Day 18: My Piercings

My piercings are important to me. The represent to me a sense of personal bodily autonomy that I think I needed when I got them and they remind me every day that the only person's opinion about how I look that matters is mine.

Also, they look rad as all heck. Anyway, here's the story of how I got them.

I got my Monroe at a small tattoo studio near my university campus, and the artist who did me was great. Wonderful with first timers, took me through the steps, never had an infection. But I'd actually been waiting to get a lip ring with a friend, and we had a pact from highschool to do it together (we ended up doing it seperately).

So getting tired of waiting for our schedules to line up, I went for my second choice one first. And, boy, did everyone hate it. Well, not everyone, but most people asked why, I think my mom had like this existential moment of her baby boy ruining his face all the while I'm looking at myself like, damn, I look good. Of course, my actual good friends had either no opinion on it or just took a while to get used to my face having this small but noticeable alteration but I think most of them have now known me longer for having these piercings than for not having them. Most folks I meet now ask me if they hurt (girls who had their ears pierced asking me this question never fails to baffle me, like... Did yours hurt?)

The second one I did on a day that highschool friend actually was over and we were going to do it together, only he got food poisoning the night before. He wasn't up to it (much to my dismay, I was so disappointed) but after I walked him to the train and we parted ways, my impatience got the better of me.

I was actually going to Singing In The Rain with my parents that night and when they picked me up there was this cold, quiet anger in the car. Mom pulled me aside and tried the speech again but I think she kind of knew it wouldn't work because here I was, second piercing, and no one could stop me.

I actually haven't gone for a third one but I do want to. I want to get a nose stud but I want to get a tattoo first.

If only I could decide on one.

Anyway, that's the story of that. Just thought I'd share.

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Day 17: A Confession Of My Choice

This was a hard one to decide on. Spilling your guts on the internet isn't always the best idea and I've overshared once or twice on this blog before. Everyone has secrets and although I doubt I have anything truly headline worthy, I do have stuff I'd rather not be out there for just anyone to read and I know stuff about other people I know they don't want aired. Striking that balance between releasing what's safe to release and creating content worth reading is a tough one, and it's a line that gets more delicate the more posts I put out there.

That said, here's something I don't tell a lot of people;

My first time sleeping with a boy was awful.

He was someone I'd met online and he was nice enough, and cute, but it was just... Bad. It was a bad experience. I wasn't anywhere near prepared to bottom and I feel like I kind of let him do more than I should have. I don't think he was anywhere near prepared to top. Truth be told I didn't really want it to go past hand stuff and when we were done I kinda just wanted him to leave.

I had other, much better experiences with men but this one has always bothered me a little. I think the lines of consent were blurred and it's hard for me to process it to this day. I don't think it's sexual assault as much as it was just two inexperienced boys trying to connect but failing, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't have been.

What I think does matter is that it's been a landmark year for the #MeToo movement and maybe microstories like mine matter. When you're experimenting and young, I think beyond being safe, you need to be safe. Choose your partners carefully. Be conscious of dangers when meeting sexual partners online because even you could be sexually assaulted by someone who looks innocuous from their Grindr picture. So be aware.

Heavier than most things I post but yeah, there's my confession, give me my Hail Mary's, father. I'm bad t outros. Respect the Geneva Conventions.

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Day 16: Things I've Learned About Love From My Exes

An important part of growing as a person and sussing out the right person or persons for you is looking at your past relationships and seeing what you can learn from them. Not just so you can be a better partner, but so you can recognize when things go wrong and end a relationship with as little pain as possible, and so you can know which types of relationships to avoid entirely.

Here's five things past relationships have taught me, from 5 different exes;

1. Passion is key

I remember reading an article once about how every successful relationship is built upon three pillars; Commitment, Friendship and Passion. Whilst it's a bit of an oversimplification, there's also a lot of compromise involved and knowing when to give space or when to hold tighter along with a myriad of other factors, I can guarantee that without all three of those things, your relationship will inevitably fall apart.

In the past, I've dated people with whom I was friendly with, really great friends with in fact, and to who I was committed to forming a functional and healthy relationships with. But the problem is when there wasn't any passion involved.

Passion is hard to define but to me, it's lust and overwhelming love, those lingering thoughts of growing old and the what ifs of getting married. The fireworks when you kiss. The way the Earth seems to physically stand still when you look into their eyes. Those chemicals swirling in your brain as you connect that make you happy and manic.

