Partnach Gorge – Germany

TLDR; Walked the paths in Partnach Gorge (Partnachklamm) and hiked the surrounding area with three of my friends. It was beautiful.

Three of my friends love going on active adventures together – usually hiking through nature trails or exploring a new city. I finally got tired of my isolation and decided to tag along for a few of them.
One weekend, we went to the Partnach Gorge – or Partnachklamm in German. At the entrance you pay a small fee and walk into this cave-like entrance into a mountain and follows an un-lit tunnel for a while. I thought about giving my eyes time to adjust to the dark, but before I could someone took out their phone and put their flashlight to the ground. Right, smart. Eventually, the walls get lighter and as I looked forward a bright light blurred my vision beyond the exit, until I walked out and there was this huge stream rushing by to my right. The mountainous walls towered over 200 feet above us, waterfalls scattered throughout.
I didn’t really get any pictures of the path that stood out to me. They were all okay. I was mostly trying to practice with the settings, but we also didn’t have a lot of time to stick around and take in the details. It was treated as more of just a path than the attraction itself, and people shepherded themselves along to the exit, opening up to the actual “gorge”.

So a gorge is a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it. Yes, I Googled it because I could not have told you exactly what was the “gorge” part at the gorge on my way there. The Partnach is a river that stretches for 11 miles through Bavaria, Germany. The gorge is over 2000 feet within that. Fun facts I learned from a PDF brochure I found on the internet – the Partnach Gorge was used in the 18th century to float logs as a method of transportation. It’s called log driving. They chopped wood in the valleys of Ferchen and Reintal, mark it with their brand, and send it down the river until they piled up at a timber yard and woodcutters gathered them and piled them up – I assume for later collection. Around 1885, the path was made to transport the wood more efficiently, and where there’s a path, people will walk it, so eventually hiking groups and adventure squads started to come around often enough to commercialize the area.

Anywhere there are rocks, there are various sizes of stone stacks scattered around. A “rock cairn” is a test of mental patience and balancing skills, and almost ominous to look at when you remember that you’ve seen these stacks literally anywhere else rocks meet water. But it’s a small way to say “I was here” without doing anything to harm the area. I mean, except for the boys who were practically caveman-like when trying to stack their rocks, as though slamming it into the rock below would flatten the rocks enough to stay.
Turns out cairns are actually used for navigation. Way before there were light houses or trail signs, people built these rock piles to point the way. When I looked up “rock piles” I found tons of articles communicating why you should NOT build cairns arbitrarily.
That said, enjoy my mini cairn. I’m not good at stacking rocks.

Averi was here

This doggo found a stick~ so cute!
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It’s weird to be out and about with people now. There was a good number of people along the path next to the mountain stream, and everyone wore their masks. We were able to spread out more along the hiking trails. As we entered the valley, we were surrounded by the bright, blue river and trees everywhere, leaving no space for a horizon. To the left was a small shore filled with rock stacks, or cairns. Some families had dogs, and I kept waiting for them to knock the stacks over as they ran about, but they never did – that I saw.

After following the Partnach, we veered off to a hiking path along the river, climbing higher to beer gardens and attractions at the top of the path. It was a long way down over that bridge.
I’m all for keeping the Earth how it is and not messing with the land, but it is pretty neat when you can walk through the middle of nature on some unassuming bridge on a mountain side.
Granted, the paths here are anything but unassuming, since they were specifically carved centuries ago for transporting goods, and later because of the capitalization of the gorge. Typical humans.

“Meadows forbidden” is the literal translation I got online. Just your run-of-the-mill No Trespassing sign. But I can’t read it inherently, so *snaps picture* The sign below is warning of free-roaming animals, which we did see as we walked the path. There were goats just chillin, and Alex went to go pet one because fences and aggressive animals do not stop this Texan lady. Well, most fences. She and a young goat felt a spark between them when she reached out to pet him through the openings. It shocked the rest of us in a less harmful way. 😂
I’m sure there was a sign somewhere that we couldn’t read.

A tall, Texan, sexy gunslinger, adventuring the world.

The things people do for a cool photo.

Not gonna lie, I am not super great with heights. I was so stressed seeing my friend Chandy climbing up the edge of the building. And I could only crawl when I got on that rooftop.

My counsellor says I’m not depressed

I’d call him a doctor, but he isn’t one. It just sounds better if I said my doctor determined there’s nothing wrong with me.

He said he thinks I’m not depressed. I have dysthymic … habits? That’s not the word I’m looking fo- tendencies. He didn’t say that in so little words. Just that there is nothing inherently wrong with me and my sadness is essentially my own doing. As well as how I was raised.

My gut reaction is rejection because it’s too tiring to fix myself with my brain alone. But then that very logical side of my brain wonders if I’m only hoping for a condition to diagnose for a physical cure to try. If the man with the education says I don’t need pills, perhaps I’m better off surrendering to this Dysthymia. Because fuck it if I’m going back to good ol’ fake it till I make it. I’m tired of that shit. I’ll be the sad cynic I’m destined to be if that’s the case.

Not that I’m not trying. I am not actively hating myself. I don’t wake up in the morning and tell myself I’m going to make every day bad for me on purpose. Hopelessness isn’t purpose.

At least I don’t think it is. Do I do this to myself? That’s what this guy has got me thinking. Still no good feelings on him. Especially now. I’m just a negative person, I guess.

And I can’t help but accept that. There’s a reason my friends left me. Even if they say they care, there’s a reason no one hits me up on the weekend anymore. The reason I stopped asking them is because I don’t want to beg anymore. I don’t want to bother anyone into hanging out with me when they don’t want to. If you’re going to forget me, I might as well let you, instead of hurting myself thinking you’ll think about me.

Fake it till I make it sucks, but it’s all I’ve got to go on, so I’d rather be an Eeyore.

Positive things still happen, even if I never feel overenthusiastic about any of it.

I was the narrator for my Marine Corps ball. Basically the MC. And I did well.

I hosted a live show at Comic Con. It was good fun and enjoyable to see people in cosplay.

I was invited out to dinner by some coworkers and met new people.

I turned in my pros and cons for my promotion board. Fingers crossed.

I am still doing well at radio, even though I still have to work on the island update.

I’m about to go see Daya perform live. I didn’t get to see Jimmy Buffet, which I was overly sad about. I grew up listening to him. I’d trade him for Daya if I had to meet someone.

And my counsellor says there’s nothing diagnostically wrong with me. I guess that’s technically a positive. I don’t actually want to be depressed. I just wanted a name for my feelings. Now I know, it’s just plain sadness.

I have no plans for the weekend. And I’m taking Monday off. I’ll probably sleep. I can’t exactly go anywhere off base without a buddy, so I guess I’ll just find some on base errands to run.

Okay, update over. Happy Halloween.

Drink coffee. Smile. Let the Happy Stay a While.

‘Today I’m going to do my best to drink coffee in the morning and pretend that I don’t feel lonely and hopeless and helpless to save myself for the world where I live.’

