life is a garden ➿ and the roots are all touching
draft, incomplete as of 11/21/25 3:41 PM EST
a speed run of my deepest darkest fears (11/21/25)
this week brought a lot of subterranean fears to the surface. we had a new moon in scorpio on nov 19th, pushing me to confront “hidden truths” (as google gemini ai summarized for me). a better, less technochratic description of the new moon was was written by my friend ocean here on her substack.
i don’t think about my “daddy issues” often, like, i genuinely forget i have them most days. yet, my body definitelyyyy remembers, especially when my nervous system enters fight-or-flight-overdrive like i’m some kind of war veteran. i have to tell myself i am not in the trenches, that this is just a grocery store. no one is trying to kill me, the plans i made are just getting (reasonably) rescheduled. everything is okay. the people i love do not secretly hate me. my father has abandoned me once, but (hopefully) not again. besides, no one worth mentioning is plotting my downfall (or so i think???).
it feels so stupid writing it out, but really, that’s just where i’ve been lately. deeply uncomfortable, (barely) bearably depressed.
so, this week i’m parsing through my file of... daddy issues that i’ve kind of shoved into a manila folder and pushed towards the back of my emotional filing cabinet for... my whole life. i stumbled upon it during a regular deep clean of my psysche. it’s corner sticking out, aged and faded, revealing itself to me like the classic magicians trick of all those fuckin’ hankercheifs in a hat. it never ends. i start to unravel it and it keeps going. oh god. it never ends.
i won’t bore anyone with the details. TLDR, essentially, events have transpired for me to have a deep distrust in men i am supposed to love, who are supposed to be my primary source of love. this is problematic for a few reasons, a couple being that, 1) i am attracted to men, and 2) i need to trust people in order to have good relationships. do you see where i am going with this, lol.
bad things in my life have made me really funny (i guess this is subjective) and drove me to a need to be Good At Things at an unrealstic standard (this is more objective). would i be a Mid Bitch With Bad Vibes if i didnt have daddy issues? would i be a mid bitch if my fathers were consistent in their love for me? would i have bad vibes if my father committed to raising me?
we all want praise and to be loved. i just didn’t really know to what extent i really wanted those things. i needed to be funny to survive. i needed to be good at things to survive, too.
a speed run of my deepest darkest fears (11/21/25)
this week brought a lot of subterranean fears to the surface. we had a new moon in scorpio on nov 19th, pushing me to confront “hidden truths” (as google gemini ai summarized for me). a better, less technochratic description of the new moon was was written by my friend ocean here on her substack.
i don’t think about my “daddy issues” often, like, i genuinely forget i have them most days. yet, my body definitelyyyy remembers, especially when my nervous system enters fight-or-flight-overdrive like i’m some kind of war veteran. i have to tell myself i am not in the trenches, that this is just a grocery store. no one is trying to kill me, the plans i made are just getting (reasonably) rescheduled. everything is okay. the people i love do not secretly hate me. my father has abandoned me once, but (hopefully) not again. besides, no one worth mentioning is plotting my downfall (or so i think???).
it feels so stupid writing it out, but really, that’s just where i’ve been lately. deeply uncomfortable, (barely) bearably depressed.
so, this week i’m parsing through my file of... daddy issues that i’ve kind of shoved into a manila folder and pushed towards the back of my emotional filing cabinet for... my whole life. i stumbled upon it during a regular deep clean of my psysche. it’s corner sticking out, aged and faded, revealing itself to me like the classic magicians trick of all those fuckin’ hankercheifs in a hat. it never ends. i start to unravel it and it keeps going. oh god. it never ends.
i won’t bore anyone with the details. TLDR, essentially, events have transpired for me to have a deep distrust in men i am supposed to love, who are supposed to be my primary source of love. this is problematic for a few reasons, a couple being that, 1) i am attracted to men, and 2) i need to trust people in order to have good relationships. do you see where i am going with this, lol.
bad things in my life have made me really funny (i guess this is subjective) and drove me to a need to be Good At Things at an unrealstic standard (this is more objective). would i be a Mid Bitch With Bad Vibes if i didnt have daddy issues? would i be a mid bitch if my fathers were consistent in their love for me? would i have bad vibes if my father committed to raising me?
