#but his presents are always shit every year and he spends the bare minimum lol

[tenthdocter]

You know a pet peeve of mine is wrapping up a box of chocolates and giving it to me like it's a present lol. I'm not even much of a chocolate person nowadays and I just think it's such a cheap present lol. And you don't know me at all if you get it for me

[stephhannes]

I Was a 23 Year Old Widow & Here’s Where I Went From There

a friend sent me a link to a refinery29 article today (I’m A 31-Year-Old Widow, & I Don’t Know Where To Go From Here) and it felt exactly like something i would have written three years ago, when i was in my first year of widowhood. it basically is something i’ve written three years ago. i remember all of those same feelings, am i doing this right? how do i navigate being hot and young but also a grief-stricken widow? 

the most important lesson i’ve learned in the last three years is this: the world doesn’t revolve around me. 

every time i start freaking out about the nuances of grieving i remind myself, the world doesn’t revolve around you, dummy. and nothing has been more freeing. 

everything in my life revolves around my grief, but there is no one else around me that’s thinking about it as much as i am. so much of my anxiety was defined by if i felt like i was grieving appropriately, in a way that society would approve of- but society isn’t thinking about me and my grief. and if they are, who gives a shit? talk to me when your partner unexpectedly dies at the age of 23. 

when i came back to social media after nathan died, i remember getting comments on photos like “oh, it’s so nice to see you smiling!” that made me so self-conscious. is it too soon to be smiling? is it ok to be having fun with my friends right now? 

i returned to dating apps within a year of nathan’s death, and i kept it secret for a very long time. i didn’t want people to think i was moving on. i wasn’t moving on, i was lonely! i was afraid that people would see me on tinder and be like “oh, she’s not that sad i guess” i was that sad! that’s why i was reverting to the ol’ faithful coping mechanism of entertaining gentlemen callers! 

as someone forced to live in my own grief, of course i was out here catastrophizing every situation possible. i stayed awake at night stressing over ok so when i do eventually date again: when do i tell him that i’m a widow? (literally just whenever it comes up in conversation) is it weird to talk about nathan all the time? (not really, is it actually any different than when someone talks about their ex? if anything, it should be less uncomfortable, my ‘ex’ is dead, there’s no threat there) do i take down the pictures of nathan before inviting someone to my house? (no, it’s my house).

in the piece i wrote 20 days after nathan died, this is what i was panicking about:

And I know that it’s only been a few weeks since Nathan died, but I feel the weight of the 21st century coming down on me already. Theoretically, he and I were so lucky to have found each other so early, not having to navigate our 20s with awkward dates and rifling through dating apps. But in reality, now that’s where I’m going to have to find myself again. I don’t know how to date someone that I haven’t already known for 10 years. When do I tell someone I’m a widow? How much is appropriate amount to mention my dead fiancé during a blind date? When is the appropriate time to update my Facebook relationship status to ‘single’? When am I supposed to take off my engagement ring and show my face on 6th street?

What’s an appropriate tinder bio?

“Hi, I’m Stephanie. I used to be engaged but now I’m not! Hit me up!”

How do I navigate a new relationship with someone when I know that they will never know me as well as Nathan did? I can spend all day talking about who I was in high school, I can explain with detail every moment of my collegiate years, but no one will truly know who I was during those times because they weren’t there.

and here’s the update on that, 3 years later:

as previously mentioned, i’ve had success just bringing it up whenever it happens to come up. i played around with immediately being like “hey i’m steph i’m a widow what’s poppin?” but i think it’s a little more palatable to lure someone in with my insufferable personality and then be like “oh btw im a widow lol” 

i went through a phase where i would tell stories about my time in new york, but omit the fact that the reason i lived there was because of my fiance. or i’d tell stories about “an ex” without being like “well the ex is actually my dead fiance” but that felt weird, so i transitioned to just literally talking about nathan, my dead fiance, whenever i want to. and shockingly, it’s gone over pretty well. men are a lot more receptive to hearing about your ex that you’re still kinda in love with when your ex is dead.

my facebook relationship status is still not updated to single. but i did take it off my profile altogether after about two years. 

