Stasis

That's really the only word that describes my life over the last four years. Back when I moved to North Carolina, I was determined not to put down roots when I planned on coming back to Chicago as soon as I finished my program. I tried to distance myself from people, refused to step anywhere near romantic entanglements, and avoided getting involved in anything I could get too attached to. It didn't last. My classmates were too interesting and lovable, there were so many affordable things to do and try, I was tired of waiting to have a life. I still miss my friends, my gym, my lack of allergies, never being overly cold. 

I really miss the confident and active person I became. I really intended to keep being her when I returned to Chicago. I lost a lot of myself that year and I was miserable. I was in an abusive work environment that didn't pay enough to live in Chicago, let alone have any kind of life outside of work. And I was too emotionally burned out to get my head above water. I found myself getting swallowed up by my friends with stronger personalities. Everyone kept telling me who I should be, how I should be handling my life, which people I should spend my time with. And I disappeared. I stopped making plans, stopped returning text messages, and spent more and more nights shut away in my bedroom with my dogs. And at the end of a year, I left. I had big plans for deep academia, home ownership, regaining some of my lost confidence and rejoining the people who don't hide in their houses every weekend. I tried to make a clean break with my Chicago life. Cut off dating relationships. Put up stronger boundaries where they were needed. I didn't want anything to keep me anchored to a place that just wasn't working for me anymore.

The week before I moved, I tripped into a new relationship and lost the ability to close the door on that chapter of my life. At first, I really tried to set up a life back in Champaign. I got jobs. Eventually, I got an apartment. I made local friends and professional connections. But I spent the next three years living in two worlds and never having a foot firmly in either of them. I got a good job, the pandemic began, I got an apartment, I left my job and started my PhD program, I left my PhD program and found an even better job. And then everything went to hell. In a matter of just a few weeks, I had to put down my dog, my dad had a debilitating stroke, and I made the decision to stop trying to have a relationship with someone who wasn't putting in the effort. In a matter of a few days I found myself walled in by becoming my father's full-time caregiver when I should be exploring life outside the boundaries of intimate relationships. 

It's been difficult to find balance with all of the changes. Most of my closest friends live a significant drive time away and several other relationships that I had previously thought were solid have been on shaky ground. I have difficulty trusting that people actually want to spend time with me and my rejection anxiety keeps me from reaching out to initiate plans. It's a terrible cycle of loneliness. And it's become more obvious that because I've spent so much of my life building my home in other people that it has become impossible for me to feel at home in any place. I moved into this apartment nearly four years ago and I have yet to hang most of my art on the walls. I left Chicago almost five years ago and I have yet to fully participate in a life where I am. 

I'm trying. Trying to cook more at home and to get involved in my baking again. I'm finding ways to make my home feel more permanent than transitory. I'm looking for the right career goals that will help me move forward professionally. Clearly I've opened the door back up to writing again. And I've begun to explore my options to get back into hobbies that I care about: gymming, archery, judo, horseback riding, etc. I started by signing up for ballroom dance lessons. Some of them are a bit below my paygrade (I could really teach the beginning Swing lessons) but it's good to just move to music again and to new people. One rock step at a time.

adaptation

Why do we change ourselves for others?

I've never been one to care much about what people thought about me. I refuse to hide my tattoos or my undercut. I enjoy dying my hair unnatural colors whenever the mood strikes me. I don't think that wearing makeup or less comfortable shoes makes me any more professional or better at my job. I'm very open about my polyam and queer identities. I am very passionate, I am loyal to a fault, I love with my whole being. I won't keep my mouth shut when something is important to me and I've been known to literally hulk out (minus the turning green part) when faced with injustice and bigotry. I am wholeheartedly dedicated to being my authentic self at all times. This hasn't always ingratiated me in professional and educational settings. On occasion, I even think that my overexuberance about things I'm passionate about can make my friends and family embarrassed of me or even put off. People think I don't see it, but I notice more than I let on. It has always been a point of pride with me that I refuse to change who I am on behalf of other people's discomfort, no matter how much it can hurt my feelings at times. And to be completely honest, I sometimes find myself disappointed in friends who I believe have a strong sense of self but immediately dim their shine to make their family members or coworkers more comfortable. 

