11/20/24
Prefacing this with - I was bored at work and trying to use up some time. I also got a notification on my phone that an old friend had "posted for the first time in a while!" on Instagram which prompted some.. feelings... So I wrote this out to myself on Discord. It's rambly and probably contradictory and repetitive but I tried to just let myself type and not worry about making sense or if I said something "wrong". Anyways, here's some freeform introspective rambles:
Why is it so hard to be genuine sometimes? Or, to just enjoy things, especially like "white woman Instagram" things. Or maybe a better question is why does it sting so bad when I see my old friends posting on ig and fb? Maybe its because I've always wanted that? To be in their group? I re-realize every once in a while that I was one of the "weird" kids. And it makes sense... I'm one of the few who left the faith. And why does it seem that only the ones who stayed Christian are doing "well"? Is it just a really well-made façade? Are they still Christian bc they were well off to begin with and didn't have to struggle as much? Did they just have better (as in, more "put together") parents than me? That's another thing, if I'm honest, that I was always kind of jealous over. Don't get me wrong I love my parents and my family. For all their flaws and all the hurt that has happened, I wouldn't change it for the world. But I would see my friends (or were they "friends"?) with nice houses and moms who decorated for each season and each holiday (maybe I just wanted a mom like that? or.. idk my dad would decorate but it was like. just a few string lights and a "Christmas Tree" cross. He tried if I think about it he tried so hard. It wasn't like my friends houses so cozy and chock full of seasonal knick knacks but I know he tried). Or. Idk even my grandma's house on my mom's side felt warmer and cozier than our house. Maybe because our house was less cohesive? In basically every way. It was a trailer which my dad just.. Added rooms to each year. It was pretty cool. But the aesthetic of each room was often completely different, or not completely tied together (we literally had a hole in the floor in one room that went straight to the crawlspace/outside).
I'm kinda just typing this free-form, not rereading so much as I go and not correcting. I did glance at the beginning and remembered why I started this thought-dump in the first place - I got a notification that someone I grew up next to had (M) posted on Instagram. I look at her posts every once in a while and it always makes me sad and sends me in to a (not that serious) spiral of thoughts. It's like. Idk bittersweet? I'm happy she's happy. She's had a kid. I remember when she got engaged and how it stung but I didn't know why. I remember always wanting to be part of her friend group, but not realizing I just wanted to hang out with her more. How it always made me sad to hear about all the things they would do together, how often they got to hang out. How of the few times I've been invited, only once did I not feel like some weird outcast part of the group. I remember going to a sleepover at J's house and the instructions being "bring your own makeup and nail polish and we'll do makeovers!" and this was the first time I had done anything like that, so I asked my grandma for help (all the makeup stuff I had was really hers, and she has... a lot of things). So I brought an entire suitcase of makeup and polish. And... The looks I got was like I was insane. They loved the polish though 🙃 but I was so embarrassed that I didn't have a normal amount of things with me. I also had never done my makeup before - man I must have been younger than I remember? - so it was kinda fun to let them do my face and hair. They said I looked like Gwen Stefani.
But then I think about going to a birthday party, when I was a little older, for this girl who was younger than me. And her sister - and I didn't even know she had an older sister - asked if I wanted to go outside and skateboard. I had always wanted to learn so I jumped up and said "Yes!". Only for her mom to say "Noooo Corgie doesn't want to do that... you just want an excuse to leave. She wants to do makeovers with us!". I.. didn't... I don't even remember the rest of the party, just that I was disappointed.
The best one I remember, and I miss it so much sometimes, was when I was invited to K's house with M for a sleepover and we watched Freaky Friday and there was some special feature on the DVD where you could sing along with Lindsay Lohan's band for that one song? The scene in the garage? And I don't know how it happened but K or M had us all get up and pretend we were the band. I don't remember who was who but we were each one of the characters and we had to do air guitar and jump and dance. It was so fun and it was one of the few times I felt so included.
