Yes, ya bish is back. In what capacity, I’m still figuring that out…
Author: sacriluna
the rumble where you lay
It’s only been a few weeks, but 28 feels better than 27 ever did. I spent much of the previous year preoccupied with my own mortality – even quit smoking for good and abstained from alcohol for several months; it was a dry summer.
On my way to a job interview, a deer hit me – not the other way around. I did not get that job. I binge wrote 20k words in a week’s time in between babysitting my best friend’s kids and co-directing The Lion King, Jr with a cast of 100+ children. After quitting the tiring and thankless job I had with UPS and spending yet another summer job hunting, I started a new full time job in the city I plan to make my home very soon.
I let go of my past and my past let go of me.
Since I’m a scorpio-sagittarius cusp, sag szn is just a little more time of me feelin’ myself and putting this good energy to great use. Getting a headstart on resolutions for the new year. Expanding self-care/self-love to include self-improvement predicated on only my own validation and wants/needs/desires. Writing with the simple notion of enjoying the craft again. Trusting my chaotic gut because sometimes anxiety is actually intuition I’ve been writing off for far too long.
You know what they say about life and plans, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. A bish has a bullet journal in need of filling!
took this picture while battling a massive headache after having my tilted cervix scraped to all hell
In no particular order…
five films I adore. If you ask me my favorite movies, I generally default to Heathers, Romeo + Juliet, and A Goofy Movie. However, these are five that would make, like, my top twenty for sure.
(Mind, these particular stories are very heteronormative and pretty damn white, but beyond that…)
Comet (2014) – currently on Netflix US
Set in a parallel universe, Comet bounces back and forth over the course of an unlikely but perfectly paired couple’s six-year relationship.
I will watch just about anything Justin Long is in (ie Tusk), but both he and Emmy Rossum really do shine in this. There is a hotel room scene that is *chef’s kiss*
Wind Chill (2007)
Two college students share a ride home for the holidays, but when they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they are preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there.
I watched this on pay-per-view, like, ten years ago when I was seventeen and I continue to think this is one of Emily Blunt’s best movies – and she’s fantastic in everything. (Content warning: a racist white male character uses the n-word and there are allusions to sexual assault.)
I Origins (2014)
A molecular biologist and his laboratory partner uncover evidence that may fundamentally change society as we know it.
Honestly, I watched this for Steven Yeun (who isn’t in it enough for my liking), but it managed to capture my heart strings. I do have a thing about elevators, though, and that’s that on that…
Night Owls (2015) – currently on Netflix US
After workaholic Kevin has a drunken one night stand with the beautiful train-wreck Madeline, he’s horrified to discover that she’s actually his boss’ jilted ex-mistress. When she takes a bottle of sleeping pills, Kevin is forced to keep her awake… and over the course of the night the two begin to fall for each other.
The roller coaster that is the night shared by these two characters is writing I envy so much! Rosa Salazar is a phenomenal young actress and I only knew Adam Pally from The Mindy Project so I loved him in this. It is like watching a stage play.
Stoker (2013)
After India’s father dies, her Uncle Charlie, whom she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her unstable mother. She comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives and becomes increasingly infatuated with him.
Wentworth Miller of Prison Break wrote a himself a damn script and this film is iconique™. (Content warning: there is a scene of attempted sexual assault.)
i updated my privacy policy
It’s been two weeks since I’ve spoken to the one person I’ve communicated with almost every day for nearly two years.
I’ve never really talked openly about my relationship because I’m terrified of jinxing it. This far into it and, yes, I keep thinking about messing it up. Besides, there’s not much I believe in but of the few things one of them is that a relationship is between the people involved. And I’m selfish. I want to keep the good times all to myself and the not-so-good times… Well, those get buried so deep they’ll never again see the light of day.
Plus, this is the internet and it’s totally passé to be in your feelings about a significant other. No. It’s all “delete his number, eat mangos, and move on with your life”. We romanticize the gooey bits of love and all of its varying forms but reach for the ripcord at the first sign of discomfort. How the hell is anyone supposed to learn how to cope and persevere during turbulent times when all the hip advice is to jump out of the escape hatch?
The one consistent thing I had in my life is gone, halfway across the country on an army base, and I’ll admit I’m flailing a little bit. I’m closing in on myself while simultaneously looking for my own escape hatch. Because this, too, is un-friggin-comfortable. What do I do with all this free floating energy? All these insecurities someone else has regularly assuaged, they’re still here. They’ve always been here and right now they’re staring at me with hands on hips and accusatory gazes.
Here’s a misconception I’ve found: a relationship does not heal you. All those doubts and ugly stories you tell yourself about yourself… It doesn’t matter if you go to sleep with a warm body curved around you. It doesn’t matter who’s texting you good morning or who’s forcing you to watch some cheesy anime on Netflix at two in the morning. You can still smile in a depressive state. You can still have a panic attack wrapped in someone else’s arms. You can have weeks and weeks of really great days, but one bad day can warp how you remember each day before it. Believe me, I know.
You have to heal you – and I have a lot of healing to do.
I know this because I see how it trickles into other parts of my life. I’m currently employed but have been interviewing for other possible opportunities and the job market feels like prostitution. I am selling myself and hoping I get a return on my investment. And it sucks! I’m constantly at war with my self-worth, constantly trying to prove my value in a concise and itemized package to a hiring manager. All this to extend my livelihood just a little while longer. Pay my next bill, get back a few points on my credit score.
