Permanently Scarred

I like to get a tattoo about seven and a half years XD I now have two.

Honestly, my first tattoo barely counts. When I went to the shop to get the second one, the artist asked if I'd ever gotten a tattoo before, and I said, "Barely. Like point five." The asterisk sits behind my ear where I can't see it (a very important requirement of a tattoo for me) and is slowly blurring because it was done slightly too small.

Cassidy and I first started talking about getting matching/best friend tattoos in May of 2023. One idea we threw out was a minimalist cat-eye eyeliner wing, our signature style in high school. We'd be getting ready together and one of us would lean away from the mirror, turn to the other, and say, "Mkay" and the other would scrutinize the wing angle, thickness, and length, and then give critique. You'd have been hard pressed to find more symmetrical wings when we walked out together.

But that tattoo would've been tough for a few reasons, including getting the shape and size just right (and you heard how important that is to us) and knowing where on the body to place a line of eyeliner. That idea faded, but the concept of matching tattoos never did.

Last July, Cass had the idea of getting tattoos that coordinated rather than straight-up matched. That made a lot of sense because while we've been best friends for about thirteen years, we are extremely different in most ways.

Cassidy enjoys being home; I could be happy living out of a van.
I'm impulsive; Cassidy is a researcher.
Cassidy is an Enneagram Nine, the Peacemaker; I'm an Enneagram Eight, the Challenger.
I have a phobia of vomiting; Cassidy doesn't mind throwing up so much.
Cassidy could have her arm blown off and say nothing; I will let you know if I have a hangnail.
I can live with mystery and unspilled tea; Cassidy needs to know all the things.
I embrace conflict as a way of increasing intimacy; Cassidy would rather live in peace as much as it is possible with her.
No one has ever accused me of being easygoing, whereas that is one of Cassidy's trademark characteristics.
Cassidy loves animals; I am allergic to cats and scared of dogs.
I would rather be hot than cold; Cassidy would rather be cold than hot.
Cassidy loves hoodies and cozy clothes; I love crop tops and generally wearing as little as possible.
My favorite season is summer; Cassidy's is winter.
I'm intense; Cassidy is calm.
Cassidy is a night owl; my mood is tied to the amount of sunlight I can get.

One might even say we're as different as the sun and moon.

*finger guns*

Now, I struggled a little bit with the idea of being the sun, because I'm obsessed with the moon and its phases. However...let's be real: I am not the moon.

After settling on this concept, there were still a lot of decisions to be made, like where and what exactly to get. Because of my OCD, it's important that I not be able to see my tattoos; I will obsess over any perceived imperfection. I had put a temporary tattoo on the back of my elbow in May 2023, and loved that placement.

And that temporary tattoo had actually been the sun symbol from Tangled.

It is important to me for my tattoos to have layers of meanings. While I love tattoos, I need a lot of symbolic bang for the buck when it comes to permanently scarring my body. Getting matching tattoos with my best friend was the main event, but if I got the sun from Tangled behind my elbow...

It would be a symbol of a bright spot in my very dark November of 2010.
It would champion the Disney movie Gabe and I think is criminally underrated.
It would match the temporary tattoo I had when I visited Paw Paw for the last time.
It would remind me of the last night of the beach trip, where we watched Tangled and I got to breathe the same air as some of my best friends (and even lean against Aaron).
It would remind me of the core of myself, which is more like Rapunzel than I'm usually comfortable admitting.

So, it was settled. Cass and I pored over styles and images of moons, and tattoo artists' Instagram pages. We chose an artist. We chose a date.

Two days before, I had this thought and texted Cassidy:

Growing up, I was discouraged from getting tattoos because "they're a permanent reminder of a temporary decision." What if they're a permanent reminder of a decision you've been confident in for six months? A year? Thirteen years? The reality is, Cassidy's friendship has marked me whether or not I choose to represent it on the outside. There are lots of permanent things in the world (including having children); permanence in and of itself is a neutral quality.

And when your best friend is involved, it might be one of the biggest blessings in your life.

~Stephanie

Insatiable

When Gabe and I have a nice date or a fun conversation or an amazing trip, Gabe enjoys the experience and then is glad to part with it and move on with the happy memory.

I never want it to end.

