I left here for maybe a decade, just peeking in from time to time. I had tricked myself into thinking it was because there was less activity, or I had lost interest, or whatever other easy lie. The truth is, some of my favorite people were gone. Some of my best friends at the time left and never came back. I never mourned enough. I just rewrote history and tried to move on.

I've been thinking a lot about ephemerality lately. It's terrible and I hate it. My partner believes we'll truly become immortal in this lifetime. She has to, I guess. I have to. All of this lying to myself has created huge fucking holes in my memory, like I didn't exist for at least a third of my life. So many things have been created and destroyed just in my time. I fixate more on internet communities and websites and fun little art things that came and went, because no matter how sad that makes me, it's easier than mourning people. Then, it's easier to believe people just moved on and maybe forgot about me, than to think that they died. There's a decent subset of people no longer in my life who could be either alive or dead, and that uncertainty is comforting. They might not be dead.

I keep telling myself that I'm supposed to treasure the memories I had, but they're nigh impossible to dig out. I usually dissociate away anything more than two feet or 24 hours. This is probably the healthiest I've ever been mentally. Look at the number of Is. Look at the lack of lucidity, the difficulty in looking past this tiny orb around myself. I can't possibly make peace with impermanence. I'm the kind of idiot they invented religion for.

I can only barely remember what I miss: the feelings of connection to someone I related to, the feeling of belonging somewhere. I have that now, don't I? Why doesn't it feel like it? Did it feel like it back then? What if it didn't, and I can only appreciate relationships years after they're over? What if I do appreciate things, but not when I'm in the middle of days-long mental spirals, and I'm constantly blaming myself for behaviors beyond my control instead of just emailing my therapist? ...Nah

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