Author Archives: carter

take it with a grain of salt

12 was a bad age for me. a bad year. it seeped into most of the next year, and took over a good chunk of 14. the week of my 14th birthday i was at my worst. i spent 36 hours in the ER. i had deep conversations with the guy monitoring me when i was on watch, and i read 3 of my now favorite books. for a week or so after i didnt have a phone. i spent all day eating ice cream or at the park with a 21 year old who my mom was fucking, and whos car smelled like weed. he was cool. i still think about him sometimes. that wasnt a good part of my life. and it hasn’t really been that long since then. once, when i was 12 (no good sentence starts with that), i tried to pick a mole out of my skin. it left a scar bigger than the mole itself. another time, i sat on the bathroom floor crying with my mom because i couldn’t get in the shower. im not sure why. i couldnt look at my body without throwing up. i couldnt stand under the water without feeling like i was going to pass out. and it didn’t get better for a long time. my mom was all i had, in the entire world. she was the only person i saw during the pandemic, too. just me and her. and she was my only support system. for a while i hated her. i hated her more than myself, which wasn’t really fair. then i tolerated her. but in the end, she was always there. and nobody else was. i dont know which part was harder to accept

because she read what i wrote about her. i have nothing else to say, thats it

food grosses me out. i have a hard time eating leftovers, or foods that i don’t like the smell of. i dont like sharing foods or drinks and i cant eat food thats been in my fridge for too long even if its not expired. im not entirely sure why. i just hate food. the only foods i dont hate are lunchables and bagels but they have to be new. the lunchables have to be newly bought from the store and the bagels have to be fresh from the bagel place i stop at on tuesdays before school. i feel like other people are annoyed with this. that sometimes i like food and sometimes i dont and that if i share with them i cant eat it anymore. i dont know why im thinking about this at 1:30 in the morning. i should probably sleep. i dont know. also my phone keeps suggesting things in german. im tired. ok good night.

death doesn’t scare me how it used to. i think that if i was dying, in the moment id probably be terrified. would it hurt? what would happen to everything after im gone? but i think life would move on just fine without me. i know my friends and family would be sad, but they’d be fine. death is inevitable and ive found that it’s pointless to get upset over something like our mortality. but i love living, for the first time in a while, and i dont want to stop living any time soon.

there are 5 stages of grief. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. i’ve had the last half year to process what happened with my mom, and i still haven’t gotten past part one yet. i feel inclined to mention my mother is also not dead, things have just changed between us. i make jokes about it all the time, most of them somewhat resembling the dad/milk jokes. but my situation is different than that. its not even all that much more complicated, it’s just harder to accept. i left my mom. not the other way around. i didnt really leave much behind with her. i didnt have that many friends in new york, where i lived with my mother, and i didn’t have that much stuff i wanted to keep when i moved out. just a box that she says she’s mailed multiple times but i doubt has left her living room. my mom is a great person. she’s fun and energetic and alive. and she’s not afraid to say what she’s thinking even if it makes me cringe or not want to be seen with her in public. and i admire that about her. but she isn’t a great mom. she likes to think she is. shed be a great older sister, or aunt or godmother, but she wasn’t the parent i needed growing up. she was like a kid, growing up with me instead of helping me grow up. she was irresponsible and immature and she couldn’t keep things to herself. she had bad taste in guys and i dont think ill ever move past that. she spent money irresponsibly and has strong opinions on things like traditional medicine. which wasn’t great considering she had a child dealing with a multitude of mental problems at the ripe old age of 13. she got mad a lot, and even though she would never think of laying a hand on me, screaming matches became part of our daily routine. and i was an asshole too. we brought our the worst in eachother. i called her a bad mom and she called me manipulative and we’d both think about it for weeks after and we were both right. and that part really sucks. i was my least favorite version of myself around my mom. and we’re both so much happier now that we haven’t seen eachother in months. i guess some relationships just aren’t meant to work out. but i really wish ours did. so here’s to anger.

we’ve literally created a false reality. we think blueberries are good and sweet and occasionally they are, but the majority of the time they’re sour and bad. but we keep eating them hoping they’ll be good. they never are. the “good blueberry” doesn’t exist. its a lie. blueberries are a lie.

i just thought i should share this with the world.

i haven’t slept in 2 days.

intense longing or grief.

i miss my sister. she’s not dead, don’t worry. she just lives on the opposite side of the country and i don’t see her as much as i want to. she turned six on march 12 (happy birthday Eleanor!) but i haven’t seen her since Christmas. and although i’m going to see her soon, over spring break, i don’t think theres a moment that will go by before or after i’m with her when i don’t miss her. i only lived with her for two years, and even then it wasn’t full time. we have different moms and there was a time when neither of us lived with the parent we shared. and even though those two years will always be in my memory, i doubt they’ll be in hers. i’m just not ready to accept that i will never be as big a part of her life as i want to be. as i should be. i’m her brother, there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t wish i could come home from school every day and give her a hug. but ill never be able to do that. sometimes when i’m more upset about this than usual i try to find someone to blame. i’m mad at her mom, for moving away from me and away from my dad and not letting me have the childhood i wanted with her. but it really isn’t her fault. i don’t know what i expected her to do. shes young, she deserves her own life without having to worry about her kids brother’s feelings. so then i turn to my dad. i didn’t have enough time with Eleanor before he moved away, and she moved with him. i was in 5th grade and i wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her. or him. no face-time or card or paper heart could ever make up for what he took away from me. even though now, years later, i’m living with him again, its not the same as before. and i cant get back the years i lost. i’m probably still mad at him for that. i definitely am. but i cant blame him for me not being with my sister right now. it was just an unfortunate chain of events. things i regret.