Oddly, enough this entire philosophy seems to get thrown immediately out the window when I've found myself in more intimate relationships. I find it difficult to confront the people I love when they've hurt me. It is damn near impossible for me to make my own needs known. I have never once used a safe word. I struggle setting boundaries and saying no. There are only a handful of people I feel comfortable being completely vulnerable with in person. The most important and dearest dreams I had, I only shared with people that proved my trust in them wrong. And now I don't trust my instincts enough to trust the right people and I don't trust myself enough not to adapt who I am out of fear of losing someone.

I don't know how we keep ourselves from maladapting in this way. My current solution has been to pull the walls in tighter. These days, I keep the inner circle smaller. I don't date at all anymore and I don't think I ever will again. They might not be the best coping skills, but they're all I can trust now.

Isolation and escapism

I call my mom, she said to get it off my chest

Remind myself the way you faded 'til I left

I cannot be your friend, so I pay the price of what I lost

And what it cost, now that we don't talk

 - TSwift

It's been a long time since I've been able to sit down and write anything meaningful. Most times, I sit down to make a start and get overwhelmed. My draft folder is full of barely started blog posts. The only way I know how to write is by opening an artery and I've found myself stuck in a trap with no extra blood to spill for months, maybe years now. I'm trying to find my way back out again. The turmoil of my life over the past few years has been unbearable at times. I need to write if I'm ever going to be able to move forward again, so here is where I will attempt to make a start. I'm not looking for pity or answers, just looking to cleanse some of the bad feelings out so maybe I can let some good ones in.

The pandemic really did a number on everyone, I'm not particularly special in that sense, but it set off a chain reaction of events that have truly changed nearly every piece of my life. The past three years have held tremendous amounts of loss, extreme burnout, and a complete identity crisis. I left the PhD program I'd worked so hard to get into because I just couldn't produce the quality of work I wanted to under the time constraints, my mental and physical health has gone pretty off the rails, I had to put down my sweet crazy tiny dog, my dad had a stroke and I became his sole caregiver (he now lives with me), my relationship ended and I also lost the chosen family that had been attached to it. With the constant personal hits, I've been pretty insular and isolated. I've lost contact with most of the people who I always had considered my dearest friends. While I was drowning in the loss of my dreams, my identity, and a future I thought I was headed toward, everyone else's lives were moving on without me. Out of sight, out of mind, I've always thought I was the friend everyone forgot about the second I walked out of the door. Maybe it's true. Maybe me hiding away and not reaching out to anyone made them think I didn't care anymore. I'm too scared to find out what's really true and I've been burned too many times lately to reach out and get rejected again. It has always been one of the greatest disappointments in my life that no matter how deeply you love another person, you cannot make them reciprocate. Doesn't matter the type of love, friendships, lovers, even family, I very frequently find myself caring more and in way deeper than others are capable of meeting halfway. I know it's unrealistic to hold people to the same standards as I do myself, but I always end up with hurt feelings and wounded pride. It's all taken a big toll on me. I can't get excited about baking or cooking. I hate the holidays now, especially Thanksgiving which used to be so special to me. I feel restless and paralyzed in nearly every aspect of life. I know I've let down a lot of people and I have no idea how to fix it. I waffle between staying at home alone stuck in own mind or keeping so busy that I'm too tired to think of how much it all hurts. 

I have been living inside books for as long as I can remember. They've always been an escape from a world that isn't always kind. In a world where I never really felt that I fit in, books always accepted me as I was and helped me to not feel quite so alone. In the past few years, I've taken a hard veer into romance novels. Perhaps because I've been excruciatingly lonely or because love and happy endings have always seemed so impossible to hold onto. Indulging in my favorite werewolf smut or dreaming of a life so far away while immersing myself in tales set in Scotland. Books where everyone has compatible kinks, where fit men aren't turned off by a curvy girl who likes to eat, people travel to new places and meet the people that call to their souls, and perfect polyam relationships that don't end with someone getting crushed. 

