thequietoftheroom

[thequietoftheroom]

hello again. i need you old friend. i need to empty my mind if just for a moment, but where to begin.

i have this friend from high school that i keep in touch with and it’s one of the few bridges i refuse to let burn. i’ve always felt at ease talking to them and we always end up talking a lot, for example the other night we talked for the entire night giving me only 3 hours of sleep for work. and it’s so seamless and feels like home. but here is the thing. we used to have absolutely deep feelings for each other in hs and i didn’t really let anything come of it for a lot of reasons which i’ve talked about before and i’ve apologized to them about it and blah blah. we seem to always gravitate towards each other. however, they always have so much going on in their personal lives that usually they stop talking to me for a while so i try to make the best of what little time we actually do pick up and keep acknowledging each other. i feel like i am overthinking it a lot especially since they recently ended things with their long-term boyfriend and i keep thinking if the reason we keep avoiding each other is that we both still very much have unresolved feelings for each other that neither of us wants to acknowledge (sidenote that word became foreign all of a sudden and i couldn’t spell it bc i was like “is this a word” even though i literally just used it) and it’s fucking me up because i want them in my life SO SO SO badly but not if we keep doing this dance of me not hearing from them from months on end because that is definitely something not related to having a busy life.

i keep watching shows and movies where people want so badly to make it out of their home town and make something out of themselves but most of the time they go to a city so i’m like... i already live in the city so is me staying here to work towards making things better here me making it out of my hometown or is the fact that i already live here making it so that i’m one of those people who never leaves their hometown and is a loser and afraid of change. it’s weighing on my mind so much and it’s making me hate the city so much because for some reason now im super concerned about a loser who really hasn’t gone anywhere or done anything and i want so badly to do good and change things and make something of myself and be a full-on person younger me would be proud of but i’m struggling so hard with it.

my job is getting to me and although im due for a possible promotion in the near future i am so restless bc i don’t like doing the same things over again and i have one of those jobs where EVERY day is different and no two days are alike including not having uniforms but i’m already tired of it all and i don’t want another job (contradicting viewpoints to my paragraph above) i honestly want to like travel the world and get away and just hike and do all the things middle class and upper class people are allowed to do as normal. i want to see things and be wowed by the world. i want to be Jack and climb a bunch of bean stalks and find a bunch of giants in their castles and take all of that home with me to eventually climb down. im fucking stuck and i can’t do it. i only get at most 2 weeks off in total a year and i already need those for other things ugh life is not fair. i very much feel like i was not meant to live life this way, no one is, and i don’t know how to change it and it’s making me mad. it’s making me more upset every day and quickly hate my job and this city and all the little things that used to make life living. everything feels like a chore. and then people there want to be homophobic which is like another thing and im sick of it i just want to come in with a huge rainbow shirt and let them all hate me im so fucking done at this point.

i freaking. ugh. i started watching porn again but so far i’ve only done it like... 5 days max this year and i hate it and i am trying to fully stop because it’s gross (not sex work but the exploitation of sex workers and people having weird incestuous or pedophilic porn be on the main pages of every goddamn site, gay straight or otherwise) and i just REALLY want to stop and only focus on really feelings but i live with 4 other people so it’s hard to find time to use my sex toys and i’ve been increasingly freaking lonely and sometimes porn is just an easy go-to that i can get the feelings over with and im tired of it. i dont want to watch porn and i dont want to be alone anymore and nothing is changing that. 

i don’t want to live home alone anymore but this city is too expensive to live alone and i dont want to live with strangers and no one wants to live with me and i am freaking out bc i don’t want to leave this city even though i do and i don’t know where else to go and the thought of moving gives me anxiety and i just have so much going on.

some good things are that i’m slowly starting to be more financially responsibly and that i’ve slowly began exercising again and taking my diets seriously. there’s so much more that i need to say but i think this helped for now so thank you.

also i started talking to one of my imaginary friends in my head again bc i guess i need someone to argue and she always gets on my nerves and it’s a “healthy” way to let out my frustrations but today she told me im abandoning my childhood and my imagination and all the worlds i used to create in my mind and i realized she was right and it made me cry because that’s the one thing about growing up im afraid of because i dont want to lose any part of myself and if l lose my imagination i’ll be nothing i rather be dead. *Bran Stark season 1 voice* “I’d rather be dead”. also i really miss Game Of Thrones

