Category: Uncategorized

Smile

October 21st, 2022

When was the last time you got a full time to rest? To laugh at memes, jokes, or with loved ones?

Do you give yourself time to do it after work, since joy on the clock is allowed within time and content limits?

Was it drilled into you by family and peers that “hustle culture” is the only thing that matters?

To the last question, it doesn’t.

Some of us are having a time finding something that’s steady enough to maintain vital payments, yet gives you the time to breathe and enjoy yourself. Some even fear taking that major job will sacrifice that important artistic time they cherish, whether they create it or are entertained by it.

I’ve had to remind myself that I’d still be an artist once that time came throughout multiple seasons, including this one. While I’m not without, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had to process what’s been in my heart, but rarely had the time or courage to express in a public or private space.

We all need our time to recover from a period of burying the rougher emotions. It deserves more open conversations about how that can effect our overall health, and how it can create and enhance levels of anxiety and depression.

The time is also needed to reconnect with people that mean the most to us, whether it’s a video shared linked to their interests, or if it’s a minimal “hello, I hope all is well.” Memes and videos connected to inside jokes are a huge plus. All of that goes a long way to people who feel they’re a burden or a bother, despite any reminders of the opposite.

There’s more to life than work, sleep, cry, repeat. The little bits to brighten your mood, and even life, can empower you while being contagious around the right people.

I don’t mean to come off like working a job isn’t important. It is. But taking the time to appreciate life’s genuine comforts deserves the same attention.

Make sure that’s the case with you, as well.
The Gate

October 14th, 2022

It’s hard not knowing how to describe your sexual preferences in a world that operates as if only two exist, and one is “respected.”

A child can grow up believing to be something based on what their family and peers go by on sight. Whether it’s a subtle suggestion, passive aggressive, or sadly, physically threatening action, one can feel that they’ll never truly embrace who they are until a breakthrough happens. That can be through like-minded peers, trained counselors, support groups. Anything better than the insecure critics of one’s lifestyle choices.

National Coming Out Day was recently, and a close friend of mine privately told me about their orientation. It’s not the first time I’ve experienced this, but it’s made me think a lot more about my own choices. Especially my past regarding this.

Being reminded of when I was a kid wanting a t-shirt for a band that was not geared to my demographic, and one parent or another stating that as the reason I couldn’t have it.

Having older kids (possibly middle schoolers to my grade school time) riffing on me wanting to know somebody, versus “catching a body.”

Rolling my eyes nearly every time someone would say “no h—o” when expressing platonic love for the same sex. Not after possibly living a life of saying that just to blend in with social toxins.

The more you break away from those people, the more of yourself you become. Even if you are relatively close to ones that act(ed) like this, you have every right to continue exploring and embracing your truth with others on a global scale.

People, even in my generation, did not have that luxury or awareness to reveal themselves outside of an immediate circle. Now we have options.

For many, it’s a matter of choice to ask the questions that relate to who your heart belongs to. Even if it’s only towards yourself, while others receive the platonic and/or familial love that is returned unconditionally.

For others, it’s a calling to something deeper that they’ve felt since childhood. Something louder than the voices outside of you saying your true feelings are wrong.

And for those that choose to remain silent, and even minimally expressive of your true feelings, you are seen, as well. We’ve been where you are, and know that these things take time to announce to even a select few. This is true for all emotional topics, so please take your time.

Your present and future self matter, in this case, and overall. You deserve to heal the parts of you that felt restricted by other’s lack of understanding. You deserve to see the other side of the place they want to keep you.

Most of all, you deserve to create and live in a world where none of your living truth is threatened.

PS (edited 11/9/22): I will move entries to no later than 10 AM on the regular days. Including this entry, I learned how there was a lot more editing to do for recent ones, including this entry the most.
The Parent Trap

September 30th, 2022

How many times have you been teased by family members about having a partner and then having a child with them?

Is it often that it comes from family members who have their own relationship issues, which can be byproducts of emotional damage?

How much of a fight are they willing to resist having with you once you give them a response and they’re not ready to hear?

That last one can melt into other topics, but in this one, it can surely hit a soft spot.

