a-painting-called-vanity

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Dear Natalie,

When I was nine or ten, I got a letter in the mail from my kindergarten friend. It was one of the first times I had seen my name on a letter that didn't come from my family or Santa Claus. She told me all about her life, how she was dating one of the boys we were friends with when we were five, how she was excited for sixth grade, and how she missed us, missed me.

I think it was the first time I truly realized that people's lives continue on when you're not in them anymore. I don't think it occurred to me at the time that if I moved cities, the people I left behind would still keep living their lives, keep experiencing things without me.

One of my biggest regrets is never responding to that letter. I think about her now and then. I try to come up with reasons why I didn't respond, why I never tried to get in contact with her again. I wonder how she felt, whether she waited for my letter that never came in the days, weeks, months after she sent it. I wonder if she thinks I forgot about her. I wonder if she still remembers me.

I hope she still knows Marcus and Tye and that they're still friends. I hope her life has come close to at least one of the fantasy endings I've made up for her over the years. I hope I didn't hurt her. I wonder if she remembers the photo she gave me of the two of us with the decorated picture frame. I wonder if she knows that I kept it for six years, then gave it to my mom to put in my keepsake.

I don't know what happened to that letter. I can't remember if I tried to hold onto it and I don't know what happened to the response I wrote but never sent.

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Journal #5

I've been having a lot of passionate feelings about the beatles recently. Apparently Paul McCartney got up at 6 AM for like five days in a row to record Oh! Darling WITHOUT WARMING UP so that he could get the perfect rasp in his voice. Whenever he fucked up, he had to wait until the next day to try again. Also, I know way too much about the kendrick and drake beef.

It feels weird not having friends anymore. I've been tempted to reach out to random people in my life and see if they wanna be friends. There's this guy that I used to work with and this girl that I went on one (1) date with and I've wanted to reach out to both of them and just be like "...hey"

I've been workshopping this tattoo I'm designing recently and hating myself for not going out and doing more stuff. I have a date the weekend after family day. I guess that counts as something. I just feel like I'm letting my life happen to me, I'm not really participating in it.

I don't know what my passion is. I don't have anything that makes me feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing or like I need to do that thing in order to live and breathe. Not writing, not directing, not anything. I know I like being around kids but I don't think I want to be a teacher. I know I enjoy writing but it's not something I find myself craving. I wish I had any talent. I wish I had one thing that I know makes me good.

I feel so useless. I feel like nothing that has happened to me in the last three months has been real. I feel like if I don't make anything out of the feelings I'm having, there's no point in having them. I know I have a lot of ideas for stuff I'd like to write, but none of it feels real or true and I think that's part of the problem.

When I was seventeen, I wrote a play about being a young woman and trying to overcome misogyny and self hatred and being able to explore your sexual and gender identity as a young woman. It was written as a series of monologues told from a cast of different characters and my play ended up in a theater competition my school was taking part in the year after I graduated. I remember getting so much praise for it even though we didn't even move onto the second round for some kinda BS reasons. We can get into that later if you really want.

I worry that that was my peak. That I am one of those people who peaked in high school. I haven't felt the level of passion I had for writing that play since. I only started writing it cause I watched Promising Young Woman. I feel like I need to go back to those roots somehow. Like I need to try to recreate what I had going on at seventeen, but I have no idea how. I don't want to write plays for the rest of my life.

Scott Pilgrim vs. My GPA by Mom Jeans., meet the grahams by Kendrick Lamar, and A Day In The Life by The Beatles

A-slice: 43 days

Tinder A-slice: 8

J-slice: 0

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Journal #4

I wonder how my dad would feel if he found out that I'm reading gay fanfiction about his favorite band. I'll let you, dear non-existent reader figure out which band I'm referring to.

I'm immediately back to living a mundane and mediocre life. Part of the reason I started doing this journal series in the first place was to motivate myself to go out and actually do something so that I could have something to talk about. I know my motivations aren't the best, but still.

