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you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus · 5 years

Text

45 reasons why

summary: cyrus tries to think of all the possible reasons that tj hates him following the events of costume day. (inspired by this post)

ship: tyrus

word count: 9235 (she’s a hefty one)

notes: happy late birthday amanda! @swingsetboys i hope you like this! 1. I’m annoying

That one was a given, Cyrus thought. He always asked one too many questions, laughed a little too loud, and complained a little too often for people’s likings. It only made sense that this was probably one of the main reasons that TJ probably hates him.

Hate. He doesn’t like that word; it’s so strong, it has so much power. Yet, it almost seems to fit the mood. After all, the costume was TJ’s idea, not his. TJ was the one who looked so excited to do the costume based on an inside joke. And yet, TJ was the one who bailed on it. TJ was the one who did a costume with a girl he, supposedly, barely even knew.

He sighed, putting down his pen and leaning back in his chair. Maybe this didn't just start right around costume day. Maybe it went further back, but how far back? A week? A month? Cyrus shook his head, breathing out forcefully. Might as well start from the very beginning, he thought to himself.

The whole thing started with that damn muffin. The muffin, he pointedly thought, that he couldn’t get for himself because he was too much of a coward to cut in line and get it for himself.

2. I’m weak

3. I’m helpless Just like Jonah said, he thought, but left that unwritten. He already knew that; he didn’t want it written down. That day with the stupid muffin seemed almost like a far away dream to him. He was almost certain that TJ. . .smiled at him? It was kind of fuzzy; if you’d asked him a week ago, he’d be able to tell you how many steps TJ took towards him before saying ‘he’s with me’. But now, he doubted that the whole exchange even happened. All he remembered was that he looked at TJ like this monster, like someone who could and would crush him underneath his sneaker. But. . .he didn’t. He was surprisingly friendly.

4. I jump to conclusions

5. I get scared too easily

6. I’m a bad judge of character

For days after that, Cyrus had found himself lingering over their interaction, if you could even call it that. He’d absentmindedly draw a muffin on his biology notes. At lunch, he’d stare at his mashed potatoes so long that Buffy had to physically prod him to make him eat. And when his parents drove him home from school, the car ride was remarkably quiet.

He really thought that that would have been the first and last time that him and TJ interacted. He was fairly certain that was the taller boy’s name; Buffy had mentioned her disgust for him several times before. But their conversation had only just begun.

A little while later, Cyrus had found himself drenched in sweat from head to toe because oh his goodness, he couldn’t stop himself from getting tongue-tied in front of the camera. And it certainly didn’t help that he was with his, now-ex, crush. That only made him want to do well more, which of course led to a disastrous outcome. He’d ended up running towards the swings to try and calm down. He’d even sung that stupid song he made up in elementary school.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, TJ popped behind him, with a compliment for his song. And Cyrus. . .well, Cyrus just looked scared. He probably looked like a deer in the headlights from TJ’s perspective. And then of course, TJ had made some joke about what he sang on the slide. Probably in a pitiful attempt to make conversation

7. I’m pitiful

Somehow he’d managed to convince TJ to sit and swing with him. With him. It felt almost natural, them sitting together on the swings. Well, not together per se, but they were on the same swing set. Separately.

‘You don’t know me. I got stuff.’

He’d never forgotten those words, because in that moment, he felt almost comfortable around TJ. Like he just wanted to spill everything and get everything off his chest.

8. I get too comfortable with people I barely know

They’d barely even talked that day. All that Cyrus had learned was that, apparently, TJ had things that he needed to feel better about, which to Cyrus, sounded absolutely absurd. He was the captain of the basketball team, people were borderline terrified of him, and let’s be honest, he wasn’t ugly. Far from it, actually, save for the insane amount of hair gel he used to wear.

And when he gave him an underdog, he barely remembered feeling so light and so effortless all at once. It felt like he was on top of the world, and that nothing could touch him. And the smile on TJ’s face when he was squealing like mad. . .it was nice to see. Even then, Cyrus could tell he didn’t smile like that, or maybe even at all, much.

9. I’m scared of stupid things

And then Buffy had shown up and TJ instantly put up his walls again and wanted to hurry off. And for some weird reason, Cyrus didn’t want him to leave. He wanted his new. . .friend? (if he could call him that) to make sure that he knew that Buffy was cool, and understanding when she wanted to be.

10. I want things that I can’t have

‘Thanks for reminding me about swinging. That helped.’

For once that day, he felt useful, like he’d been successful in making someone just a little bit happier. He’d gone home that day feeling pretty good about himself. Even his parents seemed to notice his good mood, but when they asked him about it, he just shrugged it off, saying that he’d found a few dollars on his way in to school. He was fairly certain they didn’t believe him, but they didn’t pry anymore, simply letting them eat his dinner in peace.

11. I get happy at dumb things

A few days after their encounter at the swings, TJ somehow managed to find Cyrus again in the hallway. He looked oddly stressed, and he didn’t have the same easygoing ‘shrug it off’ demeanor that he’d sported just a few days ago. He looked like he wanted to say something, Cyrus could tell by the way he’d carried himself. He hadn’t forgotten their conversation from that day.

“Something on your mind?” Cyrus had asked, rocking back on his heels.

TJ had just shrugged, tugging on his hoodie straps. “Just. . .stuff,” he’d said lamely, but Cyrus could see behind his indifferent demeanor.

“You don’t have to tell me now, or ever,” Cyrus had assured him, and was ready to walk off when TJ started pulling something out of his back pocket.

“Here,” he mumbled, handing Cyrus his phone, “put your number in and I’ll. . .tell you about it sometime, I guess,”

Cyrus had nearly dropped the boy’s phone from pure shock. TJ was asking for his number? Well, no. More like TJ didn’t want to talk right now and instead wanted a second method of communication.

“O-Okay,” Cyrus had stammered out, putting his phone number in, all the while thinking about what he would write for his contact name. He wanted to make it something a little creative, but not something so stupid that it was embarrassing.

‘Cyrus (Underdog)’ he typed out, before handing it back to TJ. He had glanced down at his phone, and Cyrus had sworn he saw the ghost of a smile.

“Cool, I’ll text you,” he’d said, before running up to catch up with his basketball friends.

He’d waited all weekend for TJ to text him, but he never had. He’d even sent him a text himself.

[Cyrus: hey it’s cyrus! but you probably know that, anyways i’m here to listen if you ever want to talk :)]

He regretted it the moment he’d sent it.

12. I’m a dork

13. I’m clingy

When it had come time to invite people to his bar mitzvah, the last invitation was almost shaking in his hand. Why he was so nervous to hand it to TJ was beyond him, but looking back, a crush was definitely forming. Hindsight truly was a savior. He really, really wanted TJ to come, so much that he probably sounded desperate when he asked.

14. I’m desperate

15. I’m a geek

Luckily for him, TJ had accepted; heck, he’d even smiled at him. And then, he launched into a conversation about Buffy. Something about needing her to do something for him. And there it was, he thought, the reason that TJ had even talked to him at all. He need a favor. What? A date? Her number? TJ had ended up being pretty vague about the whole ordeal.

“Just use her two favorite words,” Cyrus had said confidently.

“I’m sorry?”

He’d paled, eyes bugging out of his head. “No, she hates those words,”

“Then what?”

Cyrus had hesitated. On the one hand, he did want to keep talking to TJ. On the other hand, he didn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. But one look up to him, seeing him almost smiling, he nodding up the sidewalk.

“Come with me. You might not like saying this, but Buffy will love hearing it.” The two of them had walked out towards the bus stop at the front of the school. After checking to see if the coast was clear, no Buffy in sight, Cyrus had stepped in front of TJ.

“You’re right,” he’d said.

TJ furrowed his brows in confusion. “About what?”

Cyrus shook his head. “No, those are her favorite words. ‘You’re right’. I don’t know what it is about them, but she just...seems to cave at whatever when you say them. It’s how I got her to sell me Tokyo,”

TJ looked at him, even more confused than before, but there was an air of fondness in his gaze.

Cyrus waved him off. “Monopoly. Long story.”

TJ nodded curtly, upon hearing the bus beep. “Maybe you could tell me sometime,” he offered, shaking his phone, “you can use emojis and everything,” he’d joked, before waving and heading onto the bus.

Cyrus couldn’t wipe that stupid smile off of his face no matter how hard he tried.

Sure enough, when he got home that night, he sent TJ a long text explaining how he just needed Tokyo to complete his collection, but Buffy wouldn’t sell it to him. He didn’t really remember what had happened, other than the fact that he’d said ‘you’re right’ so many times it started to sound like a foreign language.

And this time, TJ did send him a text back

[TJ 🏀: lol that’s funny. i’ll remember that. thanks for today]

Cyrus almost smiled as he added new things to the list. Memories of his bar mitzvah were fond, and he wishes times could be as simple as they were back then. He hadn’t seen TJ that much, save for the time that he couldn’t open a damn bottle.

“Hey, Underdog!” TJ had said above the music, approaching him.

Cyrus had just groaned in response, his shoulders slumping, He set the bottle back down on the table and swiped at his hairline. “Hey, TJ,”

TJ had looked between Cyrus and the bottle. “Need some help?”

Cyrus shook his head. “No, I’m supposed to do this myself, you know. Be a man and all that jazz,” he chuckles, cringing inwardly.

16. I’m cringy

17. I have no physical strength

TJ nodded, putting his hands in his pocket, before he’d stepped forward and grabbed the bottle. Cyrus had started to panic a little, but TJ assured him things would be fine. He’d started to open the bottle, just a little, and then had quickly handed it over to Cyrus to finish it off.

“All yours, dude,” he whispered, discreetly shuffling back towards the dance floor. Cyrus had stood stunned for a few moments, before he came to his senses and opened the bottle the rest of the way. It made a satisfying ‘pop!’ and the foam spilled over the neck. All of his family and friends were clapping, and if he squinted, he could see TJ, clapping his hands and smiling.

Things seemed near perfect that day. He hadn’t seen TJ for the rest of the party, but he assumed that he was enjoying himself. At the end of the day, when he was all dressed up in his dino pajamas, he heard his phone ding.

[TJ 🏀: hey that fortune teller at your party, is she for real?]

He had swore he was having some weird form of deja vu; what he said sounded just like what Buffy had said back at the party.

[Cyrus: no, she’s fake, she just likes to pretend she can see the future. why?]

[TJ 🏀: oh, she just said some pretty freaky stuff, like she was for real]

[Cyrus: rest assured, she cannot see the future]

[TJ 🏀: thank god]

[Cyrus: i, however, can. and i see you and me tomorrow at the spoon for taters]

[TJ 🏀: can you now? i’d love to but i have practice, sorry, maybe another time]

[Cyrus: yeah totally!!]

Cyrus had really hoped those exclamation points could mask his disappointment.

18. I get disappointed easily

19. I’m a burden

Had he already written that? He didn’t know, and he frankly didn’t care. If he wrote it twice, maybe it was really true.

After his bar mitzvah, things seemed to be pretty at bay. Buffy was playing well on the basketball team. Life with Andi seemed less dramatic than usual, and everyone seemed to be getting alone pretty well. That was, until he went to one of the basketball games and found TJ glaring at the court, not dressed in his uniform. He’d went over to check on him, but TJ had just brushed him off.

20. I’m a bother

21. I’m nosy

“Eating your feelings? I do that,” he’d tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but TJ’s face was a palette of annoyed and frustrated. The two of them had sat down at the table in the room adjacent to the court.

“Think they’ll win without me?” TJ had asked, his mind seeming to be anywhere else but in this conversation. It was weird not seeing him on the court, Cyrus agreed.

“I don’t even know who they’re playing,” he’d admitted with a shrug.

“The Raptors,” TJ had sighed, “I should be in that game.”

“Why aren’t you?” Cyrus had asked. Way to be direct, kid.

TJ grumbled. “‘Cause. . .I’m failing math. They won’t let me play basketball because I can’t do some stupid equations. How are those things even related?”

Cyrus had started putting pieces together, but he didn’t want to pry. He didn’t want to ruin the delicate friendship between him and TJ. “Maybe you should get a different tutor,” he’d suggested.

TJ had just brushed him off. “What I need is a different. . .brain.”

Cyrus had frowned, his brows knitting into confusion. “What’s wrong with yours?”

For the first time that day, TJ looked almost hesitant. “It doesn’t work. There’s a malfunction.”

That was one way to put it, Cyrus had thought.

“I might have this. . .math dyslexia,”

“Dyscalculia,” Cyrus had said, not missing a beat.

