People are good.

I learn that again every day. Everyone is trying their best. Today I was doing housekeeping at the care home. Every person who can hold their legs up while I hoover did. If they could pick up their slippers off the floor they did. I didn't ask. I go into every room with the expectation that I will move the furniture and their belongings. But they see me come in with the hoover and without hesitation they help me as much as I am able. I'll move the table, Mabel. Thank you for picking up your slippers. I love you.

I spoke to one resident about the paper, as I emptied her bin. Yesterday's paper was too big for the little bin and was making it difficult to tie up. She said I'll fold it smaller tomorrow. I nearly cried.

People tell me they couldn't do what I do. Why wouldn't I do everything I can to help Mabel? She does everything she can to help me. Even if it's not much

Every account holds secrets i can never share. Sides of me only seen by the algorithm.

My tiktok sends me people i've never met who somehow have lived my life and can articulate it better than i can.

My spotify playlists hold every tear and laugh. Each playlist either meticulously crafted or thrown together on a whim. I know what *blows raspberry* and yeah mean. I'm not sure you could figure it out from the songs alone.

My pinterest sees the world the way i do, i think if every board were accumulated you may get the tiniest idea of why i wake up in the morning. I think if you held it all in front of me i'd cry.

My instagram cradles the faces of my loved ones. And the faces of all the raccoons i will never get to hold. It has the funniest posts, and the twenty other accounts of the same posts but i'll like those ones too anyway.

My facebook has my family. It has the friends i don't talk to anymore but congrats on your degree or party or whatever. It has so many windows but few doors.

My tumblr holds the moments when i could actually figure out the words.

Each knows me so well. And each only knows one or two sides of me. it's fascinating really. Who are you on other platforms? Who are you beyond this one?

I am the eldest of three. I never meant to hurt you. well there definitely were times i meant to hurt you but not in this way.

i was the eldest, i had to set a good example. I had to be good at school, at family events, at hobbies. i had to be talented and charming and be a shining example of how to behave. i had to look after you. i didnt want to. i wanted to run about and be annoying and be bad at things. but i had to be good. and then i liked being good at things. i became better, i became the best. then we grew up. they asked you why you werent as good as me. why arent you going to university like your sister, your sister got a job why havent you? your sister is far away where we cant reach her so we have to focus all of our attention on you two. and when i come home they love me so much more. i'm so sorry. i don't mean to be an event.

you don't blame me. thank you. i'm sorry for how they treat you, i'm sorry you can't come with me. i love sitting in the car when you drive and we talk about all the shit we endured, reminding each other of the traumas we forgot. you are me. you are what i could've been, and i the same for you. we get it. you will understand me more than anyone else. you are everything to me. come home. i miss you.

and there's the youngest, no one knows what to make of him. we love him, we try to help him, we don't know how. he hasn't been here as long as we have, but someday we will get it. you're ready to give up on him, i remember being there with you.

i watched Encanto and i saw us. Our mother the healer, our dad the idiot, myself the perfect bitch, you the strongest woman on earth, and Mirabel the one who doesn't fit quite right. i hope we repair our cracks someday

wdym an average platonic bond cant be deep and meaningful do none of you remember the power of friendship

Fellowship of the ring shows the three male fantasies you said. The woman you love giving up her immortality for you, gardening/working hard with your friends in the shire, and dying heroically saving your friends. Thats really sweet. I'm glad those are your fantasies. But by happenstance yesterday i was remembering the many times i was a victim of very different male fantasies. I love you man, but you are a man. and sometimes i remember how you just don't get it. you're a good man, you'd help me if i ever asked, but you arent guiltfree. you're trying, you're doing better. i love you. but you're never going to truly get it. you're fucking huge. if i saw you walking at night i'd cross the street. i don't know where i'm going with this. maybe i should just stop talking.

I am my mother's daughter. Everyday i understand you more. I'm sorry. i love you. i know you did your best. it wasn't perfect but it was enough. i have scars. you do too from your mother. but i have fewer scars than you do. i miss your hands on me. im so glad i saw you today. im so glad you're happy. i want to do more. i wish my siblings understood. my sister is a woman now, but she grew up a boy and she doesnt understand our girlhood the way we do. she understands womanhood. this isnt about her. its about you. i love you. i miss you. i want to call you everyday and tell you every little thing i did today. im sorry i moved so far away. i could never live closer. i keep thinking about the 2000 breakfasts. i wonder how many we have left. i want to hold you and tell you you did it all right. im sorry grandma didnt come to mothers day. i understand. i understand how she treated you. i know you feel bad too. i know you feel relief she wasnt there. i want you to know its gonna be ok. we are ok. we are amazing. yes i want to go to ikea with you. yes please tell me what happened at work. thank you. im sorry. im sorry the beef wasnt the best and im not great at tidying and i cant get a mortgage and i havent done it all yet. but i know youre ok with it. but i still want to be perfect for you. i still want to do it all for you. i want to pay for our holiday, but thank you for paying for me. i will figure this out. i will be enough. you raised me so well. you missed much of my childhood. i love you. im sorry. this is the best i can do for now.

