Chapter 31: Human Nature

When I heard that Michael Jackson had died yesterday, I felt incredibly relieved for the pop icon. I always figured he suffered relentlessly since his demise since the late 90s. It's better for stars like that to die early on I think. Dealing with the loss of being on top for the rest of your life after being a God among mortals can't be easy to live with..

However, I am terribly sad at his passing. For me the death of Michael Jackson sort of just symbolizes a full end of an era. Music has always been a gigantic part of my life and certain albums reflect a specific part of my history. Thriller was definitely the first pop album I ever listened to. I spent so many weekends dancing with my brother in the living room to Human Nature and Billy Jean. My father would put certain songs on repeat, which back then required him to move the needle on the record player. He and my mom would sit and watch us dance and it's one of the strongest memories I have from my childhood.

Throughout the years, the succession of his music was always present in our house. And regardless of his own failures at creating a nuclear family, his music profoundly laid a soundtrack for my tight family bonds. His death is a reminder to me of the end of that structure a family has growing up when all the kids are young and haven't ventured off on their own. It represents that small blip of history where we were a family. It's just a picture now....we'll always have that sense of unconditional love regardless of our now more disconnected nature...but it will never be the same.

Chapter 30: Isolation

I used to be close to a few people and they were a pretty big constant in my life. My brother, my high school guy friends, and a few really good meta mates.

Lately however, there has been a huge disconnect for me from everyone. This utter stagnation in my ability to establish intimate bonds with my previous group has left me feeling utterly isolated. I feel totally cut off and I'm not even sure how it happened.

They say you make what ever relationship you want and you invest in it heavily if you want good returns. I was a firm believer in this for quite awhile. If you make an effort to keep your connections strong, they'll remain strong.

This line of thinking however does not factor in the part where:

1) people can't relate to you anymore

2) you can't relate to them anymore

3) someone fundamentally changes which results in 1 or 2.

Because of the mass loss of people I can reach an intimate connection with, I'm beginning to suspect it must be me. Something has changed in me drastically over the last 3 years. Maybe I needed more depth or maybe it was a combination of just growing apart and me no longer making valiant efforts to sustain the relationship?

It's hard to really tell without maybe discussing it with someone I've moved away from...and even then, they might not be sure either. I wonder if I'm beginning to disappear.

Not having a solid base is very, very unsettling.

Chapter 29: Moral Badge

*this chapter has been lost*

Chapter 28: Gender Box

  I've been doing a lot of faux shopping lately. It means I'm basically window shopping online without actually buying anything. I do this a lot when I'm stressed out and lost. I sort of try to help myself sort out my identity through desires and tastes.

I noticed some significant changes in my styles. All through school and into office life and trying to do social things, I've always noticed I've tried to fit the girl mold. It had never felt natural to me but I tried very hard to make it me.

You see the girls around you and you want to fit in, you want to conform to the idea of feminine and sexy. There is something about their general confidence in this style that is alluring and so I strived to gain that as well.

But it never, ever fit. I hated wearing dresses and always thought I looked like a monkey playing dress up every time I tried. I always hated formal events and weddings because I was forced to put on the uniform of the feminine sexuality.

I remember one summer, I was so annoyed that I had to dress to a wedding when all my guy friends could wear slacks and a nice shirt. I rebelled that day and put on dress shorts and a blouse. BOY did I get an earful that day about "proper lady attire."

My body type is very gender neutral but I think my tastes are far more masculine than feminine. I like the sort of brash, solid, and bulkier forms of the male styles of clothes and jewelry. I remember being made fun of a lot in school because I would wear a man's Cassio watch but I hated the petite female version of it so I picked up the guy's version instead.

I also wore a lot of my father's polo shirts and slacks in the beginning of High School and remembered feeling very inadequate. I would then borrow my girlfriend's clothing to try and look just like them. 

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love female fashion. I just don't love it on me. I wish I did but every time I do it, it feels like playing pretend. Also, I'd like to point out that I am referring to stylistic differences. This isn't about "being comfortable" as it's not like I appreciate sloth-like styles of uber baggy clothes and sloppy-wear.

I'm referring to being able to wear clothing styled to how I feel about myself and not how I think people should feel about me. I think it's okay to not be girly but I'm not sure that most of my peers agree.

