a year in review

hi friends. i feel like i haven't talked to you in forever. i'm glad we are speaking again. how are you? good, i hope. i feel like the all-consuming thought on my mind right now is how close we are to the end of the year. 2023. sounds futuristic. sounds scary. i don't know how to describe 2022. i feel like i learned so much. but i also feel like i lost a lot. isn't that how it goes though? you live, you love, you learn, and you lose. every year, always the same. that doesn't mean i don't love the cycle though. so i guess i'm looking forward to the new year. but before i can celebrate, i feel like i really need to recap all that happened these past twelve months. you should join me. a year in review!

january

to kick off 2022, i really did nothing. some people say i blossom in the spring. i think this is true. but to blossom in the spring, i need to decompose in the winter. so, every winter, like clockwork, i die and turn into mulch. kidding. but i really didn't do much of anything. the only notable thing was the performances of a show i was in. this was a very tumultuous time in my life. however, i think there are very few times in my life that are not tumultuous. i think i am just a tumultuous person. anyways, "the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" came and went and parting was sweetly sorrowful. mostly sweet. january was full of boy drama and sweet nothings. and i spent so much of my time worrying about all of it. so why spend any more? onto the next!

february

on february first, i was pleasantly surprised by an unforseen visitor in my bedroom. the visitor being my brother, and his unforseen nature stemming from the fact that he hardly ever comes in my room. so, there he is, in my doorway. and there am i, slightly confused. i was exhausted, i had just closed a show and was feeling very down in the dumps. then, my brother asked me something i never would have ever imagined to come out of his mouth. he asked to go to chinatown. with me! now, if you didn't know, my brother is not the very social type. he does not reach out. so you can imagine how excited i was that he did. and we were off. onto the n train, which to my annoyance, was running locally. my brother is patient. i am not. but we made it. and it was beautiful. all the streets were decorated for chinese new year, and we had a really wonderful time. i look back on experiences like that because they make me so inexplicably happy to have my brother. so thanks to him, february was a good one.

march

four days into march, i cut off all of my hair. this was one of the only good hair choices i have made. when i woke up on march fourth, i didn't even know i was going to cut it. it wasn't until i got home that i started to feel very gross. like i could feel every hair on my head curling up and down. don't know what that was, but i did not like it. my hair was telling me it had to go. so it did. and i was very happy. and, just as you thought, i started to blossom. after all, it was the start of spring. also something very notable, on march fifth i made the best bagel i have ever had. no bagel i have made since has ever measured up to it. and i have tried.

april

april was such a beautiful whirlwind. my first original scene "hearts on your face" went up, and looking back, i am so grateful for that scene. i fell in love writing that scene. and that love has carried me so many places and helped me do so many things i used to only dream of. i also got to work with one of the most dedicated and effervescent actresses i have ever met, an experience i don't think i would trade for anything. i was pushed and stretched and thrown all over the place, and i hated it in the moment. but, eight months later, all i can think about was how lucky i was that it happened. i also took a very hectic trip to rhode island. oh my. april april april, i love you april!

may

on may sixth, i found two snails in my front yard. i really like snails, so that was a fun experience. during the month of may, i made a variety of dishes with my lovely friends. may was a month like no other. i was so incredibly immersed in sisterhood and friendship and hard work and incredible shirts found at the goodwill bins. i think i was happiest in may. our little musical opened! and closed! and it was very fun. that was one of my favorite experiences in theater. i also got to wear a suit, so how could it not be incredible? i feel like i can't even describe may. it was just so wonderful. thank you may!

june

june was a very important month. pride month! as well as the month i ascended into heaven. i saw phoebe bridgers in concert on june fourteenth. i also fell in love with muna! anyways, i feel like i talk about pb so much. a friend told me today that when she listens to phoebe, she thinks of me. i think this is the best compliment in the world. listen to a phoebe song today, maybe you'll dream of me tonight! anyways, my SECOND original scene 'behind the door' went up. this was my first experience directing a scene, and i don't think i did half bad. i found i actually really loved directing. probably because i got to direct the two of the best people in the world. anyways, the scene was a success! and how could i forget?!?!? on june seventh, i met my best friend. i met you! and you met me! and haven't we been wonderful? i cherish you! anyways, i celebrated elisha's birthday, which was such a fun night. this is all out of chronological order, i hope you'll forgive me. and, just like everything, my sophomore year came to an end. i loved my sophomore year. so that was bittersweet. then, at the very end of june, i left for india, which was the most beautiful place i have ever been. the fourteen hour flight was painful though. see you in july.