I have an insatiable appetite for fun/experiences. If something is good, I want it to keep going. It doesn't compute for me that someone can both be enjoying something AND want—or even accept—its conclusion. There are plenty of times that I do want something to end, but it's because I'm no longer having a great time. Maybe I have been, but the amazingness is winding down or wearing off. It's hard for me to believe that's not the case for everyone. I feel like if someone is ready for something to end, they are no longer having a good time. If I'm with them in such a scenario, I believe I am not fun enough to keep them engaged. They have gotten bored and/or tired of me.

This means that if Gabe and I are having a great evening together, I feel an invisible cloud of doom hanging over us: he is waiting for things to wind down so that he can move on to something else; I have a chokehold on the happiness and I'm trying to make it so good that he can't possibly want it to be over.

As you can imagine, this takes a toll on fun experiences. I begin mourning their ends prematurely; Gabe feels compelled to reassure me that he IS having a good time, but we DO still have to go home/go to sleep/go inside/etc. I always feel like he can't genuinely be having a good time if he is okay with things ending, and he always feels like he's raining on my parade. I fear that he's going to end a fun conversation before I'm ready (which is never), and he fears that he'll hurt my feelings when he does.

When I was little, one of the refrains I heard constantly whenever I was doing something "cute" or playing with adults was "part of having fun is knowing when to stop." As an enneagram Eight (craves intensity) with a Seven Wing (craves more), this translated into guilt for apparently involving people in things that they weren't enjoying, and a paranoia that there would never be enough of the world for me. Someone else would always get tired first. Someone else would always leave the party first. Someone else would always get over me first. I would always be left standing alone, wanting more from every situation long after everyone else had gotten their fill and gone home.

Am I envious of people who can be content with conclusions? Honestly no. I would rather everyone else expand their capacity for fun XD However, since that has proven unlikely and the only thing I can control is myself, I know the solution is to work on being content. I need to work on a) being present so that I don't have regrets about missing things in the moment, and b) cherishing memories without living in the past.

I've never been good at living in the present. When I was little (like birth until age sixteen), I dwelled in the past mostly. I got nostalgic super easily and mourned friends that I didn't see anymore or places I no longer lived.

Since college, I've been bad about living in the future: when we have kids, when we have a house, when the Fire Faery Story is published...

Right now is nice, I guess. I'm at Local Roots and it's sunny and warm enough to sit outside. In a few minutes I'll leave, and I guess it isn't because I'm not having a good time anymore, but because I've finished my thought and I have other things to do.

I dunno.

~Stephanie

A Fundamental Belief About Men and Women

So, Gabe and I are both a little bit sexist, but unusual ways that are both opposite and the same. It's going to be difficult to articulate, but this is the blog where I try anyway. It is definitely going to be offensive to some because 1) it divides the world into two genders, and 2) it's fundamentally sexist (although I want to work on it).

I would consider both of us to be feminists in the healthy sense of the word. (What do I mean by that? Ask me in person and I would love to talk about it.) However, we are both a little biased. Gabe is biased toward women and I am biased toward men.

If you told Gabe that he had to choose between two strangers to converse with/hang out with/have a meal with and one was a male and one was a female, he would choose female every time. When interviewing potential engineers, his gut is going to be to hire the female candidate over the male (although he's aware of this bias and doesn't actually make unfair decisions). If a heterosexual couple that he doesn't know well (e.g., friends of friends or people on a reality TV show that he walked in on) is arguing, he's going to assume the woman is in the right until presented with irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

In Scenario 1, there's like a 55% chance that I'd choose a male stranger to hang with. In Scenario 2, my gut is equally biased against both candidates until one of them proves me wrong. In Scenario 3...this is where it gets tricky.

See, I realized something a couple of weeks ago: I have a core belief that deep down, men are fundamentally dumb and fragile. I also have a core belief that deep down, women are fundamentally savvy and tough. Because of this, I seem to have an infinite supply of sympathy and grace for men, and absolutely zero for women. Like it's the women's job to take care of the stupid men because they can. With great power comes great responsibility XD

If a man is sad in a relationship, how dare the woman have made him feel that way*. She should know he's pitiful and fragile and protect him. If a woman is sad in a relationship, she's probably fine; she's tough enough to get over it, and smart enough that honestly she should've known better than to let herself get into that situation. If a man does something "wrong" in a relationship, it's probably because he's dumb and oblivious and a slow learner and maybe emotionally stunted. If a woman does something "wrong" in a relationship, it was intentional and unacceptable because she knew EXACTLY what she was doing. I try to be very careful not to hurt guys' feelings. I assume girls will be fine.