-poeticjustice.wordpress

 

 

You know when you stand in front of a door and you want to knock, or ring the doorbell, but you’re afraid of it being slammed in your face. That’s kind of what I feel like. Would I let it get to a point where I’m banging on a door with no one on the other side to answer it? I know I’ve always been fairly insecure about my relationships, but being cut off from our main shared source of communication has put a block on my confidence when it comes to my social dynamic. The very real threat of being left by my friends brings up all the thoughts I don’t want to face. All the places I may never visit. All the conversations I will miss.

 

In my habit of only blogging when i’m feeling the worst, I feel i’ve misrepresented my life to be completely and only negative, but that’s not entirely the case. I have a good life. I’m adequate at my job. I have good friends that I talk to on Skype. I enjoy hanging out with the people down the hall when they let me.

Despite my recent acceptance that I like people more than they like me, and my constant struggle with my hasn’t-been-diagnosed-so-probably-not-depression, I have a lot to be happy about.

I’m just not.

I started therapy. So there’s that. It was my second time going today. I’m still not very fond of how he doesn’t actually tell me anything I don’t know, and his nerve wracking silence as he stares at me until I’m uncomfortable enough to try to get him to say something. But I don’t know jack shit about therapy and psychology, so i’m sure there’s a method to his madness I’ll find out later on. It’s free, so I figure I’ll stick around to see what he’s about before I move on to someone else just cuz I’m not hearing what I want to hear. For now it’s nice to rant to someone who doesn’t know me.

And obviously this isn’t going to be a problem solved over night. I’ve been struggling with this mild … sadness for years. I’m trying to fall back into patterns of mine when I was happier. Or at least less sad all the time.

I tried explaining my mind versus brain thing to my consultant. He’s not a doctor, so I guess I wouldn’t call him my doctor. I don’t think he really got it. My problem is that my brain wants to do things, but my mind just wants to sleep and eat. I was hoping for a solution to get myself back into doing the things I want to do. Contrary to my own belief, I don’t want to waste away in my dorm room by myself every night and all weekend for the rest of forever. But my homework this week is to stop letting my brain want to do things. Just follow my mind and sleep and eat and do nothing. I can see I guess. Rest my brain from getting hyped up about something. Let the whim happen. Don’t plan happiness.

That said, I started reading a book called The Happiness Project. I’ll see what self help books have to offer while I ponder the effects of this therapy and try to trust the man who says nothing except what I already know.

 

 

I don’t know if you still read this, but you said you’re my friend and I truly believe I am yours. So if you ever get desperate enough for company, I’m just down the hall.

The Hardest Thing to do is Say Goodbye

I’ve never actually had a falling out with friends before I’ve had to say goodbye. While I could still be friends with them. While they are right across the hall or two desks away from me. I’ve never had to think and come to the realization that I may not be friends with these people. That they aren’t friends to me. Especially when I thought we were. I have been reassured so many times, but maybe it’s not enough. And maybe that’s selfish, but …. well, fuck it. Fuck you. Friends love each other even when they’re selfish. They know you’re selfish and they make you feel loved even when you’re being unreasonable and selfish. And if they don’t. . . it’s no one’s fault. Maybe we’re just not at the level of friendship I thought we could have been.

“If they don’t want to hang out with you then they’re not worth hanging out with”

But they were. They were so worth it and in our short time together they made me so happy. I wanted nothing but to be worth their friendship. If I was gone and you asked them who are your friends. . . I just wanted to be on the list at all. I wanted to be thought of. To be included.

Let your friends miss you. Give them space. That’s what I was told. When I’m friends with people, i want to hang out all the time. I wanted to go out every weekend when they all went out. Maybe I was too clingy. Too needy.

But you win. I’ll back off. I won’t ask about you anymore.

I was kicked out of the facebook group. Twice. It’s different than quitting. Back when we used to leave the group and get added back in. Like a trust fall. But virtual. Someone would catch you. But now, they not only let me fall, but they pushed me down. And it took a lot to realize I don’t like being treated this way. I am selfish. I am clingy. I like people more than they like me. And you don’t respect that. Or you don’t want that. And it’s time for me to learn that.

It wasn’t so much of a break up this time. Maybe that’s why I feel like it’s more final. Of course, I am weak and I still love them. And yeah, this blog is a show of desperation to my only friend who reads this because I’m too weak and scared of asking for the truth. I don’t want it to be an answer I don’t want to hear. I could ask about it any day I want to. But I just don’t want to know what the silence means. Not truly. If they ask me to hang out again, I will gladly accept any invitation.– If they insist we are friends and that I’m being silly, I will believe them. Because they’ve guided me through my insecurities before. When I wondered aloud why they were friends with me. When I voiced my self doubts. They were there and they made me feel like I could fit in.

My friends were like a beautiful flower and I didn’t know I wasn’t a petal. I was a butterfly sitting on top. Observing the beauty of friendship and absorbing their energy until I was convinced I could be a petal on that flower. But a gust of wind blew me away and I couldn’t find it in a field of flowers anymore and I’ve forgotten how to fly.

I’ve always liked people more than they like me. Maybe some day they’ll invite me out again and I’ll be so happy when they do. And maybe they never will again and I’ll have to live with that, and it might just break my heart every weekend I can’t go drinking with the group on Gate 2. The weekend is coming up and I’m dreading it. Will they invite me along? Will I be left out again? They’re not the type feel obligated to hang out with people who they don’t want to hang out with anymore.

Mostly I wonder what I did wrong. What I didn’t do right. Why can’t I be someone that people think to include first? I really really like my friends. And they don’t like me the way I want them to and I have to stop letting it make me sad. I’m sure that’s a part of why I get uninvited by my own friends. I am worth more than how I’m treated.

I feel like I want to shout to the world that you don’t love me and I know it and I hate it. I want you to think of me. I want you to consider me. Include me. Don’t forget me. Don’t abandon me. And if not . . . . . I need to know so I can learn to be okay with that. Because every weekend that goes around where I’m not invited out, but I see fun things happening on social media breaks my heart in the most selfish ways.

I am selfish. I don’t care. I just want to be loved by the people I love most and I want to be on your mind. I want someone to be on their way to do something fun and think to include me. And I just honestly really want it to be you. Because I’m not okay. I’m not okay with the idea of letting go. I want a clique. I want a group of friends. I want to be your friend and I want you to want me too.

But I don’t feel like that. I feel it less and less every day. Especially since I’m not included in the group any more. That really drives it home for me. If you were hoping I’d take a hint, I have. I had a mental breakdown over it and it’s still giving me anxiety and partially the cause of my existential crisis.

I don’t know if I have to learn to be friends with other people without you now. It was so easy to walk on into this group and feel like I was included. And I don’t care if you think I’m saying this all too soon. We went out the other weekend. But ever since the last fall apart – the so called “tiff” – I’ve never felt the same. I don’t want to feel on edge with you guys. I just want to break down and cry and tell you I love you guys like I did that one night when I had too much tequila and you all sat around and laughed at me and told me that you loved me too.

I’m trying to be a more confident person. If you didn’t give me a reason to be uncertain, it’d help a lot.

I miss you guys.

I hope you remember me one day.

I. Am. Going. FUcking. Crazy.

I feel like there are two parts of me. Like, I have two different minds. Not like, bipolar or whatever. But like… one me hates me and the other me hates that me. Like I can think all of my emotions out logically, and I know the proper response to things and I know the reasons behind things. I understand that my worries aren’t real.