However, now that I'm mostly meta and haven't been influenced as much by a lot of girls around me, I notice that drive to be feminine has faded. I look at the fashions online and I like bold, masculine objects. I like form fitting but not form defining clothing.

I think the general problem is that people want to be able to define you so badly. We all do, even me. Boy, Girl, Sexy, Fat, Ugly, Dirty, Hot, Pretty, Sweet, Elegant, Punk, Glamorous, Lazy. It makes our brain feel better to check off boxes. We love to define. The only problem with systematically creating labels is that sometimes you get trapped in them.

Chapter 27: Caged Birds Sing Sweeter?

*this chapter has been lost*

Chapter 26: Lifesharing

So you're me about 10 years ago and everything is all brand new and shiny and unexplored. You can't wait to get your foot out the door and truly expose who you are. If you're me and a socially awkward child, your means of doing this gravitate towards the meta.

You live for online, you live for sharing yourself online. For years you post pics of yourself, your activities, and all you dark creepy thoughts into the void. You're not sharing to anyone in particular but just archiving who you are at the time to some online unlimited storage space.

Fast forward about six years and you decide you're going to make this podcast based on a video game you love. All the sudden protecting your RL identity matters and you don't want people getting an uncut version of you. You're trying to stake out your territory and you don't want your homoerotic fantasies getting in the way of that vision. lol.

What do you do? You stupidly erase every last bits of the last six years of yourself off the face of the meta and go into the witness protection program. WHY? Just so people won't judge you for the wrong reasons only they end up doing it anyhow and so it was all for not! The one thing I got out of it though was proving that I could make a podcast work and being purely meta.

Present day. I want my life back... online. Over the last four years, there's so much I've wanted to share and be open about but have been keeping everything to myself. So where do you begin?

Well, A LOT of methods of life sharing have changed since I was a life sharer. New tools and new media to do the things I used to host myself. So where does one begin?

1) Go back to your roots - start mind dumping. I used to love Live Journal because of their desktop client. I'm all about being to just open up an app and start writing. A shame I can't find one for blogger because it's now my blog host of choice.

2) Get all my photo albums out of the safety deposit box and back on the web. share share share. I ended up choosing flickr because of its prominent widgets and stream effect ordering.

3) Keep trying to wrap my head around all the tools to advance life sharing and find ways to consolidate them.

Chapter 25: Empty

I'm not that old but I'm not a kid either. In terms of my attitude, I've always been really young at heart. I never cared for the idea of growing up and being mature and "above" everything else.

I believe experiences and age does make you wiser but that doesn't entitle you to stamp yourself as "well done"... I don't think you get to be done, not until you're dead or your mind goes.

But you grow up in a society that convinces you that there's only one winning mold. You gotta be like this or you FAIL. And I think for someone like me, having tried to shove myself into that mold for so long has been FAIL. It's just not me.

My brother would probably say, "you're being abnormal for the sake of being abnormal." He thinks I'm all "nonconformity for nonconformity sake."

But I know what feels comfortable for me and it's not this shell of a life everyone else casts themselves in. This isn't home. And I think my latest onslaught of despair has been from me standing in this world full of contentment and feeling unbearably alone. WHY am I the only one unhappy?

I sat at my desk two nights ago just crying from frustration. Look at my life. It's fucking awesome. I've got parents who live for their children, a brother who I'm close with, extremely loyal friends, and I'm with a guy who probably loves me more than any other person in the world possibly could.

What's wrong with me? And after sitting there for an hour or two, it started to hit me. It's not that I'm not loved or that my life isn't full of nice things. Maybe my issue lies with the perceived me that these people love and the perceived life I live. Maybe the heart of the sadness is that it's not really me.

I'm very disconnected from everyone lately because of this. I have almost always lived my life for everyone else around me. I wanted to be the good daughter, the great sister, and the best friend. When you continue to dress yourself up in other people's ideals, it's very easy to lose track of who you really are...or if you even existed at all...maybe all you are is just an idea of what people wanted.

And let me tell you..the thought that I'm empty really has had me reeling for days now.

All those years, all this time, who am I?

And it's not like I can go all tabula rasa on my life at this point. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even want to if I could. Regardless of how I feel now or what I know now, I'm still that molded idea. It's very solid and has little flexibility now. Plus, how do you even begin to find something from nothing?...