no matter how hard i try to think of a more profound title for my first blog post in four months, it all comes back to the same thing: new year, same bullshit.

read more: new year, same bullshit

January is zipping by at the speed of light, and my 29th birthday on March 7th draws ever near. i didn’t imagine this month would move so quickly, seeing as 2025 crept past at an agonizingly idle pace. perhaps others would say time is accelerating rapidly as they age, but for me, it seems to ebb and flow depending on what i want.

i’ve never been afraid of getting older—i’m still not even as i lament on my birthday approaching. personally, i don’t subscribe to the idea that life ends at after 30 with your twenties being the prime of your life. they’ve certainly not been mine and that’s part of the problem as time moves by.

just last month, i was desperate for 2025 to end. now, i’m begging for the world to stop turning if only for a minute to think. i feel as if i’ve lost control of my mind entirely, oscillating between hope and utter despair. my entire twenties have been spent anxiously awaiting my thirties when my life was finally due to begin. genuinely, i thought that my life would be improving by now, and yet, it’s only worsened.

2024 had been a spectacular year for the most part. i was making more money than i ever had before, my dead-end relationship had finally come to an end, i lost 45 pounds, and i met the most wonderful man—the man of my dreams, even!

i was so hopeful. i truly thought, “you see, i knew it. just wait until my thirties and i’ll be set.” i reorganized all my finances around the goal of being debt free by 31, put my nose to the grindstone on work with the idea that i would finally be promoted to full time, and started making plans for my future.

then, it all crashed.

i’ve always lived paycheck to paycheck, but the hours dwindled. suddenly, my 32 hour weeks were drained to 18 hours, forcing me to beg for shifts as if they were water on a foreign, desolate planet. landing 24 hours a week was, and still is, considered a success for me. they kept promising a timeframe for when things would improve.

“well, you know things are slow from the third week of January up until the summer.“

okay—summer came and went amidst the back-to-school frenzy, but 18 hours remained the norm.

“once launch rolls around, there’ll be hours.“

okay—product launch, crazy lines, and perhaps a non-scheduled 12 hour shift within an 18 hour week. woohoo. grand. a whopping 24 hours netted whereas, last year, i cried with joy over my overtime paystub.

“the holidays will make your total hours in the year even with last year.“

yeah, fuck off, i made $10k less than i did last year, and with the end of the year, it’s become official. i’ll be happy to show you my paystubs.

made six years at the company in November. still part-time with no hope of any promotions in sight, and the job market is so bad, i can’t even drop fries at McDonald’s on the side because i’m overqualified. and forget about a big girl job, that resume that indicates i’m overqualified lacks qualifications for any decent paying jobs.

truly, i’m just a rat in a maze with no cheese, and goddamnit, i am so sick of being hungry. i’m sick of complaining, and of whining, and of being so fucking miserable, it spreads like the bubonic plague. indeed, a rodent in human disguise.

debt-free at 31 has become a pipe dream, doomed to repeat my twenties well into my thirties.

the desperation for relief has reached a fever pitch as i run out of options to keep myself afloat. everyday, i’m looking at the near $20k in my retirement that i’ve worked so hard for the last six years, wondering if i have to become one of those dumb fucking idiots that pulls their retirement to settle debt, only to build it back up because my primary issue has yet to be resolved—i don’t make enough money.

unfortunately, no amount of cutting expenses can make up the difference, and make no mistake, i’ve forgone a lot of little luxuries to make things work—no one knows sacrifice better than i do.

my deficit grows larger by the month. so large, in fact, i’m considering an intermittent fast of epic proportions to save money on groceries. my appetite has already evaporated thanks to the medication my doctor put me on to help manage my weight (thanks, zepbound), so it wouldn’t be hard to get on a feeding schedule of one meal every other day.

but it’s also not healthy, and i want to be healthy. i want to be happy.

world of warcraft (gifted to me, to justify), my wonderful boyfriend, my friends, and my beautiful pets are my only joys right now, but everyday, i’m forced to acknowledge the precipice beneath my feet. a single false step and i’m done for, swallowed by the rolling tide in an unexplored ocean.

like, girl, i have thalassophobia—this is too much!

it’s come to a point that i’m hinging on drastic weight loss to change my life, because the truth is, life is harder when you’re fat. not that there is anything wrong with being fat, but to the world around us, there is and it is a cause for alienation and unconscious bias.

right now, my weight is the only thing within my control that i know for a fact would change the trajectory of my life. of course, people might read that, suck their teeth, and roll their eyes with disdain, but i’m not being dramatic. it is the cold, hard truth—society makes it nearly impossible for fat women to succeed.

if i didn’t have a pretty face, i’d be utterly fucked. pretty privilege is so real, though it is also so fucked up. why does it take someone drastically altering their appearance to receive the tiniest bit of respect and decency?

