Being Alone

Last night, I let myself be alone like physically alone for the first time in a long while. Sure, I’ve been home alone and I’ve gone to school by myself, but I’m talking about having no one surrounding me and just being alone with my thoughts.

I guess it was an enlightening experience, but more than anything I hated it. I was driving around the little suburb that I live in and I just started having an anxiety attack. I don’t really remember what started it, but I remember I first started crying when a thought popped into my mind as I drove.

“Am I depressed?”

That thought hadn’t crossed my mind for almost four years and I think the thought that I was honestly wondering that to myself is what scared me the most. I don’t think I am depressed, I know that I am sad and my separation anxieties aren’t helping with that, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that I was depressed and alone until last night.

Which y’know led to a full fledged attack with the joyous accompaniment of many tears and sobs. Luckily, I came home to my parents who knew something was up, right away. They helped calm me down and relax, but I can’t help but feel awful for making them calm me down in the first place.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m making any sense or if there is any logic going into my thoughts as of late.

I just know that I don’t want to be alone until I have all of this shit under control.

-Hope xoxo

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Reflecting on a Friday Night

Because what else do I do with my free time? Tonight, I find myself at my favorite coffee shop while a little band plays and my online professor chatters away about something in my left earbud. The band has a cello player, an accordion player, a violinist, and a folk guitarist. Their sound is as unique as the sum of the group suggests and I am loving every second of it.

But it isn’t the happy, friendly music that is making me reflect on my life, rather the fact that I am alone once again on a Friday night plugging away at productive, necessary tasks instead of oh I don’t know- enjoying my youth and vitality to the best of my ability? Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself as always. Perhaps I am just the right amount of concerned. I’m not quite sure.

Wow this band is amazing.

Speaking of bands, I was talking to my music teacher today and it looks like I will be recording a song the next time I see her (next week). I’m honestly quite excited. The studio just recently got a new microphone and recording equipment and I’ve never recorded before and it will be just me actually playing. I’ll be singing and playing the piano and I’m honestly just so excited. Not really nervous at all.

-Hopexoxo

Busy and Tired

I’m really tired because of my long and busy day today, but I’ll write to you tomorrow, No One. ❤

-Hope xoxo

Little Things

Jeremy’s phone buzzed on his bed, a smile creeping up on the corners of his mouth as he threw his hand over to the other side to get it.

“Jerrrr-” the voice of the other side of the phone whimpered.

“Marcus? What’s wrong? You sound awful,” his eyebrows scrunched together in the middle of his forehead, Marcus never sounded like this.

“Jer, I think I’m getting sick, but my mom is at work and we don’t have any soup and well y’know she has the car too so I can’t even go out and buy some and-”

“Dude, I’m on my fucking way. Just lay down, aight? I’ll be there before you know it,” he hung up before Marcus could object and in an instant he was at the door, longboard in hand and a wad of cash from his bedside table crumpled up in the other.

Before he was even out of the door completely, Jeremy’s longboard’s front wheels had hit the concrete outside his front door and he was flying. Swerving and pushing as quickly and forcefully as he could managed. He made it to the corner 7/11 and grabbed three Ramen packets and a bottle of that fancy fruit smoothie juice that you see white girls walking around with and tossed them onto the counter proudly.

The cashier, a woman with graying hair and a baggy 7/11 smock, started scanning his items, but not without her own questions, “Oh on your lunch break?”

Jeremy looked down at his typical skater outfit and his items and wondered to himself who came in on their lunch break, looking like him, buying these same things that could have possibly convinced this poor old woman who this was normal, “Uhhh, no, this is for my -ahem- friend, they’re sick.”

“Oh, a special friend then? I see-” she creepily winked at him over the brim of her horn rimmed glasses, “Well, I know that if I was sick and I had a nice, young man coming to visit me, I would just love that. I remember my husband, when he was still with us, bless his soul, would bring me flowers whenever I wasn’t feeling quite right.”

“Flowers?” he hadn’t thought of flowers. Marcus loved flowers, sunflowers specifically, “Do you have any flowers here?”

“Oh yeah, sweetie!” She beamed, “We got some gardenias over there, but I think we just ran out of sunflowers.”

He deflated, thinking to himself that some was better than none, so he went to the back and grabbed a bouquet of bright, white flowers and brought it back to the counter.

“Oh, she’s going to love these!” the old woman clapped and cheered as she bagged up the small bouquet with the rest of his purchase.

“Yeah, I think he will,” he emphasized, smiling and taking the bag as her smile faded, “Have a great day!” he yelled behind him as he threw down his longboard and rode out of the convience store, smiling to himself.

