Hello again in 2026!

You know that idiom "like riding a bicycle"? It's supposed to represent the fact that once you learn a specific skill, you'll never forget it - it just takes a little bit of time for muscle memory to kick back in.

I'm hoping blogging is like that for me. Truthfully, I hope it is like that for everyone; blogging and connecting in the Web 1.0 (and 1.5) era that I grew up in was a truly special experience, and I hope teens someday are able to experience that again.

The last time I consistently maintained a personal blog was probably... 2010. When I say "personal blog", I mean a place online where you could be vulnerable and share your (somewhat) unfiltered thoughts about life. Back then, we wrote photo diaries about some of the most mundane things (like walking 1.5 miles to Costco and back), complained about trivial frustrations (like messing up your Gentoo install for the fifth time), cried about failing freshman physics (in my defense, the class wasn't infamously called "Mechanics for Masochists" for nothing), and waxed poetic about college crushes (and, in my case, publicly friend-zoned no less than 7 people in one entry).

I stopped blogging my senior year of college as I fell into a very deep depression (more on this in a future entry, perhaps). I did have a short dabble into a "professional" blog between the years of 2013-2015, but that was because I was working in the public relations industry and had fallen deep down the hole of personal branding. I didn't blog authentically anymore; every post had a goal, a sell, a reason for existing. I feel like the world shifted in a similar way; the idea of an "influencer" began to arise around this time as well.

So why am I coming back?

Well, in 2019 I decided to embrace my ADHD and embarked on a long arduous side quest to make a huge career change. I ended up getting into a great school and studied for 2.5 years before coming to the realization that my talents were best suited for the original path I was on. (This side-questing is unfortunately a common occurrence and no doubt the cause of many of my parents' sleepless nights.)

I was given a scholarship award last year, related to this new career. My acceptance speech detailed how I noticed a significant gap in the industry and realized I needed to change careers to meet that gap. It wasn't until a year later that I realized how absurd that sounded. In a room of rich scholarship donors, I must have sounded courageous and socially conscious. Alone in my apartment at night, staring down at that award certificate, it was a deep seated burden. I've always felt the need to fix things, to correct inefficient processes, to become the expert at everything so that I'm always prepared. There was no reason, I believed, to do something if I wasn't going to be outstanding at it (note that I did not say "the best", which is an important nuance).

Having the courage to step away from a career path I had trudged down for the past 6-7 years forced me to reevaluate and eventually identify a huge shift in my life philosophy. It allowed me to finally be vulnerable about what I wanted, not necessarily what I could provide that was needed (a common refrain of eldest daughters is, "If I don't do it, then who will?") 

The pros of having crippling Eldest Daughter Syndrome? It has created miracles. I took 12 classes my senior year of college (unheard of at my already intense as heck school). I learned all of Physics E&M in 2 weeks before taking a credit-by-exam and passing. I convinced someone to hire me for a public relations job with no experience in public relations (this is an industry notorious for not hiring if you didn't do a PR internship). I have talked my way into many jobs that I had no business being hired for. I singlehandedly started and ran a research training program (and its accompanying conference for psychiatric research) on a hope and a prayer.

The cons of crippling Eldest Daughter Syndrome? My to do list for today is 60 tasks long. I have about 7 part time jobs in total. I spend almost every minute of the day hustling in some shape or form. I feel emotionally responsible for the feelings of others. I cannot let injustice or ineptitude go without saying or doing something (which sometimes leads to things like being blacklisted from future jobs at a company... more on this story later). And of course, the reward for doing excellent work is always... more work.

My mother tells me to not let the expectations of others pressure me into a life I don't want to live. The problem with Eldest Daughter Syndrome is that I don't care about the expectations of others; at this point, the pressures are entirely self imposed.

So this blog serves several purposes: to reconnect with the long-form style of writing we used to do in Web 1.0, to try to be more vulnerable about my needs and wants, and to take you along on this journey. Let's begin!