[thequietoftheroom]

reminisce

I’ve been thinking a lot about freshman to junior year of high school lately and it all started the other day. I normally go on trips via Google Maps on my lunch breaks at work to escape and also explore all the cool places there are to go but also all the interesting or sentimental places I’ve been to. I decided to visit the airforce base where I had Civil Air Patrol encampment in the summer of 2006 (one of my favourite summers because prior to that I also had airforce JROTC summer leadership school so I was busy all summer). Anyways I went to the site and it looked almost exactly the same obviously minus the encampment stuff but my mind filled them all in and I started remembering names and faces and activities we did and just the general vibe from that era. Most of my good memories come from JROTC/CAP freshman-junior year, in part it’s because that’s before my depression settled, but also because a lot of people I looked up to, whether out of interest to see me come out of my shell or pity, decided to take me under their wings. I’ve always felt younger mentally and maturity wise than everyone else in my age group. A lot of the people that I thought were so cool and influential and wanted to get to know were in my age group, but quite a few of them were in the upper classes. JROTC/CAP kind of amped the amount of time you spend with people and it wasn’t just people in your class group, so we often mingled with people from all years like “one big family”. I’ve gone through so many experiences with those people, some competitions. I’ve talked to a lot of them about their relationship problems and about their future goals and some I always wonder what they’re up to. But I never fit in. In part because I didn’t have money which led to me learning to be comfortable with people eating in front of me while I wasn’t eating, which is funny because most of the time they had a problem with it to the point that they bought me food. I got sort of be a fly on the wall of this great era and sometimes was pulled in by people who for some reason or another genuinely wanted me there. There are lot of memories that I have, most linked to music, that remind me of these people I spent so much of those three years.

One of my favourites was of this girl named Annie that was two years above me that liked to include me when other people didn’t, and of this night when she, our friend David, our friend Azaan, and some of our other friends walked to CAP at night while walking under a bridge and they sand LOVE by Keyshia Cole and Scotty Doesn’t know at the top of their lungs. Then there was the long bus trips to competitions or air force bases where the seniors loved to sing 80’s and 70’s classic (most of which I didn’t know at the time but I do now) like Queen songs, classic rock, and that “na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, good bye” song. The bus trip where this girl named Leila that was a transfer and everyone was in love with knew I liked techno so we shared her ipod and she introduced me to Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation. I remember going to this guy named Jeffrey’s house every Friday before CAP where we would change there or in the car and in the car ride, full of guys, we would sing along to Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin or RAMP! The Logical Song. That’s the closest to having brothers that I’ve ever felt. I remember a guy named Steve that all the girls liked introducing me to Nightcore (which at the time made actual music and was not just a youtube genre of sped up music). I remember doing an unarmed exhibition drill routine to Drop It Like It’s Hot. I remember being introduced to Vengaboys (specifically Boom Boom Boom Boom) by one of the only openly gay people at the school who was so chill and helped me get into uniform freshman year and was surprised by how not afraid of him I was.

There are also some other standouts like the JROTC wing commander sitting next to me on the bus to write his speech but instead of writing it he talked to me and gave me advice, which if I had decided that the JROTC life was for me and had become wing commander, would have made a hell of a story arc. I remember winning the practice drill competition in Summer Leadership School and everyone from my school jumped up and down around me and it made me feel appreciated and wanted. I remember people inviting me to their rooms to play video games or have parties on trips and of course I always said no because in those types of gatherings you just /know/ there’s gonna be guy talk and I was hiding my sexuality. I remember my friend Brendan talking to me about his personal life for no reason but it felt nice to have someone trust me that much and want to be vulnerable in front of me, especially since he was a clown and loved acting up. I remember playing chief ball which was kind of like whiffle ball but exaggerated. I remember all the late nights at robotics trying to fit in and help the upperclassmen and some of them went to help me with lego robotics. I remember going from having nowhere to sit at lunch to two different groups of people wanting me at their table. I was always that fly on the wall but I think I was allowing myself to anamorph into a normal teen.

I had a lot of tiny crushes too outside my main crush (let’s not get into that) which were all from the programs. I had a crush on Azaan, on Brendan, on this polish guy named Christian (who was anything but Christian bc he ended up being a womanizer), on this also popular guy named Kenneth that Annie from earlier was on and off again with. On this guy in the grade under mine named Thomas who was probably a typical white boy next door but was ordinarily beautiful.

During my junior year a lot of the cool people had graduated so that’s when it started to fizzle out and the fantasy popped. But before then, you couldn’t tell me life could get better. I mean I had a lot of problems especially in dealing with my sexuality and remembering being sexually assaulted as a kid. Every time I think about those first two years I scream “be more comfortable, you idiot. Be their friends”. There’s so many bridges I’ve burned and so many bridges I never got to build but that’s life. And high school was one of the WORST times of my life but I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to have good things to pull from it. I also started learning to become my friend then, especially with all the walking I did. I mean I used to walk from Long Island City to East Elmhurst/Vaughn College every Friday. I remember as it got closer to junior year and everyone was turning on each other. All the guys were fighting over this one girl like she was a piece of meat. One of the favourite JROTC staff members retired, and the changes that came were plentiful. I think if time travel was real or at least the ability to retreat into our minds and see memories clearly I’ll have a lot from that time period to full from.

