Reflected Memoirs of the Endless Lake
PLEASE NOTE!
This is a super long read, so take breaks if anyone needs too. On top of this, be warned for mentions of CSA, domestic abuse, and more. I said I would speak much less of this on my blog, but due to what I found the night before, it is a must. If one does not want to read, it's okay, please take care of yourself.
This is [REVERSED] from last night's blog.
Soo...this is a continuation!
I'm so tired already...but I need to get my thoughts out.
What happened last night?
Well..right now it's 21:09, 9 PM, so it's a little later.
I spent the entire day sleeping, resting, crying.
All for a good reason of course!
I am normally an extremely busy girl, and that has not changed this week.
Still, it doesn't change the fact that I haven't had much, if any R&R the past two weeks.
I've immersed myself in work and the computing path.
How fun it all is but...but I must get back to it soon.
I wanted to talk about last night.
At the end of my last blog, I spoke of wanting to go on a bike ride.
I may refer to myself as a girl often but I would like any readers to understand that in terms of my gender, I do not label myself. Everyone, including strangers, sees me as a girl, refers to me as one, treats me as such. However I reserve the most truthful parts of me to very special people.
I bring this disclaimer only because I have and will be in this post referring to myself as a girl quite often.
I will update my about me page soon enough, although uhmz, my gender has never changed, I just don't mention it too much. For me, I am fine being referred to as a girl, as well as people using she/her for me, but when I say I "reserve" things for people, I typically refer to people just using my name.
My gender expression has always been whatever I want though, which has always brought me comfort hehe.
As for why I bring this up again, what I stumbled upon yesterday prompted me to drag myself back to a certain time where the sun didn't shine, where life was too big, and the sun was too bright. I was dragged by the neck, all the way back.
The lights were a sickly yellow and the house was empty, it smelled of fresh paint and a baby shower.
When it came to exploring my gender, it began in that prison.
Ergo, I have to let out another reminder.
I have also thought of a small solution to a problem I thought of in a previous blog, about reducing the potential footprint of this webpage. Most notably it arises via foot traffic, and as of late I have been making each of these posts non-discoverable. This is an okay solution for now, I still plan to make some sweeping changes to this blog as time permits, the about me section is most likely next, I may update it tonight...purrhaps.
I also am going to update the header to be a custom image at some point, I just have to make it...I'm thinking something akin to the textboxes in Umineko and Fata Morgana, but with my own style. Oh! and the highlight image too..
I should begin recounting the events of last night however, or else I would prattle on for a while...
Okay!
Raise the curtain...
Song of the night: VIEW FROM OUR BEDROOM WINDOW - La Dispute
------------------------------- 00:00 10-15-2025 -------------------------------
This is my main blog.
However as mentioned before I have two others. The key to finding one has been hidden so no one can find it, and the link to the other blog is hidden within that one.
Before I truly began, I preface this by stating that perchance, not everything I felt about last night could be accurately described in a sort of...reflective environment like this.
Sometimes, in the scheme of The Grand Construct and cosmic filament, certain raw memories and feelings, extracted through pain, lamentation, and bodies pierced by fence posts, there is a different answer.
For now, what I write here is everything anyone will see.
I will not recount what I felt, how I feel, and what it was like...reflectively and close, not distant at all.
This blog is reality, but sometimes through prose, reality disintegrates.
Not here though, as this blog is my day to day. x3
I do send the link to lots of people, and that is for good reason.
Well, I should say I used to send it to a soiree of people. Nowadays I prefer to keep it more private, while still being discoverable.
My other blogs are wholly private though, which I thank Bear Blog for letting me do that, making them direct link only, and surely I'd never give the link away. It once populated this blog, but it has long since been removed.
Wait...wait! I should get started!
The last few nights were excruciatingly painful in a way I cannot describe.
I don't know why, but my sleep has been terrible still. I've been turning my head up to the ceiling more than I've ever done before. I'm doing great, but my lack of sleep fights against that. I am acutely aware as to why.
It's October.
I believe that's reason enough for me...
I love October, but I'm not entirely fond of my head hurting so bad.