In books, when a character loses the person they love, they always say they don't regret it and that they would still do things the same way even knowing how it ends. I've been having a hard time wrapping my mind around that concept. Sometimes it's hard to read through the conflicts and tension that are inevitable in books that are completely wrapped in high emotions. It can make me physically uncomfortable because I need so badly for everything to end happily, for everyone to talk out their problems and work through their issues, to fight for something worth fighting for. Because in my life, no one has ever once fought for me. The loss of two of the people I love most in this world is a blow that still sometimes hurts so much I can hardly breathe through the pain. I have no closure and I've spent too much time analyzing everything I did or said that could have pushed them away. It's hard to read books about love when you no longer believe that it exists. It's hard to read books that accurately describe the comfort of subspace when you know you won't trust anyone with that part of you again. It's hard to read books about chosen families when mine walked away. I've packed those parts of myself away now. The parts that I don't trust with anyone else. Dreams that now seem foolish. I go through the motions of holidays I am no longer capable of enjoying. Do my guts have shit for brains? Do I live in a fantasy world because I've read too many HEAs? Perhaps. Maybe I should try harder not to lose myself by escaping in books. But the world is an unfair place. Everyone doesn't get a happily ever after. Every ending doesn't get wrapped up in a neat little bow. All the questions don't get answered. Sometimes it hurts too much to face the cold alone. And so...I read.

If you also need to lose yourself in a fake reality, here are some recommendations:

• Literally anything by Emily Henry but especially Book Lovers and Happy Place. She has been on Amazon's top 20 romance books for four years running now for a good reason. The way she build tension is delicious and she has this disturbing habit of writing down things that I've thought in my head but never said out loud. Her books capture really strong emotions I've had to deal with over the past few years. 
• The Nights in Bliss, Colorado/Texas Sirens series by Lexi Blake. Fair warning, these books focus on ménage relationships and pretty serious BDSM, they can be pretty filthy if you've never been part of the scene. But they're truly sexy and always leave you wanting more.
• The Enchanted Highlands series by Tricia O'Malley. This one is pretty new, three books are out so far and number four is due on my Kindle in January. It's been a long time since I've been so anxiously waiting for the next book in a series. This book is set in Scotland and has some great fantasy aspects: kitchen witches, brownies, unicorns, kelpies, and even a ghost Highland coo. It's delightful. 
• The Black River Pack series by Rochelle Paige. This is the start of three different shifter series set in the same universe and it is some good supernatural storytelling.
• I also love the following authors: Aurora Rose Reynolds (I've literally read everything she's written and have all of her upcoming stuff pre-ordered), Kendall Ryan, Lexi Buchanan, Stacey Lynn, Kelly Moran, Lexi Ryan, Mignon Mykel, Mari Carr, Kait Nolan

when to walk away (part 2)

 As promised, here is the follow-up to my last post. The pandemic has made it very clear to me which relationships matter most but it also gave me a very clear picture of how I choose to spend my time. Which activities did I miss the most? What work was I able to find purpose in? How will I find joy in the way I spend my time moving forward? 

Some of those answers have been easy to find. I desperately missed being physically active. I hated not being able to go see new movies at the movie theatre. I missed long brunches and our big group dinners at Quartino's. I didn't really miss large social gatherings but I did miss small gatherings of select friends. I didn't miss driving ALL THE TIME but I missed traveling. I didn't really miss LARPs but I missed game nights, table top, and camping. 

However, some of my answers were only found after a lot of kicking and screaming and large doses of denial. The one thing that became more and more glaringly obvious was that I was not enjoying the work I was doing. I have been straight up miserable for the past year. I kept trying to tell myself it was because I was going to school during a pandemic. I had really hoped that once I was vaccinated and able to see the people I loved again that I would find some inner peace and be able to focus and produce more efficiently. None of those things were true. The truth is that my PhD program is not a good fit and all of the things I would have to do to get a professor position and gain tenure are things that take away from how I really want to focus my energies in my career. When I left my job as a therapist in Chicago, one of the huge things I was seeking was a better work-life balance and, over the past year, all I have been doing is work and it has been killing me. 

The big reveal is still so hard for me to talk about. Even though there is no doubt in my mind that I've made the right decision for me, it still feels like a failure to admit it to the world. Before the semester began, I withdrew from my PhD program. By the end of this week, I will be starting back with extra help at the university while I plan my next moves (along with my several side hustles with the church, my aunt, and my sister).  There is a very high likelihood that that will mean moving back to the Chicago area once I've found a good fitting job. It is highly unlikely I will be living directly in the city because Max and I need space and quiet that we just can't find there. I will be looking for jobs where I have more focus on individual students: academic advising, counseling, etc. I will very likely continue my research and writing on my own terms and I will probably still apply to present at conferences once I've landed on a bit more solid ground. And hopefully I'll be able to find a meaningful life somewhere in there where I get to do work that matters and still have time to do activities that replenish my spirt and spend time with the people I love the most. 

when to walk away (part 1)

Last month, I had a great week visiting several of my people in the north and finally getting to put my arms around people I haven't been able to see in WAY too long. It gave me a lot to be grateful for but also led to a lot of really deep conversations about what we had learned from being stuck at home for the past year and especially how we now saw what things and people were most important to us. There's a big part two coming about the former but today's post is about the latter.