Anyways that’s just a fraction of what I’ve been feeling and thinking about lately. Maybe it’s a part of getting older. You want to try and find some good in the life you’ve lived. I wouldn’t do it again because there’s no way the me from now could have existed back then and that’s the only way I’d be able to relive it.

[thequietoftheroom]

Joining okcupid was a huge mistake and a hit to my self esteem that I didn’t need. I just thought “maybe if I join a dating site and people are interested in me it would reinforce that I am worthy of love”. No one really did. So now my mind is like “hah, you ARE unlovable” and I’m spiraling into a depressive episode. I disabled all social media apps on my phone and I’m gonna lock the ones on my laptop. I’m just tired and sad and done with crying and feeling like nothing tbh

[thequietoftheroom]

Hi. Is this thing on? Lauren Graham said in her new book that we should write more so this is my attempt at that. Oh by the way, I started reading again. I write these for myself so why don’t I just use “we”, but that will probably be weird reading it back. I’ve read Feminasty: The Complicated Woman’s Guide To Surviving The Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself To Death, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice On Love And Life From Dear Sugar, and now I’m almost done with Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls To Gilmore Girls. I’ve gone through several lists to pick out the books I plan on reading in the next few months, at least if I can afford them, but I like to think the books I ultimately bought found me and not the other way around. I have been read cover to cover, my soul pierced, and my mind opened. Of course fiction books have a similar effect but I never thought I would be interested in what people had to say about this grand thing called life and I learned that I cared a whole lot, not because I wanted to model myself after them but because I care about people and reading their explanations on life is like suddenly remembering they’re my best friends and they’re just catching me up on little secrets that come packed with nuggets of wisdom. 

I got myself into several situations I never planned on getting myself into even though the red flags were there and even though the people very openly said “Hey, this is exactly who I am”, but you know how your mind works when you have anxiety and depression. You start to convince yourself the puzzle pieces you find yourself assembling are actually part of the picture even though they don’t fit because deep down you’re trying to finish the puzzle of your life and no one is giving you quite the right pieces. In other words, and to quote my friend Allie, I drank a nice glass of “dumb bitch” juice. Which lead me to want to consider joining a dating site sooner than I planned. I know these things take time but it’s been 3 days and I’ve sent 40 likes (I think that’s how okcupid works idk) and practically got 0 back. Here’s why that sucks. On okcupid they focus strongly on your personality and beliefs. So someone not only saw my face and said “yeesh no thanks” they took the time to get to know the information about myself I put on there and were still like “yikes I don’t think so”. So all in all this was an experiment in derailing my self esteem and increasing my depression. What crazy color will I dye my hair to suddenly avoid dealing with my problems? Or maybe I’ll give myself another buzzcut. Stay tuned!

On a serious note, a lot of the stories I’m reading made me SO relieved that at 27 I’m still very much single and have only had 1 relationship which wasn’t that great (it was both of our faults). There were so many stories and anecdotes about young love being messy and about true commitment coming in your 40′s. Honestly, idk if I can wait that long. If NASA and the CIA and the FBI were like “you have been randomly selected to test mating with androids” I’d be like “yes please but can I choose their face”. I mean realistically I’m in the worst position to be in a relationship. For one, I don’t have much money saved because I’m sadly addicted to ordering things online, most of which are either useful to me or to my job (and no I don’t get reimbursed but I think the prospect of waiting for something in the mail to kill time is momentarily greater than the prospect of having more money later). I still live at home. Obviously, that’s a hella yikes and tbf I’m reading to get the fuck out of here but {see A: i have no money} and I have no one to move in with. I keep doing extensive research but I learned that in 2018 everywhere is problematic. So as much as my love for NYC is slowly fading I also realize this is it for me! I’m a city gal who needs to be surrounded by diversity. I can’t do suburbs and I can’t do living near more than 50% white people. I’ll die. I know that’s discriminatory but we are in the dawn of BBQ Beckys so can you blame me when the majority of white people keep voting against my existence. So I’m stuck. Every once in a while I look up “most LGBT friendly places to live” or “least racist places to live” and hope there’s a magical place with both but there isn’t (especially since, hello, twinks are hella racist). But I’ve literally cuddled my body pillow to death: it broke apart and I need a new one. And I learned I can’t fall asleep unless I’m cuddling it because I’m that lonely.

