How can I complain about seasickness when I’m the one who set the boat in motion?

Go to the library? On this, the day I discover Taco Bell, yet again, discontinued the 7-layer burrito?

I'm not sure when exactly, but I know that at some point the whimsy and fun drained from my body. What was left was a crude and rudimentary approximation—like aliens studying sitcoms to decipher how to act human. Everyone knows it’s not quite right, but no one says a thing.

Even now—see how I wrote about enjoying life as if I have never enjoyed a single day of it?

I was such a serious child. The unintended consequence of being an only child raised by a single mom whose friends were all childless. I was surrounded by adults the whole time.

Recently, I've been reading books from my childhood. I don’t always remember the titles, so I describe the books to ChatGPT and it seems to find them with ease.

Oh, the things I remember from books.

Like: there’s a girl who changes into an owl and is in love with her middle-aged science teacher, and I remember her describing his arm hair as a field of wheat. Then she meets a boy who can also turn into an owl and falls in love with him—and he’s the science teacher’s son.

Or: there’s a young girl named Catherine who’s engaged to an old man, and she kills fleas by shaking them onto white sheets and makes soap from lye, and it’s set in medieval or feudal times, or something equally long ago.

Or: it’s told from the point of view of a cat—maybe named Socks—who is adopted by a young couple. I mostly remember that he sits in the lap of a woman who is fat and plump, unlike the couple, and he likes how soft she is.

After ChatGPT gives me the title, I borrow the book from the library and finish it in about three days. A young adult book written at a sixth-grade reading level doesn’t take much time.

At the end, it feels like I’ve finished an excavation of myself. For years I thought I stumbled and fumbled my way to where I am today. No one sets out to be a miserable grey person after all!

But no—the building blocks were always there. They’re written in the books I read and loved as a kid. I was making this woman I am now when I was just a girl.

channeling

Be so good at work they can't deny your place. Be so good at work it never stresses you out. Be so good you never doubt it.

Your personal life should be fun. If you ain't enjoying it, why are you there?

Provide for yourself anything a man could promise you.

Don't let it be hard. Take it easy. Plan enough so it's manageable.

Enjoy it. No one is stopping you. No one is secretly judging you. And if they are, what sad lives they must live to hate your enjoyment.

There aren't things you don't know or things you can't do—just things you can learn and things you can do. Shortcomings only exist if you let them.

Fuck ’em if they’re jealous. They could do better too.

Alone is a time to have fun and be free.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Enjoy luxuries. Depriving yourself doesn't help anyone. Feeling bad never helped anyone either.

Forget all the B.S. and dig into who they really are. Base your relationship on that.

It's okay to get radical. It's good to be bold and unapologetically you. Don't say you're sorry for existing. Don't sacrifice living so someone approves of you.

Build the life you want. If you no longer want it, tear it down and start another.

Friends outlast men and often family. That's priorities.

No one is going to stop you.

A little selfishness goes a long way. But never get too selfish. Serve yourself and then others.

Don't wait. You might not have tomorrow.

I lived like a fuckboy in my own head. Can you forgive me?

     Oh, the things that masquerade as romantic in the haze of active alcoholism. Once, a homeless guy ordered a single Long Island Iced Tea with two straws. We split it like a milkshake, as if I were in a poodle skirt and he were cuffing his jeans. Swoon. Another time, at a Halloween party with a bowl of candy corn on my lap, a guy—always a guy—ate each piece color by color: white, yellow, orange. Then reversed it. He wanted to taste the colors.  And on some patio, between sips of $1 pints, a man explained the “complexity” of being a male feminist, which basically boiled down to believing abortion was okay. Oh god—there was even the guy who drew a family tree of the Saddle Creek Records bands on a napkin.

     In hindsight, none of it was romantic. At best it was nostalgic, but even that was aggressively generic. Build a fort. Pack a picnic. Take a walk. Play the guitar. Read her a poem. Show her your vinyl collection. Pluck a city-planted flower. Insert-girl-here. Rinse. Repeat.

     It’s the same kind of thinking that convinces someone to show up unannounced at a crush’s workplace—some hipster chimera trying to be a bar, a music venue, and a restaurant but failing at all three. In five years it’ll be closed, resurrected by the owner with a new gimmick: minigolf instead of arcade games, cowboys instead of aliens. Still “fresh” to local pseudo-artists clinging to poverty like it's a personality. It’s the difference between puking pizza and puking hamburgers: same taste, same smell, barely a variation.

     Keep those images in mind. Because I hadn’t wanted anything like that in a long time. I liked predictable. I basked in stable. I hadn’t thought about those shapeless, toxic gestures from active alcoholism in years—those little ploys that exploit whatever hole inside us is still chasing innocence. Manufactured intimacy performed by drunk, mediocre men and swallowed whole by romanticizing young women. The way an undergrad melts at a note slid across a sticky bar: Do you like me, yes or no? Circle one. How do we not see the manipulation in real time?
I didn't. And she wouldn't either.

