I don't think I need to wait any longer to announce— 2025 has sucked dead monkey balls.
I used to think the year my grandparents died respectively were possibly the toughest years of my life. I don't quite remember the years exactly but losing two grandparents in the years when I was a teenager shaped a big part of my life outside school, and probably inside there too. By the end of it, I was counting days for school to end and to start a new life. Then, it hit again, in 2020. I lost my grandfather among other things including full-time employment.
Then, why is it that I'm equating a year like 2020 when the shit hit the roof with one like this? Half a decade ago, I knew this career option was closing in on me and ending and yet, the grief was short-term. Why me and what did I do to deserve this? Today, there is grief- long-standing, physically painful and mentally given up.
In a lot of ways, I see patterns repeating from 2019-'20 in my life today, there is an ending in the corner. One with this job, with the career I nurtured and the person I became. I'm probably mourning all of it while balancing the pain of coping through the trauma these have afflicted. The employment situation has let me down tremendously. A gross act of betrayal, if and when I get the courage to open this pandora's box. I haven't spoken to my therapist in months and I suspect the day I do, I'll probably be referred to a psych and depression medicines because we anticipated I'll reach here and in a way, my worst fears have become my very reality.
Sooner or later, this trickles into personal life as it did over the last few years. First there were friends, then there were dates, then the hobbies, everything has seen the exit in me trying to survive this shitshow. I live with a constant headache, my mouth parched and tears swelling my eyes at all times. I don't deserve this. I deserve to be happy.
The other day I got to a point of trying to have a day dream, what would my perfect day look like.
I couldn't.
I couldn't come up with visuals, words, images. Imagination was lost on me. I just couldn't get myself to think what would a day look like when I'm truly happy and genuinely enjoying myself. Clearly, shopping myself out of grief has stopped working. Buying 3 gold bracelets, a book, a flower subscription and taking myself for desserts and films has done nothing for me in the last 30 days.
I wonder if the girl at 15 who felt she had no plan in the future or no clue how to live her life would be scared to see where she is at 33 or be proud that we survived. I had hope in all those shitty years, hope that life looks better and gets better, and it truly did.
For some reason, life feels out of hope.
All of this, I was able to put forth with a single kernel of thought—VH1 is shutting down.
Last year, on my birthday vacation, I checked myself into a room in the seedy tropics and watched MTV on repeat high out of my mind. I drank Pepsi Blue, survived cramps after edibles and ate on the bed like no tomorrow, all because I could see MTV back to back.
Somehow everything going to shit in the last 60 days or so didn't break me down enough to write about it all, till VH-1's departure did.
VH-1 was my ride or die through school. I saw it knowing I've an ailing grandparent at home. I saw it through my well earned study breaks and felt I belonged in a world different from the one I was physically living in. It gave me hope in my darkest days at the time.
And today, it's probably the last nail in the coffin of me feeling hopelessly alone and tirelessly worn out. Instead, those who brought me here won this round.
Somehow everything about this job and state of affairs feels eerily similar to school, politics and tenth grade bullshit. I am reminded of living life through the lens of playing minesweeper with my academics and people I was forced to reckon with. None of it feels remotely safe or nurturing except being at home and placed in front of the TV set. Admittedly, there's no VH-1 but there is that telly, there is a sofa set and thar's probably the only thing keeping me going.
These two months have been the hardest I've dealt with so far, to the point I can see it greying and slowing me down. My metabolism is at an all time low and the fight to survive is dead.
Most days I've thought of dark things, of easy ways out of this misery and then numbing myself and those thoughts with a mindless purchase or deep endless scroll in the pits of the internet. I've stooped low and I know what it's like so I know I'm scratching the rock bottom and asking for help, I'm knocking the thin covering and begging myself to be taken out of this cause there's only so much I can take in the name of doing the right thing and waiting for results to take shape.
First step to recovery is admitting you need help. Here I am.
2025 you suck balls and I will need all the help I can to survive and outlast you.
