31 december 2022
well well well well well
meow!!!!! final day in 2022 here we are :O
i am about to snooze tonight. but i would like to share a few thoughts here and a few thoughts when i wake up. seeing as it is my last late night up in 2022 and i almost went to sleep midway through writing this.
for the first time in a month, maybe more, i had the energy and strength to clean my room up a bit, and throw things away and take my trash bag out. and i wasn't in terrible pain afterwards immediately. i mean we'll see if i get a pain flare up tomorrow but like... this is fucking huge progress. i didn't push myself farther than i could take it but i was able to pick clothes off the floor and set them on drawers/chairs and to take a trash bag down. and this has been insurmountable and painstaking for... 8 months. 8 months total, I guess, I've been dealing with disability. But i was finally prescribed medicine and it's working. I know I'm scared to call it working after less than a week but after seeing no improvement and honestly just degeneration for like, almost a year, seeing any improvement makes me so hopeful. I really do feel like I have more energy too. Can stand up for a little longer than before. It's a low dose right now and def just a first step but I'm so so so fucking glad to finally be in medical treatment.
2023 feels stellar from my point of view. I am so so so very excited to meet it.
2022 -- and I'll leave more of this pontificating to herbe of tomorrow's wake -- but 2022 was a genuinely wonderful year for me. it felt like a promise of better days well kept. it felt like a reminder that even when i don't know where to step next, ground will be under my feet.
and holy shit so many fucking awesome things happened!!!! holy!!! shit!!!!!!! meeting dan howell, giving him my art, doomed! was an AMAZING show. what a good night. i even got to see backstage :O cause i was using my rollator and this other person had a cane and we couldn't get down into the venue's seating with all the stairs, it was really hard. so we went backstage and used the elevator back there and i just Augh!!!! it was so cool!!!!!!!! magic magic. i MET him!! we have a picture we had a conversation!!!!! that has been a dream for me since 2015 at least if not a bit earlier. not to mention the show itself was fan fucking tastic. He Was There!!!! Also i was watching w prescription tinted sunglasses (i didnt have my own glasses i had to borrow my friend's) and the orange glow was so fuckin sexy and in character for the tour's theme and all that. Honestly improved the state of things.
also! other AWESOME shit happened in my life. i know getting covid started the whole being disabled thing but like the case itself was mild and the college paid to put us up in hotel rooms with grubhub budgets so i was ordering food every day for a week. which was pretty slick and it was a nice hotel room and i took a good break cause i was approaching burnout at that point. and me and my partner had gone to an amazing party before we caught it. like yes we caught it there and that sucks but got damn it was a fucking good party. it actually meant a ton to me sentimentally, it was a huge turning point for me in accepting myself and feeling like i was starting to feel okay socially and could fully exist as myself. it mattered a lot.
there was this one really great time over spring break where me and a friend took a bus to town and went to an asian market together. i think we got like... reuben pizzas out of a food truck on st pattys day? like literally sauerkraut and corned beef. i liked mine a lot at least?? its a funny idea, i never heard of it before, but i loveeeee reubens so hell yeah. and they fired it in the oven in front of us. the asian market was awesome too. i found my new favorite hot sauce, chin-su. plus assorted goodies including BEANSICLES. yes you heard that right folks black bean beansicles. they're coconut pops with plain black beans in them. they, they just taste like beans. they really just taste like beans. i was eating one while walking down the road and there was some sort of get together me and my friend passed on the street and we walked around them on the sidewalk and the ladies called after me when we were near to make room for us on the sidewalk. and the ladies called after me like, queen, beautiful, all that (i had a great outfit on not gonna lie) and that was so nice honestly like i felt loved. that in particular was good vibes.
also i saw my best friend early this year and i may see him again in the next!!!
lets see well also my 20th birthday was fucking AWESOME. not only was i on tilde.town and making my Teenager project (which felt soooo fucking great) (artistic fulfillment goes brrr) but also i literally just had the birthday of my dreams. like. i think that is the most favorite birthday i have had thus far. i really can't remember any one that would have beat it. my friends were there, it was a huge party with all the folks i was close to, and there was party part 2 at my room, and it was faaaaaaantastic, and my polyam lesbian friends slept over in my bed and it was so comfy and gay and fucking awesome //OwO// not to mention how that led into my springtime Lesbian Toyotathon !!! polyam lesbian toyotathon!!!! boy what a wild ride that was. so many pretty folks,,,,, that is all i have to elaborate on here. (and beautiful poems)
and ahohoho? ahuhuhuhuhu? are we arriving at summer of 22?????