But then I also worry. And that’s the other me. And I worry and I hate and I cry and it’s an endless cycle of worrying over things so much that I cry and then I hate myself for crying and worrying and making myself worry in the first place.

But like while I’m bawling my eyes out over nothing like a freaking two year old, there’s also my brain, who’s like Averi literally your sadness makes zero sense right now and you’re being stupid. Normal people would get over this. Normal people wouldn’t have had this concern in the first place.

There’s a way to explain it. Like my mind and my brain aren’t on the same page.

I just started therapy. I’ve had one session. It felt by the end of it, I was almost convinced he didn’t think anything was wrong with me. But that could just be my mind again. My brain knows he needs more sessions to understand exactly what is going through my mind. It’s hard to spill your guts to a stranger.

Like no shit, therapy is a will power thing, all about finding out what’s wrong in your brain and making yourself think other ways. But like is there an actual diagnosis or am I just sad? Part of me wants to have something wrong with me. Not because I WANT there to be something wrong with me, but because there already IS something wrong and I want to put a name to it and a diagnosis and a cure. I feel like if someone else can tell me exactly what’s wrong, they can help me fix it. Something beyond if you don’t want to be sad anymore just stop being sad. Which is basically the advice I get from TK when I confide in him. Not to say I don’t appreciate our talks, but I can see he doesn’t understand why I think the way I do. It’s okay. I don’t understand where he finds the energy to fake happiness until he feels happiness. I’m not even sure I understand what true happiness even feels like.

I can’t think of a time I’ve ever been purely happy…

I saw him on Monday and I have had the worst week since then. I thought this was turn it around time! I was so ready to start being confident and motivated and building up some actual power and it just all fell to crap. I think I’ve managed to cry every single day of the week. I’m so fucking exhausted with myself, I couldn’t even fully do my psycho-homework. I was supposed to make a conscious effort to praise myself this week. And I had a moment. I told someone who’s been making fun of me for a while to stop. Really, the robot thing has gotten old. I felt very proud when I was able to casually tell him that I don’t like being made fun of, stop calling me a robot. I had no idea how that sentence was going to turn out and I felt nervous saying it, but I did and I haven’t gotten the robot joke since then. Of course ‘then’ was yesterday morning. But it’s a start.

And Nick, I lied to you. But only a little bit! I know you’re reading this and I love you for it. But I actually haven’t read any of your posts this month. I know there were a lot. I can’t sleep tonight so I read all of them. I still didn’t comment on them because like I said, I was kind of telling the truth. I don’t ever have anything intelligent to say. I always think you write well and I love reading it. And I want to hang out with you! I miss you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever, and I live only a few doors down from you. I have to work practically all day tomorrow, but maybe I’ll come over and play video games like I did occasionally, what feels like forever ago.

I usually read your posts as soon as they come out, but I have just been traveling down a spiral of anxious procrastination in all that I do.

Which caused the most of my problems this week. I didn’t finish some products that I’m supposed to do. I’ve already gotten in trouble for doing it wrong, and now I haven’t done it at all. Can’t blame anyone. I was trying to make the new guy do it, but I didn’t realize it would take him the whole week to do the easy thing – and that he wouldn’t even finish that-, so he wouldn’t have the time to get to the hard thing. I want to blame him because I’m trying not to feel like a failure at life for everything, but even my brain knows this was my fault. I just didn’t want to do it and before I knew it, it was Friday and it was due and he hadn’t done it because he doesn’t really know how.

My mind thinks I’m a terrible teacher, and I suck at my job and I don’t deserve to give these products to anyone else. I should be the one that has to work on them until they are perfect.

My mind says the week was just full of a lack of communication and my failure to multitask. It was a trial week and there was error. I can do better next week.

Neither side will shut up though. I feel like a teenager listening to my parents fight over absolutely nothing for all of the pointless reasons but powerless to say anything because that’s just not who I was raised to be. And that’s what makes sense to me the least. Changing who I fundamentally am seems impossible. My mind doesn’t want it and my brain doesn’t believe in it. So where do I get the power from?

I think I’ve typed myself into enough tiredness that I can go to sleep now. The weight of my failures needed to be recorded somewhere so that I could stop going on and on about it in my head. That’s what I’ve started this blog for again. Venting and accountability. Hopefully I can do better next month.

My greatest disappointment today though, has to be the fact that I didn’t play “Wake Me Up When September Ends” on the last day of September even though I was building up to it the whole hour. I was just too distracted by the end of the hour. And now I have to wait until next year.

Terrible.

And I Lost the Game.

I was never bullied in school as a kid

…but I imagine this is what it must feel like. Would I be stronger now if I had gone through this then? Crying myself to sleep, dreading the next day when I have to put up with this bull shit again. Telling myself every night, I’ll fight back tomorrow. The words on my tongue, but knowing when opportunity arises, I won’t be able to put my foot forward. Why can’t I tell them? I don’t want to be looked down on for being insulted by a joke in community where insults are a right of passage and sign of friendship. If I’m offended when you’re laughing, I’m weak. I’m pathetic. I’m stupid. I’m wrong. And I already feel like I’m all of those things. So inside me shouts in my head the words I wish to defend myself with, and the outside me let’s it all be. Smile. Or not. Just ignore it. Go with it. Allow it. It doesn’t stop. Hide when they’re not looking and cry my heart out. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. They’re only joking. It’s funny. They don’t mean it. They respect you. They don’t hate you. It’s funny. Just breathe. You’re okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. Stop crying. Wipe your eyes. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I can’t laugh. I can only say ha in hopes my smile will wash the shadow weighing on my body. I’m so fucking weak, I hate it. It’s just a joke. Stop taking it so seriously.

I’m supposed to make a conscious effort to praise myself this week. But i’m being brought down, how am I supposed lift myself up? One day I’m going to go crazy. Will I break down in the middle of the floor and cry or will I explode in a rage? Or can I be normal for once, and take the next step. I am annoyed at their joking.

Just tell them. No. No I do not find your jokes funny. I don’t want to be looked down on for being offended by a harmless office joke, but I don’t appreciate being made fun of anymore. I am insulted, and offended. Your jokes make me hate myself. Please stop.

I might start with just the please start. I don’t know how many words I can say and not sound stupid. I probably won’t tell them about the crying thing.

Can you please stop making fun of me? I know it’s not cool to be insulted by someone else’s jokes, but I’m actually offended.

Stop making fun of me. I have never found it funny, and I don’t appreciate it at all.

I’m not stupid. I don’t deserve to be hurt like this. I don’t like getting made fun of.

What words will actually come out of my mouth? Or will they? I’ve practice speech after speech to myself and yet, months later, the jokes persist.

Slowly. Oh so slowly. I think I may be losing my mind.

If I had a super power, it’d probably be invisibility.

Why am I so forgettable? So invisible? Co-workers forget they drove into work with me. People forget I was a part of their conversations a few minutes ago. Friends forget that I was part of a plan and leave me at home. I’m so tired of being forgotten.

Invisible.

Insignificant.

