I find my face an odd one. Nothing substantial ever changes, but i seldom look in the mirror and see a familiar figure. I see the shadows of the days' ebbs and flows weighing upon my young wrinkles and all too old blemishes, even though those are newer. A feature I deem attractive one night becomes one i would do anything to change the next. nights are the most common time for me to take this time for self reflection, and I wonder if that has any effect on my ritual self perception.
My self perception follows quite quickly behind the general well being of my friends and loved ones. I do not know why. There are weeks when the only things going wrong are truly trivial, and i like those weeks. I can put myself first and truly not worry about anything going wrong with those i love, because life is good in these moments.
Mrs. Faith said that there is a common theme every year, in which the bonds that tie together the student body fall into a state of flux around this time of year, which makes sense.
I do not think i will be liking the way that my face looks for a little while.
She also said that it is one of the more happy times of the year. Juniors mourn the loss of their Seniors who guided through to this place, and the seniors grasp at the straws of their time as a child before being squeezed out in the perpetuity of exploitation. All of this aside the student body comes together in appreciation for what a school like mine means to those lucky and willing enough to stay. And make lifelong friends in a way nigh impossible anywhere else.
I know other peoples faces change, but i can never tell when. This is probably due to the pace at which this happens, and the interval of me viewing these changes converging enough so that each minute difference feels like a drop in the sea. Instead of the emotional waterfall which is finding an old friend in an Australian crowd, thousands of miles from both of our homes, themselves separated presently by thousands of miles, even though the place we can only truly call home is probably only a few rooms apart, in the hospital in downtown Albany, New York.
I watched the sun set today. Not directly, but I saw its rays appear on the top of my wall. And I saw them disappear. It was sometimes difficult to truly watch it, and not fall into the trap of looking at a friends face too often and not seeing them grow into a better human being. I would sometimes set a goal for me to watch. When the sun hits this chip of paint i can be sure that time has passed. that nature is coming still to do its part.
I am not sure if this analogy passes along to my loved ones. They do not know their fate, and neither do I. The sun does, and that makes it easy to place milestones on. But the people i care for are not a star in my solar system, as much as i would beg for them to be. The patterns they impart on me are subtle, unable to be presently seen.
The people around me affect me in ways that are only apparent to me when I have since long passed the opportunity for their care to be imparted, and can only take with me what they have been gracious enough to give before I could realize what a treasure I received.
entries — oldest first
I told my boyfriend today several things:
wish i didnt need to work
wish it was a weekend
wish to sleep
wish to see you
wish to flourish unburdened by teachers with inconsolable mindets on due dates and assignment ammounts
wish to create truly
wish to not fufill but to exceed
wish to be able to
wish to be able to *do*
I do wish these things
I have been thinking about the cause of this wishing and lach of doing
I have the medicine drug that makes me *do*
I have the "strategies" and "methods" and "mindets" on how to "attack" the problems
But i still struggle to do
to do unburdened by anything. I struggle with this
My freinds might be the issue, but many of them *do* so well, while also living through the burdens of normalcy. They can sit and do their work and still look lovingly over their shoulder and see their loved ones doing the same. It is 9:30 Pm as i write this sentence, and i have seldom accomplished anything not directly required of me at that moment. I completed my english with 2 minutes to spare, I took notes in my classes because it was the only option (though some chose to sleep). I envy the ability to forego the mental consequences of slacking off, to release that burden from their heart of dissapointing the man whose sole reason of existence in its current iteration is to share the knowledge they contain on something they are deeply passionate about with you.
I feel this pain and burden, as i am sure they do as well. I am not singular in "feeling empathy twoards authority figure." But i still do not *do* nearly as much as i want, as much as i am instructed, forced, compelled, to. The only reasonable cause of this is to look inward on myself, I am the only thing directly responsible for my actions, but i wish i could make my brain churn out a critique on a game i love dearly as quickly and easily as i have written these past 356 words on the inability of my brain to allow me to *do*.
i am getting lost in my head now. My friend just shared an anecdote i would normally find funny, but i could do nothing but nod. I need to run.
I am going to run
Be right back.