so i couldn't do the summer program i was signed up for because i was too fuckin disabled to do archaeology and this shit happened so quick. so like. i literally just. i just booked a ticket back to go see family in the state i grew up in, that i had to leave five years ago, just because i could!!! just because i wanted to visit again so motherfucking bad and i was already hoping to go in august so i just moved everything up. and i saw my family! and i saw my cousins and that meant the absolute world to me. i'm so glad i got time with family. also got to see old friends there and that was absolutely wild. i mean it had been 3 years, pre pandemic, since i had set foot there at all. fucking wow right? i missed my friends so much. it was so emotional so emotional. that was deep seated closure and also continuation. like. i'm not dead. part of me is still there, with my friends, and i can come back. it just... it brought so much clarity to so many parts of my emotional state and story. and there's more questions it brought as well but i don't think that's a bad thing... just a continuation of the journey. i got to stay there for a whole month :)
and then i actually fucking saw a doctor in late july ??!!! mind you i did not know what the fuck i was going to be up to over summer. like. i did not know where i was gonna live, what i was gonna do. i knew i needed to drop out of my college due to the campus being so inaccessible for me. i knew i Wanted to drop out of college for a smattering more reasons. like really fucking bad. and the people that were around me were like no don't. and i fuckin did it anyway. and you know what? i sent the official withdrawal email while listening to fucking All Star by Smash Mouth. i recorded it too!!! it was a really strong choice for me. there was so much that went into it. anyway when i went back home i thought maybe i was gonna find someplace to live there. but like two days after i landed in my hometown, the college called and said they found a doc that could see me, even though they had said it would have taken at least a year before i left. so fuckin lucky!!! so i rebooked my flight to go back up to the college i had just left (and thought i had left for good.) and i saw the doc but i also had already withdrawn and it had been processed that day so like. he told me that he could run hella tests but he couldn't do anything if i wasnt gonna be In The Area. and i had already decided i firmly would not be. But he ran tests and he reccommened the meds for next steps, but i had to go see a new doc for that. And i'm on them now only because i saw him over summer so my new doc had something to go off of.
just so very happy for things lining up. so happy to be fucking medicated rn.
yknow it actually does mean a lot to me that i didn't get stuck back in my home state. i'm not restarting from the beginning, i'm not looped back, and i get to keep moving forward. and that's big for me. i get to do this. it's really good for me, and i got all the time i needed in the space i was in, and i loved it there.
and here i am, staying with other family. i've been here since late july. i also revisited my old college in october while i went to see dan howell and holy fucking shit that went so well. and i went to new york city in the middle there! holy shit though. it was amazing. amazing amazing amazing like... yes i missed it there and i got what i really needed and it ended on an amazing halloween party and i got all the experiences basically. like up and down the list i got all the experiences i missed from college. and i let myself take up space there and i saw my old friends and it was a dearly needed month and a wonderful time.
also just generally living here has been pretty good?! i feel like the family time has made a big impact on me in a way that was missing before. i also been up to not only Activities but Hobbies.... i was practicing and performing in a symphony and it felt fucking great to perform with such a great group. haven't had a concert like that in five years i guess. always were tiny groups after but no, this is the real deal. the christmas concerts went stellar. had to miss the halloween one to go see dan howell but like i was going to go fucking see dan howell no matter what i had had tickets since may.
another huge fucking thing this year has been the taste of financial... anything, really, that i had gotten. i had saved stimulus packages and was able to work at my work study job and like for the first fucking time maybe ever i had more than 150 dollars in savings at one time. i was saving for my summer program but ended up too disabled to go digging yknow. so i just. used the mons to buy plane tickets and also buy VIP dan howell seats the MOMENT they went for sale. i thought i missed the meet and greet option but i fucking found a seat that worked and HELL YEAH DUDE. HELL YEAH.
i have never a) had the money to treat myself in that way, b) had the freedom of self determination and not being a teen living with parents to just do things the way i want to, and c) had an official ID with which i could get on a plane like i had this year. and holy hot damn did these things turn out so beautiful for me. and ive made such strong choices!!! and ive been so beautiful. and confident. i mean seriously though i like. had 5 dollars total for a whole month or two in 2021 ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER TERRORS AND HORRORS of that year. i lived that shit, i didn't know how i was gonna eat, couldnt afford my healthcare, etc. so this was a huge difference. just feeling very grateful and more safe.