With the last relationship I was in, we talked about it, along with external suggestions that a baby should be on the way. For reasons, I’m glad that it never happened.

Only speaking for myself this time, I was nowhere near an emotional state to take care of a child, whether it was by birth or by adoption. That’s because for too long, I was soaking in the trauma bonds that would have made that child grow up a world very similar to the one I was in. And they would not have deserved that anymore than I didn’t.

If you’re the parent or relative of a child who is in a place to have children, and you’ve pushed that idea towards them, ask yourself a few things.

Have you given them the emotional stability needed to bring one in the world? Can you respect their wishes to either not have one, or refuse to let you see them once they are born? Because that’s a possibility that you may have earned, because of your treatment of them.

If you’re a child of a parent who wants you to bring a life here, or have relatives and friends saying the same, stay true to your own choices. Sometimes when they say they want what’s best for you, is only what’s best for them. And there’s a chance that you have lived through enough situations unrelated to childbirth where your needs are a distant second to theirs.

The world is full of enough disheartened and hurting people that are comfortable in their mindsets, or learning how to navigate the world for removed from the old thought patterns. The former may not care, but the latter will not want to pass that on to another grown person, and especially the next generation.

It’s high time that the second group get the respect they deserve.
– Intermission –

September 23rd, 2022

Taking the day off this time to gather myself on a few more things. I’ll be back next week, but at the moment, know that I’m doing well, and I hope you are, too 🙂
The Color of Money

August 31st, 2022

There’s no denying that money is important in our society. No matter how someone continues to earn it, that’s what they need to achieve or maintain a lifestyle not they aspire to.

But when you’ve lived around people that will bully you about it in some form or another, you can’t help but get disgusted by the idea of money.

The hold that it has on their ego, often leading to gambling addictions.

Even worse, when you can’t get a new job without someone close asking you how much you’re making each time. They will claim that it’s about making sure you’re working for what you deserve, or even hoping you’re making enough to establish something for yourself.

Truth is, the second part can be right, but asking about their earnings should not be of your concern. Not when you are stuck in a backbreaking cycle of toxicity that makes you believe that it’s the only way to live.

And if you’ve lived that way for a certain amount of time, you know how badly it’s affected you, and how you would want something very different from what you grew up with, and around.

But not everybody will change. Not when it’s at risk of admitting that they have a long list of problems to answer for.

So if you have to hide your earnings, even lie about them, do what you have to so you can protect your peace until you don’t have to anymore. Until you are in a place to say “it’s none of your business, and that you should worry about your own pockets for a change.”

No pun intended.
P.S. I Love You

August 15th, 2022

Part 8 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023)

Well, we’ve come to the “end” of this message for you.

But it’s not the end of us.

Even as I’ve written this to you, there’s been thoughts that I couldn’t shake about you. Because I know who you are in that world. Just a barge of toxicity that you didn’t deserve from many angles. One that will take this as an elaborate prank and toss it all away.

But you’re still here. Waiting for me to tell you the winning lottery numbers, or hand you a sports almanac so you can build an empire in your hometown, running it to the ground in a way you know I’m referencing. That would be something our parents would care about.

What I’m telling you is more valuable, more respectable to pass on than any amount of money. Not saying that money isn’t important, but you’ll come to remind people of that in ways that will surprise you.

To take this long and often uncomfortable way to tell you that things get better has been great for me.

That’s an understatement.

It’s cathartic.

The lighthouse in a decade’s deep fog.

Even some friends who won’t completely relate to this will understand why this is important to do. Among many other reasons, it’s because tomorrow isn’t promised. And to leave this world without others knowing what was stirring in you for so long is not a good look. But as I’ve said before, not everyone gets the chance to speak out. For one reason or another.

But look at me, taking that chance. Aside from other inspirations I mentioned, this move was inspired by a hybrid of current friends that also took that chance in a more physically published format. I couldn’t wait that long to speak to you or myself like this. Not saying that it isn’t out of the question since there’s more worth sharing.

