How.

How can someone be so unaware of the world? There's so much going on...

How would I be able to communicate with another in a healthy way? What does that even look like? Who am I if I can't be me? 

I hang out in my room too much but then I just sit here on my bed and do nothing but doomscroll, sharing videos I relate to. Like updating my FB with the videos that are changing my mind in real time. 

The thing about living with myself is that I have to feel safe, right? I didn't want to be taken care of all the way, I don't want to be treated like a child, like someone had to spoon feed me the answers... I want to be able to take care of myself again... But what I need to be doing is so incredibly daunting, that I simply don't. Maybe it'll take 15min to figure it out. Maybe More... Like a year. Or a few years. How do I map out my life from here? Even on a daily basis? Idk how to plug the holes in my life with the limited fingers I have available. 

What do I do if I get a rupture from one fissure? I have no plan b. I have no fail-safes. I have no backup plans. 

I have no idea what I'm doing. I moved from a whole household to a 10x10 room in a very kind lady's house. The only time I feel like me is when I'm in the arms of a loved one, sharing music or being held and talked to. Holding a conversation with a side of cuddles. Someone I can talk to about anything, sure... But someone who wants to know me too. 

And... The way I like to make friends... Maybe it isn't the best. Maybe my dad failed as a father... He could never show me how to feel like a priority in a relationship because he's a people pleaser. He has bent over backwards for that person and to never threaten the marriage. The importance of being married is the most important above all else, including the well-being of his daughters and their "conception" of being a woman is someone's wife and mother... That's it. Since I have neither, I guess logically, I'm nothing. I'm not worth knowing. I'm not worth visiting. 

But! I am worth knowing to others. I know that I have a lot of trust issues, and I have a lot of rage and anger to work through. ...but I want to be able to work this shit out with those who care for me. How do I meet and develop friendships with those who like me for me? 

...

...one of the reasons I love the holidays is that we get to work extra hours... We are a small business, so paying people more isn't in the books I guess. But I feel useful and valued there... More money, sure. Yesterday was rainy and cold. My roommate was away with her dog for a couple of days so I was incredibly bored. What else was I gonna do? 

I'd rather go into work and work... I love being apart of the team even though sometimes I still feel left out (pictures). I do feel respected, though. My bosses see me as a human first and then an employee. That level of respect, I don't think I've ever gotten in my immediate family. 

I do have a tendency to idolize people I respect more than I respect myself... My one boss has such intense integrity it moves me to be able to open up to her about things. But that's just who I am and how many people and corporations I've worked with; I've had a lot of coworkers. 

I'm pretty sure my one boss is the first straight cis white man who has never treated me as less than annnnd hasn't made a pass at me. So... High standards. /s

I wish I was paid more to match the level of work I'd like to put in... I am bored a lot in my regular life and wish it was filled with more community. The community I have found is built on trust and on communication. I have a lot of love to give. I want to be in it... I want to date someone who might go on dates with others, but if I call them... They interrupt that date and answer my call. I am their priority. 

What does that feel like? To be made someone's priority? Idk what that feels like...

Joining a church simply for the community leads to meeting people who will judge and exclude in their very inclusive reindeer games. ...I've never liked the ambiguity of religion. Faith and energies and vibes? Great. But if one starts to institutionalize faith, that's when you lose me... 

...if there was an entity as massive as the universe, why on earth would they care if I attended church every week? It would be insane (Khtulu and ants as an example). 

Also, my immediate family has always put that as a stipulation to be included. ...case and point why Sister went through what she had to... But even after I was Confirmed in the church, I was still excluded from the family... So why go if I'm not going to get what I want out of it? 

...but I feel better when I write it out. When I figure out why I'm idolizing or why I feel a certain way... If I figure out I'm projecting an illusion vs really seeing a person as is... I'm enjoying them in the moment I get to have with them. 

...