     And yes—enter, stage right—her. A true ingénue. Naive, sweet, and gentle. Pretty and desirable.  Fawn-eyed innocent. The kind of girl who laughs with her whole ribcage and writes in the margins of books. Still holding tight to her childhood favorites, but aching to appear worldly. Outfits like a costume. She's slipping on a main character now.

     And suddenly I wanted to do fuckboy things. She was someone I could overpower with charm, someone on whom I could regurgitate all the gestures that once worked on me. Because she and I were so similar. You know, back when I was a young active alcoholic.
If I fell for it, she would too.

     I wanted to offer the faintly romantic gestures that mean nothing—little sticks and twigs pretending to be a bonfire. She stirred that in me. She made me want to be drunk again. Not for the buzz, but for the permission to be stupid. To act without thought or care. To be like a guy. Like a college guy. Swinging false confidence around like a dick. 

     I daydreamed truly unhealthy fantasies: her showing up at my door in tears—Fine, it’s just one night, sweetheart. Or me tagging along with her and her friends, something I’ve never done, imagining myself too cool, too above it all. Performing superiority, judging each one as some new variant of douchebag, and somehow feeling justified. Because I’m a girl. And sober. This is hamburgers-not-pizza puke. I’m not like those other guys.

     But I was. I was playing with her the way any drunk guy would—except I didn’t have alcohol or youth to blame. Just some cheap, calculating scene that could be applied to any other girl.

     The gestures were hollow, and so was the hunger behind them. I kept telling myself I could control it, that I was sober now, safe now. My God! I have a husband! A house! A career! I am better than this!

But the truth is uglier: sobriety didn’t change the instinct.

It only stripped away the illusion that harm requires intoxication.

The fuckboy wasn’t in the bottle.

It was in me the whole time.

And it just was waiting for a body soft enough to repeat itself on.
I still maintain, I could fuck her if I wanted to.

hermit year (pity party closing in)

The year is closing, and with it comes a loneliness of a new hue. Last night I dreamt a friend of mine sent me a cover letter to review. It was for a job in Uganda at a nonprofit feeding and teaching children. 

This isn't a farfetched dream for her. Only a few months ago, she was with her mother in Africa, proposing to local men for a green card. Perhaps they thought she was joking, as none of them said yes. She was ready for a huge leap into a new world. She's adventurous that way.

Then there’s me. I am stuck in the dark, a potato rotting in the back of the pantry, only really noticed once it begins to smell. I’ve been crying. Snot-dripping-into-mouth-crying on and off for two days over the stupidest things. 

My big leap is a puddle jump compared to her. I switched jobs, but not really. I moved laterally from one organization to another: same position, same kind of work. 

The only real shift was going from senior to freshman—so I feel as incompetent as ever. I know this is how it naturally should play out: growing pains, a learning curve, acclimation, adjustment. 

If I were talking to a friend, I’d tell her this is normal. It is normal to feel out of place as you adjust to something new. It's normal to feel sad even if you made the right choice. Yes, I can tell myself all these things, yet the only path forward is to feel my way through.

My fears compound, the weight of one pressing on top of another. To be honest, as much as I crave human contact, I hate it right now. I feel like a flustered mess, as if every word, tone, noise, squeak, and wheeze of mine grates upon the bones of others. 

I have forgotten how to be a person with other people. While my well of thought overflows when I’m alone, I can barely muster a handful of jumbled, stupid sentences for another person. They are nothing like what's in my head.

Though I have been in near-constant relationships since I was 14, I know I deserve and should be alone. I was born, raised, bred to be alone. My ability to truly love seems to have been beaten out of me. And at this point, it would seem that the feeling is mutual; people don't seem capable of loving me the way I want either.

What's more, solitude's eminent promise looms on the distant horizon. It scares me even more. Lately, I am cycling through five types of self-hatred, and there really isn't an end in sight. Just my own incompetence. Unwilling to stay the same and unwilling to change.

I keep telling myself all the things that are rational, logical, and make sense. I remind myself that in a few weeks, it will be different. I’ll be out of training at work and actually taking on responsibilities and tasks. I will miss all the down time. I will miss all these empty, quiet, lonely moments in my day.

What I really need is something other than me for a moment. I desperately need something outside of myself to confirm it. A hug. A sign that I’m okay. An affirmation. External validation. 

Do you think anyone in my life, unprompted, would say, "You’re okay" to me? No. They are so busy. They are not in limbo like me. They are chasing dreams of Africa, raising children, becoming doctors, taking cruises, falling in love. Don't get me wrong. I love that for them. They earned it. I want them all to succeed. 

But then there’s me. I'm just here. I can smell the rot, but I don't think anyone else can yet.

This morning my husband, the only human I talk to face-to-face, said, "You ought to think about if AI can take your job. Plan what to do. "

God. With where I'm at in this job, I barely know if I'm alive, and you say that to me. Add a new fear and incompetence to the pile.