happy mothers day

It's a weird fucking feeling realising that you actually have to plan ahead for and schedule in the things you like to do, as well as the things you have to do.

I don't mean the complicated stuff, that's a given.

If I'm going to the cinema, then I accept I'm going to have to look up film times and buy tickets and figure out when I'm going to leave the house. If I'm going to visit a friend who lives in a different county, then I accept that I'm going to probably be looking up travel times and planning activities and where to eat and what time we'll be doing what, for possibly days beforehand.

But its even the fucking lowkey stuff. If I want to watch a tv show, I have to plan time out of my day to do it, and I don't always get round to it. If I have a whole day free for some reason, and I decide I want to watch a film (at home, on the sofa) and I don't lay out a plan for when I'm going to do that and how long I'm going to take, then it just won't happen.

If I want to go for a walk just around my local area before it gets dark, or eat something with a slightly longer cooking time, or write my diary, or read a book I've been looking forward to reading, or even read fucking fanfiction that is longer than about 8000 words, then I have to set some sort of plan beforehand.

Like, I know intellectually that executive dysfunction affects more than just the things you don't enjoy doing. But fuck it doesn't really hit you until you realise that you haven't sat down to watch an episode of that show you like for over a week, even though you can't really name any activities you've been doing or commitments you have that would make it impossible to do so.

Anyway, this is a reminder to people who struggle with that sort of thing: schedule your days off, lest they be swallowed by the Pit before you get the chance to do anything fun with them.

Happy Anniversary

when i was a teenager i cried myself to sleep because i had this gaping hole in my heart where love was supposed to go. I couldn't feel love. I didn't know what love was meant to feel like. I was autistic, i couldn't understand the metaphors of what love was meant to feel like. i didn't know the feeling and i was dying from not understanding it.

I still can't describe it now. I look back at that teenager and i want to give her a description that will make it all make sense. Say it's ok because love feels like...

Love feels like this. I can't put it into words. Now i understand why the poets and the lyricists use every metaphor they can imagine cause it really is indescribable. Love is a feeling of safety and home, and contentment but its more than that and it's not a feeling. it is a certainty, a knowledge and a promise.

I don't know what love feels like, but I know it is us right now.

I love you darling. Someday I hope to put it into words

I don't know if this was obvious to everyone else, but I just realised that one of the reasons why the Hobbit is so effective as a children's book is that while Bilbo is an adult, the skills that make him a hero are all those of a child.

By human standards he's child-sized, which makes him unobtrusive and light on his feet. He can slip by unnoticed where bigger people can't.

He's good at playing games, and even cheats (successfully!) in a way that - let's face it - is not so different to how children try to cheat at games. He's polite in a way that's fully comprehensible to children (rather than, say, being able to perform courtly manners). He's quick-witted, but the trick of keeping the trolls talking is also one that would be achievable for a child.

He doesn't have magic powers, he's not a great fighter, and he's not some kind of Chosen One. There's not much that he does that couldn't be done by a ten-year-old, but the story shows just how valuable all those skills and traits are. It's very empowering.

"she is one of my dearest friends"

Sometimes the mortifying ordeal of being known isn't such a mortifying ordeal afterall.

It's so good to see you happier. Free of the all that was holding you back and hurting you. I'm so glad i'm in your life and you're in mine. Neither of us are angels, but we're both trying. Thank you for calling my your friend. I love calling you my friend too.

There were no stars in the sky as I walked home, but the night sky had never seemed so beautiful.

Closure

Thank you for your message. I appreciate everything you said. I think we're both gonna be ok. Part of me desperately wanted to have a whole conversation but I know that simply thank you is the best for both of us. I hope our paths do cross again, someday, when you're ready for it. But till then, I know the stars shine a little brighter tonight. Till then, we each have our own beautiful lives. I'm forcing myself not to re read potentially the last words you will ever give to me. Because of course my human nature doesn't really want an end. But the rest of me is ok that this is the end. It's a pretty good ending. Not a happy ending, but a cathartic one; like an ancient greek tragedy, or a really good session of dnd. This will be the last I post about you till we meet again. I need to let it all go. I love you.