I listened to "Tanaka 2" by joey valence and brae, and ran for the whole duration
Im back
Mind is busy but with adrenaline. i can laugh again
This is helpful
I think i can get stuff done now
After 15 minutes
This was pointless i feel now
I think of myself too abstractly. People ask me questions about how im doing, and i dont know how to give a good one word response, or even a ten word one. If i do, the words that come into my mind are too severe for the application. A mother checking in on her son rarely wants to hear that he thinks he's going insane, and losing his mind to the *thoughts* that plauge him. So he thinks of a softer way. But it isnt accurate.
And he isnt really truthful to the therapist either because even though HIPPA is there to help protect you from your parents prying questions, the threat of the "Institution" still looms over if you admit you are too far gone to the people who are there to let you tell them how you are *really* doing.
So he tells his friends these things and the little white lies to the adults in his life, and it works pretty well for a while.
I wish i could end up getting better. I dont know if i will, or really can. Ive only ever gotten worse as the years go on. Sometimes there are nice days and sometimes there are bad days but its been a rough year and now i know im kind of spiraling without the conventional tears and hyperventialtion and the countless thoughts causing an eveantual headache.
Hopefully i do get better.
Bleh
More times than not this semester I thought I was in a bad place
But I’ve never been in a better one, even now while I spiral
The summer is going to be unsupported and I, unsupporting, and I can take the time to grow
But my parents who don’t know that the seven exclamation marks they use
Trigger my flight of fight from when they yelled at me before
Are going to be the only people I can reasonably talk to.
And the only who ask how my day was
Because as much as we try
distance kills relationships.
And a “how are you” from a parent and not a friend isn’t checking how I actually I am, but if something is wrong.
Or broken
There probably is
But
This too shall pass
And I can keep trying to help the people around me
And earnestly ask, with as much clarity as possible
How are you?
This is an excerpt from a letter to a dear friend of mine. It was written in an emotional state, and the first part is probably dramatized a bit too much
As you saw over my shoulder yesterday, being this far apart from my boyfriend has made me indescribably sad. I miss an in person relationship so much, and it kills me to be forced apart so much.
I mentioned this to my boyfriend a few weeks ago, and again tonight. I kept dropping hints of "we should break up". Whether those were subconcious or im just lying to myself we will never know.
Loving someone romantically is such an incredible feeling, and i am thankful i have been able to feel it for so long. But i long for the day to day parts of love. I want to hold someone in my arms for hours on end while we work, stealing pecks on the cheek when we think nobodies paying enough attention to care. This and so many more are what kill me. The physicality of romance, outside of the "nasty bits" are special. It scares me that it could be another 5 years before i regularily experience that again.
If we do break up, it will be strange. I still love him so much, and that is almost the reason why we would part ways. Its painful to not be able to love as much as i wish i could. Im not sure what moving on would feel like, and i dont really know how much i could.
As you know, after these two semesters, with me more openly proclaiming my gayness and boyfriend, more and more tales of people who used to like me fall out of the woodwork. Those "what ifs" scare me to no end, and feel incredibly disloyal to even think about. Im not sure any of them would have been worse than my current relationship, but few would even have the possibility of being better. I think that its good they scare me.
A lot of things scare me.
Between tears i told both myself and my boyfriend that i whished i could skip to the good part.
He asked "What if we missed it".
.
My brain is finding these nitpicky faults with him, to rationalize the thoughts of us breaking up 2 and a half weeks before our one year anniversary. But they dont matter in the slightest. I need to be more honest with myself. Some of these "faults" impact me negatively, but again, that isnt really a reason for us to break up.
I dont know.
Im going to do that thing where i come back to writing this on a rested mind and it will be much more coherent and less dramatic and all of that shit. This is probably a few pages already and for that i apologize.
12:40
4:15 pm
completley different topic, because why not
It is more melancholy than i expected to be seeing everyone gone. My lively home is becoming more and more empty as people go back to their houses. I dont know how much good i will be able to make on my promises of road trips, but my parents know that i want to make them and one of the points of being a teenager is doing what i want.
I cannot wait to come back next year and know half of the people here, and be confident enough in myself to get to know the other. Im taking a lot of classes that im interested in, and i dont have to deal with any humanities. Being naturally helpful and working to make sure that the juniors are more intertwined and allat.
This is a mess of a letter, and not necesarily productive in any kind.