#It shouldn't surprise anyone I've been frustrated a lot recently and not just because of the winter holiday fuss

[ornisapiens]

Recently learned Wigglypaint has alternate palettes and a transparency feature. With this I doodled a Tool Breeder feeling annoyed about... something. Maybe their coworkers forgot to feed the squid TV monitor, again.

[firerose009]

Hey, I'm going to start this post off by saying that I know that it's unlikely that anyone's going to even see this, but I really just need a place to vent right now. I can't really talk to anyone face to face about it or anyone I know because it's just something stupid.

Tomorrow morning, my parents are having some people over to cut down the trees in our yard. Thing is, one of the trees are right next to my childhood swing set. Essentially, my parents could pay more to take the trees down but keep the swing set up but they don't want to do that, so they won't. Dammit, I feel so stupid right now for crying for the first time in over six months because of something so insignificant.

I remember countless times I've spent hours at a time on the swing set until I felt sick. I've experienced both my worst and best moments on it; it's always just been this sort of safe space for me.

When I was about 3 is when I realized that I loved singing. But even at that young an age, I was scared to sing where anyone could possibly hear me so I started singing everytime I went out to swing; something that carried over years later as I'm 17.

This one time, I was around 12 when my parents were going on a date night. My sister was at a sleepover so I was really excited to have the house to myself. They said they'd be back at around 7 but at 10:30, they still weren't back yet and haven't called. I was so scared because I thought they got into a car crash or something because we've been seeing a lot of news stories on drunk drivers recently. In order to calm down and prevent myself from having a whole ass panic attack, I went out to the swing set and just sang quietly to myself. It wasn't until midnight that they came back, saying that the play lasted longer than they thought it would and there was traffic. I got in so much trouble for not only still being awake at midnight but still being outside on the swing set at midnight.

There's been countless times where I would get into a fight with my parents then at the earliest opportunity I would just go out and (depending on if I was more sad or angry) swing to either cry or sing. My mom had forced me into band, which I didn't even like in the first place, so at least 60% of those times, it was related to the building pressure from my mom on this activity that I wanted no part in. While practicing, I was getting frustrated with a note combination and put down my clarinet to compose myself again. Long story short, my mom didn't like that and slapped me so hard I got a massive nose bleed (still holds the record for my largest nose bleed). After cleaning up and finishing practice, I went out to the swing set to sing out my frustrations. Not so fun fact: my sister sides against me no matter what. Even if someone else is in the wrong, it's still my fault in her eyes. This is why I never confide in her when I'm upset. She said something along the lines of "you're just being dramatic, mom wasn't trying to hit your face, she was trying to slap your wrist." That doesn't change the fact that she still slapped me across the face, and in my personal opinion, she shouldn't have been hitting me in the first place. Probably a biased opinion, but it still stands.

It was on that swing set that I got over (partially) my stage fright. I would usually sing in front of my neighbors since I don't got the time to wait for them to go back inside. It made me so unnaturally happy whenever someone said something about it. I stopped to pet a dog on my way home from school and one of the people walking the dog said something to the effect of "oh hey, you're that kid who sings. Are you in theater or choir?" She was genuinely surprised when I said that I wasn't. I had spaced out once while swinging and one of my neighbors came out and said something like "oh, you're not singing? I like your singing." Next happened just last week. A different neighbor I hadn't even realized was outside had stopped what she was doing and asked if I was in a musical she had seen at my school recently. I told her I wasn't even in the theater club and she said that I had a really great voice. My dad also told me he was talking to one of our neighbors about how they're having the trees and swing set taken down and he said "oh, I'm going to miss [my name]'s singing." I almost always get really embarrassed whenever I get praised for something I enjoy doing but it always makes me so happy.

But tomorrow morning, all of that will be gone and there's nothing I can do about it. Like everything my parents can and do control in my life, I have no say in what I want. Thanks for letting me vent and sorry if you had to read all the way through this.