Princess Diaries ੈ♡₊˚•.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Peaceful

Weather: Cloudy

Listening to: Waiting Room by Sabrina Carpenter

Reading: The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement: Everything You Need to Successfully Apply by Ryan Gray

Watching: Yellowjackets Season 2

Playing: Cyberpunk 2099

Drinking: Warm English Breakfast Tea

Perfume: "Into the Night" by Bath and Body Works

Happy 2024!

It's been a little over a year since I started existing on the personal web as "Sanguine Royal", (I believe I started December 23rd) and it's been a little strange to think about how much I've changed in the past year alone. When I wrote my first blog post, I was sad, lost and burnt out on life. I had spent the last 3.5 years of my life in a perpetual state of anxiety over my future and it was exhausting. I remember there were weeks where I wasn't able to brush my teeth, take a shower, or eat. That all feels very foreign to me now.

These days I don't feel that way. I can't pinpoint it to an exact turning point, but I don't wake up with an overwhelming feeling of dread anymore. I've dealt with some level of suicidal ideation since I was 12 years old, so sitting here at 22 at realizing I don't want to die anymore even passively feels incredibly freeing. I guess I've done a lot more self work over the past year than I thought I've done.

The biggest change I've noticed in myself is I don't let the world define who I am anymore. I spent most of 2023 self isolating and hikikomori-esque out of embarrassent. People expected me to be happy after graduating undergrad, but I felt like such a fraud. On the outside, it looked like I was a hard worker, but in reality I was dealing with a lot of unresolved trauma and wasn't performing as well as I liked to in school. To be honest, I think I'm the type of person that would've really benefitted from not jumping from high school to college right away, but because my parents were helping me finance college, I didn't really have much say in the matter. All I knew at the time was school, so I just keep overloading myself and my schedule as a distraction to avoid thinking about my life. When I started to not be able to juggle all of the responsibilities I'd put on myself, I'd crumble and spiral into self hatred. I never let myself do things for fun, or explore things that I liked.

By unintentionally isolating myself for a year, I took away the world's ability to define who I am for me. Ever since I was young, all I've ever wanted was to be seen as "good", and I think something in me broke gradually over the years as it became harder and harder to be universally "good". I wanted to be seen as "pretty", but as a brown kid in a primarily white area I was not seen as stereotypically attractive. I wanted to be able love women as a lesbian and not have it not be seen as weird, but the only "good" sexuality is being heterosexual and attracted to men. I wanted to be seen as an American in the country I've called home for over a decade, but people only see me as my legal status. The way I saw myself and the way that the outside world saw me were two different things, and it only extrapolated my depression.

I was forced to spend a lot of time with just myself this past year, and I've slowly learned to love and accept myself for who I am. There's nothing wrong with me, and there was never anything wrong with me in the first place. I feel so sorry for my past self who was pretending to be someone they were not, but also very proud of them for working to carve a space for myself online to express myself unfiltered and unafraid. I indulge in the fantasy of being perceived alongside the awareness that nobody could be reading this, or caring at all. In the past, anything I did only mattered if people were able to see and acknowledge it. I don't feel that way anymore.

I decided to start treating myself with the same amount of respect that I would've treated another person. It took a lot of work at first, but with time it started to come to me naturally. I look into the mirror and I think I look beautiful. I look at everything I've accomplished and think I'm very talented. I think about the dreams I have for my future and think that they're wonderful. I don't view loving things as a weakness anymore, and see my personality as a "certified lovergirl" as beautiful thing and one of my biggest strengths.

There's nothing about my life that's significantly changed or become tangibly better— I'm a 22 year old attending a local community college taking classes alongside high schoolers. I still live with my parents. I still can't drive. I still deal with the same bullshit from USCIS on a monthly basis. But I'm happy.

I've developed a love for the little things in my life that make my life mine. My makeup routine of just mascara, blush, and lip oil that doesn't really change the way I look but makes me feel more confident. The little coffees I've learned to make for myself with care. The way I match perfumes to my outfits, even though nobody else probably notices. But I know, and I notice!

Though all my thick and thin, I've always been there for myself. I've seen my own worst and ugly moments, yet I keep choosing to take care of myself. When I was about to die, I reached out for help even though I really didn't want. I don't deprive my body of the food and sleep it needs. I exercise because I feel good afterwards. Even if nobody else sees me, I see me. And I refuse to give up on myself. I have to much potential and heart to give up on life now. I'm so happy and grateful that my life didn't end at 16, 18, or 21.

The skies where I am have been mostly gray, but instead of feeling gloomy, it's been feeling peaceful and calm. I don't particularly enjoy my precalculus class, but I'm able to sit down and know that I'm capable of learning it if I put my mind to it. There is no longer an ache in my soul that I'm not where I'm supposed to be in life and that I'm behind. The future feels full of hope and possibilities. I am on nobody's timeline except for my own.