addictwoapen

[addictwoapen]

girlfriends.

there’s very little in this world i cherish more than my female friendships. i didn’t always have the best luck with them when i was you ger, but I’ve managed to find my way to some good ones. some of them were unexpected. some of them are newer than others. but something i will always remember is that i want the people i love and care about to know that i love and care about them.

i don’t think a lack of effort is cute, i don’t think “playing it cool” is the way to go. i love earnest people, and if you’re trying your damndest to get there then i’ll support you in that too. i like to pull the vulnerability out of people’s brains and hesrts, and when their worst fears and desired are out on the table, i cradle them. i tell them it’s okay. i tell them that i still love them and care for them. and then we slowly take that startling confession and put the pieces back together back in their chest.

i cry more than i used to. maybe it’s the relocation and the stress of bug life transitions. but i’ve never mourned the end of an era before, i’ve always relished in starting anew. however, this time is different. i love my friends, and i miss them terribly. and even though i know i will make new friends and forge nee connections, i wish i could put all of my friends in my pocket snd carry them with me every where i go.

maybe i was selfishly hoping they would all follow me out here, and maybe they will, but for now, i’m gonna write about them all because i love and miss them so.

[addictwoapen]

sometimes i feel super lonely, like yesterday. sometimes all the good news or support in the world can’t make you feel better.

then you go for a walk and pet a ton of dogs, one of whom named chase who sits on your backpack and searches for snacks.

then your friends respond to instagram stories with heartfelt exclamations and unnecessarily long strings of emojis.

then your best friend calls you because she misses you, and you miss her too; wishing you still existed less than 20 feet from each other, watching the bachelor together in the living room, rehashing a date the morning after, sharing some fancy drinks on the balcony.

sometimes i feel super lonely, but tonight is not that time.

[addictwoapen]

friendship is being vulnerable even when you fear their reaction. it is taking that leap that they will choose to love you anyway, and will maybe reveal something of equal anxiety that they feel you can be trysted with. it turns into late night texts and random memes of “lol, us” under pictures of frog and toad. and it doesn’t end from distance. it just changes.

[addictwoapen]

dear usamerican high schoolers looking for a way to resist fascism: sit through the pledge of allegiance.

no getting up. no looking at the flag.

everyone will be looking at you. you'll be sweating like a fucking hippopotamus. your teacher will sternly tell you to get up. you'll feel stupid and that maybe its not worth it because you're just a kid in a classroom. but I'm here to remind you that there are no real life consequences to detention. there are however real life consequences to resisting a thoughtless performance of nationalism.

[addictwoapen]

[addictwoapen]

i think most people accept the idea of "you don't control who you're attracted to" in terms of being gay but imo it can go further. like if you're not attracted to men, but you happen to find a transmasc person attractive, i dont think thats inherently transphobic if you acknoweldge that your attraction is incongruent with their identity. you dont need to run yourself in circles creating qualifiers for your sexuality when we live in a world of infinite gender identites. it's not like you have an inbuilt radar that tells you whether that hot stranger at the bar is a woman or not. man who kissed a twink that turned out to be a butch lesbian that thought he was a butch lesbian. etc.

[addictwoapen]

[addictwoapen]

For those people who need to hear it, there is nothing wrong with going back into the closet for your own safety. You aren't less queer because you can't be queer publicly. You aren't less trans because you have to act like you're not trans.

If you need to start going by your old pronouns or quietly go back into the closet to be safe - you are allowed to do that. Please do that if it means you're alive.

Your safety is important.

You are important.

And if you know someone who has to do this, don't push them. Don't out them. Follow their lead. People's safety is more important that grandstanding.

[addictwoapen]

little women (2019)

there is something to be said about the want to have a close family.

the want to have a sister, preferably a younger one that you can share girlhood with. the want to have an older brother whom you can call at any time for advice. the want to have parents who think of you fondly and often.

it hurts a little to see others have the family you long to have. people who have an abundant christmas table and full hearts. people who have large birthday parties and barbecues, who talk for long hours into the night about who knows what.

it hurts a little to see others experience a kind of love you know will never come to you. despite the attempts to make your family closer and to reach out more, it will always be distant.

it hurts to see the sadness behind someone's eyes when they say they aren't close to their sister/brother/mother/father anymore. while you know there is a reason, it still shatters a little piece of your heart every time. because you know what it feels like to wish that the circumstances are different.

but alas, it is not, and so, you mourn the family you'll never have and hope that one day things will be different, even if it is just wishful thinking.

[addictwoapen]

talking with grandma

i'm very lucky to have my grandma. She is my maternal grandmother, and we talk on the phone every two weeks. I call her when I go for a walk because I like her company. I ask her questions about her life, she is exactly 60 years and 12 days older than me. We are both Geminis with emerald birth stones, and when she passes her favorite emerald ring will go to me.