“Buffy’s the one who figured it out. She’s been bugging me to talk to Coleman. Constantly on my back about it,” TJ had sounded exasperated.

“It’s pretty common. Not worth replacing your brain over,” Cyrus had assured him, the beginnings of a smile starting to form.

TJ rolled his eyes. “Dude, it’s a-” he was cut off by a few people entering the room, and he clammed up immediately, waiting for them to leave. When he was certain they were out of earshot, he’d continued.

“. . .learning disability. I don’t wanna go around announcing that,”

Cyrus had felt awful; TJ didn’t deserve to feel like this. “Dude, that’s an overused buzzword. There is nothing wrong with you.”

TJ seemed to almost stop frowning at that. Cyrus couldn’t back it up with evidence, he had just said it.

“And, your teacher can’t fail you for having it.” Of course he couldn’t. He just regurgitated facts.

22. I’m not helpful

“Coleman can’t fail me,” TJ had repeated, the words tasting almost strange in his mouth.

“You could be playing basketball. Right now.”

TJ had groaned, leaning back in his chair. “And Buffy’s been right all along,” he’d mumbled, almost chuckling to himself, “At least this time I’ll mean it when I tell her she’s right. That really is her favorite thing to hear.”

Cyrus had cringed internally. “I shouldn’t have told you about that. She’d kill me if she ever found out.”

TJ had scoffed at that, shaking his head. “Ah, don’t worry. She won’t find out,” he had paused for a moment, “and she may have been right, but you’re the one who really helped me.”

Cyrus hadn’t known what to say at that. He felt oddly proud of himself, and seeing TJ smile a little just made the whole moment better.

“Cheese puff?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shrugged. “Sure.”

That day had been a good one, Cyrus had concluded. TJ had found him helpful, which almost made him want to erase the previous thing he’d written. But, he figured, he’d end up rewriting it anyways later, so why change it now.

Besides, what had happened later with Buffy only made him wince. How could he have been so careless as to tell TJ his best friend’s weakness?

23. I’m a bad friend

24. I’m not trustworthy

25. I’m a backstabber

26. I can’t keep a secret

27. I’m a liar

‘He wants to be friends with me. Who knows why?’

He still thought about that sometimes. Why did TJ want to be friends with him? Not for his terrible humor, or for his nerdy jokes, that was for sure. TJ did seem to take pity on him after Buffy left.

“Cyrus, hey!” TJ had called out, jogging up to Cyrus’ locker, only to find him staring into the void. He had waved his hand in front of his face. “Earth to Cyrus?”

Cyrus had flinched, nearly hitting his head on his own locker. “Huh? Oh, hey TJ.”

“Something on your mind?”

Pity. Pity was all that his mind could chant at him, but somehow, he still ended up talking. “I miss Buffy,” he muttered, closing his eyes. It was only his first day back at school, and he was already miserable.

TJ had slung his arm across his shoulder, tugging him down the hallway towards the cafeteria. “I know you do. But hey, she’s just a call or a text away right?”

Cyrus just shrugged, keeping his gaze down. “I guess so,”

“Do you wanna sit with me and my friends at lunch?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shook his head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you though, really. I’ll see you around.”

28. I push people away when they just want to help

Cyrus seemed to be pretty good at pushing people away. No matter how much he’d isolated himself from people, especially when Buffy was away, they still managed to make an effort to sneak back into his life. Well, less people and more TJ. He’d even apologized to a piece of metal in order to sit down with him and Andi. And then of course, in typical Cyrus fashion, he just let his emotions flow and texted him his list of things he couldn’t do.

29. I’m pathetic

He’d even taken time out of his day to, first of all, drag him out of the drama between Andi and Jonah, and second of all, to teach him how to do a somersault. He didn’t forget how his heart fluttered after they chest bumped. It felt like it did around Jonah. . .well, used to feel around Jonah.

Even when Buffy had said that his disappeared, he had lied slightly. At this point, he didn’t want to admit that his crush didn’t “disappear”, but it. . .moved, almost. It was like all his feelings transferred to TJ; the sweaty palms, the fluttering heart, and the indescribable desire to spend more time around him, preferably alone. Time spent alone with TJ was some of the best time of his life.

“Okay, so go over this one more time?” TJ had sighed, swirling his straw in his milkshake.

“So,” Cyrus started, clearing his throat, “I’ll find a way to get Buffy to the basketball courts, and then you show up, I’ll disappear, then you two can talk for a little, I’ll come back and then you guys will play some one on one,”

TJ had chuckled, leaning back in the booth. “Wow, you’ve really thought about this, huh?”

Cyrus was probably blushing now, and he tried to hide it by shrugging and sipping his milkshake. “Just a little bit,”

“Well, it’s a pretty good idea. You’re full of them.”

Cyrus was now for sure blushing. “Eh, I try.”

“You succeed.”

Why did he have to say these things? It only made Cyrus more and more and more flustered.

That day was one of his fondest memories with TJ. It was also probably when he realized how intense his crush really was. And when the day came for the basketball game, it was a little shaky, but it had worked out. Heck, TJ had even performed an apology rap for Buffy.

‘I’m so confused.’

So was Cyrus that day. He didn’t know why TJ had even agreed to go through all this effort just to apologize for Buffy. Maybe it’d be nice to befriend someone he liked, Cyrus thought. After all, that’s how it went for him and Jonah, but at least that crush was in the past.

30. I’m stupid

After Buffy had decided to start her basketball team, she had enlisted in Cyrus, and Andi a little, to help put up posters. Andi made them, Cyrus had to hang them. TJ had even offered to help him do that.

“Need some help down there?” TJ’s voice had floated down the hallway, a stupid grin on his face.

Cyrus had jumped one last time to try and pin the poster up, but to no avail. “Is it that obvious?”

TJ had chuckled at that, plucking the poster from his hands. “Huh. ‘Girls Basketball Tryouts This Week’. You trying out for the team, Underdog?”

Cyrus huffed at that, crossing his arms. “No. I’m just on poster-hanging duty. Which I seem to be failing at.”

“Here, I’ll help you,” he’d offered, handing the poster back to Cyrus.

Cyrus scowled, looking between the poster and TJ. “I told you that I couldn’t reach the-hey!”

And before Cyrus knew it his feet weren’t on the ground anymore. TJ had a firm grip on him, and Cyrus was just squirming.

“I could do it for you but, teach a man to fish?” he had repeated his mantra from when they first met each other.

“TJ, put me down!” Cyrus giggled, his legs kicking in the air.

TJ eventually gave in, putting him down, smiling widely. “Fine, fine, I’ll help put them up. The normal way.”

It had taken them way longer than expected to put up the posters, probably because they were just a chaotic duo, but Cyrus wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was way more fun than expected, even if it took a long time.

31. I waste people’s time

TJ was always one to push him out of his comfort zone, literally and figuratively. The day they went dirt biking was probably the epitome of that fact. The day was supposed to be a great one, seeing as he finally was getting around to meeting TJ’s friends. But things turned sour once Reed had shown him the gun. And when he confronted TJ about it, he barely said anything. Worse, he didn’t leave either. He was so concerned with his safety, as well as TJ’s, but still managed to walk off without him.

32. I’m careless

And then worse, he thought, was when he went to talk to Metcalf and the police about the gun. He felt so panicked the whole day after that encounter that he couldn’t even eat lunch. And considering he wasn’t allowed to talk to TJ all day, thanks to his friends, it felt worse. Don’t get him wrong, he appreciated what Buffy and Andi did for him, but he really wanted to clear things up with TJ. When they talked it out on the swings, he had no idea why he said the things he did.

“You can be a little annoying, you know that?” TJ had said, taking a step towards him.

33. I’m annoying

“Well, you can be oblivious,” Cyrus had countered weakly. He didn’t even know where the word oblivious came from. Oblivious to what? To the fact that sitting there with Reed was putting him in obvious danger? Or to the fact that Cyrus had an undeniable crush on him?

“Well you can be very judgy,” TJ had remarked, taking another step forward.

34. I’m judgy

“Well you can be intimidating,” Cyrus had replied, and was surprised his voice wasn’t wobbling.

“You know what else you are?”

That sounded like a threat. TJ could fill it in with any word in the world. Nosy. Irritating. Not my friend. He had told himself to keep his composure.

“What?” How he had managed to say that without his voice breaking was beyond him.

“The only person I can talk to like this,” he had said softer. Cyrus thought he was going to faint; he said what? He couldn’t help but smile at that.

That day seemed like light years away now, so far that it was nothing but a mere memory. He almost wishes he was back on the swingset with TJ, just swinging mindlessly. Or maybe he wants to go back to playing ping-pong with him and Jonah after they’d resolved their issues. It had been a bit of a stressful day for the most part, but seeing Jonah and TJ make up made it all worth it. Although, when they were talking about ‘stuff’ they had to do with, Cyrus had chickened out and said something about flamingos. He barely remembered, but he knew it was a lie. They’d played a few more round until Jonah decided to head over to the Red Rooster with Andi, leaving him and TJ.

“So, flamingos, huh?” TJ had chuckled, picking up the ping-pong balls that remained on the floor.

Cyrus had just shrugged, trying to ignore the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest: a clear sign that he was lying. Couple that with feeling like he couldn’t swallow, and you had a recipe for disaster.

“Yup,” he squeaked, putting the paddles on top of each other, “real and plastic,”

TJ had just hummed in response, leaning against the table. “So when we went to the zoo that time and you were spitting out facts about why flamingos are pink, while you pointed at them. . .your fear just happened to disappear then?”

Cyrus gulped, trailing his finger around the rim of the paddles. “That. . .that’s the day it started?” he’s said, but it sounded like a question.

TJ’s expression had softened, and he’d come up to Cyrus, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Stuff?”

Cyrus nodded weakly in response. “Yeah, stuff,”

“Swings?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shook his head, nodding over to the stairs. “Stairs,” he’d mumbled, going and taking a seat on the second to the last stair. TJ had sat down beside him, and he didn’t push him to talk. He knew Cyrus would talk when he was good and ready.

“Look,” he started, “this. . .this is something that I think about a lot, you know? It’s not. . .something I’m ashamed of, I just don’t tell people that I don’t trust,” he admitted.

“Unless you killed someone I swear I’ll keep whatever you tell me a secret,” TJ had promised, crossing his heart, “and even then, I’d help you hide the body.”

Cyrus breathed out a laugh at that. “No, it’s not that it’s. . .I don’t like girls,” he said lamely, waving his hands in the air a little, “I mean, I-I like guys. Like, in a romantic way,”

TJ had remained quiet for a moment, waiting to see if Cyrus had anything else to say, but when he didn’t he just nudged him lightly. “I’m glad you told me. It was brave,” he paused, looking up to face him, “you’re brave, Cyrus. Braver than you give yourself credit for,”

Cyrus had smiled softly, breathing out and feeling like the oxygen was actually getting to his lungs. “So. . .we’re still cool? You and me?”

TJ had scoffed, nudging him once more. “Of course we are! It’ll take a lot more than this for things to be not cool between us.”

He kept thinking about that day; what if it wasn’t the best time to come out to TJ? What if he actually did think it was weird and was just trying to keep the situation as light as possible? All these what ifs, Cyrus concluded, could be boiled down.

35. I’m gay

He sighed, staring at that statement for a while. It was true, but the idea that TJ could hate him for something he couldn’t control. . .it hurt a lot. Almost too much, but he had to write down every possibility, every possible thing.

36. I’m weird

That one was a little more general, he supposed. Weird could cover a lot of things, not just being who he was, but all his nerdy hyperfixations, the way he acted around people, and his choice to never really go out with friends to parties. Too many reasons to list, so it was all boiled down to one word.

One word. That seemed to be all TJ could say after his dance recital that one weekend.

He’d finished the routine and was in the locker room wrapping up and putting his things into his duffel bag when they door swung open. TJ was walking his way, a hand behind his back.

“Wow,” he’d said, a gentle smile on his face.

Cyrus waited for him to say more, even along the lines of how ridiculous he’d looked on stage, flopping around like boiled pasta, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Wow? That’s it?”

“Wow, wow,” he repeated, pulling out a small dandelion from behind his back and handing it to Cyrus with a sheepish smile on his face, “. . .wow,”

Cyrus had accepted the flower graciously, and TJ had said something about catching up with his sister before he left for practice.

37. I’m a bad dancer

TJ somehow knew that dandelions were Cyrus’ favorite, probably from the numerous times he’d said that. He always knew just what to bring to every event, even to his Bubbe Rose’ shiva. How did he know to bring challah bread?