Handshake came over for his first massage over the weekend. No hanky panky on my table! He and I cuddled afterwards, but it was on the couch and we talked for several hours. It was great and actually very much what I needed. I had had a very big long day before and during work. Holiday season at a niche shop in an Atlanta food market is... Bananas on the weekends. 

...

Special interest... I love fashion, namely thrifting. I love shopping. I will always fold and rehang and respect service workers bc I have been in their shoes... But I love shopping. If you don't like shopping, bring me. I know how to dress you and I like to stick to your style! And budget.

...

How do I tell people I like, how they're wrong... Or how they're right. Everyone has different aspects of who they are and how they show up for others... If you want to not be such an asshole to the rest of the world? ...start trying to find things you like in someone, even if their a stranger... Practice empathy. 

Everyone I like to hang out with, I see bits of myself that I like or admire, in them. Otherwise, what would be the point? 

I like quiet places with good conversations and good people. I have a dirty sense of humor and probably always will... I say fucked up things sometimes and then the room goes quiet... And I will have instantly forgotten what I had said to have such an impact. I've made people vacate a room before or had such shocked expressions... But no one says anything! So I have no idea what was said. No idea what just flew out of my mouth to cause such a complete shut down of atmosphere. 

.........

What do you want, Snow?

...my confident self. That's where I want to be. I have thought for so long that Crickets hated me all the time. He'd whine like a little baby and I would feel like I had to appease him to keep the peace. I had made the mistake of making a vow in my head that he was the only guy for me. Lol. 

I had zero boundaries and I lopped off pieces of myself to walk upon the familiar egg shells I knew from childhood, but they get stuck in my treads after awhile.

...

Handshake has a bit of road rage... But he sounds like a normal person. Crickets was an extreme. He had no healthy way of regulating his emotions. He would simply lash out and yell and scream like other cars could hear him. The only person who was absorbing all his anger was me. It didn't help that his car was a POS and stank as much as him. 

And he never really took care of it. There were no priorities put on it... And he was surprised the trackside incident happened. ...another entry to write about. 

...

I want to be able to trust myself with follow through. I have ADHD and I grew up a little white kid from middle America middle class in a very mixed county, economically. I grew up from 6 years old to 15, moving every 14 days. The two houses I grew up in were vastly different... One had strict conservative rules with a yell-y woman and a dad that stopped sticking up for us, his Mistakes... And the other house was usually an apartment, but mom had no boundaries, no real rules, she was immature and never had a good support system. Dad paid child support, but whenever they had a flight, she'd confide in us as peers instead of holding a healthy authority. 

Childhood was a blur. What actually helped mark time was the growth and "normal" milestones my brother would get to... He was born when I was 10, so I had a close up of what parenthood was supposed to be ... I never met any milestones. I never really remember my birthdays.

...

I'm like the perfect person to talk to about growing up in the 90s. I remember a lot of how it used to be. Everything was a story... Everything had to be made into a story and told in a way as to entertain... But never educate. Never empathize...

.

...when I had learned my grandmother had done her genealogy (back before 23&me, btw... This was around... 2002?) ....she had found a long lost half sister and they got along great! Her sister was part of the "legitimate" family. Man, do I know that feeling! My great grandfather wasn't a good guy. A Scottish drunk businessmqn who probably had a hard life and was in the military? ... But he got a woman pregnant out of wedlock (whilst he was already married), but he put up his side chick in the South slums of Chicago in the 1930s, no worries... Heinous crime, right? And then she kept digging. 

The pain I felt as a human, to find out that a young indigenous girl was probably raped and forced to marry Jean Luc the French Canadian fur trader in 1690 somewhere outside of modern Ontario, Canada... All it said on the marriage certificate was "savage" as her name. The level of disrespect... disregarding her as a human, let alone as a person to marry... Not property. An individual person. Like... ....the amount of sadness I still feel about this piece of personal history... It probably isn't an uncommon story in any white family here in America. 

Doing the math of grandparents and how having families work... Jean Luc Jerk probably spawned several thousand people and family lines, who are walking around today. ... 