I know I don’t come to anyone’s mind first thing.

 

It’s not the first time it’s happened. It won’t be the last. . . and I can’t do anything about that. I hope no one tries to apologize, because I don’t want to forgive them. I’m over it, but that doesn’t mean it was okay.

I wasn’t even surprised. Just sad. That’s not okay.

I made plans to go to breakfast with my friends. I’m sorry I thought there would be some actual call to action or message saying let’s go. It was my fault for waiting around for an hour after tentative plans were made to see if they were actually happening. That’s what happens when I don’t just go over there on my own, without invitation. I should have just hung around until they made the plans face to face. Living away from every one else in on the plans means I miss out if they’re on a whim.

No, I don’t want you to come back for me. No, I don’t want you to wait around while I eat because you already did. Don’t make me the burden. I wanted to share in experiences, not side track yours for my own benefit.

Some people want love. Wonder why no one loves them. I just wonder when I’ll be friends with someone who likes me. What is this invisible existence a punishment for? What did I do to deserve this paranoia and disappointment? I know that if I don’t say anything, my “friends” will leave without me. The fuck why?

If they apologize, I have to forgive them. Because if I’m offended…if I’m insulted…if I’m still hurt…then I’m the one who’s wrong. I have to forgive them. I have to laugh it off. Because that’s what friends do. They forgive each other. I’d argue that they wouldn’t forget each other in the first place, but I’d probably be wrong. I’m always wrong. It’s my fault. It’s me. It’s always me.

Fuck.

I hate myself. And my stupid feelings too. Just get over it. Haha, of course you guys would forget me. My fault. I should have known.

 

 

My fault.

It’s no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy…

…

Don’t count.

Don’t belong.

Don’t matter.

Useless.

You’re useless.

YOU’RE USELESS!

Stop shouting at me!

useless. hopeless. don’t belong.

They’re just joking.

I know.

…

I know, but they’re right.

They don’t mean it.

I know. But I do.

Just, calm down. Now they’re laughing.

They’re trying to laugh with me, but my body is too heavy. My chest is too tight. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to. I can’t.

Don’t shut down on me now. They won’t like it if you shut down. They’re just joking.

They’ll think i’m stupid if I shut down now.

It’s stupid to get offended at a joke. You know they were joking.

They don’t even know what i’m hurt about. I don’t care that they’re joking. They gave me this weight before they started joking.

Don’t belong. Don’t belong. Don’t belong. Don’t belong. You’ll never belong. You never belong. 

This is because of you. Stop thinking so much. They don’t care. If you told them the truth, they’d say you’re silly. Stop worrying about silly things.

It’s not silly to me!

I know.

…

I know, but it’s silly to normal people. Stop worrying so much and be normal.

How can I be normal? My chest weighs too much. There are bricks in my chest. I can’t breathe.

How can I laugh with these bricks in my chest? How can I pretend to have fun when I’m not.

Am I not? Having fun?

I don’t know. I like these people. These people who make my chest hurt and my brain run overtime. These people I worry about day and night. Do they like me? Do they want to talk to me? Do I matter? Do I belong?

You never belong.

I never belong. How can I feel like I belong now? How did I end up with these people? Why do I really want them to like me?

Why do I want him to like me?

 

Why do I want anyone to like me? I can’t even like myself.

I don’t like you either.

Thanks.

Why am I so heavy?

Now I can’t do anything. My body’s too heavy to leave my bed.

Or maybe it’s my soul. I’ve been feeling so light this week. This was bound to happen. Can’t believe I thought maybe I could be happy.

Not happy.

Not sad, at least. Not so … heavy.

So freaking heavy. What’s wrong with me?

Guess I’ll go to sleep. Fuck productivity.

One day I will kill this loud AF refrigerator.

I’ve been trying to write a blog for a week or so now. I start a thought, jot it down, save it for later — or so I thought. Since it never seems to save as a complete draft. So I have a collection of thoughts saved up but incomplete in my head. They start somewhere and have potential, but I don’t really know where I’m going with thinking.

I noticed my predecessor of this room liked posters. Seemingly invisible rectangles are plastered around the room – the only evidence the halves of tape lined against the walls. The only indication there was once something there, now left behind. What kind of posters did she have? There’s one large invisible rectangle adjacent to the window. My bed used to lie there, facing it. Did she enjoy waking up to that poster every day? Did it tell her to get up and seize the day? carpe diem and all that shit. There’s a skinny one one the opposite wall. Only the top is still half taped, so I can’t say how long it must have been. But it was behind the head board. Only for looking at when coming into the room? I don’t often pay attention to behind the bed when I sit on it. And there’s one more on the door to the room. I currently have two sticky notes sitting inside the tape box. They hold my checklist for leaving the room. PT Gear – Green on green, bra, socks, shoes, camelbak. DON’T FORGET – Keys, wallet, ID, phone, papers, money. Did she post up some kind of list as well? More poster form to my sticky notes. I wonder what kind of evidence I’ll leave of my existence here. The idea in military housing is to erase your presence. To leave no trace. But will the next occupant of this room wonder who the person was who lived here before them? Will someone ever wonder who I was and what I did here?

…

I opened a door in the office building last week that lead to a small dark room with another door. That door lead to a steep and long staircase, which lead to another door. That door was locked, but presumably lead to the outside. Probably to the roof, now that I think about it. One day, I may be inclined to check it out. But it was a crazy staircase. Gave me an attic in an alien movie kind of feeling.

…

I suppose most would find it a blessing to see the best in people. One of my best friends in high school told me I had a heart of gold. I was so much nicer than he was, and a million times more forgiving. He also called me ugly, and we are no longer friends. I’m a lot less forgiving and friendly than my sixteen year old self. Is it the curse of the gold heart that I also can not find anyone to look at me the way I look at them? How unfair is it to think of someone as so beautiful, and know one hundred percent in your bones and in your heart that you could never tell them? I could love someone and never tell them because I’m so sure they’d never accept it. Especially when I’ve done nothing to be that close to them. If they don’t even see you, how can you tell them they’re amazing to you? Compliments fall on deaf ears if the eyes never look your way in the first place. There are people in this world who are more amazing than they will ever know because they’d never want to hear it from me. Or maybe they do know. They know they’re too good for me, which is why they’ll never listen. Given the chance, I’d probably be too scared to tell them any way, so perhaps it is for the best.

…

I think work is slowly killing me. I love my job. I love doing what I do. But the people I work with become increasingly exhausting the more I work with them. I was so impressed when I first got here, because the office seemed like a close knit unit. But now I see we only talk because we lack anyone else to interact with for 9 hours on a daily basis. I’ve become the boring robot office joke because I lack vocal and facial expression more than most people. I always sound and look like i’m bored, depressed, or all around uninterested in anything I or anyone else has to say. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t true. Then I think it is true, so I don’t fight against it. If anything I think I egg it on, but I don’t mean to. I just don’t know what else to say. I’ve become more tired and sarcastic at work. Only I’m not a quick zing kind of person, generally. I think I’m getting better at snarky comebacks. Not a goal I was actually shooting for in my life, but I’ll accept it. Getting real tired of their shit though. One guy in particular, but no one else actually helps the situation. If I really get offended, I guess I could tell them to stop. But I know I’m not going to. Because I’m not sure where my limit is. I’ll probably wait until it’s too late, and I have a mental breakdown in the middle of the office.