Again, I tell myself, there's something on the horizon. This is growing pains. The learning curve. I've been here before. It always ends. But until then, I'm still just here, in the dark, waiting for the rot to be found. But no one's coming. I have to dig myself out.

Forgive me, husband; I feel particularly sensitive and insecure tonight.

I’ve been bleeding Christ’s blood—
bright, red, healthy—
for a couple of days now.
Then why do I feel so bad?

A priest sprinkles my tears,
fresh, onto a baby’s head.
You’re forgiven now, son.
Go ahead—move on.

A fish tank full of zebrafish
gurgles as a little girl dreams
of becoming a marine biologist.
She’ll be landlocked for life.

I’m thirsty—been suckling dry
digital teats, scrolling through women
like a Rolodex. Too polished,
too shiny to be real.

I’m hungry for that emptiness—
a space, a foxhole, a womb.
Curl up and rest awhile;
sleep inside me.

Sometimes I’d like to try
to burn down this house,
but I wouldn’t be successful
at doing it or getting away with it.

So I stay here another night.

█▓▒▒░░░ millennium jeremiad ░░░▒▒▓█

꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂

Ai ahm tyred ob ppl preteending to bee so d33p on de in-tear-net. shair shair shair. oooh bb youse big m4d @ de prez an youse b1g skerd ob de climb-ate chaynge. kare soooo mucho, bb. ai jus nose yooz up in da cure-rent nuz. folob all de poleeticks. so l33t. so smart. so pub-lick on dis-play. ex-he-bish-shon-ist eben. like. like. like.

(⊙_⊙)

ah-traw-cities shhaired. ok ok. wut youse doin bout dat? nutting? shut up den. (ง •̀_•́)ง iz youse hell-pin? naur. nawt eben re-pooor-ting.  jus re-puke re-puke re-puke wut sum-won else dun sed. iz eet tru? wheez neber no. upvote. eben ppl "doin" sumting ain't doin sumting. oh, ai herd ewe wuz pro-test-ing. youse wuz in clink-click cuffs won nite. cool story, bro. did dat end de waur? naur? no? wow? color mai shocked. 

ﮩـﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

#BookTok #Reader #FYP #BookLover #Bookworm #Viral #Trending

an tank you. fur da pick-chores. youse reed b00ks so d33p. mai gosh, maiseff mite ob red a b00k oar 2 buuuutz ai deed not post eh pick-chore so ob course it deed nawt happen. eff eet wuz nawt on soshals deed ett habben? 

(╭ರ_•́)

NAUUUURRRRR. ai amb nawt libing. wut iz lief eff nawt witness’d. witless’d. ai amb so, so tyerrd. so… done.

╭∩╮( ＾◡＾)╭∩╮

imma bee awnest. ai down’t cair enny moar. de poleeticks. current nuz. whirled ebents. waur. deff. mass-E-cure. starbation. aiz wantz me nail polish ta nawt chip. a haus de-sent. gud haus. turnt key. noice lay-out. big enuff. ai wantz da necks b00k frum da lie-berry ta bee gud r33d. gib mai dat souper-fish-all. gib mai rn. ai hab k-aired enuff fureber an a dai. ai am dauwn wit dis. pro-form-a-nance. yas, qween. ai sed eet. ai am souper-fish-oil. ai am me.

☆*:・ﾟgib mai moooon-ai ☆*:・ﾟ
ᓚ₍⑅^..^₎♡

Lez git r3al. tok persun ta persun, nawt fone ta fone. ai nose you. ai nose you d33p-lee. ai nose youse reed an feeeeeel a lot. yooz mite eebun wanna cair. me 2 wonce. Buttz deep-deep in-syde? lez bee r3al. tak off da mask. tak off da re-shair. lez pre-ten no won see but me n' u.

𓇢𓆸

yAs-sir-day, 2day, 2morroh—yoose spent moar thyme fixin yoo hair dan hell-pin a sin-gul persun owtside in da whirled. youse spent moar munny on de mayke-up dan donaytin ta feed udders. yoos bin moar wurreed bout wut dat boi oar dat gurrl tinkz ob you dan wut youse ackshully tink ob enny ting else. y? y? y soo skerd 2 b youseff? b awnest? ok? ok? OK? BB, ok.

 (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀)

iz ok. iz ok. mai 2. ai jus wan mai bank a-count stawked. stack awn stack awn stack. a haus dat iz dee-sent an noice. an daiz dat roll sloh-lee an eeezee, liek rayn.

✩₊˚.⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧

iz ok 2 add-mitt. wez libing fur hour-seffs. bee reel wit mai. bee reel wit mai. 

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

imma b reelin wit chu. persun ta persun.

nawt fone ta fone. (jus fur once.)

let uz kik eet fur relly. vole-near-able.
wez jus gittin thru de dai.

( ˘⌣˘)♡(˘⌣˘ )

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