I'm not fond of the every day nightmares and the lack of sleep, but this has been what it's like my whole life. It only got worse after a key, powerful moment.
As I gained strength, my mind may not have been able to take it, so it started begging to be less alone.
I've never been alone, nor will I ever be alone again though.
I've always, always been surrounded by a nice fluffy companion.
Even if each and every one of them was so horrifically taken from me, this cat, Sadie, is mine, and she is the most loving plushie out of them all. She is a real cat yes but my plushies help me too.
I always sleep in a bed full of a hodgepodge of snake plushies, about 7 to be exact, my big Hamtaro, my little puppy plushie, my giant teddy bear from when I was a toddler, and my big shark a friend bought for me.
Generally speaking, I cannot ever sleep without holding onto something, but at the same time this translates into my dreams/nightmares. I've verbalized these feelings before, or rather articulated them on this blog, but since it's neverending for me, there is always something new.
Lately my head has been hazy and distant. Again this is nothing new, and I always retain my mental faculties. Even when I was a young girl, very young, I still had the insight to understand what was happening was irrational. Either that, or something else. I never falter in that regard, but of course it doesn't feel good whatsoever.
I am absolutely committed to bettering myself, always, but as there is an ever increasing distance from the years prior where I had less nightmares. That doesn't mean it's proportional of course.
I say nightmares, but as I've spoke on before they are different. I have night terrors, they are far worse, more vivid, and if I were a different person I may have succumbed to anything by now. Also, they capitalize on the latent trauma I have, but I work through it, writing it out is working through it!
However, I never have, never will.
How relevant this is because...
The last few nights were bad, but I am strong.
What was it like? back in 2017?
What was it like to sleep back then?
I'll get on with that soon.
It's just that between school and work, I had an urge to bike away from here again. Mm, let me rephrase I love school and work, there is something far more primal which urged me to bike far.
I wonder if that emotion can be gleaned from this blog alone.
Was it a primal fear? No...
I will reveal the answer.
It was that primal feeling of not wanting to be home.
Again.
Ever since I realized why this room makes me feel so bad, my night terrors have brought it up consistently. In another previous blog I brought up how I had recently realized why the room of my current house makes me feel so awful, and it's due to its resemblance to a bad house as a very young kid. Something awful may have happened to me there, but at the same time the room slightly resembles a different house. The two not very well feeling houses combine in this one.
That's not why I don't like coming home though.
It's been discussed ad nauseam.
I will move on for now.
I am very happy still. Yes, my plushies are not replacements for anything, but they've always kept me company since I was incredibly young. Talking to them and pretending to have a response is so silly of course.
When my night terrors are bad, I bury my face in either my shark or my teddy bear though, feeling the pretend warmth actually fills me with so much warmth. In spite of how gloomy some of this may seem, the truth does remain that, yes, I am very happy.
Happy as in...I am meeting and surpassing all my far reaching goals, and I won't stop! ever!
I will jump back and forth in a moment
Back to why I chose to bike, I had plans to do when my work week was over. When I thought it was, an opportunity arose to pick up another shift and I did.
I got out early yesterday since it was a covered shift, but my head still hurt. I joined the important cybersecurity meeting while I was on the phone with an acquaintance. When I saw those reminders in the crypt, not only did my resolve strengthen, but my desire to get out and bike...somewhere..anywhere increased tenfold.
How I yearned, and yearned, and yearned for those years to escape. How I spent so...so long...yearning to escape, how I still yearn. The thing is I will never settle though, never, unless it became intensely unbearable.
Still, I didn't have a bike back then, or maybe I did, buried in that empty, heart-wrenching place.
I had a dream this morning...but this blog isn't the place for me to discuss my dreams and nightmares so in depth.
Later, let me catalogue the night first, even if it takes me forever.
Why do I like bike riding?
You get to share the nature of true freedom with someone. It can be both platonic and romantic, or neither.
Surely that is the nature of exploration...
The other night I spent a few hours driving all over the place geocaching with a friend. That is a much different feeling however.
Very. very. different.
Bike riding is more intimate, er...it may sound weird but I have always been >~< "poetic" when it came to the wind and nature and all the roughness that comes with it hehe. I just like to feel the wind around me and doing it with a friend is even better...
