time is a circle

2023 ✧ 12 ✧ 28

in this post: more ramblings of regressing to the ultimate Adult Child while spending the holidays in your childhood home in California

I met some friends of mine from high school for dinner at a Japanese izakaya-style restaurant. Half of us forgot that PD had recently gotten engaged and her partner was there. Only when LF arrived and exclaimed excitedly to see the ring in person did it click in our heads and we all looked at each other in the same look of embarrassment. Every year NG always brings little presents for the group, and most of us are shocked, or angry ("You didn't need to do that!") -- a reaction of actually being pleased but subjecting ourself to internal chastising for not being better friends. At this point, it's honestly embarrassing that it's not reciprocated, but it all ties back to my general mood (life experiences?) relating to the holidays in general -- total cringe! That initial reaction is so strong; when I try to counter it, it seems like I lose my sense of self briefly because I'm not sure I can quickly conjure a happy and emotionally safe holiday season.

When I'm home I still feel as if it's a continuation of my middle and high school years. I say this a lot but I'm still somehow very much mentally stuck at 12 when I'm at home, and this is pretty apt given that I've spun up an entire blog with the same depressing, angsty content that I generated during that same time period too. I mean, I'm in nearly the same environment where those thoughts and feelings had been borne, so it makes sense that I can somehow mentally find my way back there no matter how many years have passed. I think in previous years I was willing to be more open about myself to my family but this time around I really kept it surface level and still can't bring myself to tell my family about my ADHD and depression diagnoses.¹ One year my mom saw me scroll on Instagram on tattoos and then went into her "We didn't raise you to be like that"/"You're not from a broken household"-type of tangent, and all I remember was how awful it felt because my body wanted to give in and fawn to my parents, sorry for having interests and ideals different from you, I don't want you to change the way you see me if you see me as financially stable and therefore Adult Enough to not have worries, let me wear the Perfect Child role a little longer to balance out all your anxieties unleashed onto me about my Oldest Sister. Me, always the coward who thinks they can maintain some sense of familial peace with my presence and superficial achievements. Ha. I think my most complicated relationship is between me and my Mother. It's hard for me to be at home and feel like I deserve to go out with my friends or do things for myself when I couldn't travel to be with my Mother the year she was sick due to COVID. I wonder if I should have driven across the country, but I had only recently started working after finishing graduate school and under a lot of stress that all I could resolve to do was pretend to be strong in New York and be emotional support for my Mother. I wonder if my sisters resent me for not coming back, or for being the only member of my immediate family not to reside back in California. She's actually healthy now, I'm even astonished at how much she still does around the house, but whenever I'm home and not spending time with her, I feel so bad (I could have lost her)² but at the same time, I've always controlled, on some level, the perception my family has of me, and if they feel like I'm actually a Stranger, I wouldn't fault them for that.

The reason I even started thinking about this was when we went to get bubble tea for dessert, it struck me as funny that none of us owned a separate home since my friends still live at home due to the outrageous cost of housing, so there was no place for us to go hang out, and thus we had had to loiter at cafes and dessert places since none of us wanted to drink, especially not after the giant 1.5L bottle of sake at dinner. For whatever reason, the playlist was stuck in some 2010's time loop which only exacerbated the feeling of suburban adolescence. How can you take yourself seriously as an Adult when "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz is playing at the boba shop at the same time that you're trying to talk about retirement accounts? (Double yuck to both). That song reminds me of high school prom, a time that I don't know if I really had fun aside from convincing my boyfriend at the time to finger me in the stairwell, but that's just teenage hormones running its course, I had no joy in recounting that, I don't know how much I truly liked him as much as I liked the control and attention, paving a way for a lot less joy and more attention in the future. I'm very grateful to be in a loving relationship now though admittedly I struggle a lot with feeling like I deserve it at all, but I hope that staying on top of my medication will help curb those thoughts.

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

#personal #stoned