500wordsormore - Tumblr blog

[500wordsormore]

Dear Tumblr Diary, how do I tell my family I don't want to be near them anymore?

Ok I procrastinated posting for a while, and now I'm finally giving in. I'd wanted to ~*cultivate a theme and aesthetic*~ and practice writing on big important topics that I cared about. Thanks to my chronic perfectionism, that didn't happen so now it's my garbage can where I can infodump and move on with my life because god DAMN, I need to get this off my chest. If I can't get my own family issues off my chest how am I ever going to get my nuanced takes on race and religion out? It's probably best if I shoot myself in the foot by oversharing my own personal flaws straightaway rather than not planning on doing it at all?

The Apple Watch was designed with the intention of removing the water that would get inside of it, not preventing water from ever entering. That's not any kind of reverence or praise for a brand or product, btw, it's just a good example of practical planning.

So, I'd like to whine about my family for a little while.

They fucking suuuuuuck-ughh they're the most annoying passive-aggressive ingrates in my life and I don't want to visit them. Our dynamic is, in fairness, complex, but it is not complicated, as it were. There's a lot of history to be sure, but the thing is that none of it is particularly challenging or unique. By their own insistence, we are all perfectly mundane "normal" people. To be clear, we are not. Chronic illness of body and mind runs on both sides, and I'm 50:50 mixed so there is definitely some real baggage to unpack, but again, none of it is beyond the grasp of allegedly rational adults.

The problem, is that the key to the metaphorical baggage's lock, is their terminal martyr complexes and passive aggression. And I mean terminal when I say/write it. My grandparents have been unwell for a while, and over the last winter holiday season it was revealed to me just how bad it's become.

My grandmother has lived her whole life with the "classic" anxiety/depression combo you naturally get from being raised in the worst time for women with chronic illnesses. Her suicidal ideations have been roundly dismissed by my entire family because "she's always been like that", and that has always made me nauseous. Over Christmas dinner my aunt and uncle so casually discussed how she has stopped taking her daily medication that she needs to survive, and has been flowing in and out of the hospital almost monthly, and I finally lost it.

I shouted and cried and jabbed my finger at them and told them I was sickened by their behavior. I lamented them, and my mother. I bitterly insisted that they had raised me better than this, that we, their children, would never stand for this treatment to befall them. And as I looked around at their blithely patient faces I choked and realized that nothing I said registered to them. They blinked placidly and smiled and tried to gently explain to me why their negligence was excusably normal my own hearing clouded.

Ever since then A darkness has grown in me. I have hated myself for hating myself for hating myself for not being able to admit this, but it must be said: I don't want to be near them anymore. I still love them, in a kind of biologically obligatory way, but I can't stand their presence. I want none of my time to be shared with their wastes of breath. I am openly neurodivergent in most spaces, but not in my own family's home. It's taken time for me to realize and accept, but I now understand that this is indicative of a bigger problem.

My family members are the kind of performative "normals" that reek of abnormality and denial. Their pathological devotion to the mainstream is the only visible passion they ever display, and its fierceness rivals that of my own hyperfixations. They want to pretend that they're pretending that "ThEre'S nOtHiNG wRonG WitH bEInG Different(tm)" when in reality they are the different ones. They're fucking kooks, weirdos raised by religious zealots who had a late start on real life. My white mom has two brown daughters, that look nothing like her. "Normal" was never an option.

I've been manically giggling all week in anticipation of Easter dinner, mocking their solipsistic tone in a nasal whine: "oh nooooo! We don't know how to use our words and now our parents are slowly dying in front of our eyes and there's nothing to be done for it! If only we had learned the English words for emotions then maybe we could have communicated them." and I think to myself: "gods, what is wrong with me?"

My plan is to openly use my vape at this even. I can either mask my neurodivergence or my THC use, but not both anymore. i don't even know if this is 500 words. Wish me luck.

[500wordsormore]

My First Post

As my chosen title says: this blog is dedicated to my writings of at least five-hundred words at a time. I've made a bit of a new year's resolution to myself, but in that modern self-love way. I’ve always loved to write, but never got into it seriously. disorganized thoughts when I’m trying to procrastinate. I would do the classic *dump out 10000 words once every few months and pretend that this is how real artists get their start* move.

I’ve also developed a habit wherein I just rage-type my own train of thought into a blank document then delete the whole thing once I’ve calmed down. Like I said, I do love to write and putting words to things is a big part of how I process things, but lately this method hasn’t been nearly as gratifying. 

So now we are here, trying to change things.

It’s actually been quite some time since I’ve made a New Year’s resolution. In the past few years, and especially these last six months I’ve undergone major transformations. I’m right at the start of a full-blown quarter-life crisis. I’ve been blowing things up, burning things down and trying to salvage a new, better version of myself from the ashes. A version who loves themselves enough to go for something like this, that they have been dreaming about for a while now.

I want to be a writer, a real writer. Also a visual artist, a photographer, a dancer, animator, videographer, seamstress and cosplayer. I want to be a creative. A real, functional creator who can produce amazing things for other people’s benefit. 

In these last couple months I have been doing a lot of self-reflecting to discard many harmful beliefs I’d held about myself. One of those beliefs is that it is too hard to be a creative so one may as well not try. I say screw that. I can at the very least try, it’s not like I have anything else to do. 

This blog is me raising the stakes for myself. I want to challenge myself to start actually writing. What I was doing before was the literary equivalent of shadow-boxing in the bathroom mirror. This blog is me stepping into my first real ring. My first concerted effort at writing for an audience. 

I want to get out of my rookie phase, I want to be able to get up and do the damn thing. Of course I know this is still the amateur league, I don’t actually expect anyone to read this blog, but I do have the knowledge that they could. I can’t just type whatever and expect everyone to accept every word. There are rules, and moreover, penalties for breaking them. Some are hard and fast like spelling, many others are subjective, but they are all entirely reinforced by the audience. I know myself enough to know that I cannot enforce them upon myself, so I have no other choice but to start seeking out the enforcers myself.