I don't know anything anymore, so I'm going to stop trying to figure things out and just float. I'm a mentally ill basket case so overthinking things is kind of my one and only skill, but I'll just have to work around that. Y'all probably have no idea what I'm taking about, which is cool, because neither do I half the time. But lately I've been really stressed out. I've relapsed with self-harm, I've been basically having an emotional breakdown a day. I don't think I'm alone in that regard because everybody has been stressing the fuck out for...a long time, honestly. Still, I'm at a point in my life where I never thought I'd be. I don't really recognize myself, know who I am or who I want to be, or where I'm going. So, I guess...I'm in my early twenties? I don't know. I didn't anticipate being this person. I can't say I hate myself, I understand certain reasons why I am the way I am, why it's so hard for me to connect with people or let anybody in, why I'm such an easier target for addiction and destructive behaviors, but understanding doesn't necessarily absolve me or make me feel any better, you know? At the end of the day, all of the questions we ask ourselves - Am I a good person? Do I have a soul? Is there a God? Am I wasting my life? - are all in our heads, and they'll stay that way, like they always have, until we die. So it doesn't really matter. But then again, knowing it doesn't matter also doesn't make me feel better. Or make me any less guilty for existing. I read in this Grimes interview recently where she said something like, she's sorry she can't do anything more useful to society than sing or produce, and I can relate to that. I've never really felt useful/necessary. I never didn't feel useful or necessary growing up, but I hadn't fallen into a void of depression, apathy, and emotional trauma at that point, either, so I don't know. This post isn't meant to sound as angsty and whiny as it does, but I find it really fucking crazy that there are people who wake up and go through their day and don't have to contend with the constant urge to end their own lives and/or do fucked up shit, that people get through a day without having an intrusive thought or purposely chasing down their own darkest memories even though they know it isn't a good idea. I don't know what it is to not be in the middle of a crisis, because everything is a crisis for me. The fact that I exist, in this universe, in a physical human form, is a crisis. I am not equipped to deal with this shit. I'm also not equipped to kill myself. I mean, yeah, I want to on a daily basis (awkward lmao) but I'm not about to rush out and do it. I don't know what stops me, if it's just fear of physical pain or a natural survival drive, but something does. I'm not going to act like I don't self-harm, because I feel like hiding it does more harm than good and, honestly, I'd rather be open about the fact that if you want to even try and recover, you're going to fucking relapse a few times. I relapse. At least I'm trying to do better for myself. Which is all any of us are in a position to do, honestly. All I'm saying is that a lot of people tell me I seem like I have things figured out, from an outside perspective. But I don't. I'm stoned every day, I have literally one friend, who I rarely see, and 99% of my time is spent in one room, in the dark, writing or beating myself up for not writing. I'm 21, I still live at home, I'm borderline and ocd as fuck, I'm not happy with my career, and I have zero close personal relationships. But I'm still here. I'm counting that as a win even though I don't particularly like myself or my life, because I'm alive and I'm fighting and I'm pretty sure I'm going to look my demons in the eye and kick their asses, any day now. I don't believe in happily ever after. I don't believe I'm going to wake up one day a month or a year or five years from now and magically be happy. But I do know that if I do wake up a year or five years from now, it's going to be the same way I do now - fighting. I know that I've been through some of my darkest moments and woken up the next morning even though ever fiber of my being was screaming that I wouldn't, or that I couldn't. I want to be a better person, I'm fighting to be a better person, and I'm serving paranormal romance escapism realness along the way. That's all I know how to do, so I'll make it work. The truth is I'm not writing this post for anybody else. I'm writing it for myself, to let myself know it's okay to keep moving.
I'm thinking about being alone. I've been alone a lot lately. I stay up all night, alone, working, and nap for most of the day. When I'm not working or sleeping, I'm home alone because my parents both work during the day. I'll only be going into the city once every week during this semester, so I'll be spending days on end alone.
I'm thinking about every day being school work and then regular work, and how it will be long hours at my desk and late nights doing stuff I'd rather not. And I wonder how I'm not gonna go crazy from boredom. From apathy.
But you know, I'm very good at making things good. I think as long as I can make coffee and play with my cats for a minute while I wait for the water to boil, as long as I can walk down to the river everyday and watch how winter creeps in, as long as I keep dancing to my new playlists while I'm home alone, I'll be okay. I just need to let the little things in. I need to keep reminding myself I'm getting a lot done: even if it feels like I'm sitting in my room every day...
