Hello, Sally here. A thirty year old trying to discover her way through life. I've started this blog so I can get a little deeper and more intimate with my thoughts. I enjoy journaling on my own time, so I can go back and read for reminders and remember life lessons. I decided to expose some of that vulnerability in hopes that someone else can take something from it too. This is for me as much as it is for others, so this is a little something for us who just feel. ♡
CHEERS! I am now a quarter of a century old. I literally came down from the top of the world to turn 25. It’s crazy how old I am and still get asked if i’m a minor, just blessed I guess. I won’t complain about it when older, but until then… YES I PROMISE THIS IS NOT A FAKE ID!
I am no where near where I thought I would be at, but I’m perfectly okay with that. I’m in no rush to grow up and I’m pretty much just living my life the best I can. I just hope it stays like this a little longer. I’m in that ‘I can go anywhere to travel whenever I want’ phase in my life and it’s been such a dream. I also have the best group of friends and love them so much. They set up a charcuterie picnic for my birthday and it was perfect, not even covid could ruin it. ♡
CHEERS TO 25 AND THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE OF MINE, xoxo SALLY ♡ T
I’ve felt like I’ve been in “The in between” lately. I’m not really sure how to get out of it or if this is something I need. I can’t tell if it’s just emotions of my birthday coming up or if it’s really how I feel. Is it coming from our new reality that’s clashing with the lifestyle that I’ve always and only known before? Is it part of past history or is it the overcoming of it? Healing and life are messy.
Physically and mentally I am not aligned and I can admit that loudly. That does not scare me, but it is concerning and has been difficult to deal with. When I say I feel like I’m in two places at once, I don’t mean just between my heart and mind or physically and mentally, but within that one thing as well. My thoughts are in two places, how my heart feels like it’s in two places, my well being is in two places, and what you see the outside is in two places. Every aspect of my life is currently in two places then battling their adjacent/opposite, whatever it is. It’s been really difficult to know where is right because honestly they both feel right. One just takes more strength than the other.
Let people heal and leave them alone if you have no business in it. With everything going on in the world, I’ve seen too many times where people are just sticking their noses in where they don’t even have the right to say anything or trying to manipulate the situation into their own narrative. You can try to sympathize and be there for support, but unless it deals with you don’t try to insert yourself unless that person is willing to let you in. You are doing more harm and can really set them back no matter how far they’ve come. Let others heal on their own time. It’s okay to back off, sometimes people just need to find the strength to pick themselves back up. Don’t manipulate someone else’s process so you can feed off of it. It’s not suppose to be an ego boost. Let them keep their healing to themselves and search for your own.
ELECTRIC FOREST, OH HOW I MISS YOU. It sucks and breaks my heart that they had to cancel Forest this year, but the well being of everyone else definitely is more important. It just passed the 2020 dates and my social media memories are all forest, so let’s go back to Electric Forest 2019. Relive my first year at forest!
HAPPY FOREST! I will never forget how warming and welcoming everyone is at Electric Forest. By far it’s my favorite music festival. It’s truly something you should experience, even if it’s just one day. It’s truly magical. I wasn’t able to go all days because of work, but I live about 45 to an hour away so once I was done working for the week I was blessed to be able to just drive there. I got to Forest on the Saturday night right before Bassnectar went on and I was in awe the moment I drove into the festival. Seeing the camp ground made me flashback to Gridlife (boy that’s another story LOL) and it just felt so unreal that I was actually there. I got my car parked and quickly set up my stuff at the tents and into the actual forest we went. Walking towards the forest, I could hear bass coming from all around me and I could feel the vibrations go through my body. Everyone we passed was just super happy, vibing with their friends, and just so nice. I was told “Happy Forest” at least 20 times before I got to the rest of my group and so many people complimented on my last minute forest outfit. Talk about a confidence booster. It was after midnight so walking to my friends was just really dark. I didn’t see the setup that well at all. Got to the rest of my friends and heard their stories from the past couple of days, then Bassnectar came on. I was super excited cause that was my first time seeing him perform live. I will never forget his lasers beaming through all the trees. Lasers in a forest hit differently than lasers in the middle of a city. One thing I noticed too was glow sticks being thrown on the drops and it wouldn’t be a couple, but literally hundreds. I thought and still think to this day that it’s so awesome and it’s so much fun. I went into the crowd with one of my friends and we just collected a whole bunch of glow sticks from the ground to bring back to the group. I felt like a kid again and that’s literally the forest magic. After I believe we walked to Tokimonsta’s set, then the queen of them all, Alison Wonderland. I’m a huge fan already and her set at Electric Forest started off with God is a Woman and I fell in love with her even more. It was the last set of the night and I’m pretty sure it ended around 3 am, but I was just getting started with Forest. I went back to the camp and walked around going to different RV sets until about 6 am. I saw the sunrise behind the ferris wheel and what a beauty that was. I knew I was home.
