cortisoladdict - Tumblr blog

[cortisoladdict]

I’m caught between wanting to be my former ambitious self and wishing I could just be content with less. But there’s some part of me that feels like being content with less is “settling” or letting someone or something “win”. And if I choose ambition I don’t even really know what I’m chasing, I guess just money and prestige and traditional markers of success or something.

Maybe I just wish I could be passionate about something again, even in a small way. Right now it kinda feels like I have no passions. Not even writing the way I used to.

[cortisoladdict]

at least one good thing is that I’ve let go of perfection or even pursuit in some areas of my life, especially like body stuff. Not that I don’t still look in the mirror and hate everything from time to time, but it’s a lot more muted now. Like it’s not my job to be a supermodel so who the fuck cares lol. So I guess I should count that as some kind of progress.

[cortisoladdict]

It’s hard to finally admit it, but my sense of self has completely disintegrated.

Not necessarily who I am, or my values or traits, but it’s like I’m made of paper, or playing cards. I have no foundation, no center, no spine. My confidence has eroded to nothing after eons of being beaten down, again and again, by so much—parents, strangers, universities, workplaces, and most of all, myself. I don’t know if a day goes by that I don’t have a severely critical thought about myself. And there are hours, days, months, when what passes through my head is nothing but self criticism. When my self worth is through the floor.

I can’t build anything on top of this. I’ve tried. There’s just nothing there. Anything I attempt is immediately flooded with doubt. Anything I achieve is immediately reduced to some small and meaningless incremental step. I have no idea what would feel like a satisfying accomplishment anymore. I don’t understand the concept of rewarding yourself for anything—rather I think of everything as a coping mechanism. Everything good that I do for myself or each time I treat myself is to cope with whatever it is I have to get through, it’s never a reward for what I’ve already done. By then it’s already time for the next thing.

I can’t dream or hope or pursue anything this way. It’s like my life has just been zapped of color. Everything feels gray.

[cortisoladdict]

There are always things I’d like to say to my parents that never come to me in the moment because I get too worked up and emotional, but afterwards…

Like I really need to spend time with people who give me reasons not to kill myself instead of reasons to try lol

It’s funny how some parents ridicule “I just want my kids to be happy” style parenting when they clearly never learned healthy ways to interact or communicate. I did not fuckin turn out okay.

[cortisoladdict]

sometimes I worry that I won't make it to the age of 40

[cortisoladdict]

Gotta lot of those suicidal thoughts these days.....

Trying not to let fuckin grad school rejections of all things end me.

So many things I wish I had done differently in undergrad, like I wish I'd taken time off and I wish I'd taken adhd meds

But it's too fuckin late now

Now I'm stuck with 5 years of absolutely shit career experiences at shitty companies and I had to try to spin that bullshit into a grad school application, and I couldn't even get my adhd together in time to properly take the GRE.

I was super underpaid and didn't learn enough and didn't save enough, partly on account of helping out friends and family in much worse situations. Which I obviously don't regret, it's just like, can a girl catch a break??

And so then I get into a car accident and get rejected everywhere and damn right, I'm like what the fuck is the point of all this bullshit.

Someone was like 'I feel like you'll never be satisfied', I beg to differ somewhat because there was at least one extremely brief period when I felt okay, but also at this point I'm just like....you right!! It sucks to live like this!! Feeling awful all the time!! Seems kind of not worth it!!

[cortisoladdict]

Body checks 2day cuz I hate myself

[cortisoladdict]

[cortisoladdict]

[cortisoladdict]

V does not come from a culture or family where people say 'I love you' all the time. Really, my father, who's also East African like V, didn't come from that kind of family either. But for some reason my father told me those words a lot, where V's parents simply didn't. Maybe that is why I like to express my love in words.

I don't need to be told that I'm loved, only shown. And V shows me all the time. He holds my hand in this gentle way, every so often running his thumb along the edge of my fingers, as if to remind me that he's still there. He kisses me. He puts his arm around me in public. He tells me not to worry when I mess up something (directions, cooking) when I'm with him. 'I want you to not have to worry when you're with me', he says.

