Why?

I think, if one were to look up the most pointless existence in the human world, my life might be one of the top five. I honestly don't know why I'm here. There's always been variations of this sentiment littered throughout the rest of these pointless monologues, but only recently have I begun to really wonder why am I here again. For as long as I can remember, my first key to happiness was my family. I loved them dearly. I was total ride or die, do a blood bond, you go to jail, I go to jail committed. I would have died to protect every last one of them and I would never do anything to hurt them, only to discover over the past, er, 14 years or more, that none of them feel the same.  I am a target to hurt, to maim, to betray, and to forget so long as it suits them. Losing them left a deep wound, I never thought could heal, then came the dreaded search for a mate. At first it was some weird misguided belief that if some random dude whisked me away, physical pain of first intercourse would replace emotional turmoil in my heart. I was a weirdo, hoping some random movie star would drive by, find young me interesting and whisk me away from where  I was. Needless to say that didn't happen and thank god. What a psychotic and dangerous situation that would have been. So I resolved to be a hermit and go live in the mountains. I had a weird, firm, set of what I would do and where I would go, should I have no reason to return to my splintering home. Pretty sure had  I lived in Japan, I would have become a monk. In fact, I even began to look up how to become a monk. Short answer, I can't. I'm female. Boo. I want to give up worldly vices and live in peace on a mountaintop and still have some respect, but nope. We get stuck in a stupid convent, locked away in a garden. Oh joy. So, I settled for when I get older, I'm living alone. Total Kevin sentiments there, only I kept getting people thrown in my way. This person would go far out of their way to befriend me, that person would invite me to dances, but I was the pity kid. I wasn't so much a popular we like you kid, it was more like meet our charity case. She's awkward, shy, and rarely speaks, but she's harmless. I was like some sort of pet, but I just wanted friendship. Then as those little kindnesses spread and people seemed to like me, I gave up the mate dream and went running towards friends. Most girls want a romance with a childhood friend like they see in the movies. Where the boy and girl grow up next to each other and find out one day they're perfect for each other and love ensues. Yeah, I was more enamored with the sisterhood of the traveling pants of life. I wanted a best friend from elementary school, who knows me throughout the rest of our lives. We visit each other, plan to live in the same city, I attend her wedding and child classes, or we travel together and are like super sophisticated. I didn't care what, but I just wanted someone to want to be there for me, for me. Because they actually liked me as a friend, a mate, a sibling. Instead, I have no one.
I go to school and come back home to solve problems. That's literally all my life is. I go on trips with friends who want to achieve what they want to do and I go to experience it as separate but together. I allow myself to be dragged all over timbuktu, because sometimes travelling with others is worth the hassle than going alone, but I end up alone anyway, so what does it matter? Everyone is willing to leave me behind if it furthers their own ends. Most of my guy friends just can't stand being alone, so proposition some sort of attachment together and I'm like thank you for making me feel even more worthless. I get to be picked last and as a last resort, because I have a pulse and a vagina. Woo-fucking-hoo. The bitterness inside is boiling over to the point, I just don't really want to be around anybody anymore. I'm ready to hole up in an apartment somewhere in a city, so no one cares who I am and cut off all ties. No electronics, or rather no social media. No phones, except a prepaid one for emergencies. Just disappearing, because there is nothing left for me anymore. My disappearance won't be missed and I guess instead of thinking about it, I should just do it. I guess some people are all talk. I need to learn to be action. I seem to have only goodbyes left. I guess that's my legacy.

Left Behind

As I trudged along behind my friend who was the first to ever visit me from out of town, I saw black squirrels on the ground for the first time ever. I was so excited and I wanted to take a picture. My friends receding back, got further and further away from me, So I said enthusiastically, look, look black squirrels. She just made a dismissive gesture with her hand and said, who cares, they're everywhere. I don't want to see a black squirrel and kept moving. As I stood in shock absorbing this dismissal, I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures of the rambunctious black squirrels. I didn't look to see where she went, I didn't try to hurry to catch up. I had experienced this before. In fact, it became startlingly clear to me that I'm somehow always surrounded by people with one foot out the door. I'm forever stuck with people who don't look back to see if I caught up, nor do they come to see me to begin with. I tagged along. I just wanted to be close to my friends. I'm not doing that anymore. I don't chase after people. We eventually somehow happened to both need an emptying of the bladder and she waited for me to complete my own ablutions, but if she hadn't, had she left, I would have left and never turned back. Which sounds stupid. Like you forced her into hanging out with you, why should you be upset if she left you behind? And the answer is surprisingly simple. Because I wanted to hang out with her. I could have let her explore Vancouver and Seattle on her own as was her original plan. I could have let her get a hotel and be on her schedule and had we met up, we would have met up, though I doubt it, because I would've gone home and bypassed her altogether. So I stayed, I put my grades in jeopardy to play a good host and I was constantly threatened with being left behind. 

Beyond complaining, I also realized, this is a recurring theme with, if not 100%, then 90% of all of my friends. I go to see them, I want to hang out with them. Yes, their city, state, or country is gorgeous and it's nice to explore, but really I just want to sit down and talk to them, walk with them, get to know them. I have only been able to do that once. One time where I felt like I was cared about, encouraged to visit, and actually friends with someone. Every other time has been a distant rush towards getting me out of their life faster. A vague affirmation of some sort of positive emotion towards me coming to visit or just plain and simple far too busy. And I wonder, what is the point anymore? I mean I don't just travel for my friends, but if I can to meet them, hang out with them, affirm a bond, then I don't mind, as long as I'm wanted. Turns out I've never been wanted. Apparently, I've just thrown myself into people's lives, insinuated myself, and fooled myself into thinking people really care, when they don't. I've only ever been selfish in ways of survival and usually it's so that I can reach back and save someone else. Help them or teach them to survive by leading by example.

