#i can’t keep up with my bills i’m literally ruining my credit being forgetful my apartment is a mess i just realized i havent eaten in

[pessimisticprincess]

its honestly so pathetic how hard i struggle to keep up with everything down to the most basic things and i just wonder when or how that gets better

#i can’t keep up with my bills i’m literally ruining my credit being forgetful my apartment is a mess i just realized i havent eaten in #almost like 3 days i think i’m horrible at taking care of myself i’m horrible at keeping up with people no matter how much i care #i feel like using work as an excuse isn’t valid for how badly i’m doing with everything plenty of people work this much and do fine #i have so many days off bc the long days when i do work like why am i not getting better? #all i do is mess everything up and miss things #i’m so fucking bad at being a person its a waste to know me #genuinely dont know how much longer i can live like this but also really dont know what to do #its truly a shame that i’m in charge of my own life i feel like all i do is wait for everything to end

[punkscowardschampions]

Jac & Jameson

Jac: [An appropriate amount of time that the conversation could have taken place]

Jac: Tell me when she’s finished

Jameson: I’m done

Jac: I had to give her the chance to tell you herself, I’m sorry

Jameson: I know, it’s okay

Jameson: well, it’s fucking not, but between us anyway

Jac: I hate to say I’m more shocked at him but

Jac: I literally am, I’m not going to pretend otherwise

Jameson: she’s a school kid, he’s not

Jac: Yeah, it’s disgusting but I wasn’t even going to go there with her on that point

Jac: because it’s not the point but also, what the fuck

Jameson: I introduced them, and that’s the tip of the iceberg of what I’ve trusted him with

Jameson: I’m supposed to shoot with him tomorrow, share the same hotel room

Jameson: I just

Jac: I know

Jac: what are you going to do

Jac: about tomorrow, not long term

Jameson: Cancel

Jameson: I’ve never called in sick before, that much’ll be fine

Jac: I wish you could fucking bill her for the cheque you’ll miss out on

Jac: likewise mum and dad for all the free childcare, food, shelter, she is just expecting

Jameson: Maybe he was planning to buy her continued silence once the baby’s born cos he sure as shit wasn’t ever gonna say a thing to me about being the father to my niece or nephew

Jac: I doubt it

Jac: It’s not as if she would think to ask

Jac: I’d somewhat respect her if she did but no

Jameson: yeah, I’m giving them both too much credit, he won’t have said a word to her either

Jac: It’s so fucking

Jac: tragic

Jac: literally, even more so than previously thought

Jameson: and who the hell is the bigger dickhead here? At least he only lied to her face for one night

Jameson: now I’m a joke, along with the entire brand I’ve built around him

Jac: There has to be a way to disentangle your work from his

Jac: without outing this because it wouldn’t just tarnish his name

Jac: I’m going to ask the law students I know, as well as just think on it

Jameson: we’re an us right now, that’s how everyone wants it, there’s no way that won’t make me look unprofessional and if I get a reputation as someone who’s difficult to work with, I might as well forget it

Jac: He was unprofessional first

Jac: You need to talk him into being the one to break the contracts

Jac: he can be the one who thinks up the bloody story, he can at least do that much

Jac: you can threaten to out the truth without actually doing it, or intending to

Jameson: He’s also the one with a famous rock star dad, not me

Jac: I know

Jac: but fucking hell, if he was ever really your friend

Jac: he could make some effort to not ruin your career, Jesus

Jameson: he obviously wasn’t, or he’d have told me after it happened

Jac: Just don’t do anything hasty, okay

Jac: he’ll be more useful if he’s scared of losing something himself

Jameson: I don’t know what to do, hasty or otherwise

Jac: I don’t either

Jac: this is the worst, I can’t believe they’ve done this to you

Jameson: it could’ve been worse if you hadn’t forced Jude to tell me the truth, I know I can’t trust Raff anymore, which is good knowledge to have before we sign some massive new contract

Jac: She was wrong for trying to keep it from you

Jac: even if this is going to be messy, and we can’t work it out fully, you still need to know

Jameson: I get that I work loads, but I still thought I’d been a better sister than this

Jac: I know I weren’t so

Jac: but working under the assumption she’s not completely full of shit, she thought she was doing you a massive favour not telling you sooner

Jac: which proves she’s a total child but still

Jameson: yeah, she said, when I’d gotten her to stop crying and actually talk

Jac: Jesus 🙄

Jameson: it’s like trying to be fuming at one of the pups, meaning I don’t know where to put how I really feel

Jac: She thinks she can cry her way out of everything

Jac: Not how life works

Jameson: won’t get me any more sick days when I still don’t wanna go back to work after tomorrow

Jac: Exactly

Jac: I’m so angry at her

Jameson: He literally hangs around models all day, why my little sister?

Jac: Opportunity

Jac: men don’t think like that

Jameson: stupid of me to reckon I had any idea how his mind works

Jac: I know you trusted him

Jac: he clearly didn’t see it as the betrayal it is

Jac: and you wouldn’t have known if she didn’t get knocked up

Jameson: but she did and it is, so here we are

Jac: Are you going to talk to him?

Jameson: God knows how but I’ll have to

Jac: Do you want me to talk to him first

Jameson: you’ve already had to do more than you should’ve

Jameson: even Savannah and her sister have been involved

Jac: Thank God she did blab to Sienna

Jac: What if Toby came to her in a years time, ten years, whatever, and wanted to be involved

Jac: She’s so fucking stupid

Jameson: Whenever we think she’s stopped making a mess of things, it gets bigger

Jac: I don’t know what to do anymore

Jac: I really don’t

Jameson: what’s next, like?

Jac: If she has twins I’m officially calling the social

Jameson: I’m this close to getting on the first plane I can afford as is

Jac: I’d sooner never come back

Jameson: very relatable

Jac: Unfortunately

Jac: she’s very welcome for the pity party she can have

Jameson: she can go all in and have it on my birthday if she wants, I’m not in the mood

Jac: We should actually do something though

Jac: make sure you’re at least somewhere nearby

Jameson: Aren’t you going away with Sav?

Jameson: I should probably be somewhere near Italy or France

Jac: Well contrary to how she’s made it, I was actually trying to be a better sister in general

Jac: we should be able to meet in one of the two

Jameson: I’ll definitely be free if I can’t get booked

Jac: We’re not letting that happen

Jac: a rebrand, definitely

Jameson: it is a bit weird how invested everybody is in my completely invented love life, I wouldn’t miss it

Jac: Exactly, you don’t want to do those sort of shoots forever

Jac: and not solely those, either

Jameson: something to do tomorrow that isn’t just feeling like shit sounds like a 🥇💡

Jac: We’re not going to pretend she’s done you a favour because any hint of that and she’ll be clinging to it for all it’s worth

Jac: but you’re actually decent at your job, he just has a name and a rich dad

Jameson: You’ve never liked him, bit rude of your intuition not to go any further but

Jac: I’m sure she’d say I don’t like anyone

Jac: He’s also not attractive but I guess that’s secondary to cash

Jameson: it might be, but it’s cheered me up that you’ve said it

Jac: If anything, we’re allowed to drag him privately

Jac: publicly tbd

Jameson: I could always become an actress after selling for the cameras that we’re couple goals

Jac: 🤣

Jac: I don’t envy you, aside from the obvious reason why

Jameson: I don’t envy your uni course load, but I probably could go if I have to rebrand that hard, I’m not recognised everywhere, just loads of places

Jac: become a model that bangs on about her degree 💄🧠

Jac: you wouldn’t be the first or last

Jac: It isn’t going to end you, there’s no way

Jac: there’ll be the crazies who are mad/sad but most people over the age of 12 need to know it wasn’t real

Jameson: I’m not ready for it to be over

Jac: It isn’t

Jameson: I’ve worked too hard for it to be, not for a fuck up that ain’t mine

Jac: Who in this day and age is going to side with a boy blindly

Jameson: some of the lads I work with are SO unbelievably hot and I’ve never been for a drink or nowt with any of them cos I’m not trying to blur boundaries and put my job at risk and Raff just don’t even care

Jac: He can afford to

Jac: literally and with the double standard of it all

Jameson: there is no line for him, no wonder he didn’t bother to tell me, it wouldn’t occur to him he’s crossed one when he’s used to being able to do whatever he wants

Jac: Typical rich boy

Jac: I know this sucks though, he clearly acted like he weren’t that

Jameson: Typical Jude to take something from me and make it all about her

Jac: She really was waiting in the wings to be the sister who made it real 🙄

Jac: it’s ridiculous

Jameson: I don’t get to be upset cos her life is more ruined

Jac: It’s not cool that he betrayed you, but he didn’t do fuck all wrong to her

Jac: she’s made every decision since, if her life is ruined, it’s her fault

Jameson: at least you get it

Jac: Here’s hoping if I say it enough she’ll actually realize it’s her and her decisions

Jac: not holding my breath

Jameson: I can’t talk to her until she does

Jac: You can’t feel bad about that, we can’t

Jac: she has support, she isn’t alone

Jac: idk what the fuck she wants, a friggin baby shower and us to feel her bump or some shit

Jac: but her not getting that doesn’t mean she’s being victimized, like

Jameson: she’s not alone but she’s made sure I am, out on a weird fucking limb I didn’t ask to be on

Jac: I hope you told her all this

Jac: or I fucking will

Jac: more than I did beforehand, anyway

Jameson: there’s no point, she might go to the pub with her co-workers, or you know, did before, but she doesn’t get that Raff weren’t just teaching me the ropes at [whatever Pete’s record store cafe is called where Jude sometimes works]

Jac: It’s like she doesn’t live on the same planet, I swear

Jac: God knows where she came from

Jameson: I don’t talk about how lonely and homesick and daunted I was when I started, or any of the negatives honestly, cos that was my decision, but I shouldn’t have to explain that he was my mate and how few of them I have

Jac: You aren’t allowed to talk about it with 99% of people already

Jac: and she clearly thinks your life is perfect, nothing less

Jac: she doesn’t get it, at all, add it to the long list

Jameson: I knew she didn’t, but I thought he did

Jac: I know

Jac: finding out he wasn’t legit was never going to be good but this is possibly the worst way

Jameson: I hate that we’re in different countries when I found this out, you’re like the only trustworthy person left

Jac: 🥺

Jac: I don’t suppose extending the day off to a long weekend is a good idea?