I want to go out and have casual sex, smoke a cigarette, get a tattoo, do something different and potentially reckless. I want to party and did I already mention I want to fuck? Did it make you, aforementioned reader, uncomfortable with how quickly I went from talking about my dad to talking about wanting to have sex? Sorry if it did. I just want to lead an interesting life, I want to have stories and I want to have experiences worth writing about. There's nothing to fucking write about in this fuckass rural Ontario town other than how little there is to do here. I guess I should start going out to Guelph where all the other lesbians are.

We had to put my cat down on Sunday. It made me sad, but I'm kinda weirded out that it didn't destroy me like putting down my last pet did. Maybe it just doesn't feel real yet.

I hate that I didn't have guy friends in high school. Now, I feel like I don't know how to interact with guys and I'm always worried that I'm gonna accidentally lead them on somehow. I love men in the way Sylvia Plath talks about in that one quote.

Picture Of Dorian Grey is such a gay book. Istg those three British guys wanna sleep with each other so bad. Other than that it's beautifully written and I wish I sounded half as intelligent as Oscar Wilde did. His words are pure artistry in this novel so far and I am incredibly jealous. I would love to sit around and write and think and study all day. I hate that I must work.

Tinder is going alright-ish so far. I'm talking to two girls rn and part of me just wants to ask both of them out and see where things go. Maybe that's what I'll do next week.

I'm finally in the stage of being able to go off my meds. I am currently in the process of weening myself off of Remeron (shout out to my anti-anxiety, sleep meds girlies) ASSISTED BY MY DOCTOR. I feel honestly excited and so relieved to finally be at this point. My dad says I should be proud of where I'm at, but it's hard for me to cause I don't feel like I've done any of this on purpose.

brat by charlixcx, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, and Like Him feat. Lola Young by Tyler, The Creator

Days since speaking to best friend: 35

Days since speaking to tumblr girls 1 & 2: 0

"Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars-to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording-all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can." -Sylvia Plath

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Journal #3

I actually did stuff this week! Holy shit, it's a miracle!! We're just gonna dive right in. On Thursday, I went to see Gianmarco Soresi with my dad in Hamilton. It was a pretty fun show, nothing that blew my mind, but still a nice night out. Before we went to see him, we stopped in at a karaoke bar just to kill time and it made me really miss this gay club that my now ex-bestfriend used to go to where they do karaoke once a week. It made me realize how much I miss having friends and doing stuff with people my own fucking age. I also made a new tinder account. I haven't gotten many matches, which is kinda lame, but there's one girl I've been talking to who seems chill.

Friday was my last day of work before my mini staycation. I realized that I've accidentally found myself in the group of 40 year old mean girls where I work. I really like both these people as people but they both have such a holier than thou attitude and talk shit about our other coworkers so fucking much. I mean, I'm all here for the occasional workplace gossip and talking shit about people, I am a judgmental bitch. However, there is a difference between justified shit talk and unjustified shit talk. Talking about someone behind their back because they have asked you twice if you "believe the holocaust happened" (a real question I was asked by a real coworker) is different than talking shit about someone cause they stand too close to you when they talk. Even then! There's a difference between shit talking about people standing too close to you and fucking judging their every move and telling your boss to send them home early. But I digress. In summary, I've decided to start trying to be a better person, essentially. I don't like being mean to people and I don't want people to think I dislike them. Just because someone sucks at their job doesn't make them a terrible person and if I'm the one choosing to pick up the slack when we all get paid the same, I don't get to fucking brag about it.

Anyways, on Saturday, I went out to the aforementioned gay bar. A drag queen told me I look like Pat Benatar twice, but I don't really see it. I also ran into a girl that I had about a week long talking stage with, and then ghosted, because she didn't really take me explicitly telling her I wasn't looking for anything serious as a sign to stop talking about our future together. I feel bad for ghosting her, I don't think it's the mature thing to do and I don't think it's fair to simply run away instead of actually sitting down and having the difficult discussion. I have since apologized to her. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, istg there were only like six of us dancing and I knew no one after my ex-ish left. Needless to say, I left one hour after the dance party started, but the drag show was fun.

