mama i'm chasing a ghost

this isn’t a breakdown, it’s just the buffering screen of my life.

i’ve been feeling like a soggy sock lately. you know when you step into a puddle unexpectedly and your sock just exists in this gross state for the rest of the day? that’s what my brain has felt like mildly wet, mostly useless and definitely not something i wanna deal with. i keep waking up with this phantom sense of urgency like… i need to be doing something important. i need to apply for jobs or my master's or that online course i’ve had open in a tab for the past 3 weeks or maybe clean my wardrobe. maybe fix my life entirely. i don’t know but it feels like there's this quiet ticking clock in the back of my mind and i'm too tired to get up and check what time it actually is.

some days i feel like i'm growing like my brain is absorbing, reshaping, learning how to be in this world. but other days (most days), i feel like i’m just... surviving. floating between tabs, convincing myself that refreshing my email or checking who's viewed my story is somehow productive. spoiler: it’s not. what no one told me about your twenties is that you are always somewhere between potential and paralysis.

like, i know i could do great things. i just… don’t know what those great things are yet. or worse, i know what they are and i’m scared i’ll mess them up. i’m scared i’ll start and then stop and be back at this foggy square one, once again googling “how to figure your life out at 20-something.”

and listen. i’m aware enough to know there’s probably some undiagnosed mental health subplot running in the background of this story. like a little depressed intern who's been editing the script of my life without telling me. but i don’t have the energy to unpack that right now. i’m just trying to not spiral before breakfast.

yeah..

i want to write more. i want to grow this little substack into something real. something warm. something that anchors me. because maybe i don’t know where i’m going yet, but i know writing makes me feel less like that soggy sock i mentioned earlier. it makes me feel a bit more… me.

so this isn’t some powerful comeback post. i don’t have a 5-year plan or a hot take or a deeply profound realisation. all i have is this blurry, honest in-between moment. the mess before the clarity. the before before. but i promise i’ll be back. stronger. sassier. maybe even a little smarter. if you’re also floating in this fog, hello. let’s hold hands or at least just keep each other company while we try to figure out what the hell is next :)