dreamweave

alex // 23 // spokane, wa i like nature, music, leftist politics, art, and my extremely cute girlfriend zoey. i like flow toys and dancing and lifting weights. i like to cook and make music and most of all, i really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.

[drmwve]

I'm reading Frederick Douglass's autobiography with its vivid descriptions of the way the lash disfigures the wielder as well as the victim and wondering to what extent the numbness and sense of loss I've struggled with on and off the last few years are consequence of various ways I've inflicted myself on the world.

I miss feeling deeply that the people closest in my life were there for life, that we understood one another like family. I miss it being effortless like breathing, like we'd explode if we didn't let it all out within each other. I miss not second guessing each other's intentions. When did it get so hard? I look back to relationships that were magnetic and explosive. We've all been burned by bad intentions since then I guess but we must outnumber the villains in all our stories.

Maybe it's the internet. I remember when it was all these little fiefdoms and it was easy to feel like you belong somewhere. Now it's just an ocean of noise. Maybe it's COVID driving us all a little crazy. I definitely don't feel like my memory or ability to write are what they used to be.

Maybe it's me. There was a time I felt everything so much deeper and had so much to say about it. I'm probably just depressed. It's hard not to be when you're just waiting for the next person to take off the mask.

[drmwve]

I saw a ghost from my past the other day. It was super weird - I mean, the person and the circumstances of just happening to see them in a major city, while they were working, at a place we suddenly went to by a freak chain of circumstances.

It made me realize that I haven’t really thought of that time in my life in a while. Mostly when I think about my past these days it’s before that time, like when I was in high school and living in New York. Not in a sad way anymore, just reconnecting with the person I was back then, just feeling more confident sharing the music I used to like and the goofy fuckin way I used to act. Just trying to draw a line between who I was before trauma and who I am now that I’m a fucking tech bro that watches videos about woodworking and geopolitics for fun (I guess that second bit isn’t too out of character for me historically though lmao) and has a house and a lil Aryan child.

I still dream about it sometimes though, like every few months. Mostly fucked up dreams where I invariably find myself in some spot we use to cruise to and we cross paths and I’m like, completely desperate to fix things. Those dreams used to bug me for the rest of the day after. It’s taken a while to get over the fact that my life was complete chaos for like... three entire years, especially when it felt safe really quickly but we were just jumping into another toxic dumpster fire.

Honestly? I used to miss it sometimes. It was chaotic but chaos can be fun and I never really knew what was gonna happen next, which is an ideal state of being to me. There was a period where I was like, okay well, all these things are going my way, but it’s weird when large, long parts of your life are Decided and come into focus. I felt like I was gonna blink and be 50 doing the same shit with no real change. I was pretty scared I was going to lose a lot of things I really enjoyed along with all the chaos. I never wanted to trade back but I thought about it.

I don’t feel that way anymore though and this weekend made that hit me. I mean, I’ve been making so many new friends and developing better relationships with the friends that I have. When I saw Devon Zoey and I were having breakfast with my college buddy and his friend after the 6th or 7th time in the last 6 months I’ve seen one of my favorite artists from high school and I just met his friend but it was really awesome and fun where I might’ve felt awkward in the past but I am so, so far away from being that person now. The weekend before we went to another good show and had breakfast with Zoey’s family and her best friend and I’m making plans with some people I haven’t talked to in a long time.

Idk. My life isn’t the way it was before. I don’t have a random cast of people living in my house, I’m not drinking and doing drugs all the time, I’m not going to crazy house parties or in a wildly open relationship. I feel like all that shit could be fun but like, in an easy and unsatisfying way. It didn’t take any work to do those things but I also don’t really have anything to show for any of that. The things I’ve been doing lately, the experiences I’ve been having lately, it’s taking work I’m not used to doing to build relationships and come up with fun plans and reach out to people who live hours away just to see them, but it’s also building relationships I’ve had for years at this point and looking at where *those things* might be down that 50-years-old telescope sounds incredible and exciting rather than monotonous and stagnant.

I was in this weird in-between place for a while where I wasn’t doing things one way or the other and it was a little scary. I checked off all the Big Life Goals in like, three months, which was incredible and a little overwhelming but I still felt unsatisfied in some ways. I guess my life changed very suddenly and it took some time to figure out the details of how to enjoy it for what it is - which I didn’t expect because it’s like, I have a baby and a house and an incredible job, shouldn’t I just be happy without having to try? But it doesn’t really work like that. 

