The Perks Of Fluid Identity

I've been learning a lot about myself this year.

This is funny because, as some of y'all know, last year was a major dev year for me. And, in my innocence, I thought that meant 2015 was going to be the results of said dev. Um... no. At least not yet. We still have half the year to go, and I have randomly turned into a very hopeful person, but... even I'm not betting on that right now. This year is another dev year, and that's okay. I think.

One of the big things I'm learning is that I'm a very fluid person... and that's okay.

I'm not sure what I mean by that yet. I'm not sure I'll ever fully know (another important thing I'm learning right now is how to accept uncertainty, which is fricking hard for my current wiring). But it's definitely a thing, and it's a thing I'm trying to use for survival.

I guess I've done this for a while. A few months back, my friend Miranda pointed out that I pick outfits and makeup like I'm putting on a mask, and as much as it killed me to admit it at the time... she had a point. I prepare my look based on who I need to be for a given situation and/or who I want other people to see me as. Sometimes, this means zero makeup (mascara doesn't count unless it's the super-super-volumising kind, and lip balm is a requirement for being human) and a t-shirt and knit skirt and flip-flops. Sometimes, this means red lipstick and eyeliner and a very fitted dress and... okay, generally flip-flops with that too, but I'd be wearing heels if my ankle wasn't screwed up. I don't have a default personal style because I'm so driven by mood and situation, and I've been that way for a while.

Recently, my fluidity expanded to names. I have never liked my legal name. Part of that stemmed from the fact that I share it with someone who was utterly terrible when we were young kids (she's become a much better person in the ten years since I stopped having to interact with her on the regular, but she successfully convinced everyone we knew when we were eight that my family was moving to West Virginia - based on an overheard convo, for the record, she wasn't malicious so much as misguided - and that was an interesting childhood trauma). There's more to it than that, but I dunno what the rest of it is. Point being... actually changing my name is not gonna happen because paperwork and fees and whatnot, but I'm not Alyssa most of the time. I'm really not. And maybe I'm a couple of different people, again dependent on the situation, and I'm learning who those personas are.

One of them, I think I have down. I've been going to a new church for the last two months and it's basically everything I hoped for, and I've started telling people my name is Nora there. That's who I want to be there. It's a pretty name for a pretty young woman in hiding, tragic past and hopeful heart and all. Eventually I'll probably have to explain that to a few people there - I'm exploring opportunities in ministry, so I'll definitely have to mention the disconnect at some point. But for now, that's who I am in that space, and being someone slightly different feels really really good.

I don't think that's the only part of it, though. Sectioning my personality into different identities is... probably a symptom of something, honestly, but it makes me feel better. I'm very conscious of what I'm doing, and I'm doing what I need to do for me. It's a weird coping mech, but it's the current state of things.

I've never been sure who I am at any given moment, but I'm trying to see the beauty in that. I'm trying to survive. I'm gonna be okay.

Song of the day - "Stardust", Lifehouse.

On Being Forged In Fire

Or, "sometimes the best friendships are the ones you never knew you needed".

I know I post a lot of negative stuff on this blog. I guess that's mostly because I'm still at a point where a lot of negative stuff is happening to me, and writing my way through it helps. (There's a post I want to do right now about jealousy, and another about the first heartbreak of 2015, but now is not the time.) Right now, however, I'm still thinking about something really good that happened to me last week - and, by extension, a friendship that's gotten me through the last three years.

This is my friend Olivia. She's one of the most amazing people I've ever known, and last Saturday I finally got to see her. One of the recurring themes of the six-ish hours we spent hanging out was "took us long enough" - she lives three hours away from me, and it took us nearly three years of being friends to finally meet up. Despite the fact that we have batted the idea around ever since the distance thing was established. We are stubborn kittens and it is adorable.

Funny thing is, when I first started talking to Olivia at some point during summer 2012, I was kinda using her. At the time, we had a few mutual friends who'd recently broken up after a fairly serious relationship, and I was curious as to why. One of said people had zero contact with the outside world that summer, and the other one... in hindsight, was not a good person, but at the time, was just bad at disclosing details. So, because I am unstoppable when I'm curious and because as far as I could tell the relationship in question had been utterly bulletproof, I started reaching out to anyone who might know what had happened. Olivia was connected enough to be a viable resource, except that she... wasn't. She knew even less than I did, actually, although she was equally worried about the little dingbats. (And in hindsight, who wouldn't have been??)

But then something happened. We got to talking a bit more, and... turned out our backgrounds were pretty darn similar. Misplaced 19-year-old girls who'd grown up in super-religious communities and weren't sure what we were and wanted love and acceptance more than anything. Add in the unique experience of having grown up in small-town Indiana, and... WELL. A friendship was born.

Over the years that followed, we've been through stuff. Liv had what she generally refers to as the Valentine's Day From Hell, which I do not remember despite the fact that I know I attempted to be helpful at some point during the fallout, and realized that what she wanted to do wasn't what she'd originally thought. I continued to have depressive spirals, also realized that my plans were not working, and valiantly tried to walk away from just about everything. Through this, we've been a support system for each other. Honestly, at this point, we've stood by each other through too much to ever walk away.

So, finally meeting her in person. I guess part of me was worried that she wouldn't be as awesome in the physical world as she is online. If anything, she's more awesome. She has an infectious smile, she's affectionate, and she makes the world a brighter place. In the space of five minutes, we went from talking about our bad experiences within organized religion to using her phone to look up military bases in Alaska for a teensy bit of background info for this writing thing we're working on. We talked childhood traumas (mine are slightly more epic than hers) and fandom calamities (no show that either of us has ever watched has gotten BETTER after the introduction of a sentient morally-dark-gray AI). We had an extended convo about how Parks & Rec perfectly captures small-town Indiana life but it really needed a good episode about deer season because seriously. It was the most natural, comfortable few hours I've had in a long time.

Point being, Liv is amazing and I'm a better person because of her consistent, solid, supportive presence in my life. Three years down, (hopefully) a lifetime to go.

Song of the day - "Long Live", Taylor Swift.

On Things I Would Tell My Seventeen-Year-Old Self

Or, "this is not the path I expected my life to take but I'm finally getting to the point where the journey looks absolutely beautiful in hindsight".

It hit me this morning, as I was driving my little sister to work (all important realizations happen in my car), that my story is actually pretty awesome. Six months ago, I would not have been able to say that, but I guess I'm starting to realize that everything I've been through has made me a pretty amazing person. This whole self-confidence thing is still new and vaguely terrifying, but what gets me is that where I am right now is completely different from where I thought I'd be at this point in my life four years ago. It's also different from where everyone else thought it would be, and... honestly, it's a good place. Not quite my ideal scenario, but it's still beautiful.

That being said, there are a few things I would tell my seventeen-year-old self that would've made a lot of this so much easier. Most of them are very specific to situations I was in this time four years ago; some, however, are general life advice for the teenage girls who may or may not be reading this blog (and I know at least one of my sister's friends at least occasionally looks at this calamity so it's not a total waste of my time to write this up). You guys can figure out what's what. Here goes:

