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so i learned abt seasonal work from this chick i hooked up with a singular time who worked w the peacecorps and travelled all around the country. i didn’t want to go home last summer so i decided to apply to work as a host at a fuck ton of hotels and lodges in national parks. i ended up working in yellowstone for the summer and it absolutely changed my life. as someone whos not super exceptional and who’s worked in food service since i was 14-15, i really never thought i would be able to get to do stuff like this. the people i met in the mountains who have been traveling for years on end and just working these shitty service jobs to support it really changed my life. we r suffering in late stage capitalism but there is a really beautiful world around us and i suggest you try to see as much of it as you can.
it’s not as hard as they make it seem and it’s a million times more valuable than staying in whatever bubble we’ve created for ourselves.
(me at the top of one of the tetons holding quartz)
Feb 15, 2024
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basically been working a lot whale watching, and then traveling and appreciating time with friends I haven’t seen in a while. plus as much hiking and camping as i could squeeze in.
Aug 22, 2024
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working at a summer camp with my partner is healing me. maybe the next generation isn’t so bad
Aug 4, 2024
Life’s been super life-ing hard lately. So I decided to just go for it and try my first hike.
I joined a group of strangers at Mt. Batulao—my “mother mountain” here in my country, the Philippines. 🇵🇭
Sometimes the care and love you give doesn’t take root where you thought it would, but love still shows up in so many ways: in plants guiding your path, flowers, friendly dogs that greet you on to that scenic trail, a breeze of cold air, a view that’s totally new but somehow feels like home, and strangers-turned-friends who literally lend their hands to help you up and show you which rocks are safe to step on.
The shared “bulalo“ meals. Our Filipino Laughter. The process was challenging but beautiful!
Honestly, the peak wasn’t even the highlight for me during the trail.
It was realizing that what you put out into the universe comes back in different forms and tenfolds, and my connection with nature reassure me that I still have a place in this world. 🤍
So, yes, take a hike. Nature finds its own ways to heal.
Dec 8, 2024
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bc that’s most likely not your problem! (exceptions do apply)
Feb 24, 2024
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This might not make the most sense but if I don’t write it I know I’ll be angry with myself.
As someone who has always naturally been drawn to archives and journals and stories- I’ve found that I’ve been trapping myself in the narrative. The idea that life is a singular, vertical narrative, that pain is not simply pain but part of some bigger cycle of distribution and retribution. That pain is naturally repaid with love or safety or comfort. This narrative keeps me coddled in myself, it keeps me safe from having to face the fact that tomorrow might not be easier than today. That this year might not feel much better than last year. That as some things go on, they don’t always get lighter. They don’t alchemize from emotionally pain into material pleasure.
The hero’s journey tells us that the narrative follows simple steps. We are called- your alarm, a Britney Spears song, plays in the morning. Your car breaks down in an unfamiliar part of the city. There’s a death in the family. Whatever it is, the call is something that moves us from familiarity to the unknown. It pulls the hero into the journey. We will then face the unknown and hopefully overcome it. But what about the calls that we don’t answer? Or when we get stuck in the unknown? What about when we are braver than brave and we still cannot overcome everything? I’ve learned that sometimes our pain doesn’t come with atonement. Sometimes there is no return.
Life doesn’t fit into the narrative. The alarm in itself is a narrative, you set it the night before, or maybe you set it three years ago and you’ve been waking up to the same song every single day. The car is a narrative, the unfamiliar side of the city is a narrative. Why haven’t you been there? The death is a narrative explored and experienced by every person in your family, every friend of the dead, every coworker who called the morning after to see why they didn’t show up when their alarm went off that day. Everything is a million narratives coinciding and to trap ourselves into one, to tell ourselves only one story, is blinding us to the intricate nature of life. We cannot exist in only one dimension, and to choose to exist in various different- sometimes beautiful and sometimes horrible- narratives at once is to choose to stop coddling oneself, to stop following your pain like it always has something to give you.
Sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe that’s fine.
Mar 11, 2024
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i know it’s a john green book and in theory that’s not super smart and esoteric of me but this book means the whole world to me.
it was recommended to me by a doctor from the pediatric ward when i was hospitalized at 16 for anxiety. im not sure how he actually knew the nature of my thoughts given i wouldn’t really tell anyone anything, but he thought this book would help me. i probably got around to reading it when was 17 and i wish that i had read it when the doctor told me to because it truly did change the way i view my obsessions, medication, therapy, hospitalization, etc etc.
the book follows a girl with ocd as she tries to solve a murder mystery type thing. i didn’t necessarily care for the actual plot of the novel, but john greens descriptions of her thoughts and fears really hit home for me- and i feel that they would for anyone struggling with anxiety. the title hints at the manner the main character learns to cope with her anxiety, which is to view it as ultimately meaningless- “turtles all the way down”, the same thing over and over again. theres a lot of a value in this thought process, especially for people who struggle with obsessive or intrusive thoughts. it goes against popular cultures understanding of mental illness, as something that means anything at all, something that has anything to do with the person suffering. its just an illness. greens personal experience with ocd gave him the ability to put this catharsis into words.
i would not be where i am with my own mental health without this book and i recommend it to anyone who struggles with anxiety.
++ bless up to the doctor in the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital for having fire taste 🙏
Mar 10, 2024