Thinking Out Loud

Anime protagonist: I’ll have to surprise him to win, I should distract him with my shadow clone and attack him with my new ability from above.

Anime villain:

Anime protagonist: *enters flashback of how new ability was learned*

Anime villain:

Audience: Uhhhh, are you just gonna let them keep tal-

Anime villain: shhh.

Audience: But you can literally ki-

Anime villain: shut up. It’s anime battle etiquette to wait your turn.

Audience: That seems really st-

Anime villain: I’m sorry, do YOU want a turn?

Audience: ....

Anime protagonist: KAAAAAMEEEEE

Anime villain: He’s gotten stronger since our last battle. I’ll have to unleash my trump card.

Audience: And that is?

Anime villain: *enters back story*

Audience: oh ffs

Anime protagonist: HAAAMEEEEEEE

Audience: *waits patiently*

Anime villain: IT’S OVER

Anime protagonist: HAAAAAAAAA

[insert epic 2 minute battle sequence]

I got a little more y’know..

...than I originally anticipated. And I literally just wrote a post about how nostalgia for life 20-30 years ago has an impact on the way we express ourselves on the internet. And now I’m trapped in my own nostalgia.

It’s not exactly “helpful” to have this mindset, but it is a really good bandaid at the very least. It makes life a little easier. Seeing it through the eyes of a film. The films we love. “Main Character Syndrome” is the coined term for it.

Even now, as I type, my fingers feel the keys beneath them and my keyboard clacks away at my touch. Birdsong, just out my window. I’m here, but I’m not here. Not really.

I find it hard to live my life in the first person view. I’m rarely inside my own body, or “sitting in the driver’s seat,” as they say. I’m just outside of it. Moving the camera to imagine my profile. Daydreaming about being in a  Marcell Rév production.

Until I speak at least. Talking is the only thing that winds me back in. But then I ramble. Like now. Thoughts, disjointed. Scattered. Only a fragment of the thought that it was. And that’s the trap.

I just keep chasing that thought. Where did it go? What was the next part? There was something else, no? 

Round and round I go, trying to find the root of the thought. 

And then I’m gone again. Outside of my body, but not in a way that feels “pretty.” When I finally let go of the thought, usually by verbally commanding to stop, I become aware of just how much time I spent elsewhere. It’s...uncomfortable, to say the least.

While this can easily happen while watching something, it can happen when I’m doing much of anything really. When I’m listening to a podcast while doing housework. Even now, as I type. Sometimes I just stop typing and stare at the keyboard. 

And when this happens, there are even times when I’m not thinking anything at all.

I’m trying to do things for the aesthetic. Meaning, I’m leaning into maladaptive daydreaming to get things done. Pretending I’m a character in an anime or movie makes life more digestable I I tend to have a really hard time living life through first person view, but there are things that can help.

Like as the questions “who am I,” and “where am I.”

I am me. I exist in this body. I take pride in the way I express my love. I am proud that I am trying to find my way. I love that I care, so deeply, about many many things. I have untapped creative potential, begging to be unleashed.

I am afraid of failure. Afraid to be alone. Afraid of being seen, or not being seen. Of being too much or not enough. The things that are part of the universal human experience, I’m sure.

I am here. In my room, laying in bed. My sheets are always covered in cat hair, but I’m cozy nonetheless. I’m surrounded by things that I love, like a plant pot shaped like boobs and a wooden pipe shaped like a vag. Happy pride btw.

Right now, as I lay in bed, the sun has only just begun to rise. It’s cloudy. The whole sky is painted the same pale grey, not a single blemish to be found.

Days like these make me want to sip warm tea and read a book. Or do as I’m doing now and writing on Tumblr. It makes me feel nostalgic for a life I’ve never fully lived.

You see, I want so deeply to live in the woods. Perhaps it was growing up in the midwest and camping every summer that makes me feel this way. Or perhaps I should blame the critically acclaimed cult classic, Twilight. Either way, there’s something alluring about the fog. The cold morning dew. The smell of fresh earth. It calls to me.