So I never needed to hear words as confirmation, but I wanted to say them. Maybe that's weird, but I wanted to be free to express myself, and saying the words 'I love you' is one of the ways i do that. I would feel the urge to blurt it out bubble up from my stomach, and then quell it, thinking it would be too much or make things awkward.

So one day I just let it out. 'I love you', I said.

He was quiet. He was worried. He gave me a speech, about his discomfort with words, about how his own mother never said that to him...

I told him it was fine, I just hoped he didn't mind if I indulged myself. I told him how I felt--that rather than seeking confirmation from him, I just didn't want to feel like I had to suppress my feelings.

So on we went.

I love you, I'd say. He'd smile, and kiss me. He always showed me acknowledgment even if it wasn't with words, and this made me comfortable. I said it any time I felt, and truthfully, it never bothered me that he could not say the words. To me, it was clear he was comfortable with love, just not with words.

And then just a few weeks later, my head resting on his collarbone, bodies humming with the electricity of touch and contact, I felt moved to say 'I love you', breathed out like a sigh.

'I love you,' he said.

Just like that, quickly, abruptly, right after me. So easily it came, almost like it just slipped out unintentionally. I swear I almost missed it.

Maybe it was because I said it so often that he worried about me, I don't know and I hope not. Maybe it was because I said it so often that it started to feel normal. But something about, not even the words themselves, but how they fell so easily from his lips, something about that made me happy. They weren't calculated, cautious words, heavy with significance and commitment. They didn't sound rehearsed or modeled on anything else, or said out of fear and concern. It was not even 'I love you, too' - - just 'I love you'. Something about that made me feel they came from the same place my words did - - from my feelings, from my heart. Blurted out before my brain could get in the way, before I had time to decide what this meant or how it should go and all other complicated things.

Just love, pure and simple.

I love you.

[cortisoladdict]

Weekend

I spent a whole weekend with my adorable ass boyfriend and it was sooooooo good.

So good.

He came over Friday night and we cooked a Tanzanian dish together (Pilau). Messed up a thing or two here and there, but now I basically know how to make this dish, and it was still really good. We ate with my roommate, then he helped me clean up. While taking out the trash, we got locked out (my roommate was showering lol) so I gave him a boost through my window and we got back inside 😅 While we were cooking I pressed him to teach me more Swahili, so I felt like I made a little more progress.

That night we talked about how when he feels stressed he doesn't show it much. I had thought so--he never seems stressed to me, but having gone through MIT myself I was sure he must be, at least a little. He shared that he got pretty bad test anxiety, and that he's slowly learned how to deal with it. I am glad that he's slowly opening up to me more about the things he struggles with, though of course I don't wish him any suffering. However, it's a natural part of human life, and it's a sign of closeness to share not just your good times but the bad ones too, I think.

Sex after deep talks is pretty fuckin good. I definitely believe that emotional/mental state or closeness matters when it comes to sex. I have really good sex with this man. Really. Good.

The next morning (Saturday) we ate our Pilau and just Netflix and chilled. I like how he has all these dynamic little touches when we're with each other, like when we're holding hands he'll use his thumb to rub my fingers a bit, or when we're on the couch and I'm squirming around constantly and leaning on him this way and that, he'll rub me a little bit, or lean over and kiss me. It's so nice, it makes me feel loved.

We watched Mo Gilligan's comedy special because we saw him on YouTube once, so it was nice to have that moment come full circle. We talked about doing something--going to the library maybe, idk...we lingered a little bit and then, of course, we're just on the couch, makin out, I get on top of him, our tops are off, I laugh--scandalous, I say. Very, he responds.

In my bed, I ask him to take me from behind, he finishes twice, I am tingling with all the sexual energy I have, with all the desire I have for him. He's spent so he laughs, saying 'I'm the drained battery now" (a reference to what I said about myself once), he takes my vibrator and finishes me.