Not to mention every time I try to give up humanity, some other poor sucker is thrown in my path to be cheerful, make me feel less alone, less isolated, less angry, only when I try to grasp the proferred invisible hand of friendship, it completely vanishes. It's no longer there, no longer, beckoning to me to hope, to want to be close. 

I am just tired now. Tired of being left behind. See, not like the move. Lame joke, but no more. No more am I reaching out and no more will I accept those who are thrown in my life for whatever reason. I am done. I hope my writing will some day be good and have a market, so I can just withdraw from the world. My mom will be by my side, but...well, besides her, I want to be alone. Message received loud and clear. No one wants you and no one ever will. 

Only Human

It seems, no matter how hard I try, I will never be normal. I know, it's the hipsters and outcasts pride to not be like everyone else, but I've kind of been trying to be like everyone else. I want to be normal, but I am unaware of which ways I am not normal. Case in point, my sister says she's mad at me. Color me surprised, because  I can't think of anything I've done wrong. She says your nephew was hurt, you didn't call. I was like I heard through the grapevine he was all right. She says that's not the way it works. If you love your nieces and nephews and hear something has happened to them, you call to check on them personally. I'm like really? Why? You already have the information that they're okay through the grapevine. Apparently, the goal is to show you care.
I was a little non-plussed and promised to try and do better, but mostly I need to overthink this. Like obviously, I can't be the only one to trust the grapevine that someone is doing well, but it felt frustrating, and also like a gulf opened up between me and where I want to be. In my mind, I'm showing I care. In my mind, learning from someone else, how someone is doing, is sufficient to show I care enough to ask. To learn.
My idea of showing I care is that I genuinely want to know if you're okay or not, no matter how this information is obtained.  The problem is that, once I know you're okay, I tend to vanish back into whatever has absorbed me from the beginning.
I feel like there's this detachment of sorts from me and everything around me, but I am unaware of its existence until someone points it out. Then it's like I can't unsee it. I've never been one to think oh this is how they say you should act, so I should act it. It's more like if I feel logically it makes sense, then I wonder why didn't I do it? The answer is usually as simple as I didn't think about it, and as I don't have natural reactions, it leads to weird conversations of familial propriety.
I attribute most of it to being raised away from most people. I wasn't isolated, but in a situation of in a crowd full of people, still feel alone. Everyone did their thing and I endured whatever I was going through in silence.
I wish I could say my silence was sort of an oppressed thing, but really it didn't get that way until years later. The first times it happened, it was because I didn't really care about certain situations. Being shunned by popular girls who giggled all day like airheads, put me of the opinion that they were idiots, so I was better off. Sure it hurt when they invited my sisters to birthday parties, but not me, but for the most part, I didn't notice it. My brain always felt preoccupied with something else. Like seeing another world.
I've always been especially enamored of the outdoors, but it feels like someone is always watching and listening and as if there are two worlds and not just this one. I didn't think much of that, until I started to see the second world, then it's almost like am I crazy? My response is probably, but I'm okay with that.
However, I realized that animals and nature don't often speak.They have noises and for everyday functions use sounds, but I feel like they aren't really speaking. Their bodies speak for them. Their actions speak for them. I think it's why I've always had a hard time believing words over actions. Words are empty. They are broken, separated, torn apart, and spread like ashes whenever the speaker chooses. However, their actions are consistent.
If you tell me, you'll always be there, but you're almost never physically there. Then I'm not going to believe you'll always be there. A lot of my friends show their actions by asking about how I'm doing, coming around specifically to check in with me and other stuff. Things that over time with their words, let's me know, they're there for good.
Humans don't have tails to raise in times of dominance or lower in times of fear. They don't have twitchy, lashy tails when irritated, or use them as tools. Humans use words, but words lie. However, the reliance on words reveals the truth behind them. Some people don't mean what they say and some people don't know what they mean.
I miss the simplicity of my word is my bond and not being okay with actions that feel misleading. I suppose it's why I need to stop looking at people's body language and start listening to what they say. Maybe it's reverse and everything I need to know is only human words and not animal actions. I suppose in the long run we'll see.

Kids

For someone who at one point didn't want kids, the past few years of my life have been surprisingly inundated with me potentially acquiring kids. This comes in light of a proposal by my sis to possibly watch her two kids for a year or so, while she deploys. If she had asked me this ten years ago, I think I would have been freaking out and telling her to ask someone, anyone else. Instead, I'm strangely calm about it and feel...capable. After being desensitized to kids, then engendering a love of certain ones, it changed a lot of my outlook concerning the little buggers. Now, they're just my cubbies. Five of them to one auntie, but I've come to care about each of them in turn. 

In fact, contrary to popular familial belief, I've never specifically not wanted kids or rather, I've never said I didn't want any of my own. I just said I didn't like kids. So, what's the difference? Well, kids, are usually other peoples kids. They've influenced them, raised them, and done different things that just make them super unlikable. For instance, my initial dislike of kids, was due to one of my sisters babysitting jobs falling through on account of she was MIA. So, the duty, which became quite literal a few hours later, fell to me. Newbornish baby boy. Crying non-stop. 12 year old me, baffled on what to do with it. Someone suggests a diaper change. I'm the unlucky one to unravel the bubbling mass of witches brew that was the babies poop. It was liquid, horrifying, and indelibly etched into my brain as a really good reason to avoid kids. Exhibit B was my bio sperm donor having me watch his girlfriends kids like I was their mama. I had to bathe them, feed them, help them with their homework, go grocery shopping, and then some. Again at 12. If not for my canine pal White Wolf, I would have been a miserable mess. Hmm, okay, I was, but that's of no consequence for what I'm talking about. The point is, being responsible for kids, the eldest who was only three years younger than myself was the straw that broke the camels back. I felt like if I ever saw another kid again, it would be too soon.