we all want praise and to be loved. i just didn’t really know to what extent i really wanted those things. i needed to be funny to survive. i needed to be good at things to survive, too.
seventy fifth birthday party (11/20/25)
i can’t live the same way as anyone else because duh and i’m just gonna love whoever i love because thats really something i just can’t help and you know love isn't transactional and isn't going to be a consistent give and take like maybe i really am the friend who texts first all the time and as someone who got bullied i equate infrequency of contact to someone thinking negatively of me or because my father(s) left me i think that people will just straight up disappear hahahahahahaha or because i didn’t find out my grandfather passed until a month after he already died i just really don’t like being in the dark about things like its funny to think that my inability to cope with death makes me a good project manager and i know these insecurities aren’t true people love me people adore me people want me in the room and i shouldn’t take it personally and they want me there in their hearts and next to them but i keep them at a distance because i’m scared i’m a scared child i’m scared you’ll leave i’m so scared you wont be at my seventy fifth birthday party
at my seventy fifth birthday party it’ll be everyone ive ever loved in the same room and were all laughing like remember when so-and-so got in a big fight or remember when you and so-and-so weren’t talking and that person i had beef with is gonna be there standing right next to me and we will laugh it all off we really will and we will all drink negronis even though were old as shit and it’s gonna be awesome and were gonna be able to laugh about everything i really believe it i really do
humor and parties are the same for me in that they are the salve to this cold hardened world and we deserve to laugh we deserve to celebrate we deserve to commiserate we deserve to be with one another we deserve to level on the fact that life is really fucking hard and horrifying and beautiful and worth it and we all deserve to be here together now because fuck it everything really changes i love you i love you i love you even when i act like a fucking asshole
at my seventy fifth birthday party we will have cake and we will kiss and we will hug and we will dance and everything that was hard will become dust yea its gonna be so awesome at my seventy fifth birthday party and we will be sad about everyone who isn’t there because we have lost them but that’ll give us even more reason to hold each other so tightly and so yeah i think i will cry at my seventy fifth birthday party
an ex recently emailed me about making amends as a part of the twelve steps and it really got me thinking that on my deathbed i’m going to be surrounded by my husband(s) and life partner(s) and my dearest pals and all my ex boyfriends and ex girlfriends and were gonna laugh about it and be so glad we were in each others lives even if it was sometimes hard and i cried and i felt worthless and i hurt them and they hurt me because more than half the time the battles we are fighting are in our heads and were just trying to distance ourselves from the genesis of our fears which is our parents which feels so unfair because they are just people too but that’s just how its gonna be and when im a parent this is something i’m just going to have to live with and that shit freaks me out but i’ll tell my baby i love you i love you i love you even when i fall short
i want you to be at my seventy fifth birthday party which is why i can’t say everything i’m thinking because i just want you to have the time you need to become even if it means distance so i hope you know i’m not withholding i hope you know i am thinking of you i hope you know that i am always always thinking of you and i am just taking my time with this thing because i’ve always rushed because i was always so scared but i’m trying to trust that you’ll be there for as long as it makes sense and i want you there at my seventy fifth birthday party i really really do whatever it takes
sometimes i wonder if the abandonment fear that sits at the core of my being is a flaw to be fixed to be mended to be destroyed and done away with and locked up with a forgotten key but look at me look at this life i’ve gotten here to somewhere so beautiful not despite it all but because of it all and because i know what its like to be so lonely i’ll do what it takes to build a world full of love and warmth and a space with softened edges for you to be allowed to feel shitty when the world crashes all around because i know i’m intense and sometimes crazy but here in my heart i protect you like a little egg nestled on the softest pillow i love you i love you i love you even when we’re scared
