is it the universe or the algorithm talking to me?
being a spiritual girly in a technology driven world
oh my GOD my loves i am so sorry it has been so long! speech and life have been busy. but we made it through invitational season and the pace is settling back down. this week has been rest, relaxation, and SPRING BREAK.
i had one of those days recently where everything felt like a sign.
you know the kind, where you see the same number three times, the same phrase twice, the same idea echoing back at you from completely unrelated places and you’re like… okay. noted. loud and clear. message received. but also what exactly is the message???
it started on a morning when i woke up before my alarm, which never happens unless something is deeply wrong or cosmically aligned. i didn’t check my phone right away (growth), i just laid there and had the very clear thought: you should go somewhere new today.
not in a dramatic, move-across-the-country way. more like… a gentle nudge. a suggestion. like when netflix auto-plays something and you’re like “fine i guess”.
anyway, i ignored it. because of course i did! i had things to do! emails to answer! a personality to maintain!
so instead i grabbed my phone and opened instagram, where the first post i saw was one of those aesthetic videos that says something like “your life is waiting for you outside of your routine” over a clip of someone walking through trees in slow motion.
which felt a little pointed, if i’m being honest.
and then i opened tiktok (as one does) and the first video was a girl saying she randomly drove to a new coffee shop and it changed her entire week. at this point i’m like okay. okay!!! i hear you!!! but also… the algorithm knows me. the algorithm is me. this is less divine intervention and more a reflection of my own search history.
this is where i get stuck. i want to be someone who believes in signs. i want to believe that there is something guiding me, nudging me, gently placing little breadcrumbs along my path like “hey… maybe try this… maybe go here… maybe this is for you.”
but i also know that my phone is literally designed to feed me content that feels eerily specific to my life. so when something resonates, is that the universe… or is that just really good data collection? like am i being guided, or am i just extremely predictable?
(please don’t answer that)
anyway.
i spent the next hour in a weird limbo where i couldn’t decide if i was having a spiritual experience or just being marketed to. so naturally, i did nothing. i sat on my couch, half-committed to the idea of going somewhere new, half-committed to staying exactly where i was, scrolling through other people doing interesting things while i considered becoming the kind of person who does interesting things.
and then, in a moment of either clarity or surrender, i grabbed my keys and left.
no plan. no destination. just… movement.
i ended up at a little cafe i’ve driven past probably a hundred times and never gone into. it wasn’t life-changing. no one in there handed me a piece of wisdom. i didn’t have a profound conversation with a stranger. my ceasar salad wrap was honestly just okay. but i sat by the window for a while and watched people walk by, and for a second i felt… different. not fixed. not transformed. just slightly more in my life. which i think is the whole point.
i don’t actually think the universe is yelling at me through instagram reels. and i don’t think every repeated number is a coded message meant just for me. but i do think there’s something to paying attention to the things that make you pause. the thoughts that feel a little louder than the others. the ideas that keep coming back. the places you keep almost going.
maybe it’s not about whether it’s a sign or an algorithm or just your own brain trying to get your attention. maybe it’s just about listening. because at the end of the day, whether that nudge came from the universe or from a well-trained recommendation system… it still got me out of my house.
it still gave me an hour of being a person in the world instead of a person observing the world through a screen. lately, that feels like enough. so i don’t know, maybe the universe is talking to me. or maybe i’m just finally starting to hear myself. either way, i think i’ll try to listen a little more closely.
and maybe next time i won’t wait so long to get up and go.
💿💿 honey by isabel banta - this is a novel about a young popstar who comes up in the 90s in the britney spears christina aguilara era. i was only like 15 pages into it when work got crazy but so far i am intrigued! will report back 🫡
☀️ ACTUALLY finishing the sunroom (1 year later) - do you guys remember in february of 2025 when i got a stick up my ass to repaint the sunroom and then after we painted and hung up lights it we never finished putting it back together? the truth of the matter is that for as long as i’ve lived in collin’s house with him it’s been overcrowded because he already had an apartment full of furniture and stuff and i moved in with an apartment full of furniture and stuff. we’re both people who attach far too much sentimental value to our things and neither of us want to get rid of our stuff? month by month it gets better, but really we still need to get rid of a bunch of our stuff so that everything can fit into one apartment without us giving away full rooms of our home to bins of storage (stuff that we haven’t missed since we put it in to plastic bins). i want to get this project complete around my birthday. wish me luck.
💁🏼♀️ the last days of being in my early 30s - y’all. i turn 35 next week on friday april 3rd!!! i’m officially entering the second half of the decade. i have loved my 30s so much. i love aging. i love the life i’m building. i am also an aries birthday loving bitch and i am REALLY enjoying this season so far
📚 hclib tour - i still haven’t figured out how to share this whole project with you all. frankly i haven’t had the time to think about it but i am still visiting hclib locations on the regular. here are the new branches i’ve visited since we last spoke:
hosmer library
linden hills library
penn lake library
🩸🌲🧛🏻 twilight party - you guys this was one of the funniest parties i’ve ever thrown. we renamed all the foods. we hid pitures of edward cullen and bella swan all over the house. plus all my decorations were printed using only my monthly printing budget at the library. we watched the movie with rifftrax commentary, and then we played twilight scene it. we had so much fun and several weeks later my house still says welcome to the town of forks on the front door and edward is still lurking behind some of our plants.
i’ll be honest, i’ve been finishing things faster than i’ve been writing about them. lots of things i’ve read/watched lately that i don’t feel the urge to write out a full review about. i’ll leave you with my feelings + recommendation
📖 in the dream house by carmen maria machado - loved it, would recommend
🏜️ the compound by aisling rowling - liked it, would recommend
👩🏼❤️👨🏻 eternity (apple tv+) - loved it, would recommend
🛸 project hail mary movie - loved it, would recommend over and over (need to read the book now, omg)
🩸the normal heart movie (hbo) - very sad, but mark ruffalo is a vision. would recommend if you’re interested in dramatization of the early days of the AIDS epidemic in NYC
👯♀️🔪the murder of skylar neese (hulu docuseries) - did not like, would not recommend
👀 reality check: inside the making of america’s next top model (netflix) - liked it, would recommend
thanks for being here cuties! love you, missed you, betchya anything i’ll be back next week with a birthday post xoxo
