It’s So Human

You pick a question then.

Okay... What are you the most proud of yourself for?

Proud?

Yep.

Um. What am I the most proud of myself for? I guess being here, I’d say that I’m proud of myself for being here. You know, everyone goes through a moment where they’re just in the trenches, just deep in the trenches. At some point, I guess it got so bad to the point that it was like, “Holy shit, how am I doing-” It was like a little after like, um I don’t know. During freshman year, around November, you probably remember this. But my grandma had passed away and that was a very terrible time for me. Probably one of the worst moments of my life was going to a funeral and it just felt not real. It was like I wasn’t real. And I ended this whole existential crisis where I felt things were just not real anymore. I could do anything to myself and it just wouldn’t matter, you know? So I went through that time where I just stopped caring about anything. I would cry for hours and I wouldn’t… sometimes I wouldn’t even go to class or I’d just mope or, I tried different meds to see if it would change how I was thinking or whatever.

Like ADHD medication for starters, I tried a different stimulant to try and see if I was going to be different or have a different change of pace or whatever. And, again, really deep in the trenches so for straight hours upon end when I got home, I would just doom scroll and do nothing. And I don’t remember… I think I was playing The Witcher 3, right? And I had a dream while I had the screen on, I fell asleep and I had a dream or I had a moment of just remembering… or- or making a book or making an idea for a book and it was like, it just hit me. And I use this as like a conduit to process that pain.

I basically wrote an entire little manuscript just to show myself that I can get back into this and I can project how I was feeling this grief, this guilt, this loss, because I was beating myself up. I mean, no matter how many friends I surrounded myself with, I really could not handle this pain in a proper way. So I was like, really, really, really just finding an escape and that escape, I guess I could say was writing. So I basically made a story about this girl who ‘s basically just grieving the loss of her father and the loss of her best friend. And the guilt that she has acts as this, you know, darker alter ego

that just consumes her with rage and pain and despair. It gave me this way to create this entirely different narrative where she can break out of that.

And I guess the first step of breaking out of anything is having to have that experience.

Yeah.

And with that came a lot of growth. I mean, I can still say that the following months, my dog had died, so after the summer, it was like, boom- my dog had died. And then I realized: Wait a minute. I can keep grieving, yes, but I can also continue with this story as a way to grieve. So that’s what I did. I wrote and I wrote and it’s constantly evolving, with every emotion a person feels. But the main point is just trying to get rid of this loss and find a way to express myself in a different way. Yeah, I guess I’m proud of myself for finding that in writing that

Yeah.

It took a while. That’s yeah, that’s my answer.

It is exactly the kind of answer I’m hoping for, because I’ve like, I didn’t know you wrote things. Everyone has a chance to find themselves coping in the most unhealthy ways.. And it’s not.... People do it. And just because you cope in an unhealthy way doesn’t mean you’re not coping. But you do desire and it’s good to have good releases of that emotion. So I’m glad that you have found one that, again, even if you’re coping in other ways that aren’t healthy, it doesn’t make you any less of a person or any less on your path to healing. But I’m glad that you have this healthy outlet.

Yeah, I’m also glad. I mean, I don’t do it as often as I’d like to. I still doom scroll a lot.

Yeah.

But, I mean, it’s still always there at the back of my mind, you know. I even created an entire map. I guess that’s also something that I was proud of that got me through this was, I put all my time into my own little pet project instead of putting my time into doing nothing. Even if I’m still doing nothing, you know? I mean, we all do nothing, but we still have something.

Not everything has to be productive for it to be good.

Yeah, exactly. Like, you could make Pinterest boards and it’s still something, you know?

Exactly.

Like, what would your answer to that question be?

Um... I do. I used to write a lot, like back when I was in the trenches, when things were really bad, I would write poetry- poems. Not many people care too much. Which is fine, it’s poetry. But no one needs to read it. No one needs to like it. It helped me when I couldn’t deal with what I dealt with.

Yeah, and it’s still there for you.

Exactly. And I look back on it often and I’m like, wow, I remember this time. I remember writing this and the feeling. And I do get that feeling of: I can’t believe I made it through that. I’m proud of myself because it was… it was and is now something that felt like too much. and I’m at a place where I made it somehow. Even though it still is too much.

I mean, hey, the world is too much too, you know? Things are constantly happening and things are constantly changing. But I think finding a way to outsource your pain or outsource your frustrations, your stress, anger, your trauma, everything, no matter, even if it’s just bad writing or bad poetry, it’s still art and it’s still beautiful because it’s still a way for us both to connect to something else in a different way, you know?

It’s so human.

It’s so human.

And I love that.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean you could be writing slam poetry for all

means.

The door knocks.

The door knocks.

Yeah.

Snap, snap, snap.

Snap, snap.

You could be doing that. And it’s still something, it’s still a means of expression.

Yep.

And it’s getting you somewhere.

That’s, yeah, it is the progress that is so important. You can make little domino structures that fall over. You can make something so impermanent that it exists for seconds and then never again. But if it’s progress, it’s progress.

Yeah, exactly. It’s like even friendship, friendship is like that, you know? Like, when you think about it, with friendship, it’s not a means of distraction, but a means of just who you are as a person. All that you are as a person, your happiness, your sadness, your anger, just every emotional complex that you can have within yourself you can vent to a friend. You can talk about things to a friend. You can be with a friend in a moment- you don’t even have to be talking. You

can just sit there and watch TV, but you still have a friend. There’s still someone there. So I’d say that’s also a way of expression. you know?

Yeah.

Like, that’s also a way to be human. That’s also human. That connection matters. When you are able to talk about something through a means of expression, that’s what matters. So friendship as a means of expression… matters. So friendship is a means of expression.

Yeah.

Put that in a book. Put that in a book right now! That was fire! I just have to... I’m going to take some credit for that.