adamandgrieve

[adamandgrieve]

10/19/2020, 9:08 PM

I never did drive by Kyle’s old place. And I never messaged him on Facebook. I think that ship has sailed and maybe I’m better just getting over it.

I feel bad for not talking to my friends enough. Now one is moving to Texas (why do all my friends go there?) and one is doing nothing with his life, and I haven’t spoken to another in several months, and before that many more months, and I haven’t gotten to see my friends back home all year. And sometimes it feels like I don’t even matter to them. At least, to several of them. They talk to me when I’m in town, and when I pass by on their Facebook feed once in a blue moon. But they don’t seek me out to talk, it feels like. At least one sends me memes, although she put me in a group with my other friend and my ex-friend who ruined my self-worth in high-school and refuses to take accountability for her actions. Like, yes, you have mental health issues. So do I. So do most of our friends. That does not mean you get a free pass to be an asshole. It might explain your actions, sure. But then when someone spells out for you how your actions caused them harm and emotional pain, you apologize. Or you should, because you never do.

I really can’t stand her. She is (or was) a prominent fanfiction writer here on tumblr, so hopefully I never cross her path. But who knows.

I miss seeing my friends often. And I know it’s probably just one of those bullshit things about growing up. You go to work five days a week, and be miserable, and spend all your free time either recovering or doing things you didn’t do during the week because you were at work and tired. I am always tired now. Maybe it’s because of the hellscape that is 2020, maybe it’s because of a chronic illness I may or may not have. I should probably go to the doctor. Maybe it’s because I’m just trying to get by, and the mere thought that getting by is all I’m doing is so damn depressing to me that it makes it harder to even do that.

I would rather work three days a week, 12 hour shifts, and then have four days to do whatever. I want free time. I want people to stop pushing me to monetize everything I do. I am tired. I am poor. I have so little motivation and enthusiasm, and I don’t want to turn the last things I actually enjoy doing into some bullshit money-makings scheme that won’t even work.

I like to do stupid little doodles at work. Because I used to like to draw, and now barely have the time or energy for it. And Matt, and Kathy, and whoever else, are always saying how good my doodles are, and that I should become an illustrator or something, do children’s books, sell my art, whatever. And I’m tired of telling them no, I don’t really want to, and I’m not really good enough, and wow you really don’t know anything about how cutthroat and competitive the art world really is when you’re trying to make a living, huh?

Everyone has their own “great idea for a kids book” but very few people actually make them. And very few of those ideas are actually as good as the person thinks it is.

I’m not really sure where I’m going. I’m tired, and angry, and so so lonely inside. I miss Kyle. I miss Grant. I want to lay in bed and go back in time and just. Get a do-over. I want to try again. And do it better this time. Sometimes I hope that’s what’s after dying. You just get to start again. But I don’t think that’s how it is, and even if it was, how would we know?

Life is hard. The secretary from the doctor’s office won’t send CVS my goddamn prescriptions. I need my hormones and my Vitamin D and she will not give it to me.

Bitch.

#personal #journal entry #life is exhausting

[adamandgrieve]

10/7/2020, 12:42 AM

I’m feeling some kind of deep sadness. Maybe it’s just what comes with it being fall, or maybe it’s because I’m stuck thinking about spring 2018 and meeting Kyle and wondering why he stopped texting me back all those ages ago. I need to get this off my chest. I need to chill out. And I mean, it’s fine, or it should be. Like, I have a partner now and I love him and I genuinely want to be with him for as long as we can. Things have been hard after his mom died, but they’re getting better all the time. They’re going to be okay.

But sometimes I just miss him. Like, man, that was.. A weird time in my life. Going into exam week, have no friends, fly off the handle into a suicidal rage every night. Take too many pills but not enough, because I know I won’t die, I’ll just space out. Laying on the living room carpet, talking to Grant and JoAnne and listening to Gymnopédie No.1 on Pandora. And the months go by and I still have no friends and nothing feels real, or better. And then I post some shit on Whisper of all dumb places, because I was a horny 19-year-old who just wanted to get beat up, maybe because I was a little into it, and maybe because I felt like I deserved it.

And he just, responds. “You mean like, in a sex kind of way?” Yeah, man, in a sex way. But I don’t even remember what I actually said. I was nervous, and probably manic, and feeling like taking that risk. I was going to come out to my parents. I was going to get a haircut. I had exams that week. Why not do something crazy?

So we talked, and he sent me a picture, and honestly? Maybe I should have been more suspicious. But my first thought was, “That’s him?” and my second thought was “Yeah, I don’t think a catfish would use this picture. I’m good.” It sounds rude, but I didn’t think he was ugly. It just wasn’t a very catfish-able photo, ya know?

