An Open Letter

I find myself still preemptively hiding my meanings behind weird little blurbs of text. I set my status to “propped up” – to refer to the handful of stimulants I’ve been using daily to give me enough energy to not be depressed I guess. Today V and I finally took the random brain pills that were in my desk since the start, since today was effectively the last day we would be able to do that. Surprisingly the pills worked, and we locked the hell in for a few hours. Later we even got T to take one when she came up for a snack.

V is leaving in two days, along with A, K, I, and probably a few others I can’t remember right now. Thankfully T is still here, so that’s one familiar face. H left last week.

In my prior internships and summers, I just spent the time alone. I didn’t make any friends at work, and so I would just do my work and then go home to spend time with online friends where I could. I guess I was resigned to that fate to some extent. This internship I somewhat was going to do the same thing, but V made everything so much easier by adopting me like an introvert. Through him I met so many new people, and made good friends. These friends made everything so much less lonely. And those same friends are the ones who are going to make it so much lonelier when they leave. How does that quote go: “how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”.

I’m really going to strangely miss A. I think objectively she hasn’t been a great friend, there have been several things shes done that’s hurt my feelings and made me feel like I was somewhat taken advantage of – but at the same time she was great company and easy to talk to. It’s also nice to kinda see someone who can relate to depression at least. I enjoy talking to her.

I’m going to miss V a lot also. Interacting with him is always fun. I’m thinking back to the times we went test driving, and how he would hold everyone captive in the car as he attempts to kill us all. I always thought that was hilarious. Also our pingpong, I still don’t have the heart to tell him I let him win or get close so he keeps playing with me. He also did beat me at gokarting that one time fair and square which the inner child in me is still salty about. I’m glad to have friends to do things with.

I was talking to Pi earlier because the friends I reached out to were all busy, and I didn’t have it in me to ask for help explicitly. I told Pi that I felt like I had found people who get me at this internship more than I normally feel. I think it helps to be surrounded by people who are also CS or engineering, because they see the world in a similar way. I’m not getting clowned for using words like “heuristic” in a sentence, even though I do think I somewhat should be.

I’m afraid to lose these people, because that means that work will be a lot lonelier for the other 22 remaining days. I’m also afraid because is this what life is doomed to? Time to make another set of friends for one more year before we all move apart and stop keeping contact. I do mourn that sometimes. I think A would love to just rip it up on the highway, but at the same time would be somewhat afraid and look at me with the crazy eyes and make some joke about me trying to kill us both. He’s one of the funniest people I know, and I’m sad that I don’t get to interact with him nearly as much anymore.

This cycle is scary to me, but at the same time I do want to acknowledge the fortune I’ve had from having an online adolescence. My online friends like S, T and L have been with me for years, and it doesn’t matter where we move. I did wish that similar to Didi there was some media that portrayed my childhood. But also how the fuck is that supposed to work? I could not think about a single nice way to have a movie of a childhood on a computer, at least in a film setting. When I said this to A, she said she wouldn’t want to see a film like her childhood, and asked why I would want to. For me the answer popped up instantly, and it was because I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone in that experience. I think it’s almost ironically funny how difficult it must be to find someone who grew up like that, by virtue of the circumstances themselves.

After I tried crying in the shower to get some of these emotions out (I failed), I turned off all the lights except for my computer (which I forgot), and sat under the table on the other side of the room. I set a 15 minute timer, and just thought. Weirdly, that actually made me feel a lot better. It felt like that crushing dread and fear at least shifted. Probably because Hash saw me sitting on the floor and took it as an opportunity to sit on my lap, and once he was bored of being pet, we played some fetch. I’m grateful I’m not alone because I have Hash.

If I’m being honest, I’m afraid of the future. I don’t know how it’s going to go, and my brain has convinced me that I will be alone, since I don’t have faith in my ability to do things like make friends or adjust. It’s a terrifying thing, and I wish that I had the chance to learn that as a kid. But hey, at least I’m good at coding. I have to take whatever victories I can from that childhood.

I guess I’m kinda happy that I haven’t found my community or ideal friends yet, since life is still all in motion. It would hurt a lot to have to say bye to community due to something else, and I don’t know if I could bring myself to do that. I mean I literally was going to deny an Amazon SWE position paying $90 an hour to instead work at my current internship, mostly because then I’d be able to see S and L over the summer, and go on that roadtrip. They not once mentioned the roadtrip, and I only saw S twice lol. S has somewhat moved on and has prioritized her new irl relationships which I can’t blame her for, but it is a pretty big indicator on how things will go once we both graduate. I find myself being the one to reach out, and trying to interact and maintain that relationship. It’s a shame, but I guess I’ll just put it on pause until we get back in person and see how that goes. I guess something to be optimistic about is how happy I am with poor relationships across the board – that’s one perk of having a low bar, I’m happy with so little. I don’t mean that in any bad way at all even though I now see how that reads, but I genuinely really do appreciate and value traditionally poor relationships. I’m just happy to be here I guess, even in a cosmic sense. Once my forearms heal hopefully I can at least get out some of this emotion in the gym and that’ll help.