morning
i woke up this morning and the right side of my head was still hurting (like last night) and i was feeling nauseous. i went to the bathroom and threw up and i felt so hungry so i ordered some breakfast from a restaurant and went to pick it up. i felt okay on the way there but not great. i got a juice called jupiter which is made up of carrot, apple, and ginger and it really helped my stomach feel better. i also got a smoothie (called mango tree) that's mango, banana, yoghurt, ginger, apple juice, and honey. for food it was scrambled eggs, avocado, rye bread, and sliced fruit. i only felt like drinking the juice and eating the fruit so far. alec is sick with the cold i had last week. he has a cough as well. tonight he doesn't have to work (hopefully. he's the on call.) i'm not sick right now, i think i was just feeling nauseous because of my headache and hunger. yesterday i ate 3 langonisa (filipino sausage), a sunny side up egg with rice, and in the evening some merci chocolate and chicken nuggets with ketch-up because we had no food at the house and all the stores were closed for christmas (reminder: go grocery shopping before christmas rolls around next time.)
A called out of work but Alec couldn't go in because he's sick, so he called our manager and she let him stay home. they're pretty strict about coming in when you're the on call, but Alec has some merit and can get away with it this time.
Before I left the house I made alec ginger lemon tea and then I went to get a lotus and also got an acai bowl and banana milk just for snacks for later. I went to a pho restaurant after and got pho for Alec and chicken fried rice for me (kind of wish I'd gotten curry.) Dropped that off at home and then went to the store and bought orange juice and triple A batteries for alec's cousin who lives with us.
Alec's aunt and uncle went to seattle today with his nephew. they are going to visit Alec's mom (she lives in washington) and then they are going to drop his nephew off with Alec's sister, who is his nephew's mom. he's been living with us for the past 10 months because she was deployed to germany right before he turned 2 years old, but it's time for him to go back home (i'm sure everyone will miss him but we're glad he's going home.)
this place won't be child-free for long though. In April alec's cousin is giving birth and we live with her parents so i'm sure she'll be visiting a lot. she's also a nurse so I don't know what her plan is for taking time off work and I don't know how much her parents are going to babysit. I'm sure they will want to a lot..
Alec and I were going to move out last spring but then we had the news that his sister had asked their aunt for her son to live with us so we had to stay and help them, but the plan is to move out this summer or fall now. I don't mind living here now because it's free, but it's definitely wearing on me. especially having his nephew here for the past year. i feel confined to a bedroom most of the time, which is not anyone's fault really. i should have made plans to move out a long time ago but i was busy going on trips and doing things like that and i didn't really plan on it until it snuck up on me (and my age.)
I moved out of my house when I was 18 and lived in the dorms at university for a year and a half, until I moved in with my then boyfriend when I was 19. I lived with him for a year and realized I didn't really like him, so I moved out and lived with my friend and her boyfriend for a month (now ex-boyfriend and now ex-best friend.) I started working at moose's tooth a little before I turned 19 and met Alec there but didn't start dating him until a couple months before my 21st birthday, that was 2020, the year of the pandemic. At that time he lived with his mom, his step-dad, and his best friend. I don't remember the details but 2 years before my dad had died in the bering sea and left us some money, from his paycheck, which was about 20,000 each for my four siblings and I. I lived on that for a while while I lived with my ex-boyfriend and I worked at the school library and the restaurant. my ex-boyfriend was an airplane tech major and worked at a airplane place, long, long hours, until he got fed up with how they were treating him and started working at dominoes. I didn't have plans for the future and I've never been good at spending money so I went through all that quickly. I bounced around at college, never fully committing to anything.
So, flashback to when I started dating Alec. the next month after we got together I found out my biological dad had committed suicide (coincidently in the ocean, deja vu?) not the bering sea but at cook inlet at a scenic viewing spot called beluga point, via drowning. I guess it was his place that he went to to reflect. I'd refused to meet him for 10 years ever since my mom told me that he was my real father (at moose's tooth of all places,) which now that I reflect back is not good, but I feel grateful a little because if he was planning to do this and I knew him well I would have been more devastated then I was originally. I did cry for three days straight, just because of the regret I hadn't met him or realized what was going on. He was in his 50s though and knew what he was doing, I'm sure. I really am of the opinion that if you're an older adult and you're in that much pain you should have the choice to leave this life if you want to. I'm convinced my mom would have never told me about him though if she hadn't needed my dna to prove I was his daughter, for obvious reasons. I had refused to meet him because I'm a very introverted person, and my family has always been dysfunctional. I didn't feel I needed him, and i've never been a big fan of the word "family." I'd never seen my (legal) dad much because he was a fisherman and my parents separated and then divorced when I was young. that's when my mom met my biological dad, his kids and hers were involved in hockey. she was separated but he was married.
