What a day.

Woke up at 9:45, 15 mins before my last therapy appointment of the quarter. It was alright. We made some progress, I believe. I will be having fewer meetings over the course of next quarter, as I will be trying out this new group they’re doing. Like a kind of group therapy aimed at LGBTQ men (there will be some hetero people there, but it’s mainly catered to non-hetero students who identify as male). I’m interested to see how that’ll go.

After my appt, I went to work out for a while. The goal today was to bring my phone with me and time it so that I knew exactly how long it took me to run that mile.

My time was 3 minutes, 54.5 seconds. Naturally, I immediately posted this to my facebook profile, where my friends proceeded to gawk at my achievement.

And then one of my friends commented on how a mile is actually 8 laps around our school’s indoor track. That’s right. EIGHT.

This entire time, I’d only been running FOUR, thinking that was a mile. 

Turns out an indoor track is only 1/8 or so of a mile, whereas the outdoor tracks at my old school (the only tracks we have there) were all 1/4 of a mile. So the entire time, I’d been thinking they were all the same. Oops.

Anyway, as soon as I found out, I mentioned it to a couple friends, who were all very supportive. I was initially becoming very depressed very quickly, because I felt so ridiculous and humiliated at having been so publicly foolish and wrong. But my friends thankfully reminded me that what I made was just an honest mistake and that it was still something to be proud of.

And they were right: being able to run four laps around an indoor track without stopping in just 3 minutes and 54.5 seconds IS something to be proud of. Especially since I have never been able to do something like that before. 

I just had to think of it from another perspective. And now I feel a lot better about it all, even if a few people kinda did what I perceived to be kicking me when I was down, so to speak. 

Turns out the fastest mile ever run was 3 mins 48 seconds or so. 

My new goal is to be able to run an entire mile without having to stop. And then I will try to do so as fast as possible. Theoretically, my mile would be about 8 mins, but I’m not sure if I’m at the point where I could run 8 full laps at once. This definitely gives me a new goal to aim for. 

Either way, I’m incredibly glad that I have such good friends in my life, and that they and my family are so supportive of me. I know a lot of people in this world cannot say the same, so I know I should count myself as lucky in that respect. 

Anywho, after that, I packed up, got some food to go, and my roommate and I left town for home. He lives about half an hour away from my mom’s house, so it just made sense to give him a ride. We left around maybe 2:45pm and I got to his house at about 7pm (it’s a really long drive). I then got home at about 7 pm, and here I am.

Everything I brought is now unpacked and I’m ready to settle in. I’m excited for this spring break to happen. I just hope that it stops raining here. I’d like a little sunshine while I’m here, but if that doesn’t happen, I don’t think I’ll mind. I have a lot to keep me occupied here. Editing, a new video game, hanging with friends, and hopefully chances to go clubbing (which I’m most excited for) are all in store. It’s gonna be good.

I’m also thinking of gauging my ears a bit (been toying with the idea for a while) and possibly dying my hair. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I’m thinking I’d go red. Like, blood red. I’m not sure though haha. One of my friends wants me to dye it blue. I’m not sure if I could pull that off. Or red, for that matter. I guess we’ll see.

Either way, today has been pretty good. Even if I did spend a majority of it in a car with cramps in my lower back, butt, and legs. :)

What the fuck is up with this weather? It’s snowing outside right now and starting to stick. The date is MARCH 12.

Dame desu.

So when I was at the gym last night, I decided to see if I could run a mile and how fast I could do it. It took me 4 minutes.* 

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!!!

For those of you who don’t know, aka everyone, when I was younger, I was incredibly out of shape and always dreaded the 1-mile-run. I was always the last or second-to-last person to do finish, and it usually took me around 15 minutes to do. I would usually have to stop and resort to walking a majority of the way after about one lap, and my skin problem** was more of an issue for me back then, too, so I was always more preoccupied with that and how much I had started sweating than I was about finishing quickly, I suppose.

Now, I can apparently go without stopping. And in four minutes, too! 

For me, this is a new personal goal. Right up there with the time I discovered I could do pull-ups. It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come in life. For me, it’s a sign that maybe things can get better after all. 

I just wish I had been able to remember that last night when I was at the gym. After I ran the mile, I started doing abs stuff and forgot about it. Then I went to the sauna. And things spiraled from there. 

When I went in, it was the usual sunday night fare: a bunch of people in there, which I’m not a big fan of, but can get over. This time, it was a bunch of normatively attractive straight white men talking about being douchebags. By which I mean they said douchey things and other fucking shit. Although I did get an interesting idea for my diet (adding raw/ hard-boiled eggs), they mostly talked about how much they had been drinking and smoking and how it’s all okay because they go to the gym for 2+ hours 6 days a week.

I don’t really want to get into it because the things they said really fucking triggered me, but they essentially acted like douchebags and also took the time to say some misogynist things, which always makes me angry. So I left the gym raging and by the time I got back home I was in such a bad state that all I could think about was how much I wanted to kill myself.

As a man who identifies as gay, it really upsets me how I can find myself so attracted to creatures that constantly prove to be so utterly disgusting. Thinking about how much I hated those guys in the sauna just for being made me think about how much I still hate myself, and it all went downhill from there. I eventually picked myself up off my bathroom floor and went on with my life, but I’m still wondering if perhaps I should be checking myself in to a mental facility.

But today is another day. I woke up remembering how far I’ve come in life, and for that, I was granted spoons. 

I just want these next few days to be over.

Today I will be spending the majority of the day working on my German Cinema final project. I feel like I’ve been making very little progress and I will likely cause our entire presentation to suffer, but I don’t want anyone in my group to get a bad grade because of me. I don’t want a bad grade, either. But C’s still get degrees.

Tomorrow I’ll have to present the project, and go to a meeting about a film being made in town over the summer. My film theory prof said on Friday that I had really good acting skills (I was like, “WUT.”), so I figured I’d check it out at her suggestion.

Wednesday I’ll have to peer grade finals for said class from noon to 2pm. Then I can finally go home. I’ll have to find time in between all these things to work out, renew my rec center locker for next quarter, and pack. I’m giving my roommate a ride home and he wants to bring his computer, which is going to be a huge issue, because it’s a fucking huge ass computer. I’m not even sure if it’ll fit in my trunk. But that’s the only place it can go. Hopefully I won’t have too much shit to bring home this time. Although I need to bring back a bunch of my old clothes and books that I can’t fit here, and I’d rather not mail them back if I can help it.

I’m not even gonna think about packing right now. I’d rather think about how excited I am to go to gay clubs back home for the first time. Now that I’m 21, I can go to places where I can be around other people I know are like me and can be hit on without fear of serious negative consequence. Whether or not that’ll be a success remains to be seen.

I think that’s enough rambling for today. 

Footnotes:

*This is assuming it is indeed like most indoor tracks, where 4 laps equals one mile. I know I ran 4 laps without stopping, and I’m really hoping I’m right in thinking 4 is a mile. Since I’ve started to brag about it in public places, I’d prefer not to be wrong and have to correct myself….

**When I was a kid, my face had the magical ability to turn beet red at the drop of a hat, and I was always made fun of for it. I did whatever I could to keep it from happening, but it really wasn’t enough sometimes. Nowadays, I don’t think it’s as bad as it once was. Or it’s just not an issue for me anymore. I’m not sure.