About being different - A Journal
Hey all, I know it’s been a long time with no see. For awhile I thought I would abandon this account but that’s because I’ve literally lost all inspiration for my life. Honestly if I don’t start writing I might die. Thus, every entry titled ‘A Journal’ is going to be some personal rambling. Skip if you wish, or message me some support; either way I respect it. This is not fanfiction.
Tonight is best served by speaking about being different. I just got back from the pub - A place I lovingly call ‘Pop’s’, in reference to Riverdale’s Pop’s Chocolate Shoppe because I do love the place and I think of it as part of being home. Also, pardon any spelling errors - chances are I’m intoxicated and will be for all, if not the vast majority, of these journal entries.
Tonight I was at Pop’s with one of my best friends. Honestly she’s probably the best friend I have at the moment... Though I’m supposed to have 3 others. The other 3 are busy being, and I list: transgender in med school, slutting around with boys, and just exploring a new home with a soon-to-be husband. This friend, Jen, she’s not one of those three. She’s the 4th and a friend I don’t have a tattoo for. But I probably should considering she’s the only one who truly takes the time to try and think about how I’m feeling.
Anyways I’m there with Jen. Jen, in the last 3 months, has found herself a boyfriend. Shaun, he’s nice and he tries to put up with me. Of course I’m still by myself. Just me. Being Ashley. My other 3 friends, they have boyfriends too. Jen is the most recent and the most relatable. For the longest time, see, Jen was my go-to friend because I didn’t have other people who could relate. My other friends blew it off... My loneliness. Or they thought differently about it. Either way she seemed like the only other person who understood it.
That leads to tonight, at Pop’s.... And other occasions besides. But tonight is the first entry so tonight I will stick with. Jen was telling me, as we got ready, all about Shaun. Trying to keep the joy off her face, the weariness still in her eyes but honestly so many times now hearing about him and I know how much he must mean to her. How much the joy and the hope of a new relationship must mean. She’s been single a year longer than I have - that makes her single for about 3 if not 4 years. Me, 2 or 3.
My question to you guys, is if jealousy ever goes away.
When does jealousy decide to take a hike....? When you’re stopped being looked at as the ‘single’ one and the different one, when your own mental health is perfect, or when your friends have everything they’ve dreamed of and you’ve come close? ...Either way I don’t have any of those things. I’m still the single one. I still struggle the most with feeling okay day by day. I still fight the most with modern reality and cling to unborn dreams like, like being a good singer. Like having enough money to keep my family. Like having a home and a man who loves me. Like having a child to name and to watch grow and to help learn.
I comfort myself by saying it all comes back to being different. To being the girl who isn’t skinny. Not over-overweight, but not skinny. To being the one who likes color in her makeup. To being the girl who’s too kind. To being the girl who has trouble keeping in touch because she wonders, all the time, ‘what’s the point?’. I’m the girl who wears band teeshirts. I’m the girl who’s proud of her profession as an RN and who isn’t afraid to talk about it (confidentiality always in mind, of course). I’m the girl who loves Beyblade and Digimon and Sailor Moon even now as a 26er. I like sad music, more than happy.
Why does that make me undeserving of love....? Of a second glance?
Am I doomed to live my life like this....? Everyday I’m losing hope that I’m not. Everyone has a purpose, after all.... Maybe mine is this. Is to feel. Because being different is painful. And I feel like everyone knows that I’m different, a million miles away. Every glance... If you were to look at the 5 of us (me and my best friends), I feel like you could pick out the single individual. The sad individual. I want to blend in in the crowd... And that’s without sacrificing the small things that I love. My anime, my love of my family, love of my career and fondness for sad music. Right now I have ‘Darkness ‘Round The Sun’ by Alexz Johnson playing and it makes me content. Do I have to sacrifice those things...? Do I have to move away and forge a completely new path, away from the town I was born in and the people I love and know....? Why am I stuck in this cycle of hating being different, instead of enjoying it? Was being depressingly different what I was born for....?
