An Open Letter

If I think back, I know that I have memories, Sneaking behind my parents back to play Minecraft with my school friends over Skype. I remember that I had Days after school where I would play Minecraft with my childhood crush, who I eventually ended up asking out with a coded love letter. I vividly remember giving her the note that says that I like you right as the bell rang for the school day to end, and I ran out of that building and I vividly remember how much my heart was beating and how it felt like I was seeing the same colors I’ve seen my entire life, except I was finally appreciating them for what they were. We dated for a year and we would exchange a full page letter to each other using the cipher that I still use to this day. I remember one day I had to rip up all of the notes and flush them in the toilet because I couldn’t risk my parents finding them. I remember one day in class in seventh grade while we were sitting next to each other she wrapped her leg around mine and I got so incredibly flustered I didn’t know what to do and I panicked. On the last day of school before summer break, she tried to hug me goodbye and my nervous system lit up, causing me to duck and roll and run away.

I remember the first day I met the friend I still play games with weekly almost a decade later. It was in a normal game of League of Legends, and the person he was playing with was chatting back with me and my friend. He sent a friend request and have politeness I accepted it, even though I didn’t really like him. One of the happiest memories I have in my life was shared with him in a karaoke bar in Japan last year. He’s one of my closest friends.

In elementary school with my friends at lunch we would jump around the grass fields and role-play being Pokémon trainers. One of the earliest memories I have was in first grade writing a full page for an assignment about how I dreamed of turning into a Charizard and flying to school.

Sometime around second grade, I had a dream where I flew by using pieces of paper on my hands as wings. I was so excited for recess, and I ran as hard as I could and I was not able to fly. If I’m being completely honest, a part of me still does believe that if I was to go now with two pieces of paper, all I would need to do is just run hard enough and flap with enough conviction, because I remember the feeling of the wind lifting me up.

I say these things because someone asked me what my earliest memory was, and the thing that came to mind was the first time thoughts of suicide came to me, even though I didn’t even know what suicide was. It presented itself in a bottle of some sort of chemical I was told by my sister would kill me if I drank it. And I remember how much I wanted to drink it, not because I wanted to get away from anything, but just because I thought it would be nice to die.

Depression robbed so many memories from me, and it continues to steal whenever it encroaches past the small closet it’s allowed to call home in my mind. A consequence of this is when I look back at my childhood all I remember is the suicide attempt, the plans, and washed memories of numbness, with the only exceptions being things I clutch onto as justifications for why I am the way I am. I desperately paint back in the memories of summers trapped in my room, or the places where the neglect was apparent. If I don’t preserve these memories, I may lose them along with everything else from my childhood, except these are the receipts to prove that I am hurt. But there’s no store for me to return these to, no way to get any value back from them aside from at most, acknowledgment they existed. And I wonder why I do not hold onto the happy memories the same way.

Whenever I look back at childhood I’m free from nostalgia because I only remember the tragedies, but if I hold the earlier memories I mentioned with the same hand, I’m left with a sweeter picture that makes it a little bit harder to leave. And I do have to leave it, because I cannot ever go back, but maybe it is a kinder thing if I was to carry something worth missing.

I went to a concert for slow degrade today and holy shit it was amazing. At one point during the set the crash cymbal broke, and after the show when I was talking with them they told me that I could keep it! I got it signed by all of them along with a cassette. I really love going to concerts and I think it’s such a nice intimate human thing to just be able to admire the beauty of all of the instruments and the effort and love that goes into playing music.