Jameson: I could be fake sick that long, but I don’t wanna Jude my way into your life cos I can’t drop any of my 💔 into the group chat with [her friends names, however many of them are still around at this point]

Jac: I definitely owe you, okay, two years worth of not being there is a lot of long weekends

Jac: If you want to, you can

Jameson: You and Sav deserve a break from all this bollocks, we only just found out she was pregnant a bit ago

Jameson: I’ll be okay

Jac: We all do

Jac: do something fun in [whatever country she is in rn] that you wouldn’t have had the chance to do before

Jameson: alright, I will

Jac: and [something more nerdy] for me

Jameson: 😏👌

Jac: I notice that lack of a firm yes but okay

Jameson: I’ll send you a 🤓 selfie, okay?

Jac: 👍

Jac: and I’ll work out where we’ll be for your birthday, that’ll dictate what we do 🥂🏖🎭🏛🩰🏞🎨🛍🎼 yeah?

Jameson: yeah

Jameson: and tell your girlfriend I said tah for having a little sister who knows how to make a decision that’s not total shit

Jac: Ikr?

Jac: not about to tell her she’s SO lucky but…

Jameson: but I’m lucky to not still be in the dark about who Raff is

Jameson: so I appreciate it

Jac: I’ll let them both know

Jac: and make sure Jude doesn’t come at Sienna for letting us know

Jameson: and then take a break

Jac: I don’t think that’s on the to-do list

Jameson: I think you could get Sav to * it

Jac: Probably 😌

Jameson: go on, you’ve admitted you need one, that’s the hard bit

Jac: Thank God it’s Summer at least

Jac: If I had to deal with this and revise, nah

Jameson: If I had to be home with her rn

Jameson: my phone nearly didn’t survive how hard I chucked it after hanging up

Jac: I know the feeling

Jac: and the likelihood of her having an ugly kid isn’t a good enough consolation prize tbh

Jameson: Don’t, his face is literally on billboards here, even if he’s not trying to speak to me in person about what happened, he’s everywhere anyway

Jac: It’s really giving shit psychological thriller

Jac: 👀 on you at all times 😷

Jameson: and how good I look up there too is no consolation prize

Jac: but thank god you don’t look like shit, that’s the last thing you need

Jameson: I need to go for a run

Jac: Good idea

Jac: I’ll meanwhile try to remember what the hell I was doing before yet another bombshell was dropped

Jameson: Good luck

Jac: It’ll be alright, you know

Jac: I promise

Jameson: I don’t know but

Jameson: at least a promise coming from you is more reassuring than one of Jude’s

Jameson: or anything else she said

Jac: She’s not even reassuring herself

Jac: if this wasn’t her choice, or she was willing to be persuaded to make the right one

Jac: then we could help but

Jac: well

Jameson: 🤞 the baby isn’t ugly, it can have a go at modelling and get further than me

Jac: I don’t want to think about it’s lack of a future

Jac: or hers

Jameson: just mine then

Jac: Come on

Jac: we’re going to sort this

Jac: fix her fuckups like always

Jameson: Yeah, sorry, it was just loads to hear for such a short phone call

Jac: ‘course, I get it

Jac: we’re all spiralling

Jac: I’m just trying to keep us on track and not catastrophize

Jameson: that’s you and her with your polar opposite approaches covered, like

Jameson: meanwhile I’m just ignoring his messages

Jac: what’s he saying, trying to

Jac: he’s got nerve, give him that

Jameson: nowt that sounds enough like soz I impregnated your sister, here’s how I’m gonna sort it

Jac: He’s helped her ruin her life, period

Jac: because she’s not going to be talked ‘round, even by him

Jameson: if mum and dad can’t and nan won’t, that’s that

Jac: Yep

Jac: and we’ve all got to just

Jac: live with it

Jameson: and I’ve got to work around it on top of that

Jameson: fuck’s sake, I was getting somewhere

Jac: it’s not fair

Jac: she’s ruined everyone’s hard work, literally

Jac: what was the point of mum and dad doing things different, doing it right

Jac: for her to turn right back ‘round and fuck it all up, literal square 1

Jameson: Dad’s gonna have to bring clients back to a house where there’s a screaming kid

Jac: She better move to nans if she wants to be her so bad

Jac: I’m not being dramatic, I can’t bear to see her right now and I don’t know when I will be able to again

Jameson: poor Cam won’t have nowhere to sleep if she don’t

Jac: wouldn’t even want her around Jude if I was Bob or her mum

Jac: can’t have it being a trend, fucking hell

Jameson: her mum’ll love the excuse to stop her coming round as much, well done Jude

Jac: She should chat to her

Jac: they were in uni and look at what a completely subpar mum she is

Jameson: Jude would have to go properly deaf to get that charity off her

Jac: She only shouts like she’s hard of hearing, I know

Jac: she’ll just pretend she LOVES being a mum and do nothing with her life and hope someone writes a shit song about her

Jac: not a waste at all, so happy for her

Jameson: I’m going for my run before I do something you warned me against earlier

Jac: Sorry, go

Jac: it’s not time-sensitive anymore

Jac: it just still feels like an emergency

Jameson: it’s cos we know she’s still got time to do the right thing, even though we obviously also know she ain’t gonna

Jac: yeah

Jac: but seriously, go run, that’s sensible

Jameson: I’ll talk to you tomorrow

Jac: We can facetime

Jac: assuming you don’t look like total shit now 😘

Jameson: I probably do but you’re not in charge of my bookings so 🤷‍♀️

Jac: Thank God

Jac: Sav wants to speak to you more

Jac: I’d have hoped it’d be under less awkward circumstances but she still wants to so

Jac: pretend we’re not completely fucked as a family, or something

Jameson: she’d be the last person to judge someone else’s fucked family dynamics

Jameson: but if her dad’s willing to drag Jude to Sligo I wouldn’t say no rn

Jac: True but let’s say that in a less we’re judging yours kinda way

Jac: I’m sure he’d love to get her far away from Sienna by any means necessary though

Jameson: Poor Sav is never gonna be able to tell him how connected she is to you and this family at this rate

Jac: It was bad enough without this actual shit

Jac: I won’t blame her if she doesn’t

Jameson: I know it was

Jac: I don’t care

Jac: it’s all so new anyway

Jameson: if you do care, that’s alright, you’re allowed to reckon it’s another unfair thing

Jac: No, I don’t

Jac: It’s not like I want to talk to her father any more than he wants to talk to me, really

Jac: as long as she’s happy

Jameson: I don’t need facetime to work out she is, about that bit of life anyway

Jac: 🤞

Jameson: *👍✔️

Jac: alright, nerd

Jac: maybe you’ll meet some boys you can ask out for coffee on this run

Jameson: 🤞 I don’t now I’ve got a whole career rebrand to sort out, I was too busy before

Jameson: also boys plural is a bit rude

Jac: A boy per run, don’t get crazy

Jameson: it’s crazy enough I feel like I got cheated on, maybe when I’m not reeling from all the fake relationship drama

Jac: You don’t feel as lonely now

Jac: do you?

Jameson: Ask me when I’ve done my first shoot without him, that’ll be when it starts actually feeling real

Jac: Right

Jac: I’m sorry it’s so shit

Jameson: he wasn’t the only good thing about it, I’ll be alright

Jac: You’re not that daft

Jameson: it’s my job and I love it, before him and after

Jac: I’m really glad

Jameson: okay, I’m really going before this gets any closer to 😭

Jameson: I’ve got enough problems without being puffy

Jac: make sure your roller is in the freezer

Jameson: ‘course

[madd-information]

Do I have ADHD/ADD?

First off, I know no one on here can diagnose me, but those with ADHD/ADD, I want to know if my experience is like yours. I'm getting professionally tested in Monday and I'm kinda worried I won't be able to talk about why I believe I have it when I get tested. I'm not sure how adult testing works.

I have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), if you don't know what that is, you'll have to look it up for the sake of keeping this short as possible. I first suspected I may have ADHD or ADD in high school when I was having difficulty with procrastinating and staying on task and looked up the symptoms of FAS. I found that 90-something percent of people with FAS also have ADHD/ADD.

Other than having to spin in a chair or walk or swing when I'm maladaptive daydreaming, I'm not particularly hyperactive. I can sit still in class. However, I have a LOT of trouble paying attention. Even when I tell myself "you need to pay attention, this is important" I zone out within the first minute. I've often had to ask for instructions twice or more because when someone talks directly to me, it all goes right over my head. At my job, I had a difficult time doing things that required a routine and multi-tasking, like drive-thru. I had trouble counting money in large amounts because if I got slightly distracted by something or someone came up to talk to me, I'd have to start over. My coworkers were constantly frustrated with me. I also take longer to process what is being said to me. I'd get yelled at because I would blankly stare for a few seconds instead of doing the task I was asked to. I even had a customer complain that I zoned out on him. I take so much time processing information I have to hold up do the (L J) thing with my hands to know the difference between right and left and I STILL take a few seconds to realize the difference. I have insomnia. I take around three hours to fall asleep because my mind is racing and I constantly want to get up to daydream. There have been nights I'd be up until 6 am daydreaming. Even if it's not daydreaming, I need to do something instead of sleep. I am the biggest procrastinator in the world. I used to think I was just extremely lazy but I now realize it's something else. I can't stay on task. It takes me 5 hours to finish homework that takes other people 30 minutes-1 hour. My grades are shit because I am so bad at managing time and procrastinating. I have even waited 3 months to pay a late bill even though I knew it would fuck up my credit even more. I take half a year to schedule appointments. I start projects last minute if at all. I often miss deadlines. I always make a million reasons why I can't start a project/homework, go to class or work. Everything is an obstacle to me. The biggest problem is my impulsivity. I quit jobs on impulse (I've never had a job for more than a month and a half). I spend money on impulse. Because I am so financially impulsive my credit has defaulted and I'm only 20 years old. My impulsive behavior has literally ruined my life. I dropped out of school on impulse (thank god I'm back now). When I want something, I make sure to make it my first priority and get it right away. One time, I had $300 for an electric bill and I knew if I didn't pay it, my electricity would go off. I saw guinea pigs. I spent that $300 on 4 guinea pigs and supplies to make an enclosure for them. The next day, of course, my electricity went off. There was one day I spent $700 and I quit my job. I spend money on impulse all the time. I also say things on impulse. My friends and family say I have "no filter". It used to get me bullied horribly but I'm better at controlling it now. I've done so many things on impulse my life is literally a wreck. Oh, I also signed a lease for an apartment I can't afford on impulse. Like it was just a spur of the moment decision. Didn't think it through at all. I also had trouble with weed and alcohol because it made daydreaming more vivid. I would get high before work then just decide not to go because I wanted to smoke and daydream instead.

