2025 - Today was difficult in a way I’ve never experienced before. Not because something catastrophic happened, but because I happened. All at once. In too many directions. On emotional frequencies I haven’t learned how to translate yet. I woke up thinking about my relationships. Not abstractly. Not nostalgically. But urgently like they were knocking on the inside of my ribs. I thought about my best friends. About the people who carried me, steadied me, sat in the dark with me without asking for a flashlight. I thought about Roger, who somehow knows when I’m unraveling before I do. I thought about the person I like...really like...and how the thought of that person brings me joy and panic in the same inhale. And the way that makes me smile.
Day 10 — December 3, 2025 - This morning I woke up slower than usual. Not heavy, not panicked, just tired in that bone-deep, soft-focus way that makes you want to tiptoe into the day instead of barging into it. My body felt a little looser than it has in a while, like the emotional debris from earlier this week finally decided to stop ricocheting around my ribcage. So I didn’t rush anything. I let the morning come to me.