• That boy you think you love is going to betray you in a way you never thought possible because you don't yet know that mixed-gender friendships are even biologically possible. He is not in love with you, nor will he ever be. You are his quiet rebellion, nothing more, and the day you realize that will be one of the most painful days of your life. There is no way to brace for this sort of pain; you just need to fight through it.
• You are a SURVIVOR. These wars you fight with the world and yourself will only make you stronger. One day you will look back and understand the meanings of your scars.
• The darkness you feel sometimes has a name. You're going to get help for it after the first time you nearly let it take you. Eventually, sweet one, it's going to end completely for reasons that you won't understand at the time (and maybe you never will). You're still in for a very long three years, but you'll get through it.
• College is not your path. You already know this, but you're being good because it's what's expected of you and it's going to take missing finals week the spring of your second year because you're recovering from three days in a psych ward before anyone else agrees with you on this. That's going to be a turning point for you, and even your dad won't fight it too much.
• Speaking of which, as much as you hate him right now, you're going to end up having a better relationship with him than your mother. Maybe he's not a better person in the grand scheme of things, but he's very upfront. He doesn't manipulate people. Your mother... is probably not aware of all that she does, but that doesn't stop her from doing it. You'll learn to work around this.
• In general, working around problems is better than trying to solve them. At least when those problems are of the human variety. Humans cannot be fixed no matter how much you wish otherwise.
• You're going to realize that you think girls are pretty too, in a different way than boys are but still a significant way, and that's not going to be anywhere near as much of a battle as you initially think. Your little puppy crushes on girls are never going to be acted on, not like the things you feel for boys, but they're still a part of you. Attraction is what it is. Your Person is still probably a guy, but thinking that girl at work is really cute is still okay.
• You're going to get out of the Bubble. You're going to find the strength to assert yourself and put distance where it's needed and you're going to blossom so much once those people are not in your life on the regular.
• Despite what certain people say, you will not be the first girl of your era to get married. You will stand and watch as half of your era finds love in places you do not understand, you will be completely neutral on all of those situations, and life will go on. People will be cruel to you about your involuntary lone-wolf status, but you'll learn how to deal with them without causing a scene. You're the better person in those situations. You'll be okay.
• How neutral you are, however, will not affect the fact that you will still cry at some point during every wedding you attend. And there are going to be a lot of weddings.
• You already know that you will not get your first kiss by age eighteen. You will definitely not check off all of your physical firsts by twenty-one. You will learn to be... maybe not okay with that, but understanding of the fact that what lies ahead of you will make all of this awful waiting make sense.
• You're going to flutter for a lot more people. For a while, your type will remain "emotional range of a cactus and uses you for advice on wooing emotionally manipulative blonde pixies". Then it'll turn to "guys with sweet girlfriends who you usually know". Then... well, it's anyone's guess where the journey will lead from there, but despite the number of times you get your heart broken by boys who never even wanted you, you'll still have hope that your Person is out there somewhere.
• You're not what anyone wants you to be, but that's their loss.
• You're going to see elements of your story reflected in places you never would've expected and it's going to break your heart, but you're going to use that to get out. You are every bit as amazing as the fictional ladies you will cling to because real-life role models are impossible for you. Their stories will give you strength to keep writing yours.
• Someday the sappy love songs won't hurt. This will happen before you have someone in your life who gives them meaning. It's weird, but it's also really awesome.
• Domesticity isn't the horror story you think it is now. You're going to change your mind about eventual marriage and tiny humans and it's going to have nothing to do with your background and everything to do with your blossoming sense of self.
• Your awkward phase is going to die a dramatic death on New Year's Eve when you get bored and shave your head. That's another turning point, another new beginning.
• You are a SURVIVOR. Those four words need to be repeated over and over and over because they are so true. You are a SURVIVOR and all of the bad things that have happened to you, all of the bad things that will happen to you, will only make you that much stronger. You are a phoenix; rise and rise again from your ashes, each time that much more glorious.

Song of the day - "This Is What Makes Us Girls", Lana Del Rey.

On Redefining Myself

Or, "right now I'm doing things for ME... and that's okay".

Coming out of a depressive spiral is the weirdest thing. I've already posted a lot about that, but I'm not sure how to write about the last month or so because I'm not sure how it happened. There was no great reason for the fact that one morning I woke up and didn't feel the familiar crushing weight of the last eight years. It just... happened, and while that's obviously one of the best things that's ever happened to me, it does present a few problems. Like, who exactly am I now and how do I go about becoming the woman I want to be??

I guess it doesn't help that I was an awkward thirteen-year-old when the spiral started. I hadn't had time to figure out who I was before the dark clouds took my life. And now here I am, twenty-one and totally unsure of my identity and I hate being unsure of things. I like knowing where I stand in situations. It's why attraction is a weird concept for me (and we'll get to that later in this post, unfortunately that's decided to be a problem for me again) and why being around volatile people is bad for me. And why I'm now in this very weird place that, for the life of me, I cannot find any solutions to.

Thing is, I know who I want to be someday. That's progress. I have an end goal... which, because a lot of it rests on things I have absolutely no control over, will probably take years to happen. It's the waiting that kills me, the disaster of not knowing who I need to be in the meantime. If things play in my favor, I'm pretty sure of who I'll need to be in five years. Right now, on the other hand?? Not a clue.

There are good things about this place I'm in, though. One of the best ones is that at this point in my life, my great priority is myself. In the future, when I find my Person and we (hopefully) have tiny humans, that won't be an option. From what little experience I've had, the way I love is very sacrificial, and I will drop everything when given reason enough. I don't think my darling is going to know what hit them, honestly. So maybe it's good that I have this blank time, because I can do silly things for me and it's okay. I can be interested in fashion and makeup and spend a little too much money on those things now and it's okay. I'm doing it for me, because while my confidence is definitely internal, I want to be pretty. I want to be noticed and remembered. And right now, it's okay.

If anything, the fashion thing is freeing for me. I've never had any huge insecurities about my body - a miracle considering that one of the soundtracks of my teenage years was my mother's epic series of well-intentioned but doomed-from-the-start "diets" - but I definitely did not think of myself as attractive until recently. Call it a side-effect of growing up around a lot of traditionally pretty blonde chicks (and living with one, gah). I have a perfect hourglass shape and that did not register with me at all until like six months ago. Add in the fact that I'm normally very low-maintenance and... really, the fact that I'm consciously trying to develop a Look is a bit surprising. But it's happening, slowly, and I'm liking the results. After some brainstorming with one of my friends, who is very supportive of this project, I decided on "postapoc warrior fairy princess" as what I'm aiming for. It's a bit weird on paper; in reality, it's a lot of layers and neutral // earth colors and pretty basic pieces. More importantly, it reflects who I'm trying to be. I'm sick of invisibility. I want to be remembered, and this is a step forward.

I mentioned attraction a little earlier as part of this current whatever-this-is, and... yeah, that kinda happened. I'm fluttery for about the first time in a year, and without saying too much (because this hit three days ago and I am panicking and also the other person barely knows I exist soooo), it's very different from the other times I've fluttered. I don't know this one all that well - we've known each other in passing for years, as people do in small communities and smaller social circles, but I am 95% sure we've never actually talked - but I have hope. This one, from what little I know about them, is everything my little heart has ever longed for. And, more importantly at the moment, this one is getting handled differently. In the past, I've been too assertive with my affections - which was just as well, got the heartbreaks over with that much quicker, but it's still something that apparently intimidates most guys. This time, I'm trying not to go there. Getting on radar is one thing, and a few initiations are possible, but I have no expectations and no plans. There's definitely the part of my brain that kicks in at times like this and says that guys like that never notice girls like me, but exceptions happen. Human beings don't always follow the usual script. A girl can hope, and I am letting myself have this too because even if nothing comes of it, even if I am invisible once again, I am letting my heart run where it will and following my instincts where they lead me. And it's okay.

Song of the day - "Shine", Vienna Teng.

On Liking Things (Things I Didn't Learn In The Bubble, episode one)

Or, "sometimes it's okay to let things in".

A couple of months ago, I did this post on being too jaded for my own good (okay, it was also about how snow brings out the worst in everyone, but there was that element too). While that statement is still accurate, I'm realizing that maybe it isn't as accurate as it used to be. I still expect the worst out of people, but there are a whole lot of lovely things in my life that don't involve direct human contact. And then I got to thinking that it might be cool to do a series of connected posts that don't involve me overanalyzing an underrated TV show, and thus "Things I Didn't Learn In The Bubble" was born. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with it, but there are some very important life lessons that I didn't learn until I started spreading my wings and this could be a good chance for me to work through it.

Today's installment - it's okay to like things.

I know, this should be instinctive. To someone who has a more normal background, it probably is. For me, it was a realization that has taken place over several years and finally, finally I am accepting it. (2015 is turning into the year of me accepting things and I love it.) And, strangely, this has happened because of a cute little radio earworm. If by some chance you have not heard the absolute wonder that is "Uptown Funk", please go here and watch the vid (which is pretty awesome and that from the perspective of someone who normally doesn't like music videos that don't involve a certain redheaded goddess, but that is another rabbit trail). You can open it in another tab and go on with whatever else you're doing - trust me, you only need to listen to it once, it will be stuck in your head for at least a week. Consider yourself warned.

So what does a catchy dancey pop song have to do with a major personal realization, you ask? Simple - because it's the latest example of me trying not to like things for no particular reason.