“Hey, Cyrus,” TJ had caught him alone, after the others had left and his family was cleaning dishes up and packing away food.

“TJ, hi,” he’d returned with a small smile, stacking one plate on top of another, “you know we’re wrapping up and all, you can go home,”

“I know,” he’d said, putting his hands in his pockets, “I just wanted to say that. . .I’m sorry for your loss. I know that she was really important to you, and I don’t know how much it’s going to mean coming from me, but. . .she cares about you a lot. We all do,” he’d gestured vaguely to the people around the room.

Cyrus had felt like crying right then and there, but he didn’t, somehow. He just smiled wider than before. “That does mean a lot, thank you, really. I know she does, I just. . .I miss her a lot already,”

“I know, and. . .if you ever want to talk about anything, tell me stories about her, or you just want me to distract you from this with a basketball story, I’m there.”

“Thank you, TJ. That means a lot.”

How had things managed to go from almost perfect, to the disastrous state that they were in now? He wanted to say that he didn’t understand, but he did. He knew that it had to do with himself, because that always seemed to be the problem. He always seemed to be the problem. The things he wrote just started to spill out of him.

38. I’m not worthy

39. I’m always the problem

40. I’m there when I’m not wanted

41. I’m a second-best person

42. I’m not attractive

43. I isolate myself from people

44. I’m a disaster

45. I’m annoying

He stopped writing for a second; the last words he’d written looked familiar. He scanned over the list and found that he’d written ‘I’m annoying’ three times. Sighing, he set the pen down and closed his eyes. Annoying. He’d written it so many times, that was probably the main reason, he deducted. With a shaky hand, he folded up the paper and shoved it into a backpack pocket of his. He didn’t feel particularly upset, he just felt numb, and a little tired. He managed to trudge down the stairs, where his mom was sitting and cutting up some vegetables for tonight’s dinner.

“Cyrus, sweetie, how are you feeling?” she asked sweetly, wiping her hands on the towel.

He just shrugged, unable to maintain eye contact for longer than a second. “Not. . .great. Is it okay if I stay home from school tomorrow?”

She softened at that, coming over to him and giving his shoulder a light squeeze. “I know you’re upset, but avoiding-”

“-just one day, please mom. I swear I’ll go back the day after. I promise. I just need tomorrow,” he pleaded, looking up at her, eyes filled with a layer of unshed tears.

She looked over his facial features for a few seconds before her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded weakly. “Okay, you have tomorrow, okay? Do whatever you need to do and if you want to be alone, that’s fine. If you need someone to talk to-”

“-I can call another therapist,” Cyrus half-joked, offering a tiny smile, “thanks, mom. I’ll be in my room for a little while. Think I’ll just take a nap.”

She nodded, watching him worriedly as he walked up the stairs and quietly shut the door to his room with a gentle click. He collapsed onto his bed, and he lied there forever until he felt like he couldn’t breathe through his nose. When did he start crying? Cyrus didn’t even know the answer to that simple question, and he was too weary to think about it. He pulled the covers over his head, closed his eyes, and waited for all the thoughts swirling around his head to settle down, before he finally fell asleep.

The next time Cyrus woke up, it was pretty dark outside, and he squinted at his alarm clock. It was close to eleven thirty, and he just sighed, grabbing his phone off of his stand and opened it to check through his notifications.. A few texts from Andi and Buffy in their group chat, one from Amber about dance, and none from TJ.

[buffy: hey cy are you okay?]

[andi: yeah, we’re worried. but we’ll talk to you tomorrow]

[cyrus: i’m not going tomorrow, i don’t feel well]

[andi: are you okay? do you need soup or something?]

[buffy: yeah do you need us to come over?]

[cyrus: no that’s fine, it’s not that bad, but i did manage to convince my mom to let me stay home]

[buffy: the talented actor mr cyrus goodman]

[cyrus: i’m not lying, it’s the truth, it’s just not the worst pain i could be in]

[andi: well if you need anything, just text us]

[cyrus: i will, i love you guys]

[buffy: we love you too!]

[andi: <3]

Cyrus felt drained just from that short conversation, and he put his phone aside, staring up at the ceiling. It irked him that TJ hadn’t sent him a text, especially after what had happened. If he wanted to apologize, which maybe he didn’t, a text would have been a start, because on Costume Day, there was nothing more than a few ‘I’m sorrys’ and ‘I should have called’. It wasn’t enough, not in the slightest, but as the days went on, desperation started to seep in, and Cyrus tried to convince himself that it was enough of an apology for him to just forget all of this happened. But no matter how many times he said that to himself in the mirror, he never could actually, genuinely believe himself. After a little more thinking about the matter, he pulled the covers back over his head, and fell asleep again.

“C’mon, c’mon,” TJ muttered under his breath, scanning through the hallway to try and find a certain brown-eyed boy walking through the hallways. But the more time that passed, the more his hope drained, and he retreated to his locker. Thankfully, he saw Buffy and Andi walking together, and nearly pushed people over to talk to them.

“Have you guys seen Cyrus today?” He asked, nearly out of breath, and looking mildly disheveled.

The two girls exchanged looks, not really wanting to talk to TJ at the moment, but they just gave him cold gazes. “He’s sick,” Buffy said simply.

“Wait, what? It’s, like, basically summer,” TJ sputtered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Andi shrugged. “All I know is that he said he felt too tired and too weak to come to school today. Should be back tomorrow,” she said curtly, pivoting on her foot and heading to her next class, Buffy following close behind.

TJ just stood in the middle of the hallway, dumbfounded. Cyrus wasn’t in school today, and he couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault. Tired and weak, they’d said. That didn’t sound like a typical cold, and he tried not to jump to the worst possible conclusion, but his mind didn’t allow him to do that. Cyrus was home because he wanted to avoid him. He couldn’t come to school because of TJ.

The whole day, TJ had been distracted. He couldn’t shake this vague nausea, because it was his fault. It was always his fault, it seemed. Everything was. He couldn’t concentrate in school, he missed almost all of his shots in basketball practice, and he didn’t get any of his homework done. All he did was stare at the words on the page and let them turn to mush as he shut the book angrily, rubbing his eyes harshly. He turned off the lamp and just scrolled through his phone. He wanted to send Cyrus a text, but he was too afraid. Too much of a coward. He’d typed out so many messages in his notes, but never sent any of them.

Overwhelmed by emotions, he shut his phone off and tried to sleep. It was a fitful attempt to sleep, and he was tossing and turning all night long, it felt like. He was sure that he had fallen asleep at some point, because after what felt like a longer blink, his alarm went off, and he just knocked it over to the ground with a groan.

Cyrus wished that he felt better after a day of just sleeping and watching YouTube videos, but he didn’t. He still felt just as drained and upset, if not moreso. When his mom served him breakfast, he told her that he wasn’t hungry, but that he was alright.

Having not done his homework due yesterday, he just circled random answers on the worksheets, and shoved papers into his backpack with a weak sense of urgency. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through the day without Andi and Buffy asking him a ton of questions. Don’t get him wrong, he loved them to death, but today was a day where he really couldn’t deal with talking to people, even them.

“Have a good day at school, Cyrus,” his mom called after him as he opened the door.

“I’ll try,” he mumbled, heading on his way. Sometimes TJ would wait for him in the morning, running from his hand and then the two of them would make their way to school, nearly hand in hand. The space around him felt almost too big as he walked, and he felt so small.

The bell was too loud, there were too many students, and Cyrus felt like a stranger in the school, only having been gone for a day, though. He almost forgot his locker combination, because his brain only wanted to focus on how weak his knees felt.

“Cyrus!”

All his thoughts came to a screeching halt at that sound. He knew damn well who it was, but all his brain seemed to chant was ‘danger, danger, pain, pain, pain, sadness’. He didn’t turn around, he didn’t even zip up his bag all the way, he just ran, who knows to what class. If his gym teacher could see him now, he would be beyond proud. Fortunately for him, he was running in the right direction, and ended up in his math class, nearly out of breath. He picked a seat near the back and tried to make sure that his teacher wouldn’t call on him. Unzipping his bag, he pulled out his notebook from his big pocket, and then a pencil from his small one.

Huh, he thought, zipping up the smaller pocket, it was kind of open. He tried not to linger on that for too long, as his teacher was about to start another lesson.

TJ could only watch him run off as he stood there. He felt his heart sinking deeper and deeper into his stomach, and was about to turn and walk off a small piece of paper fluttered near the corner of the pod of lockers. Moving with utmost casualty, he walked over and picked it up before walking to his next class. While TJ usually loved history, the piece of paper burning in his pocket demanded attention. He took his usual seat near the back of the classroom, and as his teacher started talking about the Civil War, he quietly pulled out the paper and smoothed it out under his desk.

He was a little confused at first; it was a list of insults someone had written about themselves. A quick glance over revealed that they had written ‘I’m annoying’ three times before they stopped. He squinted at the writing, and more he looked at it, the more worried he got. It looked an awful lot like Cyrus’ handwriting. His y’s were always curled at the bottom just so, his a’s were never fully closed, and the way he drew his 2’s were just like the ones on the page.

TJ felt his whole chest seize up. If Cyrus really did write this, which was becoming a much more real possibility with each passing moment, he couldn’t help but feel like this was his fault. Did he really make Cyrus feel like this? Like he was basically worth nothing? Putting aside his worries, he ignored whatever his history teacher was saying, and pulled out another sheet of paper, keeping Cyrus’ in his lap for reference. At least it looked like he was taking notes, since his teacher seemed to pay him no mind. And when the bell rang, he shoved both pieces of paper into his pocket and bolted out the door, looking for a certain boy.

Last period didn’t end fast enough, so when the bell finally did ring, Cyrus was the most excited that he’d been all day. He still had homework he needed to catch up on, along with today’s work, but all he wanted to do when he got home was to sleep more. He was almost out the door and ready to walk home, when he felt an urgent tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he drew in a sharp breath. TJ.

“Hey,” TJ mumbled, tapping his fingers nervously against his jeans.

“What do you want, TJ?” Cyrus said. And it didn’t come out mean, or cruel, or cold. It was just tired, like he was on his way to something.

“This is only going to take a few minutes, please,” he practically begged, the urgency in his tone only growing. Being too tired to resist, Cyrus just shrugged, and TJ, wasting no more time, grabbed his wrist and dragged him towards an empty classroom, shutting the door behind him.

“Hurry up, I have things to do,” Cyrus mumbled, taking a seat on the top of a desk.

TJ nodded, and shakily pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he quickly handed it to Cyrus. When the other boy saw the paper, he immediately folded it back up, holding it close to his chest.

“Wh-where did you find this?” Cyrus squeaked, his voice on the edge of cracking.

“It was on the floor by some of the lockers,” he said softly, taking one of the chairs from under a desk and sitting in it, “when?”

Cyrus glanced up from his hands. “When what?”

“When did you write it?”

He toyed with the idea of lying to him. How would he know? But after a few moments of thought, he felt like there was nothing left to lose.

“The other day,” he admitted softly.

“Do you actually believe all the things you wrote? Cyrus, those are all lies,” TJ said firmly, scooting a little bit closer.

Cyrus shook his head, willing himself not to start crying, not here, and certainly not now. “Of course they’re true,” he grumbled, “why would you hate me if they’re not?”

TJ froze; if the rest of Cyrus’ words were a slap to the face, this was a stab right through his heart. He literally could not speak for several moments after he’d said that.

“I. . .you. . .you think I hate you?” He finally managed to say, his tongue feeling oddly dry.

Cyrus just shrugged again. “I mean, you bailed that day,” he said under his breath, kicking his legs underneath the desk.

TJ swore that if he wasn’t sitting down he would have fainted. “I. . .I mean, I’m really sorry for doing that, it was a crap move on my part, and there’s a sort of reason why I did but. . .I could never hate you, Cyrus, never.”

When Cyrus didn’t say anything, TJ pulled out the other piece of paper from his pocket, smoothing it out in front of him. “I swear this won’t take long, I’m just asking you to hear me out,” he looked up at Cyrus, who just motioned for him to hurry up.

TJ cleared his throat, tightly holding the piece of paper in his hand. “You’re not annoying, not at all,” he started, which barely garnered Cyrus’ attention.

“You are strong,” he continued.

“What the heck is going on?”

TJ put a hand up. “Just listen. You’re not helpless, if anything you’re an independent person. You don’t jump to conclusions too fast, if anything, you’re good at reading people from a first glance,”

Cyrus just furrowed his brows, listening to TJ talk. He glanced down at his list in his own hand, and it took him a few moments to realize that TJ was trying to counteract all the things that he’d written on his own list.

