When Things Change

Things have been... weird lately.

I hear it's not just me, but I can't verify how other people feel about their lives, I can only say for sure that I feel really weird.

I guess I just didn't know that growing up happened in such sudden chunks.

I've wanted to make YouTube videos since I was 11 years old, and my best friend and I would make little videos on her flip camera to post. It was fun, I loved stretching my creative muscles (even though they were incredibly tiny at the time), and I loved making my friend and myself laugh even if we didn't make anybody else laugh. It was a gratifying feeling.

I was a sensitive child, and one hate comment destroyed that channel. Which is honestly probably for the best at this point. We didn't think a lot of things through before posting them, and I'm sure one of us would have said something we regretted later on.

I tried again later. I got way into Let's Players like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye and they inspired me to try and make my own. I maintain that they were very fun to record, but the problem lied in three facts: one, that I was garbage at editing; two, that I didn't have any friends who could edit for me; and three, I was too poor to afford to pay somebody to edit for me.

Oh lord how I tried though. I put up a valiant effort for about five years, totaling 11 videos, before giving up just a few weeks ago.

Yeah, that recent.

I just had a realization though. That kind of "job" is extremely luck-based. You don't get paid for anything you do until you reach a certain threshold of views, subscribers, etc. And that only happens if you have shareable content, i.e., something that somebody will watch and then feel the need to tell their friends about.

Whether or not your content is shareable is a code and an algorithm that nobody has been able to crack. The answer lies somewhere within the mysteries of human nature, and I don't think anybody will be able to find it for that reason. Which I'm okay with really. I think knowing would take the fun out of it and then people wouldn't be making videos that they enjoy for fun anymore.

Anyway, the realization hit me, that there's such a slim chance of me being able to make YouTube into a career, that hanging my entire life on it is irresponsible. I don't want to live with my parents and work retail for my entire life. I want independence, I want autonomy, and I want to be a grown up at some point, like, relatively soon.

I want to be a teacher.

I want to be a first grade teacher; an age where the kids aren't smart enough to bully me, nor are they smart enough to know more than me about any subject I can teach. First grade kids are just old enough to be able to form coherent sentences, but inexperienced enough to not have had society tell them their amazingly creative ideas are dumb because they're impractical.

It's what I wish I could be.

My Curse

I turned 22 years old today (I'm posting this at midnight on October 1st, so technically yesterday). In my entire life, I have had 18 good birthdays. I mean, it's still roughly 82%, which is a B. Passing. Not terrible.

However, it's a significant number because I don't generally have birthday parties. Not that I remember, at least. I know I had one for my first birthday and my fifth birthday, but the rest were just family...

Aside from the bad ones.


~*~

The first one was when I was turning 11, and I wanted a pirate-themed birthday party. I had just discovered Evite (which, if you're not familiar, is a service that will send event invitations via email), and I invited all six of my friends. Pirate costume was encouraged, enthusiasm required. The day came and I was dressed all-out in my eyepatch and fake sword.

I waited for my friends to arrive.

Ten minutes passed. One friend showed up, not in costume. I don't even think she brought a present.

An hour passed. She pet my cat. Nobody else came. We played badminton in the backyard for a while, and then I watched her play Nintendogs until her parents came to pick her up.


~*~

The second was shitty due to personal reasons which I will not divulge, but the third was just last year, my 21st birthday. 21 is a milestone, big and exciting; the last of your legal freedoms are granted to you and you can practically go anywhere you want. So, my stepmother Raechelle told me it was important that we celebrated raucously.

I responded by telling her sure, but I don't want to plan it, because a) I prefer to be surprised, and b) the last time I tried to plan something for myself, it was... well. See above.

So she, the planner that she is, got fire in her eyes as she planned two different birthday parties for me.

My birthday fell on a Sunday that year. I had an office job at the time, which required me to work Monday through Friday, and I also had to get there supremely early. Therefore, I couldn't get ridiculously off-the-shits drunk on my actual birthday, which Raechelle decided was perfect, because she could have a "family-friendly" night which my grandmother could attend while my grandfather could lecture me on the importance of a good whiskey, and I could go to work in the morning. The following Saturday was when we were really going to party, and a more selective (albeit still large) group of people were invited.

