kindye west

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

Can you see green outside? Can you get some dirt? Then you can have a hobby.

Do you have a pen and paper? Hobby.

Something with a keyboard? Hobby.

The ability to walk? Hobby.

Have two feet and a heartbeat? Go for a fucking walk, do some pushups, volunteer to play with shelter dogs.

Have two hands and a heartbeat? Sketch. Napkins are free, steal a pen from your job, voila! Picasso.

Have one hand and a pacemaker? Might I recommend composing music on garage band?

The Y offers low-cost social classes. There are also coding classes online. Turn a hobby into a job!

Your computer has a microphone. Start making podcasts.

Crafty and bedbound? Try watercolours; they’re available at the dollar store.

Granola hippy? Get a towel, find a floor, queue up a yoga tutorial on YouTube. Namaste.

Garden witch? Dollarstore pot and a small bag of potting mix. Take your old head of lettuce, keep the bottom wet for a day, put butt of lettuce into dirt. Voila. Salad. Mint works well and is likewise indestructible.

Not into sports? Read books online. There are thousands of classic titles available. Internet got cut off? Library. Illiterate? Perfect — there’s your project. Or: books on tape, available at your local library, for free.

Look — I don’t take joy in my commute and I wish I had a helicopter to take me everywhere I wanted to go. But whining about my misfortune doesn’t solve my problem, and neither does this defeatist attitude.

If you have the time and tech to scroll this website, you have the time to develop a fulfilling hobby.

Anything else is just wallowing in your own misery because the alternative — trying and failing — is too daunting.

- borderlines who are LGBT - borderlines who are boys - nonbinary borderlines - borderlines who have been hospitalized for months of their life - borderlines who got diagnosed at a young age - borderlines who have been undiagnosed/misdiagnosed their entire lives - borderlines who self diagnosed - borderlines who have trouble with compulsive lying - borderlines with a laundry list of comorbid disorders - nonwhite borderlines - stereotypical, “cr*zy ex girlfriend” borderlines - borderlines who age regress - borderlines who have low/no empathy - borderlines with hyper empathy - borderlines who break down every day - high functioning borderlines - borderlines without any friends - borderlines who have nobody who believes them - borderlines who hate themselves - hypersexual borderlines

conservatives: