strawberry-jules

[strawberry-jules]

i think i’ve mentioned my project to start dating myself and learn to fall in love with myself. i’m going to start documenting it here.

i’m in such a better place, thank god. i was really scared for myself, in a constant state of dissociation so far removed from myself i truly didn’t care if i died. i’m learning how to recover from an experience like that. i have such a short time here, i’m tired of feeling like i was feeling. i know that accepting myself as a whole and no longer projecting my insecurities on to a “person” i created in my mind (the shadow man, i’ll get to that in a minute) isn’t an option for everyone. i’m lucky in that i have a lot of choice and will when it comes to my mental health. i forget that sometimes. i always have had that ability to just choose how i’ll feel, it’s very helpful. anyway, onto my constant projection.

when i was in 4th grade, i wrote a story about the Shadow Man, a fictional character i created specifically for this school assignment. he was probably about 8 ft tall, and he was almost entirely 2 dimensional, like a cartoon, except his eyes. his head held no facial features except the sockets where his eyes would have been. two deep, somehow blacker-than-the-rest-of-his-being holes sunken into his flattened skull. he was solid when you looked at him, you couldn’t see through him. in actuality, he was a whisper of a black smoke that you could only feel near you. 

we wrote these stories for a halloween activity in class. after i turned mine in, i looked across the room to the whiteboard, my eyes passing over the window momentarily. there was a man standing at the window, his shoulders and head were the only things visible, and he had a hat with a wider brim than i had ever seen, blocking out a majority of the light trying to filter into the room. i quickly glanced back, realizing that no one could be standing outside the window looking into the classroom-- the side of the room with the window was on the edge of a sudden almost 3 foot drop, the edge of a very sharp little hill, blocked in with a fence. there was only about 6 inches of space between the wall and the drop, perhaps even less. to be looking inside the classroom, someone would have to be standing on that narrow grass ledge between the wall and the fence, or they would have to be so tall that they could stand behind the fence at the front of the school, looking inside the window. no one was that tall. by the time my eyes found the window again, he was gone.

he stayed with me for many years after that. i was 9 at the time. as a child, i would feel him with me in the dark, when i was in the bathroom and steam fogged the mirror and i couldn’t see anything in detail, when i would trek out into the woods alone and i would feel the faintest brush of his hand on the back of my neck. i was 16 when i realized that he was a manifestation of my insecurities and fears, and he wouldn’t go away until i accepted them. unfortunately, i was too young and emotionally immature to actually act on that realization. i continued to allow him to be where i projected my fears of failure; didn’t pass that test? that makes sense, i could feel him breathing down my neck, in retrospect. instances like that. 

the most intense encounters i had with the shadow man were my freshman and sophomore years of college, when i was truly alone. i had no one else to protect me from myself, and in my eyes, he took advantage of that. he would follow me home from nights i was so high i couldn’t find my dorm, knowing that i had put myself in a situation so dangerous with men i didn’t know. he would walk close enough that he could push the small of my back, urging me forward. i could hear his laughter, feel his cool breath through my hair. it became a game of cat and mouse: i would behave in a way that put me in danger, or i just simply knew wasn’t correct, and he would chase me home when i was finally alone, making me pay my penance. if he caught me, i would finally atone for my sins with my life as the payment. if i let him finally catch me and make me whole again, mistakes and emotional projections and inability to deal with sadness and anger and fear and hurt put back into me, the place where it really belonged, i would surely die. i couldn’t handle being held accountable to myself. sometimes, i would try to be brave. i would turn to face him, and he would be gone. i didn’t understand why i could never actually see him again after that day as a child. i could only feel him near me, constantly hovering, constantly watching.

it wasn’t until i came out as lesbian that i had my final encounter with him. i finally admitted to myself that i had been lying and hurting myself and pushing down who i really was, that i had been projecting my insecurities about my attraction to women onto him rather than dealing with it myself. i realized that i would never be able to accept all the bad things about myself until i accepted some real, hard to swallow truths. i’m a lesbian. i have an eating disorder that stems from control issues, more than likely due to my inability to control my sexuality. i have a hard time understanding who i am, because i never allowed myself to become myself. i put myself into a box and hid in it and never let my mistakes or real feelings near me. and that’s okay. it was my coping mechanism. 

that’s when the walls of that box fell away, and i was left with this feeling that none of it was real, and the only real thing about me was a part of my identity i had spent no time with. so i managed to push away all of the good things about myself that came from the time spent in that box, because i felt like i didn’t deserve them, that they weren’t found in an association with my sexual identity and therefore weren’t who i actually am. with that feeling came the need to deal with all the bad things about myself, too, because i deserved it. i deserved to feel that pain for how i treated myself for so long. i got so high that i felt like i went to a different dimension. i saw the shadow man. i cried and i apologized to myself for letting it go on so long, and to him for making him the pinnacle of everything i hated about myself for so long. he forgave me, and he took my hand. he gave me back all the feelings i had pushed away for so long, and i was hit by this tidal wave of love. i opened my eyes and found that i wasn’t looking at the shadow man, i was looking at myself as a child. at some point in my early childhood, i think i was about 4 or 5, i realized i liked girls, but i also realized i wasn’t supposed to. so i hid it, and found it easier to hide all the feelings i didn’t like in that little box, that eventually morphed into the shadow man. at 9 years old, i wrote a scary story that i took so much to heart, i made it a place for everything that scared me, and what scared me the most was myself and everything i thought i shouldn’t be feeling. i had protected myself from myself for so long, that by the time i made it back around to me, the damage was severe. in that moment, i finally understood self love.

it’s taken a couple days for me to realize that i’ve been projecting my anger at myself onto my dad’s family, and that’s the reason i want to stop talking to them. they’re the main reason i hid who i am for so long. i wanted to be perfect in their eyes, to gain their approval and love that i was never given. there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, i’m not going to get into it, but just gather that my dad’s family can be very toxic and didn’t like me growing up. i finally got to a place where they would approve of me, when my life fell apart, and i was forced to come to terms with who i am. is it right of me to be so angry at them when i was really the one doing the damage? no. but do i think they should be held accountable for how they made an innocent child feel, do i think they should be held accountable for their racist tendencies and selfish world views and constant purposeful ignorance? absolutely. and do i want to be the person to educate them? not really. there are so many of them in such a deeply rooted group think, it would take more out of me than i have to offer, to try to affect actual, substantial change in them. i have so little time on this earth, i don’t want to waste it on them when i could be helping people who deserve my help. i would spend so much of my time on wealthy adults who have college degrees and are willfully ignorant and have obviously made their choices to be such, when i could be helping someone who can’t help themselves, when i could be helping the people who actually want to make a change in themselves, who are open and kind enough to put others first. i’ve wasted the last 16 years of my life trying to please them, i don’t want to waste another 16 trying to educate them. they’re big kids, they can do it themselves and join me when they’re ready, or they can stay where they are while i surround myself with people who are committed to making a change and being good people.

and i want to be tolerant of them, to be able to look at them and say, it’s okay that you’re like this. but i can’t reconcile believing black lives matter while simultaneously making an exception for my wealthy, politically influential family and saying, well, black lives matter but it’s okay that you guys don’t necessarily think that there’s any real importance behind that phrase and i’m okay with that. because i’m not! and i’m not saying that they don’t believe that black lives matter, because i truly think they’re generally pretty ambivalent toward people of color, i just know that they don’t see any validity in saying that people of color are marginalized and oppressed and disenfranchised and persecuted/prosecuted at a significantly higher rate than white people and that’s a really, really big issue. in itself, in my eyes, apathy toward racism is just as bad as being racist, because you’re being willfully and knowingly complacent in hate crimes and perpetuating a society in which shit like this has to be said. guilty by association. it’s bullshit, and i’m tired of being okay with people’s apathy because we’re related. however, i do find myself drawn back to just resigning myself to my fate with them. 

and this ties back into me dating myself. i don’t want to love someone who is so intolerant, i don’t know why i’m being so intolerant because it’s making it hard to love myself. i’m behaving like such an asshole, but i truly am stuck in such an emotional crossroads and i feel like i have to pick between advocacy and complacency, and it makes me feel so resentful toward my family for making me make the choice. why am i projecting my anger on them? what am i struggling with that i can’t get over? am i really this upset with them over their racist tendencies, or am i upset about something else and using this issue as a scapegoat? is it for how they made me feel about being gay for so long, so i’m using something else about them to fuel my anger because i’m angry and i have to feel like i have to have a valid reason to be angry? why am i not angry for myself? i don’t feel that upset when i think about how they made me feel, i’m mostly upset at myself for letting it get to me the way it did. i didn’t deserve that. i’m upset at how they made me feel, not necessarily at them. but i feel like i should be, so i’m using something else about them that does genuinely bother me as a way to cover up the fact that i’m angry that i’m not more angry and hurt, because i really deserve to be and someone needs to stand up for me because i never seem to be able to. i’m projecting my anger at myself onto them so hard that it’s hurting me. 

i don’t know where else to go from here with this realization. i’m fairly sure i just hit the nail on the head with this issue, i just don’t know how to resolve it. i guess i need to learn what family means to me first. i just wish they were better people so that i didn’t have to deal with this.

[strawberry-jules]

the seventh

i’m back! i’ve been on a wild journey, emotionally. obviously, it’s just barely 2021, god knows we can’t leave our towns.

anyway.

i’ve been doing a lot of asking myself the hard questions i wasn’t necessarily ready for. why do i have to be in constant motion? what am i running from? why do i struggle with commitment to places and occupations and ideas for my future? what do i keep coming back to between these flittings? who am i? how does my sexuality play into my future? DOES it play into my future? how does coming out change me, and why? why do i feel the sudden need to reinvent everything about myself, when this is supposed to be a time to discover me?

that barrage of questions were pretty much the sequence they came to me and pushed me to the decision i’m about to make. however, i think there are some aspects i need to touch on first. 