“But I do get scared too easily,” Cyrus mumbled, tracing his writing on the paper.

“That’s not a reason for anyone to hate you, Cyrus,” TJ assured him, “and. . .you’re not a bad judge of character, you’re actually pretty good at it. Great, even.”

“Pitiful,” Cyrus countered, crossing his arms in defense.

“Lies,” TJ cut him off before he could say more, “you’re not pitiful. And getting too comfortable with people you barely know? More like you can make friends really easily.”

“Yes, but,” Cyrus squints down at his own list, “I’m scared of stupid things.”

TJ shook his head. “No, you’re rational. You have rational fears,” he says, looking at the next thing, “and ‘wanting things that you can’t have’? You have goals and dreams that you want to achieve. I have no idea how you thought that anyone could hate you because of that. Getting happy at dumb things? Seeing you smile is one of the best part of my days, and I don’t even care what you smile about. It really doesn’t matter.”

If Cyrus didn’t know any better, he would have thought that he and TJ were back into their normal routine. He just looked at his list, and mumbled “dork.”

TJ’s face grew harder by the moment, and he gripped the side of the chair with his free hand to try and keep his emotions at bay. “You are not a dork, Cyrus. And, for that matter, you’re not clingy, you’re not desperate, or a geek, or cringy. Not in the slightest.”

Cyrus sighed. “Look TJ, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but you don’t need to pity me like this.”

His eyes widened, and for a second, nothing came out of his mouth except for a squeak. “You think this is pity? This isn’t pity, I’m just telling you the truth about yourself, because your mind seems to only think you’re the worst. Which you’re not, you’re my favorite person.”

TJ took a deep breath before continuing. “Physical strength? What’s that got to do with someone hating you? You don’t get disappointed easily, I know that for a fact, and,” he pauses, hesitantly reaching up and placing a hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, “you are not a burden. Please don’t say that about yourself.”

“But,” he pauses, looking down at his paper, “I am a bother, and nosy.”

“You’re not, not at all. And also, you are extremely helpful, Cyrus. You haven’t helped just me, but so many people. You’re a great friend, and all this nonsense of not being trustworthy or anything like that? It’s a complete lie.”

“Even if I do try to help people, when they try and help me, I push them away,” Cyrus said, glancing at TJ’s hand, which was still on his shoulder. He didn’t do anything to push him off, because honestly, the contact felt nice after a period of the cold shoulder.

“And people should hate you for that? It’s a coping mechanism, you should know that better than anyone,” TJ informed him, “and you are one of the smartest people I know, Cyrus. You’re not stupid, or pathetic, where did you even get that idea?”

“But I do waste people’s time,” he countered weakly, looking down at his lap.

TJ was so upset that Cyrus actually believed the things that he’d written about him, that it just made him want to crumple right then and there. “You don’t. You care so much about people, and you are always there when they need it. And you have annoying on here again, but that’s not true.”

Cyrus glances up at him when he says that. “But you said that I was.”

TJ raised his brows. “I’d never say that. When did I say that?”

“That day at the swings, after the whole Reed thing. You said that I was annoying. And judgy for that matter,” he muttered.

TJ sighed, bowing his head. “It. . .look, I’m sorry for saying that, but in the heat of the moment, I was upset because. . .I thought I was going to lose you. And I couldn’t bear that.”

The two of them were quiet for a little while, the only sound being the ticking clock up on the wall. Finally, TJ looked at the next things on the list, and felt like he was going to cry.

“Cyrus, look at me,” he said firmly, meeting the other boy’s gaze, “I will never, and have never, hated you because of who you are. You being gay is just part of who you are, and is not a reason for me, or anyone else for that matter, to hate you,” he pauses for a moment, “especially me. It’d be pretty hypocritical.”

Cyrus almost smiles at that. Almost. He instead just seems to relax, a breath passing through his lips. “I’m still weird though.”

TJ just shrugged. “Weird is good though. Why would anyone want to be normal?”

Cyrus gave a weak smile at that, feeling a little lighter with each of TJ’s words. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a bad dancer.”

TJ crossed his arms. “I’ve seen you in the studio, Cyrus. You’re not a bad dancer. You’re always smiling, and you get this little smirk on your face when you’re concentrating really hard. It’s cute.”

Cyrus ducked his head at that, and tried to tell his mind that he was still supposed to be mad at TJ, not fall for all his compliments. Before he could even say anything else, TJ beat him to it.

“You are worthy of everything, okay? You deserve the world. If anyone’s a problem, it’s me, not you. And you are certainly not a second best person. You’re my first choice, always have been. The fact that you isolate people is, again, a coping mechanism for when you’re upset. You’re not a disaster, and never have been. And I hope this time you believe me when I say you’re not annoying.”

Cyrus nodded weakly; it felt really nice to hear someone tell him that he was their first choice. It was like he was wanted.

“And. . .don’t say you’re not attractive. You’re. . .” he hesitates a little, barely able to look him in the eye, “you’re beautiful, Cy, okay? All of you. Your smile, your laugh, your personality especially.”

Cyrus opened his mouth to say something, but again, TJ beat him to it.

“Kira was going to out me if I didn’t do the costume with her. I’m sorry that I bailed and I’m sorry that I didn’t let you know, I was just so scared that she was going to tell people and I didn’t-”

“-TJ, slow down,” Cyrus cut him off, reaching out for his hand and giving it a soft squeeze, “I forgive you, okay? And. . .thank you for this. I feel a lot better now. And for the record,” he laughs a little, “I think you’re pretty handsome yourself.”

Now it was TJ’s turn to try and hide his blush. He looked down at their hands, and couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks,” he mumbled bashfully, “I try.”

Cyrus smiled, hopping off of his desk and standing. “I’ve missed talking to you. What do you say we go get some ice cream and catch up?”

TJ stood up with him. “I’d love that.”

And after two rounds of ice cream and way more laughing and talking, they fell back into their normal rhythm, with a little more hand holding and hugging. But after today, their relationship was all the more stronger. When he went home that day, Cyrus through his list in the garbage, and pinned up TJ’s list to the board in his room. Even when he was having a bad day, he could always look at that list and smile.

#andi mack #tyrus #tyrus fic #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #my fics

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pursuitofbrattiness-blog · 7 years

Text

Second

Things have been stressful but otherwise pretty decent lately. My bf and I celebrated our first anniversary together and now we are beginning to look for places come August 1st. I started therapy weekly for the time being. My first real appointment is on the 29th. It's crazy how long this journey has taken. I always thought when you're in a dire situation like needing mental help or being suicidal that they swooped in and actually took care of you. Luckily there have been no copay so far, but my bill from the emergency behavioral outreach and the hospital have totaled $2400+. I keep saying I was taken involuntarily and I was, but it's not like I didn't need the help. The bills are a sobering reminder of where I was versus where I need to be. Sometimes I sit back and think where did my life go? I'm 27 now and don't see a very promising future, except if you are thinking in terms of retail management. My poor choices have limited me so much in my future. I have a poor credit score and work a job $3 ish dollars over minimum wage, so in turn I live in a shit hole, drive a shitty car, and have an overall shitty life. I try not to be mad or have any resentment toward anyone. Who am I kidding? I did this all to myself. Everything. So therefore I am the only one who can help myself get out of it. I used to do so much. Martial arts, honors student, gifted writer, won the geography bee, etc etc. And then everything just kind of ... changed. Gradually. I remember when I started dating. My first bf and I are still very good friends to this day. We were together for like two years. That is, if I could find him. This was before everyone had cell phones. You actually had to work for it. Anyway he came out of the closet and left me. I was unhappy at first but soon came to realize that I would be even more unhappy in a sham relationship and if I truly do love him for who he is (which I still do, always.), then I should be happy with him trying to find his own happiness. I feel like my existence is made up of chapters and each chapter is named after the boy or man I chose to be with in that period of time. I used relationships as a way to identify myself for so long that I lost touch with who I really was as a person. I'm not sure if I've still even found that girl yet. Overall I had a pretty decent childhood. We were never rich, but my parents always made sure we had everything we needed. My older sister and I each received an LL Bean backpack when we started first grade and we were expected to maintain it and keep it throughout elementary school, we had chores, after school program, etc. I started going to camp when I was around 8 and continued until 17. I took martial arts and aspired to do something with my life. My parents pushed us a lot though, and it was sometimes hard on us girls. They expected us to socialize and play outside with the other kids. When I was like maybe 5 I met the neighbor kids. It was soon after that I knew about sex, knew what a blow job was, and just generally things a 5 year old shouldn't know. I would say that one of the single worst memories I have in my entire life is this: Couldn't have been more than 6 years old at the time. The neighbor boy asked if I wanted to see something. He wasn't even that much older than me. Maybe 7? 8? It's really kind of fuzzy after 20 years. Anyway, of course I wanted to see something. He led me into the back hall to the apartment building we lived in and pulled down his pants, exposing his penis. He said now you. I wasn't exactly sure what to do or say. I do remember what I was wearing though. Minnie Mouse romper thing. Light up sneakers. I did what he said. He asked if I had ever sucked dick before. No, I replied cautiously. He told me to close my eyes and open my mouth. I did so. Wider he says. I tightened my eyes abs opened as wide as I could. And that's when I tasted it. It tasted like cigarettes and laundry detergent. It was brief. I pulled away and opened my eyes. I saw my sister and his sister staring in through the glass on the door we went through. I didn't know what to think. Didn't get it. Stuff like that happened between the brother and the sister and I until they finally moved away. To this day I know I'm not completely heterosexual and know that this probably was the catalyst. I have always been ashamed. Always hid it. Never wanted to talk about it. Would leave the room and feel uncomfortable if a lesbian couple was featured on TV, for instance. Nowadays I suppose the society we live in would say that I'm absolutely silly for hiding it. I never found out why I have such a shame for it. I'm bisexual through and through, but I really do prefer the company of men. It's weird. Sexuality is a vast and diverse thing, and talking about my own experience makes me understand a little bit more. Other bad things happened that I don't want to divulge right now. But they were really bad. And had a really profound impact on who I am as a person. I became the girl that automatically equates sex with love. Not necessarily a bad thing definitely, but it's also hurt me quite a bit. Men can be cruel. I can be, too, however. My second boyfriend was the prime example of this. I was 16 and he was 21 and I took advantage pretty damn hard. I mean, who wouldnt? I also took his virginity so nowadays I think about what he did and it makes more sense to me, especially given what I went through. Anyway this dude was getting SSI and I met him thru my ex boyfriend (yes the gay one) and on the internet kind of. It was a mixture. Anyway this dude had cerebral palsy and was getting like 550 a month. Of course once we started dating it was ALL going to me. Dumb shit, too. Dinners, $45 blankets at hot topic, just stupid shit. I was a kid so I liked dumb shit. He liked fucking a kid because he was/is a sexual predator. Ugh I got so fat and gross. I started the depo shot when I was like 16.5 or 17 and gained so much weight. I ended up getting pregnant and yeah something bad happened so we wont really go into detail about that. I started smoking weed as much as I could and drinking to legit get fucked the fuck up. Like puke, drink, repeat. Binge drinking. Soon the relationship between palsy dude and I was growing sour. He was starting to become physically abusive, and using items and marriage proposals, and cheap fucking 1/10 diamond rings from walmart to try to lure me in. I dropped out of high school and almost joined the fucking military. I quit martial arts. I was legit becoming a shell. Crying out for any attention I could at home. My parents were too busy trying to repair their marriage. I get it now, mom and dad. I can't even imagine how you guys did it all and managed to save your marriage. I understand why it had to be done. I acted like a casualty of it for years. It finally dawned on me that they were trying to save it for ME. For my sis and I. I'm truly grateful now. They are still together and seem to be more in love than ever. Someday I will have something this healthy. Anyway the first time palsy dude (and yes that is what he will be referred to as. First bf is gay bf. Deal with it. He loves it.) was physical with me was after some brief altercation we had had. I called him stupid. He was driving his fuckin piece of shit Intrepid and stopped short at a stop sign. He looked me dead in the eyes and wrenched my windpipe with his good hand. Don't you ever fucking call me that again. He said through gritted teeth. His forehead turned red and he started breathing heavily through his nose before shoving me backwards and letting me go. Instantly my eyes welled up with tears and I think .02 seconds after that, he was sorry. He was always fuckin sorry. It continued to get worse. Shoving me into walls, kicking me when I was laying in the fetal position crying. Blaming me for what happened when I got pregnant. Blowing my fuckin cell phone up and running up my parents bill, always wanted to know where I was. So I apparently had gradually decided months ago the best course of action was to make him my life and quit my sport, quit school, join the military and make him and army husband. It all sounds so fuckin ridiculous now, but that's what my plan was. Til shit started going sour. My parents intervened after finding out I had missed about 90 days of school. Everyday before I left, I unhooked the phone so when the school called looking for me, the line was unreachable. I ended up in alternative school where I learned math easily from a computer, and graduated high school with like a 3.2 average or something. I went to school 7 am to 10 am and worked as much as I could for a drug store downtown. Once I got that job I found my independence and literally decided one day I did not need to be treated the way palsy dude saw fit. I was hanging out more and more with gay ex bf and his little sister, among them their friends, which in turn became my friends. A veritable menagerie of different scenes, culminating into the love for two things. Partying, and trying to find the means to do so. I had a job so I would buy weed and booze any chance I could get and share with everyone. A lot of times I would go to gay ex bfs dad's house after school and wait for him to come over so we could hang and party. Smoke maybe do some pills and drink. There was another reason I would go over there. Gay ex bfs dad was a heroin addict and I felt really bad for him because he was very kind and gave me a lot of advice and tried to help me in my future. I feel like I was making him hamburger helper everyday for at least a few months. Always with a couple slices of cheese on top. He used to ask for it, but then I would just routinely go into the fridge and see what I could make for us. Sometimes when he would eat, he would start to go to sleep so I would make sure he stayed awake and smoked his cigarette and ate and had a drink of water before he fell asleep again. Sometimes I would make sure the little sister would get to school at a decent time, although no one could ever control her after you dropped her off at the middle school. I always loved that about her. She always marched to the beat of her own drum. Anyway, I broke up with palsy dude. He had been living in a rooming house in my city to be closer to me. I told him i was done. He smashed a ceramic mug he had and sliced his wrists over and over. I was in awe and surely did not know what to say or do. He blocked the door and cried to me to reconsider. I had to call the cops. I went to my friends house after and my friends mother consoled me. My parents picked me up and took me home. He killed the hamster he bought me after that I'm pretty sure. He harassed me for weeks. Finally the day after my 18th birthday he called my cell. Not sure why but I answered. He sounded hysterical as usual. I heard wind blowing into the speaker which meant he was outside somewhere. What the fuck do you want I said. He replied, through gritted teeth I'm sure, I wanted to do this on your birthday. Now the sound I heard after I can only describe as dropping a heavy book in an empty room, on a wood floor. The phone hung up. I looked at my friends who I was with at the time and said something to the effect of I think this motherfucker shot himself. So I decide to call back. This dude fucking answers. When I ask him what happened he confirmed my fear of shooting himself. But miraculously he DIDN'T DIE. BECAUSE AFTER HE TOLD ME WHAT HAPPENED I CALLED FUCKIN 911. I GUESSED THAT HE WAS AT HIS PARENTS, THAT WOULD BE THE ONLY PLACE HE WENT THAT DIDN'T HAVE THE SOUND OF THE CITY IN THE BACKGROUND. Oh how right i was and they jetted on over to put his face back together. So they did plastic surgery and looks 100% better now, which makes my story even more fucking unbelievable. I mean I haven't seen him IN PERSON for years, almost a decade actually, but his Facebook (yes I creep) makes him look completely normal. Here's the fuckin kicker. I had to get a restraining order on him. He still tried his damndest to contact me through any means possible. I was scared and just wanted it all to be over so I finally got the balls to tell him to leave me alone or face jail time. Needless to say he did. He's in an unhappy marriage and has a child. I only know this because he is a Facebook creep too and COULD NOT RESIST seeing what's up with my fine ass after all these years. Basically said gl with the kids and shitty marriage douche. Man that felt good.

