unlostperson

[unlostperson]

Do I exist offline?

The upbeat choice of music in this coffee shop is killing my broody vibe that has come upon me as I was sitting at home and frustrated and decided i needed to get out and I drove here and thought about the loneliness and the fact that no one has messaged me in weeks, only two guys who wanted to have sex with me, and when I decided I was worth more than that they stopped trying and I went silent. I thought about this on my drive here in the dark winter night post snow. Do I have connection offline? Do I even exist offline? 

I stood in my room changing black baggy sweatpants and black sweatshirt into jeans and my most colorful shirt, throwing on some concealer to cover up the bags that have developed under my eyes and a little blush and bronzer to make it look like my skin has seen the sun even though it hasn’t for the past three weeks, then threw my purse together and left

I could almost cry thinking about it. The answer I feel is no. I don’t. Do I hate when my roommates always walk in the house on the phone? Is that the little annoyance I feel when I can hear them in their room, the little muffles of them talking to someone. Who are they talking to all the time? Their friends and family? Where are mine? 

Family: they don’t exist. They’re all dead, even so when my dad was alive, I only checked in with him once a week and only more if there were logistics involved like when I was taking the train home for break and if I had the forms form school for the taxes if i needed a refund deposited, etc. And friends? I don’t really have any. And I feel bad in saying that because there are people who maybe every other month check in with me and I with them. My best friend, I schedule calls with and I don’t know if she calls me her best friend. But do I know what they do on a daily basis, do they tell me about their days? What even is friendship and connection? 

I’ve always felt alone, that is my core wound and I hide behind independence instead of loneliness. I always told myself that no one wanted to do the things I wanted to do but they did, just with other people. It’s why people at work always hang out without me, it’s why I’m never invited and trying too hard to be invited only repelled them more. I once decided I’d be going on a road trip starting in the midwest and reaching the PCH to go up to Seattle and instead of calling anyone, I announced it on my feed, and instead of checking in with me during my trip, my “friends” DM’d me to say they’d be following along. They’d like my posts and comment so cool and don’t get me wrong there was more excitment and freedom felt than loneliness, I talked to myself and talked into my phone and conversed with my journal. 

But after many trips alone, I notice the loneliness when I’m there and the loneliness was so big on the last trip I went on I couldn’t run from it or be excited by anything so I ended up going home. I was in the city for 24 hours instead of 4 days. What have I done to be so disconnected? What is wrong with me? What have I done to be only a figure in the mind and not a friend? To be so unlikable? What body language and social cues have just not stuck? I don’t understand. Where do I go now? 

When put in such a position I am then responsible for putting my life online in order to keep my viewers, little as they might be, updated. And it’s for ME to feel connected to them. When someone messages me “i’ve been loving the content” i know that someone is watching, someone is seeing me for however little it means. They know when my account is deleted because i do this every once in a while when I’m in a major depressive episode. And they mention it when I get back online. When I can get high off the pain of disappearing when I feel like I’ve been lost in some way. A cry for help, I think, why don’t you see me? Why don’t you care? Why doesn’t anyone call and say you’ve been missing from my feed, from my life, are you okay? But they don’t, and I reinstall my account and I post on my story and get on with my life with the little bit of knowing that 100 people have viewed my story and whether or not they were just skipping through I exist for a moment in the world.

[unlostperson]

january is one of those months where you experience every feeling on the human spectrum and you just have to go about your day like that isn't happening

[unlostperson]

If you’re reading this, know that finding the right therapist could take time and you WILL eventually find one that works really well for you to hit the sweet spots of deep healing

I’ve sobbed all week

me & my therapist are doing the real work to help me be a better me and live the life I want and I’m so grateful I’ve kept pushing at it and kept trying again at therapy

my inner child is this sad, sensitive girl who just wanted to be able to tear down the walls and armor she built and I’ve built to feel safe. Me & her just want a squeeze-you-so-tight hug that holds space for every spectrum of emotion and for that to be okay, it’s human and it’s okay to have flaws and for someone and yourself to hold the shadow parts of you

today during my journaling I stopped to hug a picture of my parents so tightly when I was writing And I legit got that shaking kind of cry and release my whole body got hot and I stayed that way for 20 minutes

Journaling:

What do I miss when others don’t acknowledge the sad little girl in me?