I always say I have resting depressed face. Not quite bitchy. More sad.

…

Okay. I’m done with the collection of tangents, thoughts, musings and ponderings.

 

If anyone knows what to do about a noisy fridge or if i’m stuck with it, let me know.

It’s too funny to cry about it now.

-> T N left the group

-> S T left the group

-> D S left the group

And just like that, the Okinawa P U N X were dead. Or the Sad Kids Club, or whatever we arbitrarily named ourselves in one of our passive aggressive bouts of animosity.

No warning. No argument. No fight.

Just three notifications. And that was it.

Shit. What does this mean? No more late nights on the Street together. Will the bars turn into turfs now? You can go to the Couch on Fridays, but we’re there Saturdays so gtfo. No more shows. We only went to see you guys have fun. We were happy when you were having fun. No more long walks home 20 minutes till curfew. No more stargazing at the park. We can’t go there, just the two of us. It feels too much like you guys and we’re too sad and mad to miss you like that. Especially when they don’t care. They never will.

Just two against four. We thought…we hoped, it could be three and three. Or two and a half against three and a half. He didn’t really have to chose. We didn’t want him to. We wouldn’t have made him. But he clearly did, and he chose them. It makes more sense for him to chose them. They’re his friends. We’re just the nuisances who thought we could try to be close. We held out hope. 10, 20 minutes passed. He left with them. 30, 40. He couldn’t have left left. He went to get his car. He said he’d be right back. 50, 60. Acceptance. We’re not even mad. Just sad. Disappointed. Confused.

Mostly confused.

Because, I lied. The P U N X aren’t dead. I’m just no longer accepted. So they’re dead to me.

This is what’s wrong with being paranoid. I didn’t want to be right. I thought this farce could last longer. That they’d keep pretending to be friends with me until they truly were and I could be more confident, knowing they actually accepted me for who I am. I thought we were friends. I made that mistake. That was my fault. How could you have expected them to like you so quickly? You think they’d accept you as a friend after only three months? Of course not. That was stupid. Stupid me. Always stupid. I knew they would leave. I knew they didn’t care about me. I knew it and I was right and now I’m sad because I didn’t want to be right.

I didn’t want to know I was right.

Our social dynamic has to change, because now it’s just us two hanging out on the weekends. We can’t go exploring last minute with our friends because we have none. We’re alone in our buildings now. No more wandering down the hall to hang out with those guys.

I really thought we were something special. I’d never made such a large group of friends so quickly. I thought it’d be weekends of adventure and parties and life talks that might end in a few years, but would leave me with good memories. Now I just think about how I was never a part of that in the first place. It was always the guys who begrudgingly accepted our presence and who’d had enough that day. We’ll probably always wonder what we did wrong.

 

It was a good chapter while it lasted. I wish I’d been worthy of your time. I hope you guys have a good life. I’ll miss you from down the hall.

 

 

Goodbye

 

I think I just have a severe case of FOMO

I’m not as down as when I made that last blog post. In fact, as soon as I got it all out and posted it, I kind of regretted it. It’s really kind of silly. I don’t know, I go up and down sometimes. That was a low point in my mood. So sad, and lonely and self-pitying. I hate myself when I’m like that. When I come out from it, i’m like, yeah, Me, you don’t have friends–well, not friends that are as close to you as you’d like them to be. It’s been three months. You haven’t had the time to form the close relationships and feel like your part of something yet. Of course you still feel new everywhere. It takes years to form the kind of friendships you want. I knew Kristin for three years before I thought of her as my best friend above my other best friends. The fastest I’ve ever made close friends with someone was Pichya in college, and that took a majority of the school year. It’s logical that you won’t be invited out all the time. Everyone else has known each other a lot longer. And they don’t even invite each other out ALL the time. Sometimes someone gets left behind. So sometimes I’m alone on a Saturday night drinking wine and watching my friends party 20 minutes away via snapchat. I was doing something when they left, so that’s why they didn’t invite me. They probably saw that I wasn’t home. It’s not like you need to spend money drinking again anyhoo. And it’s not as fun without Amaia. It’s just a bunch of guys who know each other very well and have been friends for months. I’ve known Amaia for months. I think we’re good friends. She would probably invite me if the rest of the group had invited her. We weren’t that close immediately. I mean…true, we did pretty much hang out all the time, but we were classmates and roommates. We kind of were always together. So becoming close was pretty much inevitable.

I have to get used to the idea that other people don’t like me as much as I like them. Or that other people don’t even think of me when I’m not there. Sometimes other people just think of me as an acquaintance. Or a co worker. And not like, a really close friend who’s fun to be with and who they always want to ask to hang out. I mean, I do it to other people. There are some people I wouldn’t always invite out. Or ever hang out with. Some people like me more than I like them. And I don’t care for them as much, so I don’t notice.

 

 

I think I wouldn’t think about this as much if I were allowed to hang out by myself. But then I’m not allowed to go anywhere without a buddy and I realize all my friends are gone and they didn’t invite me out, so now I have to stay in my room, by myself, and drink wine and rant on a blog and watch tv shows and work on assignments because I’m not allowed to go out by myself.

 

I wish I had my motivation back. I wonder where it went.

Cool snapchat story. Wish I was there.

They don’t like me enough to invite me to hang out, I only get to come because Amaia sleeps over my place and Nick never leaves anyone behind.
What do I do? 

Am I just supposed to find new friends? Am I the only one who doesm’t get the convenience of friends who live in the same building. 

Nick and Amaia need to come home so I can pretend the rest of the group actually wants me along and are not just bregrudgingly accepting my existence. 

Useless pity party. But at least i’m catching up on my shows.

I fear without you here, I may get left behind.

Everybody has bad days. Truth, but is that supposed to comfort me? Someone out there has it worse than me? Well then I guess I’m just supposed to stop feeling shitty about myself. Thank you oh so much everyone ever for the advice of just get over it. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. Just because someone has it worse doesn’t mean I don’t have it bad. Everyone has bad days. But my bad days are worst to me.

I feel like i’ve said as much before.

Friday was a bad day. It didn’t start off a bad day. Thing about my bad days, is that they’re usually a slow, increasing tumble off a cliff and into shark infested waters. The sharks being my endless oblivion of anxiety and self hatred. That endless pit you have to brave alone because no one likes neurosis. I don’t even like it, so Karma dictates that I can’t expect anyone to have the patience for me. People who listen usually try to give advice, but you can’t. How do you tell sad people to stop being sad?

It doesn’t work that way.

It started with the lack of starting. On anything. I am an avid procrastinator- a fact that doesn’t really bother me until someone asks me what I’ve been working on and I have to say I’ve been doing something that’s just been taking up my whole week which is why my final project isn’t done. I almost lost footage. Yes, yes, it happens to everyone, but it is especially stressful when it actually happens to you! I ended up finding it, but still.