Everything in life is so complicated. I hate not being out at work but at the same time everyone there is ignorant so I wouldn’t be any more comfortable having them walking on eggshells around me. I love the individuals though and sometimes I feel very motherly or big brotherly towards them and they make me REALLY love work. But I want to be me. And I want to get rid of my legal name. Every time someone calls me John I die inside. Sometimes I don’t even respond because I have to be like “oh shit that’s me”. Can I change my name now? Probably, just have to have the money and redo all my paperwork at work? Will i? No because then either a) the individuals will have to learn my new name and their lives are confusing as fuck as it is or b) i keep my current legal name as a nickname but then it will get confusing for paperwork. I don’t like inconveniencing people that much even for something super important to me. I’ll just die inside until I save enough money, do my last few undergrad psyche classes, and then get into grad school. So like in 5 years, knowing me.

I’ve developed some little crushes here and there but most of the time it’s people that live out of reach or are straight or bottoms or any combination of them or I can just tell they will never like me in that way. So honestly, why bother. I miss the days when I didn’t care about this and the only thing plaguing my mind was what show I should marathon while building in minecraft.

Speaking of games, I play a lot with my friend Sal. He’s like my best friend which is weird because he was my boss once on a minecraft server but now I can’t ever think of him that way? He’s more like an older brother now, even though he’s younger than me. We talk a lot and also enjoy a lot of silence, and introduce each other to different games and shows. But mostly games. We’re both obsessed with 7 Days To Die and I check constantly for news about the update (no set dates for Alpha 17 AHHHH). To fill that void we started playing Fortnite, which I know a lot of people make fun of but it’s actually fun. Here’s a fun fact about me: I can’t take serious games serious so if there’s no building element, or fun element, or explosives I can blow things up with, I won’t do it. I have 0 competitive bones in this body. I like to have fun. That’s why Fortnite is perfect because it is a competitive FPS type game but it’s also a parody of that genre and it’s so whimsical. Save The Day is a lot like 7 Days To Die so that’s been fun. Listen, when you play a game with someone and you beat it, especially a survival game, it’s such a relief and you learn so much and it’s like you went on a literal adventure with that person. Did Sal and I actually get stranded on an island full of mutants and cannibals? No but that’s what it actually felt like after finishing The Forest because it was that real for us. My love for Pocket Camp is fading because it’s the same stuff, new textures. I mean the prospect of having a cute camp is fun sometimes (fun enough for me to spend way too much money on it. HELP!) but now it’s like “oh they just stand there and I don’t really do anything”. ALTHOUGH they are saying that now they are adding a LOT more gameplay to the point that you need at least 1gb of space of the game so I’m excited. I’m still obsessed with minecraft so there’s nothing new there.

Here’s something weird. I spent much of my time, when I identified as gay, being annoyed at gay stereotypes and mostly twinks being like “if you don’t do x,y,z you might as well be straight”, so much so that now that I came out as queer those things still bother me and I have to be like “it’s okay that’s not you anymore you literally figured this out which is why you’re this person”. That’s how I should introduce myself tbh “Hi I’m the Q in LGBTQ”. I don’t care about fitting in but because of my lack of in person friends sometimes I worry that maybe I should care, just a little. I’m so tempted to try Tinder just for that but then I think of all the people who have Tinder that live in this building and I’m like God that is a huge mistake. I need a huge life change. I need someone to come in and shake up my life but no one has volunteered. I’m kind of regretting thinking of all those stupid romantic things like “Oh I want my future boyfriend to teach my how to ride a bike :)” “I want my future boyfriend to take me traveling” “I want my future boyfriend to serenade me”. I’ll just become a full on Capricorn and teach myself everything, travel the world alone, and serenade my goddamn self.

Speaking of which again, can my depression like.. not? I was so into learning and practicing chords daily and I just stopped? Like my motivation was like “It’s been a nice 1 week. back to not caring about anything again” I mean I started to try to learn Burn and Satisfied from Hamilton (well, “learn”) so I at least have interest and I still listen to classical music and jazz to light that fire under my ass but still. I’m just going to do what I always do and restart from lesson 1 and hope I make it to 3 although my extensive research of chords has already put me at an advantage for lesson 3, which is chords. Of course I would go and try to learn something in an unstructured manner because I have a problem with routine and authority even when that authority is me.

I should write me. Which reminds me I was going to write about this one dream I had on my regular blog. See ya!