In the end, you’ll have to pretend like you knew nothing about what I’ve told you. You’ll have to swallow the poison for years, either in drops or in buckets. You’ll have to endure a reality that I’ve only implied on. Living through things that you wish you hadn’t, and some points I’m still learning how not to be hurt by.

You may want to, or succeed in, rejecting it, but take this as proof that you mass produced the antidote. It won’t work on you now, and parts of me wished it did. But sometimes the strongest cures come from years of trials and errors.

You won’t be perfect. Besides, sometimes perfection is subjective, if not non-existent altogether. But you will be better that what you are, and what you feel now. Enough to sit back, gather your notes together, and leave behind a word that will catalyze the healing. Enough to share with trusted ears, professionals that can constructively critique your viewpoints, and finally the world.

Until we meet again. Thanks for listening.

“…and Danzai Burst.”

The End…?

Part 7, Finale.
Gemini Man

August 12th, 2022

Part 7 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023)

I have given you a powerful look at the past and your present. I’ve given you the taste of many futures. But now it’s my turn to do the same about me.

Like I said before, we technically aren’t different people. We’re still very much the same.

You haven’t lived my life yet. But I have lived yours, repeatedly. I’m learning how to not curse any of it for happening, because without it, I would not have the knowledge and courage to reach out to you like this.

And when you choose to let this get out to the public, you will be grateful for everyone that can relate to the both of us. You’ll surprise yourself with how many people are coming out about the type of pain that we’ve been through, and how it’s affected them throughout their lives.

Young and old, many are finally coming out to the people they trust, a licensed professional, and even the world.

Some do it on levels that reach national news. Others like us are doing it quietly, even more artistic, to what I’ve chosen. That doesn’t mean our choice is invalid. We’re in the time where the “imposter syndrome” is more recognizable, and it’s easier to fight back against.

Sometimes.

But even with this hopeful talk I can put into you, I still face triggers. The type that are inspired by flashbacks of points where many people hurt or betrayed us, including and aside from the Sources.

My thoughts can get volatile, but I do my best to calm them down. They come back, some stronger than previous ones, but they come back. At least I’m careful not showing that side of myself to unconditional loved ones, yet I feel that happening too. That scares me as much as the fear of losing them if it does.

However, their subtle or loud reminders of how wonderful I am and have been are more essential than I’ve let them know, but I still find my ways to. Chances are when the day comes that enough of them read this, they will know the depths of both my thanks, and my love is to them.

There’s even someone that I once considered a close friend that inspired me to write to you. They wanted to do the same thing; write a book about their personal journey while being careful about naming names.

But they didn’t get as far as the “writing to your past self” idea. That’s all me. The rest were creative choices that fit this path, far removed from that person.

As for why me and that person aren’t close anymore, over time they became extremely reminiscent of the trauma that I’ve talked about. Even now, I can say we don’t want to learn the hard way that they haven’t changed.

They aren’t the only one that do it, and some try to reconnect with us. My entire being can’t take that risk with people again, and you already know that feeling. Just can’t put it into words yet.

But you must understand that it’s why people won’t want to reconnect with you, too. Some of what we’ve done is reprehensible. Borderline criminal. And even if the law can’t touch you, the court of public opinion has strengthened its grip on a person’s past behaviors, no matter how much they’ve changed.

I found it’s why I fear fame in any aspect. But I learned how to not let it dam my growth, my progress to be and remain better than the old me. The older us. And the person in-between.

Guess what? There’s good that’s present in this part of the timeline. There are people that believe in us because we’re not talking or doing what we’ve done. And that’s to bury the feelings we’ve been told that they don’t matter, often by the people that are supposed to love and support all your feelings.

The biggest of them is anger, towards anything and anyone, including towards them. They may never be in a place to hear what I have to say, so that’s why I’m reaching out to you. That’s also why it’s been easier to help others in their own trials.

It’s also why you’ve become a better friend to a select few. You’re a more open sibling. A boundary-setting child. And, believe me or not, the best lover someone in their own path of healing will ever have.

The road for you is going to be long and often dark, but to this day, one other quote still rings true. “It can’t rain all the time.”

Our stories aren’t over.

But this message to you is about to be.

D.F.