The ride from the 7/11 to Marcus’ house was quick and when he arrived, he knocked on the door three times and bounced up and down, flowers in hand and the bag of miscellaneous goods and his longboard in the other.

---

As I was driving home from work today, I saw a boy on a longboard with a bouquet of big, white flowers and I just had to imagine a back story behind it. This is my rough back story, but I thought it was cute and I wanted to share it with y’all 🙂

-Hope xoxo

Trying to Teach Others

Lord knows, I am not a teacher. Nor do I want to be. But I find myself teaching others a lot, just little things I know about the world now and sharing whatever insight or “wisdom” that I may or may not possess.

Tonight at my rehearsal, I had the opportunity to teach some of my band friends something that perhaps that might not have learned. We had somehow gotten onto the topic of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and everyone in between when one of my friends called trans* people “trannies.” You can imagine my uncomfortable laughter, I’m sure, but once everyone had settled down, I politely corrected him, “Well, those people are more commonly referred to as ‘transgender,’ nowadays.” He laughed and said something about “Oh my badd” and a few other people laughed at him for making the mistake, but it led us into a very interesting conversation. A lot of the people there are quite conservative (or perhaps sheltered is a better word) so they were really quite hung up on the whole transition thing, so I walked em through it saying that I’ve known several people who have become their true gender and how it felt to watch them change into who they were meant to be. I described the greatest transitional moment for one of my friends was when he asked me to start using male pronouns when referring to him and this kinda blew all of these conservative people’s minds.

“So like Bruce Jenner wants to be called ‘she’?” “Yep, just like that! She’s going through her transition and it can be really hard when you’re in the public eye and that’s why a lot of the media makes fun of her for it.” “Oh well, that’s not cool. She’s just trying to express herself.” (Another friend) “Yeah, I get that. Like logically, if you really felt like a different gender, why wouldn’t you want to make how you look reflect that? They should be able to freely express themselves.”

CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FUCKING HAPPY I WAS AT HEARING EVERYONE TALK ABOUT THIS AND BECOME SO ACCEPTING SO QUICKLY. I was scared when I first commented that I would receive backlash, but collectively we were only met with a better understanding of the trans* community which made me and continues to make me a very proud LGBTQAA+ person.

-Hope xoxo

P.S. in the video, I am the one in black 🙂

bed head/ homework hair

Reaching 100 Followers

Hey, No One, so can I just say thank you guys so much for following my little blog here on WordPress. There’s now a hundred of you, which is an insane amount of people who want to hear about my life every fucking day. You guys are seriously so supportive and I love you all individually so much for being my friend and being a part of my support system. When I started blogging often back in May, I was in such a dark place desperately trying to get out. Since then, I have gotten out much to my amazement and joy. I truly believe that if it hadn’t been for this little blog these past few months, I would have gone crazy or I might have gone back to that sad state that I was in before. Right now, yes, I’m dealing with some stuff that I wish I didn’t have to deal with, but you guys know all about that, but at least I’m dealing with it- through this blog, through my meditation, through actually talking about it with physical people- and I know that I’m not going to be this way for a long time because I made it through much worse times.

I just really can’t thank you guys enough and I am so happy that I have you guys all to support me and keep up with my daily life. You are the best, No One.

-Hope xoxo

Visiting Bobby

Yep, I got to see him today. Can you guess how happy I am about that? I’ll give you a hint- it’s a lot.

When I finally got to the base with his family and I finally saw him coming out of his house, I couldn’t stop smiling. We spent around four hours with him and we got to catch up with what was going on him and everything. He showed us around the base, yes, but we mostly just sat at a picnic table and talked. Several of his friends came out and met us which was absolutely delightful to meet the people who are watching over my Bobby and being with him pretty much 24/7. I wish I could say more about how we had deep conversations and I told him what was going on with my separation problems, but those things didn’t happen today. I wish they had, but today was just a visit. I wanted to keep it happy and topical, especially in front of his family, and more over I just wanted to be happy with him since the last time we were physically together wasn’t so happy. And today WAS just happy and I am happy now even if I feel bad for not sharing everything with him like I know I should. But there will be a better time and a better place to talk about those things.

I am just happy for today’s little sunshine.

-Hope xoxo

When I Went to CBU

Today I got to visit my best friends, C and A, up at their university (Cal Baptist University) about an hour and a half away and it was awesome to see them. I think I might have mentioned it before, but I decided this past Sunday that I needed to visit them and be with my two of my closest friends so I invited myself up and I’m really glad I did. I got there at around 1:30 and was greeted by A, A’s girlfriend, and their cute friend, S, who is just a sweetheart and so freaking fineee. We walked around, taking the scenic route, and made it back to their dorms where we met up with C and two of their other friends, G and J. From there they just all showed me around their tiny little school (the full tour lasted about twenty minutes to go around the whole campus) and then we parted ways with S (he had other commitments) and visited the downtown area of the little suburban jungle surrounding the campus which proved absolutely delightful.