Me choosing to just pick a direction and go last night was a sign of freedom.
I've always had a habit of wandering or treading down unfamiliar paths. Related to this would be my love for going out at night. As a kid, since I lived in such an awful place, going outside was a death wish due to the insane human trafficking which took place. It happened to my family, so you had to be intensely careful at night.
I never went outside at night because of that, but years later when I moved I learned it could be safer. When I had to start working, it became essential to my routine.
I would then realize how much I loved it, and found ways to protect myself at night and have fun exploring.
Last night was another one of those nights, just more aimless then some others.
As for the attire, I wore an oversized black jacket, not for the weather, as I'd have preferred it to be unimpeded, but because I wanted to look...cool????????? Okay it looks silly, but I wanted to be like some sort of covert ops agent??? Haha...i also wore a nice hat of mine from Waterlust and attached a headlamp to it just in case.
I also took a big delicious orange lolipop with me and was ready for adventure!
Where would I go?
My only idea was...south!
-----------------------------00:30 10-15-2025-------------------------------
I chose south. Yes, I was already tired, but I packed some goods with me.
Three cans of sparkling water, as unflavorful as ever, my favorite.
It wasn't all too cold, I wished it had been colder, and at the beginning of my journey I decided soon enough I'd already take off my jacket.
First off, just to get the wheels turning and to do some quick offroading, I pedaled on down to a big empty rock filled "parking lot" right next to my house. I actually biked around it, following a narrow sidewalk down a hill, taking a sharp right turn onto another sidewalk which led to an office that controlled the football field this lot happened to be at. (and a soccer field)
I noticed it went down a few steps so instead, I tested the mettle of my bike.
I forced it down the hill to the left of it, putting the strength of a hybrid bike to the test and...wow! It was a bit bumpy but I made it down through the grass and out onto the big rocky field...there were bits of glass and other fragments to avoid; it felt dangerous, but thrilling.
I then pedaled harshly up a particularly short but "steep" grassy hill...it worked flawlessly.
With that being done, I then biked south, with no landmark in sight. I hoped to take my mind off of the listless nature of being reminded of that time from my past, I would literally exercise through the pain, it always works.
Going south was a path I had never taken before...or at least I tread it only once.
That "once" was for a blood work appointment last year. I recall the path ending though...so it was my surprised that when I crossed the busy road, that it...kept going?
It winded, and clearly went on for some time ...
It wasn't long until something stopped me dead.
Something magnificent
The phrase for the substation which unfurled unknown from the night was "NO ONE CAN SAVE THE WITCH." For some reason it came to me. Yes, I have been playing lots of Umineko lately, which has witches in it, but that is not a phrase from the game. I believe it was pulled from some themes in Fata Morgana, of a certain "witch."
Still, I never knew this was here...a huge, mega substation just by my house. I was taken aback.
It felt like it spiraled up towards the sky...a small base radio tower guarded it valiantly, and the gates were high.
I stood there, already in awe so early into my journey. This whole time...this structure was hiding.
The thing is, it only had a mild electrical buzz, so it wouldn't be a sanctuary of mine like a certain base station near my house.
But it stood tall, and I felt powerful.
Radio towers are so cool on their own for me, but one of my favorite songs of all time is The Moon by The Microphones, which mentions radio towers. That song almost always makes me cry, or feel powerful. When I first moved to this new place, I biked around to scout the surrounding area. That night I played the moon on repeat, a song I already loved but I did it to cement that I moved someplace new.
I stood there, quietly
And thought about those uncovered logs.
2017
Of course I hadn't dreamed of truly escaping anything then. I was little more than an observer of my own body. I had precious little goals, but big dreams. I loved my dad back then, but by the end of 2017 I started to feel more sullen, I cast it aside though, I still loved him, right?
2018 came and...so much happened.
Suddenly the dad who never was there, ever, never showed up, well we were forced to move into a tiny apartment where I'd see him every day.
Maybe some part of me back then thought he would be there more because of it, that maybe something would change.
It was a whirlwind of a few days back in 2018 that changed everything.