I was not kept in the loop with the planning process up until the day of, and I was perfectly okay with that.

Sunday's party was okay. Quite a few people came, some brought gifts (mostly alcohol) or a card, but it was really just my parents' friends. And I realized this fully, when my father, in his big booming voice, announced that I was about to be opening gifts, and... nobody watched. Same with the cake. People stopped to sing as a courtesy, but after the song was over, they just went back to whatever they were doing.

They weren't there for me, they were there because they were invited by my parents, who are party people. Any excuse for a party at their house, right?

I ended up going home at about 9:30, getting home at 11 since I lived in a different city at the time, going to sleep, and waking up in the morning completely refreshed.

Eventually Saturday came, and I was PUMPED. I had told Raechelle that I wanted the experience of clubbing, and she said she would provide. I wanted to get drunk. But most importantly, I wanted to share the experience with my friends.

I got to my parents' house, where Raechelle and I got ready together, and I asked her where we were going, to which she answered a lounge a few cities over, which was having an 80s & 90s dance night.

Sweet, sounds good to me, but I was surprised with the decision to have it on this side of the water. I was concerned about my friends, most of which were on the other side of the water, losing their way or not being able to make it.

I dared to ask how many people were coming.

Besides us, the answer was three.

3.

Out of an invite list of 20.

I internalized the information and let it sit in an attempt to convince myself that the friends that weren't coming weren't real friends anyway. I didn't cry.

Until I was four drinks in. Especially because I was on a mood stabilizer, and those tend to exacerbate the effects of alcohol. Also because I hadn't had a whole lot to eat. Also because I was drinking very very fast.

Halfway through my fifth drink, I ended up crying on the floor of the bathroom after throwing up, both in the toilet and the sink.

The entire near-hour-long drive home, one of the friends that came was cradling my head in the backseat as I told her how much I loved her, and thanked her for coming when nobody else wanted to, and apologized for being such a handful, all while my head was inside a bag.

That time, I did not wake up in the morning feeling completely refreshed. But it didn't matter, because it was a Sunday.

~*~

This brings us to the present day. Or at least, the present day of two months ago, leading up to today. My 22nd birthday.

I wanted to have brunch for my birthday. There was a cute little tea house in the town that I lived in now that I had moved home with my parents, and I had never been there but I wanted to have Sunday brunch for the special occasion of my birthday, I just... didn't know who to invite.

I didn't have any friends.

There was one I talked to almost daily, but she lived in New Jersey. There was one I loved dearly, but they lived in Chicago. All my other friends really just... weren't friends anymore.

Within a month, I got close with a couple of my coworkers (not forcefully of course, just through the natural flow of things), so I posed the idea to one of them after having told her my history of nobody coming to my birthday parties, dipping my toes in the water after having been scalded before. She said she would absolutely love to go.

I extended the hypothetical question to another one of my coworker friends, and she also said she would love to go.

On top of that, a childhood friend of mine (coincidentally, one of the ones that didn't show up to my 11th birthday party) had been wanting to get together and see me again after not having spoken since fifth grade.

So I made reservations.

I told these three people about it (as well as Raechelle, because at this point she's the one constant that never bails on me in these situations) that I made reservations, that they were invited, and that I was excited for it.

My coworkers were enthusiastic and said they would be there. They both even requested that weekend off.

The day (yesterday) rolled around and I was so psyched. I couldn't sleep so I woke up early and got dressed and did my makeup and hair, and I looked so incredibly cute.

On the way there, I had a pang of what was almost a despondent premonition. I told Raechelle my biggest fear, which was that this was going to be another one of those situations where nobody showed up.

She told me not to worry about it.

We got there pretty early and were seated at our reserved table. I ordered coffee, she got a mimosa.

We sat, and we talked.

Fifteen minutes after, nobody was there. Raechelle asked if I wanted her to call in some of her friends to take their places. Choking back hard tears, I said I was going to give them fifteen more minutes.

Those minutes passed, I had finished my coffee, and I told Raechelle I was going to go get food from the buffet. She offered again to call in reinforcements, and I conceded, but just one in particular.

The one in particular was great, and she even threw together a last-minute gift for me. The food was delicious. Afterward, I did a little light shopping with Raechelle and we had a good time.

But the entire time, the shadow of despair hung over my head, behind my eyes, and in my throat: Nobody came to your birthday party.