july

so, we left off in india. july first was spent in pune, and i had my first night at sangam. i hiked, i swam, i drank a concerning amount of chai tea. i met a wonderful cat, and i'm cursing myself for not remembering it's name. after over 24 hours of travel, i found myself back home in new york city. and i remember opening a really green avocado, and much to my disappointment, it was hardly ripe. also, during this time, i listened to the entirety of the muna album every single day. july ninth was mia's wonderful sixteenth birthday party. very confused as to how i happened to meet such a wonderful person, and to have her want me in her court? i am so lucky. it was a very fun event. then i was in my solitude in cape cod, and then i was at camp for a month! now into august...

august

so, as i prefaced, the beginning half of august was spent at camp. here are the highlights. i biked 90 miles in the span of 3 days, i meticulously developed my rapper persona. spent eight days in the health center because i got strep throat, and got really good at wrestling. so clearly i was busy. after camp, i spent the last remnants of my summer back in cape cod. i also dyed half of my hair blonde and it began to fall out. september!

september

summer came to a close, and my junior year started with the death of my beloved pair of beats headphones. rest in (two) pieces. anyways, on a whim i decided to apply to a columbia pre-college program in screenwriting. and i was accepted on september seventh! i honed and developed and did all the things and really fell in love with the idea of doing something like that for the rest of my life. what can i say? i've always loved to write. i saw harry styles in concert with lucie and also found myself at a renaissance festival. i started rehearsals for the crucible, and somehow coped with the absence of my two favorite people. but they were killing it at college! so that was all okay. i ate copious amounts of stawberries, camped, and construction on my kitchen began. this was also the month i got my favorite steve madden heels. just thought i should include that. on the last night of september, i tried taco bell for the first time. i love baja blasts. and i think that's the perfect ending.

october

october got off to a rocky start, but i'm sure you'll be thrilled to hear that the rockiness did, in fact, carry on for the rest of the month. october was not a pretty one. i did begin to learn how to drive, and while going 70mph in reverse, i learned that my big dreams of being a nascar driver might never come to life. i had really good french onion soup on october fifth, and wrote one of my favorite blog posts ever ! (catherine and rhona.) went camping again and found a really cool flower shirt. i also got my BRACES off on october twelfth. received a letter from the french army asking for my service, babysat, and decided to try and fix parts of myself that could only get better with time. from a december standpoint, i think they have. i was marie antoinette for halloween. i also had a very hectic halloweekend. so october was rocky. i've had enough of this sedimentary talk.

november

we started off with a really nice trip to the MoMA, and i cleaned my room! went searching for answers, when i didn't even know the question. found things in all of the wrong places. pushed the limits of my body? oh november, you were a crazy one! anyways, phoebe bridgers released a christmas ep which was incredibly perfect. learned that some people aren't incredible friends. cleaned my room again, complained, realized i'm the same old person i've always been. is this cryptic? sorry about that. i was thankful! started reading marge piercy's memoir and got splattered in paint. i laughed and laughed and laughed. couldn't tell you if anything was funny though.

december

now, i know i haven't released a blog post in a little bit of a second. and i don't know how happy you'll be about this, but the only reason i could give you a full recap of all of these months was because i've been through all of them, in their entirety. and as you can tell, december is not over, so who knows what i'll do in these next five days. so i'll wait to tell you. the full december recap will have to wait. plus, i had my heart set on releasing this post on new years eve. see you then.

guess who's back! was that so hard? the start of december was spent celebrating my brothers seventeenth birthday. my sweet angels came back from college, and i was made whole again. finished my baby of a screenplay, started thinking about the future. pauline chalamet, miso soup, and fixing things. i liked december. i also want to add that i hope you all had very happy holidays. i started reading patti smith, dreamed about making pies, wore jeans, and sat in front of fires. today, i bought two new pictures for my room. i'm thinking of redecorating. just in time for the new year!

i spent so much of this year rustling and unsettling things. wherever i was, things never felt right. and the really wonderful thing about right now is they feel good. like pulling a bandaid off of things healed. like a stray cat who has finally found a good home. boil down to a simmer.

have a happy new year. i'll see you soon.

-epic awesome cool girl in 2022