Once upon a time, there was a lonely little girl who had no friends and got bullied by all the other kids. Her birthday was coming up and she wanted to have a party, but she didn’t have anyone to invite. It was her eleventh birthday, her favorite number. Her mother was in the navy and had a friend who also had a lonely daughter. So to try to make things better, the little girl’s mom gave her the phone number of the other little girl so that she could call and invite her to the birthday party.

The phone rang. A small voice picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi… um. My mom’s friends with your mom and, um… I’m having a birthday party next week and my mom said I should invite you.”

“I’d like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

K, bye.

The party came, and the two little girls met for the first time. The birthday girl (let’s call her Sunny) was somehow expecting her new friend to be Hispanic, but she was instead met with a gingery redhead (we’ll call her Moony.)

No one else came to the party, it was just them. Moony was just as excited to give Sunny her gift as Sunny was to receive it.

(It was a really cool pair of dragonfly socks with dragonfly hairpins and a little watch shaped like a dragonfly.)

An important thing to note is that Sunny and Moony’s birthdays are exactly 6 months apart. So every time it was Sunny’s birthday, it was Moony’s half birthday, and they always shared their birthday bliss together as best friends should.

As they grew, Sunny the Leo like a lion took the lead. She stood up for Moony and protected her against the other bully kids. For better or for worse, they were sisters, even if not by birth.

Sunny had problems no one else could understand. It was a silly little matter of her brain structure (autism). She was strong, so she fought with a fierceness. A will to live that was so strong nothing could beat it.

But as she was human, she had soft spots. And people took advantage of Sunny’s vulnerabilities. They used her for their sick games. Moony watched through a peephole, sickened and disgusted, but secretly jealous that those things weren’t happening to her.

So Moony, like a parrot, tried to mimic those vulnerabilities but wore them proudly like a prefect badge to shine in the spotlight glamorously. Victimizing herself for attention without actually suffering.

Sunny was a Lion, so she stood her ground. She took the brunt of everything that ever happened, like a shield. She was a role model. An example. A laughingstock. A scapegoat.

Moony tried to be everything Sunny was but Moony wanted something more. So she began to go against the grain like a cheese grater or sandpaper.

She found all Sunny’s old wounds that were just starting to heal, and dug her little claws in, bringing infection with it. Making it worse. Eating away like a cancer. Foreshadowing, 4th wall breach, awkward timing, stop start reboot

Matrix noises

Static

Dialup sounds

…

…

Starting up…

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Where was I again? Ah yes. Sunny had a baby, a beautiful little star. Moony was the very first to know the baby was a boy. Sunny loved her baby like she loved her sister Moony. She whispered all her little secrets and let her guard down completely. She was vulnerable. (Autistic)

She invested her life into this new little boy star, her flesh and blood. Her firstborn and only son. And Moony swooned and adored him as well, until one day, she saw her own reflection in the mirror and suddenly had an epiphany.

Moony was jealous. Even though the Starboy was born with Moony’s exact same birthmark and zodiac too, even little outie belly buttons like twins, they were. It wasn’t enough. Moony wanted all of Sunny’s love. And Starboy was an interference. So what’s a girl to do?

Moony got herself purposely knocked up as a revenge plot, which backfired, as Sunny’s warmth was always welcoming, no matter what the circumstances. Sunny stitched a special blanket for the baby, and traveled from afar to deliver the gift personally and introduce Moony to her Starboy where they touched for the first time. Moony planted her cancerous kiss on his cute little face, as Sunny hugged her goodbye without even getting a thanks.

Do you remember the important thing I said earlier on? It was Moony’s birthday the day that Sunny and Starboy came to visit, and they were just so excited to give Moony her gifts.

Moony seethed because she felt outshone somehow. So when Starly was born, Moony left Sunny out.

Sunny sent one last gift, it was a ring Moony had always wanted her entire life. And all Moony said was “hey, thanks.”

And that was all she ever said to Sunny again.

Sunny didn’t know why Moony was so fucking mad. It didn’t make sense. She’d given all that she had.

But like the lion that she was, Sunny pressed ever forward, and attempted a fresh start, breathing life into the world. As the new seedlings sprouted from the earth, a new Star was born. A little sister for Starboy. A comet, she was. A shooting star. And just as Sunny Loved Moony, so did Starboy love Comet. He protected and defended her. He loved her, even though he felt jealous. Sunny never meant to make Starboy feel left out. She loved him with the same love that she felt for everyone. And for a little while, Starboy and Comet got along. They were thick as thieves, just like Sunny and Moony were when they were little. But Moony’s little cancer seed ruined everything. Starboy was the brightest star that ever shined in space. He was the center of the galaxy. He was the beautiful son/sun.