Again.

We arrived home, and I cried, hard. For about an hour and a half.

Well, at least that wasn't my actual birthday. I still had the opportunity to have a good day the next day, right?

I come downstairs this morning and my dad greets me by offering to take me out to lunch.

Awesome! Sounds great! It really was, too. I love my father, it was great food, and it was a great time. We look outside and it's a beautiful day, and he mentions that with the leaves changing colors it's a great time to get some good nature shots for my photography portfolio. I agree.

I drop him off at home, grab my camera and Discovery pass which allows me access to national parks, and go. But first I have a couple of things that I want to shop for.

I go, and I do. I don't really find them, but I find some other stuff that I buy even though I don't particularly need them, but they're cheap and they're fun and retail therapy is 100% real.

I realize I've been shopping for two and a half hours, and the sun is starting to set. If I want some good sunset pictures, I need to go to the park now.

I've never been to this park, so I get kind of lost getting there, and I'm trying to scream at my phone to get it to hear me because it's connected to the Bluetooth in my car, just so that it can take me to the damn park, but I do eventually get there.

I get out, go down the trail for a few minutes, and then I see a beautiful scene, the light filtering through the trees just so, illuminating the moss with the orange glow of dusk. I take out my camera, and...

No memory card inserted.

I left my fucking CF card at home.

In the middle of a quiet, serene nature trail, I curse loudly.

I storm off back to my car, pissed off because now, no matter what I do, I'm going to be too late getting back to have any sunlight left at all, so I'm just not going to be able to take pictures today, and I hauled my big-ass camera and my bulky-ass camera bag all the way out here for no reason. Not only that, but this is absolutely not the first time this has happened, and I forget my CF card at home all the time. So, I resolve to go to Staples to get another one.

After wrestling with my phone navigation again to get out of there, I do eventually make it to Staples. I find a new notebook. I find a new computer mouse. I sit in a couple of chairs. I find the memory section, and...

All they have is micro-SD cards.

Dammit.

Okay, so I check out, and go to Walmart. I look at the Halloween stuff. I... don't really want to be in here because it smells like piss and plastic as is generally the case with Walmart, so I head to the electronics section, and after checking the price on a Nintendo Switch, I look at the memory section.

Nothing.

Camera section? ...Micro-SD cards.

Nothing.

What the shit? Why does nobody sell CF cards? I know I can buy them online but I don't want to have to.

On my way home I stop at the grocery store to get a jug of water, and as I'm checking out, I throw in a Hershey bar. Because it's my birthday, dammit.

I go home. It's 5:45 pm. I'm hungry, I want to eat dinner.

I smell tater tots in the oven. That's good at least; potatoes in any form are welcome in my book.

Chicken burgers are set up on the counter to be built however one wishes, so I go to get the lettuce out of the fridge, and...

Ew. It's all mushy and red. Gross.

So just mustard then? I try to squeeze it out onto my burger but it does that bottle-fart thing, so I know we're out.

So... just... dijon mustard then... sigh.

Then Raechelle wishes me a happy birthday (she just got home from work and therefore has not seen me all day), and then I realize something.

"There's no cake," I say quietly.

Raechelle realizes this as well as I say it. "Oh, Kayleigh, I'm so sorry," is almost out of her mouth when I grab my keys and head out again.

Because I have to do everything myself, apparently.

I get the quarter sheet chocolate fudge cake (no writing, because I want it RIGHT NOW), edible chocolate number candles (two 2s), and two entire buckets of ice cream, because fuck you, and fuck everything, and fuck this entire day, this entire birthday, just fuck it.

I ate a cold chicken burger and tater tots with nothing but dijon mustard, followed it up with cake & ice cream, and then watched baby puppies on Animal Planet before retiring to my bedroom early.

~*~

I want to make it completely clear, it was not my parents' fault that this year's birthday was the way that it was. They, as well as my online friends, are a beacon of positivity in the shallow-yet-still-incredibly-hurtful emotional hardships I've dealt with this past couple of days. I love you guys.

I also know that -- god forbid -- things could be a lot worse.

I just don't know what lesson I'm supposed to be learning. Don't have friends? Don't have birthday parties?