My grandmother is a very intelligent woman. She was married at 19 and had two kids within a few years. She has been widowed since I was five years old, and is a testament to the resilience of women. I don't remember my grandfather well, but she speaks of him so fondly, and he seemed to match her intellect so well. I only hope to find something like that some day.

While walking the other day, the subject turned (as it does often) to my dad (her son-in-law), and how I wish that he would heal from his trauma and let go of grudges. We talk about this often, because no on else in my family will listen when it comes to the issues my dad has.

Eventually, my grandmother says "it always astounded me how you could find a way to be out of the way whenever we needed you to be". She recalled the time my brother and I were rough housing and he fell onto our our chair in the living room, one with an old large nail sticking out, and cut his leg. My brother is autistic, and this was the first time he was going to need stitches, so my grandma took us to the emergency room and called my parents. She says I walked right over to the little coloring table full of kids and colored quietly in the corner.

Before my grandpa passed, he had had a stroke about 7 years prior, and so he struggled with mobility. Well one day he fell and it was pretty serious, but my grandma had to pick me up from daycare, and when we met the nurse back at her house, I walked to the kitchen, sat down, and started coloring.

She said "you were always so mature for your age". "you always knew, at a scarily young age, how to make things easier for other people".

In case you were wondering, I'm in graduate school to be a therapist.

"You were always a fixer", my dad explained to me weeks ago on a phone call when talking about me in high school.

Both of these phone calls make me sad. Because for years I was like that, and I think it made me angry and upset. I think my brother struggled with autism, and while he needed the attention and rightfully so, I felt like I had to be perfect just to make things easier for my parents. I don't want them to worry about me, because I had to go it alone for a majority of the life.

This was true when three close family members died within three years. This was true when my dad and his niece were not on speaking terms due to conditions of my paternal grandmother's will. This was true when I was depressed and had no friends.

I kept to myself because I didn't want to be the reason to cause any problems.

This was also true when I started having suicidal ideation. This was also true when I started cutting myself with a little shard of glass in seventh grade that I kept hidden in my window after a picture frame fell off my bookshelf.

My parents have no idea that these things were occurring. As far as they were concerned, I did well in school, I got good grades, I was a really good athlete, and I didn't get in trouble (unless you count refusing to eat my vegetables).

Finally in eighth grade, the mental illness was taking a toll on 13 year old me's body, and I was tired all the time. "Lethargy" they called it. I couldn't run for long periods of time, and my gym teachers noted that I struggled to have the energy to complete the daily warmups, which was strange for me since I was an athlete and played multiple sports at the time.

So, my parents took me to the doctor, and they ran a blood test. They suspected low iron, and that was unfounded. There was no issues with my thyroid despite the expansive family history of women who struggle with hypothyroidism. There was no explanation for my lethargy. So it stopped there.

No one asked how I was doing mentally (hint: not fine).

No one asked how I was handling the deaths of my aunt, then my beloved grandmother's dog, then both of my paternal grandparents (hint: also not fine).

No one asked me how my family was doing. With my dad's rage and both of my older brother's seclusion (hint: really not fine).

It's hard now as an adult to look over that and think "why did no one look out for me". "why did nobody think that I was worthy of attention and checking-in on?".

No wonder I became a fixer.

No wonder I'm a therapist.

[addictwoapen]

theres something about listening to abstract (psychopomp) by hozier and encountering a dead rabbit in the road that makes me glad there is a piece of media that describes the heart break i experience every time i see an animal killed at the hands of man.

this was your space. this was your land. and we ruined it with cars and the industrial revolution and i hate it here sometimes.

[addictwoapen]

[addictwoapen]

[addictwoapen]

Maybe because it’s a book for adults but I can’t believe tumblr isn’t obsessed with Henry Strauss from Addie LaRue. he owns a bookshop. he's bisexual. he dropped out of grad school. he made a Faustian deal with the devil. his ex-boyfriend is in love with him even though he himself has fallen in love with a 300 year old French woman who also made a Faustian deal. He self medicates with random pills his little sister gives him. He was made in a lab for you people

[addictwoapen]

“They teach you growing up that you are only one thing at a time—angry, lonely, content—but he’s never found that to be true. He is a dozen things at once. He is lost and scared and grateful, he is sorry and happy and afraid.”

V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

[addictwoapen]

i made this AGES ago but its still funny to me

[addictwoapen]

It’s always “what is your favorite color?” and never “what are your thoughts on the intensely queer coded relationship of Neil Perry and Todd Anderson in the 1989 film ‘Dead Poets Society’”