onthetopicofjonat

[onthetopicofjonat]

I don't know how I got here, but I've been feeling, deep down, and fairly regularly, that my life cannot possibly be anything other than unique and worthwhile.

Part of it is from psychedelics I'm sure. Part of it is from dabbling in all of these spiritual ideas or life cycles or whatever. I just feel like, even if parts of my experience resemble that of others, there is no life experience entirely like mine. And that, if I just accept and enjoy what this experience is, that's enough. This life doesn't have to be full of great accomplishments or anything like that. I get to just be myself, whatever that entails at any given time.

Part of this is a sort of belief in a kind of reincarnation. I'm sure this has a name, but a version of it where, after I die, I'll get to choose the kind of life I live next. The idea that, everything I am, do, love, struggle with, was wished for by a past version of me, is so endearing. It makes me feel good about this life. And I love the idea that, when this is over, I'll get to do it again, as someone else entirely. Perhaps whatever allowed me to arrive at this lightness, this peace, is the result of the efforts of the people I was before.

I don't know if any of that is true. And I don't need to. If I'm wrong, I'll be too dead to know about it, and I'll have gotten a more contented experience out of this life for my trouble.

In one of the most stagnant ruts of my life, I stumbled upon a sort of deep, deep peace with myself, my life so far, and my life ahead. I hope it stays.

[onthetopicofjonat]

I really love my friends

Just had a really good night with them. It's 7/13/2023. All we did was go to an escape room and watched The Bear afterwards. Had some really good conversations on the drive, with Rose, Justin and Cody. Had some really good conversations after.

And this is after a really good week with my friends. Cassidy and Judy visiting. Lots of board games. The kamayan on the 4th of July. Uchi early for my birthday. Rose reminding me that there's a lot to have been proud of from my college days, that I was more liked and loved than I knew, bragging for me and showing me meaning from that time that I didn't realize was there. Justin reminding me that, things are pretty good and my life is full of potential. That I have a lot to be proud of, strengths in the form of being open and showing up, a whole world right in front of me. Just a continuous experience of being around friends who have missed me, who appreciate me, who love me.

Moving. Packing. Seeing the new place, the one downtown where I'm going to get out more and live on my own for the first time. Looking forward to what both Justin and I will do together.

Feeling grateful for every friend that's still in my life, even if I haven't heard from them in a while. Even if I haven't reached out in a while.

It's been really hard to journal. Hard to want to journal, hard to drag myself to it. But I'm feeling really grateful and I don't want to forget. This is such a good set of weeks. There are more to come. I'll go hang out with Ernest and Mindy as we say goodbye to Justin's time in Colorado. I'll spend a weekend without internet, reading and getting my living space ready. I'll get adjusted to my place, start making it into home. I'll go to a fine dining dumpling shop with my friends. I'll turn 30 while playing a D&D game I really love in Spelljammer. I'll go treat myself and my love of movies to the Barbenheimer double feature. I'll probably walk downstairs and get pizza.

The last few weeks of my 20's have been really special. The first few days of my 30's will be special. With any luck, this whole next decade will be special. I'll become the type of person who gets better with age, who will learn how to live and how to be myself better and better. I have so much to look forward to and to be grateful for. And now that I've dragged myself back to my journal, bringing with me a feeling that is strong enough to want to save, maybe it can continue. Maybe I can remember this love and joy and know it'll be here for me throughout many years and many versions of me to come.

[onthetopicofjonat]

Music

I don't know how it started but I'm listening to old music. Making a playlist of music I used to play in my car. And I'm really feeling more connected to my past self. It's really neat. These specific sounds just take me back and unearth all kinds of buried memories.

Some of it isn't good. Some of it reminds me of the anxiety I felt about Kai in the early days, which feels so different now that I know that anxiety was basically correct. Some of it reminds me of that weird trip to Tahoe with those people I didn't know where I insisted someone drive back with me; it was fun at the time but I realize only in hindsight that it probably wasn't the most comfortable for them. Some of it reminds me about how I rarely connected to anyone on my taste of music, and that the stuff I like is either too scattered or just not good enough to fit the tastes of others.

But that's a small feeling compared to the rest of it. It feels so good to see what past versions of me thought was important and moving. The same music is just as touching, all over again. Whatever it stirred in me before, some of it is stirred now. And some of it sucks! Some of the stuff I was drawn to was corny and weird and even if the love for that song didn't come with me to today, it's still a fun curiosity.