I love this man.

I read him a chapter out of his book and for some reason he really likes when I read to him. We have been so wrapped up in each other that we totally forget about dinner we're supposed to have with a friend, until he calls me, so we rush to meet a group and go to this Ethiopian restaurant (it's a weekend of East African food). Afterward, I want to go to the club, he kinda wanted to just go home and read again which I agreed to but he insisted we go, since he knew I'd been trying to for a while. So I said we'd pregame at home first to give him some energy. We drank a bottle of wine and played 'never have I ever' and 'two truths and a lie', which was fun because I already knew so much about him but I got to learn a bunch of other new, silly things, hear some interesting anecdotes, tidbits of his life. You have to get creative when you play those games with a close friend.

We take an uber to the club, it's not that lit but I am satisfied, I dance and wine and twerk and grind. Some dude fist bumps him while I'm winin' (lol) then at like 1:30am I'm super exhausted and spent. We sit at one of the lounges and alternate staring at each other and making out (cheesy, I know). The club is normally a place that's less fun with a partner, because part of the whole fun of a club is playing the who-can-I-get-with game, a game I've played many times before. But I was happy to be there with him; I realized how much I enjoyed it still. I thought, this is my person, the one for me. I told him in Swahili, Nakupenda (I love you). He never responds--or rather, he never responds with words. Instead, he just kisses me, slowly and deliberately. When he's away and I get too in my head this worries me, but when we're together I don't doubt that he loves me. I know also that I'm cheating a little--you never feel something the same way in another language.

Of course when we come home I am all over him. I love being with him; I love sleeping naked and warm and happy.

We wake up at like 1pm on Sunday. We take a shower together, which we often do. I like kissing him in the shower, there's something about water that's nice, maybe the fact that we're clean and wet and that somehow makes skin taste delicious. My only regret about Sunday is that there is no sex. But we go to brunch at a place I like, and I like how sometimes we're just quiet. There's a lot we say to each other without speaking, even jokes. And then there's the little touches, little elbow rubs, little caresses from fingers. The food is good; I am happy. I drop him off for his library shift then, and that's the end of it.

I feel so exhilarated, and in a way exhausted. It's like being so happy for three days required effort and energy. I love winter days inside with good food and tv shows and cuddling and sex and books. I love sleeping next to his long body. I love being held by him, he's always so warm to me. I love how affectionate he is, even if it's not always with words. He always gives me sugar when I ask.

In the morning I talk about how I daydream of the future, about having a dog and a Subaru, about living in a fancy flat in Europe. I talk about my real dreams too, and the confusion around what to do with my life. He tells me about a place in Dar Es Salaam by the ocean, and with beautiful houses.

I add this to my list of fantasies, living with him on a beautiful beach, traveling to Ethiopia or the US or China for my coffee business, or maybe for some other supply chain or robotics business, him, the PI of a research lab, I'll teach as an adjunct sometimes. Maybe I'd own a 2-bedroom in Cambridge where we spent our late 20's gaining experience in America, and sometimes we'd spend part of year there, but of course most of winter would be in our Masaki home. We'll start as a young couple on that beachside house, I'd buy the Women national geographic coffee table book we read together once in a bookstore; I'd pick out beautiful, modern furniture pieces, many African-designed. Then our house might grow, from two to three and then four, or maybe we would move, but still our home base would be there, by the ocean. Maybe we'd vacation in Shanghai and Tokyo sometimes, and I could take him to all my favorite places in Asia.

I feel like I know, now, what it's like to be dating your best friend.

[cortisoladdict]

Love, real love, deep love, is a frightening thing, especially when you spend an adolescence confused and repressed, feeling like a sweater in the dryer, tumbling and shrinking and getting wrinkly all the while. As powerful and motivating as it can be, as much as it can make you open your eyes and see what happiness can be, it can be equally destructive and chaotic and bizarre, and at those moments it can feel like nothing is worth that.