and that's like the thing you know like all this stuff that we think is flawed or bad or things to be done away with about ourselves are all in the fabric of who we are and if any of that stuff didn't happen or wasn't there we’d be fundamentally different as people and i’m not one to believe everything happens for a reason but i do believe that we do the best with what we got so maybe i’ll just wear this on my chest like yea i’m kinda scared you’ll disappear one day without notice and thats why i’m acting so distant and aloof but i’m doing my best whenever i text first and thats just who i am baby this is my purple heart from my battle with daddy issues and my fear of abandonment battalion world tour jacket to commemorate the journey it took for me to even get here to where i can admit yea i move crazy but yea i’m doing my best look at all the patches i got along the way
we’re all afraid of being alone even if we’re okay with it and i’m here admitting it i’m saying it out loud i want to be loved and i want to share my life and i want to try in earnest even when i’ve been knocked down over and over again and i kind of don’t want to stop being insane because whatever what fucking gives what fucking ever i love you i love you i love you
so i’ll see you at my seventy fifth birthday and if i’m really lucky i’ll see you other times too like at the park or on the street or in your apartment and we will laugh and cry and be mad at each other and all the things that come with opening up your heart and i feel so lucky to move through complicated feelings with the people i love so yea i love you and i’ll move past my ego i’ll love you for who you are i’ll meet you where you’re at and these days i don’t really have an agenda because fuck it i just want everyone to be happy including me and i want to remember that this life is oh so short i really do i really feel lucky and i love you i love you i love you i love you
things i do not ask for (11/14/25)
Sometimes I forget about what my whole thing is. My whole thing is to, like, ease suffering and make this world a less lonely place or whatever. To love. Sometimes I just get all in my squishy ol’ head about shit that doesn’t even matter.
I tell B that I am avoidant which feels like an epiphany but instead of being surprised she just laughs like okay, we all already knew that. Apparently everyone else knows me better than I know myself. WTFDYM.
I tell her I want to change but I don’t know how. I tell her I am a scared child. I tell her I love like a father. She says to be a better father than the ones I had, to love like the father I want. I don’t know what to say. I am a scared child. I start by squeezing my own head between my hands. B holds my hand and pays for lunch. She gives me things I do not ask for.
[I shuffle around, clutch my chest, groan in agony. I am suffering, make it a bit, like a monkey with cymbals, dancing in a jazz square. Muttering under my breath. Jester’s privilege, jester’s privilege, jester’s privilege, rrrrgghhhhhhhhhggghghghghgh.]
Sometimes I forget what my whole thing is. I really do. Sometimes I just get lost in the sauce of life and I’m swimming in it, Ketchup to mustard to aioli, meeting to job to studio.
A is my best friend of over a decade and she asks me what I want to do for my thirtieth fucking birthday and I almost knock my beertini over. I almost knock over my beertini full of three just-alright olives and fucking scream silently like that one German painting I can’t fucking remember the name of right now. I pause and drink my beertini full of Narragansett and brine. I think about a beertini made of all the tears repressed and constipated in my ducts. Sounds fucking gross, I would not drink that.
A is beautiful. She has grown to become so beautiful, even more beautiful than she already was when we met. She is so beautiful and she makes time for me. She is so beautiful and treats me to my beertini. She gives me things I do not ask for.
[Flopping like a fish trying to break free at the wet market, I am on the floor, feeling so smelly and slimy. If I lay here… If I just lay here…]
My father loves me from a distance. Another father loves me with words. What he lacks in action he makes up for tenfold in sincerity, all with the understanding that I cannot ask for more than he gives. He does not give me enough and I accept this. I accept this because I know nothing else. I accept this because I am afraid. I am afraid to ask for things. Please do not leave again, please stay far away. I do not ask for things.
[A dog jumps into my lap and looks at me, determined and enthusiastic. She allows me to pet, to speak with her. She reveals her belly to me.]
I walk thirty minutes from the train to my apartment because fuck-it-I-don’t-know, I don’t know what to do with myself right now. It is pitch black and the Sabrina Carpenter playing through my wired headphones feels stupid for more reasons than one. I cannot stop thinking about someone jumping out from the bushes and stabbing me. I know I shouldn’t think about those things but can you imagine how terrible that would be!
[You and I are earth.]
The other day I said aloud that I’d rather die than to admit to the thing I’ve been gripping like little marbles in my hands, and B rolls her eyes. As her mouth begins to move, I say,
I know I know I know, I tell her.
