tbd

[inkskinned]

i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.

most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.

it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.

and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).

i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.

grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.

[inkskinned]

sky is blue and i love robins and my emailbox is full and i love making things for my friends and the ground is frozen and it hasn't snowed this winter which means it'll be a drought this summer again. sky is blue and yesterday i saw a proposal happen on top of a mountain while walking my dog and listening to a dnd podcast and i wasn't lonely i was just kind of awkwardly worried i was ruining the moment and later i spent 4 hours on the floor making a stupid little project.

can i be okay for real this time. can it last. can the horror and the anxiety and the great vast numb horizon all silence themselves and stand like statues at the edge of my soul, only a memory of these things that used to be so powerful. i want to spend the rest of my life in a meadow. i want to spend the rest of my life in a tea party. i want the rest of my life to only lapse in quiet waves instead of the slow advance of acid pools.

sky is blue and i've spent the last year in a hole. i completely burned through 2022. sky is blue and i couldn't look at the moon for months before this week, i was too ashamed for her to see. last year around this time i told my therapist i'm lost i'm lost i'm lost i'm drowning and before i stopped and said - sorry for the hysterics like my dissolving was only a performance. sky is blue and i am still afraid of rabbits and i am still living in a hole with broken glass and ants and it is still winter and i am still so tired and yet! and yet!

can i be okay? can i finally make my way out of this. it doesn't have to be perfect, i don't need that, i'm okay if it means a little work, i guess. it would just be nice for it to exist.

sky is blue. i keep waiting to hear the bird in my chest.

[quotemadness]

“Telling someone why you love them is like explaining what water tastes like.”

— Unknown

[raysofthesun]

[inkskinned]

i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i'm in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.

i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i'm 30, and i'm having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.

what they don't tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don't know what i'm fucking doing, because i always assumed i'd just go ahead and die. i didn't die, and i'm grateful for that, and i'm very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that's my roommate, adhd. ignore the glass, bytheway, that's ocd.

so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you're, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don't have any sick days left, and a job's not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it's also like - it's yours, so you're fond of it.

and it's like - you're real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you're not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you're not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you've learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and you sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you're trying. even if you're never gonna be normal, you have something... close enough.

and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it's saying i trust you now. you won't give me up.

[quotemadness]

“When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.”

— Unknown

[raysofthesun]

@aendthesea

[inkskinned]

it takes a really long time to unlearn but there's no such thing as "cheating" or "half-assing" being a person. if you need to leave the cabinet doors open, leave them open. microwave your tea. sit down in the shower. buy the eggmaker. use your phone to calculate tip.

it's mostly fake posterity rules. who cares if you microwave your dinners. who cares if you use instant coffee. who cares if you stop watching the show that got boring. we all have a different set of skills and a different life and taking care of yourself is fucking hard.

at the end of your life there will be no final scoreboard. nobody is going to judge you because you brushed your teeth in the shower. there will be no final count of the number of times you had the same meal five nights in a row. there will be no fanfare or party because you won at being a person - and no one will be disappointed that you never understood the point of using paper towels to dry your hands off after washing them.

yeah, in this world, people will put up a fuss. i've noticed some of the biggest fusses are over what you'll put in/on your body. the fact that i will regularly eat deli meat straight out of the bag makes a lot of people genuinely concerned for me. but here's the thing: sometimes that's the only way i'm getting any protein. my doctor says i am doing fine. i'm sticking to my weird snacks and calling it deconstructed charcuterie.

they'll say they're horrified because you take a shortcut. that's fine. it's just that it looks like a shortcut to them because they're on a different life path. these kinds of things stand out to them as important. that's fine too. but for you? you've got other things that already make you pretty hard working. and these tiny things - well, they're just clutter on your journey.

[timbllr]

[unreadable]

[thoughtkick]

“Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.”

— Matt Kahn

[enamouredpoet-deactivated202205]

morgan harper nichols

[perfectquote]

“I hope one day we can forgive each other for not being what we wanted each other to be”

— Kriti G.

[dontforgettolookbehindyou]

[vintagehomecollection]

A huge 19th-century pediment, rescued from a wrecker’s ball, dominates the library of architect Charles Moore’s house and holds in place the two-story wall of books behind it.

Inside Today’s Home, 1986

[unreadable]

[quotemadness]

“But don’t forget who you really are. And I’m not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you’re alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you.”

— Louis Sachar