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kokoro4kakashi · 7 years

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11(x2) Questions

Tagged by @letliv3 (gr can’t tag here) :)

1. What is your favorite movie soundtrack and why? Yanno, I listened to the soundtrack from Gladiator a million times. In the car, at home - I loved it :) It was just so moving. A close second is The Mists of Avalon.

2. What is your favorite smell and why? Peppermint! Dunno why, it’s just pleasant? I am very tempted to try and have another peppermint plant this spring but I can’t use the leaves for anything and I don’t wanna have it be a magnet for earwigs again - that broke meh gardenin’ heart to see it ravaged.

3. If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I would haaaaave to pick something healthy just cuz it’d be silly to have french fries all the time.

4. What teacher has most influenced you in your life? Mrs Cole, my 6th grade teacher. I was in kindergarten thru 6th grade in the same elementary school and you’d hear near the end of the school year which teachers in the next grade were nice, cool, hard, etc... and she was one I’d heard prior to 6th grade who was tough, mean, yelled, etc... but turns out she was funny, nice, yelled for comedic effect, let us watch cartoons at lunch (go Chip n Dale!), kind (took me aside to ask if i was having problems in math), brought her two weiner doggies in sometimes and they’d sleep under her desk... I mean, she was the best all around and a good example to me of not per-judging someone.

5. Who was your idol as a child? Why did you admire this person? Oh geez, I dun think I can remember that... I liked most of my teachers cuz they had knowledge I didn’t ... does that count? hha

6. What kind of coloring books go you like? The simple and succinct ones or the intricate and detailed ones? Well... dunno. I remember liking coloring books when I was younger, but haven’t been inclined to pick any up now... I liked, when muuuuch younger, those fuzzy posters, which I think are still sold - those I tried to make look like a stained glass window.

7. What are your go-to pair of shoes? In the non-winter? Flip flops. Durable flip-flops, or ‘thongs’ depending on what you call em. Actually I usually have a crap pair I can throw on to run an errand and a good durable pair that’re comfy for longer standing time-required stuff.

8. What would you name your Direwolf if you had one? Hm... Cheza :)

9. If you could change one event in the past, what would it be? (It doesn’t have to involve you in any way.) Go back in time and make sure the ignorant cheeto in the white house wasn’t born?

10. What is your favorite memory you have with your group of friends? Prolly a montage of video game playing. Mario Kart version.

11. If you could become part of your favorite series/ movie etc. would you? Mushishi. I would wanna be able to see the mushi, too, and travel around with Ginko... or at least be a fellow mushi master who communicates with him from time to time since he seems, in my memory, to be one of the more compassionate mushi masters in the series. His point of view is valuable.

Tagged by @eeearnest :)

1. What is your favorite book? I need to re-read to make sure which one, but it was one of the ones by Amy Tan. Not necessarily the Joy Juck Club, tho.

2. Are you the author or the reader? (Or artist and audience) Audience! I used to screencap redraw things but got out of the interest, and I definitely never wrote stuff and dun now.

3. What genre of movies is your favorite in theatres? I haven’t seen a movie in the theatre since.. Signs? But, I’d go to any... horror or comedy. Or really anything if it was with friends.

4. If you write, is it on paper or computer? n/a But, when thesis-working - it was on paper, then on computer for editing and final version.

5. Do you tend to hold grudges? And if so, what are you holding onto? I have this odd grudge with someone who used to be a friend. Been going on for... almost 15 years? Sheesh... Anyways, we were friends as far as I knew, and then I heard she was bad-mouthing me to a mutual friend, that friend dunno why, and since then we can’t be in the same room. Soooo... dunno.

6. Where in the world are you from? Washington state, US ;)

7. On a bunk bed, would you rather have the top bunk or the bottom bunk? Why? I’d defer to whatever the other person wanted, if they had a strong want for either... but if it were up to me, prolly bottom so I dun disturb them if I got up during the night.

8. What is your ideal spot to read? Does it actually exist (my ideal doesn’t exist yet). Hm... until they invent a comfy reading position in bed, dunno! I usually just try and curl up in a comfy, quiet spot - wherever that may be.

9. What’s your favorite Studio Ghibli film? If you haven’t seen them we can’t be friends until you do. *mumbles a string of words that hopefully sounds like a title to you* >_____>;;

10. What do you do on Tumblr? What do I do? Haha I dunno, on the surface - post/reblog a lot about Naruto... but I enjoy the time I spend here, so that speaks to interactions ;)

11. Occupation? Or if student, what are you training for? Unemployed, heh. I was a student several years ago.

Thank you guys! ^_^ Lots of interesting questions!

Again, tagged several people recently and seen a lot of these get posted by others, so I’ll skip the tagging this time. <3

#kay so now it's been 55 like finny :)#letliv3 #personal

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muggle-writes · 5 years

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10 Questions Tag

I genuinely don’t recall seeing this tag game come in, but either I missed it or I didn’t tag my responses. Either way, I found it again today, so @elizabethsyson thanks for the tag, here’s my answers

1. What book/s made you want to write?

I don’t think it was a book necessarily. Fanfiction inspired me to write and publish fanfiction of my own, but previously, I would just concoct something equivalent to fanfiction even though I didn’t know it had a name, entertain myself with it without ever writing it down, and then eventually forget and move on to something else. But I’ve always used those same unwritten (though still primarily verbal) creative endeavors as a way to process emotions. Later, writing (original fiction that was more individual scenes with no plot resolution) served the same purpose, and now fanfiction serves the dual purpose of being an emotional outlet (those don’t necessarily ever get published) and being a fun and social thing to share with other fans.

On the other hand, I’ve got so many memories of having written stories above and beyond what a school assignment would call for, going at least as far back as second or third grade, so who knows, maybe one book in particular did inspire me to write. But if so, I don’t remember what that original inspiration was.

Also there’s one book in particular that’s just... Awful. I bought it at a dollar store and honestly no wonder it was only selling there. Worst book I’ve ever read. And sometimes I’m writing out of spite because if something with that many plot holes and “plot twists” that ignore any foreshadowing the author set up and come out of literally nowhere can get published, then I’m also definitely good enough to get published if I ever wanted to.

2. What is your favourite genre to write in?

Fanfiction is totally its own genre, right? Besides that, the gray area where fantasy, urban fantasy, and realistic contemporary fiction all meet. I tend towards realism, even when I write magic, but I love to write in universes where mythical creatures can be real, too. It’s my favorite genre to write in because it’s where I’m comfortable writing, and also because those tend to be the stories I enjoy reading and therefore know how my own contributions compare. Also because I love worldbuilding, and being in a fantasy universe not so different from our own gives me plenty of space to explore exactly what’s the same or different and why.

3. What is your favourite genre to read?

Fanfiction again, because I can explore an arbitrary character through hundreds of different lenses and poke at all the facets of their identity almost indefinitely, and it’s not restricted to what happens to be plot relevant, or even to scenarios that are all compatible with a single timeline, and it’s so character driven. It’s by far my favorite thing. Fantasy, primarily in two different flavors. On one hand, fuzzy rules of magic where everything goes as long as the magic user is powerful or creative enough, as a backdrop to an allegorical, easily divided black and white morality story is a category I almost always love. Magic can do basically anything, and it’s easy to know what’s right and wrong, and who to root for. On the other hand, I love what Brandon Sanderson would call “hard magic” fantasy, where magic is just as structured, and nearly as understood, as science, which I enjoy combined with a plot in which the characters have as much nuance and shades of gray as in the real world. I tend to prefer things at one of those extremes, but I’ll read almost any fantasy story.

4. How do you think your reading habits have influenced your writing style?

I mean it's just like verbal language: whatever I surround myself is going to shape the ideas and phrases and slang that come back out of my brain. Likewise, if I’m creating a magic system “from scratch” it’s inevitably shaped by things I read or watched young(ish), including but not limited to the Belgariad, and Star Wars and Pern (so basically, strongly connected to the mind and limited mainly by what you can imagine) (the Dresden Files and Good Omens seem to have pretty similar ideas about magic, but I ingested those much later)

on the other hand I think that my habit of primarily reading, even over watching shows or movies, has contributed to how little I ever actually think about what a character looks like, except occasionally when introductions get delayed for some reason and I can't use names in narration. So characters I only know from reading, I have zero idea what they look like. For example, I only remember that Sabriel is deathly pale as her default state because I reread the beginning of the book recently on Libby (a library app) while debating whether to check it out and reread the whole series in order to potentially write a crossover fanfiction. Her appearance was mentioned once or twice in the first few chapters and then never again, and it wasn’t something other characters often remarked upon, so I promptly forgot. Even though it’s absolutely fitting. Idk I’m just really not a visual thinker apparently, and always having character names to reference only reinforces that because why do I need to know what someone looks like if I know who they are?

