Gay Shit

do i want to write about it? no.

am i thinking about being 19 and my experience with suicidal ideation following me, clinging to my leg and desperate for attention from me and everyone around me, keeping a hold for more years than had ever felt worth it? am I thinking about how I hadnt noticed it hasnt been there for a long long time? am I thinking about the last cycle and the recovery from it and the space I now live in and believe I will now forever, more or less? am I thinking about how ive never known what closure felt like, to not feel constantly haunted by traumas left open to rot?

yes.

some days are about the excitement and joy of getting to live a life after all.

its that time of year again where im getting texts about birthday plans that ive been putting off thinking about.

I hate my birthday I hate the attention so the last couple years ive tried to half-skip it, then ended up feeling like dogshit, so I decided a while back that I want to actually do things this year with friends because it might feel less shit? like I dont know how to explain how I hate feeling known but also hate feeling ??isolated??unknown?? i dont even fucking know. its a feeling I only get around my birthday when the attention is *supposed* to be on me. feels like a mommy-issue thing idk. in the past it partially has been a mommy-isuue thing but like DAMN. trying to think of it through the lense of work though it seems I would be celebrated by a lot of people but only on the surface level bc my coworkers dont really know me. and the idea of going through that fucking SUCKS. but also everybody ignoring me might be worse. and somebody wrote my birthday on the board so people have the opportunity to know so in my head I cant just block it all out.

but like actually-

gotta do somethin. third day off in a row and I gotta dye my hair purple or im gonna gnaw a leg off.

im sorry im literally in bed and dont have the time or energy to really write this out, but if I were to die tomorrow, in a terrible car accident, out of nowhere and totally unpredictable -

the life I left behind was beautiful. the person I had become was magnificent. I may have died young but I had died happy. I may have died lonely but I had died fulfilled. I may have died without the chance of reconnection I'd put off, but I died with love in my heart for them. I would die not as the person I was a year and a half ago. I would die not as the person I had been for most of my life. I would die knowing a life that was worth living. I would die, living it. savoring it.

have i mentioned how quiet it is?

in the thirteen years i had lived in my mom's house there had been so many people living there at one time or another. at times there were nine people keeping permanent residence, until the last few years it was always over six. the last few though, after my older brother moved out, it was just the four of us with the dog. though it was no less busy and loud and overstimulating, somehow.

tvs always on, electricity buzzing everywhere, the place creaked like a haunted house, footsteps like a marching army. there seemed like never a moment of peace, even if I had the place to myself for hours. it never felt quiet.

that was one of my first impressions of my new home. how fucking quiet it is. tv rarely on if its just me, AC these days rarely kicks on, the dog happy and relaxed. ive never experienced a quiet that didnt make my ears ring.

decided to make attempts at a morning routine. not yoga or skin routines or journaling (sorry). I take my five dollar camping chair, and sit on the front porch for a half hour at sunrise. quite a feat, I assure you.

its partially a callback to some years back, I house-sat for my grandparents while they were away on a trip. for two weeks I had my childhood home and dog to myself, yes, but my favorite part (though i think I only did it a few times) was taking from my grandma's routine, making a cup of coffee and spending the morning on the front porch. it was a special ethereal feeling that id cherished since. but knowing how bad I am at keeping routines and all the other roadblocks, I never gave it effort. its been? a week? i love enjoying the cold, the fresh air, and hearing the children whining about going to school nearby. I also get to listen to the trumpets, though in a couple months I will definitely be inside from the heat by that time.

I'm still kicking the caffeine dependency from the holidays so im not enjoying a hot coffee, but i am spending this time reading. and journaling, clearly. good habits still, even though i spent the first two mornings playing the animal crossing update.

I dont remember if I ever shared a list I started a couple years back, I titled it "100 reasons, God fucking damn it". I had just read a fanfic featuring a suicidal character who made one list of reasons to live, and one list of reasons to die. his goal was to slowly add to each list, and whichever list made it first to 100 would decide his fate. for obvious reasons (no matter how out of character it may seem) I chose to only make one of those lists ((I did not need another drive to kill myself)).

as i came closer to the deadline (the turn of 2025), and I began to suspect the deadline to dissipate a bit, I decided I would even try my hand at accomplishing some of the list. surely some will never really be able to check off (see: 5. C.R. & 29. to be grieved a son, not a daughter, or perhaps not as a child at all) but most are achievable in the short term.

in 2025 I made it to see some of the list checked off.

a couple were singular goals, (older brothers wedding, getting younger brother away from our parents). one was more abstract ("cook unapologetically"). one so far I even made after the fact, just for the sake of checking it off ("to see phan confirmed").