I had stopped going to school, and the details are blurry but the beginning of 2020 we had gotten money from the wrongful death case (about 100,000 for each of us) and I used that to pay off all my school debt and I bought a new car. After paying off the debt, I realized that I had really dodged a bullet and to not take out the fasfa again unless absolutely necessary. but i didn't feel motivated enough or sure enough of myself to spend my actual money on classes anymore. after I left my friend's house, my sisters were living together so I moved in with them (which was short-lived.) one of my sister's had gotten divorced and sold her house. she was working at a school as a speech therapist and my other sister was working in anchorage at the time as a social worker at the office of child services.
at the end of the year, 2 days before my birthday I got fired from moose's tooth because I had gotten a covid test (at my sister's insistence. I lived with them and one of their cats. I'm allergic to cats so I was sick all the time so the lines were kind of blurry there.) I tested negative (during the summertime I had taken care of Alec and his roommate friend while they had covid and never tested positive either. I'm of the mind that I got it in the december before, before the news had broken about it) and I accidently told my manager (they were so strict about it. you had to tell them if you had symptoms or had gotten tested, beforehand) without thinking, because I was a dumb 20 year old, and she fired me on the spot. I also hadn't been filling out their symptom questionnaire before every shift. I remind you, though, I was never sick. It was just allergies. but, c'est la vie. water under the bridge. we learn from our life experiences.
About a week later I got a job at barnes and noble and I don't remember exactly when it happened but I moved out of my sister's house around the beginning of 2021 and moved in with Alec. four months later I was back at moose's tooth (they have a minimum 3 month time after you're fired that you're not allowed to be rehired) and I've been living with alec and working there ever since. I quit barnes and noble a year later.
Eventually Alec's mom sold her house and built a new one in washington and we moved in with Alec's aunt and uncle around 2022, I think?
so, it wasn't my top priority to get my own place. I thought I might go back to school but a few years have passed and I've gotten the traveling and stuff out of my system and I'm starting to feel ready now. It's a big commitment though. most people I know are nurses or training to be nurses. I know healthcare is a guaranteed job but I'm not passionate enough about the human body. I'm also a big over-thinker, and as I mentioned before, I've gotten better about it but I developed a sort of OCD and had extreme anxiety growing up. I definitely had anthropopeia (had to look that one up - fear of people.) which consists of... Aavoiding crowds or people in general, fear of eye contact, anxiety about being judged, anticipatory anxiety, sleeping disorders. I definitely had the anticipatory anxiety and anxiety of being judged. I feel like as a result of this the creative side of me was seriously repressed. ever since I started school, I tried and succeeded most of the time to not go to school. to me, it was hell on earth. I had to be around hundreds of strangers and they expected me to do things in front of them? horror. as I got older I felt less and less understood by my mom, who couldn't deal with me and had her own issues. because of the way we treated each other I definitely felt like I was losing my mind in high school. I've never been to a therapist or anything (I can't even imagine doing that.) so I worked things out for myself, mostly. It's been many a lonely night though. thank god, in my last year of high school we moved to another town about 20 miles away and my mom decided to put me in homeschooling so I would graduate on time, and I graduated when I was 18. I went to college because it seemed like the thing everyone did and also gave me a path to leave my house but I didn't have a realization of academics itself to realize what college stood for and why I was there. I clepped out of the first year english class, so I didn't have to take it, but I had to start in pre-algebra (one: because I didn't go to school much. math is something you can't fake at or learn by just being around it, like language or facts, things like that. science and math are similar in that way that you have to understand the reason why you're doing a certain equation or problem and the fundamentals of that thing, and of course, be good at memorization. I would say there's a group of people that numbers come easier to and a group of people that words come easier to, and some that are good at both from working hard. 2: I have a terrible memory. I blame that partially on my nightmarish anxiety and stress growing up, where some things just aren't there anymore. I'm kind of dyslexic with numbers and terrible at remembering people's faces.)
my mom worked at a library on a military base so most of my time in high school I was there instead because I was very stubborn and mom had lost the battle to get me to go to school, again. I loved the silence, the lack of people, and the notion that people wouldn't approach me for conversation because it's considered impolite while someone's reading (or I feel it should be.) I've always been a fast reader and loved reading. I still do.
So, I went to college if you can call it that. I was still sort of friends with my best friend of 14 years (let's call her S) but she was definitely going through things. she's similar to me that she had trouble going to school as well. her sister was semi-abusive with her but they're still very close. she also was dating her boyfriend (the one I had lived with for a little bit) who did drugs a lot, which I don't think she would have done so much if she hadn't been dating him. not anything big, but like, acid, mushrooms. I think primarily weed. I hope her boyfriend didn't do anything else.