Really, the one that comes out of everything, and the thing that seems to relate to a lot of my life, is to rely on nobody but yourself. Because you're the only person who's always going to show up to your birthday parties.

If You Give A Customer A Coupon (How to Be a Good Customer - Part 2)

Almost 2 years ago, I posted on my old blog some advice for being a good customer. Re-reading it, it all still holds true, although at the time, it was written from the perspective of a cashier at a farm supply store. Now that I am back in retail (this time at a lingerie & loungewear store - thank god) after having been stuck at a desk job for a year, I am unpleasantly reminded of all the little nuances of working in retail that I had forgotten.

Especially...

Coupons.

The idea of coupons are pretty simple. I scan it, it's applied to the transaction, you get a deal. Everything's cool.

That's the best-case scenario though, really.

Here's a neat little fact: The transaction does not end at the printing of the receipt; it ends the second you run your card. Once you have either swiped or inserted the chip, you have agreed to pay as much money as I, and the computer, have told you that you owed.

A coupon will change that amount. Therefore, it's very important to apply the coupon before you agree to pay the amount.

It's amazing to me how many people don't understand this.

The items are rung.
Payment is processed.
Items are bagged.
Receipt is printed.

"Did you get my coupon?"

Oh yeah, the one you didn't tell me you had? Sure, of course, working this minimum wage retail job gives me magic all-knowing psychic powers and I can always tell automatically when someone has a coupon.

Here's another fun little tidbit: I'm not allowed to offer you every discount in the book. The fact that I'm hired is already costing the company money, so my job is to make them more money by selling things as fairly as possible so that they can break even. It is entirely your job to find the discounts. If you think you might have a reward from the loyalty program, ask before you run your card.

ESPECIALLY if your transaction was an exchange.

Because, when we inevitably go back and return the whole thing (funny thing - you can't return a return - and, also, returns impact the sales reports negatively, because this is a small boutique, not a mega corporation), you're going to ask why the amounts are different.

That doesn't seem right, you say. That's returning more money than I paid.

First of all, why would you turn that down? Second of all, yes, because the value of the return affected your subtotal the first time around. You bought an amount of merchandise that was worth more than what you paid, because you also returned things in the same transaction.

I can see that now, in retrospect. But, at the time, it's half an hour until we close, it's the end of our shifts, we're tired, we're under pressure, and we're confused, and we're trying to figure out why the totals are different, because all we want is for you to be happy.

So we spend twenty whole minutes trying to explain to you how this works and why we need to do two separate transactions to do the return and then buy back the merchandise. The coupon specifies a dollar amount, and it will therefore not work if we do all the returning and then the re-ringing to come out to zero.

It takes forever. I've asked for your phone number for rewards four times now. I've memorized it (because I gather you're also the type to get uppity about putting stuff on your loyalty account, which is something I detailed in my first post). My manager wants to go home, I want to go home, you want to leave, nobody is having a good time, but we're trying to figure it out with sympathy and with cheerful attitudes, because that's our job.

You turn to your friend and stage whisper, "They'd better hope I don't review them this time," as if we're not human beings with feelings that can be hurt. As if we're not people who have jobs we need to keep to pay our bills.

Twenty minutes, three transactions, and five printed receipts later, and you seem to finally be somewhat satisfied.

All of that.

For.

Twenty.

Dollars.

Off a $200 purchase.

Good for you.

The moral of this very true and very recent story is to ask for coupons at the beginning of the transaction. And if twenty dollars matters enough to you to make that much effort to get it back because you missed an opportunity to use a coupon, maybe you shouldn't be spending $200 on lingerie.

When you run your card, it's too late.

If you can't make your own hope, store-bought is fine

I'm at a low point in my life right now. Like, right smack in the middle of rock bottom... again. I've been here before. It's a horrendously painful, yet familiar feeling.

It's at this point a lot of people would turn to religion. I've felt it. I've wanted to believe that someone somewhere is looking out for me and has a divine reason that I'm suffering like I am.

The problem is, I know praying doesn't work. I know that because I've prayed to every deity listening that I just miraculously won't wake up tomorrow. Or ever again. 

It hasn't worked. Obviously. I'm still here. Not only that, but I haven't gotten any response whatsoever, so either whoever is listening doesn't care, or they just don't exist.