Reasons why I may not have it:

I don't fidget in class. I am not forgetful. I don't have trouble controlling my emotions, generally. (I think MaDD helps with that) I'm not irritable. I don't think I hyperfocus (unless daydreaming for several hours counts) or I'm hyperactive, just EXTREMELY impulsive. I'm not particularly disorganized. I don't talk excessively, I'm even a little shy. However, I do say inappropriate things in inappropriate situations the moment they pop in my head, like I mentioned earlier. I don't interrupt or have trouble waiting my turn.

#maladaptive daydreaming #actuallymadd #submission

[ill-find-something-better-later]

Listen, I dont always write fanfic, but when I do it’s because the story exploded into my head and would not let me rest until it was out of my system. So here’s two straight days of frantic word vomit in the form of a 7k Reddie fix-it fic, enjoy

~~~

    Eddie woke up alone, and trapped. The cistern had collapsed, and it was a miracle that he had ended up in a little pocket of air, sitting like he was under a tree in a nice meadow rather than the ruins of a killer alien clown’s underground lair.

    He took a deep breath—at least, he tried to. The air was laden with dust, and his chest hurt like someone had torn it open.

    Which was, he remembered with a shudder, exactly what had happened.

    Despite his best efforts, he started to panic. His breath came fast and ragged. He had no idea where his inhaler had gone, and he just knew the air around him was probably as thick with toxins as it was with deep, ominous, terrifying silence. With one desperate, adrenaline-fueled shove, he pushed at the debris above him. It fell away with ease.

    What had once been a massive, twisted cavern, the home of nightmares, was now nothing more than sea of rubble. Eddie looked around in horror. There was nothing, absolutely nothing; no signs of clowns, or lepers, or Losers, or even a fight at all. He called out, but his voice wouldn’t come. He coughed—then quickly fell into a fit of coughing—and tried again. Nothing but his own echo.

    Panic came full force.

    Eddie scrambled out of his hole, his grave, and stared wildly at the remains of the cistern. He couldn’t breathe. The wound on his chest was closed, but it was burning like mad and, by god, he had died. At least, he was pretty sure he had died. That’s what typically happens after a giant monster punches a gaping hole into your chest. And if he had died, then anyone else could have died, too. Any of the Losers—Bev, Mike, Ben, Bill, Richie—could be buried less miraculously under the ancient debris of fucking Neibolt.

    "They’re fine,“ he said aloud to no one. To himself. His voice was the only thing keeping him from blacking out. “I’m fine, so they’re fine, everybody’s fucking fine—”

    He stopped, realizing for the first time that he was fine. Filthy, exhausted, bleeding in a few places, and sore literally everywhere, but fine. And somehow alive again, despite being convinced that he had definitely died.

    "I’ve got to get the fuck out of here,“ he whispered.

~~~

    The Losers, or what remained of them, stayed in Derry for over a week after everything had ended. Bev wasn’t ready to go home, back to real life and her shithead soon-to-be-ex husband. Ben stayed for her. Bill and Mike had been trying to help wherever they could, and Richie…

    Richie could hardly get out of bed.

    His phone had been ringing constantly since before they had even faced the clown. Angry managers and publicists trying to drag him back to LA. But now more than ever, he couldn’t face them, couldn’t face anyone. Richie was different now, with all these memories crammed back into his head, all this fear, and regret—all this fucking love that would never have anywhere to go. How could he possibly just go back, pretend nothing was different?

    The others came to him in shifts. For the first couple days, he wouldn’t even let them in, but it got too annoying to listen to them through the door.

    Bill tried to relate, sharing stories about Georgie that were more comforting than Richie wanted to admit. He stuttered less, now that Pennywise was gone, but he was especially smooth when he spoke of his brother.

    Mike assured him that it was all over. They were free. He said Eddie was a hero and, yeah, Richie fucking knew that, and it didn’t make it any easier, didn’t make the hole in Richie’s heart any fucking smaller. But it was nice to remember, if only briefly, the determined jut of Eddie’s jaw, the spark in his eyes.

    Ben was obviously a lot more clever than Richie had ever given him credit for. He knew way too much. Richie tried not to flinch when he mentioned how “especially close” he and Eddie had been. But Richie wasn’t blind either, and he figured Ben’s thing for Bev wasn’t that different, really. Except Bev was still alive.

    Bev. Richie had always been close with her. They had bonded a lot over vicious rumors and cigarettes, once Richie had warmed up to her.

    She didn’t say much. The first time she came in to see him she had simply sat down in a chair by the bed, and offered him a smoke.

    "The detectors don’t even work,“ she had said. “I already checked.”

    This had produced the first thing even slightly resembling a smile on Richie’s face. “Good ol’ Bevers,” he slurred into his pillow. “Raised like a real scoundrel.”

    They had sat together like that for a long time, Richie slumped against the headboard, smoking like a chimney. It didn’t do much for him, but the habit was familiar. And sitting up, at least, had to be a step in the right direction.

~~~

    As it turns out, getting stabbed through the chest, dying, being buried in rubble, and then coming back to life really fucking sucks.

    Eddie had managed to dig his way out of the cavern, though he had cut his hands up in the process. It wasn’t the way they had come, if that way was even still standing. He had crawled for a while through a small tunnel, trying and failing to ignore how filthy the stone was, and the open wounds on his hands and face. Every movement sent a shot of pain across his chest. At one point, he had stopped and checked on it, only for his heart to skip several beats when he saw the angry red scar across his ribs.

    "I should be dead,“ he said to himself. “I totally died.”

    Without his inhaler, Eddie hadn’t managed to take a good deep breath since he woke up, so his only comfort was ranting aloud. Part of him was worried he might draw unwanted attention, but there had been no sign of Pennywise in hours. Or maybe minutes.

    "Hard to tell when you’re fucking underground.“

    Eventually the tunnel widened, and he was able to stand. His legs protested, and the pain in his chest made little black flecks dance across his vision, but he did it anyway. The floors were still uneven and the walls were slimy, slowing his progress. A few times he wondered if he would ever make it out, if he would be stuck down here forever. Maybe he wasn’t even going the right way. Maybe Pennywise’s last trick was to resurrect him just so he could die alone, covered in filth, in a fucking sewer.

    "Fuck that,” he muttered hoarsely. “Fuck that, and fuck him. You can do this, Eddie, just keep moving.”

    He pictured the other Losers, alive and well and waiting for him. A few times, he caught himself smiling, picturing their faces when he turned up in one piece.

    Bill would lose his mind. He had waited a long time for someone he had lost to come back, and Eddie was doing just that.

    Mike would ask a million questions. Call Eddie a hero or something, which would be ridiculous because he hadn’t even fucking killed the thing.

    Bev would probably cry. So would Ben, if he had to guess. Eddie might cry, too, even if Richie teased him for it.

    Eddie liked to think that Richie might, for once, just shut the fuck up.

    Eddie liked to think that maybe, for once, he would force him to.

~~~

��   By the end of the second week, Richie was mobile. He would drag himself out of bed for the sake of getting some coffee, or some bourbon to pour into it. His friends would cheer him on in their own ways, and it wasn’t nearly as pitiful as it sounded.

    "Baby steps,“ Bill would say to him, "it’s all about b-b-ba-baby steps.”

    The weather was too nice. Richie found it profoundly inconsiderate to his mood. He would open the window in his room to smoke with Bev, despite the dead smoke detectors, because he could still hear Eddie in his mind.

    "You’re sucking in first and second hand smoke, dumbass. That’s twice the cancer. Besides, those smoke detectors are there for a goddamn reason, you know. This place is one giant fucking fire hazard, really, someone should call the fire department, or OSHA, or something because—”

    Richie would let the rant play out in his head, which was probably pathetic. But it was all he had, and if he had to leave Derry eventually, forget about Eddie forever, then he would cling to that nagging ghost as long as he fucking could.

    It was on the tenth day post-Neibolt that Bev asked him what his plans were. She wasn’t the first to ask, but she was the only one Richie felt obligated to actually answer. Which is why he had hoped she never would.

    "I mean, what else is a hack comedian supposed to do?“ He shrugged, an effort to look fine when he really, really wasn’t and probably never would be. “I’ll go back to LA eventually. Maybe I’ll even still have a career if I’m real polite about it.”

    "I get it,“ Bev said, blowing a cloud of smoke out the window. "I don’t think I could ever feel ready. But we can’t hide here forever.”

    "Maybe you can’t.“

    "Rich.”

    "Don’t “Rich” me,“ he said lightly. "I could totally just spend the rest of my days wallowing in this room until I wither up and die. Can’t be hard.”

    "Eddie wouldn’t want that.”

    Fuck that. Fuck that, and fuck Derry, and fuck evil clowns, and fuck absolutely everything else.

    "Eddie had a wife to go home to,“ Richie snapped, voice breaking. "So does Bill, and you have Ben, and Ben has you. What do I have? A big, empty apartment where I can drink myself into a coma and hopefully forget that I’m forgetting him? Fuck that.”

    Bev blinked at him, cigarette dangling between her fingers like she had forgotten she was holding it. “Richie, is that what you’re worried about? Forgetting again?”

    He stared at her, and then stared out the window, taking a drag. “What can I say, I’m a weepy little bitch. Sue me.”

    Bev rolled her eyes, which was as comforting as it was insulting, honestly. “You won’t,” she said insistently.

    "What?“

    "You’re not going to forget Eddie.”

    "How the fuck do you know? What, the ol’ clown sent out a memo that I missed or something?“

    She laughed, and the sound was so unexpected that Richie snapped his mouth shut with a muted click.

    "You won’t for the same reason that I won’t forget you, or Bill, or Mike. We’re friends, Richie, we’re Losers. Pennywise is gone and we’re the ones who killed him. He can’t take our lives from us anymore.”

    Richie hadn’t thought of that. Mostly because his thoughts had been occupied with Eddie’s lovely eyes, his sharp smile, the sound of his voice, and all the other flavors of him that Richie would never taste again. He had been so frantic at the thought of losing those memories that he hadn’t considered that he never would.

