rose quartz and serenity
Feb. 3rd, 2025 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newandexcitingshapesit’s just occurred to me i may not be the worst person on earth??? chat is this real???
today in a fit of sentimentality ("jd that is your every day" shh, i'm talking) i got 20-plus pages back in my own tumblr and started seeing visions. specifically, i was looking for something alice said once, which i found 22 pages back into my tag "for bad days," after checking "reminders," too. but the post i wanted was also tagged "2016 feelings," which of course i clicked on, wanting to see...well, the time capsule.
and oh, brother. the journey.
four pages of florals and pastels and images of women with succulents and the colors rose quartz and serenity (which made me cackle for k-pop reasons) and itches to become softer, gentler, kinder.
and this:
"i want pink and i want softness and i want More Plants and i want gentleness and handmade items and the color of kraft paper and maybe even a little glitter if i’m being honest / and maybe more vegetables even / it’s like, i want to grow up i want to be the best version of myself and it’s so hard because being hard is still so easy sometimes and i’m tempted to slide backwards but i’m trying so hard not to. sometimes i want to be an entirely different person but i’m trying not to do that to myself, i’m trying to quietly shed my skin and evolve, or whatever"
it threw me back through space and time so hard my neck hurts. it is disorienting. i remember her. and to revisit her diary is a completely bizarre emotion, because i remember being her, but i also look back and think: hey girl. what the fuck are you talking about.
in flipping through that tag - and remembering the pinterest board of that era, too - i see the pain she's trying to express within the lines. and it makes me so sad for the past versions of myself, because i remember.
i remember having this idea for so long that i was, somehow, a formerly really-mean-person, like someone who used to be a gigantic bitch, cruel for fun, lashing out with my tongue at just about anyone. and like, yeah, i was quicker to mean jabs when i was younger, and used to be a little bullyish with friends, not knowing how to distinguish gentle teasing from just being kind of a dick, but i was also, crucially: [tegan and sara voice] nineteen. i mean, not in 2016, exactly, but the era before that, the one i kept imagining as like, some kind of villain era.
and this idea persisted for a long time, truly. like, as recently as 2023, i remember trying to explain it to my most recent therapist - this period of time where i remembered myself as a Mean, Hard Person. and he kept trying to get me to give examples of this behavior, of what i could possibly have done or said that i was carrying around so much guilt over. and i really couldn't come up with much. and still, now, i can think of a couple of things i'm not proud of, but things have either been lost to time or apologized for plenty of times, and it's like: these little things that i spent so much time considering Evil Deeds were just kind of like. teenage/early 20s dick behavior. and no one is their best self from 16 to 22.
at 32, thinking about it, it's like: hey man. you were really, really, mentally unwell and have only in recent years gotten the right diagnoses and medication to help with that. it's like mitski says in a song that is far too fucking good for the abomination it's soundtracking: i get mean when i'm nervous, like a bad dog. i was not irreparably evil. i was a kid.
realizing this was like. a plane of glass cracked inside my head and heart. i said something about it online and crowe said, "YEAH MAN I WAS TELLING YOU FOR YEARS you'd be like I am a mean bitch I am the worst person and I'm like. JD?" and it's like. oh. OH. you guys who've been assuring me for years that i'm not evil were RIGHT this ENTIRE TIME, and maybe i should feel embarrassed, but really i just feel sorry i didn't believe you sooner.
and the thing is, the thing is that i have been so weighed down with guilt over this for so long - 2016 was almost 10 years ago, and i'd been worried about it before then, too - and now it's just, like. wow. i did not need to put myself through all that. i itched to go to confession and say hail marys or whatever. (i am not catholic, but wouldn't i have been great at it?)
so it's a crazy emotion to just be like. i don't even have to worry about that anymore. i didn't have to worry about it in the first place, but you can't get that time back, and all.
the other crazy emotion from this is realizing, like: i wanted to be kind. i wanted to be tender-hearted, and gentle, and warm. and i think...i think i've succeeded. it's not always easy for me to recognize it in myself, but sources (friends) assure me that i am a kind person with good vibes, and it's like: oh. that's what i look like to you guys. that's crazy. and sometimes, like right now, i can turn to that mirror and recognize it in myself. i try really hard to be as gentle and supportive and warm as possible, and maybe that is paying off, after all.
i don't know how to sign this one off. i'm dashing this off before i put real pants on and go to trivia with people who've known me since i was 18, and who still like being around me, all these years later. and that's gotta be something, right?