One of the main principles of the community I grew up in is that normal = bad. This has manifested in a lot of ways and I have neither time nor energy to list all of them, but the main way involved media consumption. (Admittedly, certain people have calmed down a lot since I was a tiny, but the general awfulness is still there.) If it was not Explicitly Christian, it was bad. Period. On paper, not such a bad idea... until you remember that there are impressionable tinies and catty middle-aged women involved and my mother routinely got called a bad parent because she let my siblings and I watch Disney movies. (Conversely, nobody batted an eyelash when my then-six-year-old sister could fluently quote LOTR despite the fact that she had nightmares about Gollum in our closet for years. Double standards, thy name is modern evangelical Christianity.) After that snafu, my family in particular practiced a duplicity that, while obviously not an ideal scenario for any parties involved, at least kept reputations intact. Mostly.

Unfortunately, this all occurred during the glory days of crime shows in the early/mid-2000s. My dad has never held to the same strict media standards (see also - how then-six-year-old sister ended up watching a certain trilogy in the first place), and for a couple of years, he loved CSI. Now, had anyone we knew at the time ever found out about this, there would've been canaries. Same went for the absolute glory that was Alias, which in hindsight was the first TV show I ever got attached to. Was it appropriate viewing for a ten-year-old? Your mileage may vary, but it didn't screw me up in any notable ways so not exactly a disaster there. Did it contribute to my total inability to talk media with anyone in a face-to-face setting? Yes.

Then my freshman year of high school happened. That's one of the years that a lot of my various issues and tendencies trace back to, and with good reason. First, it was the year I was allowed to read what I wanted because my mother was preoccupied with other stuff and couldn't be bothered to check everything. Now, being as socially inept as I was during those years, I basically inhaled books. This also happened in late 2007, around the beginning of YA futuristics being a Major Thing. Thankfully, by now I had learned to keep my trap shut. Reading what I wanted was all well and good, but telling anyone about it? Nah. My suicidal inclinations still had a few years of development left. I behaved.

Music also became a part of the problem in the same year. Previously, my auditory delights had been limited to the genres of classical, Christian, and jazz (don't ask). That door wasn't consciously opened, but I still remember the first "normal" album I bought - How To Save A Life by The Fray. Seven years later, I still like that album, so it was a good call on my end. (Maybe not the most normal choice for a fourteen-year-old girl, but the title song was all too relevant following the death of my birthmom and I was a morbid little creature and I swear it made sense at the time.) Music, I didn't need to be told not to talk about. I could listen to what I wanted and use it as inspo for my little stories, but God help me if anyone from our homeschool group found out!!

For years, the duplicity continued. I liked things, but I liked them quietly. There were a few exceptions - my high school graduation, for instance, for which I picked Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" as my slideshow song (had I known they would cut it at the two-minute mark, I actually would've done something even more out-there) - but it was my double life. When I got into TV again a few years ago, that too remained something I didn't talk about, not even the shows that have heavily impacted me for the better. But lately, I've gotten really sick of that.

I am allowed to like things, dammit. I am allowed to be amused by things that don't have a lasting impact. I am allowed to sing along at the top of my lungs to a harmless dancey radio song for no reason other than that because I like it. There's nothing wrong with me. I know that some of what I like has problematic elements (and I hate that phrase but I can't think of a better one), but I'm careful. I know what affects me and I'm careful with that stuff. But mostly... I'm okay. I'm immune. I'm allowed to have fun.

And hey, if my version of fun involves rolling the functional window down on my car and feeling on top of the world for a few minutes, I don't think I'm doing all that badly.

Song of the day - "Uptown Funk (featuring Bruno Mars)", Mark Ronson.

On Wanting Counterbalance

Or, "I talk a lot about relationships for someone who's never actually been in one".

One of the few good things about being single, if there even are any good things, is that it gives one a lot of time to contemplate things. That's part of why this blog happened in the first place (that and the fact that my mother was starting to get sick of listening to these rants). And one of the things I've realized more and more is that I know exactly what I need in an eventual endgame Person. Only problem is, it's not something that'll be easy to find.

Another great thing about not having my Person yet is it gives me too much time to overanalyze media. More specifically, what I'm drawn to and why. One of the things I've spent time on over about the last year is the concept of parallel girls - fictional ladies I see myself in all too well. And one of the interesting facets of that is that I seem to ship those ladies with a very specific type.

(Interlude for those of you who don't play on the fandom side of the internet: shipping = as the name suggests, liking the romantic relationship between two characters. Said characters don't have to actually have that sort of relationship in the source material, but most of the ships that have contributed to the material that follows are canon, which means that they do.)

Really, I go for this sort of thing regardless of whether or not the lady is actually a parallel girl for me. Counterbalance ships - pairings where the two characters balance each other out almost perfectly - have been my great weakness ever since I first got involved in fandoms when I was a little babybug. They're so interesting. And over the last few months, I've realized and accepted that the reason I find that dynamic so appealing in fiction is because it's what I'm aiming for in real life. And finally, finally, I am accepting that.

This, I realize now that I'm not trying to avert it, is why online dating does not work for me. Online dating, from my on-and-off experiences with it, is about matching people who have a lot in common. For me, this is a problem. I don't want to be with someone who's just like me. If anything, I want someone wildly different. I want someone who I will never fully understand and who I will always be fascinated by. And I want them to see the same in me.

In some ways, I'm pretty sure that's weird. In some ways, I'm probably making my own journey harder. But honestly, I'm not sure I care.

I want the sort of love that I idealize, quiet and passionate and sacrificial. I am at peace with the idea of often needing to reassure my Person that they are enough for me, because they will be even on the days they don't see it. I'm not expecting things to be easy - I know myself, I know that's not going to happen. But still I want, and still I wait.

Song of the day - "Everything Has Changed (featuring Ed Sheeran)", Taylor Swift.

On Scarlett, part one

Or, "how a character I created became my own best inspiration to keep fighting".

The end is near... sorta. I made myself do an outline, even though I hate outlines, and I now know exactly how Scarlett Ember is ending and exactly what I have to do to finish it. And, because I've made this awesome progress, I figure I might as well let myself write about why that project is important to me and why, four years after I originally created her, Scarlett Evans is still the coolest character I've ever written.

Like a lot of the brainpests that have been around for a while, Scarlett originated on an RP site. For a few years, long-post message-board roleplays were the main writing I did (I'm not sure why I walked away from that cold but that is a thing that happened). There are several characters with those origins that I need to use in things eventually, because a lot of them meant things to me, but Scarlett... well. Scarlett was created midway through my senior year of highschool on a site based loosely off of a concept album by a band I wasn't even sure I liked at the time. But it was still a post-apoc site, and I had a ridiculous weakness for those, and then I looked at the canon list (in normal-speak, ideas of characters who had connections to other characters) and saw a face I already wanted to use and I was absolutely done for. (My recurrent Florence Welch situation is a subject for another day -- trust me, that's a post in and of itself.) And not only did the character have a good face, but her setup was awesome and thus one of the best things that ever happened to me was born.

Initially, Scarlett was an ideal version of myself. I'd created characters who were vaguely based off myself before - one in particular, a sixteen-year-old terror child, still stands out - but Scarlett was more who I wanted to be. Scarlett was twenty-seven, the leader of one of the main groups, a certified badass, and prone to wearing pretty dresses and stilettos while still being totally awesome. Scarlett was also deeply insecure, in love with someone who refused to see her, and just a little too impulsive for her own good. But thing was, even with the established flaws, people loved her. Even with the fact that she was prone to doing things that weren't exactly Good Ideas, Scarlett was the most beloved character on the site (at least in 'verse, the OOC antics on that site were legendary and again there's too much material there for this post). And that gave me strength. Most of Scarlett's most amazing moments in that world - and I have them saved on my laptop somewhere because they were that good - were written during my depressive spiral. Even when I was an absolute wreck, I had that outlet. More than any other character I ever wrote during my RP era, Scarlett was cathartic. She was everything I aspired to be, and yet most of that was attainable, and I clung hard.

By the end of the first year, Scarlett had claimed her own little corner of my brain. This was mainly because of her fashion sense - especially in her earlier incarnations, she liked glitter a lot. To this day, when I need to buy a dress for an event, one of the first thoughts that runs through my mind is "what would Scarlett wear for this thing?". I normally proceed to buy the exact opposite, because see above comment about glitter, but it's still a fun mental process. And by the time she died on the site, I was pretty sure she was the most important thing I was ever going to create.