i realized a little bit ago that i’m simply reliving times from my past that felt like truly life altering times. moments where my life might’ve changed course, through young self discovery or just momentous occasions. the main one i’ve been stuck in for a few weeks is the one with julia lay, where i first encountered my sexuality without knowing it. reflecting on it is making me do all the discovery and growing up that goes with it in a few short weeks, rather than the 2-3 years in which it took the events to unfold. it’s been a lot. what came of it, though, is realizing i don’t want to have a drastic change in myself that’s based on my sexuality. i experienced enough of that forcing myself to be straight, i don’t want to force myself to swing the pendulum back, mid-swing, when i’m perfectly happy letting it ride out its course while i figure out what i want.

i have reached the next stage: summer of 2019. truly, this started in the spring semester of my freshman year, january of 2019, but summer pushed it to new places. i felt this constant desire to be in my car, driving up into the mountains, listening to soft music and reflecting and escaping. i preferred going alone, finding coffee shops and cafes to read books or just sit on my phone for a bit, finding places to pull over and read a book, going camping and for walks and engaging myself with my life and with nature simultaneously. i lived moment to moment, perfectly happy in my responsibilities and how much i loved life. then summer came. a month working in a real office, a real 9-5, being a clerk! i drank shitty coffee and filed while listening to podcasts all day, and as any sort of career, it sucked ass, and i would never. but for an 18 year old, that was the dream. i was finally treated as an adult in a position of actual importance. i had to have a full background check, i had access to thousands of people’s very personal information. i was an adult, i was valued and respected and made good money. then we whisked off to europe. i checked off more of my country bucket list in one swing than i could have imagined seeing in 10 years. i felt this insane rush of being alive. these places we were in, so high and cold and nordic with strong seas and snow and tundra grasses mixed with trees and flowers and bees and fjords echoing the sounds of docks and the cool breeze blowing through an icelandic belltower and the traditional brickwork buildings we ran past in a sudden rainstorm in belgium; i felt home. standing on open moors on the ring of kerry, climbing ruined castle walls on the shore of southampton, walking the canals in amsterdam, drinking a cup of earl grey tea and journaling about the thrill of my day to day existence, so fresh to me and so full of potential, it felt so right. i met michael, i practiced minimalism and got a job as a supplemental instructor for my favorite class of my freshman year the following fall. i started exercising and continuing to take my mountain drives and engaged in all the unique classes i never considered being interested in until i let myself expand my horizons. i learned a new language and got dumped and discovered my sexuality and was so broke that i bought gas in quarters and i eventually made it home to my parents. that was all in a year. my life was independent and free and it was all up to me. now i’m back with my parents, in a pandemic, struggling to find the motivation to go to work, much less believe in a life ahead of me. 

that’s where reflecting on the moments that made me, me, became so important. figuring out why i loved julia lay so much, what that first love means for me moving forward, and how i can learn to make that a part of me without letting it overbear my personality, like i used to. a ho phase is not something i want to repeat. sex with men was meaningless because i didn’t want it. i want to respect my body and my sexuality now, and for me, that means letting it take a back seat while i know who i am without my sexuality. i haven’t given myself time to fully become me, without encumbering myself with the weight of a sexual identity. and who am i without that sexual identity? what do i want from life, and what do i consider success? is is working as a PA? i really don’t think so. the idea becomes more and more unappealing as i realize that i don’t want a family young. i want to give myself time to live. i’m young and selfish, and that’s okay. so, what does life on my own terms look like? how do I chase that life I felt so intensely a year and a half ago? 

I’m starting to think it looks a little like this:

i want to do a study abroad program or just study abroad and get the fuck out of the US for a little while, then eventually come back and continue to live on my own for a year, maybe near seattle or maybe in logan or maybe outside denver, and try to build a life that i find meaningful and successful and exhilarating. i think i want to be a flight attendant, maybe try to build a travel blog so that i can eventually go back to working in coffee or something while i fix up a sprinter van and start traveling that way more. here’s the timeline i’m thinking, and i’m open to flexibility. that’s something i want to start working on.

i’m going to change my major one last time, i think. i might do a degree in english or writing, and minor in a foreign language, preferably german. also, i’m not going to try to account for family or an S/O that might appear along the way. these goals are for me on my own right now. if plans change, i’ll adjust. but i want a solid plan.

jan-dec 2021: focus on work and school, occasional small trips and lots of hiking. prioritizing exercise as a part of my future is important to me. this means: stopping smoking. i’m actually pretty serious about this. i want to spend my money that i’m not saving on investing in myself. going on small trips, buying myself gear to backpack and camp, to invest in my relationship with nature and ability to be independent and self sustain. at first, my daily goal will be to accomplish 3 of the 6 daily priorities: school, work, exercise, reading, friends/family, chores. if i go to work, then come home and go for a run, and finish off the evening writing a paper that’s due, i don’t have to do my laundry tonight. the next day, i could go to work, then come home and throw my laundry in the washer, head out to los osos to hike, come back and throw it in the dryer and knock out some school reading, then i can read for pleasure if i want to, or i can veg and watch TV, even though i want to reduce the amount of time i spend doing things like watching tv or youtube. small give and take. i’ll eventually aim for a productivity level of 4-5/6 on a good day, but i’m okay with averaging 3-4 a day.

