These and more than these

I talked to someone I vaguely know about my relationship problems today. She suggested that I break up the relationship. Weirdly enough, now that I've had someone literally verbally (this was an IRL conversation) talk to me about this, I feel more like carrying on with it than anything else. I think it's because it's been acknowledged in real life. (I had previously only talked to Jared about it, and only once, and over text.) That makes it real. That means I can choose whatever I want with it.

*

I was doing some research on tulpas today for various reasons, and...I think Dr. L might be a tulpa. Actually, maybe all my facets are tulpas. I know the defining characteristic of a tulpa is that one creates them on purpose, but what if I created them on accident? Tea has said that he's the way he is because that's how I see the character as whom he started out. Dr. L is insistent that he's just a part of my mind come to life but some of our interactions have been like nothing so much as me trying to visualize him and me controlling certain aspects of him (such as how similar he is to Dr. Lecter - again, a character as whom he started out, although also a character from whom he consciously deviated). Maybe I was creating or shaping them and it was totally unconscious.

I think I might try to create one on purpose now. I'm going to wait, though. I want to get a little underway with Dr. L (and Tea - he's come back lately, bidden for totally unexpected reasons, and he's changed a little bit. Not necessarily for the better. During the time he was back, he dissociated, and I think we need to address that.)

Maybe I've finally found a word for what has been going on in my head.

I would like to go on the record to say that I do not deserve my queerplatonic partner.

If you're like me and you treat a person the way I treat my queerplatonic partner, you don't deserve that person. And I'm not saying I treat her badly. I don't. It's just...

You don't deserve someone who you view as an emotional resource. You don't deserve someone whose relationship with you you describe as symbiosis. You don't deserve someone who knows you're a narcissist. You don't deserve someone to whom you've said - and this is as near a direct quote as I can pull from my memory - "I don't have empathy, but sometimes I get attached to people and they become an extension of me, like they're something of mine, so their emotions are my emotions and any harm done to them is like, 'Don't do that to my person!'".

You bloody don't deserve someone you know views you like an animate object, who has repeatedly told you this, and whose kindness, abundant though it is, will never erase the fact that they view you and everyone else as a lesser or even just different form of life.

You don't deserve someone like that. Hell, if you're anything like I just described, you don't deserve anyone.

Yet I've described myself, and I have someone, and I do not deserve this person or anyone else, and I have someone, and I have her, and it's a strange, astounding fact of the universe that I do.

On Saturday, we - by which I mean my sister, cousin Hannah, and I - did something with our grandma which we now call "Gramie Day". (Gramie is what we call our grandma.) We used to call it "the Black Friday Thing", but we don't really do it on Black Friday anymore. What it is is our grandma takes the three of us shopping for stuff sometime between Black Friday and Christmas and, while she's at it, takes us out to lunch and to see a movie. It's a really fun thing and we do it every year and it's fantastic.

This is the first time we called it Gramie Day. I came up with the term (and I may or may not have modeled it after "Birling Day" as in from Cabin Pressure whoops that's exactly what I did). My Arthur Shappey facet was all excited and he kept singing "Get Dressed, You Merry Gentlemen" and "Happy Birling Day To Us" but with "Gramie" replacing the words "Christmas" and "Birling" respectively. Loki was also out for a bit, because Becky was there and it makes him happy to see her happy. Also, Charlie was out when I went to certain shops because there were things he liked. (Mostly it was in the Disney Store and this shop that sold Japanese/anime-type stuff because he likes those sorts of things.) The facets don't come into this story much, though.

Anyway, what happened was this. Gramie picked us up (and brought Hannah with her) and we started off doing a few errands Becky and I needed to do, then going off for the fun stuff. We went to a shop where Hannah and Becky got some dresses and shirts and stuff and where I got a sweater that basically looks like the off-white cable-knit jumper John from BBC Sherlock wears, only it's burgundy. (Even Becky, who told me, "You don't need any more sweaters!" was pleased.) We then did some Christmas shopping for other people/ourselves. Funnily enough, I got a Christmas present for my four-year-old cousin at Hot Topic, of all places. It was a My Little Pony grab bag type thing, where you open up the bag and it has a random My Little Pony figurine in it. I figured my Ponies-obsessed little cousin would like it. I got a similar thing for myself, only mine contained a Lego-like version of one of the eleven Doctors.