I learned this about my heritage back in 2002. 2009 is when I was raped and forced to make a life changing choice... 

And my father had the audacity to rewrite that as a funny story, both his bad grandfather and what the 17th century fuckface of our family did, with the punchline of "savage bastards"...

Ya wanna guess when he told this funny story? ... It was at my sister's wedding. Yep, the father of the bride speech. That was the story he chose. ...about our family. Lol. Nothing about how Sister's strength in faith or loyalty or integrity. 

Never that, right? 

...

He's just a silly man. The awareness I have of myself and him and the worlds in which we tread are... Vastly different. He hangs around only white christians, he emulates and follows idiots like Ben Shapiro and other incels... 

I like my influencers holding actual psychological degrees and careers in helping people talk to one another ... How to show up in a relationship and what does healthy repair look like? It takes me a lot longer to process intense feelings bc I'm processing a lot more than most on a day to day basis. I've been in a state of survival for so long that it is a lot on my plate on any given day...

The fact that I've held this job for so long and have been a valued member on the same team means the world to me. I wonder what value I'd bring a micro community such as the world I'm carefully inching into.... I'd really like to be doing more for the queer community. 

I've found a few promising connections, I just keep lacking finding those cool ass calm people to hang out with the way I want to hang out with them, who live CLOSER. They must exist. I can't be the only cool safe person in this city...

But how does one approach that? How would I find a place to live in the next few months? I've never lived completely on my own. It is very scary. I am in burn out so I am still isolating and I want to socialize more, but I get along better with queer people because I am queer. I get along with autistics more often than not... The community I'm approaching are full of those... But they're all younger. I understand the power dynamic and demanding attention from some might be too intense for most. 

...

Red's back still hurts. I miss him as a friend but he has his own issues to figure out and regulate. Just like I do .. We don't have a committed relationship. It's more like a flirty friendship... I do want to be someone's primary... But how do I get a partner who sees me as a priority? 

Poly is more about a deeper connection. But how do I move beyond the connection? How do I find a compatible person to spend forever with? That's too tall of an order to bring up with any new connections I know now. And frankly, I'm not there with any of them. They all have their own lists of yeses and nos... 

Which makes sense. It was a bit of a jolt, but necessary when Handshake said he wanted kids that look like him. I can't promise it would be safe for my body to be pregnant again. I survived a ruptured uterus after giving birth at 22. No idea what my body would try now that I'm nearing the big 4 - 0... 

I may never get to announce a happy baby announcement to my parents. I will continue to not get the milestones I was promised... That I've always been looking forward to... Why? Because I can barely stay sane. My issues are my own to deal with. Not a child's life. A kid is supposed to enjoy being a kid and listened to... A kid is supposed to feel wanted and listened to... I broke the generational curses even before knowing it had a name. 

I am an unworthy member of a family who just wants to send me to a Christian finishing school, push me off on some desperate middle age virgin whiney baby dweeb... The man is right, the woman stays silent .... 

I am destined to be a village witch. 

A Georgia O'Keefe. Claiming my truth, I feel like I will completely destroy my immediate family's sense of self. That big bold invisible line that has always been instilled by G, I have been hiding myself out of fear of never belonging, but I've never really belonged to begin with... I've always been different. 

"Sit with other family" is a phrase that has wrung in my head since my dad uttered those words at me at Brother's wedding. I was invited out of politeness, but idt my dad wanted me to follow through. It would look a lot better for him and G if we, me and Sister, became shining beacons of what women are "supposed to" act like... Wives and mothers. That's it. No other place for me in the Catholic world. 

I have never been apart of Dad's perfect triad family. I will never be good enough or perform the way he wants me to. 

He did give me money for improv classes. Those are going to be interesting. ...comedy is relating to silly human atrocities through humor. Through deflection. I can state my trauma nonchalantly, which is kinda jarring for most... Unusual, but probably not uncommon. 