So, fast forward 10 or 11 years, my eldest sis reenters my life with two kids. I'm foresworn to have nothing to do with them, then I end up babysitting them. Resentment is strong. Then we take them to the bay and they grow on me. When I'm at work, my niece runs to her mom to give her a hug, screaming mom and I wonder what it'd be like to have a cub run to me and call me mom. My small shrunken heart grew a size, half an inch, bigger. I start to think of them with terms like cute, adorable, smart, intelligent, and likable. I introduce one to anime and am comfortable with the close distance. Then another is on the way and I'm like this isn't a two year old or a five year old. This will be one of those spit up, diarrhea, creatures that I've dreaded. She comes into my life and I don't see her. Literally. My sis says there she is and I see a pink blanket and that's it. I ask where is she, and go closer for a sniff. My nose always investigates first. There she is. A smaller lump than a blanket, extremely fragile, and she looks like an alien. I tell my sis and she's not amused. Every animal instinct I own starts to reach out towards her. Much like it tried to do when she was in the womb. I avoid holding her for two days, then comes the dreaded hold the baby. A thousand scenarios of dropping her enters my mind, but instead she lies there and squints. I'm squinting too, but it's because of light sensitivity. I ask for the lights to be lowered just in case it's a problem for her too and she smiles at me. We've bonded.

I took care of her like she was my own cub and taught her the same body language. Nose touches nose. Forehead presses and cheek rubs. My friends know her intimately as she becomes my shadow. Everyone is astonished, including me. I ponder the idea of if a mate wanted cubs, would I be willing to have one and the answer is a surprising yes. If only, he would stay with me. Not to say, if it was a choice of stay with him, have a kid or leave, because I'd choose leave. Don't put an ultimatum on me. However, I would rather have his help in raising a cub, more than doing it all alone. It doesn't matter, but it is there. 

My time watching kids goes from a few hours, to days, to a week and a half. More and more I feel confident that I can do it alone, instead of feeling far out of my depth. I'm known as the strict one, but the kids are happiest with me. Punishment is endured by all. Hard to single a kid out for wanting to be with their siblings, even in punishment. So, to the corner my cub went. We adults tried not to laugh. Memories compile and  I feel a sense of power with knowledge, but still fear in watching kids. However, now I'm no longer afraid to watch them. I'm comfortable with it. 

My sister is contemplating employing me after I graduate to help with her kids. Maybe a year or two or until she retires in five years. I'm not sure and not really worried. I'm flexible after June. I just marvel at how the idea of watching two kids for a year no longer terrifies me. I believe I can do it and that's kind of the most amazing thing at all. Although, to tie back in to the top, that's why I feel like even though I don't have kids of my own, I feel like an accidental mom. One way or another, I've spent way more time watching kids these past few years than normal, but then I wonder, is this normal? Is this what aunties do? Spend all their time with the kids in their family? I feel like although I'm comfortable with kids, I'm still a far cry away from reacting as humans do, but that's a thought for another time. 

Caught in the Riptide

Most of the time, when people think of the future, they think about how short it is. They think about how much they want to accomplish and live and feel like they don't have enough time to do it in. Today, I became aware that I think the exact opposite.  I'm counting down the days to death. Not that I know them anyway, but I can't help but think, how much longer do I have left to live and it's so much time. Like if I am to live to sixty, and am 31 now, then I have 29 years left to live. I have plans, I want to accomplish things, but I also see the terror, tragedy, injustice, and horror of being humans and realize that with every accomplishment and occasion, I'll still have to live with that too. It makes me tired, more so than my soul already is. For such a young age, I've done a lot, accomplished a lot, and seen a lot. I've healed people and comforted them when they're broken and I dread the day I will lose them. I think of my mother's age and my soul sisters. I think what if one day they were all gone? What if I do outlive them and have to watch as they all pass away? Then on the flipside, I think if they outlive me, will they be able to carry on without me? It's all this really weird mystery, but also this looking back and forward at the same time. In the past, the stones are laid and done. I can't change them, nor do I want to. I honestly, don't think anything would change even if I did try to change something. My family has recently realized  I have become almost immortal in who I am. They say people change, and I know I have, but I've also remained the same after a certain point. The lessons most people take until at least 50 to learn, I learned them all by 31. I can give advice as well as a social worker and live by my own decree that has navigated me successfully through this life, but at the same time, I think, now what? I mean I've not dated, but don't need to, to know the best way to get along and the best way to weed out a good mate, but also, I know that by learning this, I've made myself virtually undateable. I don't have a specific preference for anything, because I know everyone has preferences. I know that  I won't try to be something I'm not, because inevitably, I'll only return to be who I am most comfortable being, which as many people know may not always be as attractive as one would hope. I want to experience so much, but I have a limited amount of things I want to experience. Like many people want to experience everything and as much as they can. I don't mind tagging along, but my list of things to experience and make me happy is much, much shorter. I've given up on dating, so it made my list chibi sized. It's not a bucket list, unless my house doesn't get built before I die, because I know I can experience everything on it in the next ten to twenty years. Barring any bad stuff happening, which will manifest in some form or another, so I've got that covered too. If one word could describe me,  I now know it would just be accepting. A trick I learned from my soul twin and of course bruce lee or whoever came up with the idea of be water when a force rises up against you. Bad things are always going to happen. I could resist and give myself more damage, or just let it roll on by. It might snag and hurt a bit with rocks and debris, but in general if I let it go, it will fade. I think that's why I'm ready for life to end already. Not in an I want to end my life sort of way, but in a unless aliens fall to Earth, not much can surprise me these days. I'm just like hmm. It probably helps, I can often read people and situations almost to a T, that I know how to react, despite my emotions wanting what could be, I know what is. However, the possibilities will help me write. Just thinking too much on a quiet night. Always quiet on the outside and used to be turbulent inside, but slowly mellowing, okay well further mellowing with age. I feel like a tree just settling deeper into its roots, ready for storm, fire or what may come until it dies. It's not a bad thing, but many will view it as so. Hence, why I write where no one really reads. I no longer think my innerme is my enemy exactly. She's my motivation, but too late to change the title now or if I can I'm too lazy to do it, so meh. The next few years have potential for change, but also, it has just as much potential to stay the same and I like that. I like that I can look back on videos, unfortunate ones, taken of myself and think ah, that same general unenthusiasm and measured response is still the same. That same uncertain sense of style is there and more. Either way, this song seemed fitting for the day since it's been running through my head a lot. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyLwf0SecLU I don't own it. ;) 