This was before the concept of parallel girls had occurred to me, before I really had anything to cling to. I read a lot of books, but none of the girls in them were like me. I was, for starters, a hell of a lot tinier (lead girls in YA futuristics are always petite for some reason and it annoys me). I was pretty sure I'd never get one person to fall in love with me, let alone two at roughly the same time! And maybe most importantly, I didn't want to stay alive solely on my own venom. This was where Scarlett saved me. Scarlett, 5'8" (yes, the same height as me, shuddup) and comfortable wearing heels and honestly screw anyone who had a problem with that because she had better things to worry about. Scarlett, who spent the better part of a decade pining after the same person and eventually got him because turned out the problem was he was a little overwhelmed by her. Scarlett, who was so full of love for everyone - maybe to varying extents, but still so much more love than hate. I couldn't find an existent role model I wanted, so I created my own.

The funny thing is that almost exactly four years after her original creation, even though she's finally decided to behave herself in a totally different original project, Scarlett hasn't changed much. She's calmed down a little bit over the years, but that's about it. She's still vibrant, vocal, full of love, and prone to wearing too many sequins. Personality-wise, she's still everything I want to be, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I'm not as cool as her, and I probably never will be, but that's okay. I've seen a lot of people who write say something to the effect of "if this story impacts one person, it'll all be worth it". Well, mission accomplished.

Song of the day - "Summertime", My Chemical Romance.

On Bad Timing

Or, "I hate Valentine's Day for REASONS".

I was on promo setup at work this past week. For those of you who have never worked retail (or perhaps know this nightmare by a different name), promo setup is a seasonal ritual that involves a lot of charts and a lot of product that isn't on any of the charts. It also involves the entire department being passive-aggressive, someone inevitably bribing us with food, and (at least the now-three times I've been on it) my fear of heights being a huge problem (I do not trust the little stepladders at work one bit). On the bright side, this time I did not get myself sent home early because I nearly passed out. (That was how I got out of the Halloween exercise this past year. I could not stand upright and consuming a decent quantity of sugar did not help and eventually I need to figure out why that keeps happening to me but the key word there is eventually.) Not so bright side, I've been in some variation of flashback mode for the last forty-eight hours and... needless to say, that sucks.

Again, this is another post about the Vulcan (who now officially gets a tag here because apparently this is something I am still majorly processing). I know, I know. I have emotionally moved on and I need to write about stuff that isn't my disastrous attempt at first love, and yet... it still affects a lot. It still explains a lot. And until I have the chance to rewire myself and make better memories involving my misguided affectionate heart, I'm going to keep writing about that dingbat and the effect he had on me.

So... timing-wise, this part of that story starts in November 2011, the month in which I made one of my top five worst decisions ever (random fact - I don't actually have a list for that other than knowing that this incident is on it) and let him back in. I actually had no control over how that happened. We ran into each other at a thing, we got put in the same spaces during that thing, we ended up talking in a hallway for over an hour, and... at some point, one of my mother's friends saw this and her little heart just melted. I know this because approximately a week later, my mother "confronted" me about it. This, if you're keeping score, is probably one of the top five weirdest things she has ever done. Apparently she was all melty over it too because she knew darn well who that boy was and how good a person he was compared to me (this turned out to be untrue but we didn't know it then) and it was so sweet that he was voluntarily talking to me!! The fact that we'd been friends in some form for a year and this was the first she was hearing of it did not matter one bit. This was my mother in flail mode, and boy was that a fun month or so for me.

Point being, I fell for him again. I fell for him because I am perpetually attention-desperate and I wanted to prove to him that I could absolutely be what I needed. And again, for a few sweet months, we were functional. Then February 2012 happened and it all went right to hell again.

I'd actually figured it out a week before I actually found out. In general, if someone posts song lyrics on Facebook, they are implying something that they themselves are sucking at finding the right words for. At some point during the first week of February, the Vulcan posted lines from "Collide" by Howie Day. If you've never heard that song, click here because despite what follows, I still think it's a beautiful song. It's just... very, very sappy. It is not a song that a single person posts lyrics from, ever. So, from that little cue alone, I figured out that the Vulcan had a girlfriend or something. This did not rest well on my vulnerable eighteen-year-old heart. I was still convinced I was in love with him, and people I was in love with were not supposed to do things like this!! But that, it turned out, was not even the worst of what happened.

Fast-forward to February 13. I remember the date very clearly, which is never a good thing considering how codawful my memory tends to be with most things. February fricking 13th. It was a Monday, too, because adding insult to injury and all that jazz. Completely normal day until I sat down with my laptop and the Vulcan and I started having one of our convos. At this point, that happened maybe once or twice a week and it would mostly be about things that happened to us. Well, this was definitely a Thing That Happened. Being the hopeless-romantic idiot that I was, I had somehow convinced myself thtat the day before fricking Valentine's Day was the perfect time to tell him that I still fancied him. And then the bomb dropped.

He. Had. A. Girlfriend.

I would learn later that the girl in question was a petite blonde pixie who may or may not have been slightly emotionally manipulative. This reveal, however, would not happen until after she broke up with him after two months. (Also turns out that getting ditched in favor of emotionally manipulative blonde pixies is something that always ends up happening to me. As of writing this, the Vulcan is the first of four people who's done that to me, and out of those, I am only on speaking terms with one.) And at the time, it didn't matter who she was. I had been two seconds from reminding him that I loved him, but that apparently meant nothing now because he was with someone else.

In hindsight, even with all the other awfulness I've survived, no betrayal has ever stung quite as much as that one.

We could've been good for each other. That was what I told myself so many times in the months that followed. And with who we were when we were eighteen, that was still an accurate statement. I do realize now that it wouldn't have lasted as a long-term thing. We were too similar in some ways and too different in others and it just wouldn't have worked. But as a short fluttery disaster of a relationship, we could've meant something. We could've saved each other. But he chose someone else, and I shut off further, and none of that mattered.

So when people ask me why I don't like Valentine's Day, it's not just because I'm 21 and single and basically everyone else I know is in love. It's because like it or not, for the rest of my life, that "holiday" will always be associated with something painful. And like it or not, I'm still not totally over it.

Song of the day - "Antebellum", Vienna Teng.

On Not Wanting To Die Anymore

Or, "I'm definitely at the tail end of this depression thing and it's so weird to think of who I'm gonna be when it actually ends".

I wrote suicide fic today for the first time in roughly a year. Well, technically not fic - it was going to be, because a throwaway line in something I read a few days ago got my brain spinning, but then I decided it was too much angst to inflict on that side of that fandom and turned it into an original thing instead. It's actually more painful in that form, which is not something I thought would be possible but here we are. I mean, I dunno if it'll have that effect on anyone who ultimately reads the piece, but it hurt me to write it. And that, in turn, has me realizing a few things I wasn't expecting about my own journey and what's next for me.

I was diagnosed with depression at age eighteen. I probably should've been diagnosed when I was quite a few years younger - high school was not a good era for me, and in hindsight I probably developed everything by about age fifteen - but that didn't happen because of my mother. I know I make her look like a terrible person on here, and I swear she isn't, but I've been more affected by her "eccentricities" than my siblings have been. The one in play here was her deep desire to be considered acceptable by the people we know. (She's since begun to get over that, but as of when all my issues started manifesting, I was pretty sure she never would.) Keep in mind that I originated in super-religious homeschool-bubble hell. With the people I know in particular, mental illness is not something that's talked about. Ever. It's one of those "if we don't talk about it then it can't happen to any of our kids" things, on about the same level as the sexual orientation umbrella and underage pregnancy. (The umbrella is a story for another day, but as far as I know, no one who grew up in that community has gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Yet.) Honestly, I was a victim of circumstances here. I didn't know what I was feeling beyond that it sucked, and yet I knew better than to tell anyone. Weird dichotomy, but at the same time totally normal at that point.

The reason I finally did get diagnosed was the fallout of my first heartbreak. I've already written about the Vulcan, so I'm not going to do a detailed recap here, but sufficient to say, I did not know how to handle being turned down and did the bad-human thing and intentionally fed those feelings and... cut to two months after the heartbreak, me curled up in the fetal position in a bathroom during a church event of some sort, trying to figure out if there was any possible way to hurt myself and make it all stop. Even my mother couldn't ignore something on that scale. We both knew I could keep quiet (as I did for a while until I got sick of social taboos // my nonexistent verbal filter got the better of me once more). We both knew what it'd do to her reputation if I did successfully off myself. Getting help was finally the right answer.

