Hi, I’m Elina—though people only call me that at work (or when their mad at me). Most of the time, I go by E.

By day I’m a social policy researcher studying human flourishing; or how people meet their basic needs, build stability, and pursue lives of dignity and possibility. My research centers on the material conditions that shape daily life including cash, housing, and access to concrete goods in order to better understand the foundations of health, opportunity, and well-being.

But in the in between I’m a writer. I write about the quiet longings, sharp joys, soft griefs, and tangled truths of being human. About the messes and the magic, and the tender middle spaces of becoming. And because I tend to overthink and under-talk, a space like this blog feels like a necessary exhale.

And I have always had a blog— before Substack was all the rave might I add! I’ve actually had many blogs over the years (RIP to all of them), each one a little time capsule of who I was becoming. So, welcome to this new iteration of me!

E’s Journal is my little corner of the internet, a place to wander through my thoughts, to capture what is quietly brimming underneath, and give shape to the things I don’t always say out loud but need to get out. I love thinking in big, messy ways— about identity, memory, healing, design, longing, politics, joy —and this blog is a space for me to wrestle with those big ideas.

Writing is my soft landing and a way to keep showing up for myself. There’s no niche here, really— just dispatches from a curious, sometimes-overwhelmed, often-dreaming mind. From time to time, you can expect me to write about policy and power, but also joy and interiority; about the small rituals that give texture to my days and the quiet reckonings that are helping to shape my identity.

Over time I hope E’s Journal is space where we can make meaning of the world through layers: through noticing, through reflection, through telling the truth gently.

Thanks for being here. I hope you stay awhile.