I had another friend who I hung out with more that (let's call her C). S, C, and I had been friends forever, but I wasn't as close with C until then. She had always been jealous of S's and I's friendship, I think. Also, she was pretty reserved. I wasn't as reserved anymore since I had gotten a job at 16, and I was much happier now that I had moved out of my house, but I was still plagued. I always thought of it as being plagued by demons, or haunted perhaps. I would define an anxiety disorder and ocd as that, but i like to think I hid it well from people. I didn't like talking about things like that, out loud, or even written down. I feel like the things closest to one's heart are always the things you can't put down in words or speak aloud, even when you're by yourself. and also in my opinion, spoken out loud or written down, the things that cause anxiety, stress, and ocd sound very silly, unless it's actual rational things. mine were very irrational, though. I think I like to kind of blind my real life stressors into small, minor irrational thoughts that slowly become all encompassing. like for example, if you're afraid to go on the plane. some people are just afraid of crashing from the weather or turbulence or something (which let's be honest, is like the least likely thing to happen.) some people, like me, will think what if someone accidently left a vape or batteries in their bag in cargo and a fire starts and they can't put it out and the engine explodes and we plummet to the earth in a ball of fire... what if i take my boyfriend on this trip and the plane crashes and my boyfriend dies because I wanted to take a trip.... what if the maintenance crew didn't de-ice the plane adequately or didn't tighten a bolt (cough cough boeing) and the plane can't operate appropriately... what if I left something or someone else did in their bag that causes a problem on board... what if atc and/or the pilot fucks up during landing... but weirdly enough, when i'm in the actual situation I don't think about any of that. it's always before. the anticipatory anxiety. the big, what if? that has always been my enemy ever since I learned the actions = consequences.
and it goes on and on. i think it's the loss of control that I abhooor. being in a situation where I have no ability to change the outcome. I have to sit back and passively watch. I like having the ability to take action, even if I don't choose to. I like having freedom. I don't feel freedom in an airplane. I know it's a safe way to travel, but it's just a small window into an over-thinkers mind where they always anticipate the .00001 chance of something bad happening.
I like to think i've overcome my overthinking since I was a teenager. it's not as bad anymore. it's more about being open-minded and thinking practically rather than always anticipating the worst situation or relying solely on how you feel (which is a big no-no because emotions are the number one thing that blinds someone from reality -- in my opinion.) emotions can be big deceivers. if they weren't, no one would ever experience a panic attack and feel like they were on the verge of being acquainted with the grim reaper. I was verbally abused a lot in childhood and my emotions have always been so... high strung. so sensitive to everything, like I'm on a tight rope or something. I have buried it deep, deep. In high school, before going to sleep, I would imagine putting all my worried or bad thoughts into a pandora box and locking it.
I know there's something broken in me because I can be insensitive or uncompassionate sometimes. I like strangers, kids, and children but can't be around them too long. I always feel like I only have the capacity in my heart to really love one person, but others will feel less to me. I react to emotions in situations in movies more acutely than in real life.
One time during work, I was expo-ing with my coworker, a boy. He was 20 and I think I was like, 22. I asked him to hurry up, or I may have said we should hurry up, or go faster, something along those lines. That made him snap and he started yelling, really yelling at me. I didn't hear what he said, I had suddenly burst into tears and was sobbing. I'm sensitive to sudden bursts of rage (cue childhood trauma). I think he was saying that what he does is never good enough. We had always gotten along. I think we were both kind of similar. He said I was brutely honest, and I thought of him as funny and friendly but also having a little tragic feeling, a little rough around the edges. I understand why I felt that way now. I couldn't speak to him the rest of the night or days afterward. that night i kept working but I cried for hours after. That's when I felt my brokenness that I didn't know was still there; a piece of my heart that has never healed and I ignore. He felt really sorry and had cried as well, I heard. He was going through some rough stuff at home. I never asked him the details. I think tragic personalities can sense tragedies in others, no matter how normal they seem on the outside.
my ex-best friend moved to arizona and offically pushed everything that she used to know.. away. she sends me messages but I don't reply. we had a really turbulent friendship. we're both stubborn and always think we're right. if she agreed with something, I would disagree. we had a lot of good times, but as I say, tragic personalities can sense tragedies in others and usually less is better. she sent me this on sunday:
I want to apologize to you and let you know before the new year begins that I’m really sorry for ghosting you and C… I know it can really hurt for a friend to do that you out of nowhere. It is something that I regret. I think often of the good memories we made and adventures we went on as we grew up together. At the time I felt it was really hard for me to trust people. Especially after me and my ex broke up. I stopped talking to a lot of people. I just wanted to start over somehow.
