꒰ Thursday 03.07.24꒱

Hello diary and diary readers! As I'm writing this, i'm sitting under my kotatsu with a cup of hot choco and a plate of biscuits. It's 1am, so fittingly, I'm listening to 1am from Animal Crossing. Did I ever mention I have a kotatsu? Since I live in the living room of our 1 bedroom apartment my room mate and I turned our dining room into a living room-dining room combo. So we pooled money to get a kotatsu. I need to take pictures of our cozy apartment someday...

Anyways! Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes! T__T I'm so touched that so many folks remembered my birthday, and even went out of their way to send me lovely messages and even art! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!! My birthday was a blast. I thought I'd feel lonely because I'd be spending my birthday alone but the opposite was true. Friends, family, strangers, so many people went out of their way to be kind to me that day, so I didn't feel lonely at all.

I woke up to lots birthday messages from friends and site visitors. the girl at the bakery didnt charge me for my slice of birthday cake (and didnt even tell me! I didnt realize until I checked my receipt..) A friend I ran into decided to hang out with me for the evening once she heard it was my birthday. She got boba with me and took me to her favorite thrift store. I used my $20 UberEats coupon I had been saving to get Korean fried chicken delivered and had dinner at my kotatsu while calling with friends and family. I blew out my birthday candles while facetiming with my family. As I was lighting the candle, my finger grazed the flame a bit and I quickly pulled my hand away. I didn't think anyone noticed, but later in the night my dad called me, saying he remembered I had touched the flame and he was worried about my hand. I reassured him I was fine, then teared up a bit after hanging up.

I was kind to myself too. I didn't work at all that day. I went to the library and read the first volume of The Summer Hikaru Died. I made sure to be patient and not say hurtful things to myself. I ended the day with one of my favorite activities: wasting time on the computer. I played minecraft until my eyes couldnt stay open. I didnt want to go to sleep because I had such a pleasant day... I want to make a page to write about my birthday in more detail because I had so much fun I dont want to forget any of it.



In other news, today I went to therapy for the first time!! I'm so happy! I've wanted to get therapy for ages and I finally got around to it! It was virtual, since my school pays for a telehealth service that students can use. I didnt have to pay a penny, so that made it easier for me to finally make an appointment. My therapist was very pleasant to talk to. I'm thankful for our shared background-- she's also a southeast asian woman, so she's able to relate to a lot of my experiences. We talked a bit about my childhood, and she made very insightful observations that I had never considered before. I don't talk about it often, but growing up I had a very tulmultuous relationship with my mother and I'm pretty sure those experiences are at the root of a majority of my mental health and self esteem issues. My therapist is similar in age to my mom, and up to this point I had only really discussed my childhood with people similar in age to me, so it was nice hearing her observations about my mom and what may have been going through her mind at the time to make her act the way she did. Afterwards I called my mom to tell her about my therapy session, and my mom opened up to me about her feelings in the past and explained her reasonings. I'm very thankful for the conversation she and I had! My vietnamese vocabulary isn't very broad so I've always struggled with having conversations about interpersonal things, so it's not often that we are able to be open with each other like that. Ahhh I need to stop writing these diary entries so late at night, I get too sleepy to write coherently... I want to take better care of myself and make lots of improvements. I hope future lune is very kind to herself.