[thequietoftheroom]

Hi. Hello. It’s that time again. We have a lot to unpack here and by we I mean the me that’s writing this, the subconscious me, and the we that’s going to reread this later.

So let’s start off with this past weekend, because that’s when a lot of realizations happened. First of all, it came to full fruition, the understanding, that I definitely do prefer to have a lot more in-person relationships with people and that if I had the time, money, and motivation I would fucking LOVE to spend as much time with all the people I’m close to as I possibly could. During Pride, I was so in love with the energies of the people I was with. I mean there were moments when my depression tried to point out the negatives during the experience but for the first time I was so genuinely happy that I literally felt all of me tell my negative thoughts to fuck off and they did and I don’t experience that often. I loved watching everyone just be themselves and listening to people talk about anything, even their own inside jokes. I was just so elated to be included and that they looked after me and made sure I was having fun and wanted me there and I felt an inclusion I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s so hard having to constantly navigate your reality knowing people hate you just for existing when you’ve done nothing to harm them and knowing that you can’t change that. Having people decide to pick and choose what parts of you they want to love because they don’t want to love you as a whole person and it hurts my heart even if I try to hide it. But for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like that and I felt friendship and love and it felt like home. I’m at the point at home where I have to revolve what I do and where I go based on who is here because I don’t feel safe here anymore and I feel so alone and I just want to be me. I just want to be Gavroche. And I can’t and it hurts.

And it’s fucked me up so much because even in a space where I should feel like I belong I start to look for reasons why I don’t because I don’t know what it’s like to be wanted. I really don’t. I just want to be happy. I’m also at a point where I just can’t put myself in harm’s way and I have to avoid all family trips. I even purposefully put off a trip to Lake George this coming weekend because my parents are going and I can’t do it. I have so much love for Lake George because of going last summer with my aunt and uncle and I don’t want it to be ruined and it sucks that the people who are supposed to love and support me unconditionally don’t and ruin everything they touch. I didn’t go to the beach at all last summer and I don’t know if I will this year at all. Maybe I’ll go once by myself but I can’t do it anymore I’m officially done. And that’s one of the reasons I feel like I don’t like suburbia or things that are too tied up with families because in my eyes it’s not fair that people have families where they can be the worst person imaginable and they get all this support and mine hates me just because I’m me.

Work has stressed me out more than I thought it would because I’m not an adult in the full sense of the word so finally jumping into budgeting and bills and saving money for this and that and donating has been so stressful because I never had a build up to it like most people. I’m doing this all alone and I keep fucking up and even though I’m trying it’s stressing me out because I know I’m not doing good enough to live on my own yet and I want to so badly so I can get out of here but I need help.

All the stresses from like the past year have culminated in me putting on a lot more weight than I’m comfortable with especially since I haven’t had a setback like this in a while. I can feel myself using food as comfort and not exercising. I can feel myself just becoming complacent in my misery again because there’s so much I’m worrying about and crying about that it feels easy to give up. But I need to fight through this and hopefully I can work on some of the other things I need to to make myself a better person. I want to make more of an effort to get out of my comfort zone and to be trusting of people more and to also trust that I can get myself through anything because I have and that it’s okay to rely on other people that want me there so I don’t fall into self destructive behaviour.

I also need to look into therapy so I can do this properly. This isn’t the best way to do all this but at least it relaxes me a little bit. I just need more reminders that I matter and that I’m loved because I always hold on to every bit I get and more and more I can’t stretch those instances of support to cover the rest of all the shittyness.

[thequietoftheroom]

someone please tell me everything that’s wrong with me thank you

[thequietoftheroom]

I need to start using this again. I’ve sort of been neglecting it and posting my personal information on Facebook and Twitter, probably because more people started responding. But if my mental breakdowns are on display, I’m doing everyone a disservice and editing myself to call for attention. This is supposed to be about therapy, about talking to myself via my blog. I don’t mind much on tumblr because people hardly read things anyway since most people have moved to tumblr mobile by now and anything resembling an essay scares them away.

I’ve definitely gotten myself together again since I last wrote here but I’m falling, and I need this. I need help. I’ve got so many things weighing on my mind lately. First of all, I still have not finished paying off my debt to Chase. Putting my faith in the wrong hands because I wanted so badly to have a job, cost me the entire past months of sanity, which was worth 3 thousand dollars. I only have 700 left to pay, and I’ll be paying off 600 of that come my tax returns. It’s taken such a huge hit on my because I’ve had to use Christmas money and every last cent of any job I’ve worked from August till now to pay it back, Bank Of America doesn’t treat its customers much better and I was told that all major banks pretty much have the same leaders in corporate so that if what happened to me at Chase happened to me in Bank Of America, I could be kicked out of all banks in the city. Full stop. It was a wake up call to how naive and immature I am. The cost of trying hard to find the silver lining in every situation. No good deed goes unpunished.