I think I become reluctant to look so far back. At the old tumblrs and journals and relics of my past selves that I created. I worry that I'm going to find cringy stuff that's going to strain my relationship even further. I worry that I'll find old regrets to ruminate on with the unfair advantage of hindsight. But honestly, there's so much I've tucked away in my metaphorical closet that still stirs something within me. I've been sitting here feeling so far away from myself, so detached from meaning, when there's stockpiles of these things right here.

Maybe this version of me isn't as good at connecting with myself. But my past selves were much better at it. And they've left plenty for me to work with. Plenty of instructions and love letters to the future. I can learn so much from them.

I've got to think about what gifts I can give to my future self. And many of them will come from loving, recording, and embracing the present.

[onthetopicofjonat]

4/12/2022

Vegas was tricky this time around. Mostly good, but a little off. I went down for Catherin's memorial. It was a gathering of friends and family, pretty informal. It was really good to see a whole bunch of people. Stevie as always, but also cousins from back east. Cousins who have drastically different views than me on a whole lot of things, but who are fun and good at hyping me up. I saw Erick and Edgar, which is fun because just talking and being myself feels easy. It's so low pressure and they're so like me that it's a reminder of the fact that there's so much in here if it can find the right path out.

There were some frustrating interactions. Talking with Emma, I got talked over a lot and I felt stuck on the outside of the conversation. I wasn't told how strong the joint my cousin gave me was and I was too high to really interact with any one of Ryan's friends, which was disappointing because they were really cool and especially welcoming. It was a little strange seeing my cousins, who are so much further from the subculture that was present there, be so comfortable and easy when socializing. It really reinforced the feeling of something missing within me. I also sat next to a really cute girl on the flight here and couldn't bring myself to say much of anything.

I don't know. It was good and refreshing and it also felt like it reinforced the deficits I've been feeling within myself. Outward displays of myself were tricky as hell. But I got reminded of a lot of connections in my life, and got to experience a community that was truly moving to me. I still wish I was better at the easy stuff.

[onthetopicofjonat]

I'm going to meet someone in a week. They're a friend of a friend of a friend. I know nothing about them except they like concerts and I'm putting all sorts of fantasies of connection onto them.

Connection doesn't feel like something I do or create. It feels like something that just happens to me. And since this meeting is something that's just happening to me, maybe that points towards connection. Maybe I'm that lost and that starved for connection that I'm hoping for a connection to just fall into my lap like they all seem to. Someone who will see something in me, pry it out of its shell, and enjoy it enough to teach me that I'm a delicacy. A set of emotional training wheels until I can ride on my own.

Except this time, I'm less receptive to such a thing than ever. I have less that is shamelessly plugged into life. Fewer traits and interests that I feel comfortable claiming for myself. Less for people to latch onto and connect with. I've withdrawn those footholds and eroded my cliffsides so they're too smooth to climb.

It's ridiculous to expect or hope for this from someone I haven't met. It's unfair to expect someone to do all the work of establishing a connection without giving them a reason to connect with me. It's a silly thought from start to finish but I'm stuck on it because I don't know what else to do. I feel so far away from any version of me that can do what I was capable of a decade ago, that I'm sitting here hoping for actual miracles.

I hope I can put a lid on this when we meet. What an unfair burden to place on a stranger.

The idea to come back here and to write started as something that just came to mind. A temporary bolt of inspiration that I'm clinging to long after it's left. But what kicked it back up is this feeling of trying to uncover some of what I've withdrawn. Like maybe two weeks of writing and journaling is enough to undo years' worth of shutting myself away. Maybe I can uncover an emotional trinket or two to offer in conversation. Maybe I can find something within me sturdy enough to bear the storm of sincerely connecting with a person I don't already know.

It feels futile and kind of silly. Like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a solo cup. But man, can you imagine how good it'll feel if it works?

[onthetopicofjonat]

Flower writing prompt

I am a cut yellow tulip.

My mother’s only and favorite.

Grown in a greenhouse, in an enclosed sea of others that look just like me.

For generations, bred and optimized to sit quietly and temporarily on the kitchen tables of the broadest possible consumer groups.

A participant in brief moments of excitement and love before becoming a part of the background and relegated to the compost when my impaired ability to gather life-giving nutrients finally makes me wither.

It’s been this way for generations of my ancestors, who managed to find purpose and pride in these limitations, through either ignorance or acceptance of them. 

But I take heart in looking even further back. Millenia ago, my ancestor’s ancestor’s ancestors grew in wild, open fields, in relationship with the wind, the bees, and even the occasional human who found rest and beauty among us. Simply existing, entirely unaffected and unshaped by outside perceptions. 

Sitting in an oversized mason jar repurposed as a vase, three days after her birthday, with the first of my lost petals resting on the kitchen table below me, I take heart knowing that this older self I long for is inseparable from me. It’s embedded into my genetic code, imprinted within me, impossible to lose entirely. 

