unfortunately true story. @unfortunately-truestory - Tumblr Blog

how to dig up a grave.

when i was a teenager, i used to write a lot of poetry.

it’s horribly dark and angsty, but i found myself reading it lately. i surprisingly found a lot of clarity in the overwhelming insight of an emotional sixteen-something. i was definitely onto something, despite being a messy excuse for a human being, facing only the first significant permutation of her lifetime.

the most important events of your life most often revolve around heartbreak and loss. our lives are directed with good things, successes, milestones and goals reached, but they are shaped by those blows we all know so well.

it is always easy to remember the bad. it’s easy to let it linger and continue to poison the future. best is to let these things rest and to keep them where they belong...out of sight, out of mind.

i was really in love once. i truly believed it was love then and i still believe it now - i take offense to people who say ‘young people don’t know what love is.’ that’s a silly thing to say. i would have gone to the end of the world for this person, because i truly believed that he deserved every piece of happiness i could possibly give him. it was selfless, perhaps to a fault, but it was genuine. unfortunately, loving someone is rarely enough.

being alone.

I have a friend who, every year, makes Valentines for everyone she cares about in her life. She speaks of it as a ritual, one during which she focuses all of her positive thoughts and energy into a unique craft for each individual, highlighting something she likes about them. She says she does it because she doesn’t want anyone to feel left out on Valentine’s day, even if they are.

I love the thought of my friend’s handmade embraces, emotionally cradling all of these people who would otherwise feel rejected by a holiday designed for couples in love. A piece of mail that, in its mere presence, indicates that “you are loved, appreciated and thought of.” A reminder that you are worthy.

When I discussed loneliness with my beautiful soul of a friend, she responded that she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with being alone. She doesn’t think there is anything wrong with being single on Valentine’s day, or any day of the year, but she knows that some people struggle with the concept. She does it because, if there is a remote possibility that this person may be feeling lonely, her Valentine might bring these people closer to positive thoughts. My ritual when it comes to Valentine’s day is embracing being alone, even if I am in a relationship. It’s a state that I’ve mastered, and one that I’ve truly come to love.

Sometimes, when I’m sitting by myself at home, I forget to turn the light on. I mean this sentence both literally and metaphorically; I don’t need to see anything or be seen when I am in a space of my own. I have everything I need and I am so absorbed by this lack of envy, want or ‘what ifs’ that my brain goes into sleep mode. I lead an extremely high strung life, where everything in my life revolves around my anxiety, so being alone with myself has organically turned into many exercises in mindfulness. I’ve learned to appreciate these moments to their fullest, simply by no longer fighting against them.

When I travel, I prefer to do so alone. I enjoy the feeling of stepping out into the world, a complete stranger to everyone around me, almost invisible. I can surround myself with others at the hostel, I can speak to my family and friends back home over Facetime or Messenger (if I’m really feeling lost or stressed). I kind of revel in the fact that everything that I am currently living, in this foreign and unknown place, is being captured solely by my brain. Every graveyard I’ve stood in, every desperate bathroom search, every panic attack when I thought I had lost something, are committed to my memory alone. They’re not Instagram worthy moments. They’re lifetime storytelling worthy moments. And they wouldn’t only be mine if someone else were there with me to witness them. Everyone should be selfish about their memories.

I resent the idea that you need to learn to be alone. Human beings start existing in perfect solitude in the womb. We’re ejected out into this big, scary, bustling place where suddenly we’re under someone’s supervision until we come of age, and even then, we’re under someone else’s scrutiny; our government, bosses, significant others, friends, social networks... we’re constantly surveilled. Then we die, regaining that solitude that we were conceived into. Forever.

So we’ve actually learned to cope with being constantly together. We cope by romanticizing it and making it the ultimate way to be.

when you’re gone.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wondered what people would say about me after I die.

Maybe that’s a weird thing for a child to wonder, but I could hear Keith Morrison’s voice, steady and God-like, retelling my presumed final moments during a reenactment. Ah yes - because not only was I going to surely die before my time, but I had conceived of the possibility that I would die a brutal and mysterious death, one that would be worth an episode of ‘Dateline’ or ‘Unsolved Mysteries.’ My life would be so opaque, made complicated by my shyness and solitude, that people would have to comb through endless pages of journals, artwork, and digital archives to piece together the puzzle that was my life. Clearly, I had really high hopes for myself, even as a six-year-old.