Loss

What do you do when all you've ever wanted is gone? That you've striven to hold onto something so small, simple, and easier than wanting riches and fame. You think you're born into a family, so how hard can it be to be a part of one, to feel like you belong, to feel safe, loved, and cared for? I shouldn't have to want comfort from strangers who have to replace those of my own flesh and blood. I shouldn't have to say that the only people in my life who care about me, didn't even know me until I was well past 18. I was technically legally an adult, by the time they came to care for me, but they do a better job of it than the people I grew up with for the last 30.
My bio family has been one I've striven to protect, to give chance after chance, to let them continue to be a part of my life no matter how badly they treat me, but I've reached the final straw. The camel's back is broke. I don't know if I can care any more, if I can look them in the eye and find any semblance of love there. It makes me wonder if maybe there was never any there for so long, but I hoped that it was.
This last time was so ludicrous that I can't wrap my mind around it and after all of it happens, even though it's me who was victimized in the situation, I got told that the other party feels better after we got to fussing. That they feel better because it was a bad day for them, but now they're over it. We can move on with kittens and roses and the sun is shining so brightly. I'm like I see nothing but a black hole where our relationship was before. I see nothing but seething rage over the silliness that sparked the argument. I see nothing but betrayal when you tell me you side with my sister, when you helped me get into the situation in the first place.
I am so beyond pissed that I can't do anything but cry, rage, cry, feel numb, experience shock, then rage and cry some more. I cannot abide by this. I can't. I can't let it go, I can't forgive, I have the inability to really want to even talk to that person, let alone be around them after what happened. I sacrificed my entire weekend to help out and all I got was snide remarks that I didn't want to be bothered by a niece and nephew I'd already been bothered by for some hours and handled it solidly enough. I got snide remarks about how I put my homework first, after giving up a lie in since two adults older than me were screaming so loud, the kids tv couldn't cover the noise, who were slamming things around and making me worry about domestic violence. I obviously put my homework first, when I then fed the kids, went shopping for the household, took the kids out to the park, drove the kids 20 minutes home and 20 minutes back, then stopping off in two different locations, before returning home, helping look for a missing wallet diligently for an hour and keeping the pets out of the way the best I could so as not to annoy the person looking for said missing wallet then taking up my own responsibility to give my cat food and water to show that I didn't expect my mom to do everything. It just so happened that in this entire day of focusing on my homework, before starting it at 10 o clock at night, when it was due by 11, that I moved some clothes in the closet on hangers, back a little to look at a box on the floor while looking for cat food. It just so happened that at some point, unbeknownst to me a robe fell off the hanger. I also forgot to put the clothes back. This turned the snide remarks into full on disparagements of me tearing someone's house apart just because  I thought they were neglecting my cat. That I was too busy focusing on my own work to put the closet back to the way it was. This awarded me not just an argument where it was lamented that a 30 year old would dare defend herself in a house, she helped pay for not that long ago when the car and rent were in jeopardy without a complaint, but also a locked bathroom door that remained shut as if the inhabitant inside couldn't bare to look me in the face until they thought I had gone to bed. Then they came out and went peacefully to sleep, ignored me for the most part the next morning, then want to give me a hug goodbye with an I love you.
Really? Really? Which part of me do you love? The one whose there in an emergency only. The one who goes out of her way to help, when she gets shit on in return?  The one who has had so many late assignments over this quarter it will be a miracle if she passes for putting everything aside to help out her family?  Her freaking family who can't even look her in the face because a robe fell on the floor in a closet on the second floor and she didn't notice or fix it? The family that puts her down for needing help of any kind, and everyone thinks she's immature, irresponsible, lazy, and needs to grow up and be independent? What fucking family is that?
All I've ever wanted in this godforsaken life was to try to be there for my family and to have them support me and care about me and not a goshdamn one of them can accomplish it without resenting me in some way. I can bend over backwards, sell everything I own and take a bus for life for them and they will only ever see what affects them. I cannot do it any more. I just can't. I can't go on acting like everything is fantastic, that all is forgiven, when it's not. I wavered on some decisions regarding my family, but they are going to be finalized. Everyone wants to look out for themselves, fine, I'm looking out for me. I'm putting me first. I'm going to be the most selfish person any one knows and I'll be damned if any one pisses on me about it. Fuck you. You had all the 30 years in the world to appreciate my selflessness that has allowed me to stand by your sides, to support you all, to try and hold this stupid family together by sheer will alone, but no more. If I can't expect you to be behind me, I don't want you anywhere near me. All I wanted was love and I got hate, so I'm giving hate back tenfold. Fuck everything.

The Problem with Energy

Being an energy user, if given the right support, can become just an every day thing in your life. You use it, you feel it, you read it, you absorb it, it's all like breathing after a while. The downside to being an energy user is that you leave trails of it behind and you need a foundation for it to feel right. For me, my energy base is my room. Something that belongs wholly to me with various items infused with energy to give me a boost when I'm feeling low.  To walk into it is to become calm, but recharged. My bed always has to go one place, mirrors have to go another, my dressers, tv, closet, bookshelf. Everything has to go into a specific place in order for me to feel the best flow of energy in a room. 

