I realized last night, well technically this morning, that I haven't sat down to write a legitimate chapter in a long time. With giving more people I know access to this book recently, many of my chapters have been focused on them. And although that's not necessarily a bad thing, I reread my book last night and my chapters in at the middle and beginning I've found are much better than those at the end.
Whenever I give someone access or consider giving someone access to this book I always read through the entirety of it beforehand. I only skimmed it before telling the most recent person, but when they said they cried uncontrollably at certain parts it made me want to go back through in depth. I finished rereading it entirely at around 3 am this morning, and reading it in detail I cried a lot too. I understand where they're coming from.
But yeah, I miss when I used to just write to write and I'd talk about my day. Even before introducing new people to this book a lot of my recent entries were letters to Ryland I now see were riddled with insecurity about our relationship. The downside of showing people this book is now I don't feel entirely comfortable posting everything I want to, so I had to create a new Google Docs document to fill with a lot of my new poems and rants and whatever else. I guess posting is now an exercise in not caring and being legitimate, even if it means facing discomfort with being vulnerable. I don't know if it's necessarily vulnerability I'm rebelling against, mostly just the thought I'm angry with myself for letting clouded judgment let me lose my favorite place of privacy.
Regardless, I'm going to try to write more for myself. I'm always so preoccupied with others and yet the one certain thing I know is that I can't leave myself. It's so odd walking room to room and always have my reflection be of me. Somehow it feels like what should be seen in mirrors and the hazy reflection of my microwave door or the snowy semblance seen in my kitchen window is who's on my mind. This week I've become so largely engrossed in my intrusive thoughts of people I lost a little bit of myself. Since painting those self portraits, though, and the light mental breakdown I had that night/morning, I've started to rerealize who I am through my neuroticism. Maybe it's an odd way to do it, but I think I successfully utilized my mental illnesses to get back into the mental processes I'm used to and become who I remember being.
Of course most of the credit goes to Kai in helping me get out of my head. I can write all I want about the hokey pokey stuff I possibly did but most likely didn't do, but no matter how much I pretend I did something for myself, the fact is unavoidable that Kai helped me the most. She always does.
I worry a lot that I'm a toxic male figure in others' lives because I rely on people a lot and I think sometimes I'm accidentally selfish because I can't get ahold of my emotions. Although now that I'm really thinking about it and considering all of the toxic men that I've heard of in others' lives recently, I know I'm definitively better than them in that regard. Yeah, I just asked someone and they pinky promised I'm not toxic but I have the potential to be just like anybody else.
I got out of bed today at 2 pm which is really good for me because recently I've been staying in bed all day, or at least until it's dark outside. It's been hard to get motivation to do anything and I've been super tired recently. My depression is back in full swing and it's been hard to kick it especially with my current environmental factors.
I can't wait until December 12th when I can finally go to my endocrinologist appointment. That is, if my mom doesn't cancel it again. We got in a stupid fight last night because I said, "You just walk into El Paso and you're like wow... everyone here is racist," and my mom freaked out. She's the epitome of a white person who can't handle anything bad being said of white people, it's so fucking annoying. She said, "Well I'M not racist, Nana isn't racist, I don't know about those two (in regards to my grandpa and my dad)." She's only okay with talking bad about white people if it's specifically white people she dislikes, apparently. Then she found the one (1) ONE black person in the entire building and said, "I bet THEY'RE not racist." She kept bringing up the black man and I was already in a bad mood from being consistently misgendered by every member of my family, so finally I snapped at her that every time she brings up an exception to the rule to discredit what I'm feeling it upsets me as it's an intentional action to invalidate the anger I'm feeling, so I just want the conversation to be over. Then she stood up and yelled, "Fine! I won't say another fucking thing to you then, ALEXIS," and stormed off to sit by herself.
My grandma tried telling me I'm too hard on my mom and she's really trying her best. Really? Was she trying her best when she just cussed at me in front of an entire gymnasium of people? Was she trying her best when she talked shit about my friend over and over again? Was she trying her best when she intentionally misgendered me? Or what about when she hit me? What about when she hit me again? Or again? Was she trying her best when she kicked me out of the house in the winter and then threatened to call the police on the people I was staying with if I didn't come home immediately? Was she trying her best when she did any number of fucking things she did and still does, now moreso to Caiti?
Anyways, I'm excited to go on testosterone. I think it's funny how people do testosterone voice/changes updates super early before anything has really happened, but I don't blame them. When you finally get what you've wanted for so long there's no way to not be excited over it. I probably won't get testosterone right on the twelfth, but it's the first step towards getting there. I know you can't pick and choose what changes you get or when they'll occur, but I'm just really hoping for a deeper voice, facial hair, thicker eyebrows, and redistribution of fat.
My uncle just let himself into my house a few minutes ago and is now sitting on the couch making me uncomfortable because he's not talking or watching tv or reading or on his phone or anything. He's just sitting on the couch staring into space and doing nothing. That reminds me. He's transphobic. And him being transphobic reminds me that if another cis person insinuates how I should feel grateful for my family not kicking me out of the house or disowning me I'm going to fucking scream. I shouldn't have to feel grateful for a basic necessity of life that is a birthright from the moment my parents decided to have me. Just because some families suck I shouldn't have to give thanks to the universe mine is fulfilling something every family should.
But yeah, this chapter is kind of all over the place. I'm just writing and writing whatever comes to mind because I'm trying to reclaim my chapters as my own. I know I deleted a lot of the ones prior to this, but the fact I know they existed at all is more reason to make this book mine again. I'm starting to feel existentially tired where I know it's possible for me to take another three hour nap right now, but I don't want to do that because I've done so well today already. I'm going to go over to Ryland's house and at least be sad in someone else's presence. I haven't seen him in two days and I miss him a lot. OH DUDE I CAN GET TACO BELL ON THE WAY. OR. OR OR. We can go to Noodles & Co. I talked to Megan today and I miss her a lot and want to hang out with her soon. We're aiming for next week. I'm very worried my friend group is falling apart and none of us will talk when we get back to school. They all have other friends but all I have is them and I'll have to start over making new friends in my new classes. There's a recurrent image in my mind where I see one of them across the dining hall or near Brownstones and we've become distant enough I don't know whether to smile or wave or just look away. Ava has this Wattpad and will be able to see what I'm thinking and feeling but I won't know what's going on with her. Or with Spencer or Megan. Or anybody.
I had a lot of gorillas in my dreams last night. There was also a snake. And a ferarri car chase where I had to steer with a computer and a mouse that was embedded into the keyboard. I was in San Francisco. Young Harry Bright from Mamma Mia 2 had become old but wasn't Colin Firth, he looked like me in the photo my grandma sent me yesterday from when I was in Las Vegas. He tried winning me back but I had to run from the people who I had been running from in the car chase. We bobbed and weaved through hidden artifact tunnels and he became Rico Rodriguez (Manny from Modern Family) and was an archer helping us get through. There were hidden cameras everywhere. There was no escape. I wonder what it all means.