A common theme that came up was the transactional nature of relationships and reevaluating your priorities, really looking at which relationships you desperately wanted to reconnect with and which ones no longer serve you. It also led to some serious thinking on my part about why so many people struggle to walk away from those relationships and insist on dragging them with them to the detriment of all parties involved. Why would we rather cause the other person more harm by refusing to allow them to move on because we don't want to hurt their feelings? How frequently do we stay with a partner even though our needs are no longer being met? How many times do we hesitate to hit the "unfriend" button even though we have made every attempt to distance ourselves from a friendship that has run its course? Why do we continue to show up to family social events even when our families don't respect our boundaries and make us feel badly about ourselves? And, on the other side, how many relationships have we allowed to sink before they even get started? How often do we self-sabotage because we are so stuck in our past failures? Why do we push away the people we love because we're afraid to grow up, be happy, succeed, or take risks? Why do we keep telling ourselves that we are too flawed and will never find love and happiness?

Toxic relationships aren't only defined by overt abuse and can be intimate partner relationships, friendships, and even family. Some of these won't apply to all types of relationships but here are some of my observations of red flags that may indicate that is time to move on:

• Apathy about spending time together
• Constantly forgetting to include the other person or deliberately leaving them out of plans
• Being disparaging and bossy rather than encouraging and supporting the other person to become their best self
• A lack of consideration for the other person's time, plans, and desires
• Refusal to recognize or respect when the other person is feeling hurt or uncomfortable
• Severe inequity in one or more areas of your shared life (financial, emotional, labor, sexual, planning, etc)
• Conflicting life goals (kids, careers, living expectations)
• Refusing to make compromises
• Completely sacrificing a sense of self for the other person
• Disrespecting boundaries
• Poor communication/intimacy/vulnerability
• Inability to understand each other's love languages

You have to actively choose the people you surround yourself with. If you stay in relationships because it's comfortable and struggle to find more positives than negatives, you are only doing yourself and the other person a huge disservice. Sometimes walking away is the real kindness. 

aloneness

 I've been finding a lot of comfort lately in ASMRtists on YouTube. It's soothing to my anxiety and sometimes helps me sleep. A few of my favorites occasionally do pick your pile tarot readings. Recently, one of them hit me over the head with the pile I picked. She talked about yearning for how things have been in the past and the need to find comfort with aloneness. 

The straight up truth is I have always had conflict with aloneness. 

Don't get me wrong, I love living on my own. I am a very independent person. I like being the only person that determines my schedule. When I eat, when I sleep, when the dogs go out, what I do with my free time, how often I clean. Any time I have lived with anyone in the past, I have never been comfortable and I always felt like the space was never actually mine and that the other people judged my habits, judged my eating, judged my dogs for barking or being too hairy, didn't clean or eat or function in ways that felt compatible with my own, made me feel unwelcome or like a burden. I end up spending a lot of time hiding in my room so I'm not in the way. A lot of that is probably my own asshole brain telling me mean things that aren't true but it's still how I felt.

However, on the other end of the swinging pendulum is a very deep fear that I will die alone. I mean, obviously I know that I will have friends and people that care about me, but I have always wanted a family of my own. A partner that loves me, is involved, supports my dreams, and wants to come along when it's time for fun. Children, I've always desperately wanted to be a mother. But the closer I get to 40, the more I wonder if I will ever get those things or if I will ever have is my career and my dogs. 

This pandemic has been doing a hell of a number on this particular fear of mine. I have spent so much time alone and it feels like it will never end. It's really hard to see friends that have partners they get to see every day, families they get to share their lives with, people who have made an effort to have a quarantine bubble with the people they love. It is hard not to take it personally when it feels like no one wants you to be part of their bubble. And logically, yes, I know that the people I love are probably just being smart, being safe, trying to protect me, trying to protect themselves. But a good friend reminded me lately that logic has nothing to do with emotions. And emotionally I feel so abandoned. The holidays are coming and I'd really rather hibernate and pretend they're not happening because facing them this way is just so very painful and it is really hard to believe there is any hope at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel. 

