riyah

so i’ve been obsessed with looking at houses on zillow or redfin or whatever other site exists. it started when i moved in with my brother and lost my childhood home. maybe it’s a coping mechanism. maybe it’s just delusion. i keep telling myself—one day, that’s going to be my future. i’ll get a home of my own. just me, my dad, my younger sister, and our two cats. that’s it. that’s the dream.

it’s all i talk about with my sister now. different cities. states. sometimes even other countries. i go through phases where i get completely obsessed, convinced that if i just move there, everything will get better. everything will finally start over.

in 2020, right after we lost the house, it was oregon. that one made sense—my dad’s side of the family lives there, and we used to visit a lot in the summer. it’s close enough to california that it felt familiar, but better. quieter. people were nicer, even in bigger towns like medford. when my dad went up there this past october, a dialysis nurse literally drove him to his hotel when he got lost. personally drove him. that would never happen here. not at his regular home dialysis. that kind of kindness... that kind of neighborly-ness. i love it. i long for it. i still do. but i can’t imagine living there now. not without him. everything would remind me of him, and i don’t think i’d survive that. not really.

then in 2021, it was washington. all because i stumbled across this youtuber, becky acre homestead. and she had my dream life, really. aussie shepherds, backyard chickens, a garden full of real food, canning her own jams, a seemingly perfect quiet life with her husband and parents. it felt so stable. so safe. and one of my sisters lives in washington, though on the opposite side of the state from what i dreamed about, but still. someone familiar. someone there. i think i held onto that for a while before letting it go. slowly. quietly. like everything else.

now it’s new england. and this one's lasted longer than the others. over a year now. i don’t even know how it started. maybe i googled “safest states” or something. that is always my top priority. but i got stuck on new hampshire. i can’t stop thinking about it. it’s so different from what i’m used to, but in this weird way, it reminds me of being a kid. like when the leaves on our trees still turned orange. like when the rain would flood the school pavement and my shoes would get soaked, and my dad would stuff them with newspaper and put them in front of the heater.

i think i’d love it there. i know my dad would’ve. i think about taking him fishing. to the mountains. maybe even camping. i pretend sometimes, when i’m in one of my moods (which is most days), that everything’s fine. that he’s still coming with us.

i know that’s not healthy.

right now i’m hooked on houses with guest houses. the kind just a few feet from the main house. and i don’t even know why. it’s not like we’d need it. if i move, it’ll just be me and my younger sister. that’s it. no big, happy family to fill the rooms. no full dinner table. just the two of us.

and it’s funny. because all i do is complain about my older siblings. how much i want to get away from them. and that’s true. that’s still true. it’s part of why i love new england—none of them live even remotely close to it. but there’s this twisted little part of me that hopes... maybe they’ll see us move. maybe they’ll get jealous. maybe they’ll miss us.

and they’ll follow.

and we’d be a family again. maybe they’d live just a few blocks away and drop by without calling. maybe i’d finally be the one who hosts things. the one who has something to offer. the provider. an adult. not the burden. a peer. a person.

but 95% chance that never happens. they all have their own families now. roots cemented in california. my oldest sister is well off, she’s not leaving. my brother might, maybe, but his kid’s just starting high school. he’s not gonna rip that away just because i moved.

i think that’s how lonely i am.

even the people who make me feel like shit... the ones who pushed me toward this escape fantasy in the first place... i still want them with me. i still have this deep, weird hope that they'll come, too.

i don’t know what that says about me.

i just know it’s probably not good.

i feel like some of them might contradict each other, but at the same time it all somehow feels cohesive?? it’s just fun to compare it to my sister’s list of celebrity crushes, since she’s into a more androgynous(?) type of guy—like miyavi and owen teague. (not a bad thing at all!) i think i’m just more surprised by myself, since lately i’ve taken a real liking to beards. like… all of the men above somehow look way prettier to me with facial hair?? it softens their look, i think, which is funny because you’d expect the opposite. also, they all have such expressive, pretty eyes. especially manish… he’s so puppy. honestly, a lot of them feel more traditionally masculine than the guys i used to crush on, at least by my own standards. but i guess i should've expected that like duhhhh, we’re all older now.
 

i know this is so random and weird, i’m sorry, but my new favorite hobby is psychoanalyzing myself. so i guess i’m trying to figure out what kind of men i’m drawn to... and maybe even who i could attract?? idk. i know it’s not that deep lol.

idk, i just find it interesting, and honestly kind of fun, to think about. so much so that i made a little post about it, since it reminded me that i’ve grown so much and that my taste has definitely evolved. i know it sounds silly, but for some reason i can rant about super personal stuff with family, and yet when it comes to celebrity crushes, that’s where i suddenly get shy and worry people will think i’m weird lol.

but also maybe it is a little deep, because i think i’ve been feeling really touch-starved lately. like, i’ve never really minded being “single” before, but now it’s like... god, i need to get myself a man. or a girl, honestly. i’d prefer a girlfriend tbh... but that feels even harder sometimes. i just want softness and closeness and someone to lean into.

anyways, i need to lock in and find my own nicholas alexander chavez... preferably soon.