I went to pride with my best friend at the time, my dad took us. We had fun, but then something happened all on the next day. A horrible call from the hospital, my grandma, who I considered my mom then, had a stroke. She was already bedridden and we were already taking care of her then, but she was at an end of life facility at the end of it. It was strange because at the same time, I was forced to come face to face with my mom despite how much I begged and protested that I didn't want to see her, be anywhere near her, look at her.
I was still horrible traumatized, and didn't understand anything yet, I was still an outside observer.
My switch to live and think flipped on much younger than others yes, but it was still a rather confuzzling time.
I felt so horrible having to face my mom but it was because apparently she was throwing a party for my brother...
I hated her so much then, but I was also told to hate. Still, she was incredibly abusive, so much that I still held so much anger for her, I begged not to be born so many times when I was around her as a kid.
Then the hospital visit came at the end of the night, just after that scary party, that fun pride festival. I'd go more into detail, but again, rawer emotions are needed, soo..not here.
A day later my grandma died and we moved as soon as it happened. It was also the first day I played Fallout New Vegas because my best friend then said it would cheer me up so he brought his copy.
After that my viewpoint changed on my dad, I started getting these stronger feelings of wanting to escape. I did prefer my room then though, as it had only one door. This room has three and it makes me feel uneasy. I get very scared someone will come hurt me somehow with this many doors...of course I'm safe, but the way it's laid out means I cannot really see if someone is coming. It may sound irrational, and it is, but I've had my house broken into before when I was very young. I wasn't there, but it happened, and there are other reasons as to why I would fear something. It is trauma related, but one more time, I am getting better.
With everything that happened, I still didn't have any friends besides that one, really strong one. So I lived on the internet like it was natural.
Those logs...were beyond disgusting, so horrific. The things people said to me...all of it, and the transition to Discord from Skype too.
It was...horrible.
Horrible but...another point to increase my willpower, my fight.
How awful.
I was entranced by the only thing I had ever known, and I was so "into" the way people treated me, to awful things, to "wanting" someone to break in, to things I never wanted but I thought I had to want.
Naturally, it would happen.
I am no longer gullible like that.
For some it may take a lifetime to unlearn and get away from all of it, but for me it took a few years of ripping past myself and entering my own body.
Oh and yes these are metaphors of course...I erm, could not float outside of my body and witness a different person, it was the defense mechanism and all I ever knew.
That is all the past, acutely so. I am here, and as I said I am alive and ready to always fight on.
Biking and denying these horrible people is one way to fight back. My ever increasing cybersecurity skills is another.
People who act with such violent lust still attempt to assail me, but I swipe away those disgusting bugs.
They have so much to learn.
I care not for the decay they bring, because it's not a real feeling.
Living is, and I have never had a strong desire to really seek any of that out, ever, contrary to what so many people thought about me, it was just the role I thought I had to play.
It's been some time, but this is another reminder to myself that I am a plaything no longer.
I won't let myself get hurt that way, and I will try to protect others from it happening too.
The other day I actually such a conversation with someone that frankly pissed me off, an emotion which doesn't call to me often.
He spoke like a common centrist, and said something so "moralistic" about child rapists.
He then kept saying he has morals over and over but in the end he was defending child rapists for making a "mistake."
most men may never understand what it's like, ever, because they don't realize how much that can ruin someone's life.
Of course people with views like that which protect other men upset me, even though it is so common and sadly reinforced by society. This is why of course education is important, and educating people on how damaging this all can be is too.
However, so many men, SO MANY which do these terrible things know exactly what they're doing...and they revel in it, they cover their tracks, obfuscate. In my own past, they tried to run away with no consequences. This is a coworker who has said other things that other coworkers do not like, but it was bizarre in his wording.
One thing to add is this coworker may not have also fully understand what he was saying, (he is a little impaired so again he may not have understood and he did speak about those which were so mentally ill and were raised to be evil, which I understand that of course) but there are so many men that truly believe it's just "normal" to do something like that. They don't call it rape or sexual harassment or anything like that, but instead call it a "mistake." It just triggered me due to people from my past. If someone went through experiences like that, they would understand just how much it hurts.