Part 6. Part 8.
Beauty and the Beast

August 10th, 2022

Part 6 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023)

I must be a bit more delicate with this part.

This one is about the last lover you’ll ever have, at least in the season that you’re in. Things get interesting, arguable better after that, but let’s focus on this one.

There’s a person who you’ll meet that serves as the total package for you. Smart, funny, creative, beautiful voice, magnetic smile, all the check marks that make them The One for you. But you are still acting on the impulses of a toxic environment that promotes juggling options, often deceptively, before sticking to your favorite choice.

Sparing a bunch of details, it all ends with them. Let’s call them Dee.

For a time, things look amazing and progressive with you both. Even connecting further with creative outlets that you two want to be more than just an improv jam session, and occasionally mutual friends.

But there’s a lot of pain that you’ll discover in your pairing, and you push aside yours to make sure Dee is okay. That’s fine, to a point. It’s what you do when you declare any type of love for someone. You quiet your ego to attend to another’s grief, especially in the fear of them “opting-out.” And that fear happens a lot.

Over time, you become the primary subject of Dee’s grief. You stress over the same domestic topics that, according to Dee, are easy to manage with the simple suggestion to “just leap.” But you don’t, out of fear of multiple reasons, loosely or directly, based on what I have talked about to this point.

But it’s mostly because you repeatedly backslide on your claims of doing better, promising that you’re not screwing around with your individual goals.

You won’t see it as backsliding in those moments. Just like how you won’t see your counterpoints being meant to gaslight or guilt trip them into believing you’ll change. You’ll do and say anything to keep them from leaving you, to avoid losing the idea that your relationship status alone means you’re doing alright.

Sound familiar?

This is even considering that you’ll notice issues with them, as well. Mannerisms that reflect your upbringing, your environments of choice or circumstance, but none hurt more than the repeated claims of infidelity. You know how deeply that subject hurts you, and you’ll feel they did too until this point.

Quick, deeper flashback. You still remember the day you found clothes thrown on your house’s lawn because one’s sins were (re)discovered, and later that night having to help a family friend come between them to prevent more harmful events from happening.

And despite sharing that with Dee, they’ll still accuse you of it. More than once. Even going as far as cutting you out of a picture you’ll take together once it’s put online.

All of that is enough for you to want to walk first. There are other reasons that connect to emotional abuse, but that topic alone is non-negotiable.

But you’ll try to salvage things because this is part of a concept of love that has hurt you more than you’ve yet to realize. Not just with Dee, but with others past and present, romantically charged or not.

Most deeply, the Sources. The ones that want you to bend to their complaints, but never wish to hear ones about themselves, just as Dee will at a pivotal point.

Even after they walk, and you’ve had enough distance from each other, you’ll realize that it had to be done to be the cycle breaker. That, and you’ve been in love with not just your concept of Dee, but the trauma that’s been around you for decades.

This is pain that hasn’t come to you yet, and as much as I shake my head in reminders, it’s the biggest step needed to reach where I am, so that you know that it’s what was best for you, and most others around you. I say most because some won’t want to hear that talk. Because learning what’s wrong with you will indirectly reveal something’s wrong with them.

But I can say the same about you.

Breathe easy. You and I are next.

D.F.

Part 5, Part 7.
Squad

August 8th, 2022

Part 5 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023. Original Title, The Goonies)

Friends.

Nothing can change as much as they do.

The people you know now will show their true selves later, and how that happens is by you growing into something new. You’ll still be in your pre-awakening states for it, and some will be quicker to cut over others.

Part of you will keep some around because you’re unbothered by their appearance, especially since some were too good to show up for times that mattered or will matter to you.

Some will watch and wait until they feel like entertaining your presence. Let them. As much as they can be annoying and shady in that regard, it takes time and healing to know who’s real and who’s not.

Some you’ll even find aren’t worth telling much, or any of your story to. You’ll have thirty seconds to tell what’s going on with you, and they’ll command much more. That’s if you get a word in at all.

It’s how you attempt to master short-form storytelling, hoping you sell it well enough to hold their attention. It’s unfair, annoying, and it becomes the reason you recoil from most social interactions.

