my monthly loves -- january 2025
we're so back!
this was a bit of a short-lived series that i attempted to start when i first launched this blog and i really want to keep up with it moving forward! especially right now, when it’s incredibly essential to find and hold onto joy and light in times that feel uncertain and dark. and honestly, january was not the best month for me, nor the best start to a new year.
but i’m okay with that! i know life can’t always be sunshine and rainbows, and no part of me expects it to be. i tell it to my loved ones all the time and they say it right back to me with their entire chests. i know i come off as this positive, sunshine-filled person and it brings me joy that i do. i want to appear that way and those projections are true to what i actually feel and believe in! but i can’t deny that there’s sometimes a storm that not many people get caught up in because i don’t often let them. i would never want to rain down on others and drench them, only shine and dry their tears. but it’s exhausting me to carry on pretending like there isn’t thunder and lightning shaking me to my core at times. but this is the weird thing, and charlie kelmeckis from the perks of being a wallflower says it best: i am both happy and sad at the same time, and i’m still trying to figure out how that could be. i consider myself to be a very happy person—i wake up every morning excited that i’ve been given the gift of another day and that i can sculpt it the way i’d like! but in january i often woke up with this sense of dread. it’s not the best way to start a day, and i don’t want to start my days like that again for the rest of my life if i can help it!
speaking of ways to start the day, i am going to pause for a moment and come up with/share some intentions for myself to work on in the month of february especially and maybe even beyond! my hope is that i can keep up with at least one of these and that it will enhance my life and my wellbeing to any extent. if i don’t achieve any or all of these things on this list, i won’t beat myself up. i have so much time to incorporate these things if i truly feel like they would benefit me, and if i try something or two that doesn’t suit me in the way i thought, i’ll just be glad i tried! feel free to share some intentions of yours for the month as well, i’d love to hear about it all.
—i want to start going to slow yoga classes in the mornings! this is something i’ve thought about doing for years and my college has free classes multiple times a week with all different types of yoga, so why not? my dear friend bri is in a yoga class (for credit—so jealous!) and she says it’s worth waking up early for. i carry my stress and tension in my neck and it’s inhibited me from a few things physically, as well as even accessing my full vocal range on some days. so, i want to start doing something about it. i’m not necessarily the type to bottle my emotions up, but sometimes i don’t really set aside the time to release them and this feels like a great way to do so and a lovely, refreshing way to start my day and slowly ease into it while leaning into the state of sleepiness i feel and also gaining energy for the day ahead! even if i only go to one class once a week, i’ll be happy, but i think i’d like to do twice a week if i can help it.
—i want to stop checking my email after a certain time every day. this one is going to be more difficult than i’d like to admit—honestly, i check my email more often than i check for text messages because there’s something about an email that brings me a bit more of that dopamine rush (the academic validation, probably…). but sometimes it will be 11:00 at night and i check it and then i grow stressed at certain tasks i will need to do and communications that honestly could have waited to be checked until the morning, because then my attention and energy shifts into business mode and it takes me a while to shake it off especially at night. i now understand why my professors only check their emails during certain times—i’m sure it makes them much happier people. i really just need to stick to my rest time and not cross contaminate it with even the slightest bit of anything related to school, my job, rehearsals, my internship, etc. we are constantly complaining about how we are expected to always be “on call” in this capitalistic society, and while it’s sad but true, i think we have some power over that, too, and can set boundaries for the sake of our wellbeing and times of rest.
—i began a commonplace book and so far it has brought me so much joy! i want to keep up with it. it’s such a great way to organize new information, interesting concepts i learned in classes, anything i am researching that is inside or outside of my education, quotes that inspire me as a person and/or writer and responding directly to them and what they evoked in me/how they resonate with me, etc. i think the best part of it is that i like how scattered it might seem to others if they looked in it, but to me, it is organized in a way that works for me and my brain and there’s no pressure for it to be this aesthetic journey. virginia woolf even kept a commonplace book! prose & petticoats on youtube has a wonderful video that delves more into what commonplace books are and the history/origins of them. i enjoy it because she doesn’t show examples—i feel like once an example is seen, the need for it to match in some way is felt and there’s an inherent pressure to make it aesthetic. i want to continue working on my own!