god i know i said i would let daylight herbe write most of this but i went on my roll!!! this year has been excellent. oh also in terms of artistic fulfillment i've been doing css based art (and like. based on my own art ive made physically, and like, crunched up beautifully with digital filters) over at ocimum.neocities.org and i'm gonna start directing irl ppl to that place to replace social media. (didn't want to link irls to town necessarily so i made the neocities)
i feel great. i made a videogame for a dear friend this year. in two months! learned gamemaker from scratch, did not know a thing about it! didn't know much about coding honestly??????? like i had. Touched javascript. and it sploded. but i used gml code for it and hella youtube tutorials and really got it working. and did all the digital art for it too. it was such an involved project and i adored making it and my friend's reception of it and reaction meant the absolute world to me. also i did advent of code and got a solid bite on python! learning to program in python and problem solve!
yknow something really beautiful is that i don't even feel like this year is a peak yknow? like it is soooooo special and important but 2023 is gonna be so bright and beautiful and fantastic for me. it's gonna be amazing. i don't even necessarily like.... need to look at it intuitively any deeper than that? there are some things i Know im looking forward to and something that i am sure is the biggest surprise i could never see coming and i am just so eager to be surprised that i just want to walk into it smiling and not worry too much about looking for details.
if tomorrow's herbe has anything to add, be my guest! for now... au revoir, et bonne nuit, 2022! thanks for the lovely times right when i needed them
alright i know i am a perennially sunny optimist but hey there im have-slept-already herbe and i have other things to say about this year.
i think appreciating the good and revelling in it is very important and i enjoy doing it but i have a habit of being so fucking stubbornly optimistic and positive that i don't let myself go into the shitty emotions because they run so fucking deep in the sewer that i'm afraid i'll get lost and forget the sun still rises.
i had to give up a lot of things this year. either taken from me, or by choice, or by responsibility necessitating it. i fucking had to give up walking. or, walking without a mobility aid. moving around without pain. i had to give up the sensation of not being in pain in particular anywhere in my body. i had to give up my college experience. i had to give up being around my community of friends when i left college. had to give up being in a dorm that felt so fucking much like home, had to give up my room that was reserved for me (a single room!) (no roommate necessary!) and had to give up my whole next two years there. i went back, i realized the place had changed, but it was also enough of the same that i would have been happy. i would have had ways to be happy. it would have been beautiful. nope. had to give that up after the vacation ended. and i had to give up being in the community groupchat. it was entirely my responsibility and choice but i had to give up being in that groupchat, which was the only place that i had a social connection to many people in a groupchat. now i just have people to message directly. its different. and i don't fucking know ANYBODY in the town i'm living in right now. oh, sorry, no, i do know, lets see... some very lovely people who go to my grandparents' church. and some retired music teachers i play in a symphony with. but i gave up having a social circle of people my age, of people like me, of trans people, of people who can call me by they without a second's hesitation. of people who SEE me trans. and! i can't go back. i can't go back to visit. i have to give this up as well. i cannot go back to that college to visit, can't go back to my old dorm to visit, i mean there is one week Maybe but i have bigger plans that i would rather go with, i just cannot go back and it will never be the same. there would be no fucking point in it with everything that would be my responsibility to manage. i would have to avoid the only fucking house i lived in and loved and the only place i would even want to stay on campus. it's not my place anymore. it was, and i loved it, and i was loved there, and i can't go back and it fucking breaks my heart.
And I Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll liiiiiiiiiiiiiikeeeeeeeeeee i went through some Very Similar Things five years ago! I feel like maybe actually kind of totally this is all the same fucking emotions i was spinning around in five years ago! Minutely different context but this very base very wide very deep feeling of i was loved, i left, i can't go back, this all fucking HURTS. And I'm in a state where I know nobody, where I have no opportunities to meet people my age currently, and I'm just like, oh boy, where the fuck have we seen all this before, yeah? Haven't we gone through the SAME exact shit five fucking years ago!!!!!
