I recently went and saw Charli XCX and Troye Sivan on their tour and it was so amazing and so well done. They are truly talented performers. Although, I have been having a hard time with gender identity lately and Troye definitely did not help it. I just want to be a skinny boy who is comfortable in their body. I want to be feminine the way that Troye is
Just had a job interview for a waitress at a fancy Italian place near my house and it went really well! I hope I get it, the lady who interviewed me said that waitresses make up to $1000 a week there. she also told me she had brain cancer which was a weird thing to bring up but oh well. I am going back in tomorrow to meet with the general manager.
Today is my birthday. I am twenty years old. I know in the grand scheme of things that is not very old but god does it feel like it is. I didn't do much today, got brunch with my mom, went to a creek with my sister, and got dinner with my dad and grandparents. My Grandma gave me a picture from when I was maybe 5 or 6 when my grandpa and I got our picture in the newspaper while attending a local mardi gras party. I have been wanting that picture for years, it was very sweet of her to give it to me. I never really thought that I would make it to twenty so seeing a reminder of how far I've come meant a lot more than I can express. I will post the picture one of these days.
It's been a second. I'm sorry. Lately, I have had to deal with some pretty hard things (mostly just one bad thing). Working at a bookstore we have a lot of regulars who are older, maybe 70's and up. One of these regulars, we will call him R, befriended me. We have similar interests in books and music and he seemed kind. His wife of over fifty years died last year. His children and grandchildren live far away. He was lonely I could tell. When he came in he would find me and we would have a short conversation while I ordered books for him and he would ask me about myself.
I'm not sure when exactly it started but at some point, he started complimenting my appearance. It was just small things about my eyes being a pretty color and that I had a nice smile. I assumed it was harmless, just an old man trying to be nice. Until he started coming in more often, almost every day when before it had been maybe once a week. He always sought me out. One day he came in and mentioned how he hates that he doesn't know if I will be there when he comes in and makes an offhand comment about switching phone numbers. Again he was lonely and I thought we were friends so I didn't think it was a truly ridiculous thing of him to say. I brush it off, I don't give him my number but don't think too much of it.
Until the next day when he came in and asked if we could ever get dinner and have a real, longer-than-five-minute, conversation. I told him I would have to think about it and would get back to him. I never had any intention of meeting him outside work but I didn't want to hurt his feelings.
Then he started asking my coworkers about me when I wasn't there. Asking if I was working. Asking when I would be working next.
Last Saturday I was putting away some books when he came up to me. At this point, I had been trying to distance myself while still maintaining a sense of professionalism so I was polite but much more guarded than I previously was around him.
He proceeded to tell me he was in love with me.
I don't think I'm really ready to talk about what exactly happened. But I have felt like a piece of meat ever since. I know that this wasn't my fault and that I didn't deserve to be put in that situation but it doesn't really feel like that. I feel like I led him to believe that was an okay thing to say to me. I feel like it's my fault this happened.
I took a few days off of work. I told my managers and they have since talked with him. They said he acted embarrassed but not ashamed. He never apologized.
I am now back at work but it's different now. I feel like everyone who looks at me is sizing me up, trying to figure out what they could get away with before I give in or start screaming. It's hard to be nice to people, I'm scared they will see me the same way he does. He still comes in, now I just hide in the back office until he leaves. But I saw him for the first time again today, we made eye contact before I could turn and run the other way.
I hate that he has made me feel like this. I hate that I'm letting him make me feel like this. I hate that the job I love is now stained. I hate that the job I love now includes panic attacks in the bathroom.
I have been applying to new places, but I can't stop the fear that no matter where I go something like this will happen again.
-syd
I often forget and am sometimes reminded (rather harshly) of how lonely of a person I inherently am. Not in a 'pray for me, help me find friends, wah-wah' kind of way but just in my nature I am always going to be a little lonely. I enjoy my own company and oftentimes prefer it, I have since I was young. And I have loved ones and friends but I don't see it in my reality of ever showing my whole self to someone. There are so many parts of myself that will never see the light of day and I enjoy it that way, it works for me. But in that, I often find myself having to isolate or hide from others so I can feel comfortable expressing my truest deepest self.
When I was a little girl, I was very self-critical. My mother has always told me that she could never punish me more than I would myself. Starting at the age of either four or five, when I found myself guilty of something bad, I would strip all of my blankets and pillows off of my bed and force myself to sleep on a bare mattress to pay for my crimes. I didn't tell anyone I did this, but I shared a room with my sister and even though I would only do it once I thought she was asleep, she saw and told my family. Even at that young of an age, I thought it best to take on my problems on my own. I've always hidden parts of me away.
I don't really know where I was going with this but I thought it was important to get out.
I had a slow morning but the day actually turned into a pretty good one! I finished my Lucy Foley book that i will post a review of and started reading God of the Woods by Liz Moore which I am enjoying so far. I went grocery shopping for the first time in literal months because I'm broke this week and can't afford to be eating out, it's so nice to have food in the house for once. Also, I tried styling my bangs today in more of a side part and I think once I get the hang of it and how it lays, I will really like it. I think it's super cute. I was on social media a lot though. Definitely not as much as I have been in the past but for at least two or so hours which I want to cut down on. I can feel myself growing tired and bored of every useless video or picture that I see. When I feel the urge I try to play a game or go on Pinterest instead (I know, still social media but barely).
P.S. I got a new phone!! No more broken front camera for me :)
Here is a picture of a funny guy I found in the Media section at work.
Sophie and I are currently on a David Lynch binge so today we watched Mulholland Drive for the first time. It was very good but it did make me feel a little stupid because I didn't immediately understand it fully so I am going to watch some video essays about it and then we are going to rewatch it next weekend and hopefully feel better about it. 4.5/5 stars.
I got into a fight with my sister today. We were taking a walk around our neighborhood and started arguing so I went and waited on our porch (she wouldn't give me her keys) until she came back. She said she would finish the walk without me but she came back pretty fast so I think she lied. We haven't spoken since besides when I asked if she wanted to go get ice cream, she said no so I went across the street to a drug store and bought myself some strawberry mochi. I don't know how to not fight with her. She takes my standing up for myself as an attack on her intellect and I take her denial as inconsideration for my personal autonomy. Neither of us are willing to change. I think she is the head and I am the tail of the ouroboros.
Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out
I notice, that even as I'm sitting here with no one reading this blog besides me, I am still worried about what others will think of it. I imagine years from now when I am famous from starting out as a blogger, dedicated fans of mine will look at my very first posts and talk about how I posted twice within one hour of me creating the blog.
That's so stupid.
Why should that possibly be a worry of mine? Why censor myself for things that don't exist? Why care about these imaginary people's imaginary thoughts? I'm not crazy and convinced that posting on a site with 0 followers will get me anywhere. This blog is for me. I am not writing this in hopes of people seeing it. I am not writing this with a goal in mind. I will write what pleases me and post as often as I want. No matter how much anxiety I have about the feelings of others, the others don't exist in this equation so they cannot win. I don't know why this is starting to sound like an encouraging monologue I give to my men in battle before I send them off to fight in Burgundy. But I am getting very tired of always thinking about the improbable and unforeseeable future consequences of my actions.
Anyway, I upped my Zoloft dosage so maybe that will help.
-syd