    He couldn’t leave Derry with Eddie by his side, but he could at least carry the memory of him. And, shit, that had to be worth something.

~~~

    That was a light. Eddie was certain of it, that was a light!

    He had been trudging through sewer water for what felt like days. His body was screaming for him to stop, and he had never ignored so many of his own maladies in his life. The tunnel had gone from uneven rock, to uneven brick, and Eddie had briefly convinced himself that he had turned around and was headed back into Its lair.

    Then the brick became smoother, worked, rounded. When Eddie realized that he was now walking through the sewers of Derry, he actually teared up a little. He never thought he’d be so happy while standing ankle deep in grey water.

    And now, finally, finally, he could see the literal light at the end of the tunnel. It was faint at first, and he had already had a few false starters—the glint off of a glass bottle, a trick of the eye. This time, however, the light grew as he moved closer.

    He broke into a jog, though it was more of a controlled stagger. Water sloshed loudly around him, dragging at his feet, and the sound echoed through the tunnels.

    Eddie started to panic again. He was so close.

    What if this was Pennywise’s last trick? What if Eddie was still trapped down there, and this was all just an elaborate vision? The tunnel would collapse right before he escaped. That awful laughter would float up from behind him. The water would rise, his wounds would reopen. He would die all over again. He would never see Richie, would never hear his dumb jokes or his stupid laugh. He would never get the chance to shut him up the way he had always wanted to. He was so close now, dammit, so close…

    Sunlight.

    Warm, blessed evening sunlight.

~~~

    The Losers finally departed from Derry in sequence. Bill went first, since he had a deadline, but it took a day and a half of convincing to get him going. Ben and Bev left together, and despite himself, Richie wished them the best.

    He was going to miss them. They never would have left until Richie was okay again, and although he was far from fine, he was no longer scared to leave all of this behind. It was actually kind of baffling, to think that he had been nervous to leave Derry fucking Maine in the rearview.

    Still, he didn’t leave until the afternoon. The New England sun was nice this time of year, and Richie was trying so hard to focus on that instead of bottomless chasm in his heart. His future felt empty in a way it never had before. Apparently forgetting Eddie while he was still alive left Richie with more hope than remembering him dead. Funny how that works.

    Only it wasn’t funny at all.

    When he finally loaded his things into the car, and said a final farewell to Mike, it was well past noon. Richie took the long way out of town, hoping for one last grab at closure.

    He had been to the kissing bridge a handful of times, back when he was growing up, but no more than anyone else. Mostly because he was terrified of the one spot in the whole world where he had let his secret see the light of day. As he pulled up to the old bridge, he dug around for his pocket knife.

    The carving was faded, weathered to match the wood around it. Richie crouched down and ran the point of his knife over the letters until they were stark enough that he could read them through the tears in his eyes.

    R+E

    He sat there for a while, for once just letting himself cry.

    Then he stood, wiped at his face, said a soft goodbye, and left.

~~~

    The sun was setting over Derry fucking Maine, and Eddie Kaspbrak was there to see it. He stumbled out of the sewers and collapsed into the shallow water of the river, gasping in the fresh air. He was filthy, sore, tired, and fucking alive, and fucking free. For a moment, he didn’t even bother with caution, splashing the water right onto his face. When he looked up, he felt the fading sunlight on his cheeks, a faint breeze tugging at his hair, and he laughed.

    Then he stopped laughing because it fucking hurt.

    It took an immense amount of effort to pick himself up again. He had to make it back to the hotel, to the other Losers, to Richie. It was impossible to tell how long he had been down there, but his first priority was getting to them. The rest could come later.

    The walk back into Derry was shorter than his trek through the sewers, but it felt like more of a hike. About a mile, mostly uphill, through the woods in the dying daylight. It didn’t help that every odd shadow had him jumping straight out of his skin. When he finally saw the light of town, he practically ran.

    Being back in civilization was like finally waking up from the nightmare to an unfamiliar room. He was okay, he was going to be fine, he was alive, but it wasn’t home. He wouldn’t be safe and sound until he found the others. Which was still fine, because he was almost back to the hotel, and he could practically see them turning to look as he came through the door. The shock on their faces, the disbelief, and then they would be on him, and it really would be okay. Richie would say something stupid, Eddie knew he would, and that’s when he would shut him up with— 

    The hotel was empty.

    The lights were all off, despite the relatively early hour. No one was there when he went inside. The lady who ran the desk in the back said that all the guests had checked out. They were gone.

    Eddie asked if he could use the phone. She glowered at him, clearly not happy about the dirt and various other substances he was coated in but she pointed to an old landline. Eddie had absolutely nothing, no wallet, no inhaler, not even a pen. But they had all exchanged their phone numbers back at the restaurant, and Eddie had only bothered to remember one of them.

~~~

    Richie was almost an hour away from Derry when his phone rang. He figured it was his manager again, or his publicist again, or maybe someone else who wanted to bite his head off for disappearing for weeks. He glanced down at the screen. No name, but the number tickled something at the back of his mind. He let it go to voicemail.

    He didn’t think he had room left in his brain for more long lost memories.

    A few minutes later, it rang again. Richie glanced down, saw that same number, and cursed. Maybe it was Mike, calling to tell him that Pennywise had a son or something, and the terror was only just beginning. He let it ring out again, as a nagging feeling grew in his chest.

    When it rang again, Richie caved.

    "Listen, you can’t expect me to keep putting up with this shit, okay? One supernatural showdown a year, that’s the new rule. I am capped out! What the fuck more could you possibly want from me?“

    There was a silence, just long enough to make him nervous. And then…

    "Richie?”

~~~

    There was a terrible screeching sound on the other end of the line. Eddie heard Richie curse, and then rustling, and then silence.

    No, not quite silence. Richie was muttering something barely loud enough to be noticeable. Eddie strained his ears, and made out enough to discern the familiar chant.

    "This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real.“

    And Eddie understood, he really did, but it didn’t stop the flare of indignation. He was just so desperately relieved to hear Richie’s voice, and he was a little delirious, and he had died, and there had been several tense minutes where he didn’t think Richie would pick up the phone and, well…

    "I am totally fucking real, you dipshit!” He practically snarled it, earning another glare from the lady behind the desk. “You would know that if you were here right now. What the fuck, dude?”

    Richie didn’t immediately answer.  His breath was rattling through the receiver in short bursts, and Eddie was almost sorry for snapping at him.

    "No,“ Richie choked out. "No, no, no, no, you’re not. You were… you're… I was fucking there, and you were…”

    Eddie sighed, the anger draining out of him and leaving him empty. “Yeah, I was, Trashmouth. And now I’m not.”

    There was another pause, filled only with the awful sound of Richie’s ragged breathing, and it sounded too much like one of Eddie’s nastier asthma attacks. Eddie wanted him to be here, and not just a voice on the phone.

    "How?“ he finally asked, voice too small, too unsteady to belong to Richie Tozier.

    Eddie sighed again. "I don’t fucking know, Rich. Look, I’m back at the hotel, and I don’t have my wallet or literally anything else. I don’t even know what fucking day it is. Just please tell me you’re not on the other side of the goddamn country." 

    There was another curse, and more rustling. When Richie spoke again, his voice was more sure, a hint of urgency hidden beneath it. "I’m not, I… I left like an hour ago.” A pause. “Had to pay my respects to your mom.”

    His voice cracked as he said it, and Eddie decided to ignore that. “Fuck off.”

    Richie’s breath audibly hitched, and Eddie ignored that, too.

    "Give the phone to the lady,“ Richie said hoarsely, "I’ll get you a room. But don’t get the wrong idea or anything, I don’t do prostitutes anymore.”

    Eddie rolled his eyes, scoffed, and handed the receiver to the sour-faced woman. He didn’t trust his own voice now, worried it would give away the chest-bursting relief that had come over him. Richie was okay. He was only an hour away, and he was coming back, and he was okay.

    The woman rattled off several questions, and pecked at the keyboard of the ancient computer in front of her. A minute later, she curled her lip and passed the phone back to Eddie.

    "You’d better be fucking real, Kaspbrak. I’m pretty sure I just got ripped off.“

~~~

    The irony of driving almost twenty miles over the speed limit for the sake of Eddie Kaspbrak was not lost on Richie. He had almost crashed the car once, at the first raspy sound of Eddie’s voice. Now he was hurtling down the highway at breakneck speed, back to Derry, back to him.

    Richie still wasn’t sure he was even awake. Part of him was absolutely certain that this was some awful dream, that he would get back to Derry and Eddie would be just as dead as when he left. The other part, the one that was playing and replaying Eddie’s voice in his head, was almost sick with hope.

    He had been crying ever since Eddie had told him to fuck off in that just-barely-fond voice that he so rarely used. It had occurred to him, of course, that Eddie would have a field day with that, but he couldn’t stop.

    Eddie was alive. Eddie was fucking alive.

    Alone, and probably hurt, and definitely pissed off, but alive nonetheless. Richie would have had a much harder time believing it if he hadn’t fought and killed a giant, shapeshifting killer clown two weeks ago.

    He was so close. It was a miracle that he hadn’t been pulled over, but he pushed his luck even further anyway, creeping up toward one hundred. He was so close.

    There was a paranoid little voice clamouring in the back of his head, shouting things like "trap!” and “danger!” and “impending doom!” Richie ignored that voice.

    Eddie was alive.

~~~

    Eddie was falling apart. He had made it back down the hall, up the stairs, and into the room before the miles of crawling, stumbling, digging, climbing, and fighting to survive finally caught up to him. Three steps past the threshold, he collapsed.

    The room was empty, but it had clearly not been that way for long. It reeked of cigarette smoke. Eddie slumped down onto the floor, and lay there for several minutes, mind blank. Then he started thinking about all the awful little things crawling around in the carpet, and he became acutely aware of everything still coating his body.

    With a new surge of energy, he hauled himself up and into the bathroom. There was no first aid kit, no isopropyl alcohol, no sterile bandages, but at this point Eddie would settle for an incredibly hot shower.

    He almost lost his balance getting in, which made his heart plummet in his chest. But when he stepped into the water, his whole body unwound like a cut wire. The grime of the sewers fell away, sluicing off his skin and draining back to where it had all come from. Eddie watched his own blood circle the drain, and shivered despite the scalding water.

    Richie had barely left, and he wouldn’t have been far behind the others, so it couldn’t have been all that long since Neibolt collapsed. Eddie figured two days at the most. Unless Richie had decided to stay.

    "Had to pay my respects to your mom.“

    Eddie shook his head. A fog of delirium and exhaustion blanketed his mind and was clearly affecting his judgement; Richie wouldn’t stay any longer than the others. He shut off the water.

    Eddie wrapped himself in a towel and left the bathroom, lungs clogged with steam. It wasn’t until he was standing in the middle of the room, strength once again draining from his limbs, that he realized his only clothes were no more than filthy rags. He fell down onto the bed, and cursed at the ceiling.

    Several minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

~~~

    Richie made it back to the hotel in less than forty five minutes. There had been one more close call when he got off the highway a bit too fast and fishtailed, but he had made it in one piece. After he pulled into the parking lot, he barely remembered to turn the car off before scrambling out of it. He barreled through the door, up the stairs, to the same damn room he had been suffering in for the last two weeks. Figures.