jan 2022: be leaving for wherever by now. gotta get this part figured out in a couple weeks.

dec 2023 or may 2024: be graduating with a degree. i don’t want to see anything less than a degree in my hand by the time i’m 24. i want to be involved and engaged with my daily routine and see how it fits into my bigger picture. i struggle to be a fine details person, and that’s something i want to change.

by july 2024: start a job as a flight attendant or something similarly customer service and travel centric. use this as a way to build a travel following.

by dec 2028: have a plan, girl. you’re 28. do it yourself.

that’s all i’ve got so far, but it’s refreshing to not try to plan every step. just the major ones, like school or no school and where and why, ie changing my major at asu so that i can become a flight attendant and hopefully have a degree relevant to something i want to do later in life. who knows what that will be? not me, and that’s okay. 

[strawberry-jules]

the sixth

it’s 3:04 pm, my first real therapy session starts in 56 minutes. i’m having a good day, i’m glad that it wasn’t two days ags bc i was in such a rough spot i might’ve been considered a danger to myself. i’ll update this after my appt.

it’s 5:44 pm, and the session was only like half an hour, he ended up being 3 min late and had to cut the session in half for an undisclosed reason i didn’t push. despite this, i really liked him. he was very serious but still entertaining and had that familiarity of a young professor. he was also very much of the mindset that trauma happens, and he feels it’s best to just dive in feet first and experience the feelings so you know how to cope, which is something i very much need. he agreed that we’re a good fit, and called me one of his more interesting cases he’s encountered. which is a weird compliment, but understandable when coming from a psychologist. i’ll take it.

i have a feeling he’ll help me more than i can anticipate. i hope by the end of this, life will feel real again. 

update: it’s 5:48 the next day, i forgot to post this but i’ve honestly felt so much better today, i think bc i finally really acknowledged that i have a problem and someone validated it. i had a great moment last night where i finally forgave myself for stifling who i am for so long, and allowed myself to really accept what i realized, which i haven’t done since i came out. i hurt myself for so many years, and i genuinely don’t know how long it will take to recover. but it will be okay someday. 

[strawberry-jules]

~ Palma.

Place of origin: Mexico

Date: 600-900

Medium: Volcanic stone

[strawberry-jules]

the fifth

i am unfortunately sober for this entry. it’s 5:15pm, and i just took my final. it went okay, i got an 84%.

i have found myself to be very irritable today. i want to shave my head. my hair is so fucking exhausting, it never wants to comply and it makes my life so fucking difficult. i want to shave it off. i hate it. i hate it so much. it’s so fluffy and ugly and it is such a bright color so it’s all anyone notices about me and i’m crying now because i’m so fucking angry. why does it have to matter so much to me? why can’t i like a single part of myself?

like there is nothing i like about myself at the moment. i’m fat and my skin is breaking out and i’m lazy and unmotivated and i have no direction in life and i’m sad and my hair is ugly and i don’t know what i’m doing with myself and i don’t even know if i’m a lesbian or not i just don’t want to exist. i don’t want to deal with any of this. i feel so guilty when i feel suicidal, but it’s the only thing that makes me feel better. admitting i want to die makes me feel like i have some control, because i may not be able to control what’s happening in my life, but i can control whether i live or die. it’s the only semblance of control i have left. i’m just so fucking sad, man. i want to die so badly. i don’t even want to die, i just wish i had never existed. i have become such a shit show, i feel so bad making my family and friends be around me. it’s so painful.

i’m in so much pain and i feel like i have no one to talk to. i don’t know why i’m such a burden all the time. and what’s even wilder is that i feel like i’m watching this happen to someone else. like i reread that and it is like someone else wrote it. i barely remember typing it out. all of this happened in less than 8 minutes. what the fuck is wrong with me?

[strawberry-jules]

the fourth

hi again. it’s 10:41pm.

today was a fucking shit show. like appallingly so. my schedule was supposed to roughly look like this:

6-7am: get up, get ready, go get coffee

8-9: vet appt

9-10: breakfast, clean the kitchen for mom

10-11: post office, quick target run

11.30-4pm: read 2 chapters from textbook

4-5.30: run, shower, etc

5.30-7.30: read half a chapter, take some me time, idk

9pm-11pm: vibe time baybee

here’s how it turned out, roughly.

got coffee, it was very fun. barista is making it very hard to not have a crush on them by simply existing. how rude! took belle to the vet, everything was fine and dandy, as i figured. came home, had a bagel with spinach and eggs, cleaned the kitchen, it was fantastic. my brother ended up needing to ship out his christmas gift to his friend in croatia, but his classes weren’t over until 1:30, so i was like no worries! i’ll just go study for my final till your classes are over, just let me know. i ended up reading absolutely nothing and getting sucked into whatever fucking dumb shit exists on the internet. i also picked 3 therapists from our network and emailed them, introducing myself, and asking for quick interviews next week to see if we’re good fits, because i want to start going to therapy. 

