dear diary, what is more important: figuring out what i want to do with my life or cutting my hair?

it’s the second week of september. september has always been a symbol of new beginnings for me and i think i can thank the uk school system for that. as the new academic year (actually, maybe my last academic year) rolls around, i am working on welcoming change with open arms and learning to accept that, as our lord and saviour taylor swift once said, ‘if you never bleed, you’re never going to grow.’ with that being said, here’s a round-up of everything that has been on my somewhat busy mind as of late.

i can’t stop checking facebook to see what the people i went to school with are doing now

it’s a side effect of growing up, i fear. checking facebook. checking facebook compulsively, even. when i type an ‘f’ into google on my laptop, the rest is filled in for me and that in itself makes me feel like i’ve been caught red-handed by the algorithm. i see the website loading and stop what i’m doing, hold my hands in the air and scream ‘i promise i just wanted to see all the new jobs, internships, engagements and babies that have happened since the last time i checked 5 minutes ago!’ into the void of my empty bedroom. sometimes i catch myself looking at a post announcing a placement year in accounting and i wish i could crawl through the screen and become that person. i forget that my eighteen-year-old self couldn’t get away from them fast enough. i forget the time they didn’t give me my bobble back after pe in year 9 and that they called me annoying in year 10. but most of all, i forget that my worst nightmare would probably be working in accounting. i wish i knew what i was doing and i also wish i could stop checking facebook like it’s the morning paper.

i have had the same three songs on repeat for the last week

maine by noah kahan, soft landing by jp saxe and red wine supernova by chappell roan. a perfectly curated trio, if i do say so myself. whenever an ounce of stress enters my body, i put on my headphones and pace around my house until a) the feeling passes b) a member of my family miraculously manages to get my attention or c) i get a notification that the volume of the music is endangering my hearing. god forbid a girl has hobbies. unfortunately, i am someone who listens to lyrics as opposed to being someone who just hears them. so taking this into consideration, i’m sure you can imagine that listening to noah kahan sing ‘i miss this place, your head and your heart’ non-stop is making me feel ever so slightly existential. as it turns out, i miss many places, many heads and many hearts.

i want to cut my hair !!!

or am i just bored? it’s always hard to tell. sometimes i wish someone could make all my decisions for me: tell me what to wear, tell me what to say, tell me where to go or what to do. how to cut my hair falls under this umbrella of indecision. admittedly, i seem to place a lot of my self-worth into my hair, which is stupid because if you asked me to name my favourite things about all of the people i love most, hair wouldn’t even be in the top 30. my mum always tells me i have ‘the loveliest hair’, and while i value her opinion more than anyone else’s, i fear that telling your daughter she has nice hair may be a dedicated chapter in the ‘how to be a mum 101’ handbook. it may also be interesting to note that currently, i hate every outfit i try on, feel acutely aware of all of my limbs, gasp when i catch my reflection in a shop window, and that my skin is breaking out like it’s an olympic sport. so upon reflection, maybe we’ll revisit the whole ‘cutting all my hair off’ thing at a later date. i’ll keep you posted.

it’s getting colder and i am slowly becoming myself again

i have always been someone who feels more at home in the cold. i think my skin is too pale and my hair is too dark to qualify me as a summer person. Although i revel in the affordance of having time off, i do spend most of my summers checking the weather app incessantly until i see a temperature that isn’t higher than 20 degrees celsius, and waiting for the leaves to change colour. earlier this week, my dad offhandedly observed that it was ‘8pm and already dark’ and i think my serotonin peaked to levels that have been uncharted since i watched challengers in april. a list of autumny/wintery things that bring me joy includes but is not limited to: wearing a chunky knit without overheating, not being able to use a pen for the first half an hour of a class because my hands are numb, the way my astigmatism makes christmas lights look so magical, fluffy socks, watching my dog in the snow, the festive aisle at the range, the smell of the loft when my dad brings the christmas decorations downstairs, the movie elf and waking up before the sun does. i also turn 21 in october. better things are coming; i can feel it.

the secret lives of mormon wives

it would be severely dishonest of me if i were to divulge the things that are taking up square footage in my brain and not mention the secret wives of mormon wives. for those of you who are less chronically online than me and don’t know what i’m talking about, TSLOMW is a hulu reality tv show about a group of mormon mums in utah who are famous on tiktok — or as they have coined it, ‘momtok’. suprisingly, i have little to nothing in common with an internet-famous mormon mother, however from episode 1 i was locked in. the lies, the fights, the screaming matches, the drama. i am here for it all. as someone who has never been religious, it is genuinely very interesting to see how these women balance their faiths with their careers, and even more interesting to see how their traditional families deal with the wife being the breadwinner. i will gladly sign a petition for a season 2. i need a whitney redemption arc asap.

i often wonder what i’d be doing right now if covid never happened

i was 16 when the first lockdown happened. my gcses were cancelled and my life, just like everyone else’s (jess! you’re not special!), essentially stopped. a combination of being almost five years post-pandemic and entering into my final year of university, has made me reflect on what life might look like now if all of that had never happened. this, of course, is a completely redundant exercise and a better use of my time would probably be working on my dissertation or taking in what is going on around me right now, but nevertheless, here we are. it was actually a piece of a-level english language coursework that i did during lockdown that made me realise i enjoyed writing more than most things in my life. before then, i had my mind set on doing a law degree? all you have to be is a teenage girl with opinions and suddenly, everyone is telling you to become a lawyer. although i didn’t become a lawyer, i did end up studying writing, and if it wasn’t for lockdown giving me the time to discover what it was that i actually enjoyed doing, i’m not sure this would have happened. so, naturally, this begs the question: who would i be if it wasn’t for the pandemic? and while i don’t know the answer to that, i do know that you deserve to give yourself a chance at doing what you love.

life has felt rather full on at the minute. i am trying my best not to waste away the present by worrying about the future, but that is easier said than done. for right now, i find that my happiness lies in working hard on what i need to accomplish today — the key word being today. as i approach closer to my 21st birthday, i want to feel proud of all that i have achieved in the last twenty years as opposed to sad for all i have not. i’m lucky to be where i am, surrounded by good people, good books and good religious-based reality tv.

i hope september is being kind to you.