...

I've had an askew reality for so long with how my life was going... I lived with Crickets, who never really wanted to hang out with me the way I felt loved. He failed learning me the way I thought I had known him. We never learned how to fight without devastating the other. The office was not us watching the show and arguing. 

The office should be another entry. 

... I thought the next steps were ring. Wedding. Marriage. House. After 1 year of dating... I had bought him a ring, but it wasn't to propose to him... It was to be ready for when he proposed to me ... I kept waiting for the ring. I kept waiting for the visual tangible promise of forever, in a ring. 

The ring I've always wanted since I found it. It's on Etsy. Lol. Made in London. I've loved it for so long that I first fell in love with its concept when it was $110 but now it's 210$, I just found that funny... But the ring is a nod to my grandmother's ring.... Bevel set, not prongs. She was a practical lady. 

But ...Crickets had a different checklist that I had to comply to. That I had to follow. He wanted us to get a house first, but lie about my title to look better on an application. I was his fiance in writing ... But never actually? 

He wanted me to keep committing myself over and over again without one budge from him with compromising or bettering himself...or committing. I would shut down when he was yelling. He was very loud. He made loud mouth noises and his chair that I got him, squeaked really bad. He never took care of anything he owned... Why did I think he'd take care of me as a person? Lol. Or even apologize when he damaged or broke things of mine.

I hope he's learned similar lessons and that he's doing better. But I am glad I don't carry the burden of his emotions anymore. I miss his mom and his family a lot more than I had realized... But it was because they felt like an actual home. One stable house to come home to... He was so lucky to have that support system. 

We would be hanging out and I'd say to him that I'd give up my job for more of these family interactions... But I saw how his mom "trained" her dog. I saw how angry and frustrating his father can become, and how forceful he can be with someone... I saw Crickets not stick up for me when his dad shoved me around for a Christmas photo. 

The familial expectations of performance was a lot. ....I can't fathom the pressures he had as a first born, first son, attending a prestigious college, and fucking up by being kicked out. The shame and sadness he feels but all I got to see was his pride and ego. 

His mom loved me... She liked how blunt and direct I was and how much I wanted to settle down. She loved how I would respect her son without flinching. He was so head over heels for me... 

But I will not be settling for a boy who can't hang up his ego to actually compromise and we come to an actual understanding. We move on. We resolve and grow forward. 

How do I find that in another person? How do I find others with that level of integrity? And who wants to build a life with me as I am? How do I volunteer and involve myself in a creative open community without harsh judgement towards who I'd present as my authentic self? As me? 

...

I don't want to be defined by someone I am seeing romantically or otherwise... But labels help define boundaries. Labels have helped recalibrate how I see the world as it is. I don't want a man to define me or baby me... I want to meet a guy who wants me in his life, will make time, and make me a priority. Just like I like to make effort for my partners being in the present moment with them. 

If you want something else from me. Just ask. Being pursued is the highest compliment. Telling me your yearning or "it should've been you" will scare me away. No pressure. /s I view some friends like brothers or siblings, and will thus never progress further. I wish I could be closer to some, but I won't cross that boundary. I cannot view them as more, despite their more feelings towards me. 

Who I share myself with and the boundaries I've set for myself are to keep me safe ... But are they good for me? So far, I've relaxed and felt better being myself around my new friends and being useful without sacrificing who I am, at work. But it's such a slow process and my ADHD isn't satisfied at all with the pace!! I want to heal already... Burn out takes a few years... It's so annoying....time.

...

I'm also super lucky to have a job with full benefits. I have the best coverage for insurance I've ever had in my life. And I maintain it on my own. I'm proud that I've kept this job for so long... Unsure what the next thing should be. 

Should I get my license back with the worry of painful hands to stop me anyway? Wasting time and money getting it back? Am I good at talking to people? Yes. 

Idk what else I'd do, but I need to be earning more. I need to be doing more with my life. 

...

Snow.