I was in counseling for a while. My former speech coach knew someone (weird how that connection worked out, less weird considering the bridge woman probably called my issues two or three years earlier) and that was an interesting year or so of self-discovery. Didn't fix anything, but we did learn quite a bit about my fears and exactly how dysfunctional certain elements of my life were so that was fun.

More effectively, I got put on meds. I was medicated for a little under three years, and I will never fault anyone who needs that to stay alive and functional. It worked for me. It also gave me really bad headaches and upped my sex drive, which is apparently such a rare side effect that it isn't on the lists (apparently most people on antidepressants have zero physical desire; I was a hormonal nightmare and boy was that a fun convo to have with my doctor). And then there were the crying episodes. The crying episodes are why I stopped taking meds, because I had them while I was on three different things and it just got worse and I couldn't deal with it. Better to fight my demons on my own without any chemical help than to go through that again.

During this cycle, I read a lot about what I was dealing with. I made sure I was labeled with the right things. I know way more than I actually need to know about how depression works and how people get through it (or don't). I know that more likely than not, I will have several more dark periods at different points in my life, and I know how to handle them when they happen. I know how to take care of myself. But the thing about something as big as the desperate desire to just make everything stop is that after a while, it defines you. I didn't mean for that to happen, but eventually I got to the point where when I chose to tell someone why I acted the way I did, they weren't surprised. About a year ago, when I interviewed for my current job, I mentioned my mental health issues just to warn them that there would be days when I wouldn't be as consistent as usual because I was too busy trying to stay alive. It became my primary identifier - Depressed Girl. I didn't even mind.

Lately, though, things have been better. Screw it, things are a lot better. I don't want to die anymore, and I'm not sure how or why that clicked. It's not like I have anything going for me at the moment. I am completely ordinary. I have no friends in the face-to-face world (internet friends are amazing but sadly unhelpful here). I have no romantic prospects. I'm drowning in loneliness and disappointment. And yet, somewhere out there is something worth living for. I dunno what that something is yet. I know in my heart that there's someone out there who's going to love me even when I lapse again (and I'm not expecting much more than a warm body next to mine, I do not have high standards, that'd be enough I swear), but waiting sucks and knowing my luck, it's gonna be a few years. (I mean, obviously I would love to meet my Person ASAP, but with things as they are, the odds of anyone acceptable wandering into my life anytime soon are tiny.) I know I'm gonna have kids someday and I'm gonna be an excellent mother. But... I dunno, that isn't what's bringing me out of this. I'm not sure what is, but it's nice. Just needs to hurry up and define itself.

I don't want to die anymore. Six very powerful words. I'm moving forward, and I dunno what that means but it's going to be beautiful. I just need to... y'know, figure out who I am without the depressive cloud over me. Because honestly, I don't know. I don't know who I am anymore. The thing about developing something like this when you're a young kid is that when it finally stops, you don't exactly have anything to run back to. There's not that linear perfect restart point. There's nothing, and... it freaks me out. A lot. Because I have to start over, and I don't know who I want to become or how to do that, and I hate uncertainty more than anything. I wish there was a guide for doing this, getting your life back and becoming a person again, but... there isn't. I'm not that lucky. Guess I just have to wing it.

Song of the day - "The Whisperer", Sia // David Guetta.

On Not Being Enough

Or, "all of my fears are completely justifiable and I hate it".

I have a grand total of four conscious fears - heights (I am too tall for that problem and yet--), small spaces (mostly elevators but someone nearly accidentally shut me into a dark supply closet at work a few months ago and that's the most traumatic thing that's happened to me all year), getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work (very specific I know but I swear to god, that parking lot is the convergence of every bad driver in the Tri-State and I do not want to die there), aaaand never being good enough for anyone. There's a pattern here, I swear. Heights - the defining moment was on a vacation to Washington D.C. the summer I turned fifteen, in the Washington Monument because I swear that thing was designed to help people consciously realise their fears. Small spaces - series of things, the closet incident at work being the most recent (I'm not that tiny and unnoticeable, and the other person did apologize, but still). Getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work - people around here can't fricking drive, I have seen less idiots in locations that are supposedly hell in that regard (Chicago suburbs, totally overrated as far as asshole drivers), and yet for some reason it is just that one particular parking lot where I've nearly gotten hit on multiple occasions. Never being good enough for anyone... well, that's a bit more complicated.

I'm pretty sure the origin of this fear is that my dad comes from a long line of perfectionists. As far as we know, this is a genetic defect, which means I'm safe because being adopted does have a few perks, but... yeah. Not only that, but even the family members who don't have that personality flaw are musically gifted. And, to top that off, my dad has a comparatively tame version of what I've come to refer to as Military Personality Type. (My mom and I didn't know this was the tame version until I was about 14, but that is another post.) Military Personality Type is... well, if you don't know someone who has it, I can't really explain it to you but I swear it's a thing. And sufficient to say, that combination of personality traits was not exactly the best thing for a young kid to grow up around. I mean, my dad's a decent person. I learned my driving habits and my full repertoire of profanity from him (often at the same time), and he genuinely tries. Just... not a good pressurey situation. But, as with everything else in my life, it got worse when I turned 14.

Switching homeschool groups based on location is probably the weirdest thing my mother has ever done, and that includes the time when I was nine and what was supposed to be a ten-minute drive home turned into an hour-and-a-half detour because Mom made one wrong turn, didn't know she'd made a wrong turn, and by the time we did figure this out, we were a county north of where we'd started. For those of you who don't know, Hamilton County is pretty big, so this was an accomplishment. This led to my parents getting cell phones for Christmas that year, and a few years later we got a GPS with my dad's airline miles (which is another story, srsly), and... yeah. Rambling. Sufficient to say, this one little decision five years later had about the same fallout - one little mistake leading to a bunch of weird, unexpected, and generally awful consequences. Except that this time, not for the person who made said decision.

The amount of elitists one runs into in homeschool circles is amazing. I did speech comp for three years - trust me on this, you will never find a higher concentration of pretentious teenagers who are going to get hit hard by the normal world in a couple of years and deserve every bit of that. But speech comp, at least, mostly involved people who could learn from their mistakes. The local co-op we were involved in? Not so much. I still know all of the girls of my era, and I at least keep tabs on the boys via Facebook (it's amusing okay?), and they have all just intensified from where they were in high school. More often than not, this is not a compliment.

So what does this have to do with my insecurities, you ask? Very simple - because nothing will ruin a teenage girl like primarily being around other teenage girls who are all very good at something she is not good at. In this case, unsurprisingly, that thing was music. I cannot play an instrument. Several rounds of piano lessons were attempted over the years, and I tried clarinet for about a year until orthodontia killswitched that idea. The other girls of my era either played multiple instruments or just did one but were exceptionally good at it to compensate. Presumably, I could've compensated for this if my singing voice was good, but that also did not happen. I am very solidly an alto. For those of you who are not musically inclined, religious music is not written for altos. Choir music is definitely not written for altos. Take, say, "Carol Of The Bells" - let's use that example because I've had that on the brain lately (mainly because of a TV ep I watched a few weeks ago that used it interestingly, but that is not a story I am posting here) and because it's a fairly simple four-part song. (Also, because it's a yearly ritual in the community choir I was in.) The sopranos and the tenors get the interesting parts, as per usual. The basses do what they always do, for better or for worse. The altos... are just there. Completely normal. And what were the rest of the girls of my era? Second sopranos. Aka, y'know, the most obnoxious group in any choir. Just... trust me.

And here's the thing - nobody ever told me I wasn't good enough. They didn't need to. It was implied in ways more damaging than words could ever be.

It was implied in all of the activities I was "accidentally" left out of in high school.

It was implied in my mother's constant insecurities about the fact that I wasn't boy-crazy (the fact that she knew darn well what boys I knew and still thought it was weird I wasn't flinging myself at anyone remains one of the great mysteries of my teenage years).

It was implied in all the condescending comments whenever I said that I didn't want to get married or have kids (this has changed but the scars remain).

It was implied in all of the people who told me I'd prolly get married young as cosmic payback for everything (yet here I am, no nearer to that fate than I was five years ago when they thought it was so cute).