Love can make you scared of your own reflection, or rather, scared that maybe what others see when they look at you is different from what you see in the mirror. You can't look at yourself directly, after all, and so how do you know what you like if you can't trust the mirror and you hear different versions of yourself, different descriptions from the only people who get close enough to really know.

Love, when you find it, hooks onto your ears and whispers into them; it reaches through your chest, it grips onto your heart with hands made of an icy steel; it makes you feel like everything is exploding all the time. Sometimes when you are calm at last, it is a tapestry of evergreen trees and mountains and 70 degree weather, but all it takes is a stray thought to worry again, to be distracted from the paradise in front of you with the anxiety of an imagined hellscape future.

This is what happens to you when you're in love, and especially, when you return to it after being wounded by the world again, and again, and again. Somewhere there is always a part of you that thinks nothing lasts, that is suspicious when things are going too well. The leap of faith you take day after day, hour after hour, is love; the willingness to bare yourself to the world again, is love; the boldness you have to proclaim your feelings even though they may not be returned, is love; the clawing your way through the darkness guided only by patterns of light you see behind your eyelids, is love. Love is knowing how to hold on tight and knowing how to let go. Love requires courage and tenacity and resilience and intelligence and all those qualities people use to describe success, but rarely seem to attribute to love. Love is a complicated dance, a difficult step that takes time and practice and failure to learn, moving with others' patterns. Love is the world biggest paradox, a science for which there is no instruction, a strange, plain, simple and universal force that all humans seem incapable of really figuring out.

I have been chewed up and spat out; I have been wrung out to dry; I have been lost and confused. Still I leap off of the cliff of love, diving toward warmth and compassion, not knowing what monsters might lay waiting in the depths, still I swim, praying that God has mercy and I finally reach

The end.

[cortisoladdict]

Thick hips That fold over the edges of chairs That are too full and too taut to fit between the arms of seats That compress when squeezing through tight spaces, bouncing back, That inevitably bump into things Wide and soft enough for you to sleep on Thighs that make it hard to cross the legs Bangin booty truly bigger than the rest Can't be hid by coats or skirts or A-line cuts The torso sprouts from this rounded base, long, Round breasts are travel sized, TSA approved, Head perched a little too tall on the neck Standing straight thanks to mamas scolding Mouth speaks small and quiet Always apologizing For taking up Too much Space.

[cortisoladdict]

Hello! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seemed to remember 1) the restaurant u now work at is in NYC and 2) you were friends w/various bartenders and know some really cool bars. Any recommendations? (lol if one or both of these is wrong would love to hear which bars are best wherever you live now anyway ^^;)

1) the restaurant u now work at is in NYC

You are technically right, although I’ve been working at a pop up that our restaurant is doing out in the Hamptons, but I’m coming back in like 2 weeks

2) you were friends w/various bartenders and know some really cool bars. Any recommendations?

I’m friends with probably too many bartenders but thats neither here nor there. So I love a bunch of bars but I’ll divide up my faves based on like, their purpose and what they are, etc

Pubs (chill spot to get shithoused at 4 am or later while shooting the shit with a jolly and yet somehow still pessimistic Bartender, usually straight from Ireland)1. Biddys2. Trinity pub3. Failte4. Paddy Reilly’s5. The Gaslight6. The Gael7. Caledonia8. Churchill’s 9. Lucky Jacks 10. Doc Watson’s

Good drinks and good people bars (great drinks, fancy people, usually decent music):1. Infirmary2. Ida’s3. Attaboy 4. Employees Only5. Dear Irving6. Bondurants7. Zombie hut8. UES9. Ghost Donkey10. Ophelia’s

If you Drink here and you’re looking to get laid, you’re gonna get laid bars:1. Park bar2. 169 bar3. Union Pool4. Pianos5. Bob bar6. Supply House7. Ethyl’s8. Oscar Wilde9. Ryan’s Daughter10. Kinfolk

[cortisoladdict]

oblivious