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At the end of the beginning of the end
Aug. 1st, 2025 11:44 pmOn the anniversary of what is probably two years from the start of a pretty bad period of my life (in a global sense, not uniquely bad--just the eighteen year old sort), I want to take a look back at what was I writing. Sometimes I can guess the trajectory for these kinds of retrospectives, confirmation of a probable arc of motion, or else not at all : inductive or deductive reasoning? Which is more or less reliable, in any case, taking into account the weather. All this to say I think I just have to try. For someone who spends so much time needlessly rearranging whatever whatevers in my mind, I'm awful at forming mental representations of (probabilities of) possibilities (that is, fullscale images of cause and effect).
I write almost everything in my notes app on my computer (around 1k notes for 3-4ish years). Two years ago I didn't really write for any reason other than to remember an event or my feelings around it. It's not much different from now, but at least I'm able to collate earlier entries around discrete happenings with reasons to exist aside from self-indulgence. When I blew up a friendship because of my drinking: "I’m only writing this in the first place because its something that she would do." I don't think it felt good yet just to put something down. Even now I would say I'm not a born writer in the sense that for me words are not ends in themselves--but the distance between them and what I'm getting at with them has changed. The tool has become more fully integrated. Something like that. Writing is comfortable for me now, I can easily fall asleep inside of it: Not really a good thing!
At seventeen emotions were not shy about being loud but I was so poor at making what I said mean like what it was in my head. Still, I think I was better at getting "something" across. I didn't compromise being direct. I wrote: "When the smoke pressed my lungs inward I knew I had done it right cause of the sick feeling." That was the spring my friend came back from abroad and we took ourselves to the liqour store that didn't card for a box of cigarettes. She was so nervous she told them she was 18 instead of 21; I had to go back separately and fork over twenty bucks of my lunch money. We went back around the alley and there was a church--I remember this, two parking spots for the pastor and his wife--where she taught me and my other friend how to do it. We didn't even know to tap the filter so the ash grew until it curled back around and pointed at us. Well, until she laughed--we probably wouldn't have ever figured it out on our own.
This is also around the last time I remember really liking someone, the lead in that year's musical: "Always a sliver of light through the dark silhouette / Your cut out shape from the wings / You never looked my way." I gave myself away pretty easily. "To grasp the shape of your laugh." With such excessive sentimentality and such stereotyped language. Then again, I can't really say I've gotten much better in that regard.
I want to trade with that guy for a moment to see what they would do in this life. "The week after I quit drinking, it rained, like the sky was trying to flush out a fever. I felt like I wanted to cry. I wanted my best friend back. I wanted a drink. How did I come to this?"
It's not so bad, now. I got my friend but I've lost track of the losses. In general, I have a suspicion that I don't know the full extent of all the things I've passively chosen to give up on. Assess the damage.
My emotions now are faltering and communication is a separate matter. I stopped writing as much for class, which might mean I've stopped writing towards a thesis. Recently, someone said my writing made them realize they were worse at English than they thought. I didn't know how to react to that. Sorry, I think. On the other hand, looking back, it seems like most of the personal writing I did was related to school assignments or college applications (not remotely honest), and regarding that which I hadn't yet admitted to myself--of course there's nothing to find? I kind of thought or hoped there would be (I tend to forget what I write after I write it, because writing "it" is how I make it leave my conscious direction). But it's only been a year or two. I just remember feeling different. I don't know.
What have I learned? I've bunted the ball. More frustrated having written out this half-entry than if I did anything else. That's how it usually goes, but this is worse than usual because I made an effort to keep my tone level and dry. So it's like that, tough, gamey, like I already want to give up mid-chew. I'm annoyed that in every single instant I feel like a wholly new self whose prior experiences have no practical application to my circumstances now. At the same time what is inside of me has remained largely unchanged, with some bells and whistles, so what I learn is what I already know. I tend to make the same mistakes. But I've really pushed them past the point of active returns now.
Not sure if I'll feel better if I post this or not. Just took a walk, a bad walk, with my words, so genuinely inefficient if it weren't 11 at night I'd go on a run to get the rest out. You win some, you lose some. Isn't that right.
I write almost everything in my notes app on my computer (around 1k notes for 3-4ish years). Two years ago I didn't really write for any reason other than to remember an event or my feelings around it. It's not much different from now, but at least I'm able to collate earlier entries around discrete happenings with reasons to exist aside from self-indulgence. When I blew up a friendship because of my drinking: "I’m only writing this in the first place because its something that she would do." I don't think it felt good yet just to put something down. Even now I would say I'm not a born writer in the sense that for me words are not ends in themselves--but the distance between them and what I'm getting at with them has changed. The tool has become more fully integrated. Something like that. Writing is comfortable for me now, I can easily fall asleep inside of it: Not really a good thing!
At seventeen emotions were not shy about being loud but I was so poor at making what I said mean like what it was in my head. Still, I think I was better at getting "something" across. I didn't compromise being direct. I wrote: "When the smoke pressed my lungs inward I knew I had done it right cause of the sick feeling." That was the spring my friend came back from abroad and we took ourselves to the liqour store that didn't card for a box of cigarettes. She was so nervous she told them she was 18 instead of 21; I had to go back separately and fork over twenty bucks of my lunch money. We went back around the alley and there was a church--I remember this, two parking spots for the pastor and his wife--where she taught me and my other friend how to do it. We didn't even know to tap the filter so the ash grew until it curled back around and pointed at us. Well, until she laughed--we probably wouldn't have ever figured it out on our own.
This is also around the last time I remember really liking someone, the lead in that year's musical: "Always a sliver of light through the dark silhouette / Your cut out shape from the wings / You never looked my way." I gave myself away pretty easily. "To grasp the shape of your laugh." With such excessive sentimentality and such stereotyped language. Then again, I can't really say I've gotten much better in that regard.
I want to trade with that guy for a moment to see what they would do in this life. "The week after I quit drinking, it rained, like the sky was trying to flush out a fever. I felt like I wanted to cry. I wanted my best friend back. I wanted a drink. How did I come to this?"
It's not so bad, now. I got my friend but I've lost track of the losses. In general, I have a suspicion that I don't know the full extent of all the things I've passively chosen to give up on. Assess the damage.
My emotions now are faltering and communication is a separate matter. I stopped writing as much for class, which might mean I've stopped writing towards a thesis. Recently, someone said my writing made them realize they were worse at English than they thought. I didn't know how to react to that. Sorry, I think. On the other hand, looking back, it seems like most of the personal writing I did was related to school assignments or college applications (not remotely honest), and regarding that which I hadn't yet admitted to myself--of course there's nothing to find? I kind of thought or hoped there would be (I tend to forget what I write after I write it, because writing "it" is how I make it leave my conscious direction). But it's only been a year or two. I just remember feeling different. I don't know.
What have I learned? I've bunted the ball. More frustrated having written out this half-entry than if I did anything else. That's how it usually goes, but this is worse than usual because I made an effort to keep my tone level and dry. So it's like that, tough, gamey, like I already want to give up mid-chew. I'm annoyed that in every single instant I feel like a wholly new self whose prior experiences have no practical application to my circumstances now. At the same time what is inside of me has remained largely unchanged, with some bells and whistles, so what I learn is what I already know. I tend to make the same mistakes. But I've really pushed them past the point of active returns now.
Not sure if I'll feel better if I post this or not. Just took a walk, a bad walk, with my words, so genuinely inefficient if it weren't 11 at night I'd go on a run to get the rest out. You win some, you lose some. Isn't that right.
