killing bad habits + THE KIDNAPPING INCIDENT
Posted on: 2023-11-28 00:00:00
Tags: stories
I had something click in my head where I finally stopped expecting the worst outcome in most situations. I spent a good portion of my childhood believing I would do fantastic things, but as my mental illness set in, I began to feel great disappoint and disgust with everything around me. At some point, I followed stoicism in order to prevent myself from feeling disappointment and then later, I started doing what I called "negative affirmations" which was expecting the worst of everything I do in order to avoid disappointment. I never truly stopped this habit. I expected the worst from tests, I expected to drop out of school, I expected my art to forever remain completely unknown, I thought I'd abandon my website by now, etc etc.



Well now I am a sophomore and a lot of my worries about school are fading away due to some recent developments. While most of my close relationships are online nowadays, I do have one friend I see semi-regularly (hi Robin), and I have my lolita comm. I am still a small artist, but my game is nearing completion and I've started doing community projects with other artists such as ophazines and (secret). While I worry I am not as close to everyone in my lolita comm as I'd like to be and the only thing that keeps them talking to me is our shared interest in lolita, I realize this is okay. Most friendships are brought together through shared interests. And I can always make new friends. And I have my family. And if all fails, I can get a dog.



Anyway, in short, I've been replacing these negative affirmations in my head the second they come about with positive affirmations and "i will" statements. It's taken me a long time to get to this point. In the past, disappointment would make me fall into deep pits of despair, but now I am able to shrug it off. Perhaps my perfectionism streak is finally over or I've finally given into the whims of the wind.



This has also caused me to care about other things. This blog has a lot of my private thoughts. Perhaps I should purge some of the entries? I don't really care if strangers read them very much, but I worry that they think worse of me or I may accidentally trigger someone. I also hate coming off as a very negative person. I try to be positive generally but it feels like my blog is just this heavy raincloud of bad things. I'd never delete it completely, but maybe it should be more focused on exams and clothes and other casual daily things that the agonies of being an adult in the 21st century.



I don't even know if anyone reads my diary entries to be honest, so it wouldn't be a big loss to the world if I did purge a bunch of it. But. I'm not going to do it right now. It's just a thought in my head. The other result would be to just focus on positive things and slowly let the negative entries get drowned out over time like my entries about the (redacted).



Hm much to think about. But. Enough thinking about diaries. I have to do homework and go to a nice dinner and OH YEAH I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE KIDNAPPING INCIDENT


THE KIDNAPPING INCIDENT



Okay so I had fall break part of last week. I travelled to Georgia to meet up with family. When the plane lands, my mom tells me not to take an uber and to ride with my cousin. I think that's kind of weird, but I assume she just wants to save money. I'm wondering why my cousin is still at the airport if my other family members arrived 2-3 hours ago but whatever.



I get to my cousin's car. My aunt and granny are there. I'm like hi. They pack my stuff in and we cram into the car. I'm surprised we all fit. This seems a bit unplanned. They then begin describing to me what happened to them.



My family land in Georgia and call an uber. He pulls up and opens the door for them. They begin packing and my granny and aunt gets in. The security guard says something to him- I'm not sure what. Then.. the uber driver speeds off with the doors open and my granny and aunt in the car.



My uncle and cousin chase after the uber on foot down the street. My aunt calls my cousin. Everyone one is scrambling. The uber driver is shouting "I don't know what to do I don't know what to do!" My granny can't think. My aunt is saying "please let us go." She considers jumping out of the car but doesn't want to leave granny.



The uber driver slows down to turn and my uncle and cousin catch up. The car slows enough for my aunt to get out and pull out my granny. Despite my granny's hurt legs, she manages to get out safely. My uncle and cousin pull the uber driver out of the door and begin to beat him up.



Anyway, you might've guessed. That was not the uber driver. Always check the license plate folks.



Now, the details are a bit fuzzy after this but my aunt (not the one who was kidnapped) has a theory for what happened. She believed this was a driver who wanted to make a bit of extra money. He was probably going to say something like "oh the app isn't working, can you pay me in cash?" or something like that. He had no desire to hurt them which is why he was panicking after the security guard was going to check his identity.



I think I agree. I don't know. It's really strange and scary, but we laughed about it while eating muffins and bacon.... Though I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he decided that his best option was to continue driving rather than risk going to jail.





But everything is okay thankfully. And now we have an extremely memorable Thanksgiving.

KIDNAPPING INCIDENT OVER




Hanging out with family during the break was lovely. Not seeing my siblings or granny in months was making me insane. We played Stardew Valley, I spun my brother in a chair, I talked to my granny a bunch, talked to my mom though she ended the convo because she thought it was too sad (ok), and I got thanksgiving food. I didn't eat nearly as much as I wanted to. I went to one arcade but the food there was bad. I'm kinda disappointed. I wanted to make up for how this college STARVES ME WITH DISGUSTING FOOD. well. ok. they made lasagna today.



Tonight I'm going to dinner to meet up with the people I studied abroad with. Excited for sweet potato casserole. yim yum.