Love, Connection, Soothing - I want a hug (The hold-you-tight type of hug.) and for someone else to tell me it’s going to be okay, unconditional love, someone to see all parts of me, I want it to be okay to cry, to feel fragile and that be okay because someone else is able to take some of the weight of everything off. Because they’re holding you up. Someone to acknowledge that life is full of a spectrum of emotions and it’s okay to be seen experiencing all of them. When people don’t acknowledge the sad, little girl in me it feels like I’m being distanced. It feels like I can only be loved as the put-together me. It’s like when a kid acts out more because they’re not getting the attention they want/need? Am I self-sabotaging to make a statement/acting out?

[unlostperson]

chris maggio

[unlostperson]

[unlostperson]

Dele Olanubi

[unlostperson]

[unlostperson]

1. You must let the pain visit. 2. You must allow it teach you. 3. You must not allow it overstay.”

— Ijeoma Umebinyuo

[unlostperson]

“Stay single until someone changes your view and makes you question why you were ever single, until then don’t even entertain the thought”

[unlostperson]

What do you really know and believe about growing from the pain and being able to live a happy life regardless?

What I know about stories like this: I got into reading because of memoirs - which are typically mostly stories about growing from the author's biggest problems, hardest moments in their life. Some stories I've read recently: Insomniac City - a big plot line is how Bill Hayes lost his first love, moved to NYC and finds love again with Oliver Sacks. I just finished a fiction book: A Man Called Ove - he's suicidal after loosing his wife and attempts many times, but it always interrupted by his new neighbors. It took one woman to change his whole life and community, to give him a family, purpose, and to give him love.

I cannot seem to hold the strength and resilience others see in me, the beauty, the intelligence, the potential. I cannot seem to accept the awe of others. I feel like a sad, emotional kid trying so desperately to be better, to still do the things I feel are important. I don't know how to explain this next thought but I think its sad that this shadow part of me is not acknowledged by other people in my life. I wrote a whole book about my thoughts and people read it and said how depressing the book was as if it wasn't me? No one asked if I was okay or if I felt better or anything. And I don't know, it feels like people think I’m okay all the time or expect me to be all the good things they say about me but I wish it would be acknowledged that this is hard because it feels really hard. 

I know we talked about how I feel what I’ve been through has irrevocably changed me and my life. I tend to think of it with negative connotations. I feel scarred and tired. I look at other people and see a blissful ignorance I am jealous of. If I deem them successful in friendships, relationships, and even work, I look at them as having a head start because they had a slightly less bumpy path than I had. I think many people underestimate what having loving parents, a roof over their head, and an extended community does to a person’s belief in themself and their path in life. Even in grief therapy, I was met with others that were supposed to be the same as me, a loss of a parent, yet they had different feelings and thoughts about grief. And they still had one parent left. They had husbands and wives and families and children. And all I’ve ever had is myself. 

And I wonder if I changed my belief in myself and my life, it would change the rest of it. I’m scared that taking that big leap of faith to fix that would leave me with nothing left to do about it. My comfort in this state of being leaves me with room to dream, but what if it all fails?

[unlostperson]

There are two sides to my lust, my rage at men, feeling less than and not enough, their constant advances yet never in respect

I wanted to invite a guy over and fuck him and have him fuck me. to let him fulfill the disrespect. To have my face pressed into my wall and my arms held back as someone fucked me as he whispered in my ear, with a tang of darkness and tobacco on his lips, almost under his breath he asked if I liked it as he slowed down his thrusts and then harder and harder, as I tensed and writhed he told me to take it. 