I was hanging out with C one day and she told me about a conversation you guys had together. She said something like, “Sheila told me you had a tongue piercing.” And it was dumb of me at the moment but at the time it made me think you guys were talking down about me. I was just really insecure especially after the breakup. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. At the time it felt like you guys were talking badly about me because I know you guys didn’t approve of or like my ex.
It was my fault for getting offended like that. I shouldn’t have been thinking that you guys were talking badly about me behind my back. And I shouldn’t have just ghosted you guys. I should have talked it through with you both about how I was feeling.
I’m sorry for the way I handled things in the past. I don’t expect forgiveness or even for us to be friends again. BUT I do miss you a lot. Every time I go home to Alaska I always hope you would reach out and ask to meet up and catch up. It’s been years.
Anyways, happy early Christmas and New Year
I could reply but I don't know if I have it in me.
My other friend moved away, she moved to new york. we had been so close when I was young too (me, C, S, and let's call her R). in high school she got involved with theatre and cultivated a whole new group of artsy friends. She went to my college for a little bit and then moved to new york to go to an arts school. she lives there still. she tried to meet me when she was visiting here but I would agree and eventually just flake. she feels more like a stranger to me now, (I will always have a small fear of strangers, reminiscent of my fear of people growing up), even though deep inside I miss her so much. but I could never say that to her. maybe I'm a little envious she got away to do something different, to a big city, to do something that is more artistic based (she went to an acting school). I always repressed any creativity I had because I didn't like revealing my emotions or opinions to others, I just wanted to be invisible. I've always felt more connected to the arts, dance, writing, and music - emotions, abstractness, the psyche - than to anything based in science or mathematics. R lives with roommates and she has close friends, and i'm sure every day is like an adventure in new york city. am I starting to romanticize it a little? maybe I envy her courage to do something different and so life-changing so young, and she hasn't come running back or anything. she has a new life now, not the same old one she grew up in. maybe she doesn't make a lot of money but she chased a passion and it seems she doesn't regret it. yeah, I follow her on instagram. she always put herself out there, in life....
my sister's ex-husband is korean, born and raised in korea. when he first moved to alaska he said alaska feels different from any other state, it doesn't even feel like the united states. it feels like a lot of people live here to me but after I go to a big city, it does feel like another world.
I understand S when she said she wanted to start over.
My other friend, N, moved back to Japan and my other friend, H, moved back to california after going to college for a little bit here. It just didn't mesh with her, and she missed her family. so pretty much all my childhood friends or friends I met in my later teens have moved away. C still lives here but she works on the slope now.
I know it's my fault I lost connections with people. a friendship is two-ways. If I'm dating someone, I feel most comfortable with them. Like, for example, Alec. I never get bored being with him, but friendships are finnicky. I think platonic friendships are more finnicky than romantic relationships. at least it's that way in my life.
S is not in arizona right now, she's here with her family for christmas. she has a fiance now. I could lend her an olive branch and she would welcome me back with open arms, but can I welcome her back? sometimes too much time has passed.
I feel lost... I've never cultivated any hobbies or passions because I put so much energy into just existing and working, the two things I can't say "no, I don't want to go" to. I started feeling like a real person when I started college and 7 years later, i feel time passing, in my bones, my lungs, my heart, my nerves, veins, arteries, etc...and suddenly, I want to have my soul stirred and I don't want to be afraid anymore, but I don't know if I have the courage to be seen. and to do anything, you have to go out and do it, obviously, and there might be other people there too....
in the past, I saw my sisters and brothers grow up and three out of four of them went to college, experienced a career, got married, had children, and now they're in their mid to late-30s, to early 40s. they had things happen along the way but in the end they did it. what I've always viewed as the way I was supposed to do things. I'm 26 now and I haven't finished college, I don't have a career, I have debt - somehow still, and... the only thing I'm sure is is that I most likely will get married one day. what else will happen? I know it really starts with, what skill do I want to learn? It all begins with that, and then things branch off from it, like a towering redwood growing from a seed the size of a fingernail.
I think it doesn't help that my boyfriend doesn't like change and he likes his job, and he is content. he doesn't search for new things, he likes the routine. I want something to be passionate about, to work toward, to improve on. for my boyfriend, that's the gym for him.
when I was 16, I never thought of the future after turning 21. I just thought I would "do it" and it would just happen to me. I didn't realize then that people make it happen, for themselves, and if they don't...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2d1GVPHCc
objects in motion will stay in motion
got this sweatshirt for christmas. I would never buy it for myself (that's what makes a gift great though) and it's super comfortable and it matches my skirt.
made ramen for Alec and I and washed and folded the laundry, cleaned the room, cleaned the kitchen.