—i want to stop overanalyzing how my words and actions come off to other people. quite frankly it’s exhausting and 99% of the time, the way in which i worry i came off is not at all how i appeared to anyone else and then i’ve wasted time and energy worrying about absolutely nothing! this goes in tandem with trusting myself, too, and this has been my overarching goal for many, many years. i need to trust too that my loved ones would bring it to my attention if my words and/or actions really weren’t received well and they wouldn’t give up on me over a misunderstanding like that, and they’d tell me because they care about me and our connection is worthwhile. what i bring into others’ lives means so much and i want to work on believing that more. i think part of me does already.
—i want to take up more space. what i have to say, share, and bring to the table, whether that’s in the classroom, rehearsal, with friends, etc, is valuable and i don’t want to hold it back anymore. i am passionate about my craft and i always have a thought and/or an idea that i’m ready to share! and even if i am feeling intense emotions and feeling less than my best, i don’t want to keep it to myself until i am alone in my room late at night. i want to show up as i am and meet myself where i am at and know that i am doing my best and the fact that i am showing up at all means something.
i have hope for february and not only what will bring me, but also what i will bring to it.
with that, here is what i loved in january (and also december)—what all kept me going even in the difficult times i faced.
books:
—1984 by george orwell. i haven’t stopped thinking about it and its haunting beauty and terror. but, i’m not going to say much more for now, as my dear friend anna and i have started a separate substack, pages in protest, where we will be reading and discussing banned books, so please check that out! our first post will be about 1984 so keep your eyes open for that (get it? haha) and a special thanks to my lovely partner for getting a gorgeous copy of this book for me. really i’m thanking him more for his listening and thoughtfulness—i expressed having wanted to read this book for years and we were both surprised at how i, an english major, had never read it! he remembered that and even made it a point to get it from my favorite bookstore. this will always be one of my favorite gifts i’ve received.
—late fame by arthur schnitzler. schnitzler has become one of my favorite writers so quickly, even after having only read his play la ronde. he paints such a vivid picture of what people were truly like especially during the turn of the century in vienna. he would force his characters to rip off the masks and facades they glued onto themselves, and face themselves and each other as they really are. late fame illustrates a story about an older man who was a “one hit wonder” but for writing. at this point in his life, he’s abandoned writing entirely, until a group of young artists find his only published poetry collection and are so inspired by it that they call upon him to join their group of artists of all sorts—actors, writers, poets, comedians, etc and to work on a new series of poems for a showcase. they meet in a coffeehouse and work on their projects but he quickly realizes that he does not have anymore words he wants the world to absorb. the sentiments of creating in a coffeehouse as well as forming artist collectives is very reminiscent of what was really happening in the turn of the century in vienna. if you want to learn more, look into the vienna secession and the wiener werkstätte (vienna workshop), as well as peter altenberg’s writing and life. i’ve grown to be so passionate about this era that i might as well capture a fuller picture of it in my own writing soon.
—how to think like a woman by regan penaluna. i can’t say too much about this one yet as i’ve only really just started it despite buying it a year ago per my dear friend lailey’s recommendation, but so far, it is stunning and i can already tell it’s going to dive into so many intriguing sentiments. i’ve gathered so far that at its core, this book is about a woman (penaluna) who studied philosophy through graduate school and then became a professor of it and the hardships she has faced in the field merely due to being a woman, and how these hardships can be traced back to women being oppressed in general and in educational systems since the beginning of time and even the times of socrates, plato, aristotle, etc, but how the women philosophers that she discovered brought her a sense of hope and reignited her love for philosophy and that there is a place for her there.
films:
—the perks of being a wallflower. i know this one is nothing new for me, but i hadn’t seen it since 2022. my last watch prior to this one really, really reached me in a way that i felt like wasn’t healthy at the time (watching this movie again as a senior who just graduated early and overcame so much, and didn’t really have a group at my school like the one in this movie was crazy), but this will always be one of my favorite films ever, if not my absolute favorite. i had the opportunity to see it in theaters (alamo drafthouse, you know i love you) and being at a point in my life where i am surrounded by the love i deserve was exhilarating, full circle, relieving, and filled with so much happiness.
—despicable me 2. i’m not sorry, i love minions, and it’s not their fault that facebook moms tried to ruin them! they meant well at first anyway, i think? this movie is just so much fun and gru’s character development is genuinely one of the best i’ve seen, un-ironically. and as someone who is adopted it just warms my heart to see how the girls help him to be so much happier and give him love that he returns to them. and he gets to experience romantic love, too! lucy is so sweet and honestly i think she was part of my bi awakening. this movie is the best of the series in my opinion.
