2025: The Year of Reliving and Revealing?

     Let me tell you about my day. I woke up to nothing. I walked through nothing. I drove nothing and heard nothing. I saw nothing and experienced nobody. I thought nothing except my awareness of my nothingness. I did not feel the magic of connection, though I spoke. I felt alone, though I was surrounded by people. I did not trust my ability to speak or think. I felt shame about my emotions, and I felt self-hatred that I projected. Not once did how I speak align with how I felt. Because I'm so self-conscious. Being something for a moment makes me realize how much everybody else is. How overwhelming it is to be across from you. How I want to look you in the eye, but I fear it would only reveal my lack. Compliments are gut-wrenching, I'm attracted to uncaring hearts. I think of self-harm and I abuse my thoughts. And I fear. I fear that they have it out for me. I fear that they think I'm dull or slow. I fear that I am. I believe that I am. I know I am. I speak in my head. My voice is so loud, but you don't seem to hear me. My voice has nothing special to say, I'll keep it quiet. This is what Instagram helped me avoid. I watch the way you process information. Sometimes I love it. I think I get it. I don't think you want me to look at you. Even when we're talking, I'm thinking of myself. Selfish. My eyes and face are frozen. I freeze in order to capture every word, I lose every one and blame myself. I try to imagine what you say, but I only think of how I can't. I'm not in touch with that. It's who I've become again. Let's not discuss why, let's only look at what is. 

    You start speaking, I initiate my attention. I focus everything on understanding. Too much. I focus on focusing. I focus on managing my ability to focus. I think about why I can't focus. I'm a world away from you. You may think I'm uninterested. I want to have so many conversations with you. I think about it when I'm alone. My body freezes when you're around. I want to make sure you like me first. Like me, like me some more, like me so much that I know these conversations won't put you off. If they do, I'll know it's your discomfort with the topic than it is my unlikability. I'm more evolved because I can have these sorts of conversations. When you talk about what I love, I feel a perverted sense of joy. I want it all to be about me. I'll pretend to care about you. I'll pretend to think about you. But if I did, I would ask the questions that are really on my mind. I would let the veil come down and be completely honest. What would be the consequences? Nobody likes me anymore. You hear about what I said, what I did. 

     This is all so familiar. I'm not sure how to reconcile this. I tried to be blunt and honest once. I regretted it but there were little consequences. Not many that I saw. I'll explain, I guess. I used to have panic attacks after nights of drinking. I would imagine that I'd done something heinous and unforgiveable. Not knowing whether or not it was true, I would be tortured by the idea. I once imagined that I asked a girl I had just met if she would cheat on her boyfriend. I asked, then, if she would cheat on him with me. Now, in this imagined scenario, I was not asking if she literally would, but if I was attractive enough or the type of personality she finds attractive enough to do such a thing with. The next time I saw her, I brought this up. I told her about it. She did not remember it. Then later I assumed that she thought I meant I did ask her to cheat on her boyfriend with me. 

    I am not entirely sure why I imagined up such an odd and specific scenario. It was probably due to finding her attractive and my brain finding a way to ask if she also found me attractive without directly asking. The reason I told her about it was because I was trying to practice radical honesty. At the time, I thought that was the path forward. The path towards peace. That one event was enough for me to feel so much shame and weakness that I pulled away from this idea. Now, I feel like I'm in a similar situation. What should I be honest about and with who? How do I know what's right to say? How do I know what's right to feel or think? 

    I know there are people out there who are far more deranged and strange than I am, and those people find their people. Most of the time, I don't even think I'm strange. Just lost, trying to learn. But I stopped trying to learn, and I pulled the wool over my eyes. I surrendered my attention to a feeling another gives me. I started lying and writing about how bad it felt to lie. I don't know what I want anymore. Instead of living with that, I try to regain something people have given me before. I forget all about myself. It's so easy to. Instagram gave me access to a facade. Like every great lie, I hid it in truth and believed it myself. But it is not autobiographical. It is a fiction built upon an insecurity. 

    No, no, no. Wait. I don't know. Am I rejecting myself for rejecting my self-expression? Isn't that what I'm doing right now? Before, just now, when I was typing I felt a sense of freedom. As soon as I began this paragraph that feeling went away, and I began to tense up. It's good fiction, but the stories that I need to tell are real. They are the stories in which I hurt people. The stories that are so real. But are they mine to tell? I think so, with care. Maybe that's what 2025 is. The year of revealing. Reliving and remembering with new perspective. Explaining what I often forget, so that I never can. I imagine you may hate me. Should you read this, if you feel you aren't ready, then it's okay not to. That might seem like a strange thing to say, but delving into certain topics, with honesty, will bring a new world to light. A more complicated, uncertain world. One that blurs black and white and asks unanswerable moral questions. I need to do this, I think. I think. My fear is the only thing holding me back. 

    Do I have the strength? Is honesty the right thing? What's keeping me silent, really? Why do I feel compelled into this sort of confession? I know that my mind and body are seeking comfort. I'm thinking about the ones who have given me comfort in the past. None of them would work right now. I don't even want them to. I want to feel this. This feels like me. A little bit. There's something missing, still. Maybe that's the stories that I've yet to tell. The memories that I've parsed through in my more private writings. Maybe it would be better to focus on self-acceptance. Accepting what I've failed to do.

    This is what arises in true isolation, I realize. I thought that I learned isolation is a temporary retreat before making way back into the world. Getting lost in the world, maybe, is what caused me to lose so much of myself. Or to feel as though I did. Never wanting to return to isolation. How do you people do it? I know you all do not spend time contemplating life, alone. You live life, together. Why is that so hard for me to connect with? I'm thinking of myself as a unique case. I forget the fragile nature of connections. Everybody jumps around trying to find fulfillment. Some people seem to. Somehow. In different ways. Or simple ways. Easy conversation. Sharing hobbies. Small jokes with the people who care. Finding anyone who seems to care, just a little bit. I bottle it up. 

     "I know what I want." Brandon, oh, Brandon. Where has your mind gone? Feel your body. What is it telling you? Now where did your mind go? Untense your legs. That dry mouth and that beer breath. The air struggling to find its way to your lungs. The back, feeling small and tight. Stretch more. Feel your size. Who did you just think of? Then what thought followed? What is it that she can give you? The mystery is part of the fun. You know what else is. It's not to be ashamed of. It's only natural. Now consider your heart. Who do you see? What do you feel? You did not hurt them. You do not hurt them with your presence. Feel the tears. Feel the burden leave you. Yawn. You're tired. So tired. You don't have to carry that weight that you do. Feel your body. Shoulders, chest, stomach, back. Feel the flow of your blood. No pressure. Who do you want to read this and why do you not want them to read this? You want to be admired. It's not to be ashamed of. You can do it yourself. I admire you. I love you and I care about you and I don't want you to have to bear this weight. You don't have to, I promise. The world will not end, your life will continue. It will. We all make mistakes. I love you. It's hard to say. So hard. Just sleep. Sleep tonight, work tomorrow. Sleep tonight, get up tomorrow. Sleep tonight, try again tomorrow.