i was very excited by this development. it’s taken me over a year of saying i would go to therapy for me to finally get the courage to reach out. at about 12, i went into my parents’ room and said “guess what? i’m finally starting therapy!” and my mother, without missing a beat, says “oh, sorry we did such a bad job raising you. why do you need therapy? i thought we did a great job.” i was fucking stunned. i was like, “woah, no! this isn’t a reflection of you. this is me finally taking care of myself, i have personal things i need to work through. however, i do think that therapy is useful to anyone, and i think everyone should try therapy, at least once,” to which she had the brilliant insight, “there’s nothing wrong with me. should i just make something up about my family and go talk to a stranger about it? is that what you’re doing?” and my dad was like, “hey, that’s not what she’s saying” and my mom basically went off saying that i was weird for thinking that everyone should try therapy, and that i didn’t actually need it, and that it’s weird that i’ve been to therapy twice now, wasn’t complaining to that high school counselor that my parents were so strict enough for me?

those quotes are as close to word for word as i can get, i’m pretty sure it’s exactly what was said. the conversation lasted less than a minute, before i said “i think i need to excuse myself,” and walked away. i came and sat at my desk for i don’t even know how long. i looked at myself in my phone camera, and my face had become so translucent, it was almost green from my blood veins. i walked up to my window and contemplated trying to take the screen out to climb out, but i realized that if i did jump, it would be in my neighbor’s driveway, and that felt really insensitive, so i walked away. i sat back down at my desk and contemplated all the reasons my mom was right, before i realized that she wasn’t right. i have finally realized that i’m not fine. 

i’m a depressed, suicidal 20 year old with undiagnosed adhd and ocd, a diagnosed eating disorder, and i’ve been a closeted lesbian for 13 years. i have every right to feel not okay. i didn’t need my mother’s permission to go to therapy, i have my own health insurance and i’m an adult who feels the need to ask for help, and that’s okay.

so i did what i do best, and spewed verbal diarrhea onto my private snap story about what happened and how i’ve been feeling these last few days. my brother’s classes ended early, so i took the opportunity to leave the house as soon as possible, and we took as long as possible to get to the fedex drop box, before i dropped him back at home and kept driving around, trying to process how i felt. i didn’t return either of my textbooks. i think i’m just going to send the one i bought in october after christmas, idk when it’s due but i can’t deal with the fucking lines at the post office anymore. i walked up to the post office, looked at the winding line into a building where the lovely hicks in my hometown refuse to wear masks, decided i wasn’t ready to get covid yet, and went to deposit cash so i could buy weed. i’ll just bite the $40 and buy the one that was due today, maybe i’ll give it to someone next semester. 

i got home and responded to my friends’ responses to my story. i got an overwhelmingly positive and loving response from my friends. every single one stuck up for me, supported me, and shared that they’ve been feeling similarly. which is heartbreaking, i can’t believe that all of us have been dealing with this so privately! but anyway, that’s a tomorrow issue. 

after i did that, i was ordering my weed when barista texted me, saying they had a question for me, which, when you have a major crush on a coworker with a girlfriend, is a very concerning text to receive. turns out, they just made me earrings! they walked their dog to my house and delivered the insanely cool polymer clay snake earrings. when i greeted them with a hug, they pulled me in so close, literally every part of their body was pressed against mine and my cheek rested on their head so perfectly. they’re on the shorter side, probably 3-4 inches shorter than me, but so strong. the way their arms felt around my back was wild, it was so tight but so gentle but so firm but so, so warm and soft. their hair was soft but frizzy and smelled like them and a little bit like an argan oil shampoo and a little like coffee. their eyes are so much more intensely ice blue in the sun. they hugged me the same way goodbye, and we chatted for a good portion of the evening, about our coworkers and being homeschooled and being nerdy high schoolers and the earrings.

i finally got one chapter done before dinner was ready at 8:30pm, which is late, even by our standards. after dinner, as i was decorating a sugar cookie named gerard, my parents kept making snarky comments about me being a stoner, and i was like yes, bold statements coming from the parents that just used my account to buy a tincture and edibles. anyway, i came upstairs and tried to read more but i’m too emotionally exhausted. eve ended up giving me a call, finally, and filled me in on her life, which is always crazy but i love to hear her voice, so it’s okay. then i learned a tiktok dance, which left me concerningly out of breath, considering it’s only been like 4 days since i ran and i can’t be that out of shape? but i showered and did my skincare routine and made sure my laundry was in the dryer before i sat down to start this. 

it’s now 11:20pm, and i’m very proud to report that i am no longer angry with my mother for what she said to me. i’m sad that it’s how she feels, but i recognize that what i’m going through is something she will never understand, as a straight woman who, while prudish, has a healthy relationship with drugs and sex. i love her, and i forgive her, but i’m going to talk to her tomorrow and hold her accountable for gaslighting her already unstable daughter. what she did wasn’t fair, and it hurt. i know she probably feels insecure because she definitely does have things she knows she should go to therapy for, i know for a fact that she faced a lot of childhood and adolescent trauma and i would personally love to make sure she’s in a healthy place with it. but i can’t force her to, obviously, so i have to just hope that she doesn’t project on to me too much in the coming weeks.

