Folding Our Clothes
01/19/2023
I came home yesterday from my visit with family. I loved being there, spending the New Years with people I truly do love. I got to play with the new puppy, and I think he and I have a good bond already. I spent many nights staring at the ceiling fan, listening to music quietly as I tried to sleep in the perpetually warm house, which would be nice, were it not overwhelming.
I wound up discovering a song that fills a certain gap in my head, I think. "Warsh_Tippy and Zelda" by Whatever, Dad. I think the simplistic, domestic nature of the dream of folding clothes with someone that you love, mixed with the melancholic feel that perhaps things never worked out with that person, wound up so different than the soft dreams, draws me to listen to it over and over. I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic, I admit. The idea of having someone by my side to fold laundry with, to cook in the kitchen, watch shitty movies and make fun of them together, to exist in the same space with and be understood by is a truly human longing. It doesn't need to be romantic. That desire for companionship exists in all people, even if it's not for one person in particular. The wanting is still the same.
I've often felt excluded from such fantasies, as though I'm always the pining one and nobody longs for me. I sit and want and yearn and hunger, but my appetite can't be satiated because I'm not the one people see as fulfilling. I think it comes with the territory of growing up neurodivergent. People find their people. They call to one another and run up in mutual connections, but I never got the same experience. I grew up a distant island of a man. Even among other neurodivergent people, I find myself alone, perhaps even more alone and lonelier because others like me are able to form those connections. They can date, they can find friendships easier, they have love in their lives that doesn't exist in mine. "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Tennyson is one of the few things I've read where I feel completely known. Maybe that's too personal. I don't know.
In other news, I revived a DeviantART page I created in 2021, solely so that I can post sketches, WIPs, and other things without having to host them on Neocities and eat up my alotted space. It also feels freeing, in a way, with the platform basically dying in real time, and therefore not as large an audience to find my sketches. DeviantART used to be a place I loved, but as it's turned into a shadow of it's former self with Web 2.0, it's less fun than it used to be. I figure, I might as well roll with the punches.
I hope everyone had a lovely New Years. May this year treat you warmly.