5. What is your go-to cure when you get writer’s block or can’t focus?

Focus is easier. I make sure I’ve eaten, and I put on music so I’m not distracted by the silence or by the sound of my own typing. Plus I'll keep something cold and caffeinated in arms reach to sip on when I'm tempted to relinquish focus.

Writer’s block is harder to overcome and usually ties in with depression, so I’ll sometimes go months without writing and come back when I have energy for anything again... But in terms of actual strategies, sometimes rereading what I’ve already written will kickstart my unblocked writing, which is why I try very hard to only stop writing at “stopping points” if it’s genuinely the end of the story. Because when I come back later, it’s so much easier to read a partial chapter, get into the swing of it, and remember where it was going, than to start carving a new chapter out of nothing. Another thing that helps chip away at writer’s block is to talk to someone who is enthusiastic about my stories, or who is willing to let me infodump. Those are the only two things I can really control that have helped. Occasionally other things will help, like getting the book review style comments on fics (when I also have time to sit down and write while the comment is still new enough to make me surprised-and-happy over it), or if I can find the right balance of “obligation to someone else” and “not so much pressure I implode” (like, for example, I submitted a half-baked WIP to the recent WIP Blind Date event, and the afternoon after we got our assignments I started getting motivated to add to what I’ve posted about it to have something “worth” sharing for the event, and even though I didn’t get the momentum going enough to make progress until after I’d already been reviewed, I made a large amount of progress on that fic just because there was some amount of external pressure.... But that only works if I only do it to myself occasionally. Too often and I’m just annoying everyone by asking them to expect something from me and never following through.)

6. Why did you decide to start writing?

I think I got the right amount of compliments and encouragement when I was in elementary school, on writing assignments and challenges, then I was proud of the original stories I was writing in middle school, and then in high school I figured out that I could create barely-not-me characters and put them through things I wished (or feared) would happen to me and explore the consequences... My depression started getting bad around then, and with it came executive dysfunction and I started having to focus only on schoolwork and still barely finished everything I needed to. I might have stopped writing for longer but then I started publishing fanfiction. initially because my brain was generating it anyway, and I was in a shitty living situation with nothing else to do with my free time that I spent hidden away in my room besides actually type it up, but I kept at it because I was proud of my stories again, and because of the social aspect. And now I continue writing because I love the excuse to explore characters, or just because I can put characters I already love into new and interesting situations.

I might eventually write my own original novel, just because being on writeblr and seeing everyone else writing original works is super motivating, but that requires I have ideas for a setting and a plot and for characters all at once and I’m trying not to force it.

7. Pick a character you’ve written/are writing. What personality trait of theirs defines them most?

I’m going to cheat and peek a bit in the future to when I’m actually writing that fic featuring Julie Kwan, because I ought to have a better handle on her before I get too much further. She’s got a very sharp mind, very good at logical deductions (even if they involve magic before she really knows magic is real) and she’s also fairly good at reading other people. She’s also not afraid to confront people, whether they’re people who are literally threatening her and her friends, or whether they’re her friends and they’re not taking care of themselves sufficiently, or anything in between.

8. What is their primary language? Do they speak it natively? Do they speak any other languages?

...I'm not actually sure. English is her primary language, as she has grown up in the USA. If Julie speaks other languages, Mandarin would be fitting (because that’s Wei’s primary language, and I know Kate also speaks it, so that could add to team unity if over half of them all speak the same non-English language), or maybe Korean depending on her family (since Kwan is usually a Korean name.) Regardless, if she speaks any other languages, then I suspect she also speaks Klingon. @davetheshady can you confirm?

9. What does the character value the most in their life?

Julie is very focused on academia, she’s accomplished and rightfully proud of herself. She wants to be respected, (she’s so tired of being disrespected in academic circles just because she’s neither white nor a man), but she also very much values her friends.

10. If they met you, what would they have to say to you?

I think she would make fun of me for quoting her so often but she makes so many pop culture references, I don’t think she has room to complain. She would probably also encourage me to pursue graduate degrees no matter how “impractical” other people find the subject.

#tag games #writeblr 10 questions #anyway @dave thanks for letting me borrow your characters :)#i was determined not to tag you again until I had more progress on that fic but uh? I almost mostly have a plot so I guess that counts #it's ridiculous - basically saying house elves have relatives in one of the fae courts (haven't decided which one)#but i've never said this wouldn't be a crackfic so I think it's exactly on brand for the tone I've been aiming for #spew gets briefly revived until julie suggests a better name for it #because honestly? be more aware of your acronyms no wonder no one was interested in your society #i'm really skeptical of the ''oh house elves LIKE serving humans'' explanation #so instead the same humans that tricked the house elves into perpetual/generational slavery #also wrote into the contract that if a house elf was ''freed'' they'd surrender all their worldly possessions to the human family #and some other nasty clauses #so basically most have to be as desperate and mistreated as Dobby was before they're willing to try #but it's not because they're happy where they are just that the process of leaving is designed to screw them over and discourage it #also probably a prohibition about talking to unbound relatives about the contract but that doesn't say 'never mention it to a human' so...

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kidsviral-blog · 6 years

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What I've Learned About How To Be A Girl

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/what-ive-learned-about-how-to-be-a-girl/

What I've Learned About How To Be A Girl

Being a capital-G Girl is something that works for other people, and does not work for me. But it took me a while to get there.

View this image ›

Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

I am 4 or 5, preschool age, running around alone on a playground that only appears in this memory and no others. Two older girls (are they older or do they just seem older because they have long, beautiful hair and the right clothes?) ask me if I’m gay. They laugh, but together, at me. I think “gay” means “happy,” and I am, because it’s fall and I love fall and I am having a good time. I say yes. They’re so surprised, and they laugh more, scathingly, and my skin prickles with shame. “She said she’s gay!” They cackle. “You have hair like a boy,” they sneer, and I don’t yet understand why this is bad. The differences between myself and these girls seem very obvious, and very sharp, in a way they weren’t five minutes before.

I am in elementary school and I spend the vast majority of my time pretending to be someone else — anyone else. Characters I made up, characters I didn’t, versions of myself that I mentally insert into whatever I am reading at the time. Pretty much all of the versions of myself I envision have the following in common: They are older than I am, they are a thin version of myself I erroneously believe I will someday become, and they have Disney Princess hair that never has to be thought about or maintained. They are, essentially, the Perfect Girl version of me I really wanted to be. They’re exaggerated and do not allow for nuance. They’re the version of Girldom that just walked out of a 1950s ad for futuristic dishware. They still have an edge of hope.

I start middle school and my body feels separate from me. Nothing ever fills it, and I have no interest in adorning or primping it. I make a satchel out of felt and twine and tie it around my waist and ride my bike through the woods, pretending I’m an elf. My hair is long and tangles easily and I hate brushing it. My stepmother digs her fingers into it, picking as gently as she can at the rat’s nest it always becomes. I don’t wear jeans or dresses; I wear soft clothes that are too big for me. My mother picks at me — she wants me to be more feminine, she wants me to wear makeup and part my hair and wear nicer things that we can’t even afford, and I understand now that she wanted these things because she believed they would be armor between me and a world that hurt. She wanted them not because I wasn’t enough, but because she was afraid. It will take me 10 years to understand this. For now, I feel like I am not enough.

I am almost done with middle school, which has felt like a never-ending gauntlet. My body has shapes that I don’t like, that feel foreign and wrong. Other people notice. I’ve started wearing jeans and black oversize T-shirts with band names on them. I wear a lot of my father’s old clothing. Other people start calling me a slut in addition to a whale and a hippo. Once in art class a boy who never leaves me alone loosens the screws in my chair, and when I sit in it, it falls apart to a chorus of shrieking laughter. Two girls throw spitballs at me every afternoon on the bus; they jeer and snarl and I understand that this is what I deserve, because I am not good at being like them. I have friends, but only one of them is really nice to me, and even she sometimes caves. She doesn’t want to find herself outside, like I am. I forgive her over and over. I would do the same thing if I was her.

I start high school and I cut my hair short, short, short to my shoulders. I can’t hide behind it as much anymore. I make other friends; one teaches me how to put on eyeliner (incorrectly, it turns out). I start listening to music that makes me feel like there’s champagne under my skin, like I am understood. I learn that I can’t go without a bra anymore; I learn this by not wearing a bra and being quietly, snidely mocked all day. I still wear oversize things, but they’re bright. As time goes on, I find that I cannot be a girl the way that other girls are girls. I can’t find stylish clothes that fit me; I can’t afford them anyway. I start cutting up my old clothes to make them less ugly. They’re still ugly, but now I’ve made them that way, so it feels like a choice. High school is less overtly cruel, but there are still people who hate me on principle and make no secret of it. They are largely men. I don’t know what to do about it. I stop trying.

I am diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome when I am 13-almost-14. I start seeing a new endocrinologist when I am 15 and she puts me on a medication that will help with my insulin resistance, a symptom that baffles me. I understand that it has something to do with hormone production, but this understanding is fuzzy. I mostly feel like my baby-making parts are trying to kill me. I’m so bad at being a girl, I think, that being a girl is making me sick. She explains my weight is not my fault. It’s a symptom too. I feel complicated. It is not quite relief.

The medicine that helps with my insulin resistance makes me very sick.

I don’t tell anybody.

I figure: A doctor gave this to me, so it’s OK. She told me I need to lose weight, so maybe this is how.

I don’t feel like my body is really part of me. I don’t feel a connection to it. I don’t touch or look at it if I don’t have to, but there are mirrors all over my house, and I spend all of my time dodging them, because if I get caught I can’t stop looking, with the same kind of revolted fascination I recently saw on the face of a man contemplating a bad taxidermy website.

Everything I eat leaves my body almost immediately, leaving no footprint of fullness behind.

I start fainting.

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Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

Around 15 I dye my hair for the first time. I figure if I have to be different, I might as well be really different. All along, underneath this, there is a kind of level despair — a part of me feels anguished, always, even when I am happy. There is a war in me, and I have learned to ignore it. I dye my hair before my mother gets home one day. It’s red dye. My natural hair color is almost black. I don’t bleach it first, so what I wind up with is this sort of rusty auburn. I love it. I look in the mirror and for the first time I see someone that looks like me.

When I wash it out in the tub, it looks like the tub is full of blood. I think about what it would be like if it was my own, but idly, without any active interest. My scalp itches.

I lose around 70 pounds in six months. (This is a very dangerous amount of weight to lose that quickly, for anyone playing along at home.)

One day I notice my clavicle. I can fit two fingers in the hollows of it. It feels like an achievement.

“You’re doing so well,” everyone says. “You look so good.”

I am doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that there is something very wrong with the volume of food I am taking in versus the weight I am losing. I am hungry all the time. I am so hungry that hunger begins to just feel like something that always has been and always will be. I am the human equivalent of the sound of grinding teeth.

“You’re doing so well,” everyone says. “How much weight have you lost?”

Eventually I see a doctor. I see two, actually — my endocrinologist and a cardiologist, to see if there’s something wrong with my heart. There isn’t, and I’m surprised, because something feels very wrong with my heart.

I start gaining the weight back before we all leave for college and I gain the rest back during my freshman year. My boyfriend — we are trying long-distance because we’re idiots — tells me that I’m beautiful, and maybe we should work out together. (We live two states apart.) I’m stunning, and am I sure I want to eat that? I have never fully believed that I am desirable, and I can feel whatever tenuous certainty I have start to shrink.

I cut the rest of my hair off when I go home for winter break from school. I dye it red again — I had stopped, I hadn’t felt the need, I hadn’t wanted to. But I don’t feel like I have control over myself; I feel myself slipping. Desirability and femininity are so entangled in myself that I feel I can’t have one without the other; if I am failing at one, my attempts at the other must be laughable. Everyone must know. My hair looks terrible, but that’s mostly because the person who cut it didn’t know how to cut short hair on girls. I don’t hate it. I don’t like it, either. I feel, very carefully, not much at all.

When my boyfriend breaks up with me it blindsides me in the way only very obvious things can. I eat two meals in seven days. I want to shrink myself into nothing.

I grow my hair out. I grow my hair out for the better part of two years, thinking that all I want is to look like someone he never knew. I want to finally win at the game of Girldom I have been half-assing for my entire life. I wear dresses, I wear makeup, I get layers and Zooey Deschanel bangs and I blow-dry them. I wear things that fit. I paint my nails. I am aggressively, determinedly Normal. I am sick of being outside. I am sick of fighting.