the company i work for, so boastful about their inclusivity, doesn’t have a single fat woman in a leadership role. there are different body types, of course, but they all meet a certain standard where they definitely do not look like me—the undesirable, if you will.

portly men? plenty, but men will always come above women in that regard because the perception is impacted by gender roles.

i could work at 150%, and because of my appearance, any work i do will be perceived as 75% which is why it’s so easy for me to burnout. if i worked a normal amount, the perception will be that i’m lazy, but have a thin woman work in the same capacity, she’s exceeding expectations. it’s fucked, and people still think the only downside to being fat is bullying.

fuck off—it’s always been systemic alienation, so closely woven with other forms of prejudice. i’ve always said pretty privilege is a sliding scale.

that was a bit of a tangent, all with the intention of revealing the only path forward i can see right now—i have to lose weight. all of it. it doesn’t matter if i’m not bothered by it, or that i don’t view it as a valid obstacle, it has absolutely been made an obstacle for me by society.

i know what you’re thinking, “Amelia, you’re grasping at straws because you’ve lost all hope in anything working out,” and i would say, absolutely! absolutely, i am reaching for the only thing within my control right now, because god knows, i have control over nothing else!

all i have is my ability to try everything and control over one of the greatest commodities of our world—beauty. it all comes down to that. wars have been fought over beauty; mountains have been moved for beauty. that is the only thing i can do right now, and it makes me sick, because now i’ve had to welcome back old insecurities like estranged relatives.

i just want something to look forward to. i have nothing. there is no future for me, and i’m starting to think everyone who ever treated me poorly was somehow justified in doing so. they seem to be getting on just fine after wreaking havoc in my own life, as if karma find my existence to insignificant to manifest. i’ve been treated like a piece of shit because that’s exactly what i am—just schmutz on the metaphorical bottom of one’s shoe.

there is nothing in this world for me, no matter how desperately i long for something. i try to find a puzzle where i fit, but none exist. i notch myself into one piece, only to be ripped out and replaced with another. a manufacturing error—the extra piece discarded within the hollow pit of a cardboard lid.

yet, i still fantasize anyway. i envision a life for myself and make plans for it, knowing damn well it’ll never happen. i was talking to my boyfriend about what i would want our wedding to look like while we drove in his brother’s mustang through austin for the holidays—a destination wedding, i said. somewhere in europe so my family would have an easier time attending, and so our loved ones from the US can have a nice, international vacation.

i’ve always said that, if i ever did have the chance to get married, it’d likely be a courthouse wedding. never in my life was i able to imagine a big event or ceremony—what was the point?

then, i went to a close friend’s wedding. my first wedding as an adult. it sparked my imagination, but also, it made me realize that i would never actually get the chance to have one myself. that deep-rooted belief that i’ve had since i was a child, so alien and lonely, contributed to this lack of imagination.

come to think of it, i’ve never actually written about married couples. i always end the story once the couple has come together, but never about how the relationship operates afterward. it all comes from the belief that nothing lasts—at least, not for me. even in a relationship where i’m so utterly smitten with the man i’m with, it’s unfathomable.

but now i’ve started imagining it with this empty pit in my stomach, knowing that it will never stretch beyond that. so, why the hell not fantasize a little? why not picture something grand and beautiful? a destination wedding instead of a courthouse for little ol’me, who would have thought?

though, i still have no idea how a proposal would go. i have a jewelry phobia, so whenever someone asks how that would work, i don’t have an answer—it won’t happen anyway, so who cares? let’s just imagine the wedding and call it a day.

i know, i know, i’m in a relationship—a pretty good one, at that. why would i still hold onto this belief that it’ll never happen for me?

well, my friend, because expectation breeds disappointment. i won’t put that responsibility on my boyfriend’s shoulders—he’s a man of his word, you see, and he’s a very cautious person. he doesn’t want to make promises he can’t keep, especially with someone like me who has experienced so much disappointment in her life.

it concerns me sometimes because the common consensus is that a man knows when he wants to marry someone, but i genuinely think he and i are just too autistic for that mindset. we have different ways of operating when it comes to envisioning a future—i can only share mine as his is a private affair only meant for my knowledge. sorry.

i want to be with him forever, but i know that nothing lasts when i’m involved. i have to be prepared for him to leave at any time, or else i won’t be able to bear the separation should it happen. i’m willing to risk it, of course, but i know that anything could happen. the bliss i’m experiencing now with him could evaporate in a single year or five from now. it makes me sad, of course, but i’ve always known who i am, and it’s not someone a person would want to marry or build a life with.

alright, this is getting depressing and i have class in about 20 minutes. i wish i could be more inspirational, but i am, unfortunately, bleak and pessimistic. to be fair though, i doubt anyone is reading and that’s okay if so. this is mediocre at best as i am at most things.

ramble over.