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dzpenumbra · 2 years ago

Text

8/22/23

I went skating again today. It was pretty awkward. The park was split up into basically 3 separate cliques through the hour and a half I was there. There was a group of young college-aged guys on the left side of the park, maybe 4 of them. There was an eclectic group of rollerbladers on the side I usually skate on. And one of the kids that I had met before was there with what looked like his brother or something.

I was kind of a lone wolf again. I skated without earbuds for a good chunk of the session. I didn't really hesitate to get into skating, the park wasn't very crowded. I wanted to skate the low box, but the group of 4 was kinda just camping right next to it doing flatground and I just didn't want to deal with the hassle, so I kinda just roamed around.

About half an hour in, some friends of the rollerbladers showed up and set up a bluetooth speaker on the opposite side of the park... and started blasting corny early 90's hip-hop music. And... maybe it's just me? But blasting music at a skatepark is kind of a no-no... unless you have the park to yourself or you're just there with your friends. Not everyone wants to listen to your shit, it's pretty disruptive, and playing music loud can kinda drown out the sound of people around you, which can actually be pretty dangerous. I just popped my earbuds in there. I wasn't about to make a scene. They clearly didn't take a hint and kept blasting the music the entire duration of my session, likely until after I left.

Look, I want to be inclusive, I really do. I try very hard to treat people based on their intentions. I don't really think anyone there was intending harm or disruption, I just... okay, this analogy might work. A guy showed up wearing what I would best describe as a cartoon version of an 80's punk "uniform". Studs on a random strap, pink caution tape around his... helmet? (sorry, modern helmets weren't very punk...) Jeans, jean vest and big handwritten back-patches on the jean vest. One I don't remember, the other said in all caps "FIGHT NAZIS". Which... I'm guessing is like... a political thing? Like a borderline extremist LGBTQ thing is like the closest I can guess to it? I'm clearly out of the loop here, maybe I just don't understand the reference. I don't even know what that message is really supposed to mean... like... am I supposed to fight people that I think are Nazis? Or are you declaring that's what you do? Like... is that an order? Where are the Nazis? Why not start with something closer to home, like... bigots and bullies... and work your way up to fringe political extremists? I don't know.

It's just weird to me mostly because like... my grandfather fought the actual Nazis. My grandfather was one of the first to discover and help liberate Birkenau. And... I have my theories on how that may have pretty severely fucked up my family, but of course... they'd all have to actually talk about shit for me to even find out, so it's merely speculation. So like... calling weird extremist hate groups in the US "Nazis" is just weird to me... Like... I wouldn't even really give them the satisfaction of identifying with that party, it's been dead for 80+ years.

And then it just gets into this whole mess with like... eye for an eye shit, you know? Like... blatantly advocating for violence, even against hate groups... It just makes me uncomfortable. But hey, maybe that's the intention. Maybe the intention of the caution tape and the spikes and the "I FIGHT BAD PEOPLE" is to send a message that they are a dangerous violent person that is not to be fucked with. And maybe they want to play that role in their social group, even if they are a skinny balding guy in their early 20's. And who am I to take that fantasy from them, simply because it makes me uncomfortable to see anyone advocating for violence.

My point with going into that deep analysis of this guy's outfit was... it seemed like a few of the people in that group were kinda just wearing... what looks like appropriate clothing... Like... actors. Like they were playing a role in a play or something. And I really want people to like... feel welcome and part of the community if they want to ride a board or a scooter or a bike or rollerblades or a ripstick or whatever. But like... there's a culture to skateparks, and that does not tend to be one of exclusion... it tends to be one of sorta... we're all here for the same reason, like... there isn't a uniform, you know? This resonates deeper with some than others, but yeah, it's a general thing. So like... I feel like it's way more important to understand the etiquette of skateparks than to "dress the part". Basic shit, like... be aware of people around you, don't sit on obstacles or just stand in the middle of the park doing nothing, take note if someone is skating an obstacle near you, so you can time your runs so you don't overlap. And... try not to blast music that sounds like a 90's soda commercial for an hour to the entire neighborhood.

Big vent for such a small thing. I felt a lot of eyes on me today. And I'm sure it's due to my past experiences. I don't know. I was the oldest person at the park by close to a decade, I would wager. I don't think anyone else there was over 25. I was skating alone. I just... kinda felt a lot of judgmental eyes on me. It brought me back to an experience I had at the retreat where I detoxed off meds.

When I was in that retreat, I was the second oldest person for about... a month... until my roommate (who had just turned 40) left. Then I was the oldest person there by over a decade. This was a big house that was reconfigured to be a treatment center kinda thing, we all lived there. Most of the people there were LGBTQ, and I was... the only non-staff straight male there. I really tried to include people and treat people like... people. I had a friend in a prior therapy group who was a trans woman and we ended up being pretty close friends, we played music a lot together. I really don't feel like it's any of my business what someone's sexuality is... or their personal journey of self-exploration, self-expression and self-discovery/manifestation. I mean, look at how many times the word "self" shows up there. That's not my business. And I really just try to judge people based on their actions and their decisions, not by superficial shit like race, religion, gender or sexual preference. It should very rarely cause friction in every day interactions.