Then there’s the fact that I’ve started gaining weight again. This summer took an emotional toll on me that I haven’t fully recovered from and both my piano playing and my exercising took a hit. I escaped in games and in food and didn’t take advantage of my special shakes when I had them. Now that I’m ready to get back out there I don’t have them and I have to take care of all 3 meals and 2 snacks on my own and I neither have the money or the drive to do that. I ended up, this time around at the supermarket, buying large bottles of fruit shakes to use as my main meals. At least breakfast and lunch. I’ve also been drinking a lot of water and have gone running twice recently. I’ve also started playing piano more. I’m still behind on lessons but I’ve been substituting the lessons with tutorials on how to play some of the more complicated compositions I’m into. I’m starting to be able to write music just by hearing it and gain better hand independence. I even think my singing, which in all honesty belongs in the shower or drunk karaoke, has improved significantly. Because I’ve let myself go my self image is starting to shatter. In November I shaved my head to come face to face with my hair thinning. I’m not bald and my hair is growing long and fast, but it’s thin enough to notice many splotches of skin, a constant reminder that I’m not as young as I’d like to be. I’m almost 30.

I’m almost 30. This is the first time in my life i’ve been able to come up with a plan of some sort for what I’m doing with it for the next few years. The light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t fault my parents too much because they were raised with strict expectations and gender roles that they very clearly thought their children belonged to so they never explored my interests in the arts, minus guitar. I’ve always loved singing and writing. I used to play on toy pianos all the time and when my sister got a keyboard it was amazing. On the first night i played Joy To The World by ear. But my parents only ever gave her lessons because piano is a woman’s instrument. I tried to learn on my own and I had tried to get my sister to teach me, but I was always so eager to excel that I couldn’t concentrate. I still can’t to this day but since I’m my own teacher I let myself explore chords and harmonies and things beyond the lesson that I’m currently in because that’s a sign of passion. Of love. And my depression almost took that away from me. With music I always find my way back.

Except with Christmas. The little elves that once constantly and painstakingly (to others around me, at least) converted my heart into a Yule Hall have vacated the premises. I didn’t feel anything this Christmas. Not even happiness. I kept searching in all the songs, the films, and the decorations for hope, for my heart to grow as the Grinch’s did. But it never came. For the first time in my life this December was just that: December. i was terrified. Never has my mental illness destroyed or taken from me something that was so important and pure, something that was one of my defining characteristics. And now it’s just gone. So i’ve been living with the constant fear since then that maybe my love of music will be next, or my love of films. Or maybe I’ll wake up one day and someone I love entirely will mean absolutely nothing to me. Not hatred or contempt. Just... nothing.

Then I’ve also been dealing with “daddy issues”. I don’t like my father for one second. He’s problematic in the worst way and a conservative republican whom in parties boasts about all the gay men he’s beat up or killed (that part could be a lie because he’s a pathological liar who can’t stand the spotlight being away from him one second so he’s well known for embellishing his situations to make him look favourable). He’s always been a negative force in my life who has done nothing but abuse me both emotionally and physically. He’s the sort of man that has a very specific idea of what his son should be and if there is deviation from that ideal, there is no love. To be honest, he’s like that with most people. You have to be someone he likes and meet him at his level or you’re a lost cause. There is no compromise for the egotistic. Unfortunately I’ve picked some of that up in my willingness to protect myself from the world and my depression; something that I’m actively fighting to tear down. I thought my “daddy issues” meant that secretly I loved him and wanted him to love me so I fought them. But I know better know. As the song The Living Years says “I know that I’m a prisoner to all my father held so dear”, I’ve come to realize my issues stem from me realizing how much of myself I’ve screwed over and changed to avoid having problems with him. Similarly, to quote Simon/Lola, “I’m not my father’s son”. I’m me. Gavroche. And because I live aesthetically and have romanticised the nuclear family through years of family based media, I was longing for the ideal father. I’ve discussed this already but what I was longing for was that. A dad. And life has given me a few dads. They weren’t my father, but they treated me for me in a way that he never will. And I’ll have more dads in life. 

Just like I’ll have more moms. My mother stopped being a mom a long time ago. My sister is still battling to hold on to her relationship with her because of Gilmore Girls but shes’ struggling. My mother has always been cold and judgemental. I just always thought her critical sharp words were reserved for my sister and I. But they were used for everyone else. To her love, compassion, and empathy only extend to the people she knows, and fuck all to everyone else. That’s not love, and love doesn’t have conditions. For such a religious person she always fails to love her neighbor. And in her own way she thinks she’s doing right but every time my sister, or my aunt (her sister) try to call her out, she plays the victim and never listens. Because she doesn’t need to. She’s convinced herself she just needs to pray and that will solve everything. But prayer won’t make me love her again. Nothing will.