my heart hurts it aches it aches it aches. may we remind ourselves, herbe, that this is still so fucking early in everything in our life!!!! i'm turning 21 next year (which will be so fucking epic) but like i'm still not 21. i am so fucking young. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING EVERYTHING I HAVE BEEN THROUGH IN MY LIFE. like... i had to take one of those demographic surveys for my new doctors appointment... and, well. i basically had to list everything that's ever happened to me with a couple of social workers. and hearing their reactions to things and also taking the time to talk about everything that's happened in one sitting (while only barely scratching the surface, story wise, context wise, only giving facts) and like... it was haunting. like, i told them one thing that happened two years ago, like yeah definitely serious but in terms of shit that has happened to me? it is like. C tier in my head in terms of relevance. but they took it seriously and they were like "oh ok so not that long ago" and like... yeah no you're fucking right it wasn't that long ago actually. fucking NONE of this was that long ago. i haven't been alive long enough to have any of it be long ago! and all the shit that happened in the middle there has been the Biggest Fuckin Deal so like, i just... i treat this type of thing as my normal, or i forget that it's not normal, or i forget that i shouldn't have had to go through so so so so so so motherfucking much. like i think about the situations in my life that i have had to accept as normal, treat as normal, and now i'm seeing -- Really seeing and understanding -- how these things affect me to the bone and how this ripples to my emotional state and interpersonal relationships and it's really fucking sad. none of this has been long at all. at all. i know i talk about five years as a big deal right now cause it's like... a quarter of my lifespan i've lived here, but... look, herbe i know you're here in a couple decades or more i KNOW you are!!! and i know that you're here reading my new years eve missive of 2023 and I know you're here understanding just how very little time i have had to live with all these things and live past all these things and see that life is more than these things. you get it. you get it and i'm trying to get it better by imagining you.
In Other News. I just went down with my family to see the fireworks tonight and the show was so so so beautiful it was all so beautiful. my legs hurt and my heart raced and i had to sit many times on my rollator over what would have been a 3 minute walk, and i'm in pain now. i haven't been on the meds for long so i hope more can be done for sure.
but the fireworks were gorgeous. It was so fucking beautiful. It was over the water and so gorgeous and it was special, and i felt like... wow! wow, this is it. this is the year that i have been waiting for!!! it's here it's here and happy new year! i've really been waiting for 2023, it has been such a bright spot that i've looked ahead to, and i don't even know what's in it yet!!!! but i know it's awesome and epic. and it is HERE BABEY tomorrow - a matter of hours, i get to be IN 2023, not just looking towards it!! god i haven't been so jazzed about a year coming up since 2019, and that year slam dunk ruled for me, so like. i am just so absolutely excited. the fireworks were AWESOME, lots of beautiful patterns, and at the end there was a huge surprise and the fireworks went SO high and covered the whole sky and there were patterns and it was like -- i was trying to tell my dad "they were tempering our expectations" but i couldnt get the words out i was like HOLY SHIT!!!! holy SHIT!!!!! couldn't finish my sentence! that fucking ruled. there was a nice russian lady with a cute curly dog that sat next to me too, she was friendly. anyway. Great night and happy new year and I love fireworks so much. Fireworks are sooooo magical. I love watching fireworks and it's just ,,, ah!! it's spectacular.
so... i have no idea what to expect specifically in 2023 but this time i know it is good vibes!!!!! it is good vibes. surprisingly fucking awesome. and here we here we here we are!!!
all the stuff i said about this past 2022 being beautiful and out of this world and excellent times and surprises and good times i needed is real and honestly this year has felt so excellent to live in. like, what an adventure. but everything else i said still stands too. two truths and all that. i think keeping in mind that this was my First Year Ever after all the ahem, Events, of 2021, helps me understand that like. yeah! yeah i deserve a lot of fucking credit here!!! and i did great and life got great and like, a lot of things are going to be happening all at the same time so soon after big things like 2021 happen. (and i wanna give credit to 2021 herbe too -- holy fucking shit. i respect him so much. i love him. i would cry over him. i would grieve and hold him and be there with him so he wouldn't be alone. that year has value, too.)
but hey here we fucking are!!!! 2022 was great and 2023 is HERE FINALLY!!!!!!! i get to LIVE this year!!! i don't just have to, remember things having happened. im living it here and now!!!!!!!!!!!! (Almost) (True soon)
congrats, and happy new year, and i'm so fucking psyched i'm here. and thank you aphrodite for everything and especially for how beautiful the fireworks were.
meow!!!!!!!