written 6/18/2025 (edited 6/19/2025)
i write to you at 10:36am. it has been beginning to process in my head that we are halfway through 2025, after the trump election, and what seems like imposing doom.
i talked with one of my irl friends yesterday about the state of the world and how we've been managing to stay sane through it. she was watching anime and i was watching deltarune vods... lol. but, we were also talking about the strange position we're in, as we're graduating from high school at the same time that the world is on fire. i was wondering if i should've found a way to leave rather than stay in bumfuck texas, but here we are, i suppose. i've felt so disconnected from my body, doomscrolling, mindlessly playing, bedrotting... despite having almost years worth of reflection from being away from the mess, i guess old habits die hard don't they? i was considering finding a way instead to live with my friends, find a way for us to to live without being too reliant on money...
but to change subjects, in my time thinking about the position that i'm in at the moment, i also looked back to the past, looked at old dms, old experiences, old wounds, and i felt something. guilt. guilt for the way i was, the way i used to talk, and the way i used to behave. but at the same time, i found gratefulness. gratefulness for who i am now, gratefulness for being able to recognize where i went wrong, and gratefulness for having the resources and tools to think and do better. but at the same time, the past never changes, only my perception of it.
so while i feel regret and guilt for my past, i do also feel compassion and gratefulness for the past, as it has been a way for me to see how much i've grown... but something still feels like it's missing. maybe its closure? maybe it isn't? i'm not sure, but whenever i see that mirror reflected back at me... i see where i've changed, and where... i've been resisting it.
so if we want to be on the same page for a second, what is change? change is inevitable, right? change is constant, as constant as the universe. then what is love? is love a feeling? is love an action? is it both? what happens if two things are true at the same time?
that's a paradox.
over my time with last summer and with this year's summer, i've had to practice holding multiple truths in my mind at the same time... without losing my mind. i've had to accept that change is constant, and that it is always happening within me, and that love is both a feeling and an action. however, the truth that was most difficult for me to swallow was that love.. required change. love isn't one way forever, love changes you, and you have to allow yourself to transform for it to thrive.
...where do i come into this? good question, i've thought about it myself! "mellie wellie didn't realize that in order to truly love yourself, you have to naturally transform with that love. as love is everchanging, i have to remain everchanging with it, too, don't i? now you're just asking too much out of me, mel..."
this isn't just me, but it applies to anyone. if you're willing to love something or someone like yourself, you have to allow yourself to change with that love... with boundaries of course. people want to be loved in different ways, and those different ways dont stay fixed. some people wanna be loved by one person... another time, you find another person who you love, and you want to love both... but not everyone is wired that way, or at least, not everyone is aware that is possible... i certainly wasn't aware.
we are all under conditioning of some sort, believing truths that either no longer or never served us in the first place. i've also been trying to deprogram myself from my own conditioning. conditioning that tells you what love is "supposed" to look like, feel like, BE like. and to reclaim love for myself, to experience and feel and commit to it on my own terms, has been one of the most important things i've done for myself, and i want everyone to be able to reflect on that.
now... i figure with some of the breadcrumbs i've given, i should make myself clear. i am polyamorous... but i'm kind of not (i'm nonmonogamous)? at least, i don't fully resonate with polyamory because it has this almost forced sense of exclusivity that i don't really jive with. i consider myself a "relationship anarchist," which is moreso me just saying id rather negotiate the terms of a relationship overtime because we are changing people and our needs change, our wants change, and the people we love change.
i'm in relationships where they can't exactly be put in into simple boxes or labels. im in queerplatonic relationships, lowkey romantic relationships, sexual(?) relationships, and hell, i consider myself celibate at the moment of writing this... using it as a way to be more honest on my sexual preferences, my sexual expression, and really... how i express myself OUTSIDE of sex. i find this period of my life so far to be interesting as it's kind of room for me to get clear on what fulfills me, and its been... painful yet satisfying at the same time.
i've let love transform, i've let love die. i've still made mistakes (because i'm human), but i'm also learning from and navigating those mistakes with people in real time who truly love me and want to see me change and naturally let themselves adjust with my shifting self-expression and love language. every part of me feels fluid and i feel like i'm on the way to fully settling and being comfortable in that flow. my life, yes, my human experience here feels like a river...
i'm grateful to have the friends that i do right now, and every time i think of them, i think about the good that they've done for me, and the good i've done for them. but, not everyone in my life has been the best people for me. i've had to let friendships go, relationships go, companionships go because they were no longer serving us, or if it was serving someone, it was only one and not also the other. manipulative cycles i've found myself stuck within the past, and that i'm still trying to navigate through. these loops, they can only be repeated, closed, or transformed in my eyes. cycles of grief, cycles of pain, cycles of manipulation. but they can also be cycles of benevolence, healing, and shared joy.
my friends, past and in the future, are and will not be perfect, and i'm grateful that i have the awareness and love that i have for them and to bring to the light what may be causing pain, conflict, misery, the likes. i can clarify what's been making me uncomfortable, what i don't like, and where my needs have changed, without making myself smaller, without pretending that everything's fine and that "i'll get over it..." because do you ever "get over it?"
do you ever "get over" trauma? do you ever "get over" that ex? do you ever "get over" that one bad experience you had years ago that remains stuck inside the deepest parameters of your mind, and only resurface in the moments you least expect it (especially when you're going to bed)?
no. unless you sit down, sit still, be quiet, and sit with it. not with judgment, not with fruitless self-deprecation, not with self-punishment. just... with curiosity.
healing, or self-reflection is not only done alone, it is done with others. healing is not escaping through video games, through music, through addictions that also tell you to avoid and escape. it is not through friends that tell you to "get over it" or to punish whoever hurt you. it is through friends who remind you of your inner truth, of your inner guidance, your inner joy. and most certainly for example...