I know.
I need to change. I just don’t know how. I am afraid to ask for things.
i can’t live the same way as anyone else because duh and i’m just gonna love whoever i love because thats really something i just can’t help and you know love isn't transactional and isn't going to be a consistent give and take like maybe i really am the friend who texts first all the time and as someone who got bullied i equate infrequency of contact to someone thinking negatively of me or because my father(s) left me i think that people will just straight up disappear hahahahahahaha or because i didn’t find out my grandfather passed until a month after he already died i just really don’t like being in the dark about things like its funny to think that my inability to cope with death makes me a good project manager and i know these insecurities aren’t true people love me people adore me people want me in the room and i shouldn’t take it personally and they want me there in their hearts and next to them but i keep them at a distance because i’m scared i’m a scared child i’m scared you’ll leave i’m so scared you wont be at my seventy fifth birthday party
at my seventy fifth birthday party it’ll be everyone ive ever loved in the same room and were all laughing like remember when so-and-so got in a big fight or remember when you and so-and-so weren’t talking and that person i had beef with is gonna be there standing right next to me and we will laugh it all off we really will and we will all drink negronis even though were old as shit and it’s gonna be awesome and were gonna be able to laugh about everything i really believe it i really do
humor and parties are the same for me in that they are the salve to this cold hardened world and we deserve to laugh we deserve to celebrate we deserve to commiserate we deserve to be with one another we deserve to level on the fact that life is really fucking hard and horrifying and beautiful and worth it and we all deserve to be here together now because fuck it everything really changes i love you i love you i love you even when i act like a fucking asshole
at my seventy fifth birthday party we will have cake and we will kiss and we will hug and we will dance and everything that was hard will become dust yea its gonna be so awesome at my seventy fifth birthday party and we will be sad about everyone who isn’t there because we have lost them but that’ll give us even more reason to hold each other so tightly and so yeah i think i will cry at my seventy fifth birthday party
an ex recently emailed me about making amends as a part of the twelve steps and it really got me thinking that on my deathbed i’m going to be surrounded by my husband(s) and life partner(s) and my dearest pals and all my ex boyfriends and ex girlfriends and were gonna laugh about it and be so glad we were in each others lives even if it was sometimes hard and i cried and i felt worthless and i hurt them and they hurt me because more than half the time the battles we are fighting are in our heads and were just trying to distance ourselves from the genesis of our fears which is our parents which feels so unfair because they are just people too but that’s just how its gonna be and when im a parent this is something i’m just going to have to live with and that shit freaks me out but i’ll tell my baby i love you i love you i love you even when i fall short
i want you to be at my seventy fifth birthday party which is why i can’t say everything i’m thinking because i just want you to have the time you need to become even if it means distance so i hope you know i’m not withholding i hope you know i am thinking of you i hope you know that i am always always thinking of you and i am just taking my time with this thing because i’ve always rushed because i was always so scared but i’m trying to trust that you’ll be there for as long as it makes sense and i want you there at my seventy fifth birthday party i really really do whatever it takes
sometimes i wonder if the abandonment fear that sits at the core of my being is a flaw to be fixed to be mended to be destroyed and done away with and locked up with a forgotten key but look at me look at this life i’ve gotten here to somewhere so beautiful not despite it all but because of it all and because i know what its like to be so lonely i’ll do what it takes to build a world full of love and warmth and a space with softened edges for you to be allowed to feel shitty when the world crashes all around because i know i’m intense and sometimes crazy but here in my heart i protect you like a little egg nestled on the softest pillow i love you i love you i love you even when we’re scared