No, I'm not sure I will ever find comfort in aloneness. 

my quarantine struggles

So, I just wanted to touch on some shit that I have been dealing with during this quarantine. I want to have a record of it but I also find it really hard to reach out and talk to people individually about it. This is easier somehow. A lot of this is going to be my personal struggle bus but I promise there is some positivity at the end if you stick with it.

grief
At the very beginning, when we were just preparing to work from home, I got the news that a longtime friend and mentor had passed away. Bob ran the Creative Dramatics Workshop in Sidney, Illinois and I spent a great deal of my teenage years performing in some truly incredible shows in a tiny little church with other small town teenagers. Bob always wanted to push me past the ingenue rolls that I gravitated toward and into more challenging parts that were more suited to my personal acting style. He taught me how to get out of my own way on stage and be in the moment. It's where I met some amazing friends and where I met my first husband (however terrible that turned out to be). The last time I saw him was January 2019. I was helping to run the kitchen at my aunt's annual madrigal dinner and took a break during a lull to go out and say hello to my old friend. He was so happy to see me and catch up however briefly. It has been difficult to deal with his passing and I know many of us feel a little cheated that we have to delay being able to grieve together outside of facebook.

betrayal
I have briefly mentioned this on the facebooks and it's easy enough to find in the local news if you know where I went to high school. A high school teacher was recently arrested on charges of child pornography and also admitted to sexual encounters with former students. I am not easily shocked, in my line of work, it's a luxury you can't afford. But I could not have seen this coming in a million years. I really liked and respected this man and valued his support in recent years. Our school community has really come together to support each other through this but it's still hard to cope with the dialectic that someone you felt a close bond with could do something so terrible and that you could be so unaware.

dog stress
My dogs have been giving me a fair amount of stress of their own. First Penelope got sick, wouldn't eat, vomiting, diarrhea, but the vet didn't find anything. While the stomach ick resolved itself, she still has been really reticent about eating. I think her teeth are bothering her, there's definitely one that needs pulled, but I don't really think now is the best time to bring her in for that kind of procedure. She's also just been cranky and extra barky lately. Following that, Max had a bout of the stomach ick and, let me tell you, when a 65 pound dog throws up in his crate, it is no joke. Luckily, the vomit was a one-time thing but getting him past the diarrhea took the better part of two weeks. His allergies are also bothering him so I have to keep a close eye on his ears to make sure they're not getting infected. He has also had an uptick in anxiety since we've all been home ALL THE TIME and cannot figure out the routine. Every work day, at 11:45 am and 4:45 pm he loses his shit and starts barking hysterically. It's starting to wear on me and I really don't know what to do about it. On top of all that, mom and David discovered a tick on one of their dogs (not a thing we're used to seeing in our area of town) and so now we're worrying about that.

anxiety
It's topping out right now. It takes me ages to get to sleep and, once I do, I can't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. I'm having frequent nightmares and a lovely resurgence of panic attacks. And, as it turns out, when I wear a face mask in public, my mirror neurons connect my restricted breathing with: you guessed it, more panic attacks. I cannot settle down to any kind of mindfulness routine and literally sobbed my way through the last time I attempted a loving kindness meditation. Despite the fact that I am a therapist and I know all of the things I "should" be doing, I am not doing the best at functioning.

touch starvation
If you don't know by now that I pretty much live fueled by hugs, then you probably don't know me very well. My family is not super huggy to begin with but because my mom's partner is an essential worker and my sister would be a high risk case if she contracted this, we've all been avoiding any physical contact whatsoever. Add in that the person I usually rely on for hugs and snuggles lives three hours away and I have no idea when I will get to be in the same room as them again, I am really not doing well. Max of course is always up for snuggles but it is not remotely the same.