    It was then that he finally slowed down, stopped. Eighty miles, and he had never let himself doubt this, but suddenly he was paralyzed with nerves. What if Eddie wasn’t there, and he had been drawn back to this room as a sign that he really should just curl up and die in it?

    His chest was tight. He took a breath.

    With a shaking hand, he knocked on the door.

    A second passed. Two. Three. A silence just long enough for Richie’s heart to stop beating.

    "It’s open.”

    Then it started again, full throttle, slamming against his ribcage as he opened the door.

    Only for it to skip, soar, and drop through the floor all at once.

    Eddie was lying on the bed in nothing but a towel, hair still wet from the shower, covered in cuts and bruises. There was a massive, raw scar where Pennywise had run him through. The hole in his cheek had closed, but it hadn’t completely healed. His chest was rising and falling in short movements, like he was struggling to breathe.

    Richie was dangerously close to bursting into tears again.

    After a moment of silence that seemed to stretch for hours, Eddie turned his head to look at Richie. The movement was slow, almost wary, as if Eddie was just as terrified of Richie being a lie. They locked eyes, and fuck—

    Fuck. Eddie was real, and alive, and right the fuck in front of him.

    Richie took a shallow breath, and then another. His throat was all twisted up.

    "You look like shit, Eds,“ he whispered.

    Eddie’s face twitched, brows sliding down into an all too familiar scowl.

    "Yeah, well you’re no fucking portrait, asshole.”

    Richie shuddered, and suddenly he could breathe again—he hadn’t been able to breathe in weeks—and then he was laughing. Before he really thought about it, before his brain could catch up with anything, he was striding over to the bed and sitting down next to Eddie.

    His skin was too pale, making all the bruises and blood stand out harshly. Richie reached over and brushed his fingers over the large scar on his chest. His body was warm and solid.

    Eddie went stiff, but made no move to pull away. Richie, not really realizing what he was doing, traced the scar lightly with his fingertips. It spread across the lower half of Eddie’s chest and down over most of his stomach. Richie could still see Pennywise’s claw protruding from the spot, dripping with Eddie’s blood.

    "How the hell did you survive this,“ he muttered.

    Eddie shrugged mechanically. "I don’t think I did.”

    Richie snapped his eyes up to meet his. There were more questions, a thousand more, but they all died as he met Eddie’s gaze again.

    He snatched his hand away, finally realizing where it was, what it was doing. Eddie seemed to realize something, too, as his face regained some color.

    "Hey, Rich, you wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes I could borrow, would you? Mine are covered in sewage.“

    Richie’s brain finally caught up, and his own face grew hot. He nodded, mostly focused on not staring at Eddie’s half naked body now that it had sunk in that Eddie was half naked. "Yeah, obviously,” he stammered, “in the car. I’ll, uh, yeah.”

    He stood, and Eddie sat up but didn’t follow. He looked dizzy.

    Richie practically sprinted to his car. It took three tries to get it unlocked, his hands were shaking so bad. As if Eddie would disappear in the thirty seconds it took to haul his shit back up to the room.

    When he came back, Eddie was leaning his elbows on his knees. He looked bone deep tired, and Richie knew exactly what that was like. He dropped the suitcase on the floor and flung it open.

    "Most of this shit’s been worn already,“ he said. "Just once, but I know how you are.”

    "Where’s my stuff?“ It wasn’t an angry question, really, but Richie’s blood ran cold anyway.

    "It’s, um… Most of it’s in my car, actually,” he mumbled. He had taken what remained of Eddie’s things the second night after defeating Pennywise. None of the Losers had said anything about it. Richie had hoped it would help with his grief, and it had, just a little. “I could go get it, I was just in a hurry, and I—”

    "No, it’s fine. Just give me something comfortable. And nothing with your fucking face on it, either.”

    Richie scoffed without really thinking about it. “You think I would wear my own merchandise? I can’t believe you think so lowly of me, Eds.”

    "Shut up and give me some clothes.“

    "What’s the rush?” Richie grinned. He couldn’t help himself. This was the back and forth that he hadn’t been getting from Eddie’s ghost in his head. “Are you that eager to get into my pants? You’re so much more forward than your mom.”

    "Richie, I will fucking strangle you.“

    "Not the kind of foreplay I expected, but I can work with it.”

    Eddie threw a glare at him, and Richie was filled with the usual buzz from his undivided attention. He wasn’t even ashamed of it now. It was better than anything he had felt in weeks.

    He dug out a pair of sweats and his last clean T-shirt, trading insults with Eddie as he did so. It was a tired exchange, and neither of them were on the top of their game, but it was so sweetly familiar that Richie felt drunk. Eddie went into the bathroom to change, and Richie had to resist the urge to shout at him through the door.

    When he came back out, Richie’s words died on his tongue.

    The shirt was too big, and the pants pooled at his ankles. Eddie was glaring at him like he was braced for an onslaught of teasing. Richie hated to disappoint, but his heart was up in his throat, and all he could think about was how amazing it was that Eddie was actually here, wearing his fucking cookie pants.

    When he didn’t immediately say anything, Eddie rolled his eyes and shuffled back over to the bed. “Quit fucking staring, asshole, it’s not my fault you have a lamp post for a body.”

    Richie watched him settle on the bed, not bothering with the blankets. He looked exhausted, but he didn’t close his eyes, didn’t even pretend to fall asleep. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Richie was scrambling to get his voice back when Eddie broke the silence.

    "I thought you might be dead.“

    His voice was small, a little breathless. Richie blinked at him, and finally found words again. "What?”

    "When I woke up,“ Eddie went on, "I was buried in the rubble, and I was worried… I thought that maybe you guys were buried too, that the whole place had come down right on top of us.”

    Richie was hit with a sudden wave of guilt. Eddie had been down there for weeks, and they had left him there. “Fuck, Eds,” he breathed. “Fuck, I—I’m sorry, man, I tried to get you out of there, but it was happening so fast.” He turned away, shifting so his back was leaning against the side of the bed. “I would’ve stayed down there with you, but Mike and Ben dragged me out.”

    He heard Eddie take a breath. “Then you really would’ve been dead, idiot.”

    Richie huffed out a laugh. Bev had said nearly the same thing on the eighth day, after Richie had snapped at Bill for not letting him stay in that sinkhole.

    "Richie…?“

    It was really nice to hear Eddie saying his name again, even if he sounded like he was about to have a mental breakdown. "Yeah?”

    "How, uh… How long was I down there?“

    Richie sucked in a breath, let it out, felt the weight of too many nightmare-fueled sleepless nights dragging at his body.

    "Almost two weeks,” he sighed.

    "What the fuck!?“ Eddie barked, sitting up so fast the bed shook. Richie craned his neck to look at him, and Eddie stared back with wide eyes. "Two weeks? I was dead for two fucking weeks?”

    Richie’s stomach dropped at the words. “What the hell do you mean, you were dead?”

    "I was fucking impaled through the torso, dumbass, of course I was dead. What, did you think I was just taking a nice stroll through the sewers? For two whole goddamn weeks! Jesus, that can't—I mean, that can’t be fucking possible, right? I would have started to decay. My pancreas would be digesting itself, and my cells would be breaking down, and maggots would—!“

    He cut himself off, too busy hyperventilating to continue detailing the slow process of his own decomposition. Richie really wished he had brought Eddie’s bag, oversized clothes be damned. His inhaler was gone, burned up and buried beneath Neibolt, but he probably had a backup somewhere.

    Instead, panicking, he climbed up onto the bed and took Eddie’s face in his hands. "Eddie, hey, Eds, fucking look at me.”

    Eddie’s eyes were wide and endless, a shade of brown that Richie could stare into for hours—but he focused on the glossy fear in them instead of his own stupid heart.

    "Listen, I don’t know how, but you’re not dead. You’re right here, and there’s no maggots, or clowns, or fucking disease zombies, or whatever. It’s just me.“

    Eddie’s brows drew together, like he was reaching for some conclusion and couldn’t quite connect the dots. His breathing was starting to slow down, though.

    "Just you,” he wheezed. “You were…so close. An hour away.”

    Richie wasn’t sure where he was going with that. He shrugged. “Yeah, I had only just left. We all stuck around for a while. Kinda hard to just pack up and go home after… y'know, all of that.”

    Eddie stared up at him for a moment, doe eyes doing cruel things to Richie’s heart. Then he grabbed Richie by the waist and pulled him forward.

    Richie tried to breathe, but it was difficult with Eddie’s face pressed into the crook of his shoulder, and the smell of generic hotel soap scrambling his senses. He held himself still, unsure of what to do. Then Eddie started shaking, and Richie broke from his stupor to wrap his arms around him.

    "Eds?“

    "Don’t fucking call me that,” came the unsteady reply. Richie swallowed the urge to tease him, to break the tension that hung in the air, to mask his racing heart with humor.

    "You probably ought to get some sleep,“ he said instead. "Maybe we can figure this out in the morning, when we’re not, like, in shock, or whatever.”

    Eddie hesitated before nodding against Richie’s shoulder. He waited even longer to finally loosen his grip, wiping at his eyes as he turned away.

    God, Richie wanted to kiss him.

    Eddie rose from the bed with visible effort. Richie helped him turn down the covers, waited until he was settled, and then moved for the chair in the corner. It was an old piece of shit that made his neck hurt just from looking at it, but it would do for tonight. He was halfway through wadding up his jacket for a pillow when Eddie called out to him.

    "Rich, this is gonna sound weird…”

    Richie grinned. “Weirder than coming back from the dead, or just typical Derry weird?”

    "Shut up. I just… can you just come over here?“

    "I was just getting comfy,” he sighed, even as he stood.

    "No you fucking weren’t.“

    Richie laughed, though he tried not to. He was starting to get slap happy, and combined with the shellshocked elation he was trying to process, he was a bit off his rocker. Eddie blinked up at him from the bed.

    "Well? The fuck do you want?”

    Eddie rolled his eyes. The color that rose in his cheeks was visible even in the dim light of the lamp, which they had both silently agreed to keep on. Without saying anything, Eddie shifted over until there was just enough room on the bed for one more. Richie took an embarrassingly long time to process this.

    "Oh come on, shit for brains, just get in,“ Eddie snapped.

