apr-july 2025: sorry guys love is real after all

I'd like to start by retracting my previously published belief that true love does not exist. I was flat-out incorrect and in further motion to parallel Ariana, maybe I was just hungry. I am now happily engaged.

April

I hadn't met my mans at the time so I made this emo-ass playlist for April that I refuse to waste. Here's the highlights reel that I wrote towards the end of the month!

• Took my mom to Tetsumen for dinner!
  • I had vegan ramen and she had fried noodles. She liked it.
• Bought a laminator, laminated stupid stuff and had a blast.
• Read at the beach.
• Saw the Minecraft movie (so fun!!!)
• Met my now fiancé and saw Kinky Boots together 💛
  • He found out that I like fontina cheese and when I saw him next, he had purchased a bag of it to slip a piece into my pockets when I wasn't paying attention. I am a romanceable Stardew NPC.
• Went to Costco with my mom and dad
  • We know I'm a grownup because my dad put everything on his card and I still paid him back. I made a pivot table to see how it was split and made a visual chart representing the categories of goods purchased by each person + the dollar values. 🤓
• Started working in a new location
  • Same job, different stuff + processes
• Went to the Merrie Monarch craft fair with mister mans
  • Did not buy anything but saw really pretty jewelry (Ming's rings...)
    • Lots of pearls :)
  • Hilo Bay Cafe for dinner afterwards. So good!!!
• Breakfast and Merrie Monarch parade with Kellie
  • We both had chicken sausage, eggs, and purple sweet potato home fries to start the day.
  • Very happy that I brought the stroller because we used it to carry chairs and equipment (and her sweetie kid) to our spot on the other side of downtown.
• Attended a choir festival my fiancé participated in
  • Excitingly, I was adopted into the alumni choir with him (despite not being an alumni of that school)

So busy but super satisfied.

May

"Not gonna lie, I'm writing this in July. I continue to be exhausted in the best way." - Me, in July.

• Ate a lot of good food
  • Cooked/baked like four times (miracle)
  • Kaleo's, Kalbi Express, Tetsumen, Restaurant Osaka
• Went to the beach and saw a huge eel
• Went to the park and saw a bunch of flowers
• Started peeling back the self-spun red tape on car maintenance, leading me to order my first ever checkbook
  • It's shoe diva themed
  • I paid for each check to have a blurb printed on the side that says "beauty is as beauty does," because I deserve to smile when I give my money away
• Invested heavy into aesthetic services
  • Custom lash extensions and brow shaping + stain from Glitzed Beauty Bar
  • Brazilian wax from Mermade Spa (didn't even hurt)
  • Gel french tip mani/pedi from Coco Nails
• Went to my niece's last ballet recital. So sweet!

June

My birth month!! I turned 27. It didn't feel much different than turning 26, but I was informed by multiple people older than me that "it's just all downhill mostly" so that was concerning. In retrospect, I was extremely struggling both in body and soul in June and what I got from it was disciplinary action at work and haters. But I did eat really great food and genuinely I think love, both romantic and platonic, is what kept me from falling apart. So that was really nice too.

• Aforementioned great food:
  • Tetsumen (we love it there), Island Naturals cheesecake + homemade chocolate mini-bundt cake (thank you mrs. mom! + strawberry boston cake + assorted cupcakes from Cupcakes Boom, Miyo's, homemade pizza with storebought tikka masala
• Beach moments :)
  • Birthday beach picnic with the girls
  • Baby niece's first birthday party
  • Onekahakaha trips, for fun

July

Traumatizing. Doctor with no bedside manner and prejudice to fill in the spot. Another doctor not sorting out blood tests fast enough to prevent it. Felt sick for half of July and devastated for the rest. A sort of lesson to accept fragility and emotional support and not to try to act so strong all the time. Deep gratitude for the women in my life who don't have to be there, but chose to be.

No one is coming to save you nor can they in the first place unless you learn to just take the help where and when it is given. I still struggle with feeling like I need to just take care of myself completely, which is silly because I do have difficulty with tasks that are necessitated from it. But just because we've done things alone before doesn't mean we always have to do it alone forever forward.

The small pockets of joy were the exact flipside of how painful things were this month, because I got to experience a sense of community about it. And I still don't have real answers for what happened as of early August, but I hope I can be more open about everything once it's sorted out.

I think one of those pockets though was that I made turkey meatloaf like I used to, and it was a really big hit. I also made bbq sandwiches with coleslaw, and the dessert was a sort of ambrosia-like fruit salad. We made crinkle fries to go with it all.

Anyway... (❁´◡`❁)

Thanks for reading once more, and I hope you're doing so well. Until next time. ♥