What ended up happening there was... I was going through a rough patch. I wasn't sleeping well at all. I was forced to change my room when my roommate left, and the new room was incredibly loud. I was getting maybe 6 hours of sleep a night and woken up violently, even with noise generators (sound familiar?). I was very vocal about how it was becoming a problem, and the staff literally turned it into a joke. On Christmas, they got me gag gifts like a book full of boring facts to "help you sleep". ... When I am being woken up by fucking trauma responses every morning by one of the residents stomping around and making all kinds of noise directly outside my room.

This resident was a trans woman who, upon first arriving to the retreat, I had befriended. She liked being outside in the woods and wanted to learn more outdoor skills, within the restrictions of what a mental health facility would allow. I spent a huge amount of time clearing trails and hauling rocks, trying to make decorative art in the woods and shit. I showed her around, taught her the few things I knew, because I was sorta... self-teaching as I went. We got along fine.

Long story short, my depression hit hard as I was detoxing and I was very irritable and dealing with intense family trauma and felt extremely isolated and alone. I felt extremely out of place. It was taken very personally by the trans woman I used to be friends with, and her non-binary friend. These two decided to "ally" and call me out as being "outwardly aggressive" towards them - in a group therapy session - accused me of "toxic masculinity", which was the first time I had heard that phrase... and... honestly, I'm not really sure what they were even trying to accomplish with all of that. If they wanted me to... stop? Or if they wanted me gone? Or just... punished or publicly shamed? I really don't know what the goal was.

I was genuinely taken aback. It blindsided me. Yeah, there were a lot of personality quirks from them that I really... found obnoxious. That grated on my nerves and at times I would avoid those traits. But no more than anyone else. I definitely wasn't singling anyone out, and surely not in any form aggressive. I have no clue to this day what the "toxic masculinity" thing was about. When I was first confronted in the group, I asked them specifically what things I had done that had upset them, so that I could give my side of the story. And they just... didn't seem to have any specific examples. This woman and I shared the same therapist, and he was encouraging this. There was a lot of them talking over me and interrupting me, it didn't really feel like they were in any way interested in what my experience or my life was... they just kinda wanted me to be punished... because I was upset, grieving, depressed and super on-edge. And they decided to make it about them. Like... literally the only things I was upset about that were about them? One would laugh extremely loudly at all hours, and one would clean the bird cage pretty loudly in the room right on the other side of my bed every day and dump the bird shit on the ground right where I would walk my dog, so I had to stop her from eating bird shit every day. That was like... it.

I met with my therapist after the confrontation. I was incredibly anxious. I was like... shaking. These people were 10 years my junior and I was like... trembling like a fucking leaf. He expressed gratitude for me dealing with it, and... somehow got me to sign up for doing it again? As a way to like... help them work through it? And he encouraged me to speak freely and to share my stories with them. And... I really didn't have much of a choice, I guess... If I didn't show up, they would just see that as like... someone not showing up to a "peace treaty" or something.

It was a Friday afternoon. A special meeting scheduled specifically for this. Literally every person was there. Every resident, every staff. I have no fucking clue why, and... in hindsight? It was super inappropriate. It was a fucking witch trial. And I was seated at the apex of the circle in the room. And they just fucking went after me. About how I would constantly be "glaring" and "storming" around the house, and that was clearly about them... not the fact that I was 32, I lost all my friends and family, I had no career and no visible future and I was stuck in a house detoxing off of mood stabilizers with a full house of people who had fuck-all in common with me and had zero intentions of showing any interest in anything I liked. Not for lack of trying. But yeah, that was clearly about those specific two people, who just happened to constantly hijack every group session to make it about themselves. Yep, me going through a severe depression episode while detoxing off of medications and coping with losing my entire family is definitely me being "toxic" and "aggressive" directly towards the person who goes around the house burping as loud as they possibly can so they can get peoples' attention. Yep.

The witch trial did not go well. But... no shit, right? At some point, after figuring out what toxic masculinity was... I tried to appeal to them that like... less than a year ago at that point one of my best friends in that therapy group was a trans woman... That I had a really good friend in college that was gay, my friend's father and his partner who lived nearby were gay. I have an uncle who has been openly gay my whole life. My grandmother was a women's rights activist. I am actually... considered pretty distinctly feminine compared to most males that I meet around my age... to the point where I have been bullied most of my life, and it's absolutely ongoing. I'm pretty scrawny, I'm a pacifist, I'm extremely emotionally sensitive, I love cooking and gardening. Good lord, even my ads on Instagram and Reddit think I'm a mid-30's woman sometimes. I mean... my therapist who I trusted more than anyone else in that building was gay for fuck's sake! I felt like letting them know past relationships would help assure them that I am not... a bigot... Somehow... this had the complete opposite effect. It was like I just chummed the water for sharks. It started sending massive pulses of adrenaline through my system. I was shamed. I was accused. I was insulted. I was dismissed and talked over. In front of the entire residency and staff.