My first full day at Forest was also the last festival day, but it was well spent. I pretty much went everywhere and experienced everything on the Sunday. I made sure I wasn’t going to miss out on anything! I slept for only 4 hours, but woke up to someone jamming to Slander and I LOVE SLANDER so my day started off perfect. WOW. Seeing the forest during the day made my heart so happy. Walking into Sherwood Forest, seeing all the art in real life that you usually see in pictures while Seven Lions playing a secret set? Once in a lifetime. It was beautiful. I’m probably going to describe everything with that, but it really is just beautiful there.
I went exploring in the morning to the chapel, the Jubilee and the Hangar. None of the past music festivals that I’ve gone too has ever been so interactive. It was so cool to see that. Forest really is an experience and not just a music festival. There’s so many things to go in to look at, so many activities set up for you to do and really I can’t express this enough THE PEOPLE. Everyone is just so welcoming and nice. I love that people set up their hammocks or moon mats and just nap through out the day and every respects their space. That could never happen at Spring Awakening. Also, two words… Island Noodles. Food at forest was really good too and they had a lot of different culture foods. Time went by so fast, next thing I knew I was finding all of these fairy houses and swapping kandi and stickers and the sun was already setting. We watched sets in between exploring, but one set that will have my heart on that day would be Seven Lions. It was the last set of the night and I cried so much and got so emotional because not only do I love his music, but I was sad that I would be getting ready to leaving this little fantasy land when the sun came up. I didn’t want to leave at all. The next morning came and we packed up our things and left. I enjoyed a nice shower right when I got home and spent the rest of the day with my friends just sharing our Electric Forest stories. Really had the time of my life and I can’t wait to be back.
Hope you had a happy Forest weekend!
SALLY ♡ T
ADDED o7/04/2020: With the recent events coming out about Bassnectar, I would like to make it clear that what he did is not okay. How he is handling the situation is not okay. Sexual abuse and rape IS NOT OKAY. There is evidence out there to prove his wrong doing and sick behavior. For him to “apologize” (if you can call it that) the way that he did does not give his victims, his fans or any victims for that matter any closure. It just raises further questions.
Can I just start with a WTF IS HAPPENING 2020? I really had a rough 2019, so I was excited to walk into a new year and leave all the shit behind, but then things just got crazy in a different way. I was already feeling lost before the quarantine and overwhelmed with work and trying to have a social life.