I don't remember what Becky and Hannah got after that, but I got three boxes of tea and a black plaid flannel shirt. It looks really nice with the jumper and I'm actually wearing them together even as I type. I also wore them together when we went to lunch, immediately after leaving the shop at which I got the shirt. I imagine Becky and Hannah were a tad embarrassed by my changing out of the shirt I'd previously been wearing, while I sat in the front seat, with everyone around able to see me. But I didn't care.

It was at lunch that I opened up my Doctor Who thing. I'd purposefully been saving it because I knew it would be more exciting if I waited. And this was correct. It was more exciting for my having waited. The Doctor I got was the First Doctor, which was pretty awesome. I set him on the table and immediately pulled out a Lego Bilbo Baggins I'd acquired the previous day. (It's a keychain, actually, but for all intents and purposes, it's Lego Bilbo Baggins.) I started playing with them; I've decided that Bilbo Baggins was walking along in the Shire one day when he found a strange blue box that contained a man who Bilbo thought could be a wizard, though he'd never seen a wizard wear such strange clothes. The man in the box decided that Bilbo had seen his box and therefore knew too much and had to be kidnapped like he kidnapped those two teachers who followed his granddaughter home. They later ended up finding a planet made entirely of tea. Then our food came and I had to eat like a civilized person who doesn't play with Legos at the table whilst being a college student.

We had to take Hannah home soon thereafter, but my grandma still wanted to have fun with Becky and me. She asked us if there was a movie we wanted to see. The conclusion was reached that she would take us to see Catching Fire, a decision that both Becky and I questioned (an old grandma seeing The Hunger Games when she can barely stand some of the content of Les Miserables? When she hasn't even seen or read the first one?) Well, she took us there, and on the way, we summarized the plot of the first book/movie. She seemed to follow pretty well (sometimes she doesn't), and we got to the theater. The film had already started but it wasn't too far along, and Gramie kept up fairly well. It was Becky's third time seeing the film and my second. Gramie didn't like some of the violence, but she liked the characters and story, and she told us that she wants to see the third Hunger Games movie when it comes out. We have corrupted her into liking the Hunger Games. Ehehehehe yesssss.

I spent most of today at my grandparents' house. Mostly I helped them put up Christmas decorations (my family's been so behind this year) and did chores for them. I like doing those things, actually. I like helping my grandparents. I also spent a lot of time writing (I got my typical 1000 words in!) and playing Ib. It's an RPG Maker game and it's pretty scary (or at least it makes me jump a lot) but I like playing it. I have to play it in broad daylight when no one's around me, though, and I could achieve these things in a back room at my grandparents' house. I think I'm becoming an RPG Maker game fan. I've only played two RPG Maker games before Ib (they were Pom Gets Wi-Fi and OFF) but I like the format of these games, and I got people on Tumblr to recommend some games, and I have many of them downloaded on my computer. When I'm done with Ib, I'm going to play Yume Nikki.

Tomorrow, I'm going to...well, I'm going to do a bit of an interesting, exciting thing. First, a bit of backstory: I've got this friend who's been my friend for about two years now, I think (though I've technically known her a lot longer). She's the only person from my old school I still talk to (and leaving my old school and the friends I had there...well, let's just say it's probably the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced and I've experienced a few other things in life.) She came into my life during a very important part of it, and I think that's part of what makes our relationship so amazing.

At the time I met her, I was questioning my sexual/romantic orientation for what has so far been the last time. I used to think I was a panromantic asexual; a series of events made me realize that I was really an aromantic in denial, and I now realize I am (at least for now) an aromantic asexual. Discovering what aromanticism was really like, I discovered some of the terms associated, such as "queerplatonic partner". I have always liked the concept and I've sort of wished I had a queerplatonic partner, but I understand queerplatonicism about as much as I understand love - that is, hardly.

