It really does get better

If you haven’t come across the names “Sean”, “Dylan”, or “Craig” in your time on this website, you probably haven’t read very far. Most of you are familiar, personally or through me, with these three young men that have been wrecking emotional havoc on me for the past couple years, and I’m happy to report to you that, in absolute and complete honesty, it’s over.

Long story short; I met Sean on Facebook and we had a very short yet very intense long distance “relationship” in which I fell in love that ended poorly. I’ve known Dylan since 7th grade and if there was an award for “Worst Person/Friend Ever” he would have won uncontested annually, but because I had very low self esteem and very few friends, I continued to put myself in vulnerable situations for him to exploit. As for Craig, I’ve known him since I was five and we were best friends from freshman year of high school on, but then sometime last year he decided to completely cut off contact with no warning. He might have given Dylan a run for his money that year.

Needless to say, with the combination of a history of low self esteem and self worth, a tendency to be overtrusting, and a big stupid heart, I reacted to all of these betrayals poorly. It got so bad that during my junior year of high school I began going to bimonthly therapy until just before my second semester of my senior year of high school. In that time, I wrote enough depressing poetry/blog posts to smother a third world nation. And it was anything but constructive.

Then I went to college. Then I started my second year of college. And now I’m here, and, quite honestly, I’m great. More than that, I’m awesome. I realized in the shower (hot) yesterday that I haven’t even thought about Dylan in about a year, and the only reason I have to think about Craig is because he’s my neighbor.

But what really made me realize how far I’ve come emotionally in the past year were my memory boxes. I have a near-serial-killer penchant for keeping souvenirs from my life, important or not. Since I was a freshman in high school, I’ve been able to condense my year into one shoe box per, keeping things like ticket stubs, programs, pictures, notes, and even corsages from various dances.

I was digging through a couple of these boxes the other day for a video for my collab channel, and I came across the only “snail mail” letter Sean ever sent me during the two ish years we knew each other for. After much bullying and several letters of my own, the June before either my junior or senior year in high school he sent me one of the most hysterical letters I’ve ever received. Rereading it, I found he used the word “boob” about fourteen times and then told me a story about his seventh grade math teacher. On the back of the letter, he drew an angry dwarf thing and a pair of, you guessed it, boobs. And that was it. And instead of dissolving into a world shattering panic attack, I laughed. I laughed my butt off.

That’s when I realized that, finally, Sean had zero power of me anymore. I can look back fondly at the good times, accept the bad times as learning experiences, and use the rest of the times as anecdotes for the rest of my life. How freaking awesome is that?

But I’d like to go back to the truckloads of depressing poetry for a minute. That’s really telling about my previous coping mechanisms- quiet depression and anger. Clearly, that was never a good policy. But since entering college, I’ve started doing a 180, until I can aptly say that my coping mechanism is now, drum roll, humor.

Let’s get the cliched “laughter is the best medicine” out of the way now, not because it’s not true, but because it’s more than that. Here’s an empirical example. This is a poem (“Why Not Me?”) I wrote in middle school.

Stomach churning

Face pale or red

Embarrassment rushing

Through my head

But also anger, hurt, desire

So of course my mood is much like fire

Him with her,

Her with him,

It makes me sick

 

I wish life was simple

I wish love was fair

I wish my moods

Were less like a bear’s

I wish I could see

What I’m missing

And where I’m lacking

And less who he’s kissing

Why am I the one left out?

The one who’s here but yet unseen?

Why can’t I be the one he looks at with

Passion in his eyes?

Until then,

I cry

 

Augh. It makes me shudder just looking at it. Alright, now here’s a poem I wrote earlier this semester (“Nerdz with a Z”)

The coolest hoodie I ever saw

had a big, flat, open hand on the front

but when you zipped it down?

Life long and freaking prosper.

Nerd.

The thing about being a nerd

is that it’s kind of like being a hipster,

except your clothes aren’t as cool

and you’re probably a virgin

and you’re actually allowed to like the things you obsess over.

Speaking of which

When did liking things become

uncool?

Will all the hipsters in the audience

please stand up

and explain to me why if

you and I like

the same thing

one of us has to deviate

otherwise neither of us will be cool.

You liking things that I like doesn’t make

Us

uncool.

It just makes us potential friends.

Speaking of which,

Do you want to come watch Firefly with me after this?

Because I’m missing my Mal Reynolds high

And I don’t want to reach it alone.

Because being alone is

fucking.

terrifying.

You may think you like being alone.

But you don’t.

Because being alone means you can never ask questions

Or tell jokes

Or ask for help.

Having an obscure taste in stuff you don’t actually like doesn’t make you cool,

or interesting,

or intriguing.

It just makes you a dick.

Also,

what’s with all the plaid?

I’ve got nothing against plaid, per se

But go to any location populated largely by people

under the age of 30

And it looks like a gay lumberjack convention.

And I say gay because of the variety of colors in modern plaid

Not because I’m a bigot

But I am a big nut for Battlestar Galactica

And beets.

And Doctor Who

And puns, apparently.

Maybe I don’t dress

like I shop in time traveling dumpsters from the 1960s

and maybe I can’t adequately debate the merits of

Neutral Milk Hotel or

ironic mustaches

But hey.

At least I’m allowed to enjoy stuff.

At least my stereotype is self aware enough to recognize

That we aren’t put on this Earth to be “cool”

or “phat” with a “ph”

We’re here to sing too loudly to “I’m Blue aba dee aba die”

Dress too specifically on Halloween

Laugh too loudly at chemistry jokes

And, most importantly,

Love stuff.

Because stuff can be pretty cool.

So here’s my promise,

to all of you listening to my rambling

to all of you who checked out early because

this year my poem isn’t about peeing standing up

and to all of you who aren’t listening at all but are pretending you are:

I promise to have an original Star Wars trilogy marathon at least once a year

Read the entire Harry Potter series again instead of going to a party

Make Lord of the Rings references at awkward moments

Drink Shirley Temples long after I turn 21

And enjoy every damn minute of it.

 

Pretty big switch, eh? Instead of dwelling on angst, I turn my observations into humor and wry reflections on the state of the world. Another example: In high school when I had to write short stories, I wrote a really sad story about “coming out”(as gay, as an atheist, etc) and a fictionalized version of my friend’s attempted suicide. This year, I wrote about superheroes and zombies.

Being known as the “funny girl” is strange, especially for someone who spent most of her adolescence quietly writing poetry about the color black, but it’s an experience that I’m not going to shy away from. I’ve spent too much time being sad and angry; being funny and angry is much more interesting.

I hope you can recognize that when I make jokes about emotionally traumatizing experiences, it’s not because I’m making light of them or trying to hide behind humor. I make jokes because otherwise I’m having panic attacks and bawling myself to sleep at night, and that’s not a pattern of behavior I’m eager to return to. Besides, if you can’t laugh at your pain, then it’s just going to hurt longer, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that pain is only useful for a little while. If you let it go on for longer, it stops being a source of poetic inspiration and it starts becoming a medical issue.

Moral of this over-indulgently long blog? I’m too young to be this jaded. I’d much rather be writing about clinically insane S&M supervillians than attempted suicide. Not because it’s more culturally important, but because I think it’s just as important to give people a reason to get up in the morning instead of just insisting that they do.