1. Your personality. A few people have told me that I have the personality of someone who would partake in recreational drugs. Not hard drugs, and not because I have any kind of addictive behavior. Just because of the fact that I would probably enjoy the mind altering experiences and escapes that certain drugs have to offer. Unfortunately, I have issues with anxiety, so this pretty much rules out a lot of the reasons people try to give me. If I took anything that makes you lose your grip on reality, I’d probably go temporarily crazy and never in the good kind of way. I like having control.
2. Your pupils are huge. Doctors have noticed this about me before too, and I’m not exactly sure why this is. Maybe it’s just a genetic difference people have (like eye color)? Because I don’t get a lot of natural light and avoid the sun? I don’t know. My eyes are really sensitive too, and sometimes I’ll go outside and feel like I’m going to die because it’s too bright out.
3. Your taste in music. A lot of the musicians I listen to often draw a certain type of crowd, I guess you could say. I like a lot of dreamy ambient type of things. People in the Youtube comments usually say things like, “I get high to this,” etc.
4. You’re a writer/you’re creative. I guess this kind of goes along with number 1, but it also deals with this romantic and/or tragic notion of the writer - that we’re self-destructive, or that we need some kind of stimulation to give us inspiration. Bitch, I don’t even drink coffee.
In conclusion:
I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.
- Salvador Dali
I get a lot of people saying something like this: ”What do you think of my writing? Please be honest. It’s awful, isn’t it? You think it’s awful.” And I just…keep quiet. Or I try to be elusive as possible.
I keep quiet and I’m elusive as possible because I’m honest and a critic with ridiculous expectations. I am literally the worst. I cut up everything into pieces and think nothing of it. I was notorious for this in my creative writing classes…I’m sure I hurt a few people’s feelings. But I also had people come up to me and thank me personally because how I read their story helped them to improve it later on.
It’s funny how people automatically assume I think their writing is awful though. I just really like tearing things apart - it’s just who I am. I’m more of a breaker-downer than a builder-upper.
But I also know that people have feelings and that some of these people I’d consider friends. So I’m torn about what I should say when anyone asks. I keep quiet when I really shouldn’t.
Also, there are times when I just don’t know what to say at all because the writing is so anorexic. There’s just not enough to talk about except the fact that it lacks meat on its bones.
I think I need a vacation away from myself. I’ve been talking to Thea about this. Is there a way to melt yourself down for a while and just simply be? Drugs, I guess. But that seems too easy and not enough, and I’m well aware of my own masochistic tendencies.
Maybe it’s not a vacation, but just something that needs to give way. Permanently. I feel like there are too many ghosts that hang around me when I should be enjoying the light of the moon or something. I’m working on that, but it always entails trying to dig deeper instead of trying to loosen up your grip. For now though, there are ghosts on the moon too.
Thea says it’s kind of ironic that I live in a place that’s especially known for its vacations and relaxing getaways. But I’ve grown up with it, I told her. I’ve grown up with the beaches and the heat and the theme parks, and so that’s really not an escape for me. I never really liked those things about Florida anyway - none of my fond memories come from places like that. Some place like NYC would be more of an escape, or some other kind of cultural hub, with all the energy and color and electricity bursting around you - yet, even so, you don’t have to play an active part in it. You can just look inside the windows or peer from the ledge and it’s enough. I like that.
But I also live mostly inside my head, which pulses enough, so I guess any place is good as any other on some level.
I gave my mom a gift card to Sephora and a really nice vegetarian cookbook. I can tell she really appreciated it. It’s been a tough year for her so far - a tough year for all of us. My sister got her new shoes that she wanted.
We visited my aunt’s house. Nana came with us. We ate some appetizers and waited around for my cousin to come with his wife and son, James. James thinks Paula and I are cool or something. He thinks we’re hilarious, and I suppose we are. There were flowers everywhere around the house, and my sister commented how she would hate being a mom and getting them for every holiday ever.
I noticed a few things talking to James. The first thing is that I think a lot of children perceive me as younger than I actually am. Maybe because of my personality or my height or how I like video games, I’m not sure. Maybe everything. But my cousin was really surprised when I told him I was done with college. He also told me that he has a girlfriend, and I laughed a little because he’s like six or seven years old. I asked him where she was from, but he wouldn’t tell me for some reason. Was she from school? No, she didn’t live here, he said. He was being vague. I wondered if he was making it up, but then I remembered how my aunt was prodding him one day about it. She kept talking and talking about it, parading it around, and I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Way to go, heteronormativity!” I think there’s a lot of things adults find “cute” about kids and tend to encourage certain behaviors because of this, but I’m like, “No, you’re damaging them! SHAME ON YOU!!!1!” But then again, I am not a parent and would be horrible at it.
James and I played with Play-Doh and sculpted desserts for everyone. I kept thinking about how boring adults can be and how, ironically, the biggest thing that would solve MOST adult problems is what they tend to lose on their way up: IMAGINATION. Having the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand what it’s like. The closest thing to true empathy, maybe. It also continues to remind me how I don’t think a lot of people in my family (or anyone in general) see me as grown-up anyway. Because I don’t have a job yet, because I refuse to date or be in a serious relationship, because I’m emotionally stunted, because I’m sexless, because I probably won’t ever start a family of my own, because I want to be alone and therefore SELFISH, etc.
To the point of where I can physically exhaust myself and still be unable to fall asleep because my chest has this tightness and feels plugged up and I get scared. My brain keeps telling my body that they’re gonna die, and I can’t catch my breath. It’s been happening nearly every night now. I feel like I’m swinging my fists through fog.