But. Uh. I think if I were to have a queerplatonic partner, I'd want it to be her. And since I'm seeing her tomorrow, I think I'm going to ask her to be mine. I, uh, I'm actually really very nervous about this not because I'm afraid she'll say no (I'm reasonably sure she'd say yes, though the last time I thought someone would say yes to this sort of thing, they said no and that's a story I might tell in the future). It's because I'm not sure this is a good idea. What if it doesn't work? What if we were better as friends and that does something bad to our relationship? What if we break up and - oh, I don't know, a bunch of bad situations. (This is what living with general anxiety disorder does to you, I suppose.)

I shouldn't be scared at all. I shouldn't be nervous. And I definitely shouldn't be contemplating taking one of my anxiety pills because of this. I'm not going to take a pill. But I'm going to have trouble asking her tomorrow, certainly.

My Eleven facet came out once he noticed I was freaking out inside my head, and he asked me what was wrong. He thought he could help. I explained. He realized he couldn't help me with this and he proceeded to run around headspace, yelling and waving his hands and knocking into stuff. That was actually pretty entertaining.

Well, everything's alright for the time being. I did something fun yesterday! And I'm going to do something exciting tomorrow! That'll probably be good. Yes. Good.

Let me tell you about yesterday, because yesterday was awesome and there's a bit of negativity going on right now and I'd like to relive the good stuff.

Yesterday started with me going to school and having to unexpectedly say goodbye to my English class and everyone in it. I made a journal entry about that earlier. That wasn't so good, but I left about as well as I possibly could, by which I mean I said what I needed to say to whom I needed to say it, and that was pretty good. It was better than I would have done in years past. Also, I found out my grade. I got 103%. My teacher told me he "[didn't] know how that's mathematically possible", but I got it. No matter what I bugger up in the future (because I've been feeling like a general failure lately), I got a 103% in my English class, and no one can take that away from me.

Well, things got even better immediately after I left class, because I remembered there was going to be a stress relief event at school in which some people who keep therapy animals would come and bring their animals for the students to pet. It was called "Paws For Stress Relief", and it was so benefit all those stressed-out students who are taking their finals. I had originally been under the impression that there were just going to be dogs there, but when I got there, I found out there were also rabbits. This is huge for me. I love rabbits. A lot. There was one particular little black bunny who I really liked and who really liked me. (Her handler jokingly accused me of "hogging the bunny", which was accurate.) There was also a piano in the room, and after I pet all the dogs and rabbits, I was allowed and even encouraged to play the piano. I played two original songs and one They Might Be Giants song, and everyone liked it.

( Trigger warning for discussion of sexual harassment. )

Then I had my math class, which turned out way better than I'd expected. I think I did really well on the test (we had a take-home, and my math-loving cousin and I did it together, and we apparently got everything right). We then studied with problems the teacher wrote on the board for us to work out together. I understood most of the material, and I was even able to explain much of it to my fellow classmates. I was able to explain math to other people. This is huge. I'm rubbish at math. But I did the math and I explained it to other people, and I think that as long as I do some studying and remember what formulas to do with what sort of problem, I'll do well on the test.

After school, I took the bus to my grandparents', as I usually do on Tuesdays. I ended up having a conversation with someone on the bus, which was interesting. Conversations with people on the bus are something that happens sort of a lot in my life, and I like that. I nearly missed my stop, but when I got there, my grandpa was waiting for me. He took me to my aunt's school. I had a psychologists' appointment to get to, and it was more convenient for my aunt to take me there than anything else. A bit of a stressful conversation took place in the car on the way there, and I talked to my psychologist a bit about it.

Mostly my psychologist and I talked about viewpoint and the way people/I view things. I was telling her about what was going on with me, and we both understood a lot of it was a matter of perspective, but I couldn't help having my perspective. I couldn't help feeling like I was losing something that had been good in my life when I left my English class today, because I don't understand how the permanent end of something good isn't a loss. I couldn't anticipate my future classes as another "adventure" (the term she used) because I don't know enough to be able to imagine those upcoming scenarios, and until I experience them, I won't have enough information to do that, and you can obviously imagine why I'm not going to be able to do anything in-between now and those classes to help me imagine and look forward to those classes. I basically can't help viewing things in a somewhat negative light because I actually think and I consider things and I see things for what they are, and I know that I can't see things as something they're not and I know that I can't properly imagine things if I have no experience with them.