I was always happiest on those summer camping trips. Eating food over the fire, riding my bike on mountain trails, going to small corner shops, catching crawfish in a stream, well...it doesn’t get more nostalgic than that.

Now, I live in a big city. Sure, I can see the downtown skyline out of my bedroom window. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m just not sure that living here will ever truly feel like home to me.

Not with the constant soundtrack of planes, emergency vehicle sirens, and incredibly loud trucks and motorcycles. Not when the only tree in my yard is an overgrown useless palm tree.

 But I digress; let’s get back to the topic at hand, “for the aesthetic.”

It helped me a bit yesterday, just to get through some chores. It’s rather hard to live life in an aesthetically pleasing way when your house is in such a terrible state, it’s borderline unsanitary.

I developed piss poor habits and even worse coping mechanisms during the 2020 lockdown. Habits and coping mechanisms that are incredibly difficult to shake. But holy forking shirtballs, I’m nearly 30. I’m too old to not take care of myself. No one is going to do it for me.

Well. Sort of. I haven’t written so much as think about writing. Yeah, I’ve put in work. There’s a word count. Not a large one, but there are words.

I do a lot of this thinking. And when I make big decisions about where I want to go, I get excited and call myself a literary genius. A jest of course, but I digress. I’ll just as easily call myself unoriginal and an untalented prick. So, y’know.

Over the past year, I’ve done a lot of growing. I’m sticking up for myself. I know more about who I actually am. And as I become more and more self aware, there’s one thing in particular that’s hard to accept: I don’t like being alone.

That’s something we all can relate to I’m sure. Physically speaking, I don’t mind being alone. It’s moreso that being alone with my thoughts makes it hard to process them.

Listen, I know traditional journaling is probably the more appropriate way to go about this, but it doesn’t feel correct right now. Emphasis on the “right now.”

I’ve done traditional journaling of course. When that stopped working, I turned to some friends and started video messaging them little vlogs. It helped for a bit, but I started to feel annoying. Then I tried sending videos to myself between 2 Instagram accounts. That worked for awhile. But now that isn’t quite scratching the itch.

So here I am. I’m using tumblr because it feels…perhaps a bit nostalgic? I’m starting to believe that I’m trying to connect to my inner teen.

Sometimes I just have random thoughts about random things. But I lose them rather quickly. I already forgot the thought that made me turn to this in fact.

7/20/2021

I grew up hearing stories of Lake Tahoe. “Water so clear you can see all the way to the bottom.” “One of the best places to ski in America.” I always had this strange impression that I could never afford a Tahoe vacation. But upon landing in the Truckee airport a couple of days ago and driving through the woods alongside the perimeter of the lake, I realized very quickly how wrong I was.

Lake Tahoe is not an “exclusive luxury get away.” I say as I type this while sitting in a luxury lodge with a private dock, but that’s besides the point! Let me back track and explain my thought process.

I have a friend who had a vacation home in Park City, Utah and I visited with them a couple of times. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s arguably one of the most exclusive and best places to ski in the United States. As beautiful as it is though, I always felt like I didn’t belong, what with my hand-me-down 8 year old North Face jacket and borrowed snow boots that fit ever so slightly too large. Next to the girl a decade younger than me with her designer snow suit and perfectly wind-blown hair, it’s no wonder I felt so odd. Tahoe however, isn’t that way at all.

People here are nice. SUSPICIOUSLY nice. I went out on a paddle board yesterday and as a boat full of people passed by we waved and shared pleasantries. The neighbors are more than happy to help in a pinch if they’re able to. Employees at the local markets don’t just make small talk about the weather, they actually make real conversation. I realize these are “normal” under suburban standards, but I’m a city girl. I don’t know any of my neighbors names and the only conversations that happen are the passive aggressive, “hey, you’re tree is nice and all but it’s encroaching upon my hydrangeas.”

Here? I am in my happy place. I can feel that my body is totally and completely relaxed. While most of my second day, I’ve been on babysitting duty, I’m still having an amazing time. I love the sound of the light waves gliding past the rocky shore. I love feeling the sun and the wind on my skin. I love smelling the trees and the grass and the flowers. If heaven exists, this is it. I never want to leave.