i’m exhausted, and i think i’ll go to bed. i feel good about how i handled today, i caught myself in time to think through my actions before i did something completely unwarranted and unhinged. i know that at the time, my brain was in flight mode and i couldn’t cope immediately so i just followed the “i want to die” instinct because it was the strongest, but i still had enough of my logical brain in gear to have forethought. look at you go, prefrontal cortex! knowing that the part of me that is still healthy and wants to live is strong enough to put the kibosh on that maneuver is enough to give me hope that i will be okay someday. i never thought that i would be someone to be experiencing things like this. i really thought that people were being dramatic, if i’m being totally honest. now that i’m experiencing it, i understand. i’m sorry that i didn’t have more empathy.

[strawberry-jules]

my hair is a shit show, but my outfit was cute! i was going to make this blog anonymous, but i’m really enjoying putting myself out here, so maybe it won’t be quite so anonymous?

[strawberry-jules]

i have a few minutes before i have to leave to take belle to the vet, so i thought i would drop in and say a couple quick thoughts.

i went in to work today and got a cup of coffee, literally only bc i wanted to see the barista i have a crush on. how embarrassing. they have a girlfriend, but it hasn’t stopped me from majorly crushing. anyway, they made me a drink and it’s really good and they even remembered that i only drink oat milk. :)

also! maybe i’ll make this into a real tumblr, once i’m to a better place, emotionally. i feel like i would have wanted someone like me when i was truly a baby gay, even though technically i still am? i don’t know. i just enjoy the freedom of unloading my emotions here so i don’t bother people in my life while i fall apart and figure out how i want to put myself back together.

anyway, happy monday!

[strawberry-jules]

Colorado, United States

[strawberry-jules]

In the forest

[strawberry-jules]

the third

i thought i would process some happier feelings tonight.

i have come to the decision that i don’t want to date someone until i have become a person i want to date. i want to grow into someone i could love, so that i know exactly what love to expect from another person, and also set realistic expectations for myself as a partner, and have realistic expectations of my partner, if that makes sense. but along with that comes discovering who i am as a partner now, with my new-found sexuality.

before, i don’t know quite how to put it, but i was a partner that i don’t really ever want to be again. i wouldn’t have like, violent mood swings or anything, but i just didn’t know how to process my angry and upset and sad feelings well, and i was definitely dramatic and quick to frustrate. i’m working on being a gentler, quieter version of myself. i don’t want to be known for being a drama queen, i feel like i’ve outgrown that version of myself. i still want to be boisterous and always laughing, but like, a little more subdued. i want to slow down and start to think before i speak. i want to be more conscious of the words i use and microaggressions i may be exhibiting, i want to become a more thoughtful person. i want to be an equal to my partner in the emotional sense, i don’t want either of us to be the designated rock or the designated emotional infant, as i felt in my last relationships. i want to know that my partner will stand beside me.

 i want to be the one who can open jars and take spiders out and change the oil, i want to be the little spoon and cook dinner and wash the dishes after. i want to take a pottery class with my wife and come home home and split a bottle of wine while we read or watch a tv show. i want to go hiking and get coffee with my girlfriend, i want to make matching pj bottoms and think that getting plants together is a major relationship event. i want to build a treehouse with a funky little living room where we smoke and have sex and have dance parties. i want to press and dry flowers together, just to enjoy the activity. i want someone to curl on a loveseat by the fire, with her in my lap and my chin on her shoulder, as she reads to me and i run my fingers through her hair. i just want to finally feel the feelings i know i could have had so long ago. 

i want to feel the love i saw others having. i want to say genuinely “you have bewitched me, body and soul” to someone someday. which is so cheesy, but i want it!

anyway, speaking of pride and prejudice, i’m high which means it’s the perfect time to watch that gem of a movie. look how positive tonight was! i’m feeling so good today. i love it.

[strawberry-jules]

December Mood

[strawberry-jules]

[strawberry-jules]

Maxfield Parrish (American painter, 1870-1966)

Village school house, 1937

[strawberry-jules]

the second

o quam te memorem

quia julia, amica mea. te amo perpetuum

how can i apologize for what happened, without taking blame? i know that i didn’t drive you away, and i know that you made your decision. i may have made choices you didn’t like, which is fair. i was 16, i was dumb, i was naive, and i was confused. i dated a bad guy, and it sent me down a spiral, but more importantly, i didn’t know myself, and that allowed me to date a bad guy and go down a spiral, a spiral that was triggered by you leaving.

you didn’t cause this, and neither did i. it’s simply what happened. i loved you, i was in love with you.