I'm in a lot of pain right now. Did I break a leg? Cut myself? Sprain something? Nope: I went to a friend's house and got a lot of flea bites. They're swollen, because I'm allergic to flea bites, and itchy, because they're flea bites, and it sucks. Fuck fleas. Honestly, they can go to hell.
Flea bites aside, though, I've been having a (mostly) good time, as of late. But life is still weird, in the way it's always been weird, and between bursts of goodness and fun, life has been a cloudy mess of nostalgia and dread lately. Basically, it's almost fall.
To start with the good, I've had a great past couple of weeks. I promised to post more about my vacation and then never did, so to start I guess I should get into that: around a year and a half ago, my grandmother and aunt (who is not actually my aunt, but who I've always called my aunt anyway) moved out of the city to my aunt's home town, which is called Campbellton, and is a four hour drive away. I haven't seen them since. My brother, parents, and cousin had all been up to visit, and I hadn't. Since my grandma's health isn't great I've been really anxious to see her again since they left, and this past month I finally got the chance to go up with my cousin Amelia for a five day trip. The four hour drive ended up being eight hours, both ways (thanks, bus company routes!) and the trip was...wild. Good wild.
I never thought I'd get my first tattoo on a trip to Grandma's house, but I went ahead and did it anyway. Bad ass, right? Top that with a wolf and some store-bought basket food, Red Riding Hood!
Anyway, the trip was good. Amelia and I have been best friends since we were born (I was born exactly seven days before her) and we spent most of our early years together. Who we are is irrevocably tied with each other and, honestly, we're pretty damn similair: we're both creative, chaotic, passionate night-owls with a tenancy to bite off more than we can chew and get ourself into trouble like a fish gets wet.
My memories are scattered and hazy like the smoke from my grandmother's endless stream of refrigerated cigarettes: Amelia laughing out the open window of the car as we swerved around a corner, the hiss of my grandmother's ancient, bald cat as he batted at my face for daring to pet him, the fast-track, clipped accent of my aunt's seemingly infinite line up of sisters. My aunt, Josie, and her sisters, took me on a walk every night. Amelia tagged along sometimes, but other times it would be just me and Josie and one or two of her sisters, strolling along. we would point out houses we liked, tell old stories about each other, or ourselves, they pointed our local landmarks and recounted wisdom they'd picked up along their path through the years. I was consistently amazed by some of the little nuggets of humanity and wisdom I found among the cast of my vacation, which was mostly middle aged to senior women. But it was a young vacation, too. It was Milly flirting with the hot guy at the Sobey's checkout counter, it was me walking through the dark town alone in the rain, dreading coming home. It was diving back into the current at Tidehead beach and feeling new memories wash over my head like the cool water, swallowing me up to spit me out again as something new, something both older and younger.
And for the weird? Coming home was a struggle. I knew/know, in my heart of hearts, that this could be the last time I ever see/saw my Grandmother. I might have the opportunity to go up again in October with my brother, and if I do, I'll take it. If she lives through the winter, I'm going again next summer, too. Nan has been in bad health for years, and she's survived a lot longer than any of us thought she would, but I know that no matter how long she lives, I'll always regret not spending more time with her when the end inevitably comes. I've already lost one grandmother. So has Amelia. We both knew what we might be leaving behind when we climbed out of Josie's car and into the cold morning to get back on our bus. We knew, when Josie climbed onto the bus after us, tears streaking her face, to hug us again and press twenty dollar bills into our hands, what had pushed her to come after us for one final goodbye.
We both know what it's like to lose someone to time, to realize that your last goodbye was the last goodbye. I still remember Amelia's hands shaking as we hovered over our Grandmother's bedside in the dark of morning, wrapping her in hugs and whispering our goodbyes to her half-seeping form before heading out for the long trip home.
Something was coming to an end. A chapter we'd been reading so long we'd fallen in love with it. And this trip? This trip was the final scene of our beloved chapter. I know that I'm going to remember this summer, and this vacation, for the rest of my life, in some capacity.
It hasn't been all bad since I got back, either. My tattoo is now healed, and while I did miss the Saint John Pride parade, I've been out a few times. The other day I met up with my best friend, Kuma, and a friend of ours named Kevin, so we could go into the city for the day. The plan was to hit the library and hang out sketching, but instead, after checking my bank account for eight bucks and realizing I had one hundred and fifty, it turned into a wild day of walking, shopping, laughter, and sunlight that sears into the memory of the day so that you can almost feel it on your skin when you look back on it.
