#type: journal

[relaxingrabbit]

Overstimulated and trying to relax while going through the motions of the complex mundane

[shisasan]

March 12th, 1937 Virginia Woolf, “A Writer’s Diary” (1918 - 1941)

[privartidahos]

an ode to kyle & david 🖤 my piece for a zine available at a screening of blue velvet👂🏻🐜

[itsaboutloveposts]

I first saw this post about 3 years ago (it was 2022 and I was still living in Cape Town). This is one those posts where the write completely got what was going on inside me right. Particularly this part:

"Feelings are valid. Jealousy and pain and yearning are par for the course, but what you do with those feelings matters more than whether or not your feelings were returned. It’s okay to be in love with someone and happy to be their friend, because friendship isn’t a backburner to romantic or queerplatonic feelings or anything else. They can love you as a friend."

I used to think I was experiencing unrequited love, but I’ve realised I was actually holding myself back out of fear. I would brush off my crush and I would “ship” them with someone I thought they would more likely end up with. it was easier that way: if they were taken (at least in my mind) then I wouldn’t have to deal with wanting something I couldn’t have.

I used to call it unrequited love, but it was actually self-protection in disguise but worse than that I would also frame it as me not being good enough for that person (yikes). But I've definitely learned to stop minimising myself, to stop rejecting myself on my crush’s behalf, and to stop denying my feelings just to protect myself. Love is meant to be experienced, not reasoned away before it has a chance to bloom. You don’t dig up the seeds before giving them time to grow. And if they don’t grow, then it’s alright, at least I did my part in planting and watering.

it reminds me of the parable of wheats and tares and 1 Corinthians 3:7 (NLT):

"It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. "

I’ve learned that it’s not my job to force what’s meant to grow or to remove what isn’t. My role is to trust, to plant, to water, and to let Abba do the rest.

This might be a bit of an unpopular take but it’s okay to be in love with someone who doesn’t like you back.

I don’t mean being in a relationship with someone who’s stringing you along or never getting over someone hoping they’ll eventually like you back, obviously, but like... the idea that if someone doesn’t return feelings for you then they were never worth your attention in the first place or that they should “look at what’s right beside them” or whatever is so bad but I also see it everywhere. Sometimes someone can be worthy of your love and also not like you back that way.

On top of that is the expectations of perfect love or that being in unrequited love is pathetic or sad, or that you can only be happy if someone you like a certain way likes you back the same way, and I fully blame societal amatonormativity for this. In movies and books unrequited love is always framed as either “they were never good enough for you (and usually there’s an undercurrent of about implication they were ‘using’ you)” or “by the end they realized what they were looking for was right beside them the entire time, they fall in love the end” and like

Yeah, it sucks when someone doesn’t like you back, but I’ve been in unrequited love a few times now and my general experience is that I don’t love them less because they love me differently. All my loves were close friends first, and they all remain close friends to this day, aware of my current or former feelings, and it’s... okay.

It’s okay to not be in storybook love. It’s okay to love someone differently than they love you. It’s okay to love someone who’s aroace or gay or straight and can’t be into you that way. It’s okay to be in love with someone and not want to start a relationship with them because you’re not ready or you’re happy single or you’re relationship types aren’t compatible, and it’s okay to fall in love with someone who loves someone else who isn’t the bad guy either.

Love is supposed to feel good. Loving being in love without it being requited is okay. Nobody has to be the villain or the bad guy or the one that’s missing out—sometimes, they just don’t fall in love with you, and that’s okay! If you fell in love with them for the right reasons, you should still love having them in your life, and love having them in your life while your feelings settle and you can both move forward.

Feelings are valid. Jealousy and pain and yearning are par for the course, but what you do with those feelings matters more than whether or not your feelings were returned. It’s okay to be in love with someone and happy to be their friend, because friendship isn’t a backburner to romantic or queerplatonic feelings or anything else. They can love you as a friend.

Stories can end without romantic or qp or other requited resolution—in my experience, sometimes it makes your relationship stronger, to be able to talk about those feelings and move forward without having them be requited. You can move forward, or move on, or stay in love or fall in love with someone else, and it’s okay. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t and maybe we want different things from the people we love, but it’s not a waste of time or a waste of feeling or a waste of a friendship for something to not work out how you’d hoped.

I just don’t think enough people celebrate loving someone without it ending in wedding bells. Maybe it’s the aroace in me too—but the people I’ve loved in my life have taught me a lot, and I think that’s pretty good, too. I like loving, and I really think more people should.

[silvirub]

Slow-stitched Sultry Spool

[ukwheretofindme]

[mumistarrr]

Abuse is abuse period

This is what my last EX did to me.

