i can't go back to being a shell of myself i'm sorry (Patreon)

Sorry, once again I'm not gonna make my arbitrary deadline. I really wanted to publish another video before the end of the month so I tried. Last night I was way too out of it. Tonight I filmed one and as per usual, I hate everything about it. You know I like my videos to be just right and this one was just all kinds of wrong. I decided to try something different and did my makeup to look like a fae - and ended up looking straight up exactly like another artist. 

Remind you of anyone?

That face looks better on her than me though. Second of all - I'm just so terrible at being a light character lol. It genuinely makes me laugh because people want me to be fluffy and happy and a cute girlfriend or angel - but I just can't pull it off anymore. I don't know how I did it years ago but things happened and I'm nowhere near the same person I was then and positivity doesn't suit me. I'm clearly going through a period of extreme change and it's like I lost the ability to do the things I did for like years.

Let me tell you a little story.

One Halloween, I must have been seventeen... Or sixteen, I'm not sure? I could only gauge by how bad my anorexia was at the time. I decided to dress up as a fairy. I embraced the concept of being the opposite of what you are the rest of the year and decided to be a light creature for just one night and spew rainbows and glitter all over the fucking place. My best friend and her then boyfriend (who was like the worst person ever) and I went trick or treating and yes, I was a bit old to go from door to door but it's ok, I haven't really grown since I was like 12. Gee, I wonder why. I figured I could totally pull off a fairy costume and look 11, tops. I put on the exact shirt I've worn today, which still fits. Plus either a white or lavender skirt and I had a little wand that I used to hypnotize everyone into giving me their candy. After about an hour getting into character and another hour walking up and down the street, I ran out of positivity. I'm not even exaggerating, I literally crashed from pretending to be happy and cheery for two hours because it's just so exhausting. Even though I was used to pretending, maybe not to that extent, it wore me out because inside I was still depressed. 

Nothing much has changed about that. That must be why I'm so pissed off at people who want me to "go back to being Rena" and make happy fluffy videos - because I just can't. And also because fuck their conditional approval. I've had more than my fair share of "I only accept you when you're a sweet little angel and make me happy" in childhood. I want to revise what I said above, I think it's more that I've changed and I've just been trying to do the same things I used to when I was different and it's not working anymore. I'm trying to adjust but I'm still confused as to what I need to change to make me not hate what I do. Sometimes it works out and that's the videos you see because every single one obviously was good enough to publish. And sometimes everything just feels so wrong and awkward and I feel like I'm the only one who notices because people seem to praise the things I cannot stand. In tonight's video I just hate so many things. How I look, how I act, how boring the video is, how mainstream the overall image is, how short it is, how grainy the picture is, how I can't get the lighting quite right, how it's not realistic and not impressive enough. If you can tell from the picture, I spent the whole day trying to set up this little corner to look like woods in the background and the fixture that holds the lamp above to somewhat mimic daylight could literally fall apart any moment. It's still not good enough. I tried to spread cheery spring vibes which was a nice idea. The problem? Me. I'm not a cheery person. 

Oh my, I'm rambling again. To all the new patrons who joined this month, welcome and I promise you I'm always like this. What you see is what you get. Things kind of never work out as intended.

Thank you for your support this month and I'm not gonna try any less hard to create more wonderful videos next month. One thing I'm looking forward to doing, if I'm still above my first goal after the monthly turnover, is finally supporting other artists who deserve it. I haven't said anything because I didn't wanna jinx my luck and I also didn't wanna pledge to a bunch of people right away on the odds that half my patrons would delete their pledges and I'd end up with a huge net loss that would put my moving plans in jeopardy. I'm just so blessed to have all of you supporting me and making it relatively easy to start a new, much happier life. Of course I'm also happy my videos help you so much and it makes me a little bit glad for what I spend most my time doing when you tell me what an impact my roleplays have had on you. But this is the first time I've let myself want something so big and worked towards getting there so I'm excited and I'm happy about any progress and any help along the way. 

You know, adults in my life and sometimes even complete strangers often try to tell me I'm making a huge mistake and I don't know what I'm doing which is not surprising given this was my entire childhood. It's like people just won't trust me with my own life. But I've never wanted something so bad and I know I'll regret it if I don't go. It still hurts cause who likes being made to feel like they can't trust their own heart. But this time I just know they're wrong. People like to project what they want to see in me and pretend they know me better than I know myself but I'd argue that living with myself, I have a way better idea of who I am than they do. Even if it's not much, still better than a projection. I remember in 3rd grade we started learning English words for the first time and I've always loved it and it made sense. I soaked it all up like a sponge. It's like part of me knew back then that my home was not the place I was born. Each child is born with their own destiny which is often different from their parents. I'm not intimidated anymore. My home is waiting for me halfway around the globe. And I'll be on my way as soon as I can. 

//Ally