You may or may not have noticed I changed my username. I now go by what you see because I’m carrying less regret than what previously burdened my shoulders.
Life? Life’s being lived vividly I dare say.
My therapist kinda sucks so I’ve taken the liberty of trusting my gut (as always) and counting on the sweet release of chemicals thanks to my medication. Hashtag not sponsored but Prozac, hit me up. Truth be told, I think I have a clearer mind now that I’m shedding off my anxiety.
I’m doing things with a relative ease I didn’t possess. Here’s a list of things happening:
I’m going on a trip abroad. For anyone that knows/knew me, my distaste for experiencing other cultures is significant. Hey, it turns out I want to do things so I’m travelling to a country in Europe that shall not be named for internet’s sake
I’m doing a seminar and expanding my artistic horizons in a way I had never tried before. It had been a distant dream of mine as a teenager and now it’s kinda happening
I’m more open to expressing what I really think without censoring myself and worrying if people will like me. Suprisingly, people like me even though I’m weird in a ‘me’ way
It didn’t have any sort of significance, just that it was today and it was night. Distant noise of people having a life on Thursday made its way through my ears, enough for me to register and use it as a background descriptor.
I noticed a small patch of land I loved to pass through as a kid. It’s yet again been restructured into someone else’s architectural project and our mayor’s persistant on destroying anything that’s left. They planted grass that was real and fake at the same time because it never tried, it was simply placed there and assumed a role.
My right thumb was tucked obsessively inside my fist, a tightness I had noticed because I’ve been aware of what a weirdo I am.
I knew that Australia had a prime Minister that had disappeared into the ocean one day when he went for a mysterious walk. My mother was surprised I knew of that but really… mom, has there ever been a fact so tailor-made for me to know?
My mother was basically gone for a month and a half, right when I decided to see a mental health specialist. She finally came back and I told her that I’m on medication and that I’m getting help. It was surprisingly easy to tell her because I mostly wanted to stop lying about what I was doing.
It’s nice to openly talk about my medication and my troubles sleeping.
On an even better note, I think there might be a tiny little change in the way I feel. I don’t drown my brain in thoughts every night and fall asleep much easier. I don’t know how it will feel when the pills will start kicking in or if I will even be able to feel a difference but hey, we’re getting there!
To anyone out there having doubts, tell someone. It’s hard and embarrassing but that weight feels so much lighter once you tell a person you trust.
My best friend and I talk a lot on the phone. It’s usually about how I’m incapable of understanding basic human reactions, about existential issues… you know, the typical stuff girls talk about.
I’ve never really had a friendship like that. Let me correct myself by being more direct. I’ve never had a friendship like this (I removed the word ‘really’ because I felt like it made the meaning of the sentence less important. It’s very important).
My entire life used to revolve around people that I somehow ended up befriending out of need, out of fear of being a weird freak while everyone else seemed to have the time of their lives by hugging and laughing and making connections with people and here I was, feeling more like this
Most of my teenage years were spent wondering if there are people out there that I’d really enjoy spending time with. Could I possibly be even remotely open about myself to someone without being scared of the villagers tearing my house down with their pitchforks? I’m kidding of course. I live in a metropolis, not a village, so my pursuers would probably be extroverted club-goers.
The friends I used to have filled a spot that I thought should be taken up by anyone available and my quiet existence filled the rest. In reality, I almost despised the people I hung out with. They weren’t bad people, they just weren’t my kind of people.
Surprisingly enough (and completely by chance), I met my best friend now. Let me tell you, it’s a miracle both of us became friends… me being picky and hardly ever liking people, her thinking I’m out to get her. Turns out we make a good team. A couple of years ago, I never thought I’d have one of those real friendships that Hollywood talks about, the ones where people share their problems and feelings! I’m still pretty fucked in the head when it comes to being open and chill but hey, I’m trying.
I’m not a fan of people but I realize it when I’ve found the right one. They’re not a certain specific type but I just know it. There’s a common background of being an ultimate weirdo I guess… not a cool kind of strange. The strange kind of strange.
To be honest, people are a mystery to me. I prided myself in staying as far away as possible because there was (and still is) such a sizeable gap between me and them. For years I looked at them amazed because surely, there was something wrong with them! They had different drives and goals and thoughts, dramatically strange and pointless compared to my own.
The great divide was even more noticeable when I tried to immerse myself and try to fit in. I just couldn’t. I tried to read teen magazines and wondered why the fuck people live like this. It was like waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter that never came all over again… when was I going to be a part of the crowd? Is everyone else also going through a period of self-doubt or is it just me?