Then. THEN. For the third time in only a few weeks, I’ve learned the lack of tact everyone in my shop seems to have. At least the Marines. I wanted to say perhaps their quick transition from the harsh world of high school to the brutal world of the Marine Corps means they never learned the art of tactful truth telling, but that’s probably just silly hypothesis. Tact is really just about people in general. I really didn’t spend that much more time out of high school. Two years is a small amount of time and I was still in school, technically. I doubt I could blame it on their youth or maturity. In some aspects, they’re more mature than me. At least they think they are. Like, thanks for looking out for me, kid.

Right, so this insult I get handed to often is criticism of my voice. I know I don’t have the most interesting voice in the world. A couple weeks ago when I read a story, TK called my voice boring. I laughed it off at the time because I already knew it was truth. I’ve been told I talked monotone before. I was compared to Raven from the cartoon Teen Titans growing up. It doesn’t really bother me. I’m not expressive. In much of a lot of aspects.

Anyhoo, I think just last week someone else made a similar comment. I sound like I’m monotone. I sound like I don’t care about my job at all. How do you say that while smiling? It wasn’t funny and I wasn’t trying to sound like that. She elaborated more than I cared to listen to, but I still laughed along because that’s just my voice guys, what am I gonna do?

And Friday was the last straw. Diaz of all people. She’s kind to me. I’m sure she meant no harm. And she did apologize profusely when she saw how much it bothered me. She said I sounded like a robot. What was worse was that I tried really hard to sound interested in what I was reading that time. So my efforts when to waste because while I no longer sounded monotone, now I just sounded robotic.

I was excited to get my job. When I first got here, I thought of course I’ll sound rough, since I’m just learning the ropes. It’s hard to remember that I’m still new. I feel like I’m getting worse as time goes on and not better. Have I always been terrible then? I got compliments when I started doing stories. Were they lying? Have I just been horrible this whole time and only now they’re comfortable enough to start telling me? I’m boring, monotone, robotic, unenthusiastic. No heart. No talent.

Sharks.

And I cried again. I really didn’t want to. Why do I have to be so weak? It’s just constructive criticism. They just lack tact. They’re not saying it to attack you. They mean to say you could improve. You lack inflection in your voice. Put more emphasis on certain words. They don’t know how to explain the technical aspects of what you could fix. They only know how to give their opinion on what is wrong.

Breathe.

Breathe.

I’m okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. It’s okay.

Stop

Crying.

In. . . out.

 

 

 

 

Hahahahahahaha. Yes. Smile. Laugh. Take it with a grain of salt. I’ll get better. I can be better.

And when I am better? I don’t know why I’m so weird about improving. It means at one point I sucked at something and they all know it. I don’t like being bad at what I do. I’m already bad at fitness. I thought I at least had this. I don’t want to be bad at my job. If I’m bad at fitness and bad at my job, what kind of Marine am I? How am I useful? I’m not.

I’m useless.

I hate that word. It’s my least favorite word.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do I have to over analyze the little things? How come every little thing bothers me or makes me paranoid? How are people confident? It seems everyone else can just smile and be confident in themselves, and they joke around with each other. I tried to ask someone how to be like him. Fake it till you make it, he said. He learned if he’s happy, then everyone’s happy. So he just pretends to be happy all the time. So I think he’s just a happy carefree guy but he’s not. I wonder when that not so happy part of him comes out. I think about it taking over his mind in his loneliest moments and I wonder what he does to push it back down and put that smile back on his face. Fake it till I make it? I’ve already done that.

I spent too long pretending.

And it got me no where. Especially after I had it for real. I think I was happy for a moment. When I thought I had escaped the shadows and I was making my own way. Real happiness. Not perfect happiness, but it was actually there. I think. I don’t remember all that well. It was only for a moment.

And it just became harder to pretend after that. Why should I pretend to be a happy person for everyone else? Because society doesn’t like sad people? I’m useless if I’m not happy? No one wants to be your friend if you’re depressed? Tell me why I should want friends like that then. I like the happy friends, I do. But I like the happy friends that make me happy. They’re happy for me and they’re happy with me and their happiness is contagious. I had that. For a moment.

And now I have to fake it. Because everyone else fakes it too.

I’m so fucking tired.

I don’t care about convincing anyone else about my happiness! The only person I want to convince is me! I can’t live a lie for you, I want to be happy for me.

Or at least content. I could settle for that.

I want to be confident in myself and my friends around me.

As it stands, I suppose I’m not the closest of friends with all the friends I’d hoped I was close with.

Perhaps people are only a group when certain people are around. It feels like there’s no real group here. Or perhaps I feel left out because I realize my tethers to the group are away? I hope I am just as close with everyone in my friend group, but perhaps within a group, some people are closer than others. And with Nick and Amaia gone, I’m not as close to the rest of the group as I would be. I feel like there’s no reason to invite me along. We’re a strange group as it is. What kind of attachment do we have to each other?

Stupid thoughts,

I know.

 

Should I see a therapist? Probably. But how willing am I to fix myself? Who would I become?

Most of me thinks there’s nothing diagnosibly wrong with me and I’m just wrong. So nothing can fix me. I’m just stuck with this mind because there’s nothing there to fix. I just don’t fit right into the mold. Whatever that mold is supposed to be.

Negative thoughts. I haven’t even started drinking yet.

No one likes to hear negative thoughts.

It’s as though destruction of public property is a happy memory

I pass the hole in the wall on the way to and from Nick’s room. Sometimes I smile. Other times I cringe because I remember that one girl bitching about the random people who put a hole in the wall. Wow, I wonder who did that. Hint: It wasn’t me.

It’s become an invisible rule to my self conscious to leave something in Nick’s room after I hang out with him. You’d think I was safe today because I always forget the charger, but I didn’t bring it this time. But you’d be wrong. Today it was the shoes. Thanks for leaving them in the door.

I’m supposed to work on this video that’s due Friday. I thought i’d have to wait long for the broll to upload, but really it was four videos, so I shouldn’t have expected that. I don’t want to work on it, but I don’t want people to know I’ve been procrastinating on it. Truth be told, it’s actually easy. I have all the elements I need in place. It’s just putting them together now. Which I could do. Or I could blog about not doing it.

I’ve bought one too many trash cans for my room. I put the extra one in the washroom. I realized I had too many just before I actually bought them, but decided the 5 bucks wasn’t worth the trouble of telling the cashier to take that one can away. I’m not sure if that says more about my financial irresponsibility or my fear of awkward socialization. It’s enough of an accomplishment for me to be able to hold up a conversation with a cashier, let alone ask anything of them. I’ve bought multiple trash cans — in case you’re wondering — to separate my recycling. Glass, plastic, cans. Then there’s the regular trash. Because I’d like to be a responsible person and separate my trash and recyclables, and I’m tired of the plastic bags hanging on my doors.

I read an organization magazine the other day and went all hgtv on my room. I moved my bed to another wall, pushed my desk against the window, and my fridge closest to the door. Moving everything was a hassle. At one point, I think I blocked my door, which is probably–at the very least– a fire hazard.