I was subjected to intense interrogation about my SA every time he deemed it necessary, which led to me being repeatedly questioned. “Why didn’t you yell, why didn’t you kick him, and why did you let him at that moment?” One of the experience was so distressing that it reopened old scars, causing me to shake violently as I begged him to stop. Unfortunately, he had never followed through on his promise to learn ASL, forcing me to rely on lip reading instead. When I was on the verge of collapsing, he finally apologized, saying he didn’t want things to escalate that far. It’s worth noting that when I removed my hearing aids, he accused me of having an unfair advantage over him, as if my ability to communicate without them was a privilege.

He involves my adult children in our disputes. When I ask him to refrain from doing so, he seems to be attempting to garner their support. It's perplexing, as they are grown adults and he has never been their father. My daughter would point out that I have difficulty perceiving tone when being yelled at, but he fails to acknowledge this distinction.

I am looking for insight into a concerning situation. Having established a safe distance from my former partner, I received a text message from him declaring me the love of his life. I am curious to know if it is typical for men to exhibit behaviors such as excessive drinking and engaging in violent acts, including biting, pinching, and tampering with surgical stitches, which he denies despite my possession of evidence and images. Moreover, his conflicting accounts, attributing his actions to intoxication while describing the incident to my daughter as an overly tight hug, are troubling. The physical harm inflicted, evident from the marks left by his nails on my skin, suggests a more serious occurrence. I wonder if such behavior is commonplace. I think not.

His excessive concern for his image and pride has had a profoundly negative impact on my life. I recall a particularly harrowing experience where he drove under the influence while I was in the vehicle, and my attempts to express my fear for our safety were met with hostility and blame. His reckless driving, coupled with his lack of control over the vehicle, was terrifying, and his propensity for making excuses and justifying his behavior, including drinking while driving, only exacerbated the situation. I feel that he consistently prioritized his own interests over our safety, putting both me and my children at risk. Moreover, his willingness to share intimate details of our personal life with his friends has left me feeling exposed and vulnerable. The emotional trauma from this experience persists, and I firmly believe that this was the most damaging of his actions. His refusal to acknowledge his wrongdoing and take responsibility for his selfish behavior has caused me significant harm, and I must admit that I feel a deep-seated resentment towards him. I am still grappling with the circumstances that led me to become embroiled in this situation.

[melonramune]

2025-03-11

[masteroffauxsmiles]

The ultimate love confession is that Petey finds out that Dogman is already in love with him when he shoots his love ray at him and he’s unaffected—

[the---hermit]

12|03|2025

I am so close to being done with the materials for my exam at the end of the month. Next week might be my last week of lectures before the spring break, and to be honest it feels unreal. It feels like this course just started. Anyway I am making good progress with everything, I am trying to mainly focus on the exam which is getting nearer and nearer. And after that I'll figure out the rest.

27/50 days of productivity:

read first thing in the morning

finished working on the second to last recorded lecture of my spaces of knowledge class

started working on the last recorded lecture which I am definitely going to be finishing tomorrow since it's just half of the lecture

made a well written list of all the materials i had to study for the exam, so that on the day of the exam I can give it to the professor to remind her what I worked on

attended an in person lecture

Irish on duolingo

finished listening to the audiobook of A Psalm For The Wild Built and cried about it

📖: The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, A Psalm For The Wild Built by Becky Chambers

[eldest-moonlit]

For me, by the time it's March 26, I will have lost my former partner for a full three weeks, the same length of time we had together. I had hoped so much that we could have remained together in a relationship, working together to build a strong one, but my hopes were a fool's hopes. I have no hope of finding another partner, and I refuse to try. Because despite everything, I still love him and my wounds haven't even begun to start healing. How long must I bear this pain?

I have lost you longer than I have had you.

[sylvanitchi]

i made this collage to be the cover of my new journal <3 lots of vintage & antique bits & bobs like the music is from the 40s and the bell flower is probably even older than that

[trinketfairy]

I'm just randomly thinking about this again lately but isn't it fucking crazy how a $2.5 million class action lawsuit was filed against Ganz in 2012 because they were forcing Webkinz retailers to buy at least $1,000 in unrelated Ganz products so that they could also buy and sell the actual Webkinz plushies themselves.

So if you noticed a decline in retailers who were still selling Webkinz plushies around the early 2010's, then it's because retailers rightfully didn't want to buy the extra $1,000 worth of random Ganz stock just to have the actual plushies in their stores.

[shisasan]

March 12th, 1937 Virginia Woolf, “A Writer’s Diary” (1918 - 1941)

[yesameh]

This looks so pretty and aesthetic ✨️

journal spread