I feel like I figured it out though. I don’t have to compromise between having the stable family life and doing all the fun shit I used to do but like, in a better and more sustainable way. I’m going on these work trips and meeting all these incredibly talented people, trying restaurants in towns I’d have never been to otherwise and going to shows across the country. When I’m home I have a little person that’s somehow weirder than I am and we’re about to take her to her first festival in a few months. We’re still seeing all our friends and doing fun little weird shit and the shows that have been happening lately have just been nuts, just blasts from my past and new Stuff That Isn’t Riddim (finally). We’re both taking care of our health and all our worst problems are way in the rear view mirror, where we’ve been able to get some real perspective on them and look hard at ourselves. It kicks ass. Life is great.

[drmwve]

Hi Tumblr. Remember like, 18 months ago when I was still letting one emotionally stunted child after another dictate the direction of my life and how I felt about myself? Remember when I was lost and traumatized and unsure of myself, and still grasping at anything I could think of to make sense of my flaws?

Yeah, I don’t do that shit anymore. Today I became an engineer. Two months ago the light of my life was born. Three weeks before that I got my dream job after just a month of trying and three months before I even graduated. I know exactly who I am and where I’m going. I’ve spent most of my conscious life desperately clawing myself out of a dark tunnel, confident that if I tried hard enough I’d get to this point. I’ve always been right about myself except when I thought I’d never change for the better, and now that I’m here it’s everything I thought it would be.

Sometimes I wish things had gone a different way and you were here to see her. Mostly I hope you rot in that stagnant hole you slithered away to, and don’t ever get in your head to ask me to save you another time.

[drmwve]

Man, it's been a long time since I opened this app. I have a lot on my mind. I guess closing a big chapter of my life is bringing back the memories.

[drmwve]

I hate social media, I hate these mindgames, I hate not knowing people's intentions and how readily I tear myself to pieces. I wish we'd just gone home that night. The way things are going the next time someone shows interest in me a year from now they're just gonna punch me in the gut as they leave our first interaction

[drmwve]

🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

[drmwve]

Sometimes I feel completely disconnected from my past, like some idiot phantom version of me was directing my actions until recently when I took control. I feel like it would take someone much, much dumber than I thought I was not to realize the extent to which nothing about what I’m doing or who I am now would be possible without how deeply and instinctively I can trust the way you feel about me. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the world that could ever be true of. I’ve been so spoiled that I forgot the constant feeling of tearing myself to pieces with doubt. 

[drmwve]

I don't really understand people. I understand fluid mechanics and DJing, though. I'm gonna bury my head in the sand today.

[drmwve]

I must be the luckiest person in the world to be the person that I am, living the life that I am. If there's anything I want to change about myself, I'm well along the way. If there's some way to be that I haven't thought of yet, if there's something I can't do and haven't started learning already, it'll come to me eventually. The entire time I was alone and letting my emotions get the best of me, I knew it'd just take some set of circumstances I had to wait for to ignite my soul and keep it burning forever. These days my hands are steady when my body used to shake with anxiety. I feel completely in control of my future and it looks better and comes into sharper focus every day. I rarely cry but honestly I'm almost constantly so overwhelmed with the love I get and the sensation of getting better at all the many things I like to do and how it seems like things just get deeper and deeper that I'm always close to tears.

[drmwve]

I think a lot about the relationships I fucked up because I was so selfish in high school. I think about saying goodbye for good to one of my closest friends because I got too tangled up in the cruel, fucked up side of our relationship and I didn’t think about how important and rare the way we could just talk to each other would end up being until it was too late and it meant nothing to my warped mind. I think about how I’d have these long-term friendships with people I can relate to in a way that I haven’t been able to find since if I had known better than to act the way I did. I realized way too late the value of the love I was getting.

The friendships I’ve lost recently are completely the opposite case. It’s unbelievable and sad how one dimensional they turned out to be. I don’t think about it much any more at all. They fucked off and the space they took up in our home was immediately filled with wonderful, honest people that actually have their shit together. We finally have time for our real friends and we don’t spend all that time venting about the latest nonsense. We can take our roommates places and not feel embarrassed about it. Most days nothing happens and we can just focus on ourselves.

And we have our girlfriend, and it’s so nice to be around someone who cares about us the same way we do, who thinks the same way we do, who’s been in the same situations and understands us. But also who doesn’t lie, who’s honest with us when it isn’t easy and says what she means. I don’t like bringing up cheesy nonsense comparisons like they’re literal but one of the first things I learned as I got back into college is that an equilateral triangle is the strongest two-dimensional shape and it seems to me that that’s true for relationships as well because when one of us is hurting they almost always have someone to turn to if one of the others can’t be there for them. 