Passion is important.

So when it's gone, that's when your relationship becomes somewhat dysfunctional. When you regard your significant other so much more as a friend than a lover, you can start to form cracks. Cracks like wanting isolation. Cracks like feeling suffocated or trapped.

If the passion seems to be dying, and you can't look at your significant other with the same love you used to, that's when it might be time to re-evaluate your relationship.

2. Long Distance is a Killer

I dated someone who lived about an hour and a half's drive away, traffic permitting. While it wasn't as extreme as other long distance relationships, even that drive was enough a barrier to create a divide between us as people over time.

Because here's the thing, you can love someone very dearly, but sometimes that love can be unreasonably inconvenient. Distance means travel expenses and income is limited. The yearning for the physical touch of another can be so overwhelming that it can hurt and that pain can actually drive you crazy.

I'm not saying that long distance relationships are always unfeasible, I have a great friend who every proves that oceans can't keep two determined lovers apart. It's inspiring and wonderful, but here is the catch; Not everyone's lives has room for a committed long distance relationship. A relationship should better your quality of life, not put a burden on it. If your relationship takes so much more than it gives, it's hard not to buckle under that pressure, and yes, long distance couples often break up very vitriolically because of how painful those breaks can be.

Make sure when you engage in a long distance relationship that the both of you have the means to sustain it, both in tangible assets, and emotional strength. If one of you buckles, both of you buckles.

3. Dating your best friend is unbelievably dangerous

And I think you should very carefully consider it. It took me the longest time to get over a break up with someone I was unbelievably close with, and I still have emotional scars to this day. It's like a phantom ache. Because the worst part about breaking up with your best friend?

You could very easily lose your best friend.

And while your first heartbreak is like a knife, the fallout from your first big love is like being ripped in half; you heal.

Losing your best friend is like losing a limb.

Please be careful.

4. Most Break Ups end Bad, but that doesn't mean they have to stay bad

I can't count how many exes I've lost track of because we broke up so painfully that leaving each other alone forever just felt like the right thing to do.

But a handful of times, those relationships grew stronger.

Over Christmas one year I decided to reach out to a girl I'd cared for a lot, but who I didn't part with on the best of terms. Christmas is that kind of time of year and by reaching out, I'd actually helped mend a lot of my own wounds. We managed to have an open conversation about how it went wrong and both admitted to not feeling any animosity towards the other, perhaps even still carrying lingering affection, despite knowing we couldn't work out.

You know what happened then? We became close friends.

Being friends with your ex is a tricky thing but honestly, if you know the two of you aren't meant to be and you still care about each other, still long for those conversations, it's worth remaining friends. Your ex can actually become one of your best friends, as someone who knows you more intimately than anyone else but who cares about your happiness only in a platonic capacity. That's a powerful support network to have in your life and you'd be surprised at how well they can inform you about future or current relationships just by being frank about how the two of you went wrong.

Being friends with your ex can actually make yourself a better partner to a future lover.

Just don't avoid conversations with your significant other in order to have a safer version with an ex. That person isn't dating you any more, and if you have something you need to say, you should say it.

5. You Can Both Love Each Other Very Much... And It Still Won't Work Out

Which was a hard lesson to learn in one of my worst break ups.

Love is... Complicated.

And sometimes you fall head over heels for a person who is entirely wrong for you. She avoids when you confront. He's clingy and you're detached. You can love someone to the moon and back, want the best for them, want to make them so very happy but that sometimes just isn't enough. There's a certain amount of luck involved. If you could fall in love with only the people who maintaining a long, committed and serious relationship was a possibility, we wouldn't be getting it all so very wrong all the goddamn time.

Love is compicated and messy and sometimes it can make the colours of the world brighter only tear that world to shreds. Recovering from something like that can feel impossible.

But you do recover.

And great love comes for us many times, if we're willing to grow, invite it in, and keep the lessons but leave the baggage.

It's just important that during this process, you don't forget to love yourself. Love yourself, and when you love someone else, it'll feel effortless. Love can be effortless. Love can be warm and kind and you will find that person who makes you feel like all that pain and misery was worth living through just to wake up next to their smile, just to lock your fingers between theirs, just to give those early morning kisses and cold winter squishes.