    Richie almost couldn’t hear him over the rushing of his own heartbeat in his ears. Slowly, he slid under the sheets. The bed was warm where Eddie had already been laying. Richie reminded himself to breathe, somehow struggling more with this than the unexplained resurrection of his best friend and lifelong love.

    Eddie shifted, shoulder brushing against Richie’s and sending his brain spiraling. “Thanks, by the way,” he whispered. “For coming back.”

    Richie nodded, not trusting himself to look at Eddie. “Yeah, no problem.”

    He wanted to say more, but his thoughts were too jumbled to really make sense of them. There was one persistent question, though.

    "Why did you call me? I mean, Mike’s still in town.“

    Eddie was silent for several moments. And then he said, quietly, "You were the first person I thought of.”

    Richie didn’t want to overthink that, but he knew he was going to. “Oh.”

    Silence stretched again. Richie let it sit for long enough that he could safely assume Eddie was asleep before saying more. “Y'know, just for the record, I would have come no matter what. Even if I was all the way back in LA. I’d always come back for you, Eds.”

    He was just starting to think he was in the clear when Eddie let out a sharp breath and clutched at Richie’s sleeve.

    "I love you.“

    The erratic beating of Richie’s heart stopped cold. He finally looked at Eddie, who had turned over and pressed his face against Richie’s arm. Tears leaked from his tightly closed eyes, running across the perfect bridge of his nose and dropping onto the pillow.

    "Fuck. Eddie…” he trailed off, not sure what to say. Eddie loved him. This night was getting more and more unreal by the hour. “That’s, uh, really not something you want to hear from a guy who’s crying.”

    Eddie snapped his eyes open. Christ, they were beautiful. Big and brown and sparkling even when he was furious. Shit, especially when he was furious.

    "Are you fucking serious right now?“ he hissed. "You’re gonna joke about this? You know what, never mind, I fucking hate you.”

    "Aw, c'mon, Eddie Spaghetti, don’t be like that.“

    "Fuck off,” he fired back, trying to turn away. Richie rolled over and hooked an arm over him, pulling him close.

    "Hey now, you’re the one who wanted me to share a bed with you, the least you could do is cuddle.“

    "Let go, Richie.” Eddie wriggled, but Richie held him tight. Fuck that, he wasn’t planning on letting go for at least a few weeks, if ever. “I swear to god, I’ll knee you in the balls.”

    "Don’t do that, I might need them later.“

    "Yeah right. Like I’d ever want to get anywhere near your unwashed dick.”

    "I never said I was gonna need ‘em for you, Eds.“

    Eddie stopped squirming and looked Richie in the eyes, which was unfortunate, since Richie was trying to banter and those eyes always left him speechless.

    "Shut up, Richie,” he whispered, and his breath brushed across Richie’s mouth a moment before his lips did.

    Richie had figured that if this really was a dream, this would be the moment he would wake up. That was how it always worked when he dreamt of Eddie, ever since they were kids. They would go for the kiss, and he would startle awake with a pounding, aching heart, and a cold sweat on his brow. The cycle of his entire repressed childhood.

    But he didn’t wake up now. Eddie’s lips pressed into his, hungry and hesitant at the same time, and it was so much better than any dream. Richie pressed back, just as desperate, and way too strung out to care. It felt more real now than when he had first laid eyes on Eddie, first touched him.

    Eddie was here. Eddie was alive. Eddie was in Richie’s arms, and was kissing the breath right out of his lungs.

    And Eddie loved him.

    When they pulled away from each other, Eddie’s eyes would hardly open. Richie smiled, and even though he couldn’t see it, he could tell how ridiculously soft he probably looked.

    "You should come back from the dead more often, Kaspbrak,“ he sighed.

    Eddie managed to roll his eyes before they drifted shut again. He gave a weary grunt, and offered no further comment. Richie watched him for a moment, but he was struggling to keep his own eyes open, and he was warm, and safe, and happy for the first time in over a month. Scratch that, in years.

    Just before he fell asleep, he reached up and pressed a kiss to Eddie’s forehead. "I love you, too, Eds. Always have.”

    He felt it just before he slipped away, Eddie’s arms holding him a little bit tighter.

#it ch 2 #it (2019) #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #fanfic #my art #fair warning there's a ton of cursing

[dariamalek]

Your Ultimate Back To School Guide: University Edition

[This post can apply to students who are not attending post secondary]

The wind is already picking up here in Toronto and the shorts are being taken off the racks which means it’s back to school season!

Some of you are already dreading it and others are excited: especially those who are moving on  up from high school to the lovely world of university. When they say that university is a different world, it really is. Doesn’t mean it’s scary or difficult, it’s just different. University basically means: you are on your own. Nobody is chasing you for a grade, nobody is informing you of due dates-you need to keep up with everything on your own. There are also some rules in university that you should probably be weary of: some universities require you to withdraw for a whole year if your GPA is lower than 3.0. However, this could differ for every university. 

I attended my first year at York University in Toronto, Ontario back in 2016. In high school, I was a band kid in the gifted English program. I didn’t really have many friends considering that the interests of the kids in the area in which I went to school with was very different than mine. I enjoyed reading particularly as well as music. I was also an active member of the debate club (that I should mention got removed due to the fact that over the course of the year, so many people didn’t show up that by mid November, there were maybe 4 people in the club). But, I was comfortable with being by myself, which helped me a lot in university. 

Now that you’re “on your own,” you need to keep up with dates. This is a big part of university. You now have add/drop dates that vary-for example: you need to drop a course by a certain date to not receive a grade but there’s a different date to just drop a course. These will vary. Make sure you keep up with all the news in school. If your school has an app, download it. Get the news. Pay attention to the TV and signs around school. This will help keep a mental image of dates-but keeping a mental image isn’t enough.

Get yourself a planner or agenda. I’ve been using planners since they started giving them out in elementary school. Some visual learners may need one that goes on the wall: right in front of you. Make sure you’re checking it constantly. I even put the dates on my planner in my phone for reminders. This will help with tracking due dates for assignments, homework, recreational activities. It will literally save your life. Click here for how to use your planner to it’s extent. 

In that planner, you could also keep track of your finances. Many of you probably got OSAP, or some kind of student loan, and those things have dates that need keeping up with. Make sure you’re keeping tracks of when to apply and when you are getting  your grants. Not just that, but get yourself a small notebook to keep track of how much your courses cost, how much each year is estimated, how much they owe you, how much you received, how much you will owe them by the end of the year, how much they already received from you, how much interest comes on to that: sounds like a lot. But these things are vital. Remember, not paying your dues on time could ruin your credit. 

Not only OSAP, but ask your bank for monthly statements. Take a good look at how much you’ve spent on recreational stuff such as clothes, food and whatnot and set limits. Set a monthly budget for groceries, hygiene, your books for school, the bills-vital things and set a budget for recreational things such as clothes, eating out. This will make sure you have enough money for the important things, and also some on the side. Don’t forget your savings! Talk to an advisor on how much you should put based on your salary-which you should also keep copies of payroll as well so you know how much you’re getting. 

Now that you’re all set to go to school, read through the syllabus before school starts. Once you’re enrolled in a course, chances are the syllabus is already posted. If  not, check a week before school starts. Look through it, get your books and start reading. This will give you a head start in school. In fact, print out the syllabus and staple it to your head-because, this is the bible of your university courses. Dates are there for lectures and readings, and assignment dates-which you should be jotting down in advance. Make sure you’re taking notes as you do your readings. This will help serve as evidence when you’re writing your essays. [TIP: Take classes and ask questions on how to take useful notes and write A+ essays. Never be scared to ask for help. There are people there to help you.]

Balance your time with friends and school. This is huge. This isn't high school-university takes up a lot of your time. If you're planning on getting a good grade, you’re most likely getting a head start on assignments and doing readings. Remember, your friends aren’t going anywhere but your studies are what your future made of. Balance your weekends for each: one weekend maybe spend time with your friends, another weekend for studies. This will also show others that you are a busy bee working on  your future and you can’t be hanging out all the time. 

Sleep, sleep, SLEEP! You’ve seen all these students explain how they don’t have time to sleep because they’re up studying until 3 in the morning. Firstly, you’re studying wrong. If you’ve read the syllabus, you’d know that your exam is on x date. So, until then, review your notes and highlight them after each lecture, ask questions and 2 weeks before the exam-start reviewing. Chances are, since you’ve been reviewing the material since day one, you’ll be familiar with the exam review and you won’t need to be up so long. Also, you need sleep in order to function. This, as well as drinking water, will reduce fatigue and keep you alert during lectures which is the most important place to absorb the information. Fix your sleep schedule (mine is 11:30pm-6:30pm) and make sure you’re getting that full 8 hours, 9 if you're planing on exercising during the day. 

Speaking of lectures, take advantage of your tutorials. Tutorials are a class in which you go in and have a teaching assistant (TA) who goes over the material and simplifies it-this is also where the students ask their questions they can't ask in lectures. Those TA’s are there to help you. Those tutorials are there for you to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or look dumb because chances are, someone might have the same question as you. Plus-you’re paying for these courses. Skipping them and not using them to their advantage is literally a waste of money. 

Happy studying! I’m sure you’ll be super successful in the future.

With love,

daria xx

#back to school #school #university #students #college #toronto #author #psychology #therapist #mental health #fall #teenagers #september

[italicwatches]

I Couldn’t Become a Hero, so I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job - Episode 01

I regret nothing. …Well, I say that now. I’m not entirely sure if this show will be any good, but it’s one whose title has had me curious for a while. Will it be silly and fun, or will it, I don’t know, turn super rapey or something? You never really know when you go down this road. So join me, won’t you? it’s I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job, episode 01! Here we GO!

-We begin with fire and brimstone. A volcano erupting! And then, to a temple ruins! It’s a scene right out of an incredibly anime version of Jason and the Argonauts, as our armored hero fights against a batch of skeleton w…knights, only for a harpy to come swinging in! He’s saved by a woman…in…

-Okay it’s one of these.

-Because that wouldn’t even qualify as Sexy Samurai in a decade-old shitpost video. So our hero, Raul Chaser, is willing to rely onYUP THERE GOES HER ARMOR. So she’s like Darkness but without the joke that she’s into this kind of treatment. A small army of skeletal archers pour on the arrows…When lightning comes down from the skies, brought by their other companions! Fight, war, and reach the giant leading this army! Strike him down, and they pass the exam! The woman races in, sprints up the giant’s arm, rams her fucking sword into his EYE…

-And Raul backs her up with his RAUL SLASH, carving deep through…

-Hard cut to the light of day. The hero school has been shut down. Demon Lord got defeated(probably by some fucker from another world), sooooo they don’t need to keep training brave heroes. They’re all fucked. They’re fuuuuuucked.