I couldn't take it. Walking hot coals was easier than sitting there and taking it; literally, I've done both. It was not just them... it was all the past trauma of having to explain myself when I haven't done anything wrong. When I was just being myself. Being accused of being "outwardly aggressive" when I was depressed and frustrated with things in my life. Being told I had "anger problems" and having my brain scanned for brain damage when I was just... a moody teenager. A life of being put on trial, being "guilty until proven innocent" (and we have no intentions of even trying to prove you innocent)... it just flooded back in emotional overwhelm. My eyes welled up with tears. I stormed out. I said "I can't take this anymore" or something. And I took my dog and we left. And I went to the front door and was going to go out for a drive, and a staff member came up behind me. A nice woman a bit younger than me who was always very kind to me. She gave me a hug from behind and said "I'm sorry for what you just went through." And I said "thank you" and cried, and she actually cried with me. And then I got in my car and drove very fast and very recklessly on a gravel road in a nearby National Park while singing along to this:

youtube

I miss screaming in my car. I got so fucking good at screaming for a while there. I legit could've been a vocalist for a metal band, I just never had the confidence to try out for one. It did so much good for me emotionally. Not just purely because of the whole like... exertion is a good way of getting stress out kinda thing... but like... the tactile feeling of a vibration like that running through your head, throat and torso is just... it's such a surreal feeling, like a cleansing feeling. I miss it a lot.

So yeah, needless to say... that fucking stuck with me. Like... they dunked me head-first into one of my worse phobias with no warning whatsoever, and then like... coerced me into signing up for it again... and my fawning response was just like... "yeah sure, why not, if it'll help them out (and end this for me for good)". It just added to my confrontation trauma massively.

And now... now when I feel those looks? That's kinda where this came from. There were two trans women at the park. And they seemed nice enough, and they were actually there to skate, which was fucking great. They were the rollerbladers, and a young woman with them too. And... I could kinda feel what my instincts were telling me were kinda... cautious glares. Like I was being scanned as a potential threat, because I'm the embodiment of CIS male or something. And it flashed me back. And just typing it out? I feel bad. I can see how so much dissonance happens in the world.

I was going over this in my head while making dinner tonight. Like... say someone who looks similar in appearance to me... treats them like shit... so they're really cautious around me and kinda judge me a bit and keep their distance. (hypothetically) But in my case... one of those people... lashed out at me. And traumatized me. So... I am being really cautious around them, and kinda judging them and keeping my distance. Because I don't want to upset them or make them uncomfortable, but also because I want to keep myself safe. And the dude hanging out with them with the "FIGHT NAZIS" patch kinda... didn't help. But I could just see so clearly how like... echoes of our traumatic experiences can just... cause ripples over and over, back and forth. Like... me being anti-social with them today... could make them feel less safe and excluded around skaters - despite me having more of a problem with their friends who played loud music and rode ripsticks than with them. And then when they next go to the skatepark, they will keep their distance and be cold and suspicious towards a new set of people, who know nothing about any of this. And the ripples continue.

Shit like this runs through my head all the time. I wish I had a cool way of expressing this artistically. I had some ideas, but nothing as visceral and impactful as what I want to express. This idea that like... you have no idea what someone else's experience is. At all. Me today? I had some awkwardness because of latent minor trauma responses that may have made me look cold or a bit... grumpy? Or even angry? But really, I was glad to see new people at the park that were actually taking it seriously and learning new tricks, and not ashamed to wear full pads. I wish I had had the courage to tell them that, I'm sure it would've made their day. Also, my hip was acting up a little and I was just kinda weak from skating so much the day before, that was grumping me out a bit.

But like... I really want to find a way to capture the expression of how differently two people can experience the same situation. And how you just... you never know what someone else's experience is. Like... that young kid that I had met last week, he was there today and we were acting friendly enough... but like... I tried to get his friend/brother/whatever to teach me how to do slappy 50-50s on some metal, and we all went one after another to try it... and then they rode off together and started laughing. Were they laughing at me? My anxiety said "yes, duh". Who fucking knows. Who fucking cares. Do I need to speculate on that? And how impactful really is the end result of that? What, these guys end up kinda being assholes? Oh well. Big loss... Better to find out sooner rather than later...

But in reality, they were probably not laughing at me at all. There's no way of telling. And I really want to put myself in a mode where I can really... give people benefit of the doubt.

But honestly? I'm just fucking scared to. Because I have a lot in the past. I had friends hide the murder of a college friend from me for 7 fucking years, and they said they did it "for my own good", because they deemed I wasn't "in a condition to handle it". Good thing I had two people 5 years younger than me right there to keep me safe from reality, thank the lord. But my response back then? My first response? "Well, they meant well. They had good intentions. I should immediately forgive them." Clearly fawning.

That's the mess I'm in right now. This like... toggling between fawning and suspicion. Being a naïve childlike entity that sees the good in everyone, even if their intentions are not good... and then flipping to traumatized, scared to walk on the street or else I'll get robbed. I hope I can get some equilibrium with that soon, I can tell it's out of whack.

People who have passed my friend-or-foe test... which is not rigorous at all... can still hurt me. In fact, the people who have hurt me most have been the ones closest to me. And strangers can be really really nice, too. That shit is just so hardwired into the PTSD brain, it's very black-and-white and really hard to break out of.

