feeling

june 8

I finally arrive at my aunt's house after a long day of work. My body is weary, and my stomach is empty. I open the door and am cheerfully greeted by my cousin's baby, who had been peering through the blinds of the window for who knows how long. My aunt and my cousin smile and usher me inside, immediately asking me how work was and offering me food.

After I've fueled up the tank, my aunt goes upstairs and a few minutes later my other cousin comes down, jokingly calling me out for not letting her know I had arrived. I had told her earlier that day that I was going to drop by after work, as today is her last day visiting home before flying back to her place.

We play with the baby for a bit (more like the baby played with us), and after a while her mom takes her to go to sleep, so my cousin and I head to the second floor, where we find my other cousin (wow a lot of cousins). He had recently woken up from sleep and was eating (he's working towards being a doctor, so his sleep schedule is out of tune), but we greet each other and banter as usual.

I talk with my two cousins and my aunt for a good while before my mom comes to pick me up. It was a busy day at work so she was quite late, but in retrospect I appreciate the extra time I had to spend with family. My mom joins the conversation and we talk for a little longer, and then we head on home.

june 9

I had trouble waking up today. You see, even though last night with the family was great, when I got home I had a falling out with a friend. It was my fault, and I ended up leaving the group that we were in to reevaluate some things and clear my head. So for that reason, I don't really want to get up. I lay in bed and watch videos and the latest episode of Darling in the FranXX, waiting for time to pass.

Soon it reaches past midday, and I shame myself into getting up and brushing my teeth to grab some food. Either my mom or dad steamed some buns for breakfast and I grab two, bringing them back to my desk with some condensed milk and some "regular" milk. I finish eating, and then I think of what to do.

Recently I haven't played anything with my brother's group of friends, so I ask one of their group, K, if they'd like to play some games. He says he's always down to play games, and we end up playing some games with my brother. Time passes, and it is nearly time for me to go over to my aunt's to watch my cousin's baby. I let my dad know, and he says that we can drive there after lunch.

For lunch he's prepared some spareribs, vegetables, and some sort of dried fish I didn't try. It's a casual vibe at the table and my dad's watching a video on his phone. I whip out my phone and start watching something too and my dad notices. He fumbles a bit, but he reaches for the volume rocker and turns his volume down.

I drive, with a bright red learner's sticker on the back of my dad's car, and when we get to my aunt's, he slowly guides me through parallel parking. After a minute or so, I've parked the car half decently, and he walks with me to the door. Baby is a little bit shy around my dad since she doesn't see him too much, but her mom encourages her to say hello, which she does in a soft voice. My dad leaves for work, and so does the baby's mom.

For a bit we hang out and play with some of her toys. We read, we eat fruit that her mom peeled for us before she left, and we go outside, where she chases the neighbour's cat. We end up crawling into bed and watching videos, and I get tired and she gets tired. I put the phone away and she dozes off in a few minutes.

I shoot a message to a friend who has been helping me with some personal questions and problems, and then I slowly get up. I notice she's fallen asleep with her thumb in her mouth, and I gently take it out. After adjusting the blankets so she won't overheat, I go to the living room, whip out my laptop, and watch an episode of Fate/Zero Season 2. Once that's done, I write up a post I've been thinking about.

At some point my aunt calls and says she's on her way home soon. Just as I'm about to finish the last few words of the post, baby wakes up, so I quickly publish and then we just sit there and hang out. She's still a little sleepy, but we wait for my aunt to come home.

Eventually we hear the door open and my aunt has arrived to relieve me of my baby sitting duties. We talk for a bit - how baby was, how much she slept, what my plans were for the rest of the night - and then I'm off. My aunt offers to give me a ride back home, but I decline and say that the weather is nice for walking (it was).

The walk home was a bit chilly at first, but after I warmed up it was fine. I thought about a lot of things, mostly about the past.

When I got home, I played some League of Legends with some friends and just relaxed for the rest of the night.

---

People do care about me, I just refused to see that because I thought I didn't deserve to be cared about. I'm not all the way there, but it's something.

june 7

They ask me, "How are you getting home?"

I slow down as I'm stuffing my cleats into my bag, and I say, "Oh just bus," and I can practically feel how awkward the air becomes. The neighbourhood surrounding the park we just played at doesn't scream safe and happy, and it's gotten pretty dark.

Yeah those two left earlier. So did the other two. I don't think it's their fault though, they probably had their own things to do that night so I don't blame them for not giving me a ride home. I really don't. They don't have a reason to anyways, so why is it that I always feel bad whenever they leave?

"Couldn't you ask _____ and _____ for a ride?"

I make an excuse about how they don't live in the same area that I do, even though I don't k now where they live at all.

The remains of the team stop and process the situation. They're all biking home, like they usually do, and I'm busing home, like I usually do.

"Hey, just hop on the back of my bike and we'll drop you off at the station!" one of them says.

I refuse, I couldn't do something like that.