How it disgusts me and belittles victims so often, my own experiences at the hands of people included. A "mistake?" seriously? This topic only came up because I found out one of our clients was a registered child sex offender, so it wasn't just a random topic. It just brought me back to being a kid again.
It was just the word "mistake" which triggered me because it's a word that was used often. When I didn't understand what these people were saying to me because I was not fully "awake," my switch was still off, I just got sad that people who were around me left.
I still don't really like physical touch much at all, but it's ironically the moments where I remember how frail I was back then which make me feel like someone should hold me the most, to let me know it's safe. I've yet to find anyone that truly makes me feel safe in a setting like that, as they sadly typically end up doing something bad. I did feel safe when my first best friend and I laid in the same bed together just to sleep, and there were other small moments like that over the years, but the majority was spent in discomfort. I do love the extra weight. I have so many plushies but maybe I should get a big weighted plushie for my bed? It would feel soothing I bet! _
I will say it once more, I don't settle, and it's been further cemented since I made a promise to NEVER AGAIN be taken advantage of like that or coerced. (if I can help it)
My attitude where I shift back and forth between disliking all physical touch confused a lot of people over the years. Rightly so, but to me it's always been simple and made sense.
Sometimes I just don't feel like it, and it's all the time, and sometimes I do.
The people who do not understand, nor respect that do make me feel bad, even if I do not blame them for not understanding.
Next stop after the substation.
After I finished my thoughts, a whole new path awaited me...I said goodbye to the substation, and followed the wide black road. It was dark now, so I flipped on my headlamp and pushed through! What was south down this path? I passed by a few quiet roads, some big apartment complexes and...eventually the road ended.
It let off like a river splitting into the ocean, the highway was beside me. BY now, I was already 25 minutes away from home, but that didn't stop me.
I biked onto the highway instead, determined to keep going south...
When I got to a decent stopping point, I sat down on a bench outside of a car dealership, opened one of my delicious sparkling waters, and watched the highway for a bit.
-----------------------------01:00 10-15-2025-----------------------------
I pulled out my map and I looked around...I could have just followed the highway south, but I thought it was time I picked a direction.
I noticed there was an international airport right nearby, one I had never known about in my life for some reason. I had it confused with an air park near me and the big metropolitan international airport.
It was another 25 minutes to bike there, but the distance felt much longer due to the terrain.
I traveled down the side of the highway again, narrow road and all, until coming upon a huge intersection. This was it...I just had to turn left then I'd follow the road for a while!
Skirting past some people at the late night crossing, I realized how brutal and annoying the megastructured highway was as I sped forward, not realizing I had to turn right again to get onto the sidewalk, a strange turn. What I did instead was keep going forward then hop off my bike while it was running forward, jumped onto the grass and hoisted it up then sped off.
I had a destination in mind.
Down and down I went, the scenery started to become less of anything and much more road, albeit an empty road at night.
And, in time, the highway revealed itself to me, along with the airport.
Massive sprawling ramps all before me...touching the sky. It's one of my favorite parts about airports. For example, when I was on a trip to Philadelphia, I rode the train back to the aiport super early. To see the cars and everyone all around was wonderful.
Back to the present, I once more stood with awe. I was only about 7 miles away from home, but it was a journey nonetheless.
CONTINUED THE NEXT DAY 10-16-2025, 19:51
I spent hours racking my brain on writing this...so much that I fell asleep....!
I have returned however.
The highway and the low glow of the lights, the arteries which paved the way towards an airport were always my favorite part.
For my whole life, there's always been an airport right out on the edge of town.
Okay...I'm just quoting a lyric, but there are several in the area. I moved so much, but never far, kind of. The same international airport was always at the forefront of everything.
I took my first ever flight in 2018, it was to go to MA for my Grandma's funeral, after that upending.
My experience then...I don't know. I was already coming to terms with my dad kind of, but it sucked. Of course considering how it was a trip for a massive funeral, it was sad, but also there was so much happiness when it came to the events. I saw sights, went to Plymouth, the science museum in Boston, met lots of family, but I still felt distant from myself.