When Elizabeth Smart disappeared, it shook my world in an almost indescribable way. I would sit in the living room and watch the news with my parents, hoping for new developments in the case. My parents received Time magazine, and they were very proud to see their youngest child peeling away the pages of such an intellectual publication. Little did they know, my head was filling with the fearful realization that I could easily be snatched from my bed in the night, no matter how safe my family home was. I developed a deep-rooted anxiety surrounding bungalows, open windows and Mormons. That last one is more difficult to explain, but in an effort to not offend my readership, it’s really just because I had associated the concept of religious polygamy and modesty with the business of kidnapping children. I would never travel to Salt Lake City.

The question of legacy became very important to me early on. What evidence could I leave behind, in order to reassure my family and friends that I lived a decent life, despite my tendency to cancel plans last minute and create what many would consider “depressing and dark.” But more importantly - how could I escape the inevitably fake-sounding description of me as a “happy person who was so full of life.”

christmas.

I hang from the rim of my glass, like a ghost would kiss your cheek in your sleep. My family is like a mauseleum; our bodies are all here, but we’ve since parted from this world.

pandemic v.

we celebrated the end of the year in a frozen city park, completely alone, staring up at an empty, plum coloured sky.

we tried to play a song over the speaker of our smartphone but it shut down due to the “extreme temperatures.” canadians should really consider having a backup dumb phone in winter. maybe keep one in your car. i haven’t been inspired to write. real life is too surreal right now. i can’t see it clearly enough to describe it. it’s like being in a constant haze of fear. being so far out of our own body.

fear is the mood killer. naturally, when i first heard of a deadly virus, i feared for my body. when tensions started rising around the world in response of the death of yet another Black person at the hands of the police, i feared for the bodies, hearts and minds of others. when i heard that i could be a symptomless carrier, i feared for the bodies of others even more. with every day that goes by, i drift further away from my own body. i kept warm for him. to better caress him and reassure him every day that i’m still here. but i wasn’t really. i was somewhere in another room, peering out the window, wondering if my neighbours, friends, parents, siblings, coworkers, acquaintances would be okay too.

i wondered if they were warm enough.

as we toasted to a new year, my cheeks pinched from the cold air.

and all i could think is how grateful i was for this life - this very fortunate life - that i commit to embrace despite its series of unfortunate events.

to 2021.

pandemic iv.

I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude.

I’ve been thinking about prisoners in isolation, solitary confinement, and how their humanity wastes away. I think about how some of those people aren’t bad people at all. they were in terrible circumstances. I know many have had to many difficult choices lately. i know so many are feeling compromised. trapped. guilty. It’s hard not to feel the weight of the world when you see everyone acting so strangely.

To calm my anxiety, I trace these happenings back to their origins in history. I read about the basic principles of contagion and epidemiology. I make my way through a heap of evidence with the same scrutiny of the most hardened criminal lawyer you’ve ever known. I figure that if I dissect the problem and truly face its composition, I will better understand what I need to do to survive. I have identified the issue and if literature and film has taught me anything, is that evil lurks in darkness, and you never wander blindly forward into the dark without a proper source of light.

To forget, I watch sitcom reruns. I contemplate the laugh track. I wonder if the reason laugh tracks are creepy is because most of those laughs are from people who have already died. And you’re alive laughing with them. Someone sent me a podcast about laugh tracks the other day. I haven’t listened to it yet, because I’m afraid of what I will find out.

I don’t know how much more depressing news I can take.

pandemic iii

some people in the world right now have never heard of covid-19.

#COVID19

pandemic ii

I did some research about face masks in a desperate effort to understand why we’re so against wearing them. Instead, I stumbled upon a podcast about brutalism and concrete. Somehow, it answered my initial question. The digital farm was not enough, so my friend sent me an envelope full of seeds via snail mail. I’ve always liked receiving mail. It reminds me to slow down. It also reminds of all of the stationary I have sitting around, unused. I need to write. I’ve kept a journal since the age of 12. I received my first one from my eldest brother, who caught me rifling through his stuff one too many times. I guess he figured that if I had my own, I would understand the meaning of privacy. He was right. I have intrusive thoughts. I always have. Lately, they’ve mostly been about how powerless I feel (we feel) against the “invisible enemy.” I wonder about where it is now, what it’s doing, who it’s killing. I think about my friends and family, about people I know and I don’t know. I think about tomorrow and if it’ll be anything like today. These are all harmful thoughts, of course, but I figure they’re better out than in. I need to write. We’ve been watching movies from our childhood. I seem to have warped my recollection of certain stories by fast-forwarding through the boring parts. Some of these films are just not that good, but I care deeply for them regardless. I don’t even want to name them. They’re secret loves. I need to make dinner. Is there ever an end to doing dishes?