And anyways I didn't know it until a few years ago, not that anything would have ever happened because of the whole Christian thing, but I always had a massive crush on M. I think she's so cool and I was never jealous of her abilities, I just admired them. (Where with others I would wish I could do what they did). I wanted to be part of her family, I think. Idk it's weird to think about or to say. This is also why I'm not proofreading or correcting anything I type. I'm just saying what comes to mind. Idk I could be wrong about all of it and just making things up indulging the emotion.
Don't get me wrong now, though. I love my husband and I wouldn't change a thing. It's just. A weird thing to realize what (at least some of) those feelings were and kinda.. painful? It also feels like "ookaayy we get it you had a crush and your old friends are all stereotypical straight Christian moms coooool do you really need to rehash this all again" but like. Idk any aspect of it feels completely inattainable too. Like fuck I want a cozy house! i want to have seasonal decorations and take nice photos of outings we do every week and I want photoshoots where I don't hate how I look if I'm honest and I want to wake up at 5 am to work out and do my hair and makeup (that was another thing I would hear K specifically talk about in middle school is how early she'd get up to get ready and I always thought "how the hell does anyone do that. that sounds impossible"). and then make breakfast and clean the house and do all that without feeling absolutely exhausted and then take my kids and my dog on a walk in the woods and feel that Christmas magic around the holidays and have a perfect hearty dinner and not have to worry about how much I eat for fear of inevitable weight gain and..
Then again, I don't want that. Or at least, there are parts of it. And I know I can make my life however I want it (we're not doing nuance rn). But like. It's so hard and it makes my brain hurt because I overthink every little thing. "Is this cozy enough? Do I need more lighting? Let me get super analytical about it to the point where the decor is cold and calculated instead of warm and cozy. Well, I know they made their decor but if I make mine it feels fake and cheap and I can see every imperfection" and I'm getting there and I'm exaggerating a little right now but like. How does it look so easy for them and for their moms when we were growing up but it has NEVER been easy for me? Even when I was little, and sure I was a kid but I was parentified and even then everything felt like so much work.
Undiagnosed ADHD/Autism I guess but I'm still gonna whine about it.
idk. I don't think any of that makes any sense (I say as a disclaimer for fear that something I said is contradictory or someone thinks it's invalid. Pre-invalidating my own feelings I do that too much).
And I also don't feel like I fit in in these other groups - LGBT+ or leftist or whatever you want to call it. Because all of that is exhausting too (by "that" I mean like... I feel like Chidi from The Good Place) and I feel like I'm not allowed to just be like "worrying about buying from Walmart and Amazon is going to have to wait, it's all I can afford right now, both monetarily and mental-energy-wise". Which I think partly comes from the same place as my "I'm not doing enough I need to do more and more and more even though I'm literally burning out" comes from. Especially, and I know and please don't take this as a lack of compassion, but especially when I see posts where the vibe is "How dare you complain about empathy fatigue and burn out when people are dying what about what they deal with". I feel like I can't even add to the conversation without it being incredibly controversial so I just stay quiet but I'm also so tired of being the quiet one who doesn't say anything (And I mean that for when I'm around my conservative family members too). I'm nearly thirty years old I should be grown enough to have my own opinions and not be afraid to share them. But i'm so concerned that everything will start an argument about something and I'm so tired of arguing
idk man I think what I'm really trying to say is that I miss community and I miss having the community I did when my family was involved in the church and I don't miss religion at all and i'm not the first to say it but the one thing they do right is community
and I know it's out there and I just have to like. Actually go out and do stuff. but without a gathering space like a church it's just so hard? Plus the whole "hard to be genuine" thing - bc I see like. the universalist church and that looks like exactly what I need/want. but I also have this voice of like. "🤨 you wanna go sing songs and do all that woo woo stuff?" the skeptic I guess? idk what to call it but it's the same "emotion" of when you look at a WWIG (white woman instagram) post and you're like "🤨 uhm basic much? 🙄 how cringy"
