nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Hello, I’m Cat. I’m from Cary, North Carolina, but I’m currently a sophomore at a university in Chicago.

I am but 19 years old, and yet I feel that I have lived and experienced and felt the worth of hundreds of years and lives; I am so full of feelings and thoughts and so quietly observant and introspective, taking in everything around me and reflecting. I understand myself better than most others understand themselves and I am honest about it; I also know and have come to terms with the fact that no one can know me as well as I know myself and that there are divisions that cannot be overcome between myself and even my closest friend. There are so many things that I feel so profoundly about, and I have so many feelings, and yet I know that I cannot express them in words or help another to understand even an inkling of what I’m thinking. These things have made loneliness my greatest fear, even as it is my most reliable emotion.

Despite this, I’m easily fascinated and I love thinking and learning and experiencing new things. I’m a walking contradiction in that everything I want, I also want the exact opposite; I’m equal parts deeply thoughtful and silly, hopeless romantic and wild skeptic, and introspection and frivolity. I am honest and matter-of-fact and though all of the lessons I’ve learned (only briefly summarized above) may sound sad, I think that I’ve learned also to accept it and love and feel fully all the same.

This used to be the space where I would ramble for pages on end about all the things that I’ve come to understand about myself in my years of life. You can still read those musings here if you’d like, but I think that I’m the kind of person for whom you have to stick around a bit to really understand and appreciate.