My relationship with Boston and Massachusetts as a whole has changed since then. It was only perception based, considering that one of my only friends moved there. He still wasn't a full friend, as I'd argue I only started making true friends halfway through 2023. However the point remains that he was there once, and that the same airport carried him away from here as it carried me.
It carried me to Massachusetts twice, to Indiana, and then to Philadelphia.
This was not the airport that I had biked to that night, but a smaller, still international one. It shone just as brilliantly, and was a monument to there being more than one way to escape.
I still think about that airport.
One day I might visit it for the last time...could be soon, could be forever from now, could be never.
Knowing I have options calms my heart.
It was about a good 10 minutes I looked at the airport gates at night. I saw some buses and some planes of course. This airport was right on the water, so I'm sure if I went further I would have a better view; it was getting late though.
Airports stir other parts of me too.
I should talk about that.
Back in 2018 when I had my first plane ride, I was still living on the internet after the shock of everything. Those messages still permeated the air and Discord was becoming more popular. I knew something awful was happening to me as everyday was spent with someone simultaneously calling me stupid and horrible while talking about all the horrible sexual things they wanted to do me. At that point I was "asking" people "for it" but that's just an excuse the abusers used. I was practically alone in Massachusetts even though I was there with my dad, so I'm sure I tried to turn to people online. The in person abuse did not start until about 2020-2021.
Still, my time there was reflective.
I didn't know why but I had a strong urge to run away even then. Airports always pumped this weird kind of adrenaline that maybe I would have gotten mixed up at the airport like in Home Alone 2 and that I would go somewhere else. I would have had no reason, I just didn't understand. I also thought I'd get away from people online too, but I didn't know.
The fact is I am safe now by myself and in my own skin.
It's still one of the most miserable feelings to interact with my dad after coming home though. Today he showed me this...music video he made where he was singing about wanting to "make out" with this girl who IS MARRIED!!!!!!!!! that he has been chasing for two years now. Yes, the guy is abusive, but she has three kids and is 20 years younger than him...I don't know why the hell he would think he should show such an awful video to me, but it's just so pathetic, it's so gross. What does he expect? He can't even raise a kid.
If she was already divorced, sure, fine I guess, but again, what? he will go and raise three kids? No, he would quickly and violently turn into nothing at all. It's just so weird on all fronts...calling each other the joker and Harley Quinn and it's just so fucking stupid, so gross, and I always have to hear about it. I have fought back against him more than ever these past months, shutting him down and finally finding strength....but it doesn't change the fact that he never wants to help himself still. I was appalled by this video.
I'll say it again...he was coddled his own life and raised to be like this, so I can't blame him for that part, but I can still blame him for not wanting to better his own life and taking shitty advice. I will always hope for him to get better despite it.
Let me cool down though..I'm not angry, just disappointed again.
When someone disappoints me, it's much worse than anger, because it takes so much for me to get disappointed.
Uhmz, Let's get back on track to the airport neow.
When I was done giving my silent blessings, it was time to route the return trip. I decided on circling back around and just going back on the other side of the road....like normal.
Crossing past those huge highways which circled above one another felt immaculate and amazing, I took another moment to stare past the relatively short fence outside the airport after crossing. Thereafter, I kicked it off and an old favorite of mine came on Spotify, a song called "Take Me Somewhere Nice - Mogwai"
It came on at the perfect moment.
All was silent, the roads, wind, trees, and even the echoes.
Take me somewhere nice, please.
I first came upon the song in 2020-2021, when I got into Shoegaze/Slowcore. It's an 7 minute melancholic ballad of sorts that I've always used to think about so much in life.
From the times I laid face down in my old bedroom, staring at the floor or the ceiling, it wasn't one of my constant repeats, but it was always a song that felt remote in nature. I didn't cry because I was focused on keeping my already tired body awake, but if I was more awake, I would have.
It always showed up at the most opportune times.
Back in 2021, it brought me back to a time before that even then.
I used to always have someone over, almost always. Typically we would sleep in the same bed, but sometimes we would alternate with one of us on the floor, my bed was just a little twin sized thing so it couldn't really fit anyone. One time I did manage to fit three people though, we giggled and were young.
