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A third journal of personal musings |
 My life always continues to change and it only stands to reason that with each change, there should be a journal dedicated to it. |
| Prompt: Do you like being alone or do you like being around people? Mostly alone, but I do like being around people I enjoy. I will have a good time, but it drains me. I am such a hermit and it doesn't help that Mathew is one as well, so unless it's us going out together, we often stay in. There are times where I'll go and visit a friend or obviously when I go back to NY and I visit and see family. Family I will exclude from this, I mean they are people, but it's different and I can't even explain to you how it is. Maybe in the same way I am with Mathew. Not that it isn't nice when I'm off during the week and he's off at work and I get the place to myself. Maybe because I have that, it balances it out? I don't know. I don't see my family a whole lot, pretty much the same when I lived in NY. Most of my family lived a couple of hours away, so usually holidays and birthdays caused us to get together. Anyway, I've always been a hermit with a small circle of friends, most of which didn't connect or circle around to the same people. How I was in high school too. I never belonged to a specific group or clique of people. I always wished to have a best friend. I've had some close friends, some that I've shared things with, but never someone I could share everything with. My mom was probably the closest thing to a best friend I've ever had. We were so similar in personality that I never had to explain myself or my reasonings because she understood. We're both incredibly shy, awkward, and hate being around people with those small few exceptions and family of course. My dad was the complete and utter opposite. He talked to people he didn't know, in the store, for hours. Thankfully, when I turned twelve, I got to stay home when he went out to shop. My younger sister loved it and went with him. So at an early age, I got to experience being alone and I was always pretty mature for my age, so my parents let me be home. I knew how to feed myself (sandwiches and grilled cheese! or leftovers always) and I wasn't an idiot with the phone or letting people in. For me, it was and continues to be peaceful. Sometimes people can overwhelm me and it doesn't help that I have to "people" for my job and that's 40 hours a week. I get tired just from dealing with people and even more recently with the whole Covid-19 and people losing their minds. So it's even more precious to me now, when I'm home and have the ability to unwind and relax. And it's conflicting for me too because when I enjoy hanging out with people, I love being out and with them and always wonder why I am the way I am. And yet every time someone wants to, my brain tries to find ways to wiggle out of it or make excuses. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes it's not at first, but when the day comes. It's incredibly frustrating sometimes and often annoying. Some days I wish I had no friends and other days I wish I had more. My brain is often an idiot. |
| Prompt: “Real beauty is in the fragility of your petals. A rose that never wilts isn’t a rose at all.” Crystal Woods About roses or people, do you agree? Yes. 100% I think there is a lot of dedication for people to look or be a certain way. There is a societal being that says so. No one wants to deal with being real in any sort of context. Even now, in the year of our lord 2020 (Even though I do this in a sarcastic manner, 2020 is making me feel like this is in incredibly poor taste), there is still a struggle to deal with both physical and mental realities. Both women and men feel like there are standards you have to live up to. I'm still learning to lean away from them. When I was in high school I flipped both birds to societal perfections because I knew I didn't come up to muster on them. I've never been a dainty female mentally or physically and for a long time I resented myself for it. I can't even sneeze like what a female is supposed to sneeze like. I was terrified of being myself and thinking no guy in their right mind would find me attractive. I've been with my guy for sixteen and a half years and he loves me for exactly who and what I am. I wake up with my messed up sea witch looking hair and frumpy way and he tells me to my face that I'm beautiful and my hair is cute. With a straight face. Mental health, I think especially now even though we've made strides, we're still so far away from what even constitutes as a healthy mental health system in our country. And even if hell froze over and we had a 100% perfect system tomorrow when we all woke up, how many people would use it? Especially men? For as finicky and difficult as it is for women to understand that we aren't just emotionally weak and have actual problems and that we need to figure out what they are, men just suppress them so deeply as to think they can't even show emotion during a movie or at an event in their life because that's just not how it is. There is such a structural disbelief in mental health that most people chalk up to being weak or stupid or an excuse for something, that no one wants to take any of it seriously. I feel like that's the same way as how we approach the physical aspects of ourselves or how some see others. I am 100% towards doing things because they make you happy. Sometimes they aren't what I think look good on someone and I catch myself and tell myself that they aren't doing it for me or anyone else and that if they're happy and confident with it, then that's what matters. And it is. I hate seeing people judged because they don't fall within a narrow view of what's acceptable of what beauty is. People lose their shit over a man wearing a bun. Well, I have long hair and it drives me crazy. Could I have totally short hair and save myself the misery? Yes, but I don't want to. So if a guy didn't want to deal with his hair or it's hot out and he wants to toss it up, who cares? We have to come to a point as a society where we care about the people and choose the people over anything else. Where the mental stability of us as a whole is important. We can't realistically move forward if we can't a) believe in the science that proves that there are things that can't just be swept under the rug or tossed into a folder of "just being emotional" or "needs to be stoic above all else" and b) believe that coming to terms with those things and finding a way to deal with or eradicate those issues. Mostly importantly, if we aren't being real that we aren't. We can't live our lives the way we should or that we could by not admitting to ourselves who and what we are. And being accepting of what we find. I say that not just with ourselves, but also in others as well. That whole "Judge not, lest ye be judged." is something I carry with me and I think everyone should follow the same. |
| I've recently gotten to thinking of how long I've been at this site. Officially, it will be TWENTY years come the end of August. TWENTY. How did I get old enough to say I've been somewhere on the Internet for TWENTY years? Yet, here we are. Though, if we want to get technical I've been with this site longer than this site was technically around. Doesn't make much sense, does it? Well, let me see if I can explain. So, originally, this site was called Stories.Com. I found this site just by googling stories or writing into the search box. It was part of like a cluster of sites. Not necessarily like a web ring, but if you went to the "mother site" it would list Stories.Com, along with some others. (I feel like maybe my age is showing here) Anyway, Stories.Com was originally just interactive stories. You didn't have to have an account, so you didn't really have a way to "own" anything, except just knowing that it was yours. I had a story on there that was one of the most popular stories. It was about a haunted house and that's really all I remember about it now. I don't know why I didn't transfer it over. I wish I had kept it, even if it was just for posterity's sake. I was there probably close to two years before SM and SMs took it over and made it into what it is now. I've always considered it my home. A lot of those for whom I've considered family aren't very active on here anymore or have stopped visiting altogether (some of these people though I've stayed connected with on social media, so I can still say hi to them whenever I'd like.  ), but I still feel happy here. I decided to use my stepping away from social media as an excuse to just be more active here and another excuse to get back into writing, no matter how little I am able to do so. All so I can take a break from what's going on outside. I don't like to throw around descriptor words on who I am or what I am, so saying that I am an empath feels bizarre to me, but I am incredibly empathetic. Almost to a point where it's very overwhelming. It has been building to a point where I just...can't take it anymore. So I'm taking a break from everything. I can't get anxious and overwhelmed to the point of tears if I don't know what stupid people are saying, now can I?I've had to cut back on reading Covid-19 articles, because my anxiety has flown up through the roof. It's been the same with the BLM and George Floyd stuff going on now, only with social media and seeing people say the most ignorant things. I know that I am empathetic to basically a fault, but to see people who have none at all just hurts my soul. Especially when it's just human beings wanting to be treated like human beings and somehow white people have to make it all about them. Or just wanting to care enough to not be considered racist. So, here I am. In my happy place, where I can focus on my mental health and writing for awhile.  |
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