Lunch date

My whole life, I’ve dreamed of having a little woodland creature friend. Human friends were always so confusing to me, so many unspoken rules of engagement that everyone seemed to know except me. No matter how much I tried to understand, begged for the rule book, no one would let me into the club. I sat outside, alone, most of my childhood. I watched the other kids run around and play together. I hoped and hoped that in my infinite loneliness that the animals I saw would instead accept me, non judgmental of my outcasted status.

As I grew up, I had assumed that making friends would get less confusing and naively believed it would get easier. I wish I hadn’t been wrong about that.

So while I still try to find those easeful relationships within the human world, at least I have finally made the woodland creature friend I dreamed of having.

Their name is Mirana, by the way.

Catalysts

How many different universes have you seen - existing all around you? How many times have you stood in front of someone your soul stripped bare for them to see? Have you let them view the thousand versions of you that has existed, is existing, will exist? How many dimensions have we crossed paths - And how many times has it hurt?

How many raw conversations have you had - And been fully held there? You deserve many many lifetimes multiplied of true connection - But are you afraid of what they will see?

What will be the catalyst? What will make you say, “enough”? How many bonds will it take being broken - For that pain to be transformed into change?

How many universes live inside you - And when will you open them up?

It’s not over.

It’s day 5 of Joey having Covid and it’s incredible to me just how quickly one can feel so desperately alone. It hit him very suddenly and intensely. He slept for nearly 40 hours straight the first couple days. Seeing him so sick has been terrifying but I’m glad to see little improvements over the last couple days.

It’s been a very isolating two and a half+ years since Natasha’s death, my grandmother’s death, the pandemic starting and being ongoing, my dearly loved dog’s death, having to step away from my biological family in it’s near entirety, and getting near radio silence from the community around me during all of that.

So having to sleep in the living room, out of my cozy safe space, away from the one person who really sees me, has been too much to bear. My body and heart aches. I can’t imagine how he must be feeling as well having to be sequestered away from everyone while he goes through this.

I don’t have any thoughtful response or mind blowing epiphany going through this, I’m just terrified. And lonely. And it’s not over.

I wish I had friends that could physically show up for me.

To all the lives I've lived

I used to play in the flowers and get naked in the streams
I used to get my toes in the mud and climb into the perfect position for the “shot”
I used to count the days pass by the number of flowers I have picked and giggles I had giggled
I used to skinny dip with friends and pick leeches from my skin

I used to
I used to
I used to

I used to make art with others
I used to make art for myself
I used to honor myself, as if I was a work of art as well
I used to be in moments, now I watch them go by

I used to
I used to
I used to

I should stop with the “used to”
And begin with the “again”

Seeking happiness in an unhappy world.

My humanness hurts. Feeling so fully and loving so overwhelmingly is a painful existence in a world so dedicated to, fighting tooth and nail for, disconnection. Seeking for the good in people, while being so isolated from friendship, it’s a arduous road. And I’m tired. My words are unheard. My observations being categorized as “over-reactionary.”

I just wish for a friend to come sit with me but I am “too much.” Too hard to befriend.

I believe in a world where friendship is deep and meaningful and honest. It just gets harder and harder to fight for that when most won’t fight for me.

Will you come sit with me?

💜

Anti-social media

I’ve always struggled with friendships. While I watched all the kids easily meld together on the playground and laugh and joke and play as if it was as easy as breathing. The thing is, breathing has been hard for me too. Sometimes I forget and gasp for air. My lungs aching at the deprivation. And struggling to understand the ins and outs of social interactions has left me emotionally gasping for air. I occasionally find people I feel I really connect with only to be brutally shown that they had been applying innuendo to my words and prying the lines of my words open to insert things that aren’t there.
I am a walking misunderstanding.
Social media was a blessing. An opening for this little lonely kid who grew into an adulting yearning for that friendship they saw growing up that came with such ease for everyone around them because I was now not confined by the towns I was in to find connection. I could find people, all over the world, that understood me.

The irony of it all is that made the loneliness worse. These friends I could connect with and talk with, too far away to be physically close to. To hear their laughter and share a hug with. And finding out, painfully, time and time again, that people notoriously lie about who they are, a concept foreign to me. The fact I cannot lie about who I am has led to straddling a line. One side is deep loneliness of being asked to show up as someone I am not, never truly being “seen” - one side is deep loneliness of showing up as who I am and being rejected.

And then the insidiousness deepened, when I found friends in person and they would only ever “lurk” on social media, read my woes, and then in person ask how I was doing and I would answer honestly and be met with, “yes, I know. I read that.” Social media leads us to believe we are so connected and in tune with others, without actually having to do anything to connect and build relationships.
And when you disappear off social media, you disappear. I’m still just as lonely, maybe even more so, as when I was on it, but at least now I don’t feed the delusions of connectedness that the suggestion of “social” media had on my brain.

I don’t know how to build a community. I want fireside chats and cups of coffee wrapped in a blanket with friends. I want conversations that mean something and honesty between us. I feel so much and I want that to be something my friends love and appreciate about me rather than try to tell me to not feel so wholly. I want to hold friends hands and bring them soup when they are sick. I want to build a life so full of community where nothing is transactional. A chosen family that doesn’t ask me to be okay with abuse and change who I am when I am not fitting into social norms. I want a life full of friendship that doesn’t hurt and so fully overshadows the fact I was born into a family that doesn’t actually love me for who I am that I don’t even think about that because it’s so far irrelevant from my life.
I wish people would show me if they care and allow themselves and me to show up as our fully messy human selves, who will make mistakes and can grow together through them.
Everything feels so urgent all the time when nothing truly is. We have time. And I want to spend it with you.