It felt amazing to be back with them and to be able to laugh and be dorky and talk and walk around and just be friends. I really do need that kind of physical contact nowadays and I am so happy that I’ve been able to give myself that with my friends who love me and understand that sometimes I need their help in order to feel better and to feel completely calm. And I did today, which I am so happy to report to you, No One.

But now I must go to bed, for I am waking up at seven A.M. tomorrow to go visit Bobby with his step mom and father. I can hardly wait 🙂

-Hope xoxo

Breaking Ribs and Taco Trucks

You guessed it! I went to a CPR Training class today! Oh y-you didn’t guess that? Oh well shit, I thought it was obvious by the title. Huh- well this is awkward now isn’t it?

Anywayy, yes! I took a CPR training class today for my job and I obviously learned a lot about CPR and and first aid and blah blah blah, but I think the most shocking thing that I learned from the class/ workshop thing was the fact that when you are doing CPR you should break a rib in the first couple of pumps otherwise you aren’t helping. The ribs are there to protect the internal organs and since you’re trying to get access to those same internal organs (namely the heart) you have to get rid of the thing covering them. Logistically, yes it makes sense. But when I had to press on a dummy and the instructor watching me told me to push with more force so as to mimic the force needed to break a rib, it fucking freaked me out! I obviously understand the importance, but I just can’t imagine breaking someone’s ANYTHING let alone their ribs when I’m just trying to help them in the first place. Just a weird thought.

And then of course, after the CPR training there was a complimentary taco truck outside that was PHENOMENAL. Like what the even heck. Who said that they could make street tacos that well?!

Additionally, the rest of my day was pretty hectic as usual. I didn’t have work today which was nice, but I did babysit the two year old that I’ve mentioned previously. Then after that I met up with a friend from my theater company back in the day (and by day, I mean last year) and caught up which was lovely then met up with ANOTHER friend and got coffee and talked for about four hours without loosing the conversation.

That friend is really a great friend and I’m really happy that we got to spend so much time together. I don’t think we’ve ever hung out for that long together by ourselves. Usually there are other people involved, but tonight was just a chance for us to chill and talk, something the two of us are good at when we get together. He and I have had our struggles with each other more than most of my other friendships, but I think those rough patches that we have experienced have only made us into better friends and better people because of it. If that makes any sense.

It was just a lovely time and I had a lovely evening and a lovely day even if I got up earlier than I wanted to. But today was good and I am so fucking grateful for that. And hopefully tomorrow will be too.

-Hope xoxo

Feeling like Eratosthenes.

I love astronomy. I really do. If I wasn’t so into writing and reading, there is no question that that is what I would be doing in college. Last semester I took an intro to astronomy class and learned so much fucking stuff about space and it was awesome to say the least. This semester I am taking an astronomy lab that requires that intro class as a prereq, but satisfies my mandatory lab G.E. requirement. Today was our first class and it was the same simple spiel that you hear for every first day of class, “Here’s the syllabus, don’t cheat, the final and midterm are on these days…” I could go on. But since it’s a two and a half hour lab (meeting only once a week, thank the Lord) when the professor was done giving the stereotypical and expected speech she gave us our first lab and told us to just go at it.

To summarize it in a basic sense, it was calculating the circumference of the Earth mathematically the way that Eratosthenes did back in the day. Now understandably not everyone was ready for this and there was some group discussions going on and some people struggled with it. But me? I sat and did the lab quickly and quietly and as thoroughly as possible, finished the write up summary and turned it in with an hour of class left to spare.

I’m not saying this to be braggadocious or anything, I’m telling you this because since I left my class I went to library for some quiet time and decided to look up this Eratosthenes and discovered that he and I have a lot in common. We both love astronomy and basic trigonometric applications, theater, writing, poetry, music, and learning. And while I understand that broadly, yes, I have similar interests to this ancient Greek man, it was just surprising to me that there are and were other people like me who just can’t decide what they love the most.

In our polarized world, I find that there is a constant distinction between those who favor the fine arts and those who study science. As if one person could not enjoy both. I have found myself breaking this societal rule or common place ideology and have many times experienced people not being angry with me, but rather confused that I couldn’t just choose one side of the spectrum. It is not that simple.

I want every color of learning spectrum. My thirst for knowledge knows no bounds and even though I may grow tired after long days of working and studying, my desire to learn never goes away – even if I may vocally complain otherwise.

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions, anything you’d like to add or contribute to my very one sided discussion. I’m genuinely interested to know what you think, No One.

-Hope xoxo