i still love you. i don’t know if i’m still in love with you, because i don’t know who you are. i am in love with the version of you i saved in my brain, locked away from negative influences and character flaws. i am in love with the version of you that held me when i cried, that danced with me and sang to me, that was a picky eater in a cute, loveable way, that loved books and trees and had green eyes so deep that i could sink into them while you spoke. i am in love with the version of you that i created when you left, all the good pieces about you that i wanted. there are days i cannot remember a bad thing about you. i know that when i talk to friends that knew you, there are things they say that trigger an “oh, right” response in my head, and i know they’re right, but the part of me that sees you in dreams and holds you close in my mind doesn’t know what they mean. the part of me that loves you knows no wrong with you. 

the part of me that mourns you sees the bad. the way you left, how suddenly, how degrading you were when i was angry. the way you put yourself above others, the way you didn’t have an emotional bond with your father so you sought male attention from a teacher which was weird in retrospect, but was innocent, i know. but even the part of me that mourns you still loves you. i forgave you the moment you walked away. 

i have a recurring dream, where i’m at top dog, and it’s set post covid. i have finally accepted that i’m lesbian, and i’m learning to love myself. it’s probably late april or early may. i have an oat milk cappuccino in one hand, a novel in the other, and a bag with my laptop slung across my shoulder. i step onto the back patio and i’m momentarily blinded by the sudden sun. i know the stairs, though, so i walk forward into the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze making its way through the jasmine covered fences. i reach the bottom step and look out, taking in which tables are occupied, and which ones are free. my eyes pass over you as they spot my favorite table, and i start to walk, then your face registers. as soon as i realize what’s happened, i know i have to make a choice. i can look back at you and pause, and from there, i can either stay, move toward you, move toward my table, or turn around and leave. or, i can pretend i didn’t see you and continue toward my table, or turn around and leave. i have a way out, i have an excuse to relieve my pain. 

every time, i choose to look back at you for a moment and catch your eyes. i make sure you see me. i walk to the empty table i wanted, i sit down, and i face you, but i don’t look at you again. i open my book and force myself to look at the words, reading each word individually until the meaning is lost, rather than seeing the whole page and reading it as a unit. something to distract me from the fact that you’re so close. i feel the pain in my chest, hollow and throbbing simultaneously. i feel my stomach fall, i feel my face flush, then lose all color. i feel my heartbeat in my fingertips, and i feel my head spin. but i don’t look up again. the ball is in your court. will you stay where you are? will you leave? worse yet, will you come talk to me?

second pass in what feels like hours, second that turn into minutes yet feel as if they’re just an instant. it’s all backward and forward and rightside up and upside down at the same time, and it’s all i can do to just sit there and experience it. i’m not sure how long it takes you to make a decision, but you eventually come to my table and sit across from me wordlessly. it’s probably a 6 foot gap, but it feels like every part of you is pressed against me, i can feel the material of your dark blue shirt and black pants, i can smell your shampoo and hear your hands shake as they set your cup down. i look up after just a second, but i can’t bring myself to say anything. i try to open my mouth, and i wake up.

i have no idea what the dream means. i have no idea how you feel. i probably never will. i am learning to live with it, but i’m not sure how i’ll get over it. today is the first day in weeks i have felt even relatively happy. i danced in the shower, i did my hair and makeup and got dressed and cleaned my room and ate breakfast AND lunch. i know this is unrelated to you, but it’s because i finally processed my feelings last night, which feels related to you. i know you don’t care, but i do. i hope you never felt what i felt, i hope that it was the right decision for you, because that’s the only thing that has gotten me through this 4 year long heartbreak. every time i think about you, i hope you’re doing well, because i would be so much worse off if you weren’t, if that makes any sense.

i’m sorry it happened. i’m sorry it took me 4 years of ignoring before the only thing that made it better was writing long winded posts and sending them into the void where the chances of you seeing it were so low, but never zero. i’m sorry most of all to myself, for not listening to me. i’m sorry i have never loved myself enough to hear what i was actually going through. i hope this shout into oblivion never reaches you, but doesn’t echo back to me. i hope this is where i can let it go.

[strawberry-jules]

the first

picture this: it’s 6:32 pm, you took an edible, and you’re listening to joey pecoraro while you delve headfirst into tumblr like it’s 2014 and you’re a closeted lesbian. because you were, and still are.

january 4, 2020, she texted me drunk, saying she had a secret and she was nervous. i immediately, almost innately, knew what the secret was. i was giggly, blushing, excited, nervous, and absolutely nauseated by the combination of emotions. it was overwhelmingly pleasant, and therefore upsetting, because i didn’t understand. 

i kept opening the picture of us from my christmas party a week earlier, her arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind, twisted into mine as she leaned down and kissed my cheek and laughed quietly into my hair. my eyes peek up at the camera coyly, captured in the flash with an actual sparkle. as the photo was taken, my heart was racing, and i held her arms around me for a moment after the photo was taken. i kept holding her there, pressed up against me, as i showed her what would become one of my most precious memories that i don’t fully remember. 