Being a Girl is so much harder than being a girl and it feels like a Sisyphean task, because no matter what I do I take up too much space. There is too much of my personality, too much of my body, too much of my feelings. I am always, internally, a glass about to spill or a boiling teakettle. This is unacceptable if I want to be a Girl, so I learn to never talk about it. I almost never think about not eating. I almost never think of figuring out a way to make myself sick. (I think about them all the time.)

View this image ›

Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

I get a job immediately out of college because I am very, very lucky. I feel good; I feel better; I have done a year of therapy and I am not in therapy now but I think maybe I can manage. This is a new feeling. The anguish that has been my constant companion, a tight knot in my chest, a little voice chanting you’re wrong you’re wrong you’re wrong, is not gone, but is quieter.

I dye my hair a couple shades lighter than normal. I don’t have a bathtub in the apartment I’m renting with three friends who are still in college, so I do it in the shower. The color stains the old grout the color of old blood for a couple of weeks. I stop trying so hard to be a Girl and try a little harder to figure out how to be myself.

I move to New York. I relapse — sort of. I pre-relapse. I prelapse. At first I blame the summer sun and the smell of garbage for my lack of appetite, but I know I’m deluding myself. I get my shit together and find a therapist — quickly this time, before I can really hurt myself, and I learn that recovery is not a straight line. It will take me another year and a half to understand that recovery isn’t even a circle; recovery waxes and wanes, goes in and out like a tide.

I learn that being a girl is not a straight line, either. And I learn that being a Girl is something that works for other people and does not work for me, and anyway, such a narrow definition feels like a cage. I decide that I can be a girl, and that sometimes I will be too much, and that’s OK. (I sometimes need to repeat this to myself; I sometimes need a reminder.) I start cutting my hair again. Every time I cut it, I am shocked at how much lighter my heart is. The shorter it gets, the freer I feel.

One night I feel like one of those coiled springs with a fist on the end of it. I feel like I could hurt. I itch everywhere, in my marrow. I feel like there is a tiny goblin sitting on my shoulder hissing in my ear about how disgusting I am, how horrifying, how too much, how not enough. Nothing I do will shut him up. So I dye my hair bright blue. It takes four hours. I don’t do it carefully, and I end up burning part of my scalp (by accident) with bleach. When I’m done, I feel quiet and eased. I feel like enough.

Lately, I feel like this more and more often. It feels normal to feel like enough, and not an anomaly whose end I have to defend against.

I do not have it all figured out, but I am here now, and I am trying.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/kayetoal/tbh-gender-is-a-performance-i-forgot-to-buy-tickets-to

#essay #feminism #gender #hair and style #long read

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justatulpahavingfunwithourhostie · 6 years

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Introductions, Host

//hey, if you’re here, then hi, I’m new here and I chose to create a blog for my Tulpas (*ahem* Endomatic-system-members, Tulpas, Transmatic [?] system members and all other forms of beings inside my brain) because they are freaky and I think other people might find them funny, so I’ll just have everyone type out their own stuff on different posts since we’re all known to ramble a lot, and leave mine here,

—-

// - the host.

Gender-Female

Appearance- short naturally styled (meaning i don’t do anything with it, meaning I LITERALLY woke up like dis) brown hair, blue-grey-green eyes with naturally long dark lashes, a small man-ish frame with slightly less than A-cup boobs, braces on top and bottom teeth (at the time I’m writing this I’m told they’ll be off in the next year or so), a small triangle of birth marks next to my right eye with one of them being hard to see unless you look closely, pale-ish skin, and that’s all I can think of for my looks.

Personality- extremely shy but opens up when i care about someone or am on the internet, fairly dumb when it comes to some stuff but fairly good at science and English (not the language, the subject, excluding spelling obviously), seems innocent and well-behaved but swears under my breath or mouths profanity almost constantly when doing schoolwork or drawing,

Other- I have several mental illnesses such as Aspergers (a high-functioning form of Autism that makes me bad at talking to people and catching social cues which made me get bullied a lot as a kid) Depression (makes it hard to be happy and leaves me feeling down a lot, it also makes me feel worthless which makes me fairly suicidal and prone to self-harm after a bad day [but I’m clean for about.. 7 or so months I think, but I still struggle with urges to break my streak]) Anxiety (makes it hard for me to get up and do anything for fear of messing up) Social Anxiety (makes it even harder to talk to people with my plain Anxiety, Aspergers, being an Introvert, and other stuff getting in the way as well) and probably some other type of mental illness that I haven’t been tested for,

Past- my first memory that i can recall clearly is the incident where Heart and Soul got split and i had my first true conversation with my Endomatic-system members, I think I was four and I got dropped hitting my head on the floor I got driven to the hospital after getting really dizzy and barfing on my favorite stuffed animal and stuff, then the rest is really fuzzy because while at the hospital i kept somehow finding myself in this strange place with these strange people that I’d later know as my wonderland and my Tulpas, only one of them spoke to me, I later learned that his name was Soul. Later through preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school I was bullied a decent amount and I had no friends most of the time, and the few I did have were only my friends for a week or two and my parents rarely really had conversations with me, all this lead to my Tulpas being my only source of social interaction and they’re all just as odd as I am which didn’t help me make real-life friends, so eventually I lost who I was and I hated myself so on the day before 6th grade I decided to end my life there and then, obviously I didn’t, Soul stopped me before I could even decide exactly how I was going to off myself, he manipulated me into thinking that I owed my Tulpas one more day, and crazily enough, the next day at school, I met my reason to live, a girl who was in the next grade and was there in my class because it was a special class for mentally disabled kids but she was almost exactly like me, she had several of the same mental illnesses, and she had Tulpas, but the one thing that saved me was that when we had to circle up and introduce ourselves I stayed in my seat because I knew that I was going to kill myself after school and I saw no point to it, but she invited me to sit next to her, and she was the only person in my life who ever did that on their own with a smile, typically no one would let me near them and the teacher normally had to force two kids to let me sit next to them and even then I still wasn’t welcome, they’d somehow squeeze me out of the circle until I sat directly behind them, but she didn’t squeeze me back, or try to make me feel like I didn’t belong, eventually we bonded over our love of cats and voila! One more day left to live was turned into a week, which became a month, and soon enough, we had been friends for two years, shattering the longest time of anyone being my friend being 5 months, but, while this was happening I still had that feeling of worthlessness and I began self-harming, nothing big, just a scratch or two after a bad day on my forearms with a small pin, but then, since she was a grade ahead, she had to go to high school leaving me in 8th grade where the cycle of no real friends and bullies engulfed my school life again, and I began cutting myself almost every week having to move to my thighs and shins since I began to draw more and I had to push up my long sleeves or they’d ruin the paper, and even worse, i traded my pin for a small wood-carving knife making the cuts deeper, and leaving scars that i am not proud of today, however, during this time I got several Tulpas and met some that had apparently been in my head all along that helped me at least cope with the loneliness (and one of them even ended up stopping me from self harming at the end of 9th grade which I have to give him props for) anyways, I followed my friend to a charter school after that nightmare of sadness ended, and it was the perfect fit for me, now, I am still at that school and most likely graduating by 2020.

//that’s pretty much it for me, sorry I wrote for so long,

#host #tulpa #tulpamancy #JustSomeInfo

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rexylafemme · 7 years

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the usefulness of being still has come and gone, just like the jolt of cruel dreams before the dawn

i’m not a chill person. i can find my center & i can shift perspectives as i need in order to be safe and grounded with myself (sometimes). but i refuse delusions and the ignorance required to tell myself all of this is fine, to be at false ease. i have rage and i believe in its power; if we use it and channel it right. i have anxiety and fears, which are real and valid responses to the trash can past and present and future circumstances i’ve experienced, we’ve created, continue to create. the fruits of destructive power structures, from outward to our homes. i don’t believe in them, no faith, no allegiance to them. i refuse and i won’t compromise my beliefs and values, the other visions i’m working toward, we’re working toward. a decolonized femme-centered, black-and-brown-centered, disabled/sick/crazy-centered, nurture-centered reality. brutally soft.

i’m willing always to be open to new ideas and growing and seeing things in new ways, other experiences, if they promote liberation, a coming back to radical compassion in micro to macro ways, resistance, ends to violence and suffering. but, any kind of thinking or behavior that is wound up in any kind of BS, i am not going to protect or make excuses for. this goes for within personal relationships, in institutional settings, cultural production, etc. there’s no time for that, there’s been no time for it for too long. part of loving people and being alive has to be holding ourselves and each other accountable for the oppression and privilege that live in our psyches that we knowingly or unknowingly reinforce and act out. if we can’t disrupt or challenge these things in ourselves and through our relationships with each other, we can’t be fully functional or effective activists, organizers, artists, anti-oppression advocates, friends, lovers, workers, anything. it doesn’t feel good to face these things. but, it’s not supposed to. and growth takes time. challenging these things within our communities and families doesn’t feel good either. it puts you at odds, you have to rub up against defensiveness, and sometimes, no matter what we do, we’re ineffective. sometimes it isn’t safe to broach the process and we have to walk away, protect ourselves. we can’t force people to change.

we all run away from parts of ourselves, our pasts, our histories. i try not to feel bad about this, knowing that at least when it comes to family, blood and chosen, stuff, it was out of self-defense and preservation to run or to avoid. it wasn’t safe at specific times to dig up or approach certain wounds, to acknowledge that they even existed. also, sometimes you have to make the kinda unsound or “bad” choices to really know and be confident in your true choices. hecate: crossroads, being with your choices. eventually, you have to look at and face the painful choices, memories you made and have to move past them. you won’t forget, but there has to be some movement toward graceful acceptance of how things were/are.

being openly vulnerable and honest in a more intense way in a lot of areas in my life in the last few months to a year is bringing up a lot for me—in really great ways, in complex ways, in triggering ways. i’m coming up against everything that shaped my ideas around how i should express myself, what i should express, when, what i should care about, who i should care for, how i care. and all of the wonderful and terrible things that have influenced my caring—for myself and other people. i’m doing my best to live authentically, unapologetically—in line with my feelings and values. i’m doing my best to feel through the nasty stuff—external, internal, past, present. i’m doing my best to face myself in all my multiplicities, glories, mistakes, gifts, failures, joys, pains. i’m putting myself out there really hard, leaving shit up to fate/faith, reminding myself that honing my best self and putting that self forward, putting forth generosity, empathy, forgiveness, love, care, is everything. that it brings me closer to others who are trying their hardest, too.

areas where you need faith: justice card (wild unknown) decisions. balance. non-binaries. remember everything is everything. trust the multitudes. you are gray area. act with your highest intentions & desires & that is what you will meet externally.

i’m coming up against my defense mechanisms and walls—the hermit impulse that tells me to squirrel away, to protect my heart and spirit and body in a way that keeps me in suspicion and at a distance from others, everyone. i’m trying to not feel so scared and threatened. i’m challenging it because it doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t give people the opportunity to be good or to really know me the way i want to be known. and yet i am seen & known? emergeNYC really created a space where we were challenged over all these deep, embedded impulses toward singularity, overbearing self-protection, fear of intimacy, narrow-minded ideas of what intimacy is and between whom, lack of trust, the impacts of what we create with/between/for/against each other.

areas where you need to show commitment: III of cups. friendship. community. support. sharing and receiving care. abundance, warmth. the balm of good company. know you belong, we all can belong with each other. the importance of pleasure. the responsibilities of kinship. commit yourself to togetherness, in confluence with solitude. conjure a togetherness with yourself as well. birds don’t go at it alone, they have vast networks, open channels of communication, both parallel and interwoven flight.

i don’t want my body, brain, heart and their impulses to be driven by fear & self-preservation always. i know i learned these responses for a reason and they’ve served me. i know it started with my family, both as life lessons given to me lovingly of how to move through this cruel-ass world and also given to me by our family’s own cruelties, inabilities to care for themselves, each other, me. i learned how to code-switch my way through any institution, how to manipulate my way from the grip of social worker hands, CCS, how to not be taken away, how to not get prescribed things, how to worm my way out of the hospital, the psych ward, how to get an abuser to stop hurting me as much tho being unable to fully emancipate from them. how to hide all of these experiences. how to talk my way outta anything. how to be a shark, how to cultivate numbness to get through and keep going. the wonders of dissociation. and then we’re supposed to feel guilty for what was done to us,what we’ve done, and the ways we had to survive. it doesn’t feel great to bear, but i think it’s okay when you’re protecting yourself?

it’s all the old stuff—blood and chosen family from the present and past. people who it feels more painful to love than not, but you can’t take the love away anyway. i don’t know how to do this. how to love through it, how to become okay with things that are not okay and that still and will always hurt, these indelible things. dredged up at any minute by the way the sky looks or a sound or a similar feeling. like having a psychometric relationship to everything in your realm of experience. feeling the resonances. i don’t know how to transform with people if they can’t transform themselves, if they actively dodge the opportunity. i don’t know how to be with them, but i can’t cut out my family. i can’t resolve anything either. but i can’t be a container for the same shit, that is actually just worse than it was before, the rocky road. i don’t want to watch, i don’t know what to do. it hurts all the time and i’m powerless. and in the city where we all began. this paradox that is a through-line in my life.