Yes, it was just me.
I’ve never been the one to feed on closeness and friendship, it just so happened that I didn’t need it and could function so much better without it… but you still need to have a connection. My few friends had fatal flaws that clashed with everything I held sacred but I had to bite the bullet and accept them because you never know when you’re going to find new friends. Add crippling shyness and social disgust and you’re basically fucked. Breaking the cycle and becoming a selfish adult was a glorious day because I discarded everyone that no longer fit with my real self.
The friend that I do have now is probably the first person I felt comfortable being real with. I might still be a freak but it isn’t easy learning how to do friendships on a genuine level. She isn’t like me in most ways but also is… if that makes any sense. I guess our minds are on the same wave-length and we’re preparing for the nuclear apocalypse together (that’s a joke but she is totally into those kinds of things).
What’s the point of this?
We might be the same genus but baby, we’re definitely not the same species.
That’s for all of you who are familiar with the taxonomic rank in biological classification. What I mean in a non-asshole way is that you will eventually find your kind.
I tried curing my fear of death some years ago and ended up writing a story about the actual physical manifestation of the Grim Reaper coming to my birthday party. He was an excellent guest but his smalltalk was forced.
The thing about writing is that it sneaks up on you like a sly motherfucker.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was terribly scared of the concept of death, oh… I know that. The words coming out were much more precise though. I subconsiously cocooned myself around morbid memorabilia, curious gadgets and creepy accessories just so I could be better acquainted! I shit you not, all of that just streamed through my writing, I wasn’t even thinking about it. And you can casually throw a glance around my house and my most prized possessions and that much is clear.
Yet I’ve always been peculiar even as a child, before knowing about death and that it can actually happen to mortals, even to people you know. I was practically in love with mummies and the funerary practices in ancient Egypt. Up until that point, it was just childish curiosity.
Now, things get harder the older you get. I’m not afraid of my own death. It’s mostly a terrifying feeling of knowing that the people around me will die eventually and I’ll be there to selfishly bear the brute force of the hit. Because I’ve already done that once and honestly it took a lot out of me, since my coping mechanism is shutting down and pretending that everything is okay. Feeling numb is scary.
Well, I’m not that numb anymore, despite the fact that my face begs to differ… but I’ve come a long way. Everything is better now and I’m honestly in a very good place after working on myself for a couple of years.
But really, it’s all waiting to happen all over again, isn’t it? Why is the natural process of life so damaging if it’s supposed to happen anyway? Shouldn’t we as humans have evovled into accepting things easier and faster? I wish there was a way to celebrate passing through *insert your preferred representation of moving on to a different realm after death*, having a laugh and remembering the good old times and that’s it.
But that’s not it. We are shaped and carved by these momentous events, such as they are and frankly, I didn’t sign up for this.
I see a lot of lost potential in cases like this, I feel robbed and haunted by what-could-have-beens. And it’s just not with the people close to me, it’s with everyone I admire. There could have been much more… and in a selfish way, there could have been more for me to have learned.
Death is a universal idea, a timeless currency that makes the world go round but how long does it take for our universe to resume into normalcy?
There was a day many years ago when I realized that I wasn’t the only one preoccupied by things that the grand majority didn’t care about. My mother would comment on how involved people would get over movies and music and pictures, while I on the other hand would play a game of challenging myself to find more of just that.
I know it’s extremely utopian to believe the entertainment industry but I cared more about people in books than people in real life. Nothing could really match up to what music made me feel or what a painting could tell me.
There was a small nook in my room where I stratigically placed my cd-player and would sit there, getting into it. It was interesting to hear people creating sounds (and words to accompany it) that cared intensely about things. It was remarkable that musicians seemingly didn’t give a fuck about what others thought and said “Fuck it, I’ll write a song about ducks”.
I respect the insignificance, I might even value it more when someone is passionate about what makes them tick. There’s a great divide that seperates me from people (and I’m not saying that they’re in the wrong), it might be that I give a fuck about too much because I take everything into consideration before dismissing it. Add the fact that my face’s permanent state is “try me bitch” and you’ve got yourself quite a paradox happening. I care too much while appearing not to care.
The meaning behind fixating on the details makes for a grand bigger picture, doesn’t it? Can you feel happiness when you’ve never felt content? Would you like the movie if you hated the actors? Is it possible for a song to move you if there’s one instrument out of tune?
SOME REMORSE 