today in a fit of sentimentality ("jd that is your every day" shh, i'm talking) i got 20-plus pages back in my own tumblr and started seeing visions. specifically, i was looking for something alice said once, which i found 22 pages back into my tag "for bad days," after checking "reminders," too. but the post i wanted was also tagged "2016 feelings," which of course i clicked on, wanting to see...well, the time capsule.
and oh, brother. the journey.
four pages of florals and pastels and images of women with succulents and the colors rose quartz and serenity (which made me cackle for k-pop reasons) and itches to become softer, gentler, kinder.
and this:
"i want pink and i want softness and i want More Plants and i want gentleness and handmade items and the color of kraft paper and maybe even a little glitter if i’m being honest / and maybe more vegetables even / it’s like, i want to grow up i want to be the best version of myself and it’s so hard because being hard is still so easy sometimes and i’m tempted to slide backwards but i’m trying so hard not to. sometimes i want to be an entirely different person but i’m trying not to do that to myself, i’m trying to quietly shed my skin and evolve, or whatever"
it threw me back through space and time so hard my neck hurts. it is disorienting. i remember her. and to revisit her diary is a completely bizarre emotion, because i remember being her, but i also look back and think: hey girl. what the fuck are you talking about.
in flipping through that tag - and remembering the pinterest board of that era, too - i see the pain she's trying to express within the lines. and it makes me so sad for the past versions of myself, because i remember.
i remember having this idea for so long that i was, somehow, a formerly really-mean-person, like someone who used to be a gigantic bitch, cruel for fun, lashing out with my tongue at just about anyone. and like, yeah, i was quicker to mean jabs when i was younger, and used to be a little bullyish with friends, not knowing how to distinguish gentle teasing from just being kind of a dick, but i was also, crucially: [tegan and sara voice] nineteen. i mean, not in 2016, exactly, but the era before that, the one i kept imagining as like, some kind of villain era.
and this idea persisted for a long time, truly. like, as recently as 2023, i remember trying to explain it to my most recent therapist - this period of time where i remembered myself as a Mean, Hard Person. and he kept trying to get me to give examples of this behavior, of what i could possibly have done or said that i was carrying around so much guilt over. and i really couldn't come up with much. and still, now, i can think of a couple of things i'm not proud of, but things have either been lost to time or apologized for plenty of times, and it's like: these little things that i spent so much time considering Evil Deeds were just kind of like. teenage/early 20s dick behavior. and no one is their best self from 16 to 22.
at 32, thinking about it, it's like: hey man. you were really, really, mentally unwell and have only in recent years gotten the right diagnoses and medication to help with that. it's like mitski says in a song that is far too fucking good for the abomination it's soundtracking: i get mean when i'm nervous, like a bad dog. i was not irreparably evil. i was a kid.
realizing this was like. a plane of glass cracked inside my head and heart. i said something about it online and crowe said, "YEAH MAN I WAS TELLING YOU FOR YEARS you'd be like I am a mean bitch I am the worst person and I'm like. JD?" and it's like. oh. OH. you guys who've been assuring me for years that i'm not evil were RIGHT this ENTIRE TIME, and maybe i should feel embarrassed, but really i just feel sorry i didn't believe you sooner.
and the thing is, the thing is that i have been so weighed down with guilt over this for so long - 2016 was almost 10 years ago, and i'd been worried about it before then, too - and now it's just, like. wow. i did not need to put myself through all that. i itched to go to confession and say hail marys or whatever. (i am not catholic, but wouldn't i have been great at it?)
so it's a crazy emotion to just be like. i don't even have to worry about that anymore. i didn't have to worry about it in the first place, but you can't get that time back, and all.
the other crazy emotion from this is realizing, like: i wanted to be kind. i wanted to be tender-hearted, and gentle, and warm. and i think...i think i've succeeded. it's not always easy for me to recognize it in myself, but sources (friends) assure me that i am a kind person with good vibes, and it's like: oh. that's what i look like to you guys. that's crazy. and sometimes, like right now, i can turn to that mirror and recognize it in myself. i try really hard to be as gentle and supportive and warm as possible, and maybe that is paying off, after all.
i don't know how to sign this one off. i'm dashing this off before i put real pants on and go to trivia with people who've known me since i was 18, and who still like being around me, all these years later. and that's gotta be something, right?