The past is sealed and this version of myself is bound by the events that came before it. I cannot re-attach that lost petal, cannot return to the florist’s shop, to the cross-continental flight between my monocultured green house, cannot return to my stem or my roots or to the seed that spawned me there. This version of me is leaking the last of my life into the hard tap water that I’m not meant to live in. 

But the future is unwritten. My next version may mutate. I may learn to make my blemishes visible, and be discarded from this sterile and life-draining cycle. And perhaps that discarded bulb casts pollen into the wind, returning to the wild to become something entirely new. An unexpected, beautiful, and rare combination of many things, simply existing, rocking gently in the wind. 

[onthetopicofjonat]

What to salvage and build upon

I like being someone that’s interested in a lot of things. Even when I hope for an ability to dive deeper into something, it’s still cool to be able to be grabbed by a lot of interests. 

I think of myself as a drop-everything-to-help type. It hasn’t always been healthy and it might stem from feelings more negative than love for others. My relationship with this trait is tricky and it’s gotten me into trouble. But I like it anyway. 

I’m able to keep an ambitious and hopeful view of what love, intimacy and community look like for me. Even with a lifetime of struggles in this regard, including some present today that feel enormous, I never find myself entertaining “forever alone” type delusions. Even this late into my 20′s, I have this stubborn confidence that I’ll figure it out, find whichever of my people I haven’t found yet, and learn how to exist with the ones I’ve found already. 

I have an adaptability that I’m proud of. I’ve dropped myself into all kinds of difficult situations and responded in a way that I can take pride in. I rise to challenges and that still feels true even being able to see so many flaws and mistakes in hindsight. 

I have a stubborn refusal to fail. It’s gotten me into trouble and I’ve also struggled to learn how to actively succeed instead. But I appreciate this trait. 

I’m a good listener. I think it’s easy to set my perspectives aside and hear someone else’s. I think whatever enables this has also made me less connected with my own perspectives. But it’s still something I like overall. 

[onthetopicofjonat]

Myself

The way I’ve been thinking about this stage in my life is that I’m working on and preparing to be the next version of myself. The past version is put away by moving to Colorado and ending things with Kai. And this version of me is trying new things, preparing for grad school and leaving my job, and working to understand how to work with my ADHD mind. 

But something that’s occurred to me is that it’s hurting my sense of self in the present. When I’m trying to set who I’ve been behind and who I’m becoming is not yet formulated, what does that leave me with for the present? Who am I right now? 

I think there’s something to be said for having an ambitious and optimistic view of who I’m becoming. But that version of me needs to be built on something, and that something comes from the present, which is built on the past. I need to re-visit this idea of putting my old self behind me because there are things there that are still relevant. There are mistakes I’m eager to leave behind and frustrating mistakes born from inexperience. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so aggressive about cutting that version of me out and leaving it behind. 

I should return to this and get specific about what gets left behind and what deserves salvaging. 

[onthetopicofjonat]

A new attempt to journal

Journaling is something that’s always been helpful and also difficult. It feels like there’s something emotional that’s clogged within me. It’s been difficult to journal by hand because my hand cramps. It’s been difficult to journal on evernote for some reason. 

When it wasn’t difficult was when I was trying to be understood by someone I used to love. I made a separate tumblr, with a password only they had, and I would come by often to open up and unload. It was primarily to communicate with another person, but it was theraputic. It felt like I was full of cloudy yet powerful feelings, and writing about them made them clearer and easier to carry. 

Much of it was unhealthy. It was a one-way conversation that was overbearing at best. I’d keep coming back to edit posts and re-read them, checking the metrics page to see when it was read. I was fixated on being understood by someone that was unwilling or unable to understand me, and I kept pushing for that understanding anyway. 

But, incidentally, it was also the only time journaling worked the way it should. I felt closer to myself, more clear about my identity, my worldview, my emotions. It felt like something I wanted to do when I felt overwhelmed or stuck. 

And I feel that way often these days. I’m better at leaving old selves behind than I am at building new ones. What I thought was an emotional openness and bravery turned out to be an unhealthy attachment. As I’ve realized old mistakes like this, I become so determined not to repeat them that I cut myself out from entire parts of myself. And now I’m struggling to remember what’s left. I’m feeling disconnected and foreign to myself and I can’t find my way through the world without that. 

So I’m here trying to recreate the best parts of that last blog. It’s on the topic of me, instead of another person this time. It’s public so there’s a chance of some form of audience. And it’s an interface that I’m used to writing in and used to re-reading. So we’ll see how it goes and I’m hoping for the best.