I've been trying a lot of new ice cream flavors recently. For a while I only ate vanilla ice cream. I had tried other flavors like chocolate and strawberry but I didn't really like them — I didn't like strawberry; chocolate was alright but vanilla was much better. At some point at the end of my senior year, I was at QuickChek and I had the strong urge to get a mint chocolate chip milkshake — one of those things that you put in the machine and it mixes it all up. It was this weird thing where I could taste it before I even ate it. I loved it.

When I went to college, I would get vanilla ice cream from the self-serve because that's just what I would get. But when I saw that mint green tub, I realized that there was another option. I started to have it so much that my new friends thought that mint chocolate chip ice cream was my favorite. It wasn't. At least I don't think so.

I wouldn't really try anything else because there weren't labels on the tub, and I didn't want to try something without knowing what I was getting myself into. This presented a lot of problems because both vanilla and mint chocolate chip were very popular and thus rare. So one day I was sick of it and I tried cookie dough ice cream — it was good. I then tried rum raisin — it was mid. I tried strawberry — it was a little too creamy but amazing. I tried cookies and cream — I had an oreo-flavored blizzard at Dairy Queen before because it was the closest thing to vanilla and it was great; this ice cream was also good.

What have I been missing out on?

I have planned for a while to try psychedelics at 25 — that's when your brain is finished developing I've heard. (If it's legal, obviously!!!) I worry that once I hit 25, I'll have no more milestones left to fill. My brain is finished, I've hit the peak, and it's only down from there. That can't be true, can it? Is becoming an adult at 25 when you've stopped exploring and starting to work with what you have?

I hope I never run out of ice cream flavors to try. I hope once I finish, I get to try them all again and learn how I've changed. I used to hate strawberry ice cream and now I love it. The ice cream didn't change; I did.

Psychedelics are supposed to facilitate new brain connections that can help you see the world in new ways. Maybe the world can become my ice cream self serve container.

After a recent but brief depressive episode, my psychiatrist told me that I need to practice gratitude more. I told her I have been. I wonder if she sees what I can see. Has she seen the void that separates us from each other? Has she seen the futility of it all? Is all I can really get from life the pleasure of trying ice cream? Does that fulfill my purpose?