It's no wonder I'm territorial as the inner tigress that I am. It's not just a room and my stuff, but my own energy I'm pouring into it, expecting it not to be disturbed or messed with. The problem with living with others who don't believe in energy work or who refuse to acknowledge it and learn to practice it properly, is they trample all over those lines in your absence and even though you can feel it across the country, there's nothing you can do to keep it there when every essence of you is slowly and meticulously erased from a room. 

I suppose it's expected. Move out, and other people will move in, but what I don't like is people who tell me my energy and stuff will be as I left it when I come back, until I'm ready to lessen those bonds, then I ask what are they doing and they're like changing your entire room. Oh yes and that room won't be yours anymore. We're moving you elsewhere, if you'll have a room at all. They think it's just a room, but it's not just a room. It's the foundation of my energy until I can find a new place to set up and charge. However, it's impossible to stress the importance of the destruction of such a thing to people who don't understand or really don't care. They can't feel the eradication and broken bonds and displacement felt when you walk into a room that might as well be warded and see everything in tatters.

Then I'm supposed to act like nothing is wrong, when I feel this overwhelming suffocation, because I can't find safety anywhere in the room. Naturally the longer I stay in it, the more it will naturally be imbued with my energy and I'll feel more at ease, but I feel like if you say I'm welcome there and not to move my stuff out, make sure you mean it. Don't wait three months and suddenly out of the three rooms in the apartment, one to each person, one person gets two rooms, the other gets mine and I'm left in limbo. Not to mention the two rooms are identical, one not used and one mine. Why take my room when there's one that remains unused for months on end? 

I know of course the answer is to get my own place, which I'm working diligently toward, but until then, it'd be nice if I could believe people when they say they will leave my wards alone. It's exhausting getting a room to feel just right, so I go in and breathe a sigh of relief. Instead now I'll go back and just feel frustration, rage, and hopeless. Going to be a rough two years. :S 

Plan Revision

Beyond my seven year plan already going awry due to surgery, and having to switch schools and majors, I've realized that saving for building my dream house might be a bit more complicated than I originally thought. Dragging it out to 8 years, the payments I'd have to save per month are like 2900 plus dollars. That's not even including the price for buying land to build it on. I know I want to get an extra home, well more of a tiny house to set up in until I can save and build my house, but I sincerely thought it'd be easier to save up. With rents being somewhere around 1200 already, I'd need to make like 4000 dollars a month just to pull this off.

By next year, if I don't do Graduate school, I should finish school, so I have to start thinking of phase two of my 7/10/15/rest of life plan. Actually I might well be right on time. If the plan works out, by the end of the 15th year of that plan or the 32 year plan I've mapped out, I should be 57. So if I live to 57 and do a 12 year plan for my house, in between the 10 year plan which is to get a job, advance in it and make it a career, then save up and the 15 year plan of building my house and buying land to build it on, it should all be done by 57.

I have this irrational thought that I will die by 68, which is why I came up with the 7/10/15 year plan. 7 years for schooling, 10 years for a job to settle in and start saving, 15 years to save, build the house, and the last few years if that's all I have will be spent living in my house. I might get a pet somewhere in there or travel. Depending on what job I settle on, and if being an author pays off.
Still, I might have to drag that 12 out to 15 years to save up living in this economy or find a house to live in/own, so I can save up money instead of being stuck paying rent forever.

The design of my house is almost complete digitally. I would like to pay the company I'm using to build it on to print out the pictures and once I'm done with the second floor and the house is complete, I may just do that. Every Time  I see it, I feel buoyant with happiness, so having it built in real life will be a dream come true. I might need to make some of the bathrooms and stuff wheelchair accessible and maybe the second floor too. Going to have to figure out how to modify that, but first I need the money to build it.

I was calculating it out and it was stressing me out thinking I only had one phase of the plan left, but I've actually got about two or three, so if I have extra time, I should be able to pull this off. Just gotta keep going and focus. Focus.

Going to Japan is my other prevailing thought. I would like to do so by 2017, but I graduate that year. Possibly the quarter after I graduate which means no financial aid help. Now if I do graduate school, I might be able to actually study there for a year learning Japanese and teaching English as a Second Language while there. It's funny because I shy away from the idea of teaching English grammar to students, but I honestly think I'd enjoy teaching English as a language. I wouldn't exactly know where to begin, but knowing Japanese and English, I might be able to make it relatable. It's just the idea of living in another country for a year that makes me pause. Being in Scotland for five months felt a little long winded. I can't imagine living in Japan for a whole year.

Still, it's something to think about. Graduate study there or study abroad. Which one is better. So many decisions to make. Two paths that were not there before, appear ahead of me and I must choose which one to go. I still plan to be an author, but I need something that will pay immediately after schooling to start paying off loans. I need to put money into being an author, before I can get money back. Unless I happen to create a few masterpieces before I leave school, this should be interesting. Not intimidated though. Excited. Bring it on, I say. I'm ready.

Act your age

It took nearly 31 years, just shy of a month, but I finally feel my age. Da dadadaaaa! It was partially part of the chaos of being around my extended family for the first time in 18 years and it was partially feeling complete maybe. Not exactly as if I felt inadequate, just felt the reflection of myself no longer resembles a child anymore. Not exactly a woman either, that label just will never hold sway with me. Just I feel like an adult. Then again seeing your three nieces and two nephews side by side, and two of them are almost taller than you and walking to school by themselves, it's surreal and bittersweet. Be a lie if I said I didn't get a bit misty eyed. Being able to have an adult conversation with Aunts and Uncles, orchestrate a surprise party, being entrusted to drive all over a state you haven't been to in 18 years, by other adults in the car. It just felt like I'd assumed a role at some point and just became aware of it.