today (though its 2026) I checked off two, because i forgot I already wrote the goal down and made them only four spots apart. I finished the mha anime today, fifth and sixth of the list checked off. with that, I feel its finally visible, that ive made these accomplishments that I fully never expected to see.

the goals are all over the place, that's of course with purpose. putting show endings beside weddings and a specific train route beside pridefully clean counter tops keeps a sense of encouragement. variety makes things feel possible, the abstract keeps away rigidity. a wedding will happen as long as im around to see it, I can make a weekend drive and buy a train ticket, it can take a half hour to clean a dirty kitchen and emotional stability and patience and one button to finish a show. it took me many months to reach the first ten when I started. I could make a hundred now without even trying. I could reach a thousand within the day. but I only write them as they come to me. and now that I dont need to grasp at straws, only whats impactful.

works been terrible, terrible enough to have quit if I didnt pay my own rent. I have slept eight hours three times since September. seven hours about three more. these days I only reach four consecutively on my days off.

the crispy air takes the edge off. snuggling the dog on the couch does as well. listening to my brother babble on about anything always will. eating is a chore, and as opposed to being too tired to sleep (pre-covid job) im only too tired to poop! also too tired to feel lonely most of the time, and I experience boredom on just about all of my days off. I actually cried earlier this week about it. oh the privilege and pleasure to feel bored.

I truly dont have much to say, every day blends together and sleeping in odd shifts as I have been is more disorienting than I could imagine. 6pm last night I woke from my nap (3.5 hours) and for over an hour I could not convince my brain that it wasnt time to get ready for work. that I needed to go back to bed in a couple hours to sleep again for my 2am shift. after another 2am, after a 4am, and followed by another 4 and then, bragging that I will get to sleep in, a 6am. I bragged about sleeping in to coworkers who laugh to cover their horror, then realized that I wont be sleeping in because I dont even sleep in a way that can be extended. sleep in? im not even sleeping overnight anymore.

the bugs are worse though, to the point i dont like being in the kitchen, so I haven't been cooking much so i havent been eating much. cue the "are you losing weight?" comments to be replied with "not on purpose!" and boy does the response shut people up. like fuck off im poor and have very little wiggle room to cook decent meals for myself. God Bless taco bell 1.50 breakfast burritos.

noticed new developments. ive realized that the chronic depression lifted a year ago, followed by a few months of absolute bliss, then a couple months of environmental stress, then a couple months of more bliss than I could possibly fathom. and the last few months, ive been angry. I believe I said this in the last one but ive been easily getting mad. the emotion I experienced for the first time in my late teens? yeah that one, regularly.

for one, the angry has gotten a bit worse. ive realized that since I grew up entirely without the emotion and suddenly it being one of the primaries, im twenty seven years old and have no real coping skills at dealing with anger. so that's upsetting in itself. I kicked a bit of wood the other day at work. I was frustrated, a bunch of stuff in my way at my feet, and then tripped a bit or kicked something on accident, and I lashed out and kicked a piece of flat thin wood that was propped up against the wall beside me. it was subtle. not sure if the person standing beside me had even noticed at all. but - I noticed. I realized the action as I decided to take it and took it anyway, and as I put my foot back on the ground I realized that I felt better. and oh my was that a shock to the system. 'I was angry so I made a violent action and then felt less angry' so uh. its been better since then. hope to hold onto that track.

other new development though, which has been slower moving and I hadn't really realized its gotten as bad as it has until just the last couple weeks, is that im lonely. but im lonely in such a new way. not just the occasional late night sadness or post-romance movie pit in my stomach. not the kind that often lingered but never truly bothered me.

this one is all the time. and i mean all the time. sleeping is harder, yes, but so is just coming home. so is walking into a different room at work. so is sitting in my car. there's loneliness in searching for music to listen to. there's loneliness in the reading tabs I open and immediately close again. there's loneliness in cooking my favorite meals; in greeting the dog; in filling the water filter; in walking into a noisy grocery store. its everywhere, it follows me everywhere. if im not angry, im lonely. sometimes im angry at being lonely. and the solution is to reach out to people who i feel truly connected to, right? that list ends at two. my brother is even more isloation-driven than i have always been, and my best friend straight up has a much larger and busier life than I do. the easy answer is "make more connection" like yes, obviously, but even if I knew people id want that with, it still takes a lot of time and work to get there. it doesn't make today any easier. it wont make tomorrow easier. it'll be months away, again, once I find a connection I want.

bla bla human connection fuck off. I can know things and still be pissed off about it.

overall, the magic of life has dulled, i worry about money more now and making productive use of my free time because the enjoyment things aren't as fun as they were a few months ago. it is definitely because im angry and lonely, yes. im also hungry and tired all the time so that's doesn't help.