Here is a Draft I Wrote on August 24th, 2023

Hello. Today is my 46th birthday. I am really happy to be here. I am especially happy to be here because my previous selves did so much work--including when they did not want to be here--to make sure that I would have a chance to walk in the woods on a very hot August day and marvel in gratitude.

god fell out of heaven yesterday and we all started making fun of him bc the corpse is only like 5'3''

sometimes i think about sitting in the kitchen, doing dishes with you. i'm not running through statistics of how hot the water is to how many germs were on this mug.

it's kind of crazy climate change has occurred at such a remarkable pace that I and everyone else around my age can remember a completely different climate in our childhoods. I truly watched winter gradually disappear in my life.

FOUND family??? you think i just found them like this??? babes this is FORGED family. Me & the bros were scrap metal in a junkyard (very valuable, very sharp, very dangerous, uncared for) and we GOT IN THE FUCKING FIRE TOGETHER. WE did this. we said I AM NOT LEAVING YOU and melted into each other for better or for worse (it’s for better) and we are A FUNCTIONAL UNIT now. DO NOT SEPARATE. BATTERIES FUCKING INCLUDED. FOUND family my ass, we built this non-nuclear family unit from the ground up, don’t devalue this!!! it was is and will be a labour of love!!!

I just know if I had more time, I would fall in love with you

3.16.24

i feel very normal about boy thighs yes i do i can be so trusted around boy thighs yes sir

I've said it before and i'll say it again: THAT IS NOT A FUCKING METAPHOR, JOHN GREEN

Watching a soft person come out of a family of insensitive and hard hearted people is like watching a little beam of sunshine come out on the rainiest days.No one ever actually moved the clouds for them,no one ever taught them kindness,it was a choice,one that they made every day.They didn’t just survive the bad days,they came out of it as a softer person.It’s not like the issues didn’t effect them,and it’s not like they didn’t cry rivers over it,but they knew better than to continue the cycle of pain and sadness.

jacks never had a bad track. “Glad to know you’re thinking about me when you kiss your husband.” BANGER. “But for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.” ICONIC. “I’d probably kill another man if I found him with you like this” LIFE CHANGING. “There is nothing of equal value to me”. UNMATCHED.

Lets create a house where yelling means we’re having fun. When you hear a door slam you know it was accidentally pulled with too much strength, not slammed out of anger. When there is silence, it is Contentment, not another passive aggressive fight. The dog is no longer barking to protect, he simply just wants the cats to play with him. Let’s create a safe, warm environment that makes you feel like you can breathe, not hold your breath. Let’s stomp on the eggshells we use to tip toe on. Together we will make this house into a home. And welcome all with open arms into this kind and loving space.

at the end of the day it's not that you hate your job - actually, you like working, you like routine, you like feeling like an adult - it's that any time you fuck anything up, you feel like you're fucking dying.

because you could be actually fucking dying. because if one day you wake up and you misunderstood something - you could lose your job, and nobody is hiring, and nobody is paying, and nobody takes people like you, and that job you want hasn't gotten back to you. and what exactly are you going to do without insurance? good luck with those meds. you should have thought of that before being a person.

so it's not just that you forgot to CC someone on an email, it's that if you don't have this job, you can't afford rent. it's not that you misread a comment, it's that if you get fired, you will be in massive amounts of unpayable debt. it's not that you are bad at your job, but here are the stakes as they have been decided for you: be perfect or fucking die. like, literally, die. that is how much safety net you have: none.

it's not burnout, technically. but you literally just had two typos in your work, and you're already picturing the ending. you want to throw up & curl up & make it all go away. it is two typos. if he decides he is mad at you, you lose literally everything.

your mom says that you seem stressed. the thing is that you have never known a job that isn't stressful. welcome to capitalism. there is no other road, only this one. what the fuck is a career. you come here, and we hold your life against the barrel of a gun, and somewhere someone is spinning the chamber and pulling. eventually the bullet will come.

you live in a mugging. your boss owns three cars and has four kids. you worry about having enough to feed your dog. good luck. beg for forgiveness. CC the right people next time and be grateful, kid. somebody has it worse than you. someone, probably, has it worse than you. so what if you can't sleep or eat or focus. your work chat sound literally makes you panic. you had to change the sounds of computer notifications so you'd stop having such an upset stomach.

welcome to the real world! the rat race! the dog eat dog circus!

your doctor studies the results and frowns at you. "it's bad for your heart," she says. "try to reduce your levels of stress."

in this room, in this house, I am seventeen. makeup is scattered on the floor around a full length mirror, books are piled on every shelf, and clothes are never hung where they’re supposed to be.

in this room, in this house, I am twenty one. nothing has changed except a few photographs on the wall and the size of my jeans. I am seventeen.

I am still waiting for the right moment to run away. the bag is packed and hidden under my bed. the one with the sheets from my sixteenth birthday, under the glow in the dark star stickers from when I was five. every version of me lives in this room, my past selves are shoved in the closet to make room for the adult I have become. I wedge myself between the spaces of the door but it is no use.

when I finally do grab the bag, climb out the window, determined to grow out of the skin on my back,

the car doesn’t start. they find me before the bus comes. someone asks if I’d like help getting home and doesn’t wait for my answer. I get lost and end up exactly where I started. the road is a dead end. the cab fair is too much.

and then I am back. in this room, in this house, I am seventeen.

media you can't touch because you interacted with it during a really bad and dark time in your life and the entire media is coated in gross drippy bad-touch depression gunk vs media you can't touch because you interacted with it during a really good time in your life and trying to touch it zaps your brain with pangs of longing and grief for what you no longer have, fight

it's just that sometimes you have to love a thing including the ways that it inconveniences you like i keep picking dog hair out of my clothes because he steals things from my laundry basket to lay on them while i'm gone and whenever i use my laptop i have to type with my arms in a parabola to make room for his head on my legs and yes it's kind of a far ride to my mom's house but she always remembers to have dairy-free options available just in case i stop at home and nick lives in another timezone so we have to plan our calls carefully to be sure he's available and i'm not in bed and i hate driving and looking for parking but it means i get to visit my friends and i hate doing dishes but i'll do a million if it means i get to throw a dinner party for everybody and i hate being cold but one time we stood outside in the snow for 5 hours waiting for a concert, bundled up and red-nosed

i always apologize about the ways i take up space even when they're medical like at a restaurant i usually have to take the moment to say i really am allergic, sorry, and feel like i am making everyone around me angry and i always apologize when i am too tired to be funny or when i actually really do need to take care of my human body because it feels like i'm making everything about-me and i always apologize for the ways that i become needy; how i get scared when we're high up (and no for real please get down it actually kind of stops being funny) or how i panic if i hear a loud noise i wasn't expecting or how it's been years but there are days when i'm still doing the same shit, still drowning

the trick about relaxing, i think. like the answer to why i couldn't trust the idea anyone actually likes me. was realizing that at some point i am going to be an inconvenience, which means that at some point i need to trust other people want me to take up space. and yes, some people have to take up a lot of space. but. i relish this little gratitude: making room for people and things in my life. i love picking the dog hairs out of my food - it means i get to have a dog. i love answering the phone at 3 in the morning - it means someone is on the other line, and i can help them weave through life. i love the little chores - it means i have something productive to do. so what if you take up space - it means this world gets to have you.

the show (going out to get groceries. making myself a nice dinner. showering and opening the windows. being kind to myself in everything i do) Must go on