I bought a bunch of books, and a bunch of incense, and tea, and snacks, and lunch, and...okay, maybe I got myself a new pipe. My old one was broken, the mouthpiece is twisted. Her name is Lady Starship. The new pipe? Not twisted. Not rusted or burnt or damaged in any way. She's perfect, gleaming black metal, and her name is Black Cobra. I also got these new cigarettes (if you can call them that) that are menthol free and nicotine free.
Cute, right? I'm not a big smoker - I mean, sure, I smoke pot sometimes - and I've been known to indulge in a cherry cigar every other month, but cigarettes? Not my thing. Lung disease. Yellow fingers. Nasty. these, though? We found them in the organic food store while we were getting incense and tea and thought they're be fun to try. We chain-smoked them in Kuma's room while getting shitfaced drunk on home made wine and breaking in my new pipe. I'm not entirely sold. Kuma really liked them, since she doesn't smoke weed or actual cigarettes they make a nice, healthy alternative - but I'm not too fond. The smoke was really, really irritating, to the point where I was full on crying because ouch, my eyes! and I couldn't really taste the vanilla. And, you know, because I'm just that kind of high-class bitch, my organic cigarettes need that vanilla flavour if they want to keep me around.
We also took selfies in the Asian Market:
My point is, it was a good day. And there have been other good days. My cousin from Vancouver laughing at the table with me and my mom over a bowl of freshly picked blueberries, smoke twining in the air of my bedroom while I sit talking with my dad, an endless stream of good writing days and netflix gossip Girl marathons and so many coffees I'm sure my blood is half-caffeine now.
And yet I feel sort of...sad. Melancholy. And I'm worried. Scared, even.
I'm scared that the summer is coming to an end in a very short three days. I'm scared that I'm turning twenty years old in a few months. I'm scared that I might have to go back to daily classes soon if my homeschool-ish program doesn't work out this year, I'm scared I might never see my grandmother again. I'm scared that I'm turning into an adult. Time is passing so quickly now.
Yesterday I'd just been accepted into my first-choice high school. I was a naive, slightly-damaged but still mostly-innocent teenager who had four years to get his shit together. Today I'm a nineteen year-old who's going into my final semester (if things work out I'll graduate halfway through the academic year, as opposed to at the end of it) I'm tattooed and toughened-up. I've got new scars and new sorrows, and I'm stronger for them all. I'm a wholly different person, and I've barely had time to blink.
So who will I be in three years? Will I be the struggling writer living with his parents and working a shitty job at a Starbucks to try and get by? Will I be the published author and artist living in a tiny Toronto apartment with my best friend? Will I be single? What colour will my hair be? Where will I find room for some more scars? Who are my pets, my friends, my thoughts?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm an adult now - or just about to become one - and it's fucking scary. Responsibility, work, regrets. I just don't want to look back in twenty years and wonder where all my time went, why I wasted all my chances. But I'm also excited.
I'm excited because I'm a self-published author with big plans to increase my readership. I'm excited because I'm finally turning into someone who isn't afraid to stand up for himself and be his own best friend. I'm excited because all these new opportunities are turning up and all I have to do is be brave enough to go after what I want.
In short what I'm saying is, nostalgia is messed up. And so is the future. And I'm sort of a mess, but it's beautiful. I have people on my team who are invaluable, like Amelia/Milly, and Kuma, and my parents, and my readers, and it's all kind of funny how things work out. If you'd asked me who I would be someday four or five years ago, I would not have told you I'd be the boy with a scar on each wrist (one still pink and healing, the etched in my flesh with ink) who had a fire in his chest and sparks in his eyes, who was a published author, who was not ashamed to look his own reflection in the eyes and say "I love you." but now I can't imagine myself as anyone else.
So that's where I'm at right now, between screeching at the MTV Scream finale and mainlining cheap instant coffee, I've been asking myself who I am and who I'm going to be. They're some tough questions. But I've learned lately that I'm tough, too, so maybe I don't have too much to worry about. I don't know what this semester, or this year, is going to be like - but I know that, through all of it, I've got me, and I've got this blog, and I think...well, I think I'm ready.
And that might be the scariest thing of all.
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Bonus, the song that will officially remind me of this summer forever:
