It is true: I keep myself busy. I do all of the things.

I volunteer at a homeless shelter, I paint, I run, I go to the gym, I boulder, I attend protests, I cook, I bake, I go to movies, I dance, I attend concerts, I do a lot of it on my own, I take myself on dates, I write in my little notebook, I read books, I look for flowers to smile at, I wait for the sun to shine through the clouds, and I eat whatever I want (a lot of chocolate).

I do it because if I don't, I will go crazy.

I do it because I need the distraction to stop myself from getting bored and going to dark places.

And sometimes I don't even do it, and I run away to a hiding place where I can cry my eyes out without anyone knowing.

I am still a messed up person trying to make it through one more breath.

I think... I'm afraid of disappearing.

I don't want that to happen.

But lately it feels like it's already happening.

:(

And I am trying really hard to cling on to something, anything that will keep me here.

There are times when I'm really unhappy and I don't quite understand why.

It makes me want to physically hurt myself -- not to actually do any serious harm, but I think just so I can feel something that makes sense.

I don't ever do it, but there is a strong urge. What I do instead is: Sit with my uncomfortable, unknowable emotions and feel sorry for myself for a little while.

Okay, I should get back to trying to sleep like a good adult with things to do in the morning.

Feeling: Tired

Here's something I realised while at the homeless shelter this week: I cannot fix everyone's problems, but I can be here for them while they struggle and try to make life a tiny bit easier for them.

If you say you need help, I will believe you and support you in whatever way I feasibly can.

Sometimes, that means not pointing out a person's mistakes because they are already very aware of them and don't need me to make them feel even worse about it.

Other times, it's letting a stranger offload their life story on me and giving them a hug, or letting someone have €10 that I, truthfully, will not miss.

And I think that's what being human is about.

And I love that for us.

Life is funny. And sometimes I feel like I'm drowning and I forgot how to swim or where I was trying to go.

For example, I was really proud of myself the other day for doing a bat hang for the first time (it's a climbing thing), even though I quickly fell off the wall.

But now I feel like a piece of shit again, so everything is back in order. :)

Disappointment is a strange thing, because it's based on a standard that you yourself set for someone else. So, even though it is 100% okay to be sad when a person lets you down, it's also kind of your own fault for putting those expectations on them in the first place, oftentimes without their knowledge or consent.

What's up with that? :p

The story is that it was my birthday a little while ago and in the context of other things that had happened and ~life~ being what it is, I was really bummed out that one of my closest friends bailed on our very low-key, super casual hangout at home. I understood her reasons and respected her decision (and she definitely does not need my approval for anything anyway), but it still made me feel rejected and insignificant and unhappy.

At the same time, I did have other lovely people come to spend time with me, so me being a butt wasn't doing anyone any favours at all. At that point in time, though, I was feeling strongly that I keep showing up people who don't show up for me. And then I felt bad for feeling bad (classic), because what the hell, man? I'm not the actual queen.

It's all bullshit, of course. I just wanted to feel sorry for myself for a little while, and mourn the fact that nobody is as perfect as me and can love me the way I want to be loved.

In conclusion, I'm still figuring out what to do with it. It now looks like a weird sense of loneliness that makes me unsure if the people I care about even actually like me. :(

But maybe it's just hormones???

Feeling: Stuck
Listening to: Fury My Master by Upon Stone

Every so often, I am gently reminded that my childhood may have been a bit unorthodox, and that the resulting associations and reactions I now have as an adult might be different from the ones other people have.

For example, it would appear that being shouted at does not make everyone else immediately think that the person shouting wants to hit them. :')

Though I was never actually beaten myself, there were plenty of people around me who were... And I'm realising I might have always subconsciously been afraid of it happening to me, which could explain why I chose to play the role of Very Good Girl.

Anyway, I got loudly shouted at recently and that one fleeting moment had an unexpected visceral effect on me. I really did not like it, and I hated how it made me feel: like I was a child again, angry and (this is the surprising part) scared.

*Jazz hands.

Why am I fighting so hard to swim against the current if what I did was never going to make a difference?

Maybe it's not about me, just like it's not about you.

But why do I have to keep taking the bullet, just because I've gotten so good at nursing bullet wounds?

I'm tired.

And sad.

Life has been pretty exhausting lately.

I want to crawl into a dark box and stay there.

Ray of sunshine
dancing across my face,
it's nice to meet you.
Although your presence
is rather sudden
and unexpected,
I'm glad you're here,
and you're very welcome
to stay
for as long as you want
and as long as you need.

If you have to go,
I hope you find a way back
so that we might continue
to lick each other's wounds
and wonder at the mundanity of life
together;
I didn't realise
how much I would enjoy that
until you slipped in
through the gap between the curtains
and cast shadows on the walls.

Hmm... Maybe everything will be okay after all.

There is a special feeling I get when someone spells my name right.

And a weird other feeling when someone spells it wrong.

I've spent a lot of my life trying to be someone I believed others wanted me to be: A good girl who did what she was told and was rewarded for it.