And remember that no matter how much it hurts, it'll be okay some day. Allow yourself to feel and listen to the pain. Don't let bad circumstances define you.

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Day 15: A TV Show I'm Currently In Love With

Can I do another Steven Universe one? No? Damn. Okay, okay.

Here's one, Bojack Horseman.

If I had to describe Bojack Horseman in one word, it'd be human. There are like six human characters in the show but there's so much heart, honesty and charm to the show. From the painted colour work of the characters, to the fantastic voice cast, to an honest depiction of an asexual character (take notes, Riverdale).

What's Bojack Horseman about though? So back in the 90s, Bojack was in a very famous TV show. He was essentially Seinfeld, and now he's out of his prime and the greatest thing he did as an actor was a mediocre but popular television sitcom. He decides to write his memoir, and his publisher insists he gets Diane Nguyen to ghost-write when he fails to deliver a manuscript.

The show starts off kind of like the run off the mill adult cartoon, a couple political and topical jabs mixed mostly with some lowbrow humour. But, oh, in a few episodes, the show's true colours show.

Existential hell.

I'm being facetious, there's actually a lot of optimism in Bojack's existentialism. It's like that quote from Angel, if nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do. There's a character running up a hill later on that's practically wearing a sign that says "I'm a stand in for Sisyphus".

"Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day, that's the hard part."

Themes in Bojack vary from taking responsibility for your own happiness, how depression never really goes away but you find ways of coping, inheriting your parent's trauma, the cycle of abuse, how your warped perception of self can blind you to your own mistakes, dealing with alcoholism, the fickleness of fame, how much of a tar pit hollywoo is, the struggles of sustaining a marriage even if both parties love each other dearly, love blinding you to your significant other's faults, being accountable for your mistakes, watching your parents go old struggle with dementia, and those rare moments of lucidity they have.

And if it were any other show, I don't know if Bojack would get away with some really, unbelievably depressing themes.

But Bojack can also be hilarious.

The episode Bojack has to go on a game show against Daniel Radcliffe is a personal favourite, it's kind of a microcosm of the show's smart humour and honesty. It's not just another Family Guy wanting to poke fun at topical news and pop culture, it's a show about deconstructing characters and while it does tackle some aspects of modern politics, you'd be surprised at how nuanced it is.

If there's one show you should watch, it's Bojack Horseman. It's clever, it's fun, it asks you tough questions but it never talks down. The show always gives some slight optimistic twist.

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Day 14: A Music Album And Why It Was Inspiring

When I first heard Bring Me The Horizon's Sempiternal, it was on a golf cart, wind tunneling past us, and my friend was playing it through his Samsung Galaxy S2 connected to one of those ShoX mini speakers.

The first track he played was Go To Hell For Heaven's Sake, which honestly was the best choice. The song is the perfect microcosm of what the album is about, what the album is like stylistically, and what Bring Me The Horizon stood for. It's a scathing self-critique told as though Sykes were speaking to another person.

At the time I wasn't really all that deep into anything heavier than Bullet For My Valentine. I liked a lot of alt-rock, I loved a lot of indie, there were a bunch of top 40s hits but my favourites were guys like The Foo Fighters, Sparks The Rescue, The Used, My Chemical Romance, Rob Zombie, ACDC and the likes.

Hearing Go To Hell was kind of a revelation. I had a friend I chastised for really liking super heavy music, and to me it was like a betrayal of what metal was supposed to be (I had no idea what metal was supposed to be, Kiss, Black Sabbath and Dragonforce was about the extent of my experience).

But here it was, this song that was heavy but accessible. Relatable. Angry, but not sadistic, more like frustrated. And each song had a little hook. I remember, after asking to borrow the album, putting it in and hearing Empire's "They came like moths to a flame, you lift like a house in a hurricane" or Shadow Moses's "This is sempiternal" or Go To Hell's "When did the diamonds leave your bones". Little moments that kept the album nagging at me in the back of my head.

But then the showstealer track came along; Sleepwalking.

Sleepwalking is hands down the best track Bring Me The Horizon have ever written. It's catchy, it can be heavy, it can be a jam, and all around, it just captured a feeling I knew I'd been experiencing.