I know nothing great will ever happen if I don't work towards making it happen. The problem is, I don't know what the goal is, and I therefore don't know what to do to make it happen.

Right now, the goal is ultimately death, right? You work and you live until you're old, and then you die. So my Depression's reasoning is, why not just speed up the process and die right now?

Except I don't want to kill myself. It doesn't seem easy and it doesn't seem like a fun time no matter what method I choose, and the goal really isn't great enough to be worth the effort if it's just going to happen anyway eventually.

So now, the only option really is just to wait until someone tells me what to do with my life. I need someone to come to me with a big exciting opportunity. Because I have no fucking idea what I want. Goal-setting has always been a challenge for me. I'm not a goal-oriented person. I don't have goals. Whether they were tasks assigned to me or just things I enjoyed doing, I've always just done things, with no ends to the means. I never bothered with ends, because the thing about ends, are that once they're over, they don't matter anymore because they're over. They're in the past. Hakuna matata.

I have a psych eval scheduled for next week. They're going to put me back on medication. Part of me is afraid that all the medication is going to do is make me complacent to live a life that's not worth anything, that doesn't mean anything. Maybe that's fine. Maybe it really is all my broken brain that's telling me that everything sucks. Or maybe I'm too smart and observant for my own good - ignorance is bliss, right?

So basically, I'm just living off of everybody else's hope that things will get better for me. People tell me that all the time: "People love you. You have friends and family who care about you. You have a job. Things will get better."

In terms of personal faith-levels, I'm running on empty. But the fumes that keep me going on the basest level are the simple fact that I can't die, because that would disappoint a few people. And I live to please.

This post isn't motivational. There's no happy ending here. I'm just sad and angry and pissed off and I just want life to get better for once.

(Late) New Years Resolutions

I'll be the first to admit that New Years Resolutions are overhyped most of the time. "New year, new me" is a phrase that is dismally overused compared to how much the intention behind it is actually acted upon, which is frustrating to me, because I am a huge supporter of the theme of it. Introspection and changing yourself for the better are two things that are very important to me, and I think it's an incredibly valuable skill to have to be self-aware and work on improving yourself to be the best version of yourself you can be. A new year is a perfect excuse to do that.

I'm getting started on mine kinda late, but it's really better late than never. I don't have to wait for another new year, I can just do it now. That's the beauty of being a human being with the freedom to do virtually whatever I want.

I've decided I'm going to speak up more. OCD has majorly hindered my creativity and my self-expression. I often get stuck in feedback loops in my head, wondering if what I'm about to say is worth the effort, if what I've already said made any positive impact, whether or not I got my point across adequately and/or coherently.

The problem is, I've seen way too many people share the same thoughts that I've had myself on a public forum, and get lots of praise and attention for it. It might be vain, but I don't necessarily think it's wrong of me to want that kind of validation and positive attention. I do want people to see me and notice me, but at the same time I also want to be able to make connections with people and reach out in whatever way I can to positively make an impact on someone's life, even if it's in a tiny way.

I've decided to adhere to the philosophy of, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Because even if I take a shot and it misses, at least I'm not missing out on the chance of it being a bullseye. At least I'll end up with a solid knowledge of the outcome.

I have major anxiety over being perceived as creepy just for talking to somebody innocuously, and I think my biggest hurdle is going to be to try to get past that. I have made strides in this area though, and so far I have sparked a very close friendship over it. Being the one to initiate conversation is extremely liberating when the other person is receptive to it, and I'm trying to focus on that rather than the feeling of rejection which was what was holding me back previously. There really isn't any harm in just telling someone you're a fan of their art, or you think they're cool and you hope they have a great day. They don't even need to respond. At least you made an effort to make their day a little better.

Right now I kind of feel like I'm at war with myself. I've been off my medication for a few months because of insurance issues, and the days which I describe as "Bad Brain Days" have been very common. In fact, the one I'm in right now has lasted for more than a few days, and I'm fighting furiously to get through it with aggressive positivity and optimism.

It's all a process. But then again, really, isn't life?

Persistence (the Bad Kind)

The Dream is coming back, stronger than ever.

I got let go from my job back in December, and while I've never looked back, I've been unemployed for far too long now. I've piled up more debt. I'm hiding from several people. And in times like this, I turn to my fantasy of running away.