-Episode 01: I Couldn’t Be a Hero, so I’m Working the Register

-Hard cut to the Leon Magic Shop, where Raul has to sell suburban couples on enchanted washing machines. Magically guaranteed to remove even the most stubborn stains! But they’re not interested.

-TITTIES.

-Meet a perky bubbly young lady, Nova, who does not realize how sexualized she is. I’m sorry. Anyways, Raul is in a bit of a bind, too, since he hasn’t gotten a raise and his credit card bill is coming up this week…When a nerd comes in looking for some vintage cassette tapes. You’re in luck, they have some…! And suddenly the store is mobbed by vintage audio enthusiasts here to buy out the entire stock. Then they’re gone as fast as they came…

-And you know what, I don’t think those tapes are super vintage. I just spotted totally-not-Kodak film behind the counter. I think this is just set in the 80s-90s equivalent of this world. Plus, after a hoodie-clad blonde comes in, the CRT television in the corner plays Conveniently Timed News about how the cassette maker I-ONE has gone out of business! They just couldn’t hold their own against cheaper, ‘good enough’ cassettes and equipment from the competition while still making a profit. It’s a legitimate tragedy whenever that happens.

-And the blonde is getting mad and wants them to get the manager right now…Which is when Nova runs off to handle inventory. Escape, Nova, escape while you can! So Raul is forced to do it…Which is when the blonde slams a resume down. And is here for an interview. When the blonde forgets the resume…And so Raul’s able to read it, and holy shit.

-Raul bursts into the interview room with the resume, because you cannot seriously be thinking of hiring the demon lord’s child, right boss? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?! You literally wrote it on your resume. W, Well, you’re supposed to tell the truth on those, aren’t you?! Anyways, busty lady boss has decided that Fino here will be joining the shop. It’ll be a good experience! Fino, Raul. Raul, Fino. Please get along.

-So soon Fino’s in the store, looking at all the stuff, and there’s some really cool things that humans have made. Like magicvision, and magic cassettes, and magic…You know what I’m just going to spoil it for you now. It’s 80s-90s level tech, made with magic. I’m not going to bother to specify anymore. It’s a fuckin’ TV, it’s cool that it works because of fairy dust or whatever but I’m calling it a TV. Anyways Fino never had a personal TV growing up in the Demon Castle, and is all oooooh and aaaah.

-Well, you know what else you didn’t have growing up in the Demon Castle? A broom. Get sweeping, rookie. …Yes sir! And then Convenient News comes back on to talk about the anniversary event for the demon lord’s defeat two years ago. Quick flashback, to how that day totally fucked Raul’s life. A young man, two steps away from a degree in a job that literally no longer existed overnight. His entire party was shattered. They’re stuck in dead-end jobs and with crushing college debt, and nothing to show for it except broken dreams and a bitter envy of those who actually benefitted from the changing order…

-…Damn. That’s…Damn.

-Eventually it’s later in the day, and Raul is continuing to struggle with getting Fino to, you know, work like a proper employee…Also shocking twist Fino has long lovely hair. And that’s when a rough, tough…Dirty old man comes in off his slick dragon-pulled hotrod. And he’s here to peek up Nova’s skirt and grope that ass. Fino immediately decides this shit has to be stopped…When the old man reveals he’s gonna be buying a lightbulb. One lightbulb. Every time. The perfect excuse. And now Fino is…Shall we say, confused. Are humans like dogs? Is butt stuff just part of the communication?

-Does Fino need to bend over? Fino stop bending over. FINO NO. FINO PUT YOUR BUTT AWAY. NOVA DON’T ENCOURAGE THIS.

-Lunch break, at last. Raul is able to sit down and have some food from the convenience store…A place with some old friends who worry about the dork, and look after each other.

-Back in the store, the boss is talking to her assistant manager, Viser, and trying to explain her disinterest in bringing in another company into the shop…When they spot Raul working with Fino at the register, over the security cameras. And cut down to the actual register, where Raul’s decided that the actual core of Fino’s problems is a lack of respect. Rethink everything. Back to zero. This job means they are lesser than the customer. Yeah it sucks. Deal with it.

-…Fino doesn’t know how to do that. Well try on Raul. Okay! …Fino you’re being demonic again. This isn’t a battle, you stupid dork. Are you a chuuni or just stupid?

-Fino is just trying to copy how Dad used to talk! Your dad was, literally, a demon king. THE demon king. There is, quite literally, no worse example you could mimic for this lesson! …You know what, start with the manual. But first, come on, to the repair room. They also do repair work.

-Oooh, what’s that? It’s a toaster oven. And that?! A humidifier. And…And Fino touches the humidifier, and causes a surge of water, electricity and magical energy that knocks the poor idiot into the far wall! Raul’s stuck carrying Fino into the break room to figure out a plan that doesn’t involve calling a doctor and getting into trouble, and oh, great, a note from literally everyone else who works today listing their reasons they’re not here right now. Awesome. Just awesome.

-Right, first step, get these ruined clothes off of Fino. …Fino was not wearing anything under that hoodie. And that’s how a pair of big, bountiful, ladylike breasts come wobbling out.

-And that’s when Fino wakes up.

-So.

-This isn’t great for either party. And both of them are having a freakout, until the actual events that happened get all laid out. …Please put some fresh clothes on, Fino.

-And eventually, it’s the tail end of Fino’s first day, and she gets to have a uniform! Now sweep the walkway. By hand. With this broom. Welcome to working life, kid. When a sweet old lady passes by praising her hard work, and Fino thanks her, and the kid might just do okay in this world. Maybe.

-Night comes, and Raul stops at the convenience store for dinner, having a brief chat…But as he walks by the shop on his way home, the lights are on?

-Because Fino is in the back, washing down by hand in the sink?! What are you DOING?! She’s got no house, so this is her house now. …That’s not…That isn’t…You can’t just…Do you have any idea how terrible dish soap is for hair and skin? I’d question focusing on that angle over all the other things Fino’s done wrong here, but at the same time, I mean, there comes a point where you just have to find the smallest bite of the elephant.

-And as Raul helps her dry and generally make herself presentable, they end up talking about their own pasts. Raul, who came from a tiny village only to see all the great marvels of modernity in the city, and Fino who lived an even less modern life in the castle…Despite everything, there is a connection of friendship there, and Fino’s starting to learn human society. She might just do okay here yet.

-Credits!

-Aftercredits! Fino touches the turbo button on the hair dryer and…Uh…It makes a biiiiig boom. She has a scary amount of magic in a world that runs on the stuff.

Hmmmm. Well, it’s not so bad that I’m gonna drop it, but man, the fan service in this one is dense…And a lot of it is pure camera-work, too, not actions actually willingly undertaken by characters. It’s honestly a shame. There’s a lot of interesting conceptual meat in this. It really didn’t need big bouncing tits and panty shots everywhere to be a good show.

Oh well. Sometimes I watch super amazing stuff and my job is just to show that amazingness to you. Sometimes, I watch not-so-great stuff and my job is to separate off the good stuff and bring it together into a better piece. If this one’s more the latter, that’s fine. We’ll just have to get a better vibe on it next time, in episode TWO of I Couldn’t … Job! Wait for it!

#where I watch #recap #anime #I Couldn’t Become a Hero So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job

[canonstitute]

ʟɪᴠᴇʙʟᴏɢ» SDWAY!∙S2E1

Scooby Doo, Where Are You! S2 Ep1 – Nowhere to Hyde

Rambles/reactions/meta under the cut! Because I literally write thousands of words of this garbage once you get me started [NOTE: text taken & edited from a live chat with a friend]

aka, ‘I Watched Eps. 1-17 and Thought Show Was Way More Nuanced Than Everyone Remembered, Then Season 2 Changed the Writing Staff’

I WANTED to start on s2 since the s1 episodes have like, barely half the "scooby doo" cliches that this entire show is known for

i want a hallway chase scene BRING ON THE SECOND WRITING STAFF FOR MEMES

aka im afraid

[someone mentions magic show at "the high school"] wait do they go tO THIS HIGH SCHOOL????

are they home????

[re: shaggy mentions watching tv at home] YOU LIVE IN A VAN WHAT DOES HOME MEAN WHAT IS THIS

also i lied about casual watching i'm going to hyperfocus on this b/c skipping to season 2 it's already blowing my mind

that

that [coordinated screaming from gang] is not what they say when they seE A MONSTER

was the end of S1 like this or did the first 10 episodes just exist in a bizarre alternative universe where their personalities were more or less balanced so no one was too much anything

SHAGGY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO PRETEND HE'S BRAVE like okay yeah wow completely changing the writing staff is absolutely something that made this show into. uh, its own image

this actually feels like an episode of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo?? almost exactly tbh

minus the child-participation gags and Red Herring

[H-B ‘animation’] DAPHNE'S TINY LEGS

freddy when on earth--FREDDY YOU ARE NOT AGGRESSIVE YOU ARE JUST LIKE OBLIVOUS TO FEELINGS AND ALWAYS ABOUT THE MYSTERY

i didn't realize how attached i was to the gang in the first 10 episodes until they started morphing into the way the critics parodied them for 30 years after

the first ten episodes weren't like, even that good, they just had bits that I could read into that made the silliness worth it and no this characterization gets woooorse

also like I'm barely noticing the plot sorry, the episode guy is secretly a ghost from potion

uh, necklace. dried mud

THIS MOMENT IS GOOD. "RAGGY!" / "COMING, SCOOB!" friendship is my fave dynamic in this show

at least velma's still with the lovebirds [daphne and fred] [when gang splits up].

also my intuition is screaming 'duh it's the helga' [as culprit] but the fact they keep beating it in makes me wonder if they'll switch the formula just to fuck with me

because the big thing is it's always that guy with like, two lines, and she's shown up…………………thrice in three scenes

amgbghgmmmmm uncomfortable native american portrayaaaallllls

tho………like I swear there's this nagging feeling i have that i remembered shaggy being like, partially native american by ancestry and i have no idea why i would think so because nothing i remember in an episode i know of supports it

like, feels like something about a character you read in a wiki or fansite one time but then it's gone off the grid? that kind of thing itching thought you can't validate

and it's not the first time I've had that thought [that I'd possibly seen someone Shaggy was part Native-American] randomly during an episode this year that i'm watching but I never cared much about scooby doo before now so why would I have been reading character trivia