On Sunday and then Tuesday, I drove to Woodstock and went to this antique store. It's like three levels tall and has a shit ton of booths ranging from cool collectibles to old pictures from the fucking Victorian times. It was really fun just exploring what all was there and I had to go back on Tuesday because I ran out of time on the first day. I ended up finding two more Stephen King books to add to my collection, a copy of Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water on vinyl, two pictures of a Victorian era lady and her MIL, and a frame to put them in! Tena Hillard and her mother in law now live in a picture frame with a background made of tarot cards! I love them.

Lastly, I finally fucking finished reading The Stand by Stephen King, which I really did not enjoy, and have just started The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, which I am already enjoying way more than the entirety of The Stand.

Well, these fucking things just seem to be getting longer and longer, but I guess that's a good thing? Idk, at least I have stuff to talk about. Although it begs the question of whether or not I'm doing enough. If I was truly busy and truly doing a lot, I wouldn't be talking about doing stuff, I would be doing stuff.

Left Handed Kisses by Andrew Bird feat. Fiona Apple and My Head Is An Animal (the album) by Of Monsters and Men.

Days since last communication:

"Best friend": 29

Tinder girl: 0

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Journal #2

I am caught in a cycle of not feeling ready to "get back out there" and wanting to set up a tinder profile. The idea of meeting new people and making new friends sounds like a terribly embarrassing ordeal, but I also miss being touched. I miss the warmth of other people.

I mostly read this week. I'm trying to get through The Stand and after dedicating almost a year of my life to it and being 197 pages from the end, I still want to give up. I fear not even writing about this dull and boring week has livened it up. I'm trying to make plans for the weekend and I did a little photoshoot in my room of possible pictures for my various dating app profiles.

This weeks slogan is 'you can't have your cake and eat it too.' I would love to forget about the existence of every other human being on the planet for at least an hour a day, but I also want someone to dedicate love songs to. I want everyone to fuck off and to be confident doing everything on my own, but I invited my dad to a comedy show and the prospect of doing anything by myself is a little scary. I keep saying to myself that I'll figure something out, but I think that's just a more convoluted way of procrastinating it.

There's a girl I think is kinda cute at work. However she also thinks that watching horror movies welcomes satan into your life. So I don't know how that's gonna go.

Not much to report this week, hopefully more next week.

Oldies Station by twentyonepilots, A Pearl by Mitski, and the I Can't Handle Change EP by Roar.

Days since last interaction: 21

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Mirrors

I wonder how much time I spend looking in mirrors. I wonder if I'll finally find what I'm searching for in them if I look up around me. I hunt for beauty in all the wrong places. I wonder if I spend more time living instead of considering how I look while I'm living, maybe I'll find something I lost when I was a kid. There are greater things than my body, there are more important things than how I look when I laugh or cry. If I was born blind to myself, would I be happier? Would I be able to enjoy a meal, not distracted by the way my stomach sits on my upper thighs? I want to walk around a super market and buy as many baked goods as I like without fearing the eyes of others, to climb staircases to get to the tops of beautiful buildings without hiding my shallow breaths. I want to live with other people, not just in tandem to them. I want to be a part of a community, I want to be a solid body. I want to experience joy and pain and not just be an observer of it. I need to stop looking in mirrors and start looking at others.

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Journal #1

This is the first installment in the ongoing diary of my life as a lonely twenty year old. I didn't get up to much this week. I've been on a subconscious crusade to change basically anything in my life I can get my hands on. I think it's my last stitch effort at trying to reinvent myself, or, it's me trying to control any aspect of my life that I can, because everything else feels so out of control. Maybe a little of both. For example, today, I went out and got new furniture for my room and spent the day moving everything around. Three weeks after I got dumped, I got what I've dubbed as my 'breakup bangs.'