Moments like that always make me reflect on what I'm doing with my life, if the path I chose is the one I want to stay, and is there anything I would change? One encounter on campus, did lead to a surprising revelation, though no clue the implications of it. Probably just an observation, but I realized I'm not afraid of dating like I thought I was. What it actually is is too complex to fully flesh out. However, because of my skin color, certain males of the same skin color always feel the need to single me out. I was walking to the library and saw these two dudes walking, talking to each other and everyone around them was minding their own business. They didn't say a word to any of the girls walking by in those too short shorts that don't seem entirely practical, but because of my skin color as soon as they saw me walking by, in pants, not daisy dukes, one of them shouted out, "Hey Lil Mama".
I was like give me a break, seriously? It was then I felt this pain in my stomach. Not exactly a ball of nerves, but as of being exposed. Like you don't even know me. I could be crazy for all you know, but just because of my skin color, you call out a derogatory greeting and laugh about it afterward, as I walk by and say nothing. It's not the same as being catcalled exactly, because it wasn't so much an appreciation of looks as it was just acknowledging female of same race. The difference is subtle, but there.
Ansywho, I realized that I just wanted to be ignored or at least if you're going to call me out, call out the other girls who have walked past you, and you completely ignored. I felt like if  I was part of a collective of subjugated women, it was easier to draw support from that scenario of collective we don't want your attention, instead of being the only person of my skin color being called out to.

It's why I've always crippled myself with friendships because I'm always worried about the do they like me, do they not like me, let's make it to where they don't like me, so I feel safer as a non-interest party. Then I get all the love I need without risk. I know I have a good personality and am very friendly, if slightly psychotic, so I can receive love in that form easily.
It's the other kind that has so much negative connotations and I have no experience with that makes me get all bristly. Okay I never said I'd solved the issue with dating, just that I'm not afraid of it. I'm just highly avoidant to it.

I also realized that dogs greet me sometimes as they do other dogs. For example, today I was seeing a friend off at the link rail station and saw a brown poodle looking dog. It started pulling at its leash to come near me, and I reached down to it. The owner gave up trying to hold him back and I reached down to give him a side pat on the chest. He stayed in that position dogs get in, where one sniffs one's butt on one end, while the other is sniffing the others butt. Well he was sort of in that pose, relaxed, tail high and I was like yeah, I'm not that much of  a wolf lol. However, I did pet him when he leaned against my side briefly as dogs are wont to do. Love the little buggers.

Lastly, I decided that I am wolf indeed or I will just claim it whether I am or not. For the past few years there have been many doubts, but got very wolf like reactions from myself and realized that my doubt and isolating myself have kind of put my wolf instincts into remission. Now that I'm in the act of embracing those instincts again, becoming more blatently wolf like in behavior. It's hard to explain choice versus instinct.  I've always felt cat, but wolf attaches to people too easily...still. I've learned it's just a thing that happens and have given up trying to figure out why. That question drove me nuts for too many years. Now I'm just like I want to focus on my writing and I need those feelings to write, so going to just let them flow for now and see where they go.

I got absolutely nothing done today, but watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I cracked up when I realized that was his voice and not the helmet for Kylo Ren, but decent movie. I'm terrible at keeping it all in order or what would make sense, though I've seen nearly all the movies. I hadn't really intended to watch this one, but my friend insisted.  I must make her watch Mad Max; Fury Road. That's about it this time around. I wonder if I should worry about using blogs as an impromptu pensieve. Probably not.

It was the worst of times

It's not under the best of circumstances, but after 18 years away, I'm finally returning to Tennessee. A part of me feels like I should be annoyed, growly or something, but I'm strangely okay with the trip. Mostly because I am acting in a role I'm comfortable with in my sleep, which is the counselor and supporter during hard times. It feels weird to be so estranged from people who technically share my bloodline, but for my mom's sake, I do hope this trip turns out well. It would be unfortunate to go down and find out we went to see a coffin. :S
I suppose that's why it doesn't bother me to go down there. The one person who I intensely disliked has been somewhat reconciled with to the point, I gave her advice on what to do to communicate with her best friend's wife after his passing and she listened. So it's not all bad. Not to mention I get to see my surrogate cubs again after 4 or 5 years apart. I won't be able to pick them up any more or really know how to relate to them. I was a part of their lives for like three or four years or more and suddenly we got separated without even phone calls. That was on my behalf because these past few years have been rather crazy.
Hmm, it makes me think of my dog 2W or White Wolf. I know he's passed on as he was like 3 or 4 last I saw him and it's been 18 years. Sheba probably grew up and passed on if her owners took care of her. The other dogs in the neighborhood have probably gone on too. Makes me curious if I'll run into any while there. There was always a stray by my side last time I was there. I've officially come full circle without even realizing it. It's very odd to think of and makes me feel a bit lost. Like what do you do when you go full circle and reconcile with nearly all the demons of your past. They've been laid to rest and now it's time to move forward, but I don't know what to do now that I've almost been set free from my past me. Maybe it's just a matter of telling me I grew up and stop thinking of myself as that insecure little girl. I just can't think of myself as a woman. It's weird. I feel so childish a lot that I don't think I'll ever feel like an adult, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing just weird.
I kind of feel bad the most that we're going to Tennessee to root on someone to live and my main goal is actually to eat a lot of food in Tennessee that I haven't had a chance to taste in 18 years. Yeah, that's probably terrible, but I can live with it. I can live with it.

