i feel more like a stranger each time i come home.

i haven't felt this revitalized in a long time and it made me realize i need to really start taking small steps towards loving myself a little more.

since lee left, vancouver felt lonelier and lonelier. yeah, i have a great group of friends but it still feels like i haven't felt a sense of community with the gays here. it's been an ongoing issue since i was younger that it feels harder to make connections within my own community but being in la, meeting so many "new" people and feeling that freedom of being who i am unapologetically (and being accepted for it) makes me think that maybe i'm not as unlikeable as i think i am. there's always this question looming over my head when i try to interact with vancouver gays: is it me or is it them? why is it so much harder to form connections with these people when we're in such close proximity to each other? is it all in my head?

i'm eager to start socializing— albeit a little anxious still. am i funny? do my jokes offend people? will people accept me for who i am? i need to start acknowledging that i have more to offer than i let myself believe sometimes and that i AM a good friend; i AM deserving of friends and it's a privilege to be a part of MY life. i need to slowly start dipping my toe back into building new connections; one by one. if they don't like me, it's fine. it's not their job to adjust to me nor am i going to change who i am to appease them.

i also got some great motivation from a designer who encouraged me to take the first step towards making clothes. it's been a longtime dream of mine to pursue a bit of fashion and i just... never thought it would be feasible? i never even thought of myself as a creative person, let alone one that had the skills to make anything tangible. nico gave me some great advice and tips as to how to come to terms that you're an artist (am i????) and i think i'll make small steps towards trying. you never know, do you? i'm not aspiring to be great; i just want to do what i want to do.

i have things to look forward to for once, i think. i do think my depressive tendencies are still there and maybe a little more prevalent than usual but they can't hold me back. i'm going to be 29 soon, and in the blink of an eye, 30. i can't stop just being a passenger in my life and i need to start taking hold of the wheel. i will love myself. i will do things for myself. i will aspire for something beyond just what i'm comfortable with. by all means, i have a lot to be grateful for in my life but i also can't just let that be an excuse to be stagnant if i'm not actively happy with it.

For a long time, my default coping mechanism on how to handle difficult situations— one's that feel like they're tangled up in each other and impossible to unravel without undoing it all— is to dream of escapism. Running away, burning this life down, moving somewhere no one knows me and starting from the start. I know that's an impossible task; or at least it's one that is impossible for me.

I think I'm slowly picking up some hints that you're not interested in me the same way I'm interested in you. I spent some time re-analyzing the past few times we hung out and came to the realization that I've always initiated anything intimate and you were just kind enough to reciprocate in the moment. It's kind of my fault for being so blind to this and getting too far ahead of myself. I've purposely said a few things this week to see if you'll pick up what I'm trying to say but none of those have been acknowledged and I'm slowly, slowly coming to terms that this infatuation is purely one-sided.

(I really need to stop mistaking someone being kind and caring for me as a sign of being interested in me that way.)

I'm not really sure what the course of action should be from this point on because I genuinely value your company and your time, and the fact that you make me feel real happy when we're together. Should I even continue to try to make plans with you knowing that I'll be wanting more from it? How do I even have this conversation with you without pushing you away or scaring you off?

I came to the realization that because I’ve truly only ever dated one person that when it comes to crushes and having feelings for someone, everything is juvenile and so new to me. I constantly have to catch myself taking a moment to re-analyze what I’m saying so it doesn’t come off too strong, too needy, too... all of that. Lee tells me that it’s genuinely embarrassing sometimes the things I say or the way I act around them.

PL and I also talked extensively about our own relationship and he’s been supporting and encouraging of letting me have some time to go explore what’s out there, whether sexually or romantically. Am I one of the luckiest people ever to have found my life-long partner in one go and have him be also my biggest cheerleader in doing things that make me happy? Ab. so. lute. ly.

But back to the boy.

I need to reel myself back from wanting or expecting too much from whatever this fun thing that we have is. The general consensus from the very, very few people who know about this is that I need to slow down and just enjoy what it is and not want more from it. When we spend time together, the chemistry and the vibe makes me so happy and it really invigorates me. I think, other than his sudden appearance in my life, these are some of the happiest days I’ve had in a really long time. I catch myself sometimes THINKING of the future and what it holds, and that scares me a lot too. I need more experience in liking someone and facing rejections or disappointments because that’s not something I’ve had to deal with. 

This is me holding myself accountable by putting this out there. It will be sad and devastating when he leaves Vancouver. I’ll tell myself to stop wanting more and let go of the idea of permanently having him in my life, whether as a friend or anything otherwise, because it’s probably safer to do so anyway. If he sticks around as a friend, all the better and I’m going to be thankful for it. On the other hand, if life carries him away to wherever he needs to go and it takes him out of mine, I will still be happy for the moments we’ve had and the time we got to spend.

Do I want to spend almost every free minute I have in the meantime with him? Yes. Is that overbearing to expect the same? It’s actually an insane expectation.  I just want to see the world how he experiences it and be by his side to see how he sees it. That’s allllll.

My mom reached out not that long ago telling me that my dad was recently in brain surgery. Twice. She found out from our relatives that he had gone under because of something-- neither of us know what-- and that he’s recovering. She wanted me to go and see him due to familial obligation but also decided to roll throw in some guilt-tripping to mention that regardless of the past, he’s still my dad and he was still involved in raising me as a child.