i took off my engagement ring about 6 months after nathan died. it was a whole thing. i was tired of people seeing it and assuming i was engaged, and asking me about it and then being forced into being like “oh haha well i’m not engaged anymore” i showed my face on 6th street and hated it, not because of my status as a widow, because i’m 26.

i’m banned from tinder, but my bumble bio is “self made hundredaire / used to work on broadway / never eaten a grape before / very passionate about the monster mash and sparkling water” people seem to like it.

if i could go back in time and whisper to myself “shhh you sweet summer child it literally doesn’t matter” god, i would. i sucked in high school, thank fucking god no one knows what i was actually like then. i was unbelievably depressed in college, we don’t need to re-live that in detail. i’m literally so cool now, and that’s really all that matters. like, i’m fun and a boss babe and smart and hilarious and mysterious (but let’s not focus on the mystery just yet) so does it really matter if someone doesn’t immediately know the nuances of my 15 year old psyche?

+++

when talking about my relationship with nathan, i’ve always framed it as “i know it’s not the end all be all of relationships” and i still firmly believe in that. like the ann druyan quote- “we knew that we were the beneficiaries of chance. we found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.” we had a dope relationship, it ran its course, i learned a bunch of shit about myself and what i need moving forward, and now it’s time to move forward. 

and in moving forward, i have to keep reminding myself that accepting relationships as they come into my life is a fun and exciting experience. it doesn’t have to be daunting and serious and terrifying. part of that has been just forcing myself to get out of my head, stop overthinking everything, and remember that the world does not revolve around me. there’s something about being able to just take what i need, leave what i don’t, for as long as it lasts and being fine with things when they eventually end. 

it’s been kind of hilarious finally going through scenarios i used to agonize over in the middle of the night. everything that i imagined to be a huge deal has been actually, not a deal at all. i had a conversation with a friend a couple of months ago where i was like “i just want a toxic relationship to pass the time,” and she was like “are you saying that because that’s actually what you want, or are you saying that because you’re afraid of being genuinely intimate/vulnerable with someone that’s not nathan?” and i was like, ok first of all i didn’t come here to get dragged like that and secondly…yeah, maybe. 

the vulnerability thing is still tough for me- very much not a fan of talking about my feelings without masking it with comedy. but every step i’ve made in that direction, i’ve been able to do without guilt or questioning myself. 

the first time someone other than nathan slept in my bed, i was worried that i would end up upset- it was fine. i was like “oh, i forgot how nice it is to wake up not alone.”

when i found myself in a vaguely toxic relationship i realized “yeah ok, that’s definitely not what i want.” the last time that person left my house, my first thought was “i miss nathan.” and it wasn’t even necessarily nathan that i missed. i missed being around someone that made me feel like they idk…..cared about me as a person and like…..respected me. 

i spent a lot of time seeking out people that i thought were similar to nathan, and then i realized that the qualities i was attracted to were just the bare minimum of human decency.  the things that i loved the most about my relationship with nathan weren’t necessarily qualities that were exclusive to him (they were things he was very good at, but so are a lot of other people). his willingness to listen to me tell the same stories over and over, his patience with all of my anxiety, how much he loved just spending time around me, the way he valued and respected my opinions, his ability to remember very tiny details, our effortless rapport. 

and at the same time, i’m recognizing strengths in other people that fill in where nathan had some weaknesses. the fact that none of my friends liked him, his inability to cope with my depression, all of the times he’d ask for forgiveness rather than permission, his unwillingness to accept criticism when i was upset with him, or the way he’d continue to push buttons i’d repeatedly asked him to leave alone. 

+++

so maybe it’s the zoloft, or maybe it’s just growing up a little bit- but letting go of all of that anxiety has really allowed me to feel a lot lighter. it feels good to finally be present in all of my relationships, not concerned about how anything looks- rather, just concerning myself with shit that feels right. i’ve always been a pretty solid judge of character, and as soon as i stopped doubting myself, the quality of person that came into my life was immediately a lot better, weird. it’s almost like the only opinion that truly matters....is my own. 