and that's like the thing you know like all this stuff that we think is flawed or bad or things to be done away with about ourselves are all in the fabric of who we are and if any of that stuff didn't happen or wasn't there we’d be fundamentally different as people and i’m not one to believe everything happens for a reason but i do believe that we do the best with what we got so maybe i’ll just wear this on my chest like yea i’m kinda scared you’ll disappear one day without notice and thats why i’m acting so distant and aloof but i’m doing my best whenever i text first and thats just who i am baby this is my purple heart from my battle with daddy issues and my fear of abandonment battalion world tour jacket to commemorate the journey it took for me to even get here to where i can admit yea i move crazy but yea i’m doing my best look at all the patches i got along the way
we’re all afraid of being alone even if we’re okay with it and i’m here admitting it i’m saying it out loud i want to be loved and i want to share my life and i want to try in earnest even when i’ve been knocked down over and over again and i kind of don’t want to stop being insane because whatever what fucking gives what fucking ever i love you i love you i love you
so i’ll see you at my seventy fifth birthday and if i’m really lucky i’ll see you other times too like at the park or on the street or in your apartment and we will laugh and cry and be mad at each other and all the things that come with opening up your heart and i feel so lucky to move through complicated feelings with the people i love so yea i love you and i’ll move past my ego i’ll love you for who you are i’ll meet you where you’re at and these days i don’t really have an agenda because fuck it i just want everyone to be happy including me and i want to remember that this life is oh so short i really do i really feel lucky and i love you i love you i love you i love you
things i do not ask for (11/14/25)
Sometimes I forget about what my whole thing is. My whole thing is to, like, ease suffering and make this world a less lonely place or whatever. To love. Sometimes I just get all in my squishy ol’ head about shit that doesn’t even matter.
I tell B that I am avoidant which feels like an epiphany but instead of being surprised she just laughs like okay, we all already knew that. Apparently everyone else knows me better than I know myself. WTFDYM.
I tell her I want to change but I don’t know how. I tell her I am a scared child. I tell her I love like a father. She says to be a better father than the ones I had, to love like the father I want. I don’t know what to say. I am a scared child. I start by squeezing my own head between my hands. B holds my hand and pays for lunch. She gives me things I do not ask for.
[I shuffle around, clutch my chest, groan in agony. I am suffering, make it a bit, like a monkey with cymbals, dancing in a jazz square. Muttering under my breath. Jester’s privilege, jester’s privilege, jester’s privilege, rrrrgghhhhhhhhhggghghghghgh.]
Sometimes I forget what my whole thing is. I really do. Sometimes I just get lost in the sauce of life and I’m swimming in it, Ketchup to mustard to aioli, meeting to job to studio.
A is my best friend of over a decade and she asks me what I want to do for my thirtieth fucking birthday and I almost knock my beertini over. I almost knock over my beertini full of three just-alright olives and fucking scream silently like that one German painting I can’t fucking remember the name of right now. I pause and drink my beertini full of Narragansett and brine. I think about a beertini made of all the tears repressed and constipated in my ducts. Sounds fucking gross, I would not drink that.
A is beautiful. She has grown to become so beautiful, even more beautiful than she already was when we met. She is so beautiful and she makes time for me. She is so beautiful and treats me to my beertini. She gives me things I do not ask for.
[Flopping like a fish trying to break free at the wet market, I am on the floor, feeling so smelly and slimy. If I lay here… If I just lay here…]
My father loves me from a distance. Another father loves me with words. What he lacks in action he makes up for tenfold in sincerity, all with the understanding that I cannot ask for more than he gives. He does not give me enough and I accept this. I accept this because I know nothing else. I accept this because I am afraid. I am afraid to ask for things. Please do not leave again, please stay far away. I do not ask for things.
[A dog jumps into my lap and looks at me, determined and enthusiastic. She allows me to pet, to speak with her. She reveals her belly to me.]
I walk thirty minutes from the train to my apartment because fuck-it-I-don’t-know, I don’t know what to do with myself right now. It is pitch black and the Sabrina Carpenter playing through my wired headphones feels stupid for more reasons than one. I cannot stop thinking about someone jumping out from the bushes and stabbing me. I know I shouldn’t think about those things but can you imagine how terrible that would be!
[You and I are earth.]
The other day I said aloud that I’d rather die than to admit to the thing I’ve been gripping like little marbles in my hands, and B rolls her eyes. As her mouth begins to move, I say,
I know I know I know, I tell her.
I know.
I need to change. I just don’t know how. I am afraid to ask for things.
last edited 11/14/25