the difficult part about healing is recognizing the mirrors around you. the way people respond, the way people behave. you see yourself in them and you then see where you've been leaving stones unturned. knowing that this is a lifelong process, i still feel at times like i need to make everything right... and make things right... right now. but that's not change is it? its a performance act. there's something to be said about being aware of where you're going wrong in the moment and being clear and honest about that, there's nothing wrong with that... but there is something wrong with promising change and never truly acting upon it. or in this case, facing the implications of what that change looks like and instead of honestly taking that challenge... you run away. you avoid, you blame, you shame, and you pretend that you'll be fine when you are BARELY holding it all together.
if there's one thing i regret, it is the times in which i was called out for what i was doing wrong, and instead of listening and understanding the consequences involved with what changing would entail... i would avoid it all. avoid through games, avoid through scrolling, avoid through... different kinds of means, and it was a numbing agent. it never gave me the strength to genuinely confront those things... being online the way i was wasn't helping me reflect. i focused so much on what i would lose, rather than what i would gain. and in the end, now i don't even want to go back to the way things were anymore. that fear of change that i had years ago was my fear of allowing myself to change for someone... someone that i'm not sure if i ever even felt safe with. but the grief is still there, the pain is there, the memories will always be there, and i'm left with an ultimatum:
refuse to change, or let yourself change.
and so i did change... by avoiding again. i performed, i lied, i gave so many false promises that were broken not too long after, and the cycle continued... until it closed. i was suddenly given a wide stretch of time away from the people that i knew, and what did i do? i wrote. and i wrote, and i wrote, and i recorded a few, but i mostly wrote. i wrote about my grief, how i perceived my grief, where i was being conditioned, where i found the fragments of who i really am. and it wasn't possible without the help of certain resources and people in my life, who listened to me with love, but were not there to distract me. what i did in the past was both helpful and harmful! but my awareness of that and my willingness to learn and do better no matter what changes in my personal comfort would occur helped me naturally adjust. and now, suddenly, i graduated from high school, with those same people irl and online. some left, some transformed, but i was always transforming as long as i allowed myself to.
what if you "never changed?"
sometimes, i wonder if i was so caught up in the "act," i forgot that it was an act after all. but doesn't my awareness of the act, ruin the performance? when i know where i'm going wrong, how i can correct that, and then choosing to commit to that, regardless of my qualms, then maybe it isn't an act after all, its just my living a very... human experience. but its not like i can "prove" that change to anyone.
no matter how much i try to prove that i'm a "good person," that's not the point... is it? because the concept of good and bad are relatively based on human limits and can shift to suit a culture that may reward certain people and punish others. that doesn't mean this concept is unimportant, but being rigid about this binary is unhelpful for this kind of conversation. because it isn't about being a good person in terms of some rigid binary societal standard, though if thats important to you, that's valid. to me, it's about reflecting your sincerest truth, for the benefit of all and the harm of none. acknowledging the harm you've done, acknowledging how you've served others in profound ways, and being able to hold those truths together and take actions that reflect the inner good thats inside you... thats what i think changing means for me.
i will never be able to "prove" anything with people whose truths are different than mine, so all i can do, is commit to my inner truth. all that "proving" does to me, is fuel debate, unnecessary conflict, and arguments, when i find its more fruitful to connect on what brings us together, and challenge what doesn't. if people accept the challenge, great! if they don't... it's okay. but this does lead into another important point to make.
and by performance, i mean acting a certain way for validation rather than to better connect with yourself and others.
change is not just a response, change is not a twitter post, change is not just a donation to aiding palestine, and change is NOT just putting a pride flag in your bio. change as i've iterated throughout this blog, is constant. so no one grand act will ever "prove" that you're a good person, or that you're a changed person, or that you've "turned over a new leaf." stop creating promises you can't keep, stop overextending yourself for people who won't see you outside of their grief. stop lingering around people who distract you into continuing the performance. stop saying and doing things for validation and do things because you care!
if you care about trans rights, read about trans people, queer people, our experiences, our pain, our wrongdoings, and also our rightdoings. if you care about anti-racism, read about the history of racism and how its baked into the very fabric of colonial history, read about the history of slurs, be aware of when people use them, hold yourself and others accountable for perpetuating the chains of white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism. this will not come through social media posts, this will come through reading, through discussions, honest discussions, and through... recognizing where you have landed in that mess, and doing something different.
but also discover yourself, explore yourself with honesty and curiosity. see what you like, what you don't like, your fears, your beliefs, because you will ALWAYS be subject to change. you are not broken, you are in an inbetween space of who you are now, and who you are meant to be. you are holding fragments of who you were meant to be, and you are carrying out the act of mending yourself together. through music, through love, through shared joy, through laughing, through learning, through art, and... through life.
i never would be where i am right now without my mistakes, and i would never be where i am right now without also having time to reflect on those mistakes, AND the joy that i've found through many different sources. i am where i am meant to be, right now! resistance to loving yourself and resistance to embracing the truth that love will transform you, is what kept me back from being the person i know i am, every day. without honesty, transparency, vulnerability, and accountability, it gets a lot more difficult embracing change.
so yes, bring to light that poorly made joke, bring to light that outdated belief, bring to light that discomfort you feel with anything. and you better bring it to light with others too. because their response will tell you whether or not they will allow themselves to change, too. change in a way that benefits all of us (including you, the person reading this) and harms nobody (including you, the person reading this). pause, reflect, and be honest about what you are feeling and clarify that with others as well as yourself. honestly communicate, don't linger over someone's profile and avoid that conversation that you know you need to have because continuing to be silent about it will only continue to let that resentment build. but most importantly... love yourself and love others, and understand the implications of that, because...
love is change, and will you change with it?
> melmoimoi :3