It's been implied in all of the times my mother has had to be "creative" when talking with her friends about what everyone's adult children are up to, because "she quit college and works in a shop and is supposedly working on several novels" just doesn't sound acceptable.

No one ever had to tell me I was good enough. I just knew. And at this point, it's in my blood.

I haven't had a lot of genuine friendships and I dunno how to change that. I've never been in functional reciprocated love. But someday these will change. Someday I will be good enough. And someday, someday I will stick it to everyone who ever made me think I wasn't. It's going to be a journey, but so help me, I will get there. I have to. It's either that or death, and I'm not at the cute age to be a tragedy.

On What I Did In 2014

Or, "someday I will look back and this will be one of the good years".

I know it's a little early to be doing a year-end reflection post. 2014 doesn't technically end for another two and a half weeks, and it's entirely plausible that something could happen in that time that will change everything. Key word there, though, is "plausible". I've been through enough this year, and if by some chance I have to retcon half of this... so be it. That doesn't change that this year has been important for me. I've done a lot of things, I've made trackable progress, and I can solidly say that I am a much better person now than I was this time a year ago. 2014 was the year I started doing things for me and finding symbolism in little things, and it is important. So, without further adieu, here's what I did this year:

• I got my second-ever "proper" job and, almost a year later, I still like working there. Not that it's an ideal situation, but it's something that fits what I need and that I can make work for me. If I need to go hide in the bathroom for a little while because I'm episoding or because I feel physically sick, I can do that and no one gives a damn (I'm pretty sure no one even notices but I could be wrong). I'm around enough people for my depression to feed off, but genuine instances of human stupidity are comparatively rare. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick around there for a while.

• I shaved my head on New Year's Eve because I make bad life choices when it's late at night and I'm bored (another example: roughly half of the fanfic I've written this year) and it was one of the most freeing things I've ever done. I put my hair into a good ponytail today for the first time since then, which I guess confirms that my hair grows fast. I got rid of it as a symbol of this being my rebirth year, and I'm growing it long now because I can. I want to be able to do pretty braids and updos, and I'm absolutely going to as soon as I have the material for 'em.

• I learned to shamelessly like things without overthinking them. I don't always need to have big reasons for my preferred media choices, especially music. I can like things just because they're fun or because they're good writing inspo. I can sing along to the trashier side of Lana Del Rey's repertoire and not feel bad about myself. It's pretty awesome.

• I made friends with a lot of awesome people online and started cutting ties with a lot of awful people in the face-to-face world. It's a slow process and one that's definitely continuing into 2015, but I'm finally drawing my lines and not allowing space in my life for toxic people, no matter how good their intentions may be. I don't need to be around people who make me feel worthless or deficient because of things that are beyond my control. I'm a better person than that, and I'm starting to act like it.

• I fluttered for someone and, once again, got my little heart broken. But this time, it's all too easy to see why it was a bad idea. We could've been good friends, were for a little while, but the other person let their stubbornness win and that's their problem, not mine. They're still unfairly pretty (and highly unlikely to read this so I regret nothing), but thank you, darling, for confirming why I don't trust pretty people. They'll only ever hurt me, and this one was no exception. Bright side, I handled this heartbreak really well and didn't have any major episodes because of it. I don't think I even really cried over them. I'm getting better at reconciling my hopeless-romantic inclinations with what actually happens to me.

• I quit taking antidepressants and decided I like myself a lot better when I'm not on them. I was medicated for nearly three years and that was good for me, but I get less headaches now and I'm more passionate. I fully approve of anyone who does choose to be on meds, but at this point in my life, that's not what I need. I have enough coping mechs right now. Not sure how long it'll last, but I'm trying.

• I watched a lot of TV, prolly too much in hindsight, but three shows impacted me in important ways. One helped me make sense of my relationship with my mother, one shaped my sense of what community ought to be, and one inspired me to start letting go of my past and become something better. The effects of the last one in particular are also likely to be a theme in 2015, and I'm probably going to write another post on the parallel-girl thing there in about a week (once my brain processes the midseason finale).

• As mentioned above, I developed the concept of parallel girls - fictional ladies I identify with way more than I should. The two I currently have each came from one of the shows mentioned above, and it's been a pretty awesome coping mech. If my parallel girls could get through their challenges - and both of 'em had those in spades - then I can get through mine.

• I went to six weddings and had crying breakdowns at five of them. Weddings just screw with my emotional state, and I imagine it'll be a lot worse in the future when people I actually care about start getting married. As it was... I can't help being jealous, especially of the two girls who got married this year who are younger than me, but I did behave myself. I looked cute at all of them, although the only people who noticed were middle-aged women (seriously, whomever said weddings are great for single people can burn in hell because that does not work). I didn't pick fights with anyone (came really close at one but I do not take any responsibility for that person's issues). I was fine.

• I got one story published this year, which I know isn't great but hey, it's my second earned credit and I need those. Funny thing is how that one originated... out of all the stuff I've written, it figures that the piece that originated with a friend and I having a convo about what we thought really happened after a particular TV show ended is the one that found a home this year. The world is weird like that.

• I listened to a lot of music -- like, that's almost an understatement, 2014 was a good year for stuff I like. If I had to pick one song to define this year, Brooke Fraser's "Je Suis Pret" would be it. Deciding that I adore her music despite how I first heard of her was a good life choice. Other contenders are Sia's "Chandelier" (I love that Sia is a Major Thing now 'cause I've been listening to her for years and she's fascinating and 1000 Forms Of Fear is fascinating and you should go listen to it if you haven't) and Mary Lambert's "Heart On My Sleeve" (Mary Lambert is a gift to humanity and I am jealous of how darn cute she is). And not to mention a bunch of stuff that doesn't necessarily fit where I am but is still really, really good.

• I did a lot of self-eval, mainly on why certain fictional things appeal to me, and learned a lot about myself and how my brain works and how I handle things. I function in patterns, and that's not a bad thing.

• I embraced my vulnerabilities and my flaws and began learning how to function around them. I cry too much, I have no verbal filter (and even less of one when my fingers are on the keyboard), I'm a hopeless romantic and an idealist at times despite my natural pessimism, I have nonexistent tolerance for human stupidity, and none of that is inherently bad. The problem is whether or not I put up enough effort to use those things to my benefit, and that's one of the things I need to work on in 2015.

• I started reclaiming my voice. Compared to the other girls of my era, my musical abilities suck, and for a long time I let that stop me. Not anymore. I've been writing songs and finding a lot of strength in that, in my quiet defiance. I can't sing irritating church music, because it's written for women with borderline-canine vocal ranges, but I can do my stuff. I can do things that mean something to me. Now, what I'm gonna do with that remains to be seen, but... I'll figure something out.

Overall, there was more good than bad this year. I made progress. I am brave and I am becoming a better person and here's to 2015 being more of the same. (In a few days, I'll try to do a goals post, but... we'll see. Fingers crossed I don't eff that up?)

Song of the day - "This Love", Taylor Swift.

On First Love

Or, "if I'm gonna set everything on fire, I might as well reveal the series of events that first pushed me in that direction".

December is one of those months for me. Y'know, that sacred time of year when absolutely nothing goes right no matter what I do, when all hell breaks loose on a regular basis and I have no control over any of it. This pattern was first established during the two years in which the holiday season was clouded by death (thankfully my birthmum's funeral wasn't until January and all of that was handled very well; my aunt, a year later... not so much). But the event that sealed December as my yearly month of horrors happened when I was seventeen. I fell in love for the first time, and four years later, I'm still not totally over it. Every year around this time, I forget that the person I generally refer to as the Vulcan isn't just a prick, he's a whole darn cactus of issues. Even though I still consciously know that. Well, hopefully writing out that story - properly, in a place and form that people who were on the fringes and can guess who he was will be able to see - will prevent that from happening this year. Fingers crossed.

I'd actually met him a year earlier than that, under interesting circumstances. I did speech and debate competitions in high school - no, scratch that, I did speech comp exclusively except for one practice tournament my junior year when my friend's brother had a scheduling conflict and she needed a debate partner and I am easily talked into things. Enter the Vulcan (it would be years before he got this codename, but let's use it from the beginning here for consistency). Our first round was against him and one of the little mouse-boys that were half of our region. Mouse-boy didn't matter, didn't do much, I can't even remember who he was anymore. The Vulcan, on the other hand... sixteen-year-old me took one look at him and decided he was going to die. I didn't even know his name at that point and I wanted to end him. The closest I got was nearly hitting him several hours later, completely by accident because badly designed hallways and I talk with my hands and he just happened to be walking by. (He thought it was intentional and spent the entire weekend wondering what he'd done to annoy me. Answer - he existed. That was enough.)