"Time stood still, the way it did before

Feels like I'm sleepwalking

Fell into another hole again

Feels like I'm sleepwalking"

Even back then I knew what the feeling was of going into auto-pilot for days on end without really having a lot of lucid moments. The frustration of that feeling. Trying to reach out. That quiet self-hatred when you are perfectly lucid, and the disorientation and directionlessness that comes in those lucid moments. "I'm at the edge of the world, where do I go from here, do I disappear?"

It was powerful.

Sempiternal, after all, is an album about mental health. It's an album about facing yourself. It's an album of dealing with that anger.

It's also about the betrayal that comes with disillusionment with religion, another thing that hit me quite hard.

"When you die, the only kingdom you'll see is two foot wide and six foot deep"

Lyrics like that. House Of Wolves expressed my frustrations with church politics, and what leaving that environment was like, seeing it all clearly for the first time.While I'd long since come out as an atheist, to just hear that experience so concisely captured, it was revelatory. Not just that, it was like this album had been written for me.

After that, the deluxe edition came out. The two tracks that, while I adore them, never felt like they really belonged on the album were Crooked Young and Deathbeds. Crooked Young felt so much more juvenile, lyrically at least, and it's a little derivative of previous orchestral accompaniments Bring Me The Horizon has used. Deathbeds is just all round an amazing song, but it's such an odd little inclusion.

"That little kiss you stole
It held my heart and soul
And like a deer in the headlights
I meet my fate
Don't try to fight the storm
You'll tumble overboard
The tides will bring me back to you

On my deathbed, all I'll see if you
The life my leave my lungs
But my heart will stay with you"

It's such an honest and open love song that it's so juxtaposed with the rest of the album. In a bubble, I do like, but if I'm giving the album a listen through, I save it for last.

One track I think is criminally underrated is And The Snakes Start To Sing.

"I'm just a would've been, could've been, never was and never ever will be"

The song sometimes comes off as the culmination of this frustration, the height of it all, starting off calm but ending in this huge bridge that lashes out, that questions, that pushes back. It asks those questions.

I love it.

This album inspired me, it showed me a certain way to use my voice, and it solidified my love for this band. It's the album I hope to make one day, in what it means and what it does. It was a crucial stepping stone for me, and without it, I don't think I'd like metal as much as I do today.

Sempiternal is, simply put, my favourite record. I love it dearly. I hope more people get to experience it.

And that Coldplay admits they blatantly ripped off the cover, jussayin'.

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Day 13: A Drawing, and The Story Behind It

This is Depression Cat.

I doodled this in my diary, the front of which I use to remember homework and the back of which I sketch in. Depression Cat is kind of a representation of me when the noise is too much. He's dressed up in his suit but there are bags under his eyes and where there would be a background, there's just the noise. The questions and the doubts and the worries and the fears and the self-hatred all talking at once, talking over each other, jumbled and messy and confusing and almost impossible to unpack. Depression Cat just wants the noise to go away. He's trying his best to fake it, like he's doing okay. But he's not. There's just so much noise. If only the noise could stop.

I drew this at the time because I think it was easier than freewriting. If it's me I'm writing about, I sometimes can't get the right words out, but Depression Cat can. I get that look on my face and I know what it means. I have those thoughts and I can relate. Those are my thoughts too. I wanna hug Depression Cat and tell him it's all going to be okay, that he'll get better with money, that he'll find that one person who'll love him forever and that he'll love forever, that his life has meaning, that he's a good person, that he won't die alone, that he'll make something of himself, that existence can be hard but it can also be so good because I know that, I objectively know those things, or at least some of them.

I just wish I could tell myself that.

But maybe I wouldn't hear it, just like Depression Cat can't hear me. Maybe the best we can do is share those problems and relate to one another and going through it together is the only thing we can do to make it easier.

But if I could reach you, Depression Cat, if I could make it better for you, I would. I'm sorry that you feel this way. But you won't always. Maybe one day you'll be Benevolent Cat or Expressive Cat or Visits That One Hip Cafe A Little Too Often Cat.

If nothing else, I hope you know the noise won't always be there. Sometimes, you'll actually hear the cars pass by or the birds singing or the music playing from the lounge, okay, Depression Cat? You'll be okay.

You'll be okay.

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Day 12: An Area Of My Life I'd like To Improve

Everybody wants to improve, right? If you improve, you show yourself you can be better than you were, and therefore become better than you are. It's a process. There's always some aspect you can work harder towards.