So I’m finally alone in my family. Sure, people try with good intentions but no one will truly love me for me. Ever. Not in this family at least. And I find myself searching for one desperately and I realize fully why people throw themselves to have children and get married so early. Just like men have mancaves to escape their wives, people make new families to escape their own. But I don’t have a place to start. I have close friends. However, most of them don’t live near me. With me. And that’s my fault. If I had applied myself better in school I could have colleagues and maybe even a friend group. I graduated with honors with nothing to show for it but for the fact that I could do it. No friends or connections. No place to call home. And so I’m drowning and trying to force myself  to do things I wouldn’t like downloading grindr to try and make friends in NYC or considering eharmony. I want a physical friend circle. I want to feel alive. To feel loved and wanted. Online friendships are real but they don’t fill you. They are mostly full of routine. I need an adventure. And that’s not to write off the numerous and wonderful friendships I’ve had but to say... I need more.

I’ve got all this and more weighing on my day by day. I haven’t even begun to discuss the unapologetic jealousy I’m filled with, married to the happiness that I wish I experienced more of, when I see my friends in relationships. I’ve learned it’s not bad to be jealous, that’s human. It’s bad to be petty. It’s bad to write off other people that you hold so dearly because they’ve finally found a happiness you can’t experience. That turns life into a competition and it’s not. Someone, some day, will love me. And that’s all I can hope for.

[thequietoftheroom]

I have been watching gay documentaries lately on Netflix. I watched Do I Sound Gay, The New Black, and Gayby Baby. 

I think the saddest story in Gayby Baby (it followed 4 Australian kids who had gay parents) was Grahams because his dads moved around a lot and although he didn’t voice his concerns to them you could tell that it took a toll on him. I also felt bad because his dads rescued/adopted him from this other family that neglected him so much he didn’t even know how to read and he was like 12. But the saddest part was their move to Fiji. The dads had to explain to the sons that gay couples or just gayness in general was looked down upon in Fiji so Graham and his brother had to come up with a story as to why their dad lives with another man and they settled on one of the dads being a baby sitter. Like, imagine not being able to talk openly about your parents whom you love... just because they’re gay. And the way they discussed it made it sound like they’ve done it before and honestly that’s not a life I would want for my kids. I know money is important as are job opportunities but how can I push that on my kids by constantly moving and having to come up with cover stories as to why I’m married to another man? It just seems like too much pressure to put on kids who don’t deserve it and I just rather look for another job.

I guess that’s why some people wait till they find that one job in the one place they want to live in because tbh one of the worst things you can do for kids is constantly uproot them.

I also liked the kid who didn’t want to believe in God because his mom’s church shunned their family for having two moms. The mom was super Christian too but she let her son choose and she was like “I still believe even though they hate me” or something like that and the kid was just like “no offense but i don’t want to live my life with people like that” so he quit bible study and joined a football team (soccer).

Also the movie ends with a huge Sydny gay pride parade and all the families were there. It was cute.

[thequietoftheroom]

I finally took a plunge into the night and faced my fears. There is comfort in the dimness, a world of memories and pain, the laughter of strangers, the contrast of colors, and the constant fear that every moment will be your last. Even in the gentrification of my neighborhood I know better than to assume the night will never be home for thieves and villains. But I’ve had such a strong desire to explore its dangers and such a desire to exercise, to keep my body in motion, that the fear of losing my life takes a backseat in my mind.

I remember the gas stations, the smell of gas pouring into cars, the restless wait as we begin our dawn journey to the lake or to a faraway state. Every gas station holds a memory; my father driving me quickly to my high school JROTC Drill Competition; my mother asking me not to talk about conditioner or anything “female related” so I don’t upset my father on the way to the lake; coming home from a camping trip and knowing that this time a gas station signaled the end but wanting to stay forever in that moment; listening to sad music due to a broken heart while everyone else excitedly laughed in the car. Moments that are all gone and I rarely think about until I pass by gas stations. I remember familiar restaurants and the hardware shop where my father and I spent time years ago buying supplies to constantly repair our decaying apartment. For the first time I came to the realization that even though I hate him, and that I have good reason for doing so, he inundates my memories like an intruder that’s already settled into your home. Like some cruel and appropriate joke, Avril Lavigne sings “It’s a damn cold night. Trying to figure out this life”