Wayward thoughts

So many thoughts are swimming through my head right now, I can't pin one down long enough to explore it. One of those restless nights where all you're left with is bittersweet memories. Think I might've overdone the helping everyone else out and not enough self care again. I don't mind helping out, but in places with low nature energy return, it's a little hard to drum back up that infusion of energy I need. I'm not hungry for anything either, so back to hours before eating anything. Terrible when your body refuses to eat when you don't have a taste for anything. Only when the shakes catch up to me will I probably eat again, which is bad I know, but if I try to eat, I mostly just circle the kitchen for an hour, before returning to my room. I kind of want pizza and breadsticks, but the pizza places near me suck. So gotta wait until I go home for a weekend to go have some decent pizza. Freaking Seattle.
I also can't help but think after 30 years, it's finally happened. I thought eventually I would try for a relationship, one step at a time and all that, but there is one specific problem with that thought. Utter lack of experience. I can't imagine my way out of this problem, because when I am faced with reality, I have involuntary reflexes that utterly reject even the smallest gesture. Case in point, a few years back, my friend abandoned me with a guy friend of hers who was willing to fix my computer. He gave me a ride home and she was supposed to meet me at my place and just never showed up. So I was stuck alone in an apartment with a guy and trying to entertain him while waiting for her to show up. Luckily, he was solid, although rather blunt and started teaching me a few martial arts moves at my request. I was nervous as crap, because literally first time even meeting the guy and I had never had a guy in my apartment or room, ever. He mistook my stiffness because of nerves for my pants being too long and before I knew it had dropped to one knee in front of me and was starting to roll up my pants leg so I could have easier motion. Well, beyond it being totally unexpected, there were two problems. One I just hadn't shaved and was embarrassed and two, I'd never had a guy touch my leg before either. As a result, I jumped about a foot away from him. He ended up looking up at me and asking was there a secret I wanted to tell him? I was tongue-tied, because well no, there was no secret, but I grow defensive when I'm in a depth where my feet aren't touching the bottom. This situation was equivalent to being out at sea without a raft. He acted uninterested, but made lots of comments about my body being in good proportion for all assets. I was like um, okay? It was just awkward and I could've strangled my friend, when half past 8 she texted and was like did he fix my computer? I was like no and he's still here. Where are you? She was like she went to another friends house. I was like wtf!? He eventually went home, but that was a crappy incident all around and I almost died of a heart attack from nerves.
The last straw was a friend of mine who I'd known for months. He gave me a lift home that was supposed to be more than just me, but I had more stuff than I thought I did and she got a ride with someone else. I wasn't nervous around him, so when he came back out of our place from helping me drag stuff in, I went to hug him goodbye. All was well, until I felt something against my stomach, because he was taller than me and out of surprise I jumped out of the hug. He looked at me strangely and I had no desire to explain that it just surprised me. I mean I get he was a guy with the anatomy, but it was very different to actually feeling it through a hug. If I wouldn't have felt more like an idiot than I already did, I might've facepalmed and tried to explain, but I just couldn't. Just wished him well on his journey home and sighed.
I think I thought something would change if I was more comfortable around the guy, but nope. I'm about as skittish and defensive as ever. It's all well and fine to write about stuff, but the reality freaks me the fudge out.
There was a guy who showed too much interest online, but he was too pushy. I tried explaining that hugs amongst strangers isn't comfortable, let's talk, but he took it as intense rejection. Like egad, I give up. Too much crap I don't know and too much attitude I do not want to deal with. So done with this. It was nailed home that I'd chosen to be alone forever vs trying to navigate the minefield of first experiences when I watched a movie with my favorite actor in it and felt nothing. I wasn't like aww what a lovely love story. It was just hmm that wasn't too bad. Good song at the end. Yeah, no emotion. Bleh.
Then regret keeps building up like poison in my head and heart and all I want to do is throw myself at the feet of my soul twin and apologize profusely for being a terribly selfish person. The only thing stopping me is that I have so much to say, I don't know which apology to send. Even if it isn't read, it's cathartic to send it until mailer-daemon says it failed to send. Then it's good old fashioned copy and paste, but an email works ten times better XD.
Lastly, there's a giant wolf spider I saw a few nights ago that I don't know where it went. Our landlord put down traps, but I don't think it's going to catch anything. With my luck with spiders, as soon as I let my guard down and the traps are gone, it will just come running out again in all it's creepy glory and I'm going to have a heart attack. Most spiders I can tiger up and kill it, but when it came running towards me, I simply screamed and ran the other direction. :P The embarrassment.
I dread the conversation I'll have to have with my sister. We were supposed to have it a few weeks ago, but I put it off, but this recent outburst from her makes me sure it's something I'll have to do. For years, my mom and I have brushed off their attitudes, behavior and more, but soo done with it. There are some people I can do without in my life. My siblings make up most of that category. I admit my request to her was unfair, but it was for some books at a store down the street from her. I was going to repay her. She said she couldn't do it because of time, so I asked my mom and we worked something out. All should've been well, but my sister had to go telling me to grow up and stop acting like a child and that my mom shouldn't have had to help me and it was over a delivery time. Like didn't she think that if I could've chosen the time, I'd have chosen when I was still close to the store and not back in Seattle? Honestly. Calling her self centered might not have been my finest moment, but she had p'd me off. So meh. Either way, if she can't be like family, I refuse to keep dealing with her. I'm never going to abandon my mom like they did and if standing by her makes me sound like I'm immature and dependent on her, I don't give a ff.
On another note, I am sick of people assuming that I've not done a single thing to help myself in the past 30 years. There's like a line of people holding their hands out so I can thank them for my success as if I did absolutely nothing. I swear if I become a famous author, everyone will want to be in the background going we got her to where she is today. Like can I take credit for doing anything or should I start saying I did nothing to get where  I am today. I'm just a puppet of success that other people contributed to and that silver platter was in my mouth when I was born.
I usually don't get so annoyed by taking responsibility for my own successes as most I owe to God, Luck, Friends and Family, but sometimes it's nice to hear someone say you worked your butt off. We might have helped you financially, but all the emotional struggles were mainly you and most of the money was you too, until you fell down a bit.