I think I have some form of insomnia. I can’t sleep until early in the morning now, like around 6 or 7 a.m., so I end up waking up in the afternoon, usually around 1 or 2. I know it’s annoying my brother and probably making him mad. I’m surprised he hasn’t actually scolded me yet, though he’s made a few small comments. I just can’t fall asleep at night. Part of it is because I’m stressing over the light. He has this weird thing, kind of a power trip, about the electricity. He swears his high bill is because of the low-wattage LED lights, not the fact that he runs the AC 24/7.

So now, he won’t turn on the security light outside when it gets dark, and that makes me incredibly anxious. It looks like no one’s home or awake at night, and we don’t live in a good neighborhood. It feels like we’re the perfect target. I used to turn the light back on right after he went to bed, but sometimes he’d come back downstairs and see it was on. Then he’d slam it off and do that aggravating passive-aggressive sigh.

Now I’ve figured out this ridiculous routine: I turn it on at 11 p.m. and stay up until 3:30, since that’s when he comes downstairs to get ready for work. I switch it off just before he comes down so he won’t see it was on all night. Then I wait until he actually leaves, around 4:30, and turn it back on. It’s exhausting, and I feel kind of insane. I probably am. I know he knows I like the light on. There have been a couple times I forgot to turn it off, and he came down and slammed it off again, same passive-aggressive vibe. And I know if I try to explain why I want it on, he would just launch into some “you need to stop being so scared of the world” lecture. Anyway, all that to say, I’m not getting good sleep.

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My sister was supposed to go to a KBBQ place today with someone she met on Bumble BFF. I was honestly worried, she just met this girl, and like… how do you even know if it’s actually a 20-year-old girl, you know? But she’d just call me controlling and paranoid, and… I mean, I am both of those things, so I kept my mouth shut. She ended up canceling anyway. I guess the nerves got to her.

But last night she was really stressing about it, especially because she can’t use chopsticks. She was talking to my brother and kind of joked that she hoped that meme is true, the one about them giving you a fork if you’re non-Asian/White. And he got all defensive and rude, strongly implying it was racist toward white people. Soooo, yeah. He is so exhausting to talk to. It just makes me uncomfortable. We’re completely different people, with totally different outlooks on life, politics, ideologies, and morals.

I remember when my sister got into The Fight with him, she told him she doesn’t feel safe opening up to him, and I get that now. Like, even if it’s a small, stupid worry about not being able to use chopsticks, he gets this really rude tone and talks like she’s stupid. It feels like he wants to argue, like he just has to disagree with any opinion we have. He’s so incredibly defensive. And I don’t know why that offended him so much… or I do… but I won’t get into that.

He just makes it so hard to talk to him. I don’t know if he even really knows that or registers the tones he gives us. But then I feel like he has to, since he doesn’t talk to our eldest sister like this. At all. I know if she were the one to make that comment, he wouldn’t act like that.

I’m so sick of the way this family treats me and my younger sister. We’re really the black sheep. And we’re in this weird stage where we were born 10+ years after all our older half-siblings, but we’re also like 10 years older than most of the nieces and nephews. I feel like we were just born at the worst time. We’re treated like we’re still kids, but also like we’re 30-year-olds, all at the same time. It’s isolating.

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Okay, that’s enough ranting. It’s getting soooo hot now. I have a love/hate relationship with summer. I’ve been daydreaming about going to the pool, but I don’t have any bathing suits and I’m definitely not confident enough to wear even a one-piece. I’m trying to work on that, though. I’m finally eating healthier and getting more exercise. I seem to always do that when summer comes around.

I made a batch of black bean burgers yesterday, and they’re sooo good, filling, and pretty healthy. It’s been kind of easy to slip back into my old dieting habits, but I’m trying to be at least a little healthier this time. Also, I’ve been craving bibimmyeon for years now whenever summer comes around, ever since I watched NCT Dream make it on that one variety show. It just looks so refreshing. I want to try getting it on Amazon, but the shipping…

Anyway, I need to hang this up in a bit since I desperately need to take a shower. That’s been harder lately, not gonna lie... but I guess the exercise and warmer weather help, since now I kind of have to shower every day just to get the muskiness off my skin.

I got a new hair oil too, but my sister said it’s caused some people to lose hair, which is the opposite of what I want… so I guess I’ll just stick with my tea tree shampoo and conditioner.

After the shower, I’m gonna make a nice drink. Maybe another frozen hot chocolate or a dalgona coffee, since I still have one packet left of the Korean instant coffee I got as a Christmas gift.