Self-discipline is my biggest one, I think.

I'm kind of a cram artist by nature, I started way more often than I finish and I haven't developed the greatest work ethic. Even now, many days behind schedule, I'm still chipping away at this challenge. I try only write when I can give it my best effort, which I think isn't the best tactic. I hate writing bad pieces, and since you'll never have the displeasure of reading some of my discarded drafts, trust me, however bad it is for me to read, it's more painful for me to write.

But bad writing can always be edited, in fact, most good writing is just bad writing someone kept filing down until it was worth a read.

And I also just get severe attacks of the lazies.

I think if I cold better my self-discipline, I could improve my life in a lot of ways. Getting a handle on your person and taking responsibility for your actions is the toughest thing to do. Improving your behaviour is hard. Do-able, but hard.

I want to be a better student, I want to exercise more, eat better, write more, develop more, practice music more. Self-discipline is probably the place to start. I guess I want to be better at being better, and that comes from not just wishing but actively internalizing change. To not just wait for motivation to come. To act better in the present, so that I can in the future lean on my efforts of the past. 

That's the area of my life I wanna improve. Self-discipline.

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Day 11: A Letter To Someone (To Future Me, from 2018)

Hey, Matthew.

How's it going? Are you doing okay? Maybe I don't ask you that enough. Well I hope you're happy and well, in good health, working towards your goals and living a good life. If things are rough, well ,the rough times will end. Just hold in there, mate.

I don't have any profound wisdom for you this time around. Truthfully this letter is more of me than it is for you. These one way conversations can be exhausting, although I suppose if you could reach me from the future we wouldn't need to do it this way. I guess I'll just see what it's like when I get there.

Some days, I find myself dissociating.

Do you remember that?

The numbness takes over and things just pass me by. I think I'm that joke. You know the one? Where you stop caring as a self-defense mechanism but now you're on autopilot so often that moments of true lucidity become rare and rarer. Even now. Writing feels a little bit like going through the motions, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm hoping that if I keep going through the motions, some of it will start feeling natural again. Maybe I'll shake it off. Maybe I won't. I guess only you know.

If you ask me how it's going, that's tough question. Okay, I guess. Hard to say. Sometimes I'll look at the clock and an hour will have gone by and I can't really account for what I did in it. It was probably unimportant. I don't do much important. Well, I suppose this is important. It feels important, anyway. Like I'm doing something instead of nothing. Creating something tangible. Something of worth. I don't feel like I do a lot of that.

Am I doing that? I hope I'm doing that.

Just know it's okay. I'll be okay, I think. You'll be okay. We'll be okay. I gotta hope as much. Someday it'll shake and I'll be able to feel time pass normally. Maybe I'm damaged goods. Maybe I'm not. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe there's something genuinely wrong with me.I just hope we're in different places. That you're in a better place. Maybe I'll work up the courage to write you a proper letter in December. Give you something you can keep and use to make things better. I have faith that you'll have made things better. I believe in you. In me. In us. We'll get there.

It'll all work out.

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Day 10: Ways To Win My Heart

Oh God, only day 10 and I've already dropped the ball. Sorry, exams have kept  me busy, but I've got some awesome things in the works to make up for it, alright? I promise you'll love me.

Okay, here's the long and short of it; I'm a simple person to please.

My favourite movie of all time is Scott Pilgrim vs The World and being able to pull out quotes at any time is a surefire way to win me over. Tell me your favourite band is Bring Me the Horizon and I might love you forever. Use an Android phone, please, just use an android phone.

I love people who laugh, and just being a good person overall is a must. Although I like a bit of edge, cuss, play rough, listen to something that would make your conservative aunt gasp indignantly.

Play music. Or sing. My ideal person is someone I can do shower duets with because it gets lonely singing both parts of You're The One That I Want to my shampoo bottle.

Also, a coffee person, please, be a coffee person. Tea is fine every now and then but how do tea people do it, live their lives as if there aren't problems you need to *drown* in caffeine.

Also be a DC fan. Or at least love Young Justice as I love Young Justice.

That's me, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Or maybe I am difficult difficult lemon difficult, I don't know, I've never had to win my own heart before, I just love myself  unconditionally anyway.

Until next time.

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