I also remember today when I was I think driving to work or driving home, I thought about what happened with E. I don’t think about her often nowadays if ever, but I remembered how I had this big project that I was responsible for that was due on Friday the day before Valentine’s Day, and also two days before Hash’s birthday. And on that Thursday was when she came to my house unannounced with three other people and broke up with me and refused to listen and went through my house taking stuff. That was also with her recording me against my knowledge, ambushing me and having her roommate ganging up on me and saying things about how I wanted to fuck with my house, steal things, and even steal my dog. We had to call her mom to get her to calm down and listen to reason and finally leave. I had to miss an important work meeting because they wouldn’t listen and also because there’s just no way that I could have that meeting while I’m crying and my dog is desperately trying to go and see her. This was something that a week later when we talked she apologized for and said that she had no clue how she could make it up to me. A big reason why she wanted to break up was because she felt like she kept fucking up and at least from my point of view that’s such a fucking shitty situation to be in, where she is upset and feels horrible about all of the shitty things that she consistently did throughout the relationship, and how I didn’t do things like that to her. And because of that she does something exceptionally shitty. I felt so unsafe for so long, and even now I feel kind of unsafe thinking about how powerless I was and how I was ganged up on in my own house. But it’s also insane with how that sabotage to my work and I think that’s a line that is not OK to cross especially because she was like going through a mental episode or something where she just couldn’t control herself. These were all things that she apologized sweetly for after we took a week long break, but it only took two days for the cracks to show where she didn’t regret that I was recorded crying and vulnerable without me knowing. And that’s just not at all fair to me. And I am grateful that I eventually learned my lesson and stopped giving more chances and broke up. One of my coworkers and friends let me know that he had broken up on good terms with his partner of 10 years. They lived down the street from me in a house together, and he said that they were both moving out and they were going to rent it. And I’m glad that it was on good terms but I also think that is so incredibly devastating to break up after 10 years. I’m really grateful that my relationship only lasted five months and that it didn’t go on longer because we might’ve gotten married, and might’ve even had kids at some point. And I don’t know if I would be able to really forgive myself if I had kids and by then she hadn’t changed and was emotionally unstable around children, because that is irresponsible of me to put a kid into that situation in the first place. And I think also the fact that I wanted to be in that relationship for a long time is assigned that there are also stuff that I need to mature about and learn. And I would like to think that I at least learned my lesson from this relationship, and hopefully this is the last one of the big growing pain lessons, at least in the sense of something that needs action or change. But I do digress, the thing I wanted to kind of journal about and get on writing was explicitly how what happened was not OK and it was not fair to me. Those things are never OK, and I’m really sorry that that happened. But at the same time I needed that to happen because otherwise I would not have left. And it is a much worse situation if I stay because it does not hit that point of nuclear, where I have to leave. I would never do something like that to a partner, and so I should not just accept the fact that a partner would do that to me.

This is the third week of me going to this social chess club And I’m really proud of myself to say that I beat a 1300! I won because of an opening tactic that I just started learning today, and I Have began to learn the London system. It’s actually really fun to be able to have people to play chess with over the board. I also hit a PR on dead lift! 435 pounds. I feel like I’ve gotten so used to seeing all of these incredible people online where it’s a global competition and I’ve forgotten about how my achievement still hold merit at my scale. I’m proud of myself.

I feel pretty conflicted right now because I’ve been somewhat talking to this girl K For a little bit now and I am very confident that she is interested in at least a date if not more. I feel like there are logistical reasons why I can say that this is not maybe the relationship I’m looking for, she works opposite hours than I do and so I would only be able to spend time with her on the weekend. She also lives pretty far away from me. And additionally there are a couple things that aren’t necessarily red flags but maybe more yellow for me, she isn’t in therapy, and has said a couple things that kind of feel like they aren’t indicators of emotional majority but I also could be wrong. She also isn’t really chalant or expressive the same way that I am, and that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker but I do really like it when someone can match my energy. Otherwise I feel like I’m kind of constantly fighting this pull to match their energy. Also isn’t really convinced on if she wants to have kids or not, and she really wants to travel around a lot, meaning she isn’t necessarily ready to set roots.

But at the same time she is fun to talk to, and also is pretty well established with a job and her own friend group. We do have some similar interests like certain kind of games, and the gym. She also does give off a lot of that tomboyish energy that I like, where she is competitive for stupid things.

I keep thinking about this one reel that I saw, a woman was at a restaurant and the menu only had fries. She ordered the fries, and then notices another patron had a really nice plate of pasta. When she asked the patron how she got that it’s as simple as just asking for it. When she mentions that pasta is not on the menu, the other patron says that they’re simply is no menu and what you ask for you will get. It’s just a question about knowing what you can expect. An additionally when she orders the pasta she gets fries. She has to then wait and send the fries back. Then she gets her pasta right before she starts to eat it, it turns into fries. She has to again send it back until finally she gets the pasta that she wanted.

I feel like this is almost a test from the universe, seeing if I am willing to say no and wait a little bit more for someone that I truly fall in love with. The universe has been kind to me by making it explicitly hard logistically, but also by illustrating that it’s not going to be super clear answers of someone who says that they refuse to have kids, or that they live hundreds of miles away. Often these things happen in these gray in between. And I guess in journaling here I feel like the answer is clear to me. I guess now the question is how to make sure I’m not leading someone on even though we haven’t explicitly showed interest.

I guess when I think about it a little bit more, if I visualize the person that I want to spend my life with, it’s someone who looks at me and smiles in a slightly mischievous but very grateful way. I think I could really value someone that can help me stand up when I’m at my lowest. I don’t want my partner to be my therapist or anything like that but I absolutely want them to be someone that I feel safe going to. And I know that I grew up only eating fries but maybe I would like to hold out until I can find someone that would notice the little things that come from knowing me for long enough to tell that I’m struggling and maybe give me like a little pack of candies when I get home and a hug. And the thought of that makes me wanna breakdown crying. I want to be careful of saying that I’m not asking for too much because honestly to me that’s the world. I think that being loved can look like a dollar store pack of sour patch kids. And it’s a quiet reminder that you have a place in my mind. And even if that place gets dirty and neglected because you’re struggling, that’s a place that’s worth cleaning and tidying up for you. And instead of just shutting the door, letting a bit of sunlight in and letting me know that no matter what I am loved.