I wanted to tease another one for hours, withholding my body- the tight, warm and wet-- the ass that calls more attention to me than any other part of my appearance or personality, I wanted to make them shake, use their body for my own pleasure, edge him, bite him, degrade him, kick him out of my room when i finished, only when I finished and not give a shit about who they were or what they wanted. Because he was just a tool, an object 

But I'm lying. What I really want is depth. I want a soft and slow and savory, sensual encounter of passion. I want someone to stop time with me. To carefully remove my top while staring into my eyes. To run their hands over my arms, my chest, to study where the freckles are on my back as he took off my bra. Then to remove my pants so careful as I were a delicate object, not to move too hastily, to graze his hands over my hips and slowly glide his fingers along the sides of my thong, pulling the lace a little, adding warmth between my legs from a playful touch as he then slide them off my legs and onto the floor. I’d want to be embraced and kissed as if this was his last chance to love a woman, as if I’d been the love of his life forever and he couldn’t be apart from me, not even inches of space in a room. I’d want to straddle him and have his chest pressed up against me skin to skin, wanting to be one body together, to give eachother head without rush with playfulness, to move together in deep thrusts and the feeling of fullness and connection and nurturing, to have kiss marks and slight bite marks left all over my body, to be devoured for hours, a little drunk on sex and love and to be together after all the desire washed away, to have our legs intertwined and a warm touch caressing my face an lips and thumbs gliding over my eyes and the back of my neck as I fell into a sleep from the deliciously, overwhelming sex, to awaken when the sun set only to be still interlocked, still touching, kissing – i want it to feel the same for him 

[unlostperson]

the soft love, where you put your hand on table corners so they won't get hurt, where you bring them coffee everytime you go over to meet them, where you pass by a florist and think of them because they love flowers, where do you find that kind of love?

[unlostperson]

Perhaps one did not want to be loved

so much as to be understood

[unlostperson]

Dec 15: Wanting to be rich, hating people but mostly myself, and other notes

I got up at 8:55AM to the sound of the blender screeching through the whole house. I actually find this time quite considerate as it represents the last possible moment my roommate would wait to wake me with such a noise, allowing me to sleep in but not allowing her to start work without her smoothie.

I put on my 777 necklace that just arrived the night before. Yes the night before my boss's girl friend hosted an event at the restaurant I bartend at. Even working the event was fun, I could imagine all the women in attendance had a great time. I thought a lot about those women who started and built businesses and influence in their field. The confidence it takes to do so and how they all intimidated me. I told myself they all had two parents and money, enough to build a secure person to launch a successful life. Logically, I know there is some little part of me that can and *will* be in a similar position too. I like to blame my life for not being there already instead of blaming myself. Sometimes I hate other people because of this story. In this moment, I'd like to acknowledge growth because last night and today I am genuinely happy for those ladies. They inspire me.

My parents are dead and they've been dead. I've let that define almost every problem I have about my life. And while it does affect a lot, I think it's time I start learning to not let myself be a victim. I really don't want to be, but I've created this story that everything will be exponentially more difficult for me to do, so I don't do it. I lay on my bed and then move to my couch to watch tik tok, something I find myself less and less entertained by just more distracted by, until I want a bacon and egg sandwich on sourdough toast so much that I find the motivation to move. I muster up the courage to ask a friend to hang out before I go.

I circle the store for a bit thinking about what I'd actually like to eat before heading out to my car, ice cream strategically placed so I could reach in and open the box, before I know it I am home and sitting on my couch scrolling. The morning passes and I've eaten a whole box of TJ mango cream bars for breakfast (six to be exact if that isn't something you'd know). Mindless. Even though my goal is to be more mindful.

I made a choice to go to the gym. I feel depressed because all my current choices are not the life I want. I feel overwhelmed with change, but what if I did the hard parts? What if I let myself trust that those choices I don't make are the ones that lead me to a happier me? Making the choice to do the habits I think will give me a better life at 4pm is better than nothing.

I listened to oversharing at the gym and it said something very concise about what I'd wish to change:

Growing and healing is about slowly learning the beliefs you had when you were a child and doing the work to understand why they don't work anymore. You can do the work to create new beliefs and neural pathways to detach your sense of self from your family or upbringing; this is not what defines you. Part of the process is greif and a sort-of victimhood in stating, "I am the way I am because of this." You get to choose your path. The key is to find the pause between your survival instinct and then move forward in your new set of beliefs.

<3

[unlostperson]

[unlostperson]

[unlostperson]