in my head, it’s been ‘the year of changes’ and 2018 was supposed to be ‘the year of improvement’, and up until two days ago, i was really excited and happy

this year saw me beaten and abused by my sister. this year saw me finally move out of my father’s house, though granted not under the best circumstances. i have a place sorta my own, and while it has its drawbacks, i am infinitely grateful. some days ago, my sister was arrested and many hard legal decisions are being made by my father, namely concerning the fate of my two year old niece

this year saw me leave my job of two years to begin another job that i had hoped would be It. it was a kick-ass job and i loved the work i did. thought i was pretty good at it, too. two days ago, the twenty-ninth, i was let go from that job for reasons i’m still trying to parse. i’m very saddened by this, but i’m mostly just tired. it’s hard not to fall into the trap of ‘i’m not good enough’. i don’t regret taking a chance on that job, and i’m thankful for the skills i’ve learned through it. i’m just tired and sad.

but this year, i’ve also made leaps and bounds as a person. i still don’t know exactly who i am underneath all of the mental bullshit, but i’m excited to find out. i may be pretty down right now, but overall, i am doing much better. i finally see a future for myself. it’s uncertain and more than a little frightening, but i prefer it to the me that saw no future whatsoever. the only thing i looked forward to was the day i’d finally get up the courage to kill myself. now, i want to be here for what happens next.

i’m allowing myself a few days to mope about my recent unfortunate turn of fate, and then it’s back to the grind. i have things i want, and i’m going to fight for them. i am going to fight for my future. i am going to fight to have the 2018 that i imagined for myself before i lost my job.

i’m grateful for the network of friends that have supported me through these changes. i’m grateful for sierra, always and forever, for having my back in literally everything. i’m grateful for david and abbi and austin, the movie night crew, for making me laugh even when most weeks, i was a miserable little party-pooper. i’m grateful for my dad for helping me, even when it meant taking the brunt of the abuse. i’m grateful for v, for still cracking me up, for telling me that the disney employee buses only play “jump in the line”. i’m grateful for ophielia, my rock, my love, for having the patience to teach me how to give a shit about myself and - despite the difficult times in our relationship - being my best friend. i’m grateful for sunshine, and tea, and snow day, and crocheted blankets, and wine, and home-cooked meals, and chapstick, and mobile games, and nail polish, and smoothies, and my cat, and most of all, i’m grateful for myself and the progress i’ve made. thank you, z, for sticking it out. you’re stronger than you know right now, but you’ll find out soon.

good bye, 2017. you’ve been a rollercoaster but you’ve taught me a lot about myself, and about the world.

here’s to 2018 and to the chances i’ll take, and the paintings i’ll paint, and the meals i’ll cook, and the lazy mornings i’ll have, and the hugs i’ll give, and the kisses i’ll receive, and the friends i’ll make, and the love i’ll share.

i drank too much wine... and so i am sitting in the dark, forcing myself to eat so i won’t feel as wobbly. a bad thing that i won’t talk about happened a couple days ago and since then i haven’t been eating or sleeping well. i should already be asleep for work tomorro wbut i’m not i’m just.... sitting in the dark trying to convince myself that i’m okay

i don’t want this food i have here. i don’t want any food. everything is disgusting, including me. just wanna go to sleep and not wake up,,,,, or like wake up and it’s seven years ago and i can just redo shit.

all that said, i’m working on being okay. i mean there’s a pretty big obstacle in my way and i think i might be doing pretty okay in the face of that but like. you ever get in a situation that you’re not quite sure is worth the bullshit? you want it, but it’s also painful and you wish you just knew if it was gonna work out in the end or not. b/c if it’s not, you’d just cut your losses now, but since you don’t know, you just have to keep throwing your body onto the rocks and see what happens. i feel like i’m doing p okay in the face of feelings like that.