—beauty and the beast. i hadn’t seen this movie in so long but i decided to just put it on in the background as i went to sleep the night before winter quarter started (horrible and excellent idea at the same time. i’m not really the type of person to have something on in the background and not become invested in it…i was up until 3 and had my first class at 9:40) and it brought me so much joy. belle has always been and will always be my favorite disney princess. she is intelligent, brave, kind, and sees the best in people. plus, she reads at the same pace/amount that i do and seeing someone else, let alone someone who goes onto become a princess with a ginormous library do that is so refreshing. i also enjoy the live action, especially lefou’s character development—he actually thinks for himself and doesn’t put up with gaston’s treatment of him in the end. also “and his name’s g-a-s-t…i believe there’s another t…it’s just occurred to me that i’m illiterate and i’ve never actually had to spell it out loud before!” is so funny forever!
tv shows:
—how i met your mother. i finished it on the last day of january after half a year of becoming so obsessed with it and just wow. i really started to feel like i knew these characters and i loved each and every one of them (especially lily and barney). i learned so much from watching this, especially to keep the people you love close to you and to always be there for the big moments no matter what life throws your way. i feel like my words can’t do the experience this show brought me justice. it was that incredible. i am so devastated that i finished it but at the same time, so grateful i got to see it at all and for the impact it had on me. let’s not talk about the ending though…
—once upon a time. i forgot how much i LOVE this show! it’s so ridiculous but in the best ways. the drama is amazing, but these characters really do undergo some of the best development i’ve ever seen, especially regina. starting a rewatch of this is exactly what i need right now and is healing me.
—gravity falls. another show that is healing to rewatch as i’m older (i’m closer to soos’ age now than dipper and mabel and even wendy…that’s crazy).
songs:
—so long, marianne by leonard cohen. i’ve never really sat down and intentionally listened to him until recently but wow, am i glad that i started to. this song in particular radiates such a feeling of warmth yet bittersweetness. cohen’s voice is so comforting to me and i could never get tired of it.
—your nickle ain’t worth my dime by sleeping with sirens. not that i ever truly left my emo phase, i think it evolved into loving other genres that still had traces of it, but especially since last november i have been listening to my favorites from this genre and scene a lot more! i can’t wait to see pierce the veil for the fourth time overall and third time with my dear friend connie, and sleeping with sirens is opening for them which feels like a dream come true! i really, really hope they play this song. 12 year old liv is just screaming happily at all of this right now.
—cactus tree by joni mitchell. you all know i adore joni and her music resonates with me so deeply. blue is one of the best albums of all time, though i am trying to listen to other music from her more often too and this song touched me so deeply, with the vivid story she paints in the lyrics and her vocals are so enchanting always.
moments:
—building legos for the first time! i can’t believe i’d never done this before. i had some lego sets as a kid but my brother always built them for me because the instructions were so confusing but now they make a lot more sense and i hope to build many more! i especially love the architecture, flower, and animal crossing sets.
—seeing perks of being a wallflower on the big screen. it was life changing.
—having my dear friend cassie on my radio show (girl, uninterrupted — thursdays at 11pmcst on radiodepaul.com) finally! this has been in the works for so long and we finally made it happened! we mused about mozart and poop, it was kind of enlightening
—going thrifting with anna and finding this absolutely gorgeous lamp together—it fits her home so perfectly and we had some heartfelt and hilarious conversations as it illuminated the room
—trying greek food for the first time! to be fair, it was chicken, but it was prepared in a way i’ve never tasted before, with the herbs and seasonings and sauce, and wow i think chicken kalamata is my favorite food now. i loved it so much that i went back to the restaurant two weekends in a row, and i influenced one of the waitresses to get a baggu swan purse just like mine!
—sleepovers with bri, they are the best and always help to re-center me in times i’m stressed. we put on a show in the background and do some homework and chat and it’s so peaceful.
—homework sessions at cafes with my dear friend olivia, it always motivates me to work with other people and to be in an environment that is far enough away from home but that also feels like a second home. our conversations in between are always so interesting and lovely, it’s refreshing to see how like-minded we are
—making homemade dole whips! i kind of thought the mouse would have had this and other disney park recipes under lock and key so it never occurred to me that my favorite sweet treat of all time could be made so easily. and now i don’t have to be so sadly deprived of this treat until the summer…
i can’t wait to see what february has in store for me and it’s already looked so bright! i wish you all a happy february and hope january treated you well, let’s just say i hope you all have working heaters!...