bodies are the worst
If you're easily squicked by body stuff, you may want to skip this part. Some people may not be in the know but back in 2013 I was diagnosed with uterine fibroid tumors after a two week period that included bleeding through super tampons in an hour. Since that time, they have been mostly okay with the occasional month of grossness. However, since about April of last year I have seen in a major increase in uterine awfulness with extended and extremely heavy periods. Around November/December it seemed to right itself again and I was feeling less stressed about it. WRONG. As of today, I have been bleeding for 33 days, there were 2 or 3 days where it had reduced to mild spotting and I was fooled into thinking it had gone, and then it comes back with a vengeance. I am having a serious increase in migraines and dizziness and, just to add to the fun, I've been having major hot flashes the past few days. I am incredibly concerned about my personal health and do not currently have the insurance to be able to deal with this. If we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would just give Planned Parenthood a call but, oh hey, they're closed right now. I have a lot of panic surrounding this. Partly because I have some serious medical trauma from a procedure I had when I first got diagnosed but largely because I desperately want to have kids and don't know that I will ever have the financial capability to do it through alternative means. I spend way too much time ruminating on this particular topic.

triggers
One thing that I rarely discuss with others is my abusive ex. It took me several years after the relationship ended to realize how bad it had been. He frequently took my car for work/rehearsal/whatever and left me in our apartment with no way of leaving. I realize now that it was his way of controlling how I spent my time. I remember the breaking point was when I wanted to go to the suburbs for the weekend for a dear friend's birthday party and him throwing a fit and telling me how awful I was for taking MY CAR. Even after I finally ended the relationship, he invited all of our local friends out for his own personal pity party. I bet you'll never guess what he drove to get there... Needless to say, being stuck in the house for weeks on end has really triggered those old feelings of helplessness and I am doing my best to sit with those feelings of discomfort and remind myself that this is temporary.

missing my people
I was supposed to be driving north next weekend for my monthly retreat and a weekend with two of my favorite people, my chosen family. They have been supportive in so many ways and getting to spend even a few days a month with them has often been the only thing getting me through a lot of the past year with all of its difficulties. It's a place where I feel really listened to, heard, understood, and never judged. Not to mention the aforementioned hugs and snuggles. The uncertainty of when I will get to leave my house and see them again is not something I am even remotely okay with. When they finally lift this damn shelter at home order, I am immediately taking a few days off of work and spending a long weekend with the people I wish I got to see every day instead of once a month.

no side hustles
While I've been making the majority of my money from a full-time extra help gig at the university, I have been supplementing income with side hustles: doing some consulting/acting work at the School of Social Work's simulation lab and being a section leader and assistant to the music director of a church choir. Clearly both of these gigs are shutdown at the moment and I really miss the work, the people, and am super bummed about missing out on all of the extra cash I was going to be making during holy week with all of the extra Easter services.

From here, I'm going to add in some of the things that have been good.

reconnecting
When I moved to North Carolina, I fell out of contact with one of my cousins that I had always been super close to. I knew she was going through a lot but couldn't seem to get her to return a text or a phone call and I felt really sad that I had lost someone I cared about so much. A couple of weeks ago, she reached out and called me. We talked for a couple of hours, cleared the air, and I was so happy to just hear her voice.

internet
Let me just make clear how incredibly grateful I am for all of the many ways the internet makes it possible to connect with people these days. Mom and I are able to continue our cocktail nights with a few of the members of faculty of the School of Social Work. The group of friends that I go to Dragon Con with (from Alabama, Texas, Utah, Washington) have been having weekly video calls and even get to play games together. My Saturday evening consisted of several hours on discord with my LARP tribe, drinking, talking shit, and enjoying each other's company like we always do.

work
While my job is ten times harder to do while working from home, I am just so incredibly grateful that they didn't just drop my extra help contract when we got the work from home orders. They set up my personal laptop with VPN and remote desktop and we make it work the best way we can. I'm also in the last stages of the interview process for the permanent position and am optimistic that I will hear a positive result. This would be a big deal for me financially and would help solve the previously referenced insurance problems so I could maybe deal with some of my health issues before they escalate.

big news
I also have some exceedingly huge news that I am not ready to post on the internet yet. It is something that I have been working really hard for and that I had started telling myself was just not going to happen. It's been a bit of a shock and a major readjustment because I had already started working on my plan b. I have gotten to tell a lot of people personally but I don't want to jinx any of the other irons I have in the fire by putting it in a public forum. If you don't know but you want to, just email/DM/call/text me and I'll be happy to fill you in.

For now, I'm going to attempt to get a couple of hours of sleep before I inevitably wake myself up again at 4 am. I am trying my best to maintain a positive attitude and hope for a turnaround soon but just know that no matter how long it takes, I fucking love your face and can't wait until I get to give you an uncomfortably long hug.