I've noticed this on agoraphobia support groups, something I'm newly seeing as like... a pattern in a lot of people like me. Where they are in unhealthy relationships... maybe they grew up in really unhealthy relationships, too... and they struggle to leave the house. I bet if you asked them, they say "it's not safe out there", "it doesn't feel safe out there." You feel watched, you feel judged, you feel unsafe. It feels like you're on borrowed time or something, like the clock is ticking before something bad happens. That's been my experience, anyway. And home is... safe, predictable.

I'm starting to wonder if that's a projection coping mechanism. If really... home is unsafe. Home is dangerous. But processing that thought... that would mean... nowhere is safe. Because out there is always more dangerous than home. The wilderness is always more dangerous than the camp. So, with rudimentary blind logic... if home is not safe... nowhere is safe. And the survival mechanisms really don't want to acknowledge that, that's a bit too scary to process. Instead, it doubles-down on home. It's like all of that unsafe feeling that is being absorbed from home is just being redirected over to the outside world, and keeping you trapped in a toxic environment. At least, that's what happened with me. Several times.

Maybe it's just some cases, I don't know. Maybe experiencing bigger trauma out in the world can sorta... make you look past the shit happening in your home, or normalize it.

To be honest, I'm a bit iffy anxiety-wise today. But I loved skating. I didn't really get to skate the box I wanted to today, it was kinda occupied the whole time. But I landed a few popped nollie shove its today, that was a new one. I really wanted to learn shove it off the box. That was my goal as I was riding home yesterday. I tried to do ollie onto the angled box, nollie off... but that was really weird and I couldn't really figure it out. You kinda have to go fast for that. Then I figured I could try nollie shove it, it's actually a bit easier to land. But I never landed it, I was too scared to commit. But overall, I am getting much more comfortable with shove its, just through sheer repetition. I think nollie shove it was the only new trick I landed today. I did try FS noseslide, and kinda got close to it... like I kinda got a feel for the angle I need to be at? But it's still spooky.

Welp, I guess the big thing for today is... anxiety. It's been growing all day. Now I'm looking at the thing I'm being anxious about the most - the tab with the art collective website open next to this. "Figure Drawing Social", $15, 6-8pm every other wednesday. And... I didn't buy the ticket. I didn't send the email. I'm legit nervous.

When I was in college, I got on stage in front of an audience wearing a crop top, silver spandex short-shorts, a clip-on bow tie and a wizard mask... and played improvised drums (which is not my primary instrument). I did not feel the level of stage fright that I do now. So... I'm going to explore that before I go to bed.

What am I afraid is going to happen that's... bad? My impulses are saying... "naw..." They're pushing me away. Why? "Because what's the point? You can't be an artist anyway." That's literally what ran through my head. "Why spend money on that? You're not 'allowed' to be a career artist anyway." Hi, Depression. Like some sullen emo kid sitting on a stoop chain-smoking, "what's the point of going to the stupid party, we're all going to die anyway..." Um... because life is worth living? ... Duh?... These are the people that could potentially help me with my art. Maybe introduce me to an artist who needs an assistant and has the extra cash to like... throw my way for that? Maybe they can help me find out what galleries my shit would work in, and how to go about that process? Maybe just fellow art minds to help me figure out what the fuck I'm doing and come up with a plan to make it work? Hell, maybe just fellow creatives to just fucking make art with. Remember that?

So... what I was going to do was buy the ticket, and email the collective and say I'm new to the area and I'm looking to meet new people, but rent is crazy and I can't really swing renting a studio right now - though I'd really like to if I can find a better arrangement in the future. And I want to meet other creatives and sorta get integrated in to the local art scene, but --- okay, I guess here's where I'm not sure... is saying "I've never joined a local art scene" oversharing? Like... I feel like I toggle between saying very little and telling my whole life story, and I struggle to find the median. --- I guess I'd tell them I'm planning to attend the drawing social (I mean, it has the word social in the name...) but I'm wondering if the... social part of it tends to be towards the beginning or the end? Because in my experience, nude model drawing sessions tended to be very... serious and studious, and everyone was sorta in their own internal world and drawing. It wasn't really like a potluck where you go around and meet people.

I dunno, that's where I'm at. So... I'm not against writing to them, I'm just... I've been feeling hesitation and avoidance. And really? Low risk potential, high gain potential. Fuck it.

Alright. Well... since this entire thing has, at its core, been a stream of consciousness project... I did not plan for today. This has been my final entry into this journal. And I am woefully unprepared. I don't know how to export all of my journals from here, and I didn't prepare anything special at all for this. Because, in my experience... that's just not really what life is.

There doesn't tend to be a big neon sign for endings. Not the big ones, the meaningful ones. Some do, like graduation... or a wedding... or a scheduled divorce or something. The manufactured ones, the planned ones. But like... the organic endings in life. They don't tend to be ceremonious. I'm obviously alluding to death here, but also... growing apart... or moving on... or falling out of what you thought was love... They tend to creep up on you. You just sorta look around you and just realize... "oh, I'm here now... huh..." Just profound change - sometimes gradual, sometimes instant, but always... in more of the form of a novel experience than one of grandiosity. A "new normal", as news stations decided to chant over and over until it was so saturated with cringe and forced fake smiles that I struggle to type it.