I'm the ghost

I didn't realise you were aware of my existence. When i talk to you i feel like i enter your reality but i can't quite get through. I think you think you're still in your house. I try to see through your eyes, cause that's the best way you'll hear me.

I want you to hear me. I won't get your dinner order right if you can't. You turn to your wife and ask her what she wants. Your wife is 5 rooms down. But you see her right next to you. Is tomato soup okay?

Sometimes you don't speak at all. How about an omelette? Sometimes i need to figure out if the grunt was a yes grunt, a no grunt, or if it's a grunt you are aware of at all. I hope you want ice cream for desert cause that's what i'm writing down.

Today your family were with you. Your family tends to visit more than most. They're very sweet. Today as I left you turned to them and said she's a good one that one. I had to stop myself from crying.

I really had no idea that you knew i existed. I really wasn't sure you could see me in your reality. But I'll keep going. I'll learn your favourite yogurt. I will keep being "a good one". You deserve a reality that matches the one you exist in.

I've never liked tea. It just doesn't taste right to me. "An acquired taste" you mean i have to try it a hundred times before i can like it? This drink comes with homework. Nope not for me.

But every afternoon i bring tea to these residents. They are overjoyed. Initially i thought it was a little sad, how excited they get about a cup of tea. But then I thought what a good life to live.

Imagine the thing that makes you happiest in the world. And then imagine it was guaranteed to happen every day. What a wonderful life.

And it's more than tea. It's a guaranteed conversation everyday. Maybe their family is on holiday so no one has visited all week. But here I am. Hello Mabel, would you like a cup of tea? I would love a cup of tea. With sugar? No thank you. Here you are. Thank you very much. My pleasure.

Tea still tastes weird but it's now my favourite thing.

I moved on

I'm really not sure how. Somehow every little peice of writing every imagined conversation every discussion every time i heard about you from others. it all added up and now im ok.

Im really proud of me. It took over a year but im ok. I still miss you but im also fine with not seeing you ever again. I jsut want to say thank you for the time you were my friend. thank you for being in my life.

i was at a party totally zoned out and suddenly i knew i was peaceful with it. the wildness was finally around me instead of inside me.

you can do it too

from her perspective

we were sweaty from the audition but we both felt we'd done well. it was a hard dance but no one got it perfect. i looked at you sitting putting your shoes on. shall we go to the bar you said.

uh sure. thing is you didnt look in the mood for a drink. i knew something was up when we sat down and you said i dont want a drink. i cant describe how you looked. you weren't just angry, but disappointed, sad, confused, and clearly dreading this conversation. what could have happened? i started going through everything in my mind that I couldve done.

it's not you. we need to talk about him.

him? our friend, our housemate? soon to be my business partner? this couldnt have been about that one thing he did, that was so long ago and we dealt with it and we'd moved on hadnt we?

then you started explaining. you wouldnt say everything in specifics. you had promised people "his victims" that you wouldnt tell me. people didnt trust me? didnt trust me to not immediately tell him what theyd accused him of?

it was awful and you said you couldnt even explain the worst of it.

in one of the dnd games i dmd for you, you killed a man who had done something horrific. you said i cant tell you the worst he's done but i want him dead.

was that you trying to tell me in your way without breaking your promise?

but wanting him dead. he's our friend how could you talk about him that way?

but what if this was all true? you're not a liar. except maybe you are cause you said you learned this over the last few weeks i learned all of this in 20 minutes.

you begged me to not go into business with him. you said thats why you were telling me now. our group project was over as the four of us so it was the perfect time.

and then you gave the ultimatum.

him or you, and other people you implied. the rest of our group knew and you didnt tell me?

you didnt trust me either. my friend doesnt trust me. why should i trust her.

i stopped responding. you offered to get me some water and left me to it.

when you came back i drank and we sat in silence. you looked so sad.

eventually we got up and started walking home

when we got close to the house i turned to you.

can i talk to him about this?

your face fell.

sure. and then you looked out the window.

we walked the last bit in silence and when we came home i went straight to his room.

i remember it from my perspective, so this was me trying to do empathy to help me process my grief.

i cant imagine what he said to you. i cant imagine how you made the choice you did.

why didnt you choose me?