I’ve gone pretty far from the original point but I guess another kind of a litmus test for me is the fact that I’ve kind of spent my entire life learning that depression was something to be hidden. And this was also because of my fault. At least in the sense of I was doing something that wasn’t good for other people, before I was properly treated I was essentially making this massive concern someone else’s problem when they would give me some space, and I would like to acknowledge the fact that that is no longer the case. But it still is something I’ve had to unlearn and relearn again, taking up space and asking for help from friends and family. And I think that is something that’s really hard for me but incredibly important, and when I choose a future partner I want someone who recognizes that that’s both a weakness but also something great importance to me. And I think you’d be so incredibly sweet and loving if a partner that finds out about my struggles work conditions doesn’t shy away from them, but rather goes inside with curiosity and compassion, the same way I would hope I do.

If I’m being completely honest I hope that I find this person sued, because I really want to meet them and I would love to be able to start spending time with them, and I know that an important thing is controlling my hunger for it because that is what blinds me into taking fries instead of pasta. But I think it would be an incredibly beautiful dish of pasta and I would be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to it.

A little bit anxious if I’m being honest about the whole spark thing. On one hand is something that I have felt before and it has felt real. But also I feel like I’ve seen a lot of literature told through secondhand sources about how this park is actually just an anxiety response due to uncertainty. The part that I’m feeling is not necessarily associated with a healthy relationship. And so because of that I guess I’m kind of afraid because I feel like that spark has been a big reason why I enter into relationships in the first place. And I’m a little bit afraid because if I’m not supposed to use that as an indicator am I supposed to more or less just settle for someone who doesn’t excite me? And the problem is I don’t actually know the answer to that question. Because I feel like maybe yes. Maybe love is not meant to be exciting. And it goes completely against all of the narratives that I’ve seen through media because you never really see a slow burn or plotless love. It’s often painted by large grand gestures and this spark is captured within two or so hours in a movie. And I feel afraid because I don’t really know what to look for otherwise. And it feels like this is just another path of settling, which is something that I wanted to avoid because I think I owe it to a future partner and I owe it to myself to feel absolutely in love with them. But if I’m not supposed to necessarily feel a spark with them that does kind of widen the pool of my options that I consider because there are people that I just don’t really feel a connection or chemistry with and now the problem is maybe those people are the right partners to choose. And additionally when I think about how a partner is not supposed to match you in all of the ways, and they’re not supposed to necessarily share your interests, and attraction is a superficial thing and not necessarily something to base everything on, it feels like there’s an argument for almost anyone being a good candidate and that feels like I’ve stepped even farther from where I was originally with my goal of being more selective.

I’m gonna have to be quick because my phone is at 3%. After our salsa class, G And I talked for about two hours or so. We went through her hinge and looked at her matches on profile and stuff like that, and it was nice to see authentic male profiles because even though it wasn’t my kind of person that I would be interested in or I guess who I would consider as “my competition”, it was nice to see the kind of people that are on the apps and to recognize that I guess I would consider myself pretty confidently in that top 10% of men. I always think about that study that is quoted about how the top 90% of women give the top 10% of men and it’s not necessarily the men that are super tall and super incredibly wealthy and handsome, but it really is some of those other things that I have a strengths and that I’ve heard from several other women consistently saying and the science and literature everything backing up the fact that that is what matters. And I guess I just wanna say that I have a renewed sense of optimism.

Not really sure what happened but I got put on the waitlist for the Barcade event tomorrow that I was looking forward to. Oh well, I am kind of grateful that I get to take a little bit of a breather from all of the socialization, and I anyway need to catch up on attack on Titan in time for the movie. I feel like I’m starting to become more and more extroverted, I’m noticing that I’m less anxious with every new interaction and I’m also not necessarily drained afterwards. I don’t really feel that crash that sometimes comes with social experiences. I think that it’s actually really nice to have a kind of constant stream of events with people from a source that I do not need to create. Like I don’t need to worry about all the logistics of hosting or setting up an event, because I can just go to one of these events. I feel like there is a cup half full and cup half empty moment here, where I feel like I am very lively and constantly making everyone at my table laugh pretty frequently. And I think this has helped my self-confidence because I am more and more confident in the fact that I am a very interesting person that is charismatic and very good at conversation. I can talk to essentially anyone and have a good conversation, one where people look to join and want to interact more with me in the future. I think I’ve also gotten a lot more comfortable with soft social skills like ending conversations, introducing myself to people or joining and moving around different social groups. I’ve gone a lot more comfortable with eating with people, which is actually very nice. I used to be very anxious around it, because I wasn’t allowed to do this growing up and as a result I felt very anxious because it was very unfair. But I’ve had a good amount of experiences now both one on one and also in group setting, and I’ve been able to recognize that a lot of the concerns that I had while valid or rather things that only really exist when I try to solve some situation or make sure I fully understand it before jumping into it. I also want to recognize that it’s only taken me a few experiences to feel comfortable with this and I think that’s a testament to my growth and versatility.