She insists, and the rest of the team chimes in and agrees. I give in and I waddle over to her bike, asking how we should do this. She cheerfully says I can take the seat since she's not going to be sitting or I can sit on the little rack she has on the back wheel. I take the rack.

At first things are unsteady. We're wobbling and I can tell that she's having trouble adjusting to an extra 140 pounds on the back of her bike. I say something about how I can just walk to the station, no big deal, and she reassures me that it's fine. My legs interfere with the pedals for the first bit, but I learn to keep them away.

Soon we're out of the park grounds and on the road and everything smooths out. I comment on how much easier it is and she agrees, picking up the pace and letting the wind whip past us. It feels good, and it feels real. It feels like there's nothing else except us, the bike, the road, and the summer night, and I don't have to worry about anything else.

Eventually we near my stop, and she says, "Alright I'm gonna let you off here," but changes her mind and says she'll let me off at the next intersection. Once we get there, she lets everybody else ahead of us know that she's dropping me off, and we slow to a stop.

I thank her and the rest of the team profusely and I bide them goodnight, and for the rest of the night, things don't seem that bad.

Thank you.

lately

lately i've thought that things were getting better
that i had some of it figured out, that something was going right
i love playing ultimate every tuesday, with the junior team i coach
i love playing ultimate every thursday, with the vul team i don't deserve
i even started to love work, for the people, for the smiles, for the feeling of doing something
i noticed that i was getting results, tiny, but there, from my inconsistent gym outings

but it's like for every good thing in my life there are multiple bad things to outweigh them

i royally screwed up by not taking chem 123 and being a dumbass for the whole year
my closest friends hurt me the most
     whether it be because they remind me of her
     maybe i see their snap and she's there
     maybe it's because they care about her more than they care about me
     they're my closest friends, but i'm not one of their closest
     what am i

     what am i supposed to do when everybody asks me to play
     "look at this whiny little brat, complaining about how many friends he has to play games with"
     yeah i guess i am
     i keep letting them down
     "your noble crusade of 'i want to please everyone' resulted in 'it's ok i'll play w u for 15 minutes'"
     yeah i do want to please everyone
     i'm just an egotistical, fake, ugly, wants-to-be-a-white-knight loser
     i hate myself i hate myself so much
i don't even know what i'm doing anymore
yeah i've been seeing "results" but then again i've been "going" to the gym for what? 4 months?
i suck at ulti
work makes me tired, and the truth is i'd rather not work
im ugly
so so ugly

i used to think i was good with people, what a joke
i don't know what to do anymore

you were all right
she didn't cause any of this
she was preventing it from happening
in reality i'm just a terribly constructed worthless excuse for a human being
and she just held it together until she got fed up with me
these are all my problems, and they've always been here

i won't talk about this with anybody so i share it with a screen
enjoy, and laugh at me

why

you don't care you don't care at all why would you do something like this it's not even your fault it's my fault it's all my fault i deserve this i deserve this i deserve this why didn't you respond i need something i want to feel something why am i writing this i just want it to stop and i want to feel okay again is that too much to ask for i thought after all this time at least i could ask that of you i did to be honest, but there goes kevin again ruining everything it's all his fault everything is my fault everything everything everything i feel and i feel nothing all my fault it's so messy i don't know what to do i don't know how to feel am i even allowed to feel happy if i am then why do i feel so sad when i get happy is it because i want my happiness to come from you sometimes too i just want it to stop everything everything stop myself stop everything i want to lose myself in something i want to feel something i want to stop saying the same things over and over again i wish that i would just grow up cause it's just heartbreak right it'll pass with time right and then hopefully i can look back this and cringe at how disgusting filthy sad pathetic and disgraceful i am then i will delete this post and this will never have happened it will be just like it never happened right then i will be okay this is for your eyes only okay make sure you don't show anybody else and if anybody else asks i'm okay right

i saw sparks
singing like la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la

1

"Excuse me, do you have any other yellow shirts?"

I turn around and find the source: an elderly woman holding two yellow shirts in her hand. She speaks slowly and in broken English, but the effort doesn't go wasted on me. I smile - a big and genuine smile, probably my best one that day. The lady in front of me reminded me of my grandma, and I admired the sincerity in her voice.

"Yeah, we have some right over here," I say, walking over to shelves on the wall. There were a few yellow shirts scattered around, but she had about half the options in her hand already. She smiles and thanks me before asking whether they were for boys or girls.

I pull out the tag from one of the shirts and double check.

"This one is for girls, but to be honest boys can also wear this."

The woman smiles and thanks me once again before saying, "I am getting these for sports day, and they need yellow shirts, one boy one girl."

My heart swells and takes me back to those warm and carefree sports days of my youth. The scent of wet cement in the summer heat, the excitement in the air, the promise of a day filled with fun, all the feelings come back for one brief second. Then I snap out of it and I'm back at the store and I say something in response.

What a nice grandmother.

She thanks me profusely once again, and I watch as she walks over to the cash register and makes her purchase.