Tonight marks a full year of my typing these entries every night. In that time, I lost friends, I lost family, I lost my cat, I lost my car, I moved, I went through many different phases of art, I started practicing yoga daily, I stopped smoking weed, I became vegetarian, I started learning how to care for plants, and... I started learning how to go out into society again and meet new people. It's been a very transformative time. I feel like I've changed dramatically, but at the same time... I haven't changed at all. It's odd.

What now? Now... I'm planning to start an art blog under my art name. I'm planning to update my art progress and share my thoughts on issues that are a bit less personal than here. Maybe addressing some of the mental health stuff in more broad strokes, but yeah. And my stream of consciousness journal will be handwritten. I have one right over on my work desk that is reserved for it. It has a quote written on the first page, here, I'll share it with you.

"...if you have, as it were taken a 'vow of poverty', renounced control, and take delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless." -J.R.R. Tolkien

It's an interesting thought. I'm still digesting what it fully means to me.

So yeah, I guess... thank you for reading this if you did stumble across it. Thank you for participating in my life and this project which has been essentially... me sharing my raw personal expression in a way that is "putting it out there", but deliberately not shepherding people towards it. To see who naturally finds it, what naturally seeks it out. Like placing a paper boat in a stream and watching it float downriver to see what adventures it finds. I've met some cool people along the way, and I'm glad to have made those connections.

Take care of yourselves, and take care of each other.

<3 -DZ

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of thoughts #stream of consciousness #ptsd #Youtube

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dzpenumbra · 2 years ago

Text

8/21/23

Ugh, I just tried to take my contacts out because my right eye has been aching, and I got that thing where the contact just stuck to my eye and didn't want to come out... That really sucked.

I don't know why these contacts make my eyes hurt so much. My right eye specifically. Whenever I wear them, at the end of the day my eye is just like... aching in the back. I've had contacts forever and I've never had this problem before... and it's been going on since I got the damn things last summer. I even told the eye doctor about it and she just told me it would take me a bit to get used to them. Welp... it's been over a year... still not used to them...

I finally got to go skating today. It was fucking packed at the skatepark. There were like 15-20 people there pretty much the whole time. I spent a good 20-30 minutes at the beginning just sitting down by a ramp on the ground because it was just so hectic and busy, there didn't feel like there was even room to warm up.

I ended up skating for about 2 and a half hours, until it started to get pretty dark out. I'm exhausted. I landed two new tricks today. I got 50-50 to FS 180 out. I did it pretty slow, because the box is small... so I barely even rolled away... but I landed it. And I landed a flatground manual to shove it. I have never landed that trick before, and I landed it a few times. For some reason, I'm more confident committing to that trick than I am to just a normal shove it. But it has been hard for me to shift my weight properly to land it. 5-0 to shove it is like... one of my favorite tricks on snowskate, so it's kind of a no-brainer that I'd get to the skating equivalent eventually. And I have the same weight shift problem with the snowskate. Although, with a snowskate it's more the problem of having my weight too far back, and with skateboard it's more having my weight too far on my heel edge.

I didn't see anyone I had met before at the park, and I wasn't really feeling too extraverted. I still cheered when people landed cool tricks, despite barely anyone else doing it. I still laughed audibly when people did or said funny things. Like, I participated. But everyone was with their cliques. Except for one guy who was around my age, but light-years better than me skill-wise. And I tried to cheer him on, and we briefly made eye contact a few times, and we skated nearby obstacles for like an hour... but it never turned into a conversation. That's just how it goes sometimes, I guess we were both shy.

By around 7, nearly everyone had left. And some kids came over. And I mean... kids. They were sharing a scooter and just toodling around, and they were asking me questions... and I engaged with them and spoke to them like people, and answered their questions and all that. Then a few more kids came over. Then they started just like... playing tag on the obstacles and just standing around talking on the only obstacle I was skating... the A-frame box I was practicing noseslides on. (I actually started getting much more of my weight on top of them today.) I was super polite and just asked them if they minded moving, because I was skating that and I didn't want them to get hurt. And I think they took it as like... I was yelling at them to leave, and they all scattered. Right... Welp, not my fault, I was way nicer than like... 90% of the people around.

It's surprising how few kids there actually know park etiquette, like... don't sit on obstacles... period... don't just stand around in the middle of the park... keep an eye on the flow of traffic... take note of who is skating which obstacle in your path and time your runs so you don't get in their way... just be aware of where people are in general. Not one of these kids was wearing a helmet or anything and they were just outright oblivious of the multitude of skaters around them. It's a small miracle they didn't get hurt, and not to the fault of the skaters either. Because they'd just drop into a ramp without looking first. They'd just barrel along on a scooter without seeing if the coast was clear first. Just reckless shit. And you know how that ends... some little girl on a scooter breaks her arm because she was being reckless... then the parents sue the fucking town... and then before you know it, everyone has to wear helmets or they just shut the whole park down.

I love how skaters are targeted, as though we are the ones that are going around threatening litigation or something. It's so fucking weird. The number one bullshit made up excuse people use for kicking you out of a spot is "if you get hurt you're going to sue us", it's such a long-standing trope that Andy Schrock put out a shirt that says "I'm not going to sue you, dude." Good lord, it's just... it's never happened in history. The people who will sue? It's the people I ran into today.