[uberoll-oystercrackers]

assortment of thoughts i guess?

i fixate pretty heavily on the neuroses present(ly hinted at...) in the characters Lars and Sadie. their anxieties and insecurities are very interesting to me (mooostly bc they are very Relatable). i spend a fair amount of time considering where these social inhibitors started w/ them. of course ppl dont have to survive trauma to be mentally ill, or to have low self esteem... but on the other hand, isn’t surviving low self esteem and poor self image after years and years sort of an elongated microtrauma in itself..? hm idk, should educate myself on that. but we can at least confidently deduce that both charas have been dealing with it since they were quite young (Lars fighting with Ronaldo over how he would be presented in the flashback of Horror Club, Sadie explaining that every new thing she’s been interested in became a chore of a bad memory from her mother’s [well intentioned, but ultimately harmful] over enthusiasm. i at least can imagine that starting and stopping so many interests would leave her with some modicum of guilt, a sense of leaving things unfinished or letting ppl down by not living up to the potential being projected on her) in Sadie’s Song.

personally, my anxiety, depression, and all the other fun flavors i’ve got, were undoubtedly caused by trauma. at bare minimum, the bulk of my disorders were anyway. so while, as i’ve mentioned, perhaps nothing especially traumatic happened to these charas................... some bad shit still def could’ve went down. and uh i cant help but consider those avenues so.

as a fat person who was always a fat kid, when season 1 of SU was airing originally, i always shared a lot of the rejection feelings Sadie would have. if this happened to her on screen, i could reeeeally feel it. i was always worried that it was her size and shape that othered her amongst her peers in Beach City, as she’s polite and helpful enough to get along with most of the town otherwise. when she mentioned to Lars that she knows he doesn’t want to be seen in public with her, i read that as her internalizing not only her “uncool”ness but also her low position within social capital as a young fat woman. her intentional focus on Lars spending time with Jenny, when Lars was hanging out with the Cool Kids as a whole (”After all I do for you, you LIE to me? So you can sneak off with some other girl?!”) was particularly telling. Jenny is taller, thinner, and arguably “curvier” (altho admittedly it feels gross to talk about her like this???)... she’s also undeniably better at a particular way of socializing. The intersections of fatphobia and misogyny seem to be some of the biggest drivers for Sadie’s anxieties/insecurities wrt Lars. This also makes sense bc... remember how Lars talks about women and girls in season one? He was a little spicy, a little raunchy, a little grody about it. Def not a scumfuck or anything but, ya kno, dumb dude shit. Any pre-existing insecurities would def multiply or at least complicate when hearing that from the person who is arguably ur best friend and ur not-so-secret crush.

as an aside here whewwwwww im so glad Sadie and Jenny are becoming friends in current canon it melts my heart <3

so with Sadie at least i s’pose my inferences are relatively safe and simple. Lars is a lot harder to pin down.

im not gonna go too much into this at all bc i am le tired but trans Lars (whether Lars would ID as a woman, a man, or non-binary [they’re all great imo]) headcanons deeeefinitely strike a chord (im an nb person myself so lol).

but also like... did Lars always live in Beach City? His parents don’t have accents like the elders (Kofi and Nanefua) of the Pizza family (who Crewniverse have confirmed the Pizzas are a Ghanaian family), so is there an amount of trauma from moving as a very young kid (let’s say 5-ish)? His parents seem to have a great relationship, their house is warm and decorative, and from what we’ve seen of them they love their son immensely. I can’t particularly see his parents fighting with each other, and the way they approached him (when it was actually Steven...) over his poor grades was very patient and kind... it doesn’t seem like they’re abusing him to any extent.

Back on track here... Is there trauma surrounding his ethnicity living in Beach City, which we can argue is still the U.S.? He referred to the ube roll he made as a “weird purple cake”... but he grew up eating it. His ube roll wasn’t weird to him, but he was very worried about it being weird to a bunch of non-Filipino kids he wanted to impress. Where did this anxiety come from? Who ‘taught’ him his culture was weird? Whose racist ass do I need to beat is what I’m getting at.

edit: didnt mean to b so damn obtuse here, of course his parents dont have to have any type of linguistic/verbal indicators. i was trying to get at the fact that one less indicator is one less piece of evidence (usually), so i dont seem like im taking myself too srsly here lol.

i am sure i have more elaborate thoughts on these issues but my brain is flickering out on me so im just gonna let this be a post i guess!