I wish I could talk more in the open about this because I feel like most people’s minds go straight to the sex aspect (which I definitely don’t help when the three of us go out to shows together lmao) and when Zoey and I opened our relationship up that was mostly what it was about but this is different. It’s exactly what we needed.

[drmwve]

I can’t explain the way I feel right now in a way that doesn’t sound childish and egotistical. I’m sick of being too much of one thing and not enough of another to relate to anyone. I’m sick of thinking all these thoughts which seem so important and which I want to share so badly but not knowing how to express them at all. I’m sick of thinking so critically about everything all the time and feeling like my brain is always turned to 110%. 

I’m sick of the way that the only thing that ever totally shuts my brain off is getting or giving physical attention and how addicted I get to the sensation of my train of thought being washed away by emotions. I only ever seem to have anything to say at length when I’m gushing to someone. I just want to be able to talk to somebody without feeling so bored with it so fast. 

I’m so good at ingratiating people to me when we meet but not at continuing to connect with them after that first rush. I want to be able to just talk to people or else not feel the pressure to at all so I can live in my head and do what I want. I’m not without direction the way that I was when I was younger, I could lock myself in a shop or a studio for a month and never feel bored or alone. 

I wish I didn’t think so much fucking faster than almost anyone I’ve ever been close to. I wish I knew how to slow down, but then I don’t because I might miss out on something. 

[drmwve]

Life is strange and hilarious, even the sad parts. Especially the sad parts. Things have been so consistently and radically good lately, though, that I keep feeling like I don't deserve it. But it's only the circumstances of my childhood and the bent way my mindset grew in with no direction that ever kept me from my birthright.

Honestly, I just wish weird shit would happen all the time. Not being able to anticipate what will happen next is my favorite feeling in the world.

[drmwve]

I don’t know why but it’s suddenly dawned on me that after this it’s going to take me months or years to feel comfortable trusting anyone except Zoey with even the smallest amount of my soul

[drmwve]

so this was a fucking lie. in the best way possible, though. 

[drmwve]

Man. Life is so beautiful and strange. I wish I could just dissolve my ego and stretch my consciousness across all humanity sometimes. That sounds like wookery and it probably is because that bad acid trip I had has a lot to do with this feeling in a way I’ve been wanting to write out. I just wanna melt into everybody and not be a person in the best way possible. 

I’ll take what I can get though, even if it feels unreal. I love my person. I love my girls. It tickles me that I can say that and mean it in my heart and soul and not in my body. 

[drmwve]

I keep having these moments over the last few months where I feel several things each with every inch of my being all at once. 

I can feel the heavenly silence coming over my thoughts as my heart swells and my mind submits, emotion absorbing the flood of words that never stops except in these moments where it’s you and I or us and them or all of us together in a packed room or under the stars, and I hear only a discordant choir of holy angels surrendering their wings. My mind comes to, briefly drowned and then washed up on a beach of pearls that feels like home. 

I can feel even now the exact size and weight of the burdens that I no longer drag along with me. I can feel them even as the space they took up is filled instead by love and light. I feel the secrets and the misplaced hope and a long series of mistakes, and feel like a faded memory that never happened what I might be suffering in these moments we’ve freed to spend in better places, if I had still been wasting them. 

I can feel the roots winding through my legs and then my feet as I stand with them both firmly on the ground, feel them punching down through the floor and the soil to find their way to her so that even miles away from home I know where she is. I feel the roots as they turn to iron and then to rose gold, as the knots turn to deep hooks in the ground and then to pointed diamonds. I see you as the fog clears away from the future, a brilliant light which even as it takes shape stands tall and proud in a way that I couldn’t. There comes a glass cradle framed in amber and again, a choir of holy angels singing this time in unison until you are far greater than the sum of your creation. 

[drmwve]

Man, it's really cool to put yourself thousands of dollars in debt and strain every single other relationship in your life to save your longest, closest friend from literally killing himself with alcohol just for him to hate you because they're jealous of who you're sleeping with. It's 2k Care About Your Friends But Look Out For Your Damn Self 19.

[drmwve]

Thought to expand on while I'm on my way home: shit feels like it is consistently, constantly, intensely real every moment of every day and it has for a while. Is the pace of my life picking up or am I just being more mindful?

Time for bed