Making other people happy and living for their praise was a safe way of securing my place in the group and belonging somewhere. It got me pats on the head and I love that shit.

But I was so busy pretending to be The Perfect Me that I never got to explore and embrace who I actually am, which has led to me pushing my own needs aside. And now the part of me that longs to be accepted and loved demands that it only matters if it's real.

So I've been trying out a Me That I Want To Explore And Embrace. But, to be completely honest, it is really, really difficult and quite exhausting. :(

She is a bit more of a hard pill to swallow; she is a disappointment compared to The Perfect Me you've grown accustomed to, and somehow that hurts people's feelings (I hate hurting people's feelings).

And that makes her feel like she's a mistake, something broken that should be hidden away and never accepted.

Like maybe it would be way easier to just go back to good old-fashioned smiling, keeping-her-mouth-shut people-pleasing.

Ngggghhh. D:

Happy 2025, kids.

I've only just made it out of the depths of hell (I had a weird virus that knocked me out for five days), and what do you know, it's still January (the longest January in the history of Januaries, probably).

Ughghgh.

Here are some thoughts I put on paper in weird sentences loosely strung together by a sense of helplessness and frustration.

May I Exit the Ride, Please
One day I awoke,
and the world no longer made sense;
the light that used to give me comfort
had gone dark and tense.

--

It is not easy to be human
in a world that only teaches to consume and
take and take until all the space we have for joy
is occupied by things.

By no coincidence, we are forced to feed a system
based solely on greed, devoid of any wisdom,
put there so the few white men in power and their sons
could stay there.

Mother Nature, tired of crying out in pain,
is filled with a fire that burns angry and hot,
switching up the seasons
so swiftly we don't know which one we've got.
Forests up in flames, islands disappearing,
communities washed away, and not one soul left for hearing
the sound a tree makes when it falls.

...

Apocalyptic, yet - forgive me for saying -
it's not the Earth that will end up paying.
She will overcome our failures,
recreate the land and sea.
The thing that's not clear to me is:
How the hell will we?

She closes more and more of Herself off to us
(who can blame Her?),
giving us all that tough love detox medicine juice,
while we continue to maim Her.

Not "we" as in you and I,
but "we" as in Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Money.
"We", the punchline in this sick joke
that's not even a little bit funny.

The ladders upon which the rich stand
need, require, mandate, demand
someone, anything
to be at the bottom.

A people, a world, a universe,
or the last black rhino;
as long as there's something to be exploited,
there will be no one to ask, "Why, though?"

In the end, there are no winners in this game
of lying and betraying
and everything we've done only amounts to weighing
each other down.

We are all losers here;
nobody wins unless we stop playing.

Listening to: Beautiful Way by You Me At Six

I did more writing!

This time, it was an exercise in letting go of perfection and just doing the thing, and playing with words and how they flow. And some other stuff. Because there's always gotta be other stuff.

I'd Love to Know
How do you love?

Do you use your whole body,
your entire soul?
Do you let it take over?
Do you give it control?

Or are you more careful
and cautious,
gentle
and slow?

Are you weary of rushing too quickly, of what you don't know?

How does it feel when you fall in love?

Is it an ache,
a longing for more?

Do you
    f
     l
    o
   a
  t

   d
    o
     w
    n
like a feather,
or is it a wave you ride to shore?

Do you throw your head back in bliss?
Do your fingers start to
t * i * n * g * l * e?

Does your heart beat out of your chest,
its rhythm become a jingle?

How does love show up for you,
when you look it in the eye?

Does it kiss you on the forehead,
or catch your breath in a sigh?

Does it take you by the hand
and lead you
through the darknesses you've known?

Will you look back one day in wonder
at how much the light in you has grown?

Hahaha, I just realised this November has been exclusively filled with Monday musings.

Interesting.

Listening to: Dying In Your Arms by Trivium

Here's a fun fact: I was named after a misunderstanding.

My dad was on the phone with this lady, and when she said her name, he thought, "Wow, that's beautiful".

Except he misheard her, and when I was born one Tuesday morning, I received the name he heard incorrectly.

And because one of my favourite hobbies is finding symbolism in everything mundane, I wonder what that says about me.

I am not that brave.

The brave I am is leaving,
choosing to be alone and isolating myself,
even though I'm pretty sure I actually hate it.

The brave I am is choosing me,
instead of fighting on and drowning in the ashes
for the greater good of everyone else.

The brave I am is doing things scared,
because I know the fear is trying to protect me,
but it won't make me happy.

The brave I am is feeling the hurt,
listening to what it wants to tell me,
knowing that that is how I will heal.

The brave I am is opening my heart,
at the risk of getting it broken,
so that it can fill up with love and softness.

The brave I am is having hope,
in a world that is determined to disappoint me,
because it is the only way I will survive.

The brave I am may not be yours;
it is searching for flashes of light
in a dark and damp place,
and it can be lonely,
and sometimes it looks a bit like self-sabotage
or setting myself up for failure.

But it is what I've got,
and that has to be enough.