*let's that sit there for a second*

Yeah. I hear it. I hate it too. I don't know where this core belief comes from and I know I need to work on it. Maybe it's because I AM a girl and I know firsthand that I'm savvy and tough? I just think the world is a giant showcase of women being stronger and smarter, but like, I don't want to say that because what if it makes the guys sad? XD

The funny thing is, Gabe actually shares the exact same belief, he just thinks it's the men's problem and women shouldn't have to deal with it. Yes, men are stupid; that's why he prefers women. Yes, men are stupid; that's why things are probably their fault.

What does this mean? Well, on a personal level, it means that I've let men treat me much worse than I would let women treat me.

"Yeah. Sigh." I once texted Cassidy about a male who had crossed an emotional boundary I had worked hard to set clearly. "He's, like, dumb and arrogant, but he isn't malicious."

Her reply: "I don't think you'd tolerate this nonsense from a female XD"

And she's for sure correct.

Again, what does this mean? I don't really know, except that recognizing my bias is a step toward...toward what? Giving women more grace? Refusing to excuse rude and ridiculous behavior from men? Probably both.

The older I get the more things I have to evaluate. Life these days is a series of firm beliefs turning to loosely held ideas that get thrown into triage on their way to being deconstructed and—hopefully—rebuilt into something closer to the truth.

~Stephanie

* I know we're all responsible for our own emotions and no one can "make" someone else feel a certain way.

Society and Cynicism

I've been thinking about this idea for a long time, like years. It's a little saltier than I usually care to be here, but I'm ready to get these thoughts "onto paper" and out of my brain.

I saw a video today about rest. A YouTuber had recently been bed-ridden for five days due to sickness, and the experience reminded her of the importance of rest—not just when you've finished something or had a period of high achievement, but as a part of regular life. You don't have to "earn" rest.

I think this resonates with a lot of people...but only on a surface level. We don't actually believe it. In fact, we hate people who operate like this. If someone we perceive as lazy or underachieving takes a Saturday to lie around, we roll our eyes and judge them. If someone says No to plans just because they want to do nothing instead, we react with puzzled, even offended, disapproval. All righty then.

If you have surgery or get injured, you are expected to push your limits. You're expected to require friends and family to exclaim, "Now, stop that! The doctor told you to take it easy!" If you actually did take it easy—refused to lift heavy things, stayed home from work, lay on the couch, stayed off the foot—then people would accuse you of milking the situation, or at the very least think that you were taking the doctor's orders a little too seriously. We demand that people push themselves just so we can tsk at them, while secretly being proud or taking it for granted that they will ignore rest.

There's a lot of talk in the world about believing you're beautiful and body positivity, but we only push this type of thinking for people who are ugly or overweight. If a pretty, thin girl conducts herself like she's beautiful, she's "conceited" or "vain." We push loving oneself, but mostly as a form of pity or condescension. We don't actually mean it in every case.

Now, maybe this is just me projecting. Maybe you are putting your beliefs where you mouth is and your social circles really do want people to rest and think they're beautiful. It's very possible that I'm just cynical. I have very little patience for perceived hypocrisy. I would much rather people say what they mean even if it comes across as heartless than have people champion things just because they think they should. I wish I could be sure of what people say.

But maybe society's "faking it" is the first step toward its being reality? Maybe if we fake-support resting and recovering and loving ourselves, eventually it'll become true, especially for future generations. In general, that's not a bad strategy.* Don't feel brave? Do it scared and fake it. Don't feel confident? Fix your posture and fake it. Don't feel like worshipping? Put your hands up and fake it. Best case scenario, things flow from the heart, but realistically? Sometimes we have to fake it and let the universe meet us halfway.

If that's what's happening with society's disingenuous support of rest etc. then maybe I can get on board. But in the meantime, I see through you, Society! You're not fooling me. I know you secretly love it when people work til they're burnt out and act insecure about their appearances.

I see you.

~Stephanie

* says the girl who just talked about hating hypocrisy. What can I say, I have an asterisk tattoo for a reason.

Hot Tub Bass Transformational Evidence: Processing the Beach Trip

I get really overwhelmed by good memories. But I'm going to ATTEMPT to process and record at least a bit. This post will be long and basically just a journal entry for me because typing is so much faster than handwriting. I'll probably share it anyway, but I'll include headings in case you're not interested in reading a pure journal entry XD

In this essay I will...