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what you are distracted by: V of wands. conflict, loss, competition, separation. family. the wands aren’t going anywhere or working together, they’re sprawled about, the energy is disordered. they reach toward each other, but not to make a genuine connection. isolation in themselves. defensive and unwilling to compromise. you can’t heal it, it’s not yours. scattered at best, working at cross purposes at worst. know where to keep fighting and when to move in another direction. you can’t dwell on the past.

i biked around red hook, where i feel at home, attached to something. being there feels like a hug. i biked past the building that was once the elementary school my grandparents went to that has been low-income apartments for decades. i can handle that. the fancy-ass cocktail bar with the french windows named botanica i can’t deal with. but i let it go, i keep going. passing all the streets i remember hearing about in childhood: columbia st, van brunt st, walcott st. i walked to the end of the valentino pier and watched the sunset, thinking of my grandmother. the sun fell directly behind the statue of liberty, obscuring it in a fuzzy burst of hot orange light. liberty, that sick joke, engulfed in toxic neon flames. i thought it must’ve been hard to be there, in red hook, where no one wanted to be then, with things as they were, and look out and see that damn statue all the time. or, maybe it just became part of the landscape, look past it, let it go. maybe it was just calming, romantic, to be on the waterfront, gazing out seeing sky meet water, dreaming about who you could be, in a neighborhood set apart from everything else, brooklyn wouldn’t even claim it—with all its chaos, murders, fires, rats, mobs, riff raff. cut off and forgotten, monstrosity, an eye sore, disowned, unknown maybe, but not nonexistent, not without redemption. i’m here, so love had to come from somewhere in red hook. from a michael and a dorothy, for my mother to be born there to find a quiet, poetic bob from the bronx. love, or at least a pull toward someone else’s body and soul, whatever that’s called.

there were iridescent scales of light on the water, striking yellow, cerulean, pink, sliding their way over an infinity of tiny choppy waves. it was beautiful, it made me sad. falling into nighttime. i sat and wrote about what it might be like if there were a version of experience where my grandmother was still alive and she accepted me for who i was, a version where my trans-ness/otherness/craziness wouldn’t confuse or break her heart, as i kinda fear they would. if she would meet me as myself, but maintain a lot about herself, too. she would mean well, she would bother me mostly me about love. r. and i were watching kimmy schmidt and titus was being scouted out and appraised by a church lady for her gay nephew. it felt relatable: the sweet busy-bodiness, the gossip, the matchmaking. my grandma would be picking out candidates or asking constantly, “well what about so and so? or whatshername?” how she would be kindly pushy about marriage and kids because partly that’s her framework for understanding love and family, and also because she thinks i’m good at nurturing and building kinship bonds and knows commitment is important to me. i would meet her where she was and struggle a bit with it, trying to figure out how to explain my discomfort/critique with the institution of marriage, the heteronormative dyad of “family,” how we conceptualize relationships in general as fixed, love unconditional, desire as one thing, i would struggle to communicate my conflicts. she might struggle to understand them. we would both mean well and try. and maybe a lot would go left unsaid, maybe some of it wouldn’t need to be said.

i could see her inviting someone over to dinner, taking their hand at the table, and saying stuff like “you know, rex is a writer, he has a book coming out,” in a wink-wink way and i would be mortified and smile and fumble my words talking about it, but also partially flattered. and also i would later remind her that i am perfectly independent and comfortable and complete in myself, irreverent artemis, and she would assure me she knows, but i am a beautiful person and i shouldn’t be bitter and jaded and closed off, i don’t have to be a nun, when i could also have all of myself and more as well. i would roll my eyes because i know she’s right. she would also want me and encourage me to pursue my life and passions and gifts and not neglect them. she would say often that ignoring your gifts is a sin. often when she would be asking me to sing for her and i would get shy. as always, i would kinda want her approval in everything i do, so i would believe in it all. she wouldn’t have liked some of the stuff i got myself into, but only because it wasn’t right for me, didn’t honor the fullness and wonder of me. she would still talk me up to her other church ladies, as she always would talk up her grandkids, especially cheryl and me, the shining stars—so smart, so talented, the brilliant, going-places girls, ten years apart. i loved it tho and i always wanted the church ladies to like me, for elders to like me in general. and it was important for me to be respectful, polite. i also just appreciated their wisdom and assuredness and qnz fashion sense.

i walked to the other pier, directly off conover st, sat on the ledge over the rocks in the dark. watching the moonlight on the river. it looked like animated script writing itself out in bright silver on a moving blue-black surface. i was looking for words in the cursive, thought i saw my own name. rex renée, king reborn. but we try to make sense of the surreal all the time in our search for meaning. maybe it’s just something i made up, maybe that is enough. i’m not sure, maybe it doesn’t matter either way.

later, on my way home i was young leo, loneheart ladyboy romeo if he lived, grew up, and got his shit together on my metallic purple bike with my purple helmet and purple shorts—color of royalty of lions. i biked past king st til i was on verona st. in front of the visitation church, where my grandmother, elder leo, attended mass, got christened in, confirmed in, married in. the church my mother, linda, donna, & michael also were christened in. where uncle eddie was just memorialized in. i was looking up at the moon and creating my meaning, writing the book in my head from the movie i’m living inside of. leo. king. verona. romeo. renée. visitation.

where miracles can occur: II cups. feeling. connection. reciprocity. mutally-exchanged beauty. a romantic approach to anything that is meaningful. an ability to experience seeing/knowing, being seen/being known. respect & honor. share your appreciation, strengthen bonds, make efforts, offer kind words. growing, blossoming.

i have to connect with these would-bes, shape her memory into a best-case-scenario parallel reality fantasy, because it empowers me to keep going, to see myself as she did, and also because she was the one figure in my life who wasn’t conflicting to me, she was a rock and a home and a safety net. and we protected each other in a way that was only gentle, and i think knowing we couldn’t do much about what surrounded us. i was never confused about her love—what it meant, if i had it, if it would disappear. she was never violent, but she did see and hold a lot of it, and i did too. she didn’t lash out, she didn’t refuse her faults. we took care of each other, and everyone else. the eldest and one of the youngest. mess. but, it’s just what happened.

the people i love all over in my life remind me of what this kind of holding looks like. commitment to each other, patience, allowing ourselves to bask in our own similarities and truly honor our differences, to listen without having to hear our own voices, etc. to stand up for each other in healthy ways and more than just saying so.

setting/having/owning/respecting/talking about boundaries and limits. not shutting down completely or walking out on someone when we get scared or hurt. not making assumptions. trying. accountability processes, forgiveness, repair. putting tit for tat, an eye for an eye, holding shit over people’s heads, childish revenge and lashing out to bed. self-awareness and ownership. self-love over egotism. real love/kinship over possession/love addiction/codependence/narcissism. the gentleness and patience we need when our uglinesses inside rear their heads—the moments we do lash out or get controlling, jealous, driven by ego and scarcity, fear of loss or hardship or death or heartbreak. the gentleness and patience we need when we are just hurting and need support. we are transforming ourselves together.

we do always have the potential to be or become our own and each others’ worst nightmares. denying that doesn’t make it untrue. there is power in our own monstrosity when we are brave enough to look at it. it’s not about “taming” or “overcoming” it, but about infusing it with the love and understanding and care that it needs that it didn’t have. i can’t speak to sociopathy because that state of being feels too deep and far gone for me to wrap my head around any healing to. but our own pain, personal and collective, ills against us by loved ones, institutions, the state, shape the monsters and the nightmares. so there is something to looking at and listening to them, the rough whispers in the dark, the void in us, to unlock truths about us that we can integrate into our being, to be whole and full. no one is fully evil, but we are influenced and molded by the nature of our world (reality as we create it). this is why i love horror movies, exploring what monsters come from the way the world treats us. but that’s not all. which is why i haven’t been able to watch them much lately. because there is some other force, nature or divinity or whatever we try to name it, in us. a force of benevolence and a pull toward harmony, toward integration. our bodies down to the smallest unit are driven toward this, everything natural, organic and inorganic, are driven toward this. homeostasis, balance. not to be confused with status quo or stasis. but to tides—push/pull, to every action an equal and opposed reaction. it’s science, it’s alchemy. in horror, this force doesn’t win out often, human failure does. not because its not strong enough, but because we aren’t. which is, in fact, horrifying. but i really don’t think it has to be or is only this way.

do the best we can. dare to fail. and our best might sometimes be another day’s worst. we get so tenderized sometimes, we break or we fall apart or we destroy ourselves or we aim to destroy other people. but we piece ourselves back together, patched up with new swatches, we rise up, we regenerate, we renew, the maiden, the phoenix, the flower, the snake. we have to. there is no other choice. well, there is death or there is total surrender to monstrosity and horror. but, better to endure, to do the work, to feel it all, to own it all. haters be damned. white supremacy/patriarchy/colonialism/capitalism be damned. all these structures that deny what is truly essential to us be damned. it’s all so childish and sick and boring and stupid. disgusting.

instead of hating ourselves—especially for what’s meaningful and beautiful about us—not being the same, humanness, feelings, infinite possibilities for who we could be and how—but also for the shitty stuff we reproduce and learn as a result of these systems we live within--& instead of being greedy or jealous of power—we need to funnel our hatred, our rage toward power, away from each other, the ones we love. funnel our power toward each other—making huge, interlocking webs of it to throw over the big, sick, fucked up, red-faced trash baby of the toxically-masc colonial project and suffocate it til it’s dead. its ghost will haunt us, roaming about, sickly ethereal over the earth, always beckoning to be summoned back into form, and it will happen, as franchises do—II, III, IV, V, fascism’s revenge, the death rattle, but we can overcome it every time. we can be more powerful and intelligent than the temptation to allow it to materialize, to be embodied. i believe that. don’t dream it, be it!

a loving message for your heart & soul in times of doubt: IX cups. pools of calm feeling. warmth and coolness. being refreshed. the light of the moon, calm on calm ripples of water. sunsets. cycles of comfort & peace. you’ve been calling it all in. times without turbulence and of having all your ducks in a row. enjoy what makes you feel good now, in the present, life--connection, music, food, beauty, nature. mastering the balance between enjoying pleasure and over-indulgence. sink into gratitude and cherish what you have. we can generate the feelings we desire in small and large ways every day. a perspective of abundance and of having. continue to stretch ourselves, expand, to strive for more, while appreciating where we are now and what we have now. fill all your cups and share them.

[the italicized tarot responses are from a spread i made for myself around faith and fate]

#femmes #ancestry #queers #trans #nyc #love #dreams #suffering #trauma #healing #family #kinship #queens #birds #witches #desire

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kidsviral-blog · 6 years

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What I've Learned About How To Be A Girl

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/what-ive-learned-about-how-to-be-a-girl/

What I've Learned About How To Be A Girl

Being a capital-G Girl is something that works for other people, and does not work for me. But it took me a while to get there.

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Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

The medicine that helps with my insulin resistance makes me very sick.

I don’t tell anybody.

I figure: A doctor gave this to me, so it’s OK. She told me I need to lose weight, so maybe this is how.

Everything I eat leaves my body almost immediately, leaving no footprint of fullness behind.

I start fainting.

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Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

When I wash it out in the tub, it looks like the tub is full of blood. I think about what it would be like if it was my own, but idly, without any active interest. My scalp itches.

I lose around 70 pounds in six months. (This is a very dangerous amount of weight to lose that quickly, for anyone playing along at home.)

One day I notice my clavicle. I can fit two fingers in the hollows of it. It feels like an achievement.

“You’re doing so well,” everyone says. “You look so good.”

“You’re doing so well,” everyone says. “How much weight have you lost?”

When my boyfriend breaks up with me it blindsides me in the way only very obvious things can. I eat two meals in seven days. I want to shrink myself into nothing.

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Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

Lately, I feel like this more and more often. It feels normal to feel like enough, and not an anomaly whose end I have to defend against.

I do not have it all figured out, but I am here now, and I am trying.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/kayetoal/tbh-gender-is-a-performance-i-forgot-to-buy-tickets-to

#essay #feminism #gender #hair and style #long read

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