I've had trouble sleeping this past week. There were like three straight days where the only reason I went to bed was because I knew I would hate myself the next morning if I only got five hours. It's not like I've been thinking about things, I feel like it's just another one of those control things I do. It's nice to have a couple hours to myself a night where I can pretend nothing and no one else exists and I can just be.

Also, TWO PAIRS of my pants ripped WITHIN THREE FUCKING DAYS. That didn't help anything to do with my vague mental distress and I went home early when the second pair did because I fucking cried at work like a loser. Over pants. To be fair, the first day I had to tell my 62 year old, male boss about it so I could go home to change. The second day I wore a thong and had to tie a sweater around my waist for the whole day 'cause I was too embarrassed to say something. And then I had to wear skinny jeans that I accidentally picked up from Zehrs. Skinny jeans. As if I didn't already feel like I'd suddenly gained back 100 or so pounds in one night, I got to wear tight paints that so diligently clung to every fucking dip and crevice of my body. It was great.

My loneliness both feels suffocating at times, but also like a TV show playing in the other room. I'm always aware of it, sometimes it's all consuming, but even when I'm happy, it's there. I don't have anyone to send my dumb little tiktoks to anymore. I don't have anyone to rant to about how I knew Tyra Banks (drag queen) was a terrible person from the first fucking moment I watched season two. But I guess that's where this blog comes in? I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm lost in the woods, talking out loud to myself, or maybe the stars, but either way, no other human can hear me.

Music I've been getting into lately: Headlock by Imogene Heap and Hesitation Marks by NIN

Days since last communication with someone my own age: 14

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Winter

I cleansed my room as if making funeral preparations. I guess in a way, something did die that day. It is winter and everything is cold and dark and quiet. You infect my brain and plague my heart with memories. You have seeped into my life, grown there like a tumor, and I can't remove you without removing a parts of myself in the process. Like a botched surgery; a self-inflicted lobotomy with a screwdriver. It is winter and I am cold and dark and quiet. I spiral in the night, my brain wanders towards insanity in the quiet, I feel alone, alone, alone. Images flash behind my eyelids. You in the cold, callously casting me away. I have been cast away all my life, though you never stayed long enough to know that. I have lived in treason of my own mind and have been expelled from my own body. It is winter and you are cold and dark and quiet. The silence stretches on and on and on.

[a-painting-called-vanity]

Greetings

Through a series of unfortunate events, I have found myself with no one to talk to. I don't want this blog to be a pity party and I'm not trying to garner any sympathy. I have so many thoughts in my head and for the first time in my life, I have no one to share them with, so I figure why not upload them to the never-ending hellscape that is the internet! I want this to basically be like a journal, and I guess I enjoy humiliation because why else would I want to upload my personal thoughts and exploits permanently to the inter web?

Some facts about me that I feel will be important going forward:

I am twenty years old (as of january 2025)

I am still trying to figure out my career/life path, but I enjoy writing and theatre (hence the blog)

When I was eighteen, I moved out of my mom's house in Burlington, ON and into my dad's house in another city, losing all but three of my high school friends in the process

By the time I turned nineteen, there was only one person I talked to from high school

Three weeks before Christmas, I got dumped by someone I had been with for six months, she was one of two people I talked to on a regular basis

I had a friend I've known since I was twelve, but as of Dec 31st, they have completely ghosted me after some tension

I realize how completely narcissistic it is to be airing out my dirty laundry, though I go into this expecting no views, no sympathy, and no attention

I want this blog to chronicle my new life as a 20 yr old who doesn't have any friends and lives in buttfuck nowhere

I also want to have a place to post my random rantings and ravings and writing

I am more or less an open book, ask me anything, but I will never share people's actual names (unless stated otherwise)

I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

Even though I am probably posting all of this ten years too late, I hope I reach at least one person and make them feel at least a little bit normal