And even the times you go out with some of them, you feel lonely. Like even when you share your excitement over something, you risk being mocked for it, just as you have with one person who, as of my timeline, no longer exists with us.

You know who they are. You’re clenching your fists thinking about them. More than any people you’ve known longer. So congratulations in advance on them being one of many to get the boot.

But until then, you’ll be latching on to people that so much as speak your pop culture language, and sometimes latch to the point of being clingy. You won’t see that so easily because coping tactics are a hell of a drug. So is your ignorance about most people’s lifestyles, and even preferred pronouns.

The latter is a phrase that isn’t so mainstream in your time, but you’ll come to compare it to anyone calling you outside your preferred name, especially for your physical appearance.

The dynamic will be different, but close enough to realize that what hurts you can also hurt others. That’s going to help you in your growth, just as much as it’ll help you leave people that refuse to change anything uncomfortable about them. After all, one’s thorns are another’s cushions.

But let’s get to the best part of this. Once you shave away more of the people that don’t vibe with you anymore, especially in hot socio-political topics, you’ll train yourself to tune into the love that you genuinely feel from people that see who you are. More so from ones that knew who you were, and celebrate the light that’s coming from you now, versus the clouds you mired yourself in for so long.

Okay, that last part, while poetic, isn’t too far off from what someone will tell you. But you have to go through some things that even I can’t stand recalling before that happens.

You’re going to love your new tribe, as well as the remaining old ones. The ones that make you feel like that you’re not only somebody, but someone better than who you were. Because for their own reasons, they’re doing, or already have done, the same thing as you.

We still have more to go. I hope you’re ready.

D.F.
Part 4, Part 6.
Bless the Child

August 2nd, 2022

Part 2 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023)

Childhood memories can be interesting. For you, it’s been about the cartoons, a few live-action shows, and visiting one of your cousin’s houses to play video games. All the fun in any arcade you can get into, now in the comfort of your own home. It takes a while before you struggle to call it that, but before we get there, let’s continue the smiles.

Drawing can be fun. You were a fiend for drawing ones of certain fandoms, particularly some half-shelled heroes I wish I could joke about them not surviving the 80s.

The same cousin that brought you into the home console world will remind of you of the days you’d make sound effects with your toys. It’s a thing any kid can do with them, but you’ll see how essential it’ll be to larger creative worlds. Worlds that will unknowingly help you escape the discomforts of reality, in and outside of the so-called home.

There’ also a core memory about marshmallows that may as well have been the catalyst for your sense of humor. It’s one that also gets carried into your siblings, to which their perfection of it enhances yours as well.

It’s helpful in even the most uncomfortable situations. Like the beginnings of a key separation in the family. You were providing enough jokes to drown out the sounds of one’s tears over another’s selfish behavior. But it takes time before you’re all in a place to get away from it for good.

And you’re in a season where you’ve come back, after two years of some level of peace from that place. It’s a volatile time, because the inner child and teen have yet to heal, and the adult has yet to learn how to do it.

This is especially true for those times you feel you failed as an older sibling. Not protecting one from a now-former friend’s “playful” gestures, which earned you the type of reprimand that could have “ended” you, if not cause permanent brain damage.

And not that it’s a complete excuse, but they did not build you to fight back against anyone that hurt you, or the people you love.

That isn’t your fault.

You were mostly raised to believe that acts of oppression are best to bend to, never challenged. That rebellion against the Sociopath Empire is best left to space wizards and Saturday morning cartoon heroes. Why else were you often literally told to “shut up” by people far too hurt by even a hint of truth that you spoke?

But you’ll learn that staying in a child’s place is not a good fit for adults carrying emotional weight. That every realm of artistic expression wasn’t and never will be in vain. All the media that you hold on to are for more than just connecting with people that will soon, or still mean the world to you.

They were part of the reasons you stayed creative. You will still be in a HUGE way. Those worlds allowed you to enter ones safer than the real one, evil creatures considered in most.

But they also kept you alive. A fact that has been and will be challenged often in your later years.

D.F.

Part 1, Part 3