One of the kids who was playing in the skatepark was walking back on the sidewalk as I was leaving. I had to pass him and who I assume was his father... and some other guy, they were all walking towards me, facing me. And these people were completely oblivious that a man on a skateboard was coming directly at them, and made zero effort to like... make a little room on the sidewalk. This was to the point where I was legit hitting the brakes on my board because I was afraid I was going to have to get off the board, pick it up and walk around them on the grass. And this was an asphalt path that's much wider than a normal sidewalk. Just... really kinda rude to be walking 3-wide and just... not indicate whatsoever that I'm going to have to change my trajectory.

There was what looked like a middle school baseball game going on or some shit. I guarantee these people were there for that. The third guy finally yielded and I barely had space to squeeze by, I had to fucking weave between them, which was awkward as fuck. And this dude fucking yells super loud right behind me "DO A TRICK". And I had been skating for like 2.5 hours, I'm soaked in sweat, I have headphones in, I have a backpack on with my trick board in it, I'm on a hybrid board that weighs 14 fucking pounds. I get off my board and pick it up so I can go under or around the gate that's blocking the walkway, and I don't even turn around, I just say "I don't do tricks on this board, it's too heavy." And this dude, completely oblivious and now... glaringly obvious to me that he's fuckin drunk as hell... screams "DO A KICKFLIP." (Thanks, The Berrics...) And I just fucking ride away, no look back, nothing. I just put my music back on, get on my board and ride away. And I hear him like... getting upset and talking shit behind me.

Way to ruin my session, man. And for the next two or three blocks, all I could think was... 1). Do NOT yell things at people who are riding skateboards unless it's a goddamn emergency, that is so fucking ridiculously unsafe. 2). This guy, who gets belligerently drunk and starts screaming and shit-talking strangers... in a public park... at a kid's baseball game... in broad daylight... in front of children and families... is considered more of a "contributing member of society" than I am. Because he is likely employed.

And that stormcloud has been hovering over my head since then. The inspiring confidence of landing new tricks? The relief of finally feeling... at home on four-wheels again, feeling natural on a board. It just got completely washed out by that idea that like... I am looked at as a parasite and a leech on society... when I bust my ass for nothing, I get zero appreciation, I get zero compensation, I get zero recognition. I constantly have people claiming they have my best interests in mind gleefully cheering me on every time I get a panic impulse to get any fucking random job off the internet just to get some income coming in and create distance from my parents. And yet when I talk about actually building the career and life that I've been building steadily for several years... my life... they sorta roll their eyes and treat it like a fucking hobby. Like I'm a kid telling them I'm going to be an astronaut someday, and their bitter dream-shattered asses just roll their eyes and go... "yeah... astronaut... welp, don't forget to come up with a plan B..."

It's one thing to give up on your own dreams and settle for something less. It's another to kill someone else's.

And I got all of this... because despite my talents, despite my skills, despite my intelligence and wisdom... I am less of a contributing member to society than some drunk asshole who screams "do a kickflip" at a 36 year old man who was clearly just trying to go home after a long session.

Well, society. You choose. You choose what kind of a culture you are nourishing. And if you just want mindless laborers that have very little awareness that other human beings are even sentient, let alone have their own thoughts, feelings and experiences... keep the bar around there.

I'm a bit upset, if you couldn't tell... XD I just felt like... I felt like I was in high school again or some shit. Like... you really think yelling at a skateboarder to do a trick for you... like they owe that to you or something? If you want to watch tricks, go 25 yards forward and fucking watch them at the skatepark. I'm not some fucking monkey that's here to dance for you. It's really demeaning, and it just really felt like... like I was kinda being mocked. Like... no "hey, how's it going? Can you do any tricks on that thing?" Just "DANCE FOR ME NOW." It just screamed Idiocracy, and it legit scared me. It shook me.

It made me again feel very alien. Very different from all these other people around me. And again, I fear that I'm just... a different breed. That I'm a rare breed - I know that could sound a bit arrogant, but like... I was literally told that, and it's been really hard for me to accept. And I'm afraid I'm just not going to find people like me, because there aren't a lot of us and we're really spread out.

In the hours since I've been home... incredibly tired and a bit sore... I've just been going in and out of moments where I keep thinking... how am I going to make this work? Am I going about this right? Think of it this way... and this is an interesting thought and something not a single fucking therapist or job counselor has talked to me about.

These people think if you just go get some random job, it literally doesn't matter what it is - working at an antique store, working at a vegetarian restaurant, working as a teacher at a community college - that this act alone will benefit the furthering of my art career. This logic chain has not been explained to me whatsoever short of "you might meet someone". Which... feels like a literal dice roll. Like... praying that you're the actress that gets discovered by Nicolas Cage at a fucking coffee shop or something. You really think I'm putting my fate in the hands of random chance to that degree?

So... what I would need to do... if I were to get some job to supplement and move my career forward... I would need to be very intentional about what I choose. Say I want to meet people who could be potential clients, I would need to be around clientele that can afford my pieces. You think I'm going to find someone who is willing to buy a $2000 bird drawing in a fucking community college class? Honestly? Honestly? I don't want to be goddamn rude, but like... BRO. So... if they don't consider the factor of like... who I would be around when I get that job... then they're not really thinking about that at all. Which is literally the only way that my art is connected to that job. PLUS, I would be subtly trying to "hock my shit" while working at a different establishment. You really think that's going to go over well with my boss?