WHAT THE FUCK ARE "KNOCKOUT DROPS"

WHAT

okay hologram movie projectors are worse but KNOCKOUT DROPS

they couldn't even say chloroform--which like better they didn't say chloroform because that shit is kind of a murder weapon not a sleepy pill but it just sounds like they were too lazy to even look it up

oh i love that [recycled animation] fred face

ohhhhhh boy here it is

there's the musical chase scene

that's where it started, unless i'm forgetting a lot of music from the first ten episodes instead of wacky soundtrack stuff

OH FUCK THERE IT IS

THE HALLWAY

THEY DID DOORS

START OF DARKNESS

Larz Bourne

Tom Dagenais

Bill Lutz

^i literally searched up the episode and these three men are both responsible for COMPLETELY RUINING SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU and making it into a goddamn forty year monolith that is immortalized because of the direction change and the tropes so notorious that every kid remembers them and i'm so conflicted

………mild curious fred [scene] soothes me

i fully expect velma to deliver the denoument

does fred do it??? lmao that'd be a change from both the stock trope fred AND the original fred

okay here are some major costume plugs here

I CAN'T BELIEVE SHAGGY AND SCOOB DIDN'T FUCK [the trap] UP what do you fucking know

[incorrect guess on villain] and way to go gang you finally fucked one up

actually no they never really……had the guy pinned really when they caught him in early eps??

they just caught him and unmasked him and then used hindsight to figure out what the clues meant

in fact these guys suck at solving mysteries

THEY SHOULD BE 'CRIMINAL REVEALERS INC'

they're great at that part

okay rant delivered i'm just gonna listen to the music

SKINNY SCOOB LEGS IN THAT CREDITS SCENE

#scooby doo #daphne blake #velma dinkley #fred jones #norville rogers #scooby doo where are you #liveblogging #hanna barbera #meta #canon #headcanon #canonstitute #cartoon meta #nonreblog

[coffeewithmom]

Passion, Purpose, and Paying Bills

Passion, Purpose, and Paying Bills

"I can't wait to grow up and do whatever I want!" I must have thought this to myself a million times as a teenager and I'm sure my mother was tired of hearing it mumbled under my breath after she would tell me to do something I claimed was pointless or " ruining my life". Little did I know that growing up would mean I would find myself begging God to turn back the clock so that I could once again deal with problems that at the time seemed huge but were in fact small potatoes. As I grew up and life chin checked me on a regular basis I realized that being an adult was not glamorous at all. In fact, adulting is closer to watching a plane crash knowing the people inside had no clue today would turn out to be a blaze of sorrow and disappointment. As I sit in my hotel room eating take out and dreading the alarm clock going off for yet another 12 hour shift I have come to the conclusion that the myth of adulting being easy was a cruel joke played on me by every person who told me how amazing my life would be when I was older.

Life isn't all cakes and pies and does at times feel like a long Greek tragedy but this saga of tasks I don't feel like doing didn't happen overnight. It started in my teens. When I turned 18 life was new, fresh, and full of possibilities. I was finally "grown" and was ready to face the world with a smile. That smile quickly turned into crying in my hands as the harsh reality of college debt, credit, and failed relationships grabbed hold of me.

You see I knew college was expensive, but I was always told it was a must do, so I naively thought some magically money fairy would fix it all because I was smart. WRONG! My " money fairy" had a name, SALLIE MAE and as sweet as a name like that is trust me she is a cold-hearted witch! LOL Sallie in a smooth click of the mouse, and glide of then pen gave me my college dream in exchange for holding my finances hostage for decades to come, and I willingly sold my soul to her thinking I had no choice if I was to ever be successful. I had no idea at the time that my dealings with Sallie would impact where I lived, what taxes I got back, which cars I would drive, and what standard of living I would accept for years to come. With a bat of her money green eyelashes she gave me the cost of my education while backhanding me with interest payments and unrealistic repayment options some of which would lead me to walking away from college on more than one occasion (4 to be precise) each time leaving me a little more broken, and a little more broke. While, college debt wasn't the only bump in my drive through adulthood it has truly become the first pothole in my drive to my dreams. That debt has forced me time and again to make life choices I never imagined in or to keep my head above water.

As if the debt wasn't enough the hopeless romantic in me decided it would be a great Idea to get married young. By my 23 birthday I was Mrs. Elisa Dawson. Married in a small ceremony in New York with a handful of people in attendance what should have been the happiest day of my life was the beginning of my own emotional downfall. Through the course of my marriage I learned firsthand what shame, guilt, fear, and heartbreak felt like. I watched as my loving partner turned into a monster and instead of being the strong woman I portrayed myself to be I became a shell of my former self. The abuse and isolation I endured while married was yet another harsh reality of adulthood teaching me that not every smile is displayed in love and that people who say they love you can manipulate and lie to you if it means them getting ahead. I ended my marriage adding 20k in debt to my mountain of school debt, accumulated a massive medical debt from nervous breakdowns, which ended up triggering a full body shut down that I still deal with every day and to put a cherry on top I gained a healthy helping of trust no one.

Being divorced, an abuse survivor, failing to cope with my miscarriage, and now being painfully aware of the mind games people can play my trip through being an adult was starting to feel like I was spinning my wheels in the sunken place with no chance of a nerdy friend coming to my rescue. This new status of divorcee led me to my first glimpse of my passion. During this time when I thought nothing would ever go right for me I found myself in a delivery room for the first time. No I wasn't there for me but actually a complete stranger. My job as an IT person in the hospital allowed me the opportunity to be a fly on the wall during the miracle of child birth. Watching the strength needed to bring forth life I knew I wanted to be in that room again but in a more active role. At that moment I knew I wanted to spend my life making that day in a womans' life the happiest experience I could. Becoming a voice and informed supporter for women as they came so close to death to see a portion of themselves manifested outside their bodies was the light at the end of my tunnel. Before this moment I had always done what I was good at but didn't necessarily love because I was told I had a good job and would be crazy to leave it. But, this brush with something that would become a life changer for me also came with the crack of the whip from adulthood.

Adulting and finding my passion meant making choices that would affect me financially (school yet again), working less (which meant lifestyle changes), and doing all I could to stay healthy enough to pursue this tiring career. I figured with all I had endured I was ready to face this challenge and then adulthood tapped me on my shoulder and said wait sis did you forget you can't work less you have a tremendous amount of debt ? I slapped that thought down saying NO ! I didn't forget but I have a passion now so it will all work out. Then adulthood got back up and said," but honey what about your body issues you can't stay up all hours of the night without being swollen and in pain so how can you help them when you can't walk?" To that I said NOT TODAY SATAN! I will manage because I have to, I HAVE A PASSION NOW REMEMBER! Then Adulthood hit me with the one two punch and said," Girl need I remind you that you failed at having a baby of your own so watching others may trigger you and leave you broken emotionally?" I was always told you have 3 chances or arguments to change a persons mind and that third one did the trick for me. Now my passion I had waited years to find seemed like yet another fantasy and once again I found myself lost.

Being an adult with no clear direction, a waning passion, and more responsibilities than I ever I looked myself in the mirror and said what now?

Then, like a tidal wave crashing on a shoreline came my purpose. If you had asked me years ago what purpose meant my answer would have been shallow and even literal without any real understanding. Today I recognize purpose not only as a reason for doing something but also as an unyielding and all encompassing way of life. To walk in your purpose is to lead your life moving always with your end goal in mind, not being deterred, or letting fear of failure turn you away. Finding your purpose is not always easy and sometimes it finds you at your lowest and most forsaking moments.

 The moment I found my purpose came after laying on my office floor crying for hours because for the first time in my life I was working hard and still found myself broke. Prior to that point if I was broke, homeless, or both I could always trace the root of my situation and recover but for the first time I was struggling and despite working hard, being in a loving relationship, and bouncing back from numerous hardships I still came up wanting. I had to " rob Peter to pay Paul", turn off my cable, and sacrifice the everyday luxuries to stay afloat, and I was failing miserably at coping. It was in that time that I shared my dream of birth work with my boyfriend who encouraged me to go for it in any way I could. I told him my health left me feeling like I could never do the work but what if I wrote about it? What if I shared my passion for motherhood and women in general in a way that still kept me close to the field without being limited by my physical obstacles. I brain stormed on how to make this possible, taught myself to build a website, and started writing. I found that in putting who I am on paper that all I have been through was for a reason. I asked God to lead me to my purpose and through breaking me down he gave me a chance to truly be happy. He spoke to me and through me as I laid bare my soul to strangers and from the first moment he found ways to show me I was moving in a direction he agreed with.

There have been moments I wanted to quit, time I had to stop to heal, months when I was silent and detached but the fire for women, health, and happiness never left me. The fact that regardless of what I came up against I always found my way back to this life of writing showed me that true passion and purpose never leave you. This journey showed me that no matter what happens from failures, heartache, naysayers, and brokenness if your heart is open and your ears clear God will speak to you and make a way where you see none. True purpose is not found laying on the ground it's forged in the moments that force you to pick yourself up again. * Alexa play We Fall Down by Marvin Sapp*

In all seriousness having found my passion, and embracing my purpose adulthood would still not be so quickly silenced. With its money green flag raised it reminded me that while I love to write I still had bills to pay. Now I don't know if your aware but there is a reason people like me are called " starving artist" lol. It's because until you make it big money is TIGHT! I had all these ideas about how grand it could be and the many ways to monetize my gift but the coins were a bit scarce in the face of my dream. They say secure the bag but being a writer I would be happy just feeling secure lol.

That being said if I was going to do this it meant maintaining my full time job while building my brand. It is at this point so many young entrepreneurs give up on their dreams. Being on your own is great but it takes money to make money and most people myself included find it hard to put 100% into a dream when bills come in the mail daily. Between my living expenses, paying on student loans, and lowering debt putting money into something that would take a long time to yield a return seemed irresponsible. I prayed on it, talked to my partner, and reminded myself that bills and money come and go but that passion and acknowledgment of purpose is rare and cannot be ignored. I buckled down, promised myself that even when it gets hard I won't quit again, and made peace with the fact that dreams aren't built in a day even when you feel your walk has been divinely ordained. I wake up everyday ready to tackle another 12+ hour day at work, with notebook in hand to write whenever I can, and continue to put myself out there until the day my gift leads to a consistent paycheck. Until that day comes like so many others who have chosen to invest in themselves I will PUSH, PRAY, and PROCEED continually pursuing my passion, forever reminding myself of my purpose, and grinding it out so that I can keep paying the bills! In other words I plan to KEEP QUEENIN’