1/11/2026
I want to write this because I am 20 and youthful still, so I have no frame of reference. I’m wise enough now, though, to understand that I want to document what I have of my life now so that I can make more of these in the future. 20 can be the first one, since obviously we wouldn’t get anything good from a ten year old. The goal is complete and utter honesty in the moment, no matter how rough or stupid it is, so that in ten years I can read it and make a new one. Half of it is probably overreacting because I wrote it all at once, but I really do think it’s a fine enough reflection of my core self. And it's public because.. I'm just that kind of person, I guess.
At the moment, today, I tend to think of myself as some gothic figure, at times. When I write, I draw so much from reality and my memories of the past, things people said to me, things that I feel, that I find myself writing just my life and perspective at times. I get so quiet in real life because I’m never the one who speaks my own words.
I think this solitary life I made for myself over all these years out of survival truly made me into something else. The only people I can please or have a relationship with are those who expect something of me, whom I can deliver for. I truly, truly don’t think I know what it’s like to live as a person. Every time I get to ‘being human’, the lives of others get messier when I get involved. Every step I take, no matter what I do. is a misstep or a misunderstanding that leaves me feeling like the one in the wrong. That’s how I came to understand the simple truth that I am not like humanity, or at least not in the way humans operate. Maybe that’s why my persona is a zombie, all on its lonesome at times, because I feel like a zombie in this world.
People hear me say these things and tell me it’ll get better, but I don’t think they understand me at all. They take my youth and see something that will grow with age. Yet, the more I grow, the less like anyone I become. To compensate, I shift the axis of my own life and spiral inward, towards the horizon of my own destruction, I think. I get so solitary that when I do have to come out, it’s because I fell apart and then remade myself in the image of someone who can exist. Only to then just… burn out, I guess.
I think people see things like this as negatives, how sad or pitiful and so on. I can’t see myself as a negative, or perhaps I learned to cope and believe that I won’t. Someone told me I needed to be confident in myself, just take it in stride, but I truly think that I’ve done just that. My ‘stride’ is just… alone.
Another angle you can see it from is that perhaps I’m simply overreacting or exaggerating. I’m so nice and forgiving to others, and yet I can do the harshest, most critical deep dives on myself and my psyche and come out with no answer. In truth, the only thing I can say is that if I am, or ever was lacking, I have no frame of reference.
I have no idea why it’s so easy to be a person when people approach me, instead. I think it’s because they’re in my domain, approaching the beast, so to speak. I can be a mess and so, because this space I made for myself is inherently my image and my life. But I can’t enter anyone else’s domain outside of our little guestbooks, since I’m not invited. Maybe I should liken myself to a vampire more, but that’s horribly cliche, no?
Before, I wrote about being valuable to everyone in some abstract sense of the term, but feeling either empty or unsure about my place in their hearts. People always want something from me, want to know what I did or if I can help them, if I’ll be theirs. Outside of maybe my family (and even then…) and a few friends and acquaintances, I really don’t think anyone knows or wants to know me. I don’t think anyone wants to know anyone, actually. And when they really do, they let fear hold them back or don’t follow up to someone’s words meant for them because they don’t believe they’ll be able to make it. It’s so simple, but scary at times. I try to make it easy on those who reach out to me, try to make them feel welcome at once. It’s the least I could do for them. Maybe I do that for myself, too, since I am so abstractly lonely and sated at the same time.
Does anyone else think like this? Or is it just me? Or… is it just rambling and too intense or embarrassing for a person that’s not me to read?
I don’t think it matters, few things really matter in this world when you really think about it. I just want to be a good, decent person and drag along whoever wants to exist with me.
I also want to speak on is my perception(s). I think about some times others tell me that I’m not the problem in some scenarios when I rightfully blame myself. Something so small, to me, tells you a lot about the person. When someone gives you advice, I know it’s taboo, but I wonder if anyone stops to think about the advice itself or why it’s given. In this world of the Self, what good is being social when other people also only look out for themselves? What’s stopping your friends from dropping you from the words of a second, greater friend? The word friend coming from another at random means nothing to me now, especially since other people would be better off calling each other acquaintances.
I know what a friend is, but I don’t know when you start being one. I know when I’m among them, and when other people use you for their own social needs, seeing you as flexible and just an object in their lives. I don’t associate with such people, but, in my everyday life, I see these kinds of friendships. I wonder a lot if it’s me who is the problem in this scenario, or if I’m wise enough to know the average passerby has a weak sense of self, too.
Do you enjoy just throwing yourself to strangers and talking idly? Do you know they don’t care about you, at the end of the day, and they’ll only bring you up in stories about themselves? I know that, and I find it so funny. I love humans, I want to keep them for myself and teach them what I know. A wicked side of me, perhaps the gothic author persona, wants to teach you all cruel lessons like a goddess of stone heart. And yet, the truth of myself is that it’s a blind kind of malice, something born of apathy and a desire to feel one with others. How sad, but what can you do about it? I foster her well and direct her to writing so that my true soul can remain clean.
I actually adore writing like this, the kind of writing I wanted to do since I was young. My teachers, even as low as fourth grade, would send me to the counselor’s, assuming something was wrong with me or that I was being abused. I spent all 8 years of my school life in the same place with the same people… I don’t wish that kind of hell on anyone who calls themselves ‘othered’ when talking about a societal game like this.
To be clear, I know what a friend is, and I have had them. They don’t stay, probably because I attract people as volatile as I am (with or without the melodrama), so it’s a different kind of fleeting. It’s bittersweet to lose them, but I can always understand it. We get treated like garbage, really, secondary to a primary and like punishments and obstacles for the real world. It’s why I shelter others on the rare occasions they come to me, and I know I’m not their final destination. But if I can help and make someone’s life better, I’ll never really stop unless it burns me too much. I believe in so much, despite knowing the truth of my reality that it stings at times, but I want so much more. If that makes any sense.
By the way, did you know Lapis is my favorite Steven Universe character? Also you should read my work called The Nothing of Her, I think this kind of thing is the type of writing that was about.