#COVID19

they all look like they’ve picked up kombucha making.

pandemic i

This morning, I Googled “Is it okay to freeze cheese?” in an attempt to beat the expiration date.

My partner tried calling Service Canada for the 700th time. The call always disconnects before he’s even had a chance to say a word to anyone on the line. I know better than to ask if I can help. All we can do is wait.

Today, I Googled “Recipes with canned spinach” and chose a few at random to consider. I don’t know why I chose canned spinach off of the shelf at the grocery store two weeks ago. It seemed like a smart thing to do at the time.

I am thankful to have found a job to fill my days with. I help dispatch content to streaming platforms; an essential service in times of confinement. I work long hours from home during the week. I miss sunlight. I take vitamin D every day to compensate.

The cats have been fighting constantly. They only just met a couple of months ago and are already sick of each other. There isn’t enough space to roam in this apartment with the four of us here together. I can understand their frustration. The air is getting thin in here.

I seek personal space outside. I go for walks. I avoid other people because that’s what we’re all supposed to do. I cross paths with an older man without a mask. He doesn’t step aside, so I wander into the street. My comedian friend in Ojai sends jokes via text message. “How do you make holy water? You boil the hell out of it.” I appreciate her grounded simplicity so deeply in these very serious times. I send her a heart emoji, because that’s all I can muster in response these days.

My artist friend and I started building a virtual farm together in Stardew Valley. She was laid off from a job she loves because of the crisis. I’m selfishly glad that she doesn’t have to go to work because I get to speak to her more. I’m mostly relieved to know for sure that she’s safe.

I went on Twitter again, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t anymore. I liked some funny one-liners and then got sucked into a rabbit hole of COVID-19 deniers. I wonder what it must be like to live in denial. I consider this option for a moment. I log out. We gather for our nightly ritual of dinner and what-should-we-do. We started a puzzle over the weekend but it turned out to be too much of a commitment. We talk about the future and what may be left of it. We’re guardedly optimistic. Home cooking helps. We have made a nest for ourselves on the couch with blankets. The cats are asleep in their respective corners. We hold each other as we watch a Youtube video of a person walking through the streets of Kuala Lumpur. It helps to know that the world is still out there.

Before falling asleep, I Googled “how flat is the curve now” in the hopes things would be better.

We’re not quite there yet.

We have quite a few more days like this to go.

#covid19

my calendar goes by the seasons within me.

about me.

i’m one of those people who needs a solid eight hours of sleep at night. i keep a food diary, not because i want to, but because if i didn’t, i’d spend most of my life on the bathroom floor. i don’t attend parties much, because i can’t hear in one ear, and you’d be surprised how easily people get offended/give up when you can’t hear them talk. i like when things are clean and done right, but i enjoy messiness, because it reminds me that both are okay. i don’t spend time thinking about people who don’t think about me. i like taking my time, having my own space. i enjoy solitude, though i do not feel lonely. i may be feral, but i love so deeply.

ici.

i miss travel. it reminds of how vast the world is when sometimes i feel like it’s so small and suffocating.

she called me a loner.

and I blinked twice for yes.

a tale of ecological anxiety

if Goosebumps has taught me anything growing up is that adults never listen to children the first time and when they don't, they get eaten by carnivorous plants or suffer some other horrible fate. unfortunately, this is not fiction.

#climate #ecological anxiety #goosebumps

i've entered this new phase of my existence where i'm just permanently bloated and hiding it with stylishly high-waisted jeans.

my wardrobe

the seasons are changing.

i can tell when depression settles in. i can tell, because my fridge suddenly becomes empty and i find myself eating breton crackers out of the box for the fifth time this week. i can tell, because my armpits are hairy and itchy, and i’ve disposed of all of my razors. i can tell, because i haven’t turned the lights on in my apartment at all today. i can tell, because i’m spending a lot of time looking at old pictures. i can tell, because it’s getting more and more difficult to tell someone.

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unfortunately true story.