A year passed. If anything, I became a worse person over said year. But then, first tournament of senior year, I saw him again and I woke up. He was nice to me, which in hindsight was exactly how this became a problem. In general, guys were not nice to me at that point in my life - most of 'em were either terrified or just flat ignored me. This one, for some reason that I still do not understand four years later, did neither of those things. He offered advice on how to do a content warning on one of my pieces (I completely ignored this and continued to perform said piece without telling anyone in advance that it ended with me miming self-harm), he looked at me like I existed and was valid, and... I was utterly done for by the time I added him on FB two days later.

At this point, I would not have described myself as a romantic. Oh, fictional love stories were the best thing ever and I'd already done quite a bit of fluffy fanfic, but real life was a different beastie. I was pretty sure I'd never seen a functional relationship. I was even more sure that marriage and children were the exact opposite of what I wanted. (Quiet rebellion against the Bubble, in hindsight, but also where I was as a person.) I had not consciously crushed on anyone before, and my one attempt at flirting with someone had ended in me learning exactly how far and fast I could run in heels because I'd lost all ability to speak. I was not fated to fall in love. But then I did, and it remains the singular most questionable decision of my little life.

My knowledge of how attraction worked verged on the nonexistent. My mother, who I would later learn had a range of experiences to back up this belief, gave me the "girls and boys can never be just friends" and "boys will only ever take advantage of you" speeches and that was about it. I'd watched the scenario play out a year previously, when one of my least favorite people in the world had a relationship with another friend's brother, ended it suddenly and dramatically, and caused the poor darling to have what we are all still pretty sure was a minor emotional breakdown. So, being the misinformed innocent that I was, I believed that the reason the Vulcan was playing nice with me was because he wanted me. Which was admittedly confusing because he had status within our mutual circle and I didn't, but hey, sexual attraction is weird right?? It was a totally plausible explanation, and one that impacted the development of that friendship.

I fell for him. To this day, I don't know why other than that he saw me, not the little rebel girl or someone who needed to be fixed but the valid-albeit-lost young woman I was blossoming into. I don't understand that either. He had no reason to be nice to me, but he was. How was I not supposed to develop my very first fluffy feelings?

I waited and waited for months for him to say something. He had to be into me, right? There was no other reason someone would put up with all of the crazy I flung at him, and oh was there ever a lot of that -- I have a tendency to reveal way too much (this whole blog is an example of that) and I made sure that boy knew exactly what he was getting into. It didn't affect him. I would later learn this was because he has the emotional comprehension abilities of a gerbil, but at the time I thought it was cute. But on the other hand, he didn't say anything. We were both technically old enough for feelings to blossom. He lived roughly half an hour from me. So... what was the problem?

Answer - he didn't see me that way. He never had. I found that out when I finally told him where my heart was almost a year into this mess. He shot me down in the most emotionless logical fashion possible (which is where his nickname originates, if anyone hasn't figured it out). I, in turn, went into a depressive spiral, listened to too much Adele, went even deeper into the spiral, and eventually hit a point of self-destruction that even my mother couldn't ignore. I was eighteen. No one had ever taught me how to deal with this, because good Bubble girls were only ever supposed to love once. This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd been my Person, I'd been so sure of it, but... nope, I never even had a chance.

There's more to the story, of course. There were a lot of little moments that year - my second accidental near-death experience, for one - and a few things that happened after. I tried to be friends with him again, still fluttered for him, but again I was shot down - that time the day before Valentine's Day (see what I said about emotional comprehension abilities of a gerbil?) - because he had a girlfriend. (Apparently she broke his heart two months later. By that point, I couldn't have cared less.) I realised that I could, in fact, do a lot better than the golden boy who prolly just put up with me because I was everything the girls of our world were not supposed to be. And once that realisation hit, I became softer, less ambitious, less terrifying. Less like the person he thought I was and more like the person I wanted to be. For the most part, I've moved on.

But I still wonder. What if things had been different? What if he'd known the chance he had and taken it? Where might we be if my feelings had been reciprocated? I'll never know. It's been years since I've felt anything other than frustration (and not the fun kind either) towards him. We talk about every six months, which is to say that he remembers I exists and messages me and asks what I'm doing and I pretend I care. It normally happens right after I've gotten home from a wedding, though he has no way of knowing that. I passive-aggressively messaged him several bitey Taylor Swift songs about this time two years ago; he didn't react. That chapter's over. But there's still a little corner of my heart consumed by the first time I wanted someone, and sometimes that want rears its ugly head.

So, this is me saying that I am not the girl you thought I was. I am not ambitious and terrifying; I have no plans to change the world, and I'm starting to get bored with the thought of just burning it all down. I can still run in scary heels, but otherwise I am so different from who I was four years ago. I'm not happy yet, but I'm a damn lot closer than I was then. I do things for me now. I am working towards a quiet life, and someday, hopefully any day now, I will meet someone who will love me like you never could. Someday, I will look back and it won't hurt to think of you. Someday, I will be whole.

(Oh, and you mentally ruined a whole flock of fictional characters and three very good albums for me, and I'm not over it. That, I am not moving on from.)

But thank you, you hopeless idiot, for starting me on this journey. If you hadn't been such a prick, I wouldn't know that the things inside my head are bad and need to be dealt with. If you hadn't broken me without even knowing, I would still think that boys like you are the best I can do. They're not. I can do so much better and someday I will. Just watch me.

Song of the day - "Wildest Dreams", Taylor Swift.

On Creating Futures

Or, "I am building a life that future!me is going to love (and I might've had my weirdest//most brilliant idea ever)".

I like preparing for things. Blame it on whatever undiagnosed variant of social anxiety disorder I have, if you want, or on the fact that as much as I hate damage control, that's a role I seem to spend most of my life playing. Whatever the cause, my life is equal parts preparation and praying I have enough fridge brilliance to get through the stuff I can't brace for. I plan when I'm leaving the house as early as possible (if I know exactly when I'm going to interact with unfamiliar people a week in advance, great), and usually the only "unplanned" outings I do are runs to the post office when I sell something online. I buy the dresses I wear for weddings before I know if I'll even be invited to some of them. And then... well, then there's the stuff I'm doing for future!me.

It started innocently enough. Around a year and a half ago, I wandered across the fabulous horror that is the Beekeeper's Quilt (if you're not inclined to click the link, it's a knitting pattern). Since I make socks for all my engaged and pregnant acquaintances, and since I'm 21 and grew up in homeschooler-land and therefore know a lot of people in one of those two categories at any given time, I generate quite a bit of leftover sock yarn. Making two hexipuffs out of each remnant before I send it off to someone in the Ravelry RAK group I try to participate in just makes sense. But then I got another one of my fabulous ideas. The beekeeper quilt, assuming I ever finish the darn thing (I need to make approximately 400 puffs and at this point I've done maybe 60?), would be a perfect wedding present for my future Person. So... there's now a time component. Not a hugely pertinent one, seeing as I am currently sans anyone I have any romantic interest in and I'd like to spend a decent amount of time getting to know someone before walking down the aisle and (possibly) changing my surname, but an existent one. It's motivation!! I suck at motivation!! What's not to love, right?

Well, then the future planning got weirder a few months ago when I impulse-bought a wedding dress.

Okay, maybe "impulse-bought" is the wrong word. There's this thrift store twenty minutes from my house that I go to on a regular basis - all the proceeds support local women's shelters, the ladies who work there adore me, and you never know what you're gonna find there. Around the beginning of summer, I saw The Dress. Some of the people I know who've gotten married recently say you just know when you find the perfect dress. (The rest have gotten married in their mothers' gowns - heavily altered, of course - which has never been an option for me because my mom is five inches shorter than me and was a size 4 when she got married. I haven't been a size 4 since I was about fourteen, and between the twin gifts of hipbones and C-cup boobs, I will never be that small again.) Obviously, of course, all of those people were looking for a wedding dress. I... wasn't. But there it was anyways, beaded bodice and high neckline and empire waistline and flowing skirt, taunting me. I could tell, just from eyeballing it (the thrift store had the sense to put the nice wedding dresses several feet off the ground), that it just had to be a size 10 (my usual, assuming the piece in question hasn't shrunk into oblivion, which formal gowns generally don't). I fell in love.

