If you've been following my blog for long enough, you might recall that I'd re-enrolled in college (at my alma mater, no less) in 2018 with hopes of pursuing a professional degree. At the time, I saw it as my only hope to move forward and establish my independence. The previous year, I'd quit my dead end retail job after spending nine years (basically, the entirety of my 20s) being overworked there for shit pay and having my parents essentially blackmailing me to stay there lest I become homeless. I realized nothing was ever going to get better unless I took control...so I quit. Let my parents think I got fired so I'd be free to move on.

I'd thought that I wanted to go back to school, get a professional degree, and finally be able to get out on my own. But I think deep down...I also wanted a do-over. I wanted the chance to be a real college kid; I never got that chance. I wasn't ready when I was 18;' I ended up making a lot of mistakes that culminated into me being kicked off campus because I was suicidal and made to go back to my parents' house where I was berated and shamed and treated like i was fucking worthless because I'd gone off my meds accidentally. I had to go to community college, commuting between school and part-time work, never having room for anything else, falling into an extremely toxic friendship because I was so incredibly lonely, and trying to take the right classes to get an associates degree, because my dad wouldn't stay the fuck out of my ear about what he thought I should do. Until I had the accident in 2007 that left me with a TBI, which I think is part of the reason it took me so long to finish school.

Transferred to Maryland in 2011, still stuck at that dead end job, never had a chance to actually figure out what I really wanted to do...majoring in English was kind of a fluke, honestly. Commuting back and forth between my shitty job, my school that took forever to get to on public transit, and home, where I was still expected to pitch in even with all that I was already doing. I finally got my degree in December 2013. My parents wouldn't even go to the restaurant I wanted to celebrate at.

I never got a chance to be a college kid. To make real friends. To figure out who I was. To find what would make me happy. And it's not fair...and I guess part of me wanted to try again...but it didn't work out. I was in my 30s, my disabilities had all worsened, and I was still stuck in my parents' house. I've been over what a nightmare 2019 was for me for different reasons, and then...COVID happened. That second chance I wanted was never going to happen now.

and you go "oh yeah totally! I gots this"

and the universe is all "you sure girl? the rewards are infinite and incomparable but its gonna be pretty hard, like, maybe harder than anything you've done before. I mean, you can do it but, you better be sure, right? like, its your destiny and all, but I wanna make sure you're in, right?"

and you go "yeah yeah, I can do it, I gots this, okay! let's do it!"

and then its like,

huyuhhhuhguhhgughuugufhfhhooofffmphhh

and you go "oh wow ow oh wow, yeah universe was uhh, not jokin around huh, was it.. welllps, um, we committed, we doin this, right? just gottta like, keep at it, right? like keep goin okay we gots yeah we gots... yeah um yeah, girl. we. gots. this. okay? yeah, okay, okay?"

and you just have to say "good girl, thats it, thats it, good girl, you're doing sooo good, keep at it baby" to yourself a little bit, a lotta bit, every fuckin moment okay and tell yourself like "it's gonna be okay" a lot a lot all the time

if ya know what I'm talkin about

TRIGGER WARNING (talk about abuse in the music industry). Seriously.. don't read if you are easily triggered by this.

I think it's disgusting and has no place in comic community whatsoever!

I don't know the right answer to this. But this is kind of a personal attack toward HellYeahHeroes... which is fine but should be done non-anonymously.

In any case, everyone is free to voice their opinions however they please. If you don't care for the ideas or attitudes of a given tumblr-site all you need do is unfollow them.

Sure, I would love the fan community to be a more civil and friendlier sphere, politics free and just a free respite from real-life issues. But that ship sailed long ago. We live in a strange time. I'm not sure that a neutral, apolitical stance these days is even possible. Not taking a stance, saying nothing, can sometimes be seen as tantamount to complicity.

For example, I have a bunch of mixed up and conflicted thoughts and feeling about the terrible situation between Israel and Palestine. I honestly don't know what I really feel about the matter because my beliefs are two-fold and diametrically opposed. As such I say nothing. And I have to imagine that my not saying anything, my silence, is interpreted by most as tacit support for Israel.