And he told me something to this day I don’t think I believe, that I was “his type” and that somehow he was into doughy awkward trans guys (and possibly anyone really, because he was pan, but I was his type, miraculously) and we ended up...planning to meet. I remember the picture I sent of me, because it was before I had chopped off all my hair, that I had taken a few weeks (days?) before when my parents and step-sister and I went to the coast. My step-sister and I climbed into these trees and while I was up there I took this stupid photo of me, hair back, wearing a dumbass Hawaiian shirt (that I still own) and stupid round shades that would always get tangled in my hair. I still own the glasses too, actually./ 

Kyle said he thought I was cute. And hey, I didn’t believe him. Why would I? I was that kid who didn’t have any friends from sixth grade onward, aside from my best friend and a group of blonde Christian girls from high school. And Emma, but she honestly was the one who stood out. I was the kid who people laughed at, who boys would ask out as a joke, or insult their friends by saying I liked them (when I didn’t.) I had never been kissed, never been on a date, never even held hands romantically (does Eric count? No. Eric does not count.)

Regardless, I didn’t believe that he thought I was cute. But I thought, hey, fuck it, I’m horny and feeling like dying and just having a really, really weird time. So I agreed to come to his place (really his mom’s townhouse, if I remember) at 10:30 PM, the night before my SOC 300 exam, just to see what would happen.

I remember telling my step-sister about this. And how it wasn’t really sneaking out, because I was 19, and my parents really didn’t care, and that of course I’d be careful and everything, it’s not that sketchy. I was scared and nervous but who wouldn’t be. Kyle wanted to be my first kiss, allegedly

So I went.

I parked on the street, Payton Drive or something (we talked about how it was named after Payton Manning I think. But who knows.) It was warm out, but not too warm, and he lived near a school, in a new-ish housing development. There was a grocery store nearby, and a gas station, and I’d never been there before but I drove past it a few days later while in the car with my mom.

Maybe I’ll drive there tomorrow, just to look.

Anyway, I parked on the street and got out of my truck and just...Stood there for a bit. He was on the porch, if you can call it that, on a chair. And he came up to my car, I think. I was so nervous, this part is all a little fuzzy.

We ended up at the back corner of the building, in the side yard. We sat in the chairs he carried from the porch, and just...talked, for a bit. I barely remember about what. Video games, maybe, and that he worked in the kitchen at a restaurant. At some point he mentioned he was moving soon. I was wearing a stupid outfit, I’m sure, I think a flannel over a t-shirt, and these old jeans that I rolled up because I refused to wear shorts in those days. He was wearing pajama pants, and I thought that was cute, and kind of hot in a weird confident way. 

He wasn’t particularly hot otherwise, by mainstream standards, but there was something about him. He had straight hair to his shoulders, and smelled like cigarettes, and was taller than me but not TALL.

At some point he gave me a hug. I didn’t know how to hug in those days, and these days it’s still hard, usually. But he was warm, and the night was calm, and I was so scared. He asked if I would let him kiss me, I think. 

I wanted to. So I said yet. And it was...

Strange.

It wasn’t really what I was expecting. His lips were soft, and a little cold actually, and he tasted like the cigarette smoke I could smell in his clothes. I didn’t know if he was good, and I sure as hell didn’t think I was (or am) and the whole experience confused me. I felt disappointed, almost.

But when I went home later that night, all I could think about was doing it again, or seeing him again, or just. Feeling something. I felt like dying all the time before this, and then I felt something weird and alive being with Kyle, even though I barely knew him. Maybe because I barely knew him, and he didn’t know me, before. He only knew me as Adam, “Adam Bomb”, and thought I was cute, and didn’t care that I wanted to be punched in the face, and wanted to kiss me, and do more and it was exciting!

I just wanted to see him again. Infatuated with this person I had only just met, and stayed up until 6 AM before my exam for. (I did well on the exam, somehow, even though my mind was both far away and barely conscious.)

Maybe I’ll revisit the second and third (last) time I saw him sometime. I just needed to vent. My emotions are too strong (all the time, in all situations) and I try to push them down and pretend they aren’t there (all the time, with everyone) even when I don’t mean to. I felt so much for him, because he was the first, and he was in my mind a very interesting and confident person. And he moved to not-quite-Dallas,Texas.

(Ryan is moving to Texas too, and my other friend. Who does Texas steal all my friends.)

I miss him. I still have his old number, which I think he doesn’t have anymore. I messaged him on his old Whisper account, which I don’t think he uses either. I even, somehow, found him on Facebook. He has a partner now too, that he met soon after leaving here. I feel like a creep. I’ll leave him be. I want to talk to him, and see how he is, and go into the woods with him again and just. Feel that way. I want to feel the tension and excitement and a life I will never lead.

But I don’t think I would.

It would just be sad and embarrassing.

#vent #personal