To be honest, I don’t hate my set up as it is now. When i finally finished moving things around and put everything away, I didn’t really like it. But the furniture was heavy and has to be empty to move, so I figured I’d stick with it for a month or so and change it again. It doesn’t utilize the space in the room the best it could, but I like it still.I like my desk against the window, and hiding behind my wall locker. I like that my fridge is the first thing I approach in my room (At least I would if my fridge was currently working, but that’s a different tangent.). I like that if I ever decided to get a TV, I could sit on my bed and face it if I put it in my wall locker. I probably couldn’t host Saturday movie nights in my room, and maybe only 2 people could fit on my floor. Amaia usually shares the bed with me when she stays over any way, so floor space doesn’t really matter much. I have some clear space in the front of the room. Enough for yoga.

Basically, the more I think about it, the more I find this set up is perfect for me. We’ll see how I feel in a month or so.

I started writing a blog post last week and I never finished it. Don’t feel like making it its’ own post so here you go. Two blogs for the price of one.

 

It was pouring outside. My favorite kind of rain. (This was the title, originally.)

I hate the rain, of course, but if it’s going to rain, it might as well pour. And if it’s going to pour, i might as well play in the rain. So it’s my favorite kind of rain. Because it’s the only kind of rain with a purpose, and i like things to have purpose. Like the snow. If it’s going to be cold, it might as well snow. What the fuck is the actual purpose of cold except to antagonize me and critically decrease my productivity-because staying awake and sociable and not killing people and basically existing during the winter already takes so much effort, i only have the energy reserves left for Netflix marathons and eating food.
As it was pouring, Nick ran to his car. I pranced along behind him, imagining just standing there and getting soaked, and Dan trudged behind me. Under the protection of the car, i wondered how other people got out of the rain. I imagined all those people dashing in and out of covers, holding some form of futile protection – a jacket, or purse, or newspaper. I thought about a couple I saw in a car yesterday. It was a red jeep with large wheels. There was no cover, so aside from the minimal structure where the cover would probably click in, and the window and engine in front, they looked like they were sitting on chairs on top of a platform on wheels. Ugh, that was a lot of ons.
It looked cool at the time, but what about in the bad weather? What if they were driving around and it was suddenly pouring? They’d be trapped and their car would be ineffective.  It’d kind of be ridiculous to be honest. Maybe they’re the types who look outside, see bad weather and just say nope to the world.

Some people hold umbrellas, some don’t. Are they just toughing out the rain or are they too lazy to carry around an umbrella because they carry around and umbrella every day because we live on a freaking tropical island so you never know what the weather is going to be like but you never end up using it so you’re carrying a backpack that literally just has an umbrella in it because you keep your phone and your wallet in your pockets because it takes a lot of work to swing your backpack around your shoulders so you can get to your wallet and especially your phone because you’re addicted to snapping happenings in your life and the moment might be over by the time you pull your phone out but you always bring your umbrella because the one time you don’t it’s pouring rain, and that’s what you end up thinking every time it rains because you always forget to bring your umbrella and wow this is a long and strangely specific tangent and i commend you for reading that all the way through the way I was writing it. *breathe*

—

Reflecting on the end. But the story has yet to begin

I plucked a leaf from a tree and painted Okinawa P U N X on it. I guess it was meant to be a metaphor of sorts, although I hate them. Sorry I like things to be blunt and just mean what they mean. Allegories beat around the bush of what you’re actually trying to say, and it might make for a better story, but life’s too short to debate what an author meant when he named a girl Lily instead of Lilac.

Of all the leaves on all the trees on the island, I picked the punks. Two tall airmen, two Asian Marines, and my best friend. Of all the friends I could have grouped myself with, I found my own little leaf. I know next to nothing of punk, but I think the idea of living in the moment and temporariness may fit the appeal. One day the leaf will die, and the writing on the leaf will be gone. But it doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. We were here. We went out, hunted for a scene, became the scene and ruled it.

Being Okinawa P U N X. Late nights wandering from bar to bar searching through half phrases and arm gestures with other hunters who speak none of your own language. We try to learn to speak theirs, but this is as close as we’re getting and it works well enough for us. Dancing, drinking, jumping, bumping. Falling down and picking each other up. No one else is like our scene. No one else is like us.

The leaf will die. There will be many more. There will always be a punk scene, but it won’t always be our punk scene. The world moves on. The writing may fade but the words never will. Our group will go in different directions, but there will always be the Oki P U N X. We’ll look back and say that was our leaf. It didn’t last forever, but it was ours and we owned it.

And it was punk fucking rock.

To my broken friend, you are Amazing.

Today is my friend Nick’s birthday. He’s finally the legal drinking age of 21 — not that that means much in Japan, since we can drink at 20. Sometimes I wonder if it feels anticlimactic to turn 21 here. Every birthday is an accomplishment, but there was never that moment where you can finally drink like an actual adult. Then there are those people who drank before they were 21 which makes it equally anticlimactic because the only difference now is that you don’t have to hide it or get drinks through clandestine methods.
Anyhoo, aside from that tangent, this is a happy birthday wish to Nick.
I haven’t known you very long, but i already think you are a great friend. You’re a reliable person and a fun person to hang out with. I like how you think about the little things and ponder the big picture. I relate to you and your blog a lot and I root for you like a hero in a novel. I hope you continue to get better, but stay punk fucking rock.

Happy birthday,
(Sorry this was short but i’m writing it with my phone on the range.)

When I travel, I always forget the toothbrush.

There’s something about getting a week day off that’s a tad more freeing than the actual weekend. We spend the entire work week grinding away for the weekend. The two days of freedom when I don’t have to gel my hair up into a bun. There’s no ranks, no stress, no thinking about work—unless you’re one of those who has to. Then it’s just an extension of a work week.

But I digress. Usually when we’re aiming for the weekend, we think about all the fun things we can do. All the partying to be had, adventuring to be done. The weekend is meant for living. Come Sunday night, we regress back into our work selves, accepting the reality of the new obstacle we must face. But every once in a while, a week day becomes a free day.

And the possibilities are endless.

Getting a day off – especially an unexpected one – is awesome. (I know, terrible descriptive word so I’ve heard. Zoey will at least appreciate it.) There’s suddenly so much more I can get done. I can do actual work. I can go do the shopping that I’ve been meaning to do without worrying about lines.

Or you can go to the beach without a crowd.

Which is exactly what I did on my surprise Monday off. It was so great. Best Monday I’ve had since getting on island. All I did was relax on the beach all afternoon with two friends and some drinks.

Well, one drink. Hot drink isn’t finished so quickly.

The clouds were so pretty. I thought about how clouds are pretty much the only thing art can capture so realistically. There’s something about clouds in the bright sky. They’re so fluffy and dynamic. Whenever I see them in paintings I think they look so real. There’s always something lacking in art. Inanimate objects don’t have the right gleam, humans lack the spark of life in their eyes.

But clouds always look like clouds. I think it’s because the sky is so far away. Looking at clouds is like looking at a painting on a canvas. It’s a huge painting that stretches across the atmosphere. Every bump and shadow and fluff.

So pretty.

I was born a nomad – exploration written on my soul

I’m really more on an on-foot traveler. The lack of a car mixed with the need to go somewhere sends me walking out the door and into the streets. I’d rather walk for an hour to get somewhere for free instead of spend more than twenty bucks to get there in five minutes.