- Explain what the beach trip was
- Record (or at least suggest to myself) some specific memories I want to remember
- Talk about how weird it is being back to normal life
- Remind myself of an important truth that occurred

What was this trip?
Yesterday, we got back from my 30th Birthday Beach Trip, a dream that has been in the works for about eighteen months. I have been blessed with some DYNAMITE, SOUL-CONNECTION friends, however...a lot of them live super far away. Like, Florida, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia*. Summer of 2022, I had the idea of getting all my far-flung best friends together for a week at the beach. I threw out the idea and started texting everyone every few months being like, "And don't forget, February of 2024 if you're available..."

Well, we did it, with the tragic exceptions of Original Fire Faery Ellie from Florida (thanks, Covid) and First Blogger Best Friend Jordan (thanks, being an adult and having responsibilities). I know this trip would have been even more incredible with y'all on it, so we're gonna have to do it again. Love and missed y'all so much!

Some Memories and Moments
The majority of the trip was just chilling. We watched TV shows (Jury Duty, Modern Family, Raising Hope) and movies (Disney's Robin Hood [adorable], Behind the Curve [hilarious], Horrible Bosses [classic], Airplane [educational...?], Tangled [nostalgic], Prince of Egypt [epic]). We read (I finished a book that Cassidy had let me borrow and started another one that she brought for me), did crossword puzzles (well, I leaned over Gabe's shoulder and offered limited but accurate help), did daily games like Connections, Wordle, Quordle, and Octordle. We also played games like The Voting Game (among other things, I was voted most likely to win the lottery but lose the ticket, and most likely to have had "No" as her first word), Hot Seat, Love Letter, Star Wars Imperial Assault**, Wavelength (Star Wars is fantasy, not Sci-Fi?), and Fishbowl.

We also talked, a LOT. These people know the way to my heart is asking dumb crap like, "Would you still love me if I were a lamp?" and seeing what happens. In that particular case, what happened was a discussion of if you had to turned into a sentient but immobile object for ten years, what object would you want to be (some answers were a stuffed animal [Cassidy], a blanket [Aaron], or something useful like a computer [Ryan])? Which led to would YOU rather be a sentient but immobile object for ten years or would you rather your PARTNER be the object?

Such random games of Would You Rather persisted throughout the week whenever there was a lull, and occasionally they wandered instead into How Much Would It Take, where we asked each other how much money we'd require to do ridiculous things, like let a stranger touch your bellybutton (complete with a noodling sound effect, to which Stephen would always reply, "What was that?"), French kiss a dromedary (you need to Google "dromedary tongue" right now), only be allowed to poop outside for two weeks, eat a live cockroach, give up the internet, put a pigeon in your mouth, etc. All of these questions required lots of debate and qualifications (Is the pigeon alive? Yes, but gently sedated. Is it diseased? No, it is healthy; you will not contract any illnesses from the pigeon. Are you picturing putting it in your mouth head first, butt first, or wing first?)

At one point (late at night, only me, Alicia, Cassidy, and Aaron were still up), the questions led to the fact that I think baths are gross because I don't like the idea of putting my bare skin against basically a wet floor. Cassidy pointed out that that's what we'd been doing in the hot tub the night before, albeit it with bathing suits on. That led to a brief silence, which led to me sharing a bucket list item of mine, which led to us braving a spider-guarded electrical box to heat up the hot tub at 1am, which led to said bucket list item being checked off. (Aaron tastefully remained upstairs until we returned a suspicious hour later.)

As silly as it was, the adrenaline-spiked fun of doing something even slightly risky with two of your best girl friends in the wee hours of the morning is a special kind of elation. These girls are genuinely my soul-mates. Cassidy has been a source of love and support*** through all of the worst times of my life, sticking by me when I was a version of myself that I personally would never forgive. Alicia and I share the unique bond of two strangers who were thrust together in a Spanish-only-speaking home in Spain for three days, and subsequently cried in front of each other and braided hair and wandered Europe relatively unsupervised.

Post hot tub event at the beach, I was grinning like an idiot and my skin tingled like it was carbonated as I tried to go to sleep. One of the top ten happiest times of my life. I was unreasonably happy, deep down in my soul.

At one point during the trip, I texted Cassidy, "I literally feel like I can breathe easier with all y'all around. Like this trip is contributing to my physical health."

I also sent a text that said, "Me in this car with the bass = Joey about to watch the movie that has Ursula instead of Phoebe in it: 'I'm so happy,'" which will only make sense if you're a huge Friends fan, and leads me to another top moment of the trip: riding in Bumblebee with Aaron.