I haven't checked my email in a long time. I opened the browser window to find the most recent one when I applied for state health insurance and saw that I had over 160 unread emails, and I just don't have the willpower to go through them. I don't have the strength to be berated by CapitalOne for not making my payments and my credit score going down as a consequence. I don't have the mental capacity to visualize exactly how far overdrawn my checking account is from bills I had set up to auto-pay. I just can't.

My excuse is, I can't "right now". But It's been like that for a month, and I don't know when "right now" is going to end, or if it ever will. In fact, my need to run away is making me consider setting up an entirely new email account just to get out from under it.

Suicidal ideation is a product of a very bad mixture of currently-untreated mental illness and current events. I wouldn't have to deal with this if I were dead.

That part scares people when I mention it. I've been shamed into keeping those thoughts to myself. When, really, if I don't talk about them in a casual setting, it makes me feel worse about having them at all. I'm never going to act on them. One could argue, however, that there's no point in bringing it up if they don't affect you to the point of consideration.

That being said, consideration and desire are two very different things to my OCD. Is it true that death is technically a way out of hardship? Yes. Do I want to kill myself? Absolutely not. Ultimately, my want to live is greater than my want to die, and the cons otherwise heavily outweigh the pros. I love my family too much to nonconsensually dump the consequences of my shitty decision-making on them. But the obsessive-compulsive part of me has to consider every option for some kind of debate. And I always have to have plans A-Z prepared, just in case mania strikes and I do something stupid and harmful and act on some random impulse that crosses my monkey brain.

One of these days, I'm sure I'll learn how to face my problems like a real adult, but right now, turning to the fantasy of flight is immensely comforting when I need it the most.

I've been looking at places I could trade my car in for a cargo van.

Self-Heartbreak

I have this really bad habit of holding in my feelings when they're about other people. A worse habit is falling in love with people who actually don't know I exist.

I can be deeply in love with and desperately pining for somebody on the inside, but the way I end up expressing that is by running away, and avoiding any and all interpersonal contact with that person until the feeling hopefully wears off.

However, by myself, without them around, my mind ends up creating complex dream scenarios where the subject and I are together, in a healthy, happy relationship, and they are in love with me just as much as I am in love with them.

This method helps me bypass harsh realities. It's a coping mechanism to avoid heartbreak at the hands of this person. Because I know that I am capable of feeling and showing an astronomical amount of love, and it's possible that it can push someone away.

My love doesn't die easily. I know that consciously, and so when I realize fully that I don't just have a crush on this person, and that I actually am in love with them, it's probably just as painful. Because I know my habits, I know my behaviors, and the pattern shows that this will inevitably end in heartbreak.

There is another flaw with this, one that I guess I forget: These people about which I feel this way also feel love and affection... for other people.

Jealousy is all too familiar to me. More than once, I've avoided the object of my feelings until they start dating someone else.

The worst part is when they're so incredibly happy together, and I can see the fantasy that I've built up in my head for so long being acted out in front of me, but by somebody else.

And then I can feel the envy crawling around inside me like I swallowed a centipede whole, eating me from the inside out - taking a bite out of my lungs when I see she's more attractive than I am, my intestines when she's more successful, my stomach when they look at each other and smile because they can't help it. She has what I don't. What I couldn't have because of myself.

That hurts more, I think.

My feelings of inadequacy all come crashing down at once. Not only that I'm not as good as she is, as beautiful, or as talented; but also because I'm too much of a coward to go achieve this for myself. I've only been rejected once, because I've only ever tried once. And I think I probably still blame that one time for all the subsequent heartbreaks I've brought upon myself, because he made me too scared to try again.

More inadequacy attacks from the sides as the fact sneaks up on me that I hate that I feel this way in the first place. I really do love him, and I want him to be happy. I want the very best for him in every situation. So then I feel like a shitty person for being jealous, because in this case, she's the best for him. But then it becomes a cycle. Why couldn't I be the best for him?

Feelings-wise, things look grim for the immediate future. Because I know that I'll continue to torture myself by looking at pictures of them together and imagining myself in her position. I'll continue to write speculative fiction, I'll continue to seethe and writhe and melt away in a vat of my own self-pity because I don't know how to cope with such an intense amount of jealousy. And I'll hate every single moment of it.