And I am a hard worker, a boss ass bitch if you will. I know this by all the responsibilities my supervisor trusts me to take care of myself, by myself. In action, I’m impressive. That’s the exact word one of my co-workers used to describe me just days ago when I was in a full state of panic. I don’t wilt and I’m not a quitter.
But I am only human. A very self-critical, anxious bean who is prone of isolation. I’m a trustworthy woman who has an extremely difficult time trusting others. My love language is acts of service (what can I do for you? how can I help? how can I show you I care?), but I shut down when I don’t feel reciprocity.
Not to mention I’m big on distractions. Blaring music on my morning commutes so I’m not stuck in my thoughts. Hiding myself in my writing because it’s easier to solve someone else’s imaginary problems. But the things I’m feeling and the fictions I tell myself, this stuff can’t be fixed by doing something drastic to my hair and trying a new face mask. If only…
I wrote this all out to say @universe, take it easy on me, will ya?
i’m five hours early to the airport. looking at the growing crowd in my terminal, there may be flights arriving and then leaving my gate before my flight. the woman seated next to me has apple care on speakerphone trying to troubleshoot why her wifi won’t connect. my gate clearly isn’t big enough for the amount of people flying american airlines and i wonder if i should give up my seat for someone else waiting, but they’re boarding now and my back hurts.
it’s fine. i don’t want to leave yet. i do but i don’t.
even three jack and cokes couldn’t keep me down, so i was wide awake at seven am this morning. my anxiety was on high alert for no given reason, and the resulting stomachache wouldn’t let me fall back asleep. because my friend was still in dreamland in the next bed, i laid among the cushy hotel pillows and scrolled through twitter and rewatched videos of me singing off-key, which i can’t completely blame on the alcohol. i thought about deleting the videos because i was happy and awkward but mostly awkward, but my boyfriend and friends had already viewed the stories on instagram and i should feel allowed to feel happy goddamn it. i didn’t get it then, but i do know.
i flew to dallas yesterday for the thirtieth birthday party of a longtime friend. it’s the first time i ever karaoked and the first time i’ve been to the state since a short vacation on 2005, since we moved away in the summer of 2002. texas was my dream, which i’ve written about ad nauseam. the mecca i’ve been clawing my way back to ever since, but i now know what gut feeling woke me up.
my dream is dead.
i’ll probably never move back to texas. san antonio will be a treat, a place to indulge my nostalgia, but it’ll never be mine again.
i bit back emotion when i saw the blue bonnets littering the edge of the interstate and when i visited whataburger like it held the cure to cancer in its burger meat. i devoured the landscape and tried to not sing dixie chicks’ “wide open spaces” in my head. the wind wanted to bowl me over, and i wished i’d packed my converses instead of my steve madden heeled booties.
i visited potbelly because one of my favorite youtuber loves the restaurant and went to in-n-out because it’s the closest i’ve gotten to california and of course i just had to! tipsy and with less than half a voice, i had a tamal from a gas station mexican restaurant with friends and it was the best tamal i’ve had in years. who knew i could access my spanish vocabulary better when i’m drunk (but the singular form of tamales is tamal, not tamale, and i blame my spanish professor for focusing on the spain colloquialisms and not the ones geared to latin america)? i was on my phone half the time and the other half trying to stay off my phone because this is a short trip and i needed to savor it.
but here i am, holding back tears in the airport with demi lovato and her vibrato belting “only forever” in my ear. it doesn’t feel right. i don’t feel right here anymore. but i also don’t feel right in south carolina, and i haven’t in the past almost sixteen years. i wonder if i’ll ever feel right anywhere, or at this point do you just make due where you are when you’re there and deal with the uncomfortable itch that you’ll never be able to quite scratch?
(i blame the end of retrograde for this barrage of feelings)
april.
i’m in the mood to write a book and get a tattoo.
i can neither afford nor justify spending money on a tattoo now or in the coming months, but i can write, so…
(this is no april fools. i really might just sit down and write a goddamn novel)
age.
i found my first grey hair this morning.
almost two and a half months after i turned 27 and a few days into the new year. i’ll admit i’ve been having a rough go at it, overlap from the previous year. financial issues, relationship issues, life being what it is. but that grey strand, perked up at the edge of my left eyebrow made my entire day.
i’ve never had a fear of aging. getting older, wrinkles, parts of my body succumbing to gravity and bad posture and equally bad eating habits. two untreated injuries to both of my shoulders from unrelated incidents. both from stupid ways of handling heavy things. weight gain and weight loss settling fat and muscle in different pockets than before.
i fucking love it!
(yes, i also carry anxieties of what i’m doing with my life. external struggles i tend to internalize)
that grey hair – really it’s a stubborn white thread – did what a new age and a new year didn’t slash couldn’t. it rejuvenated me. grounded me. amidst a litter of stray brow hair that needed to be plucked, it looked back at me from the mirror and reminded me of all the things i am and all the things i want.
if i have the option of hereditary alopecia or otherwise, i want to go grey young. i want to live a life where i smile so much, i have pronounced laugh lines. i want to show off the stretch marks i’ve had on my thighs since i was ten, ya know, when the weather gets warmer. i want to enjoy body aches and bruises from being so goddamn clumsy.
back in october, i came as close as i’ve ever been to suicide. i had the means. i had the apathy. i had the isolation. it was a long time coming yet somehow crept up on me, and for a while after i wasn’t completely certain i was out of the woods.
that grey hair reminds me – i want this life.