For the fifteen or so years I've known Aaron, his dream car has been a Camaro. I used to take pictures of Camaros with my crappy slide-keyboard cellphone and send them to him. Well, last summer, Aaron finally got his Camaro, and not just any Camaro, but the *doesn't remember any specifics about the year etc. but it's apparently the exact one that is Bumblebee from Transformers? If you know, you know, and if you don't, you now know enough*.

But it's, like, not just the fact that I was riding in a car that we used to dream about. It's that I was in the car with the OLDER BROTHER I adopted over the internet when I was fifteen, who has shaped who I am today, whom I trust to drive me places in a sick car, and also: the car's bass was amazing, which...I'm pretty sure me with bass music is a lot of people on actual drugs. The combination of "wait, I feel so safe and loved?!" + "holy sh*t this car is cool" + "I can feel the bass vibrating my organs" = I don't even have words. An unreal time. (In exchange, he got a thoroughly authentic little sister experience because not only was I like, "Hey can you drive somewhere?" but I also brought no money for the boba tea I wanted, then I spilled it in his car, right before I realized I had lost my phone and had to go back into the tea shop to look for it, but it wasn't there, it was actually under my car seat. So. Really just a winning experience for everyone.)

It's also always a good day when I don't have to be the first person to ask a group, "So, did anyone have weird dreams last night?" Alicia had that covered for me.

Weird Being Back
I'm doing my best, but I don't know if it's possible to explain how incredibly good the trip was for me. *sits and stares at the computer* Yeah, I don't know what else I can say. It was one long dream come true. It was transformative.

Or was it?

I'm sure most people have experienced this feeling at some point. You go on an amazing trip or have a really meaningful night with someone or...I don't know, something BIG and AWESOME happens, but then...

You go home. The night ends. The moment passes.

It affected your soul, so you feel like everything should be different afterward, but your house still looks the same and your job still exists and you're alone again and...it's like the Amazing Experience happened on a separate plane of existence and now you're back in the real world and everything is...kind of the same? How can that be? How can it be over and in the past and life picks up as it was?

I don't know what to do with myself now. I don't know how to live regular life after being THAT happy and fulfilled. The trip has convinced me that there's another quality of life out there, life with more love and more people and more happiness and more kindness and more fun, but...how do I make a change? What do I need to do to live in deeper and more incarnate community? How can I love people better and be around them more? What do I need to DO?

I don't feel like I can go back to living so shallow and unfulfilled after a trip like that, but I'm also afraid that my depression is gonna kneecap me and keep me from making the changes necessary to live better. Or if not my depression my...allergy to vulnerability. Living in deep community takes courage because you have to be vulnerable. For the beach trip, I basically invited all the people with whom I'm already comfortable being vulnerable, but—as I've said—they are the people I DON'T get to do life with. Some of them live half and whole countries away from me. If I want to live deeper and better in my everyday life, I'm gonna have to learn how to be vulnerable with new people, and that thought makes me a little nauseous. But clearly, based on the beach trip, it can be so worth it. But I have to be so brave first.

An Important Truth
While riding in Bumblebee with Aaron, grinning like an IDIOT while my hand vibrated against the armrest, knowing that Gabe and Cass and Alicia would be home when we returned, I had a thought:

These are some of the best days of my entire life, and I would've missed them if I had let my depression win.

I've heard the quote that says something to the effect of, "When you're sad, remember that some of the best days of your life are still to come." But trying to believe that and EXPERIENCING it are two completely different things.

The fact that if I had given up when I was afraid I would never be happy again, I would have missed Hot Tub Bucket List At 1am and Bass Music With My Older Brother was a sobering and deeply joyful realization. Not gonna lie, I teared up in the car.

And then to think that maybe there are STILL some best days to come is a hope that feels like it might sustain me. When I feel sad and hopeless, I can use the beach trip as empirical evidence that even after pitch darkness, there can be blinding, so-worth-the-wait light. I know there's value in being present and not living for the weekend or for the future, but sometimes, in the midst of depression, living for the future is the way to go. It might suck now, but it'll be worth it again one day. There is real hope that there are more Beach Trip Days in my future, and that is an encouraging thought.

~ Stephanie

* Well, Virginia is only like an hour away, but STILL.

** And by "we" I mean "the four guys played, while the three girls sat in the hot tub and talked about The Last House on Needless Street, ACOTAR, and The Fire Faery Story"

*** And humor, wisdom, devil's advocate, shoulder to cry on, animal knowledge, learning to see multiple sides of an issue, logic, sarcasm, etc.