#aiko thoughts

Are you ever interested in watching WATXM?

It’s a really good show and it’s real sad It got canceled so early! Also I think it has a very interesting mudslide dynamic and I would love to hear your take on it😖

There's mudslide in WATXM?!?!

My wall display boards fell down a while ago and I didn't have the materials to put it back up. Today I finally got the chance to since I deep cleaned and reorganized my room recently, it's clear I've lost my Lance keychain 😢

I don't know where he is, I've searched the whole room so he's gone 😭 I plan on ordering a new batch of Lance keychains any way since one of the Lance keychains I shipped (11/25) to Brazil got destroyed

Brazil has stupid import taxes that basically need your social security number to pay for, bogus dumb rule, but if not paid in 30 days it gets shipped back or destroyed. Since it's May now and I haven't gotten anything returned I gotta assume it's been destroyed unless idk it randomly appears 6 months from now

It just sucks that I don't have the money to buy them now. I hate not having a full time job, or multiple part time jobs. It's actually insane how busy I used to be because I hated being at my dads house. Since moving out, getting settled and going back to college I have had to stop working since I can't balance a course load and my job schedule.

I still do gig work for petty cash during the semester but not having actual stable income in now 10 months, for the first time in 5 years, feels so so weird. I know I should be grateful to have the luxury of being able to study uninterrupted and still have housing but it's hard to settle 🫩

I started working to pay my way out of an abusive housing situation as soon as my state legally allowed me to work. The cost of living here is crazy high so when I got kicked out at 19 I was homeless for a while.

I live with my mom, who has since divorced my shitty dad so I am physically safe now. Yet for the longest time it didn't feel like it, ya know? It took me a year to even start existing in this house outside of my room since, while homeless I adopted being self sustaining out of any space (well at the time it was my car), so once I had my own room I set myself up to survive in just that room with the apartment supplies and furniture I had bought before being kicked out. I didn't realize how unhealthy that was until you guessed it, 10 months ago 🙄🙄

Therapy and what not has helped significantly over the past year, and while I do have some debt due to emergency vet costs for my exotic pets, I don't really have reoccurring bills of my own anymore. (Wow very wrong aiko, did my finances at 4am to find out yes I do have bills 😟) I have an interview lined up for next week and I'm still applying to jobs in the mean time. Hoping to get maybe two part time jobs for the summer (😭 been applying since march man) until fall semester.

I'm also a bit worried about my financial aid for next semester since, I didn't have an easy time my first 1.5 years of college which is why I dropped out in the first place, it was easier to work constantly than study and get mental health help. I'm just worried I guess that my grades won't be enough to get my back into the financial aid requirements for aid and I'll have to submit another appeal😭😭😭

Withdrawing from all my classes before taking a year off threw off my course completion percentage by a lot so if I fail a class it makes that percentage drop down even more. I want to say I don't care and it's whatever but fuck ugh I do care! It's worrying me I can't afford college without financial aid😭😭😭

I already don't like how many hours my mom works at her age to keep us housed and fed so there is no way I'm gonna ask her to pay even more out of pocket for my tuition. There's no way I'm doing that. I'd rather drop out again and work full time to afford college later than make my mom cough up checks notes 6k a semester, which she wouldn't even have just lying around, or take out a private loan myself.

Thankfully my state gives me health insurance because there is no way I could afford my medication and therapy costs without it. Since I'm an adult and unemployed (physically hurts to think about) I get that good good state insurance 🥹 gotta be grateful I have that luxury in a country where health care cost is insanely high. It really shouldn't be a luxury, it's a basic necessity but ya know corporations and billionaires pay a lot to keep it that way.

I have some internalized shame about being unemployed. I know I shouldn't my worth isn't tied to how much money I make or how productive I am but now that I'm in my 20's it's scary as hell knowing I'm a financial burden on my mom. I spent so long trying to take care of just myself on my own away from all the awful shit at my dads house that I never realized having a safe home means having someone as hardworking as my mom to pay for it.

Now that I don't contribute financially I feel this weight to make sure things at home easy for my mom. Which took me so long to realize because I just didn't exist outside of my room, so I basically treated my mom like a roommate in the sense that what was hers was her and what was mine was mine. I worry about me, you worry about you. That's how it was at my dads house both programmed into me and brother at a young age because my parents worked so much, living with just my mom meant relearning to exist in a healthy family dynamic.

It's taken a lot of therapy to even begin repairing my relationship with her because despite my mom wanting me to live with her (she was also homeless for a while but couch surfed with work friends until she bought a house), It took me so long to trust her after everything that happened at my dads house. It's obvious now looking back that I isolated myself even from her because that's the only way I knew how to exist at my dad's house and that I was just replicating what I knew at her house.

3 years since their divorce, since I was kicked out, since I had to live with my dad last.

I have never been happier, despite what's on my plate now I am happy.

I get to exist in my own home, with my own room, with my beloved (4 rats, 1 dog) pets without ever actually worrying about physical abuse in my home. Even just reading that has me tearing up a bit because well, a lot of people have always had that, it's normal for everyone else, just not me.

It's weird explaining to my friends who have stuck around since I was 14 and threw the worst of it, that I don't always know what to do with myself at home. I've just never really had this much down time before ya know?

During the pandemic the abuse got much worse again with repeated altercations I couldn't avoid by going to school since it was all online. As soon as lock down was lifted I got a job, I had myself booked and busy so I didn't have to be home when my dad was home. I wasn't kicked out until early 2023 so I at least got to graduate high school, start college, fill a storage unit, before shit got worse. I had 2 part time jobs at that point so it wasn't like I didn't have money, it just wasn't exactly easy finding a place for my rats (they have a 7 ft tall cage it can't fit in my car) to stay while I was living out of my car. My first car got totaled earlier that year and I ended up having to take out a loan for a new (to me) car.

Thankfully a year later the lawsuit money came in and I was able to pay off my car then came the matter of settling my credit card debt 😀 I didn't say I was perfect, I had very unhealthy coping mechanisms which included spending money I didn't have 😄😄 can't be sad if have new thing to distract myself with hehe. That lawsuit money bailed me out of a really tight spot financially despite the initial cost (and injury) the accident left me with. Working full time night shift at a package delivery station for over a year took a fucking toll on my body, so when my year off college ended, I quit. That was 10 months ago.

In these 10 months I've had time to address my chronic digestive issues, my learning disabilities have been properly supported, my mental health has stayed sound (even with life throwing me curve balls, iykyk), and despite having college to worry about I don't have to constantly look over my shoulder anymore. It's fucking awesome!!! Yet now with the semester over and no work schedule to throw myself back into I have down time again.

No anatomy textbooks to have my nose buried in, no work schedule to show up for. Sure it means no money but it also means I get to experience life on my own terms with all the freedom of an adult.