There was always that shift when I stopped having less people over. Some moved far away, but mostly I didn't feel comfortable around them anymore.
All of those memories and youthful dreams sunk deep (la dispute reference number 3) called upon that song. I said it earlier but I just liked having something "there?" but as I grew older I realized I had myself, and will always have myself.
What's the point to just having something if it doesn't feel good. The same principal applies to hookups for me, as I would never do that and it just disgusts me that people are interested in that. I realized I had strength to say no, even if each year I still falter sometimes, this is the year I finally, probably, actually understand what that word means.
I felt my body and my bike become weightless as the airport left me behind. I had to bike past some overgrown bushes, but I kept going.
That song was blaring, somehow louder than ever. It was the faint movements in the song, the little hints of lyrics.
I think the song also once had a large association with an old coworker back in 2021 as well. He would go on to eventually hurt me very very badly, but from the times he took me everywhere, I thought back then he was kind of...
it's so fucked up, because I should have known, but still. I thought with the way he drove me around so late at night, the music he played, of course I thought he was cool. I thought he was sweet for buying me food and just being nice to me and I had delusional thoughts that maybe one day I would have been driven away at some point back then.
Now that song is more about...mm, me? "take me somewhere nice" I did it to myself and I took myself to an airport.
Lyrically speaking, these also stuck out to me,
"Every aircraft, every camera
Is a wish that wasn't granted"
It played as I was just leaving the airport too...so how serendipitous hehe.
Well I kept biking, eventually made it back onto the big highway, put my hand out towards some sprinklers along the path and skirted by narrow streets.
-----------------------------01:30 10/15/2025-----------------------------
I was getting more and more tired at this point. I was a bit harsh on my pre-workout routine to get ready to bike, but I would make it home soon enough.
The streets were empty, so there wasn't much to say...besides my love for the wind and the late night air.
I kept going and going, until I got too tired.
I was at the last road just before my own, but my body was worn out. It wasn't the 14 miles total of bike riding, but my already tired body which was only compelled by a desire to be free...not a body that was full of sleep.
When I got to that second to last intersection, I hopped off my bike, and walked it across this big crosswalk, taking it down for about 0.2 of a mile.
I had enough stretching by then and hopped back on...forward...again!
...and in just about 10 more minutes, I was home again.
...yeah, I was back home.
Solemnly I locked my bike to the staircase, ensuring the wheel was secured as well.
I was little more than a shambling girl, with legs made of jello...my favorite part after a long bike ride.
I took extra care locking up my bike though as something else has been on my mind of late.
I got my bike from the local bike shop which was right next to my last job, which was at a health grocery store. I didn't think much of biking for the longest time. I did have a bike as a kid and other methods of transport, but sometimes they were ripped away from me. My beloved scooter I watched get carried away and thrown straight in the dumpster as a kid. It was really traumatic and it made me so sad. I begged to keep it...it was one of those cheaper ish razor scooters with the thick metal plates. It was only thrown away because my brother got hurt playing around on it, he was super young though and was not at scooter riding age, it was meant for 8-11 year olds.
I remember getting yelled at for something I didn't have any hand in, and I kept begging to keep my scooter but in some twisted fashion, my mom and stepdad just got angrier. I had no fight for something that wasn't even my fault. We were living in an awful trailer park back then too, so it was surprising that they didn't sell it instead, like how they sold everything else that we had. They most likely did that, but it was still sad as when I went to my mom's I felt like I couldn't escape, I was scared.
When it comes to biking, I did have one. At that same trailer park there was the bus stop for my charter school, but it was about a mile away, so a bit far.
I don't remember much bike riding myself, but I do remember standing on the pegs and getting a ride to the bus stop via my stepdad. I remember sometimes trying to ride it around the trailer park too, but not much else.
To say I didn't think much of biking was true. When I moved in 2018, at some point my dad got a city bike for himself and I believe he had gotten rid of his leftover mountain bike or something like that. I didn't ride it much, but I did like it. Then there was the long period I never really went outside, so not much happened.