between the boxed wine, the shitty street weed, and the coke, the whole night is veiled in a thin fog. i do remember her coming to my house on acid, leaning on me and whispering in my ear that she had dropped and wanted some wine. i took her by the hand and led her to the drink and snack counter, already drunk. i watched her slow, graceful movements as she chatted with our friends in the biology club, friends from classes, friends of friends, roommates, and occasional strangers. she walked like she was made of satin, smooth and slippery and soft. she dragged her fingertips across whatever she touched, and i wanted everything to be me. we sat in my room with my cat for a moment, alone, in silence, and it was one of the most intimate moments of my life. 

i reflected on those feelings from a moment, suddenly interrupted by, 

“i have a fat crush on you. like honestly if you hadn’t left there’s a high chance i would have tried to make a move this semester”

holy fuck. holy motherfucking shit fuck. those were the words i had wanted to hear since the day we went hiking with bio club, then split off to explore a rich tech high school, discussed our two daughters and a son who all went to this school, played soccer and danced and played lacrosse, respectively, then discussed taking a pole dancing class and getting our nipples pierced on the way home, in a car full of girls we barely knew. it felt like we were the only two the entire day. she was so beautiful.

i obviously said i liked her, too, in the most eloquent words i could. i wanted to make a good impression.

“shut up

“morgan i’ve had a crush on you forever”

i’m pretty sure that was actually the opening to a romance novel from the 80s.

throughout the month of january, we talked and called and facetimed and i progressively fell more and more infatuated with her. i say infatuated because i loved her as my friend, but i don’t know that i was falling in love quite yet. i got that all over warm feeling when she texted, i got the butterflies at the thought of her name or her hands or her hair, felt a tingle in my spine when i thought of leaning down and kissing her, picking her up by the waist and wrapping her legs around me, trailing my fingers under her shirt. i was wildly infatuated by the feelings she gave me, and frankly a little terrified by how strong they were. i made a plan to ask her to be my girlfriend when she was coming to visit, but it never ended up happening because her parents didn’t let her come visit. for whatever reason, that triggered my brain to shut off. i still wanted her so badly, but i didn’t want to put her in the position to be angry with her parents because of me, that would have been an awful home life. and did i really want to be in a long distance relationship? was this a sign? i had never had a relationship with a girl, did i even know how to do it? what if she didn’t actually like me, and it was just a phase for her? what if i didn’t actually like her, and it was just a phase for me? how would either of us know? was it worth risking our friendship?

i fell into such a lesbian-questioning spiral, that i found the most buff, manly, gym rat dudes i knew and went on dates that i reflect on and gag. i had this intense identity crisis and met a guy who literally looked so much like my father that you could exchange their high school photos and their mothers would not notice and made him my boyfriend as quickly as i could. i forced myself to fall in love, so that i could ignore what happened and live the rest of my days as a straight woman with a man exactly like my father, as my parents had hoped. unfortunately for me, he fell very, very in love with me, and i developed a very, very deep resentment toward him for “keeping me from women”. i woke up one morning and realized that i was no longer questioning. i had a dream that compiled every kiss with every girl i had ever had, all of the images of women kissing and dancing and embracing that had ever impacted me emotionally, and contrasted it immediately by the awkward, cold, uncomfortable kisses with strange men and repetitive, quite literally emotionless kisses with boyfriends, and the way i never initiated sex ever, even in hookups i planned, because i simply did not want to be having sex. it’s like getting high and reading twilight, then immediately getting slapped with a faux leather-bound hotel bible. 

the years i spent with men were a travesty. 

i’m now in an identity crisis because i came to the realization so suddenly that my entire life feels flipped on its head and i have literally no sense of structure or direction or emotional stability or stability in identity that i am in a perpetual tumble backward, down a grassy hill with gopher holes. i hope i land at the bottom, softly, soon. but it’s just as likely that i keep rolling because i started doing that weird sideways thing where you stand up after rolling for like 28 seconds and you realize you’re 86 feet east northeast of your friend, halfway up the hill, when you were supposed to land about 50 feet directly north, at the bottom of the hill. maybe i just rolled down too many literal hills as a child and now i have brain damage because that made no sense.

this is my long winded way of saying i think i’m a lesbian and the two women i have founded the deepest, most emotional romantic bonds with were both best friends that had my name and looked exactly the same, and i think i have a type that is just the version of me i want to be? and is there something wrong with me? and why is being alive so confusing? i am struggling to cope with actual romantic feelings that i have been burying since i was 14. how do i get over a breakup with a girl i never dated and haven’t seen in almost 4 years when she has no idea how i felt and i’m just now understanding how i felt and how fucking incredibly frustrating it is to not know if she ever felt the same, or even has the capacity to feel the same? how fucking tragic to be in love with a straight woman who probably only thinks about you when reflecting on high school, when you’re the one who walks past her in dreams and looks for her when in public and would do very embarrassing and almost unspeakable things to talk to for 5 minutes. and how do i go about processing my feelings for morgan without projecting my feelings for julia on to her? what if my feelings for morgan are simply an extension of julia that i created, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to her and the second part of my name, the second version, the second chance? is that dramatic, or does it have validity? am i just using her as an outlet for a problem i think i can’t solve? i am losing my mind, i think.