But he only made it seven years before the seed began to sprout, that spread cancer to his perfect brain and snuffed his poor life out. He saw his 8th birthday and grew to be wise, but the wisdom was too much for his brain to take in.

And so Sunny suffered through and through and fought for his life like the lion she was. But the doctors were cruel and Moony wasn’t there when Sunny needed her love most.

Sunny wept and wasted away. She still had her little comet who she loved more than life, and as much as comet wanted to comfort her, Sunny couldn’t help but feel guilty for Starboy. Could she have somehow loved him better?

Sunny turned stormy as she cried for the world. For the pain she had suffered, and the pain of the earth.

The last words she whispered to Starboy before he flatlined were “I’ll never forget you.” And she never would. For her memory was great, and she retained every detail, but this was also her crux.

She remembered Moony, even though she tried to forget. She couldn’t forget that Moony had made her happy somehow. Sunny was funny that way. She forgave everything that everyone had ever done to her, but she never forgot the pain she felt, and her scars were proof of her suffering.

With all the strength she had left in her soul, she reached out for Moony again, hoping that somehow her suffering made her pure and new.

Maybe Moony would like her again.

Moony poked her head in and saw that Sunny was healing, ever so slightly. Now was her time to strike. She put on a disguise and knocked on Sunny’s door, where she was instantly welcomed in, warmly.

But like a snake, she slithered in and took the last of Sunny’s treasure and was gone before Sunny even had the chance to offer her a drink.

As soon as Sunny realized what had happened, she started to cry. Teardrops of stormy weather flowed forth and couldn’t stop. Like Alice in wonderland, her tears became a sea.

“I give myself such good advice, but I very seldom follow it. That explains the trouble that I’m always in.”

Sunny realized what she had always known.

She was useful until she wasn’t, and then she was worthless once again.

No one needed her strength, so she gave it up. She claimed defeat.

The end.

If you constantly use someone for all you can get and throw them away immediately afterward, and they still want you in their life, that’s a true friend. And maybe you should stop fucking shafting them every chance you get.

I have been asked numerous times by various people to write a book about my life. An autobiography, or a memoir?

I think I’m ready to unpack all of that. So stay tuned, if you’re interested.

I’m going to sit down and write. And when I start, I won’t stop until it’s over.

You’ve been warned.

We were laying on the sidewalk at night in the cold. The sky was purple from light pollution, and we could smell everyone’s thanksgiving turkeys frying in the night air.

Indirect kiss.

Every day, I unpack more of my baggage, and what I find in there is the same old painful shit, only its aged like milk, and now it’s twice as painful because I start to realize that I wasn’t the only one hurting.

I’ve never been the only one hurting. And I’m not. All the ways I’ve felt like the victim in a situation, it was only one side of the story.

It feels impossible now to go forward with my life. I truly feel that I have grown and changed as a person. And I know that it is not impossible to continue the growth and improvement. But now I’m struggling with the question of whether or not it’s even worth it. It may be worth it to those still around me. And it may be worth it to any others I may meet in the future. But it can never, ever change the past, and that’s the part of me that no one is ever going to forget. Even if Hitler did a complete 180 and became a monk or whatever, that doesn’t reverse the holocaust and no one will ever forget it because so many lives were wasted, rattled, or ruined as a result of it.

And comparing myself to Hitler probably seems extreme, but I need to drive the point home.

I’ve always been an emotional bitch with two hearts and no brain. And I think when Faron died (of brain cancer, no less), he took one of my hearts with him and gave me a brain. And I can’t give up the feeling that I was somehow responsible for his death. Like my cosmic karma was massively in debt, and that was how I had to pay it off. I brought it on myself. I can’t stop thinking that, and as much as I want to, I also feel like I shouldn’t. It’s a lesson. A shitty one, but a lesson. And he shouldn’t have had to pay the price for my mistakes.

So. Today I triggered myself into this whole stomach churning realization. I know I keep saying “Eherr i figures out why I suck harhar & I’m so fucking enlightened now,” but the more I unpack, the more I realize.