But time is money and other people have places to be.

And thus I find another flaw in this buddy system. No one likes to wander aimlessly for no reason anymore. I can’t just walk down to the beach at night to wander the sands and reflect in the pattern of the ocean waves. There has to be a mission, a goal. Something achievable so we can go back home and sit around our rooms, watching netflix or sleeping while the world turns by without you.

I woke up early on a Saturday morning and thought about going for a walk. The beach is maybe an hour away walking. A few minutes driving. Even if I had  a car I wouldn’t want to drive there. But I need a friend to go off base to the beach with. Who would be awake on a Saturday morning? Who would want to go hang out for no real reason? Would those without cars walk? Would those with cars want to drive?

Too many questions and logistics, so I just sit next to my window in my air conditioned dorm room and watch the world turn without me.

When the sleepies wake up, I may ask Diaz if she wants to go to the art store because I’ve been trying to go to the art store for a month now. But then I think I should just wait until next week when I live closer to it because the taxi would cost a lot less.

Why can’t I just walk?

That was what I liked during my time in Italy. It wasn’t during a blog year, so I don’t believe I have record of it here. I couldn’t even make more than two videos, although I filmed practically everything. I just enjoyed living too much. It’s all sitting on a hard drive somewhere waiting for me to piece it together. I’m sure my friends would appreciate it. They were some good times.

Sure, when you travel, you still take a lot of transportation. Trains, taxis, buses, vaporettos. Even when I studied in Venice. It takes less than an hour to get from one side of the island to the other. There are so many paths you can take just because Venice is a huge maze of buildings and shops and bridges. Accidental dead ends, or new discoveries. There are water taxis that travel around the island from point to point to make travel easier, but half the time we would just walk.

You see more that way.

Maybe that’s why I liked New York City too. The weather was miserable but you could walk anywhere. Just stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning on your way to Manhattan. And I did that for no reason with no one else. I mean, I would most usually invite someone along, but it wouldn’t cancel my plans for the day if everyone said no. That’s not a very fair place to put anyone either. I don’t want other people to have to come hang out with me because if they don’t I can’t hang out at all. And I don’t like being someone’s last resort if no one else will hang out with them.

Damn, buddy system. I just want to walk along the sea wall in silence. Why is that too much to ask?

 

The Doctor told me to write without the limitations I’ve given myself…

Fuck it, he said.

He also said he lost the TARDIS, so who knows how much you can trust the bastard these days.

I’m kidding. You’re fantastic. Brilliant, even. Very cool.

I must say that because I enjoy long conversations of useless facts and failing at video games while stealing candy and mac n cheese. I’ll be sure to wash that spoon next time though. I felt incredibly guilty about it, but by the time I remembered, I was away and you were presumably asleep.

Friends who give you mac n cheese are the best people. Don’t let them go. Even if they move all the way across the island and you can only see her on weekends. I miss my roommate.

You ever have a roommate and after you’re done living together, you can never describe them as anything other than a roommate? I have no problem calling Amaia my friend because she’s my DINFOS bestie, and there are a lot of words to describe her relation to me. Roommate, friend, classmate, coworker, best friend in the Marine Corps.

To me, I said. I have no idea how she would describe me to anyone else.

But I had a roommate my freshman year of college. She stopped living with me halfway through sophomore year to become an RA – which she hated. I don’t know why she wanted to be one because she hates people and a lot of other things. It’s one of the traits I found so interesting about her. – but afterward, I continued to describe her as my roommate. She said she did the same. Even if we made the correction, it was “my old roommate” rather than “my friend”. It’s not that I don’t think of her as a friend. Maybe because I met her as a roommate, I can only think of her as so? Much like most of my college friends still describe me as the girl who used to have blue hair.

I miss my college friends. Not so much college and the sinking anxiety that was finding out what I was actually supposed to be doing with my life. But staying up late, talking about nothing late into the night, ordering Chinese food, all-nighter study groups that eventually turned into all-nighter procrastination marathons. How many ways can we distract ourselves from actually studying before the sun comes up? Wandering around Manhattan close to midnight. Going to concerts together and getting lost on the way home at 1 in the morning under light rain, switching to the other side of the street whenever another human came our way. The lack of judgement. College was so freeing. I did my life entirely wrong in high school.

That’s probably why I haven’t deleted those god-awful vlogs. That spoken internet diary of mine when I imagined that would be my doorway to filmmaking. Stay behind the camera from now on, Averi.

My friends found my vlogs. By friends I mean one friend. But the inevitability of friend groups is that one is not allowed to be a fool in front of only one friend. It must be all. And by found I mean I showed him because I’m a glutton for judgement, I suppose. Maybe I really just want my friends to see me at my worse, laugh at me, then laugh with me and still like me without any judgement.

I spent too much time being perfect for fake friends to waste any more of my life being someone I’m not for people I don’t even know.

I love my friends. Everyone is just so interesting and maybe I just love everyone else so much because I don’t waste any love on myself. I want others to like me and I want them to know me, but only if they let me know them too. And I really like the friends I have now. I hope they don’t end up like the friends I had then.

But I’m different and they’re different, so I really shouldn’t compare.

 

(I published this and received a notification that this is my 100th post on my blog. So there’s an accomplishment, I suppose. Here’s to 100 more. Should only take ten years this time.)

 

My legs are cold. Tardis pants or Star Wars?

Says the nerdy girl with the fake glasses. The one my friends hate when I wear because I’m being ironic (?) but I’m not. I just like to wear them. It didn’t even start ironically. I lived in New York City and Williamsburg is Hipsterville. My roommate found them disgusting, but I was fascinated. Also, I like how I look in fake glasses. And I don’t like how I look often, so fuck you very much, I’m wearing what I want.

I killed a snail today. And it completely messed everything up for the rest of my day. I was looking at the sky on my way home from buying dinner, and I was thinking about writing “I think I’m in love with the sky.”

I would have written something quasi-deep and meaningful. As much as a 21 year old with little life experience in the deep and dramatic could.

When I was walking home the beautiful sky was behind me and I thought if I stared behind me at the sky while I walk, I’d fall on my face and I’d be okay, because when I looked up, there’d be the sky.

And then I stepped and my left foot contacted a delicate shell. It drove into the ground and I felt my foot explode and like an earthquake, a sense of dread ripped up my leg and pulsated through my body, straight to my heart. Have you ever killed a snail??? It’s not the same as stepping on an ant or most any other bug.

No matter the size of the snail, you feel that crunch in your entire soul and it crushed me. It’s like you’re stepping on yourself. And internally I cried over that poor snail. And externally, I sent a snap to my best friend Kristin who I once walked the rainy sidewalks with in high school – snails like land mines, hidden over the cement.

And if I was an actual writer, i’d probably tie in some kind of metaphor. Life and fragility. Hiding behind a shell won’t save you. some shit. But I’m not. I’m an artist, but not so extensively. Also, i’ve never been one for metaphors. Maybe I’m just sad that I stepped on a snail and It changed my blog post entirely. At least the beginning of it, because I don’t think much farther than the first sentence when I write.

RIP snail. Stay away from sidewalks.