Quarantine was kind of rough for me to adjust too in the beginning. I actually felt a little more overwhelmed and lost because of all of the restrictions. I’m use to working a lot and my life just being busy all the time with my job, my relationship and with friends. Working 60 hours a week and having a social life is tough. I think I was only getting 4-6 hours of sleep a night. Going from constantly busy to not having any work and not being to able to hang out with friends was a drastic change for me. I didn’t know what to do with all that free time that I was given and my hobbies are going out and doing non essential things. With nothing being opened and outdoor things closing and opening back up randomly, I felt like there wasn’t much to do. I pretty much had that winter seasonal depression feeling. Things are better now and I ended up making this blog to occupy my time. Some things I’ve learned from quarantine is how much I appreciate my friends and being able to hang out with them in person. Another is how much I love being outdoors and how little I did outdoor things. Because I worked so much before, I didn’t have time to go on walks, hikes, or even to a beach. So being able to do that again was refreshing. Having outdoor picnics, getting takeout foods from new restaurants and taking little outdoor walks really helped get rid of those negative feelings. There’s still tons of things changing as the states start to open back up, but i’m adjusting to it a lot better than before. Even though, this had some negative impacts on parts of my life it has bought me some time to figure out how live like a normal person again. When things start coming back close to regular life, I know how to keep myself happy and not overwhelmed and hating my life. A lot of events that I was planning on going too got cancelled, but it just give me room to plans more adventurous, outdoorsy ones. I can’t wait for summer to go into full effect.
** If there is any false or incorrect information in my post, please correct me and feel free to send any sources or links so I can further educate myself! Thank you.
I have spoken and voiced my stand on other social media platforms. Today I feel confident and comfortable enough to write about it where my characters are not limited. I don’t have a big platform, but I still have a voice that I WILL use to spread awareness with. I HEAR YOU, I SEE YOU, I RESPECT YOU, I STAND WITH YOU. I cannot represent or speak on behalf of any groups or communities, but I will raise awareness and defend those from racism. I will use my voice to try to educate anyone within the asian communities about the existing anti-black racism. Racism is still very present everywhere and it’s time to unlearn it and stand together. We are not against each other, it’s us against racism and injustice.
I have experienced little racism being Vietnamese and live in a very diverse area, so I don’t fully understand what it’s like for others, but from my experiences I can only imagine how horrific it can be. I can admit that I am privileged. I don’t feel a sense of pride saying that, knowing that people in my community and neighboring ones cannot say the same. It’s a huge problem that you would think would be fixed by now. It’s the year 2020 now, a change is past due.
I want to send my condolences to the families and friends who have lost someone to police brutality. Also to those who are racially profiled and wrongfully accused. For those who are reading this, I will add some links below that you can use to find information on how you can help and what you can do if you aren’t able to come out to any protest. There’s plenty that you can do from home.
SAY THIER NAMES SO THEIR JUSTICES ARE SERVED. SAY THEIR NAMES FOR THE GENERATIONS AFTER US, SO THEY ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. SAY THEIR NAMES SO THIS MOVEMENT IS NEVER FORGOTTEN AND SO WE NEVER TAKE A STEP BACKWARDS INTO RACISM.
A reminder to you that there are disgusting and hateful people out there in the world. You tend to forget this because you are just always surrounded by love and positivity and your outlook on life is daydream like. Growing up it’s always been that way, but somehow with age even with all the crazy things going on in the world you still look at the beautiful things. Maybe even more now. I’m not saying it’s a bad view on life, but you tend to forget about the ugly that makes and create those beauties. Life is not all rainbow and butterflies, people are not always kind and loving and not everyone can move their focus on themselves as quick as you can. You are a sensitive fuck and it’s fine to take a day to be sad, but that’s all you need. Don’t let anything, but yourself control your way of living. If they try, fuck them. You already know that you’re above their pettiness because you have the one thing that they don’t. REAL SELF LOVE.
You had your soul searching days and you found the one thing that makes you the best person that you could be. Think back to summer 2018. That’s you. Now wipe off your tears and continue putting love out into the world and yourself. I say this with OUR heart and love.
Thank you for the support and feedback! It’s been a while since I’ve had to do anything with coding, so creating this blog was a challenge and I had to brush up on a lot of it. This was something that I’ve been going back and forth on since I created Sally.Things on instagram a couple years ago. I really didn’t know what kind of content I would be creating and if it was enough for a written blog since you can still share things verbally on Instagram. I’m still very much learning as I go and coming up with new ideas. If this blog works out, then done deal. If not, then it’ll be here for me to post memories. There’s still tons of things for me to add and change around, so please bare with me. Thank you again for your support!
SALLY♡THINGS 