I heard the line as the beginning of a song, and it immediately hurt me. Hash was sleeping between my legs as I sat on the couch, kinda just rotting at almost 2 AM. And so I kept thinking about it, and I kinda hope that I don’t know the last day I have with him. I worry that if I know the day, it will likely be because I kill myself. Or maybe that’s my weird romanticization of it again. It’s weird that I consider life to be this exquisite gift, but at the same time I’m so ready to throw it away. It feels like it just lies somewhere dormant in the folds of my brain, the desire to just call it short. Why doesn’t everyone feel that? What was the reason for me feeling that way consistently, like it’s just under the baseline state for me? Two haircuts ago, the lady told me that I seem like a happy person and she can tell. J said that also, and that was why she wanted to be friends with me. I write on this stupid blog because where else can I let this out, I don’t want it inside of me. I should have had a good day today. I made new friends, and went ice skating and then got dinner afterwards with a new group of friends. And everything went pretty much well. Yet while driving home I kept gunning it on the drive home, because somehow I have an ego so fragile that nothing at all makes me this ugly and mad. I’m tired, and I want to lash out. I want to say that this isn’t me, but I don’t know what I constitute of anymore. I don’t know why I want to say that I’m some bad person or something like that, and I’m afraid to say that I think that I’m kind, since positive self-confidence is tied with hubris in my eyes. I’m not an extrovert, I’m not always happy, I’m not kind, I’m not strong, I’m not any of these other things that I am told or think that I am. I’m this weird jumble of neurons and cells and muscles and experiences that somehow make up something that’s both never before seen, and also the universal experience shared by everyone that’s ever lived. I don’t know what I have to say, if I even have anything at all. I guess I just want to be seen, I feel like I beg for that on here in some form or another every week. I’d love for someone to hold me up to the light, and not stray away. I say to be loved is to be seen, and I don’t know if I’m falsely conflating those two things together. J today said that he doesn’t like things that he’s good at, and I told him I like things I’m bad at. I said it was because there’s no pressure on you, and then was more honest and also said that you never have to worry about making anyone feel bad. But I guess that comes at the cost of me. I wasn’t good enough for the intermediate dance class I went to with V, and on my drive home I wanted to go and practice and get better just to keep this idea that I am someone that’s good at everything. I’m not really sure why I’m like this, probably because I was raised in a way where I learned that love is earned from value given, and from being exceptional. And so I studied and studied and practiced and practiced, and I was good at things until I wasn’t. And then I stopped them. I carry around the 1510 SAT score around me like a permanent badge of shame. I wasn’t valedictorian at UCSB for my undergrad because I tried to kill myself the first quarter I was there, ruining what would have been a 4.0. I was never good at writing, and I still am not, the only things I’ve ever written have been on this journal pretty much. I’m afraid to try something seriously, because to care is to admit inadequacy. I think I’m terrified of that. If I do things I’m bad at, and purposefully let people do better than me, then I can keep my ego intact and believe that I’m good enough to be loved, and that I’m just chooisng to be kind. I keep solidifying the thought in my brain about how the desire to have these hidden talents that get revealed comes down to the desire for the belief that I am still worthy of love, even if someone sees a face of me and decides I’m not worth it. They don’t know about my physical strength. Or they don’t know about my financial success, or my academic prowess. Maybe they don’t know about the ways I’ve been hurting, and that would have been context that would have made them like me. Maybe if I have this layer of defense up then I’m ok, because I can still be loved. They just didn’t see me. I guess I’m afraid of being fully seen then also, because what if they do, and then I’m not loved? That would mean that I gave everything that I had to offer, and it wasn’t enough to be loved. That’s a horrifying thought. Maybe I have tendencies to hide these things instead of being proud. I don’t know if it’s even true, but maybe I keep trying to be better and align more and more with my values because deep down I think that I’m not worth loving yet. I wish my mom got therapy, but instead she didn’t come to my graduation and even though I’m 5 minutes away we haven’t even looked at each other yet. It’s been about 6 months like this. She was the first phone number I’ve properly blocked. I fucking hate the question of if I live with my family, or if they’re still here. As far as I’m concerned, only Dada is alive. I know the needle has swung past what is probably responsible, but there’s too much hurt and pain there that lets me justify letting it out in this way. And so to myself I think that my sister and mom don’t exist. They’re dead. If my mom died I don’t know what the last thing I spoke to her was. And the thought of that doesn’t hurt me. I’m so mentally detached from it that seeing things about siblings don’t even connect at all, it’s like I didn’t have one. I have to really concentrate to think about what Nani’s face looks like. It’s disgusting to even say her nickname. I joke and say that I’m refurbished — something damaged but fixed up to good as new, and at a discounted price. I think I’d be a good partner, and a good friend. But therapy can’t change the dance I have to do when asked about my family. I always have the stain on me and I have to eventually explain that I don’t have a relationship with 2/3rds of them. Anger is just grief in a trenchcoat, and I feel angry when I think about how so many people have a relationship with their family. Funnily enough the only thing my dad instilled in me really was that no one else in the world cares about me, and how they are all after their own best interest, and that the only people truly on my side are my family. So much for that. Guess I have him and Hash. Speaking of which, sometime through writing this he climbed up into my lap and is now sleeping. Sometimes I wish I was better at music so that I could play something so beautiful and pure that it would cut through the way that my words can’t. Each shaky note would be a different red underline in a post I couldn’t write, imperfection born from something so desperate to come out. I don’t know if we can ever really see another person, but it would be a good step towards it.
I’m going to max out the leg extension machine with a single leg, and until then, I’m not going to think about killing myself.