Star pimple patches and having a lot to process
On feeling perfectly fine and anxieties around this year. This is a newsletter from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT!
I am not doing well, and I am doing perfectly fine. In one of my classes, we went around and said how we were feeling today on a scale from one to 10. I said I am not quite a five, a number that feels a little too depressed, but not yet a six, where you’re almost in good territory. I landed on five point seven, for no actual reason other than I genuinely didn’t know where to land so I picked something arbitrary. I am stressed and second guessing myself and unsure of what’s next—but I’m fine. I hate to act like I’m doing anything worse than fine, because I’ve been there many times in the last four years since my mom died, and I’m not there now.
Before I left for school today, I put one of those star pimple patches on a chin pimple I have. I find these pimple patches really unnecessary, but I love them. At points throughout my life when I’ve had really bad acne (PCOS problems!!) I couldn’t possibly imagine drawing attention to my skin in such a way. But now having just one zit to put a bright yellow star on top of—I love it. I haven’t worn one publicly before, mostly because I bought them and forgot about them, so I wasn’t sure if anyone would bring it up. No one did, until I was about to leave campus and someone told me I have a yellow star on my face. I told them thank you and that I knew, and they said they didn’t know if I knew. I’m obsessed with the thought of walking around with a yellow star on my face and not realizing it’s there—as though the endurance of this star on my face is the product of multiple people pretending it doesn’t exist, like everyone being too awkward to tell someone they have spinach in their teeth. I wonder if other people, especially professors, saw it and deliberately chose not to bring attention to it. I need to conduct a social experiment.
I listened to a Miranda Cosgrove song (Kissin U, obviously) on repeat on my way home from school. It’s sort of the pimple patch of my entire day. It would have been insane to listen to that song in the depths of my grief to make me feel better, but during a time like now where I’m overall fine, it’s kind of bright and unnecessary and fun. It sounds simplistic, but the presence of a star pimple patch and desire to listen to Kissin U on repeat gives me perspective. Their existence in my day means things could be a lot worse.
We’re now a month into 2026, which feels significant to myself in particular for many reasons I keep having heightened anxiety about. For one, I’m turning 30 this year. It’s not that I consider 30 to be old—in fact, I think 30 is younger than 27 if I think about it critically—but that I will be forced to say goodbye to being in my 20s perhaps before I’m ready. Second, I am graduating from my master’s program in May, which again, feels like it went too quickly for my own liking. Third, and most importantly, it is my Saturn return. I don’t feel like you all are talking about that to me enough.
In a way, all my anxieties surround the ideas of holy shit is life going by too fast and wait but what is next LMAO. My landlord in Maine once sent building residents a mass email that was no more than 200 words at the start of summer about the rules of having AC units in our apartments. He ended the email by saying, and I quote, “I know that this is a lot to process.” I still have the email in my inbox, and quote it like I’m quoting Clue or Legally Blonde, because it feels so serious in tone for something I ultimately found so inconsequential. But now I kind of get what landlord Chris meant. 2026, so far, is the year of knowing that this is a lot to process. And I will do it loudly, forcing everyone to process the inner workings of my next steps, or being 30, or my Saturn return alongside me.
I was a guest on moreNOISE this week! It was so fun to talk with isa and m a s about Ariana Grande (too much), Lorelai’s outfits on Gilmore Girls (not enough), and Benson Boone (not much but far more than anyone else ever has). I hope you enjoy this show~~
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