For weeks, I shamelessly eyed the thing, until one day I finally had the nerve to ask how much it was. My brain was all "it has to be around $60, yeah?". Wrong. Dress was actually $90, which meant that after tax (thank you Indiana for 7% sales tax when the two other states within sane driving distance are 6%), it was almost a hundred even. I did not care. I needed this dress. I tried it on in the shop, explaining beforehand to the nice old lady that I wasn't even seeing anyone and was more interested in having it as something to keep on hand for when my time comes. She understood pretty well, didn't even give me the "how is a nice girl like you single?" routine like a lot of people would've. It fit perfectly. I had to buy it. Y'know, just in case.

The dress lingered untouched in the closet of our spare bedroom for a few more weeks, until my mother accidentally found it. This was one of the hazards of putting it in that closet, but it had more space to hang properly there, and hell, there isn't space in my closet for something of that scale. I knew she'd find it eventually, and I wasn't quite sure how to explain the situation. Thankfully, I didn't have to. She gave me a small routine about her friend who's altered everyone's wedding dresses this past year (lesson of that afternoon - someone better submit that woman for sainthood because she's eighty-something and way too nice to have gone through some of that stuff), and then she decided to get it dry-cleaned and put in a proper bag for me. For my mother, who used to worry more than made any logical sense about my seeming lack of interest in guys (this thankfully stopped once my sister's type was defined as "breathing"), this was a huge step. And that was it. One huge expense out of the way for my future wedding. And again, I thought that was it as far as longterm planning. And again, it wasn't.

The reason I'm doing this post is because today I found another thing that I am meant to do, another thing that solves some of my problems. I'm going to build a house. More specifically, an Earthship. I advise caution on that website - whomever wrote most of the material is definitely on something - but the concept crossed my Tumblr dash this afternoon and I poked around and... well, before I could poke around too much, I had to wander off to work. Just as well. While at work, trying to figure out how an elephant had managed to demolish half of the pharmacy section (and not the part that usually looks bad either), I had one of my feelings.

For reference, I have had feelings exactly twice before in my life. The first one happened when I was 13, in church of all places. Nowadays when my brain wanders while I'm at the church I'm trying to get out of, it either focuses on questionably appropriate fic ideas or trying to figure out why one of the other women around my age thought a particular outfit or hairdo was a good idea (former-homeschooled ladytypes are fashion disasters by nature, and I say this as someone who is definitely in that category). Well, needless to say, 13-year-old me was a lot more innocent. I don't know what I was thinking about on that spring morning, but all of a sudden I had a very strong feeling that I was supposed to be a writer. Not that I'd really considered other career options before that, but it was definitely an experience of the Divine. (Incidentally, this was before things got crazy at that church, but... that's another post. Or, probably, a series of them, to be written once I get out For Real This Time I Fricking Mean It.)

The second one, I can't remember exactly when it happened thanks to the fact that I have the short-term memory of a fricking gerbil, but I'm pretty sure it was about a year ago (or maybe closer to two - point being, it remains a fairly recent development). I was doing self-eval, as I tend to do when I'm bored and/or fighting back the urge to tell someone I dislike exactly where they can stick it, and the subjects of my depression and my untouched-ness crossed my mind (as per usual - self-eval is either on those subjects or on fandom stuff, and I'm pretty sure I was very between primary fandoms when this happened). And out of the blue, for the first time, I knew there was a light at the end of my battle. And more importantly, I knew something about my future Person. I will find them once the worst of my darkness has past. I don't know anything more than that, of course - I'm pretty sure I have crossed that part of my life, but maybe it's supposed to be once I've learned to control the bad days? - but I know that. When the worst is over, when I am as whole as I will ever be as my own entity, I will find them. (Or, more likely, they will find me... but again, that's another post.)

Anyways... feelings. I had my third real one today, and it's about this possible house project. I want to create something for the family I eventually want to have, and this particular model/method is perfect. It's sustainable (something I'm generally fascinated by), it's cost-effective to build (at least after the plans and land to build it on are acquired), and it seems idiot-proof (always a good plus when it comes to DIY things). And I know in my core that this is something I'm supposed to do. There's just the small problem of... well, money. I want to do this on my own (obviously) and in cash (because srsly, trying to get a loan would be against the spirit of the beast and borderline-impossible for someone whose "proper" employment is averaging 20 hours a week at 15¢ above minimum wage aaaaand doesn't have a credit history). I have no idea how that's gonna happen, but it will. I'm determined. I've done enough poking around to be sure of the plausibilities. If I can figure out the financial side, this is happening. It's just weird enough to work, and that's how all of my best ideas start out.

And hey, if I get lucky and find my Person before I'm done with these things I want to have ready for them... they can help. They're in for a lifetime of chasing after my fridge-brilliance WTFery; they might as well start as soon as they can, right?

Song of the day - "Jackie and Wilson", Hozier.

On Winter Wonder-hell

Or, "I'm trying to keep a sense of wonder but I might be too jaded for my own good".

It snowed the night before last. Yes, I know, I did not set out to be one of those bloggers, but considering the number of failed posts I've tried to do in the last few weeks (there was a reflection on my Halloween costume and how strangely appropriate that ended up but dammit I am really trying post things that are not fandom-related here)... yeah. This, at least, I can presumably write without mentioning the parallel girls too much.

Snow is one of those things for me. I've lived in southeast Indiana (Cincinnati-adjacent) my whole life, and if there is one thing this area doesn't handle well, it's winter. I'd say weird weather in general, but snow's a unique beastie because though we definitely get it in decent quantities (if you live somewhere where they don't close stuff down until there's at least a foot of the white death, this is your cue to shut up), it always sends people into panic mode. You do not want to be in public right before a snow scare. Trust me on this. I work in a grocery store - thankfully, I'm in non-foods and people don't panic-buy shampoo, but this past weekend was eye-opening because I'd underestimated exactly how chaotic things get right before a snow scare. (Answer - mayhem. It's on par with Black Friday in a shopping-mall food court, which is another post I am probably never going to actually do.) People are weird. I guess because of my background, I'm fascinated by how normal people handle things (or in this case don't handle them), but my innocent eyes have been opened by this and I was just fine before that happened.

Of course, I was expecting it to not do anything. When I got home from work Sunday night, it was 36 degrees and trying to do something but failing at that. Aaaand then I woke up yesterday (Monday) morning and... somewhere in the vicinity of three inches of powdery white death. Joy.

Now, the reason I am not thrilled with this stuff is because people around here are generally bad drivers to begin with and adding in snow and ice makes it hella dangerous to leave one's own house. I'm not entirely sure what the requirements are for getting a license are in Indiana or Ohio, but some government equivalent of middle management needs to form a committee and reassess them. Thankfully, yesterday did not include me yelling profanities at questionably competent people on my way to work. I thought it would, but... no. Either the need was not there, said people finally had the sense to stay home, or both. I dunno. It was a nice surprise. Kinda doubt it'll happen again, but a girl can dream.

Anywho, the reason this post is a thing is because while I was shoveling my driveway yesterday afternoon, it hit me that my parallel girls (I dunno if I've addressed that topic before but I'll get on it sooner or later) would love this. Far as I know, neither of 'em had ever experienced snow in their 'verses. They would have a sense of wonder. And then my mind wandered to various projects I'm writing, and the mental image of Scarlett Evans playing out in snow is amazing. (Scarlett, for the record, is the main character in a project I swear I'm gonna finish one of these days. That's another post I need to do, because she's been a brainpest for years and formative and... gah, rambling, bad me.) And it hit me that I really don't have that sense of wonder. I haven't in years. I'm jaded, not because of anything I did but the fact that I suck at coping mechanisms doesn't really help, y'know? I probably could've saved myself some of this pain, but too late now!! But maybe there's hope. Maybe I can get some of that goodness back. I'm a natural pessimist - if any of y'all think I ought to go full Pollyanna, please reassess your life and your belief system because that is not happening - but maybe it's still possible for me to wander closer to the middle of the grayscale. I could do that, yeah.

Song of the day - "Scream My Name", Tove Lo.