The most interesting thing, at least to me, was that I told her about my facets. We were talking about how I have some disordered behaviors that might be really actually disordered in other people but that I can somewhat control, but I told her that one of these things was something that was sort of like "controlled multiple personality disorder". I then explained how my facets are like parts of my personality personified or fictional characters I'd absorbed into my personality, the fact that I call them "facets" and why, and how they help me. Not only did she think it was okay, she thought they were good. She asked me if there was a facet that could have helped me during the stressful conversation from earlier. I realized there was (Martin), and when I realized there was, I told her I'd bring him up next time the situation came up. The conversation with my aunt was resumed after the meeting, and I was able to get Martin to help me. Also, while Martin was out, we/he made a decision that I wouldn't have ordinarily made but that I recognized as a good one. Maybe I should get my facets to help me make decisions more often.

When we got to my grandparents' house to have me spend the night there, my grandpa was asleep, but he woke up after we rang the doorbell enough times, and he let me in. I studied there, using Powerpoints I downloaded from my history teacher. I knew almost all the questions on my history review off the top of my head, which was pretty heartening. Also, I discovered that listening to glam rock music makes me feel really good about myself, so I listened to a bunch of it that night. (Also I may or may not have consumed too much ice cream, something my grandparents usually have in abundance, and I am not ashamed.)

When my grandma came home from her Bible study, she gave me a porceline figurine of a Scottie dog for no real reason. It was supposed to go with the porceline figurine of a corgi, which I have in my room at their house. (I spend the night there often enough so that I have my own room.) I was really happy about this - it made my already pretty good day even better - and I related to her at length the things I did that made my day so good. She was happy about them, and she then showed me something that made my day profoundly better.

I should first explain what the Ashland Shakespeare Festival is. It's a theater festival that takes place in a town called Ashland, in the state of Oregon (I live in California, for reference). It's mostly centered around productions of Shakespeare, but there are other plays there sometimes. My grandparents have taken me there on summer road trips in the past. Well, my grandparents subscribe to a newsletter sort of thing that is sent out by the folks that put this event on. It has information about upcoming plays and stuff. It lets them know what's going to be performed there and stuff.

Well. Apparently there's going to be a production of A Wrinkle in Time. The world premiere of a stage adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.

You probably don't know how big a deal this is for me. A Wrinkle in Time is my Actual Favorite Book and it's meant a lot to me for a very long time and I saw the film, but the film was infinitely disappointing. If I see the play next summer (which is possible), I will get to see a visual adaptation of it that quite likely doesn't suck.

After a bit of verbal keymashing and screaming over seeing A Wrinkle in Time listed on the list of plays they're putting on next summer, I showed my grandma and explained it to her. She was excited for me, because she knows what a big deal that book is for me. I told her that, if she and my grandpa got me literally nothing else for Christmas but tickets to see that, I would consider that a really really huge present. I think they're going to consider that and probably do it.

My grandma went to bed soon after this conversation, and I went back to my activity of studying, wasting time on the internet, and listening to glam rock. Oh, and drawing. I ended up drawing this. It's OFF-related.

( It's under a cut because it's a sort of longish comic. )

So that was my day yesterday. Today, nothing's really happened other than the completion of some last-minute history homework. Oh! And I'm going to go to a party tonight. It's a church party. A Christmas party, actually. Even though I'm a college student, I hang out with the high school group at my church on Sundays (it's because I have some high school-age friends who I understand very well - these are Ashley and Rebecca, the twins - and it's beneficial for me to help them translate their ideas in the small group that meets after the sermon). The high schoolers have a tradition where each small group will make a funny music video, and we'll watch them at the Christmas party, where the leaders will judge them. The winners will get a prize. It's a fun thing and we all like it. My group did a video for "I'll Make a Man out of You" from Mulan, because that's the sort of thing we appreciate and that everyone else will likely appreciate. I've got an outfit picked out for the event, too (because I like dressing up for events) - burgundy cardigan, brown leather jacket, white shirt, blue bow tie. And jeans and shoes and stuff.

So my life went very well yesterday, it's going well today, and it'll probably go well tomorrow, too. Brilliant.