my birthday is tomorrow and i’ve just got a lot of thoughts running around my head

i’m back in a living situation i never thought i’d have to handle again, except w some added ~*spice*~. it’s really weird to say that i’m living with my abuser again, even though it’s true. i guess b/c i had never thought to apply that term to my sister until recently. i thought she had changed b/c of all the time she’s spent away, and while some things have changed, the core is still the same. she has this real talent for saying just a simple thing and it puts me right back to when i was a kid again, having disordered thoughts i still haven’t unlearned hammered into me

and my dad just has starry-eyes for the baby so he could p much not care less about whatever else is going on, or else he just takes alex’s side in things. not that i’m trying to make this a matter of sides. i’m mostly just trying to stay quiet in my room and not really interact. but they both talk loudly and a lot and i hear the things they say. there’s a lot i could whine about on the matter but i guess it’s just that i never really thought i’d be living in a house with people who think fundamental parts of who i am and who my girlfriend is are fake and/or wrong

there’s a silver lining - i should be moving out soon. but even that has mixed thoughts with it, ya know? i’m this twenty something year old scrub living with my dad, never having lived any way else, and now that the time’s come (or rather, way past overdue) for me to leave, i am so scared. i think it’s natural to be a bit scared about ‘leaving the nest’ so to speak, but i am like downright terrified. this is all i’ve ever known and while i am desperate for certain parts of living alone - like PRIVACY and A HOUSE NOT FULL OF TENSION - i can’t help but feel i am woefully unprepared for the majority if it. i guess i mean largely financially. but i really don’t want to get into that b/c it’s just gonna send me into an anxiety attack and despite how this post may sound, i am trying to chill tf out and pull myself OUT of the sour mood i’m in.

despite all these things, on the whole, i am doing way better than i was even last year. sure, i’m not happy or even not-upset every day, or even most days, but i feel much better equipped to handle the bad days, which helps even things out ya know? 

i’ve been feeling for a while now that i’m on a cusp - the precipice between the life i’ve had, the person i’ve been... and the person i will become, the life i will make for myself. i still have no idea what those latter bits entail, but i’m hurdling towards them and i feel like maybe i’m more even keeled enough to where i won’t flip the shit out and kill myself when i fall over the edge. maybe i can roll w the punches. if that makes any sense at all.

as for the short-term, tomorrow, i am going to wear an outfit that makes me feel good, i am going to eat frozen yogurt, and i’m gonna enjoy the sunshine if there is any. i’m gonna watch samurai jack and hug my cat.

on the even shorter-term, i am going to stop writing, and watch some silly programs or smth and think about the nice day i had earlier b/c fuck you world! i’m gonna have a nice evening!

i mean i never really do anything special anyways, but i’m feeling especially bland this year lol

here are some of the good things that happened to me this year:

- got my septum pierced - got a sweet gengar tattoo - three year anniversary w the gf - continued working at a job i enjoy - one best friend moved back near me, the other one got engaged! - my sister and infant niece moved in w me so i get to see them way more

some of those things are bittersweet i guess. like, my friend moved back here only b/c she was dumped by her bf, so that sucks. and having my sister and a baby here is really different and weird. and a whole bunch of other stuff, ya know. it’s hard to make a ‘list of good things that happened’ because everything is a mix of good and bad

i’ve never been one for resolutions - i feel like i’m just setting myself up for failure - but i do have some things that i’d like to accomplish in 2017. it’d make me happy, but if i don’t accomplish them, that’s okay too i guess

- most of all, i’d really like to move out of my house and into my own place - i’d like to try to connect with my body in a healthy way - and i’d like to try to so more creative things, maybe get back into drawing

i mean, actually, moving out is p much non-negotiable. i am getting out of this house in the next year if it kills me

so there

i can’t really reflect on who i was last year at this time, because i don’t know who tf i am right now, much less a year ago. i guess if i had to take a stab at how i’ve changed over the last year, i’d say that i’ve probably become even more anxious and scared about everything? lol how dumb

idk. rn i’m doing my nails and watching dumb alien shows on netflix. my sis and i are gonna order some food, and later, we’ll maybe drink a little and we’re def gonna watch 2016 die with some amount of satisfaction. pretty quiet.