I haven’t talked to him in years; probably since I moved out and my mom left for England. A lot of what I resent from him was the fact that he was never a good father (in my eyes). Much of my trauma from growing up was the fact that he was an alcoholic who consistently took out his anger and frustrations at the world towards my mom. Their marriage is the reason why I have so many repressed memories of my childhood and I never felt safe in my own home. I grew up always on the edge; watching for any inkling that a fight could erupt. The few things that I do remember from being young were never good. Who wants to be in elementary school and see their mom threaten to jump off the balcony because of a fight? To be fair, now looking back, they both had their faults in their relationship. My mom definitely was depressed and never got the right tools to deal with it and my dad... He was even more fucked up. I guess in retrospect, I can’t fully blame either of them for the way they were because neither of them were properly equipped to learn how to navigate their own trauma from their childhood and their own issues.

I want to say that I’ve been taking care of myself since I was in elementary school. They both had jobs and worked, and often, I remember taking the bus home by myself, making microwavable dinners, and just... doing what I needed to do for myself to get by. I never got a lot from either of them because they were too preoccupied dealing with their own lives. It isn’t until I moved out that I think I finally established my own life outside of them. Everything I own, everything I have, everything I’ve achieved is my own, not theirs. I don’t consider them to be my parents at all; just two people who were responsible for bringing me into the world and being there for the first half of my life.

Of course, that being said, my heart is full of empathy for my mom and I want nothing but happiness for her, especially since she’s out living her own life. She wants to badly sometimes for me to let her in to mine but I don’t think I’m emotionally able to handle having that relationship.

On the other hand, my dad, I still have a lot of difficult feelings towards. He’s not perfect-- if anything, far, far, far from it. I used to blame him a lot for everything that went wrong in my life. He was a lonely man who got himself into bad situations helping people who he thought were friends and ended up having to deal with the consequences of it, and had it affect his family.

To have my mom want to go reach out to him made me scared. It feels a little heartless to say but if he had died in the past few years, it would’ve made me a little more reassured that he wasn’t suffering with his issues. It’s easy to say that because I haven’t lost a parent yet but even when I received the news of his recent surgeries, I wasn’t at all moved to feel concerned for him. I am, however, worried that going to see him is going to open the door for him to come back in to my life in whatever small capacity. I don’t think I want that. I don’t think I need it. I can’t imagine what his presence is going to possibly contribute to my day to day. If anything, I think that if the door were opened, it would make me feel responsible for him; to take care of him if anything else were to happen. I don’t want to have to see him and then feel pity for him, and then obligated to do something. I don’t have the time or the energy at this current point in my life to take care of him.

I think a lot of the hesitation comes from the fact that I loved him-- both of them, truly-- a lot when I was growing up but consistently had my heart broken by their actions. I remember being very young and telling him that I wished he would stop drinking and smoking. I folded him paper stars for every day he would stop, and on the outside, he said he did. And obviously, he didn’t. 

What is there even to say to him when we’re face to face? What is there to share? I don’t want to have to see him and then have him burst into tears because I’ve neglected him for all these years. It’ll make me feel so guilty, even though I don’t want or... I don’t think I have anything to feel guilty about. Will he be happy to see how much I’ve grown? Will he be proud of me? Do I even care about all of that? Tbd.

here's a bit of thought vomit so i can kinda process what is going through my mind atm.

i spent a lot of today wondering if i'm weird (tl;dr yes....) for having crushes on people who reciprocate or return any form of attention that i give them. i'm genuinely happy and content in my relationship but i also acknowledge that it's impossible to have a partner who absolutely provides everything you need. (if u do, ur v lucky.) do i think i'm probably going to be with pl forever and we're going to be happy? yeah, absolutely without a doubt. do i sometimes wonder what else is out there in the world? yeah... but i don't think anyone out there can give me what he gives me in our relationship together. everything else from anyone else would just be supplementary to what (i think) i need.

the question then also becomes... what do i need? i can acknowledge that i definitely need more validation, more attention, more physical intimacy, but that's not the end of the world for me because i am also content with what i have. i'm always going to be the first to also point out how lucky i am that i have a partner who i genuinely enjoy spending time with; someone who understands me and accepts me for all my shortcomings and has signed up to be along for the ride forever. i don't think there's a single thing i could do that would or could break what we have, and i am eternally grateful for that.

do i sometimes wander off in my mind imagining brief moments of intimacy (or a relationship of sorts) with other people? yeah!! i think (or i hope) that's normal for any relationship that's almost ten years long. but now i'm also wondering if i'm built for some form of polygamy (tl;dr probably not lol). would it be nice to have someone who's supplementary to everything i want? yeah. do i think it could be sustainable? i have no idea. is this genuinely genuinely something i want to explore?... i also have no idea.

lee said that these thoughts are probably some mixture of having very low self-esteem and having been in the same relationship for so long. i agree that a lot of these feelings are tied in with the fact that i am genuinely always surprised when someone i find attractive finds me attractive, or that my yearning (not yearning but wanting¿?¿) for someone is even slightly returned.

what am i gonna do about it? no idea. i don't think there's any real "fix" to these feelings other than building up my own self-worth so i don't constantly keep wandering off anytime i become a little infatuated. and maybe it'll be good for me to be able to believe in myself a lil more and stop being so excited anytime someone shows anything other than indifference????

idk!!!!