Today’s realization brought to you by pet adoption. I adopted a kitten. Well, maybe like a teenage kitten. Her name is Junebug, and she seems to be like a calico tabby. Sweetest thing. But bringing her home really unburied a lot of bullshit for me, and I was assaulted with all these flashbacks at once with Ivy’s homecoming heading the parade.

Bones was not happy. She wasn’t violent or anything. But she’s not happy with me right now. I know she’s feeling like she’s been replaced and I don’t love her anymore, and she’s been replaced and all these shitty things. And I have no way of communicating that I still love her just as much without physically loving on her. But she won’t let me. That was my trigger.

I’ve had a bad tendency in my life to unintentionally spurn loved ones when someone else started sharing my love. It was never intentional, you must believe me. I just had two hearts and no brain. I never loved anyone more, no matter how I seemed. Somehow, maybe I felt that the newcomer had missed out on all the love I could’ve been giving them before they met me, and so I had to play catch up or something. But I didn’t have the goddamn brain to consider that maybe, just maybe, the familiars wouldn’t see it that way.

To them, I’m sure I came off as ditching them for someone new. And because of my weird aspie asexual bullshit, I’ve had trouble making things work on a physical level between more than one person, even if that was what I truly wanted. That’s a whole ‘nother explanation that I don’t wanna digress into right now.

But anyway. So Ivy’s birth and homecoming were my spark for realizing all this. She was my first (and now forever my only) daughter. Because of that, I had a completely different hormonal change than when I was pregnant with Faron. I was a lot more depressed and sensitive, and for a while during my first trimester, I was shitty to Ben. I couldn’t stand him, even though I loved him so much. I felt somehow repulsed by him, and plus this was all in the middle of the whole CPS/KVS bullshit that I couldn’t handle.

I felt more comfortable around Matt for some reason. But eventually it subsided as my hormones balanced out, and we were all a happy family for a while.

There were some scares with the pregnancy and when Ivy was finally born, she went straight to the NICU at another hospital which was fucking heart wrenching for me.

So. New mom with first daughter, hormones out of whack recovering from childbirth and the scare that her baby would never make it home… not a good combo. I don’t know if I ever specifically took Faron aside like a good mom and made sure to tell him specifically that he was still my baby boy, and that I would always love him with just as much of my heart as Ivy… that he wasn’t being replaced… so I don’t know if he ever knew. And I’m afraid he didn’t.

And when Ivy was 1, she contracted a really bad UTI that resulted in mommy-daughter trauma. She was so dehydrated that they had to drill into her shin bone to give her fluids. And she was hospitalized for days. It was horrifying, and unfortunately probably brought us even closer because once again, I thought I was going to lose her.

And that was the year that Faron’s behavior started escalating. That was the year that I said that ugly, ugly, disgustingly deplorable thing that I said to him that I will never forgive myself for, and that haunts me every day and never lets me consider that it wasn’t my fault he died. I didn’t realize it until it was too late that he must have felt like she was replacing him, or that I loved her more… I put him on all those awful medications and treated him like shit because I was too fucking dumb to realize how he was feeling. The very next year, he was diagnosed.

This pain isn’t going anywhere. I hurt him. I wasted time. I don’t know if he knew how much I really loved him. And I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that I can’t start over and try again. It’s too late.

That was the spark that began the whole thing. I remembered how my pets felt when I brought Faron home from the hospital for the first time… how I moved out and left them here for my mom to throw out or euthanize.

That caused me to remember Emily and how I always made her feel like I valued her less than new friends/boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. I saw it with fresh eyes for the first time. In all fairness, I felt the same way when she had other friends and junk, but that doesn’t excuse my behavior. And it’s stupid that it took me this long to realize that pain I caused. I’m sure it was incredibly damaging. So… no matter how much of a victim I thought I ever was, I understand now why she doesn’t want anything to do with me. And for the first time, I accept responsibility for that. I don’t deserve her love or friendship, and I realize that now, which is why I have to stop trying. She is happy now. I am no longer weighing her down. And you know what they always say about if you truly love someone, you have to let them go. So this is me, letting go. I love her so much and always will.

But that thought led to Matt and Ben and how I did that to Matt with Ben… though, at least with them, we did try to make it work as a throuple, but the acepie shit couldn’t allow that, and after what happened to Faron, even Ben and I grew apart. So now we’re just kind of like three autistic friends raising a little girl.

Siiiiiiiiiigghhh.