I do think however there’s also the cup half empty perspective, where I’ve felt like I have met people varying from people I just don’t really mess with or don’t really enjoy interacting with too much, two people that are almost like sidekicks for a lack of better word. It’s felt like there are some friends that I’ve made that don’t really speak up in conversations or don’t really contribute too much, but are reliable people to laugh at jokes with, or to talk to at any point. And I do value these friends, and I think they serve an important niche in social groups, but I haven’t really felt like I’ve met people that are good at conversations or funny, like my gold standard of A. I get discouraged when I think about how I would like to find someone who reminds me of me and can make me laugh similarly, because I think it’s always going to be biased by the fact that I have spent my entire life with myself in a way that no one else can. And my perception of other people will always be different than a perception of self. But when I think about A, or A, they consistently can make me laugh without me providing something. I have a lot of friends that can make me laugh in the sense that I can make a joke or I can provide something or I can build on something they say, but I do have a few friends that are just genuinely very creative and funny. And I kind of wish I was able to meet more people like that, and it feels rare. And I think that’s the kind of pessimistic angle to view things, in the fact that I have met a dozen or so people in the last week and I haven’t really found anyone that has made me laugh consistently. This isn’t saying that I haven’t found great people and new friends, but there still is something to be desired.

I think I’m starting to feel comfortable being the person that I am. I feel like I’ve now had an avenue to meet essentially an unlimited stream of people through 222, and I feel like that has really given me a lot of confidence on depart like I felt like I couldn’t control and so I’m feeling like a complete lack of dread and I feel like that makes me feel more content as a person.

I went to an event by 222, which is essentially like time left if you know what that is. And I really felt like I was the life of the party for my group, I had people kind of hovering around me and if I went to a different group or made new friends I would eventually have my old group end up coming to me. I made a lot of new friends and people that are interested in doing several different things, and I very much consider it a success. I also want to kind of be a little bit intentional with reminding myself that I was good at being social and I was very well received by others. I also feel like I was very charismatic and entertaining with my stories, and I was consistently making people laugh. I remember that one reel that talked about how interesting people constantly have applicable stories and I kind of felt that way where I was able to just naturally have a lot of related stories that I felt like I was able to tell in a very entertaining manner and I was even complimented on my storytelling at one point. I just wanna take a little bit to be proud of myself for that and to acknowledge that as a strength of mind that I’ve worked hard for.

Additionally there was this one girl named A, who I was friendly to from the beginning but was pretty judgmental and honestly rude. When I would make friendly comments or conversations she would be pretty rude or would casually throw in put downs towards me, and this really does remind me of L. I essentially just stopped interacting with her, and she ended up kind of gravitating back towards me mostly because I was kind of at the heart of social interaction. But she still continued to be rude to me and so I just didn’t really go out of my way to interact with her too much. I invited some other people to a game night at some point in the future, mostly just checking for interest and I didn’t explicitly ask her because she wasn’t directly in that conversation and I wasn’t going to go super out of my way to invite her. When I finally dropped off everyone at their cars, I was talking with another person that I enjoyed meeting, and her. I was telling them a couple of different stories, and I eventually asked if she was interested in board games or specifically social deduction games and she said she was. She seemed friendly then. It kind of feels like there’s as weird manipulation thing almost of kind of being somewhat rude to them, and by that I mean not going out of my way to engage with them or to involve them with things which I do think is fair. But I feel like once that person gets that social feedback that their behavior of being rude gets them that response, they become a little bit more friendly.

I said the title kind of in reference to literally everything in life and maybe you can make an argument for this being overthinking. But for example with the whole fear about not getting married soon enough, I believe I saw something where the average age is 30, and if I wanna date someone for four years that’s two years to get into that relationship and of course if I wanted to really force it and hit this deadline I could absolutely do that but at the same time this whole arbitrary 30 years Mark isn’t for healthy relationships or for really amazing magical ones like the kind that you can get if you really wait and you do the work and the nice thing is I’ve done a lot of the work, and so the part that I need to do is wait and be patient. And so I guess I don’t really have too much to worry about I feel like in that sense, I can take my time if I want and my life isn’t a great spot so I’m in no rush. But even more generally I kind of just realize that I was both hungry and also didn’t have great sleep the last few nights and both of those things definitely negatively impact my mood, and so I just decided to not give too much weight towards any negative feelings today and I kind of just chilled and took it a little bit easy. And that’s all I really need to do.