I like the idea of being an artist's assistant. I like the idea of working in a tattoo shop, maybe... depends on the crowd that works there, you know? I don't mind doing jobs that actually put me in a community that might actually be able to afford my shit. Because... people who can afford tattoos have access to money. That shit ain't cheap (unless it's cheap). They also have a passion for art. Being tied into a hippie/new-age community would be ideal... but that gets messy... because die-hard hippies do not have cash... and the midlife crisis housewives may not really show my work the respect it deserves.

I guess my point is... I need to be intentional with my moves, or else I just committed to giving the lion's share of my life and labor away in exchange exclusively for money... with zero plan of how to move forward with my art. That's a big net loss.

I'm talking about my art a lot. Because I'm kinda teetering on an existential crisis with it again. I swear, every time I look at Instagram and see my art... I just go "dude, wow, I forgot how good that is. Fuck you, Depression, that came out really good." And then like a day or two later... "I can't draw shit, I'm not good enough, what's the point." I swear, so many artists deal with this. It really sucks.

I've been chomping at the bit to talk about my art and where it's going for like 3 consecutive journals now... at least. I've literally been stopping myself from talking about work. I just... I wish I was exaggerating... I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks I can make this work. I can make pretty cool jewelry, I'd really like to carve stone and wood pendants, amulets, talismans, that kinda shit, like centerpieces for a necklace. I can work with ink, pencil, colored pencil, paint, you name it. I really like this clothing tattoo idea, I really feel like it could go somewhere. And I also do fine art stuff too, and am willing to stream the entire process. And I can give individual lessons from complete beginner level to some pretty advanced techniques, not just with several mediums of art... but with several instruments for music lessons, too. And I'd like to get back into carving walking sticks, I enjoyed that a lot. And again, I would really like to get into doing tarot readings. I can do a lot of shit. It's really hard to believe with all of that on the menu... that none of it is of value.

I don't think anyone else I've met in a support role actually believes that someone can earn a living making their own creative pieces. Maybe they don't know anyone who has done it? Maybe they don't care about that career that much? Maybe they're just pessimists? I don't fucking know, man. But I'll tell ya... nothing says "I support you" like... "my daughter is a photographer, you know... and she does wedding photography now, and she learned to find ways to be creative with it." Okay. People find ways to enjoy maximum security prisons. That's not fucking freedom. That's being forced to live a different life than you have trained for... because motherfuckers won't support your real skill and talent, they will only support it when it benefits them. Because everyone is so fucking self obsessed that they won't support an artist simply because that artist makes great art... they will only support that artist... if they can find a way to exploit that artist's talents for their own personal gain. Like sweet-talking them into designing a logo for you. Or showering them with compliments until they design a tattoo for you... and then you don't pay them because... "oh, we're friends man, really? You're gonna do me like that?"

What the dude at the park kinda rattled loose... along with the role of Judas in Jesus's story in a spirituality lecture I was listening to while making dinner... Was this idea that... I'm really never going to be able to be free. What these "supporters" don't believe in... is that I will be able to earn enough to support my own survival while exercising my own creative freedom. I will be forced to sacrifice my vision, to create the vision of others, to do labor for others, whatever it might be. I don't think they can actually envision me going through the entire process from inspirational spark... to gathering supplies... to working... to completion... to display... to compensation... without someone else's ideas coming in and making it work. Spoiler alert - the only thing missing is compensation. And literally any one of these people could have helped with that. But they just happened to be therapists, with ethical boundaries. And that somehow also prevented them from showing half an ounce of interest in what it is I actually do, what I actually make. The more I think back, the less I'm certain that any of them had actually seen a single piece that I had made, let alone asked me what's going on behind the scenes with it... which is really the meat-and-potatoes of my work.

The Path is not some flashy Michael Bay clickbait video, it's an intellectual piece comparing a visual representation of the act of getting lost in the woods and reorienting yourself with... the process of learning and developing new skills or knowledge. It was like a visual metaphor for synaptic activity. The owl in my profile pic here isn't just a random bird I picked, it was a specific species that I had several unforgettable personal experiences with. It was the animal I saw in my mind's eye the first time I experimented with a deep meditative divination practice. I literally communicated with one and called it and its family across the pond to me at my old house using owl calls I learned as a kid.

And this act of making each piece be very deliberately important and resonant... it's been a growing trend for me, it's a staple in most of my work. Yet I guarantee none of those "supporters" who claimed to be helping me with the trajectory of my life... even fucking asked me what I did or what it was about.

How many successful people, people who have achieved their creative goals, do you think listened to people who gave them advice... who had never seen their work before?

So yeah, I'm trying to keep the motivational speaker in my head going... the "follow your dreams", "connect with the right people", "don't ever give up" mentality. But man, every fucking time... someone comes along and just... makes me feel like a spoiled, entitled, starry-eyed child. When I don't know how to do fucking anything else, man. I just want to make shit. And get better at making shit.