I need some time to deal with this. I don’t really deserve any sort of relief from it… so I don’t know what to do right now.

Love you so much.

This is fucked.

I spent six years soul searching, going through sickening tribulations that I shouldn’t have had to go through alone, just to wind up at the answer to the question that you wouldn’t just answer for me and potentially fix things.

It finally hit me. Just like a ton of bricks and I broke. I cried all day until I fell asleep, just from the sheer guilt I felt for not realizing soon and not being about to fix it in time.

But I spent those six years hurting, but holding out hope that if I did learn the answer, maybe that would prove that I’d grown as a person and that maybe it would bring you peace to know that I understood now and felt like inhuman scum for the way I treated without even realizing.

And maybe we’d start over again. It felt like you were far away in a place where we couldn’t speak, but one day, there was a chance we’d be friends again.

But now, it’s like you’ve just been missing for six years and your body was finally discovered. It’s a real grief. It’s the same soul crushing feeling as losing a child. A family member… it feels like you’re gone forever now. And that’s more grief than I can even handle on top of everything I’m still trying to work through.

I’m going to have to start over in therapy. In the way I think…

And you “died” holding onto so much hatred for me. For someone who loved you and wanted to make you happy but was too autistic to understand your needs without having them spelled out for me.

You weren’t always a stand up friend, either, but I loved you in spite of it. I was there. I fucked up sometimes. But so did you. No one’s perfect and no one should be expected to be. I never expected perfection from you. Why was I the one who was held up the those standards.

I’m a person, too. No matter what kind of loathe-some little insect you take me for, I still feel pain. I still bleed red.

I want to let go. There are things I’ve let go of so easily, but this just won’t stop. There’s too much left half-assed.

Also, hearing your former best friend refer to someone else as their new best friend, meh. But hearing them describe that friend, with all the same descriptors… as being someone who tolerates their mental illness… as someone who tells them when they’re being stupid…

I did what I could. But telling that person when she was making bad choices, to her, was always an attack, no matter how gently I put it.

I was everything I had the ability to be for 13 years. I got trampled, but stood back up every time. I hate this. I just want to know… no.

I need to know why. Why was it so easy to just toss me in the trash? Why don’t I deserve to know why I deserved that? Why does someone else get to fill the needs that I was already filling?

Why doesn’t it matter how badly I’m hurting, and why can’t you just grant me the one tiny shred of relief that closure would give me in moving on with my life.

The last thing I ever did for you was something none of your other far away friends bothered to do. And you resented me for it, and I just need to know why.

I hope that one day you’ll finally reach a level of empathy and clarity enough to just grant me that. That one tiny and stupid little detail that has a chance of bringing me peace.

Or is this just all part of your plan? Cause me pain continuously through our relationship, and then cause me pain for the rest of my life by just lazily ghosting me?

You have the power to end it. Just end it. Tell me the truth, and you’ll never hear from me again. Otherwise, I can’t promise that I won’t continue now and again to try to reach you.

Today, my goal is to get rid of my bed. It is the first step I can take to be healthier.

You’re probably thinking “how on earth does removing a big comfy bed contribute to your wellbeing??”

Fair enough, and I’ll tell you. It’s because I am living in a cramped house with seven people and three animals. Various plants. My room is the only personal space I have, and the bed takes up a good third of the entirety of the space of this room.

I do a lot of work that requires being able to spread out, and since things are so cramped, the only space I really have for that is my bed.

So it goes like this:

I have been sitting on my bed every single day for the past 10 months. I work from home. So I spent my 8 hour shift sitting cross legged on my bed every day, and then at night when it’s time to hang out and chill, guess where I sit?? You guessed it! My bed!

For months, I’ve been dealing with bad leg pain and hip pain. Recently, I’ve discovered that the muscle mass has diminished a lot, and I’ve found it difficult to walk or stand for long periods.

This is ridiculous.

So today, I want to destroy my bed and replace it with a table and some chairs. And I’ll sleep on the floor if need be until I can find a sofa that can convert into a bed at night, but put away during the day for maximum space efficiency.

And then my legs may once again be useable.

Wish me luck.

It was never finished.

Every page is another day. And so I realized that I’m not interested in how it ends. Not yet.

I hope it continues for thousands of pages.

I hope the characters strengthen and grow.

I hope more characters are introduced.

And I hope that when the story is finally finished, it will have a happy ending and many sequels.