Mostly I miss the sanctuary that I had a few years back. Just a pretend place in my imagination of flopping onto a bed and bugging my soul twin like he was the childhood friend I'd always wanted. That's honestly what I wanted our friendship to be. Not a relationship like love, although that would've been nice if all signs hadn't pointed to it being an impossibility, but a relaxed thing where I stopped feeling like I was bothering him or making him drag himself online where he didn't want to be and instead it was like going to visit him if we lived closer and just talking to him while he got ready or something. I've always enjoyed that dream of a friend you're so close to that you can just chill as they get ready and go hang out afterward. I've never been to anyone that closely and the sorrow that the one person who was the most like me couldn't be that just bummed me out. Sigh. So many wayward thoughts, so many things to get in order.
I want to be a writer, but with all these things clouding my mind, it's near impossible to find my new muse in this version of me and ask her to help me write again. I just hope the creative writing classes I'm taking will help straighten out the muse thing or help me understand I'm just as creative out of muse mode as I am in it. However, if I am going to be an author, I need to start acting like one. No more putting off writing when I have time to do it. Just gotta sit down and type. The creativity will come in the revision process I hope, but not too much revising. That will lead me back to my first story that was never finished XD

Well I feel better. Chillstep and mind purge worked. Time to go finish my letter of apologies and send them off, then relax with a manga.

A writer studying how to write

The problem with being a writer studying how to write is that you get to write, but you're still not quite at the point that you can write whatever you want, whenever you want. Case in point today was one of those gorgeous overcast days with electric air just brimming with possibilities. Ideas began bubbling up like a new spring ready to mold to a new channel. I just had to set it free, but then I remembered  I have essays due. Specifically critical essays comparing ideas and conveying why they're important, which is very good, but it wasn't what I wanted to write about. Now there are those lucky few writers who can juggle both, splurging on ideas and getting them out there, while churning out critical essays that get fantastic grades. I am not one of those people. I am easily distracted, much like the hummingbird I saw today that was barely bigger than the small white flower it was extracting nectar from. Even now I'm supposed to be working on a two page essay explaining in depth a passage from a book we're reading, which sounds simple enough, but not when you want to listen to music and write your own ideas. I need better discipline and a warmer room or I need to start cutting myself off from the joys of solitude and go sit with the other people enslaved to their computers as they train to be eligible to do fieldwork. Hmm, I want to watch a movie. That right there is my problem. So easily distracted. It's so terrible. Le sigh, back to the drawing board or I could watch anime, no definitely the drawing board.

Shadows of the past

There's a feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some would call it dread, others call it intuition. I call it a pain in the butt, because it's there and there is no explanation for it. It turns carefully formed responses into the bitter truths that I can't avoid, but can avoid speaking about. It hits me often late at night. It's part reflection, seeing my past through new eyes and counting my regrets and wondering if I can resolve them. Thankfully they're few and far between and most are already resolved. The ones that aren't, eat away at me spiritually, like a serpents venom urging me to take action. Find the cure, fix the regret. Write the words, say what you mean, inflict damage, even though you only want to cure yourself of the poison inside eating away at you. I sit here in this quiet room of privilege, trying to be grateful, but always left wondering why? Why is my life this way? Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad life. In fact, it's quite blessed and if I can use my words to spread this good fortune I will, but then the shadows of the past come back up to bite me. They don't care that I'm one year away from a Bachelor's Degree and should be excited or that I'm a few weeks away from joining the Kung Fu Tai Chi club of Seattle. No, the shadows want something else. Some feeling they've been guiding me to achieve and lamenting every time I've failed. I'm not savvy enough to pay attention, to know the answers, the truth. I only know parts of it, bits and pieces, jumbled together to give me something to reach out to before it floats swiftly out of my reach. My life used to be ruled by this pursuit. Chasing the shadows of the past, hoping they can explain the me who is now. The one who feels challenged mentally, and protected physically. The one who has to fortify her emotions and carefully plan human interactions to not activate the button located in the pit of her stomach. Every time I've come close to grasping some part of my humanity, I screw it all up and throw it away. Of course not on purpose, but how do you know to preserve what you don't know needs preserving? How do you avoid loss and grief, when it becomes like snapshots of sorrow so strong they have become tangible? Every human interaction becomes a minefield of positive and negative reactions, making me wonder what is the purpose? It hasn't always been this way. In fact, I know exactly when it changed, but I don't know why it had to. 'I was happy' is the only refrain running through my head or rather I was blissfully ignorant. I expected rejection, isolation, solitude from those outside of my family and had just gotten used to a new solitude within my immediate family unit. I longed for the fantasy of human interaction. The ones involving lifelong friends you've known half your life, a true love found at first sight and broken family's finding their way to whole again, but I accepted that was not reality. I didn't pursue it, until one day my eyes were open to it. Always reluctant to trust this new comraderie, I waited for the one year mark to pass, but they kept getting longer and longer. No more one year formula's of friends who I know one year and either they or I move away. No more, they spoke to me last year, why not this one? However, that connection was still there. A strange and powerful connection drawing me to one alone at a time. Always one. Never for attraction, but something else. Kindness, I thought, a certain ability to not fear me or place me in awe. A bit of normalcy, but also a feeling of being protected while being respected for my ability to do so on my own. It was a novelty. People come to me for protection, whether emotional or physical, but no one has ever wanted to protect me before. Motherly love in this instance doesn't count. That's a given, but strangers, people with no investment because you are their progeny? No, They expect you to protect yourself. Fighting, fighting, always fighting. More and more battles to win and one day on a Eastern born wind someone stops with concern in their eyes and asks me am I okay? Someone asks me to play. My limited world of violence suddenly has sunshine, but just like the once a year friend, they all go away. Everything I've ever loved has gone away. So I try not to love any more. Those who hold my love will remain until the end of our lives most like, because we have forged our bonds in fire and through time. However, on occasion, there's a feeling in the pit of my stomach, for all those who no longer walk beside me, but the shadows of their ghosts remains fresh in my mind. I wonder how they are, what they're doing and if they're happy. I wonder if they know how much they meant to me or am I just another faded memory? The shadows of my past will not let me be, but all I can do is move forward and hope one day, I'll have an answer why I was chosen to carry this burden with me for the past 16 years.