Yeah, I'm cutting myself off here, because I've gone pretty deep into depresso-zone. No one is saying this stuff to me right now, I'm just dealing with a trauma response. Someone yelling at me directly behind me in public and trying to like... bring attention to me and put me on display... when I just wanted to quickly and quietly skate past without disturbing their game... It set off feelings of being unsafe. My first reaction was "don't yell at people on skateboards or try to get their attention, it's super unsafe." Clear as day, yeah? And then my second reaction was... how I am a drain on society and that jerk passes the citizen test. It's a linear connection. Shock to system -> Feel unsafe -> Feel like a failure and a drain on "society" -> Neurotically reassess career path. Something tells me... "society"... ain't "society"... Something tells me it's my family. And something tells me... this is PTSD being all sneaky-like and trying to sweet talk me into thinking I'm being productive and proactive with my career. But really... I'm kinda just venting emotions, I guess.

This isn't to discount anything I've said in this so far. I do feel that way. I do feel strange and rare compared to the average person. I do feel like I have not been treated fairly by those claiming to support me, and I really really do feel like I deserve better. And I really feel like I have the talent, passion, drive, flexibility and will to learn that is required to be a career artist. But really?

The problem I had with the children... was the same problem I had with the drunk guy. I was just trying to be nice, and polite, and skate, and trying hard to not disturb anyone and not intrude on their experience. And just like the children, this guy decided to put a spotlight on me... and misrepresent me... and make me into an asshole in his eyes. And that just... makes me sad and a bit hurt. I really try every day to be courteous and kind, encouraging and thoughtful. And it's almost never appreciated or even recognized. But to like... twist it against me. That set off some alarm bells and made me feel unsafe.

Welp, this was unexpected. I'm glad I processed it though, I do feel a lot more calm now. I worked on an animation tonight. I had started this thing in Blender, the concept of like... a small circle that grows and divides and then the clones grow and divide... the whole mitosis thing. It keeps playing in my head over and over, I haven't been able to get it out. So... I sat down and started working on it today. But I decided to start from scratch in Krita instead of doing grease pencil in Blender. Yeah, with Blender I can interpolate and copy objects and shit, but like... I don't have a smooth workflow with that. The only reason I would do that would be to save time, and in the end... my inexperience ends up costing me time, so... I decided to go with hand-drawn animation.

I have this picture in my head that is sorta inspired by the Fractal bubble piece, where it's a seed that starts cloning itself... and then they split and split and fill the screen, then the screen zooms out as they keep growing, and the zoom goes out so far that you can't see the bubbles anymore, they become a cellular membrane... and then the membrane grows... and forms different types of cells --- that was one from yesterday that I'm really interested in... learning different types of plant cells so that I have more of a vocabulary of shapes to use in this type of abstract work. --- So the design is kinda showing... first individual growth at a super simple level on a microscale, then growth of the membrane itself, then different forms that the membrane takes... serving as a cell wall composed of thousands of micro cells. And then it can keep zooming further, to show those cells creating an organism of some kind. I'm thinking plant-like.

So... I mean... who am I to fight my muse tonight? I did that for like 2 or 3 hours. It went well. I'm just doing marker frames first, then tweening after I get a good idea of where it's going.

I have also been very inspired to do a series of self portraits of what my anxiety, my trauma and my depression look like. To give those personas a face. I really wanted to do that tonight. I'm just... I'm not there yet. I can't... see them yet. I can hear them sometimes, but I can't really see them, like mind's-eye see them. That's usually when I know it's time to start concept sketching.

That's how all my art usually comes to me, either in dreams or in a sudden flash. Like... I would be driving or showering or walking or laying down to go to sleep or whatever and a super vivid image would just zap into my mind's eye. And it just... it has a different feeling than like... memories or trauma flashbacks or "oh, I should remember to take the trash out later" kinda "notifications". It has an intense gravitation to it, it's compelling and dream-like. It's usually a very emotional experience, and within moments I'm frantically scrambling for a pencil to write it down.

Today, that was the cell division animation. It just kept playing in my head in different iterations and I just decided... "yeah, I'll give it a go"... and I put on some "easter eggs in the Dark Knight Trilogy" video and off I went. And the drawing was effortless and the time melted away without me noticing at all.

Anyway, yeah. That was pretty much my day. Now I really want to go shower to get this gross sweat crust off of me... and get to bed at a somewhat decent hour. I am absolutely utterly exhausted.

Before I go, I just want to take a moment to deliberately celebrate my skating accomplishments today. I feel like I kinda breezed over them. 1). I feel so much more comfortable on my board now. I feel very natural riding, and comfortable riding faster now too. 2). I felt way more comfortable hopping into FS 50-50s today. I felt like I was just... hopping onto a box, rather than the usual "oh, I'm grinding on the coping, I could slip out". And just the act of being more comfortable and being on top of the grind made it much easier to lock in. 3). I landed manual to shove it, which I was never even planning to do. I did shove its when there were people at the park, which was pretty big for me. And I did several normal shove its and landed them somewhat comfortably. I'm still iffy about the landings, I get really unsteady and weird... like I don't trust my own board rotations... But just like ollieing onto the box, with enough repetition it will eventually just become a thing that I do.

All I need to do is get the boneless 360 back and I will have completely eclipsed my peak skating ability back in college.

Alright, shower time.

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of thoughts #stream of consciousness #ptsd

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