do you miss me yet?

.......................hi! guess who it is. your favorite (i hope) blogger of the century! it's been a little over a month. isn't that crazy?! i hope you've been doing well. i think i've been doing well. this has been quite the summer. i went to india, which was incredibly beautiful and also incredibly educating. lots happened, so i can do a full post on that if you want. i'll also include a few favorite pics from my summer at the bottom of this blog. after india, i went back to nyc for a week. i've never really had an nyc summer experience, so this was new. then i had a little downfall of the brain and rotted away in cape cod for a week. ("forty-five.") then i was whisked away to connecticut for my final year at summer camp. i think this was one of my most impactful years at camp. i felt the most authentic i had been in a while. kinda. learning and growing. i was at camp for a month and just as it began, it was over. and then back to cape cod. recently, i've been trying to get more comfortable with myself. i think a lot of people see summer as an opportunity to change a lot about themselves because they think they have to. i do. it's a lot of pressure, to drastically change with a deadline. i have always been one to change things about myself very quickly. but as i find myself getting older, i begin to think about what it would be like if i found a version of myself that i was okay being for the rest of my life. i wonder.

i feel very back and forth about this upcoming school year. on one hand, it's really good to be back in a routine because it helps me create patterns that improve my overall mental health. on the other, it creates a lot of stress, which is harmful to my overall mental health. equilibrium? it's hard not to revert to old habits. i keep trying to better myself, but school is a slippery slope. while i love so many people there, there are a lot of reminders of old experiences and pressure to be a person i don't quite like. and i find that when i get home at the end of the day, i never feel like i've really been myself. the role i play at school feels so unimportant. like i don't really matter to a lot of people. it's not rational at all, but sometimes you can't control how the brain thinks things. but when it comes down to it, i know i have people who are excited to see me. i know some very cool people. people i am lucky to have.

i spend a lot of time focused on how other people see me. it's not quite vanity, i think i just feel like i have to appeal to people. sometimes i feel like i have to perform to be liked. i'm always worried about whether or not people like me. it's such an addicting feeling, to be liked. because then you feel like you've earned the right to like yourself. but as i continue to grow, i learn that it's really the other way around. you have to like yourself before anyone can truly like you. because how can someone like you if you can't stop thinking about how much you don't deserve it? and it's tough, liking yourself. i tend to only focus on the flaws i have. i talk far more about the bad qualities in myself than the good ones. but i'm trying. little changes. also, it's an ugly truth, but not everyone has to like me. which is fair because i don't like everyone.

in other news, i have a spotify in which all the songs in these blogs are in a playlist. listen if you'd like! i'd say they're pretty good. i hope you enjoy. good luck this school year! i hope you don't need it.

"i buried a hatchet, it's comin' up lavender

the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor

i'm at the exit, lookin' back through the hall

you are anonymous, i am a concrete wall" - "smoke signals" , phoebe bridgers

-epic awesome cool girl who is back at school

spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3gBacF5nYaFSpp8WGVNMBc?si=c9df90bb51784512