When I started walking late to work, and it was a mile or so, I never considered a bike somehow. I do not remember why, weather it was stubbornness or the fact that my OCD was so bad back then I struggled to walk outside. The idea was that walking to work was my ultimate ERP. I had only recently learned back then that exposure therapy was the best way to treat OCD; that nothing bad would ever happen if I didn't pick up trash or something silly like that.
So...I didn't really bike much. (but I did get better and heal)
I did get an electric scooter around 2023, but it broke just as soon as I got it, not due to recklessness, but due to the make of it and how scummy the company was, requiring a 5 star review to fulfill a warranty.
But in mid 2023 when I got my new job, I started to stop by the bike shop for my breaks. It was there I gained an interest in bike repair and biking in general. The swarms of cyclists coming to and from the long trail next to the shop and through the city helped propel that interest as well.
I didn't fathom just how important biking would become for me. But the thing is, I got it for a really good deal, with the accesoeries cheapened too.
One of the sweetest repair techs there, a guy named Seve walked me through the process of choosing a good one. It just so happened they had a wonderfully deep purple bike, enchanting and lovely...a perfect hybrid bike for city and off-roading, exactly what I needed. Oh and I got into biking since I knew I was going to be moving as well, and I would have needed it. When he let me test it out, I was thrilled, wow...I didn't know bikes could go so fast!
It cleared a misconception in my head, which was as follows:
--> Bikes need you to pedal super fast to do anything.
Wrong...I never had enough bike knowledge to understand that bikes, good bikes, have gears you can shift between. It was honestly the coolest thing ever. It feels so cool to activate some hyper hill climbing mode and make it up something with ease.
I love it.
I started to go places with it, biked to work, hung out with some people, it took me everywhere, so much that it became a friend.
One day I was biking to work as usual and...I did end up hitting some glass and getting a super bad flat...I took it to the same guy who sold it to me and he got it fixed up...after some time, it was right as rain.
Suffice to say, I love my bike, and I thank him for giving me lots of discounts on so much, enabling me to just...go anywhere. To be free, to get out of here...to have a taste of everything I was missing my whole life.
Spending time just locked up in your house, never leaving, never really moving, not even being able to go outside...yeah...it's not good. I didn't want to, but also I was so mentally ill I could not. Having a bike and the freedom of movement is such a way to fight back against those dull moments of my past, to always fight on.
To climb mountains, pass rivers, assail forests, to live...to keep going.
My bike is an extension of his goodwill, and I will never forget that.
I would say it would be disingenuous to have called him a friend, as I only hung out with him once. However, I did see him as a regular at my job almost every day, and chatted with him often at the bike repair shop, along with the other employees there. He was a constant.
but...He actually passed away a few months ago, back near the very beginning of June. He was young too, but he sadly knew what he was doing.
I may not have known him much at all, but he absolutely was a sweetheart. I didn't find out until a month later, which I found really really sad, I wish I knew sooner, but I can't disparage that fact.
Given the circumstances and how nice he was to me and other people I knew, I would say it would be fair to have called him a friend.
May you rest in peace Seve.
I will take extra care of my bike in your stead.
-----------------------------02:00 10/15/2025-----------------------------
And after taking a deep, deep breath.
I walked through the door and sat down on the chair.
My bike was extra secured, and I again thanked it for carrying me somewhere I wouldn't have gone otherwise.
I felt powerful again, that I could just go somewhere.
Most of all, I just felt alive again.
I recalled the metaphor of the endless lake, and imagined a vast, empty space in my head.
Standing at the edge of that lake, I saw my reflection.
And after that?
another reflection, of the sky, or of the ceiling of the cave, of of the sun.
A lake can mean burying something to never think of again, but I'd like to think of it as a point of relaxation.
The lake may have been endless and full of poison, but over time, maybe,
the water would become clear again.
Sparkling onward, forever, reflected in my eyes and in my hands, stretching them towards the crystal blue.
It'll happen.
After that night alone I could swear...
that perhaps, if only just for a moment, or a drop in an ocean,
the lake was much less tar-like, and had a consistently and viscosity more similar to crude oil.
Yet another deep black, but more visible; clearer than thick, mucky tar.
That small change means everything.
So, I will tread this path,
Until it is done
Take care of yourselves!
- Victoria