I didn’t find much of anything on my trip as it was mostly filled with empty or closed factories and very few biker bars. One such factory had images of dresses that from a distance looked like house cats with floral print skin. I thought it was elaborate graffiti or street art and was shocked to see the truth but then spent minutes discussing how relevant the images were to those who believe cats are the symbol of femininity. I also come across some spots where I make a mental note to return at day with my camera for photographs. I had planned to run but couldn’t bring myself to do so out of fear, but on the way home I looked up and saw an old friend in the sky, Orion, shining as bright as ever. He is usually outside my living room window waiting for me when the full moon calls for me at three in the morning. It’s been a while since I’ve done that in part to stress dreams and my inner demons berating me with sleepless nights. It was entirely my imagination but I saw his belt shine brighter than usual and it gave me the courage to run and run I did, all the way home, even past the cemetery. Of course my shin splits and oncoming traffic gave me many a reason to take quick breaks but I achieved what I had set out to do.

Even though not much happened, in some way, this night was magic. It opened my mind to the past and future, and it gave me hope that no matter how drastic my downfalls are, something always gives me courage to keep on moving.

[thequietoftheroom]

Honestly today has been super draining and I took one of the biggest naps I have in a while.

I’m usually good at handling things in my non-existent romantic life but today Troye’s video really got to me. It wasn’t just the song though. I usually listen to all his songs and they’re like a connected story all about love and heartbreak. I usually have albums (not just songs) connected to my crushes and I have one for Troye’s songs since I usually listen to them all and just the message from Talk Me Down and the visuals were... they seemed too real. I was imagining myself and my crush in that situation and it was a sad train ride. And of course The Fault In Our Stars played after and I just imagined that as the after effect song of the story of me at the funeral of my crush after, you know. If you saw the video, you know.

And that’s a lot to go through especially when you have a vivid imagination and it made me cry on the train. And of course I didn’t help matters because I listened to Adele on the way home, and I just had such a downpour of sadness. My body just shut down;it did not want to deal with it today. But it’s just a sign that my depression is getting worse if something so simple as my imagined fantasies with someone else is enough to make me cry and sleep my afternoon awake and be so sad.

This isn’t the start of things because it will get worse and it’s what I was scared of and now I just have to find ways of picking up the pieces during the after because I’m already head-steady on my way to rock bottom.

[thequietoftheroom]

I know finally and fully understand the notion that acts that are significant to you involving other people might not be as significant or memory-worthy for them. I was always grateful for that metallic grey camera you gave me that had sort of damaged buttons. And I remember using it till I had to take the buttons apart and press  on the microchips with my fingers or cotton swabs. I remember being very sad at having to throw it out when it no longer worked because I felt like a piece of our friendship had died.

I’ve always loved cameras and stole many a disposable camera my mom or dad bought to take pictures of things. I would take pictures of my backyard or of my toys, of the people around me, or my walk to a grocery store. Before going on school trips the first thing I would ask for was a camera. It was a long while before I held one in my hands again but you gave me one for free, charger and all, because I meant something to you and you meant something to me.

But I can’t blame you for forgetting something as simple as that when it happened at a time of your life when everyone was coming down on you hard and the one person you looked for some love or gratification in used you and did the same. I have apologized to you so profusely and you have forgiven me every time and reminded me that everything between us is okay. But there are not enough apologies to ever make me forgive myself for what I did and now fittingly I carry the pain of my actions instead of you.

I just hope that at least now when I remind you of our kind interactions you understand that I did and do care about you and that although we had many a rough patch we also had some beautiful memories and even if you forget them, I never will friend.

I went on a hike today, and along with the thoughts of all the people I’ve wronged and all the friends that have abandoned me I was once again reminded how grateful I am to have you in my life, you whom I have wronged the most and how willingly you let me back into your life because that’s what friends do and we will always be good friends.

[thequietoftheroom]

i feel so depressed and useless i haven’t felt this bad about myself in a long time and i don’t know what to do and i don’t want to bother anyone like i honestly wish i had a s/o to be here right now and just hold me because i’m hurting so much and it’s taking me down a path i don’t want to go again

[thequietoftheroom]

in the tub again

[thequietoftheroom]

just spent the last 4 hours doing cardio videos and i’m tired

i’ll do like..2 more and call it a day

[thequietoftheroom]

I started drinking coffee again and my face is rebelling

[thequietoftheroom]

I am 5 pounds away from being under 200 again and that will be such a relief i mean i know i still have a LONG way to go but being over 200 is not something i ever want to be 

[thequietoftheroom]

the water is green and I feel like a mermaid