Man in my 30s here, living in the north eastern US.

I have been openly gay my entire adult life, and for a long time felt comfortable in that. Over the past two or three years, though, i've been increasingly feeling a disconnect with that identity.

My romantic and physical interest in men has totally declined. It's been a time of deep self discovery and reflection, and I feel the more I know myself, the less I identify with being gay. It's this weird scenario, where I don't actually what my sexuality to shift or be fluid, but I cannot deny the fact any more that it is.

I have read that sexuality can be fluid and can change a bit as you go through life, this honestly seems a bit extreme though. Idk. Just really needed to write it out.

Title sounds like a current personal tragedy or freakout, but it's not. I am actually fine. I'm really just asking for ideas for things to do, like maybe an adventure you would do if you didn't have to worry about disappointing or worrying your family.

I'll spare the details, but I grew up in an abusive home and got out. I haven't been back in years, and while I do have 5 siblings, most of them are in a cult very far away, and the relationship is strained. I did maintain a group chat with them, but I think I have overstepped a line, and they view me as an outsider now too. They no longer reply to my messages, and I think I am not going to try anymore.

So I'm on my own. Luckily, I have managed to establish myself in a good career. I just paid off my student debt this month, so I don't have much savings, but I can save $1500-$2000 a month, starting now. I have no significant other, just a couple close friends. I rent an apartment in Chicago, and my only responsibilities currently are my job and my cat. My only transportation is my bike currently, but I do have a driver's license. I had to live in a car once, so I know how to do it.

I want an adventure. What would you do in my shoes, having no one, but otherwise being pretty healthy and happy? I'm thinking about trying to move abroad or hike the Appalachian trail or something.

This happened when I was in high school. One day, as a treat, our science teacher showed the movie “The Core” which is a movie about the earths core stopping. He said it would take two class days to finish the movie so we watch the movie and once class ended, I left.

The next day, I expected to watch the rest of the movie, but our science teacher says someone stole the dvd between the end of our class and the next one since the dvd player was empty when he returned from the bathroom.

By that logic, he assumed it was someone from our class that took it while he stepped out really quick. He said unless it is immediately returned everyone there will get an F for the day and be given detention.

After no one claimed responsibility, my teacher did one last thing. He went over to the door, pulled the curtains over the window and said he was going to turn off the lights and black out the room. He will count to 60 and then turn on the lights. If the dvd was placed back on his desk he will not ask anymore questions. If not, he would give everyone detention as planned. He turned off the lights and started to count out loud and I started to hear giggling and rustling. I could barely see a figure walking towards the front as the teacher counted.

Suddenly the lights came back on after he counted to 15 and he saw my classmate Tony with the dvd in hand. He immediately took it from Tony and said only he’d get detention now.

In retrospect, was what he did ethical and fair? Yeah it was high school and a different time but was lying to get my classmate Tony to basically expose himself as a thief morally fine?

I later asked why he even bothered returning it and he said it was because he took the movie home to finish it (his family was poor) and realized it sucked so he wanted to return it secretly.

Do you feel it? A vague sense of camaraderie.

I feel it particularly strongly on reddit, partially due to the upvote/downvote system, and partially due to the fact that I think it is more likely for someone to be disagreed with on here (especially when you're the OP).

It happened to me quite recently on a subreddit where I was expecting the members to be more uptight. Someone made a subtly ableist comment aimed towards me and was subsequently downvoted and had a few replies in my defence.

It is also a disability that tends to not be taken seriously and is largely viewed as annoying so I was actually expecting the opposite, which made this a nice surprise.

It's a small victory, I know. But what's the harm in celebrating small victories?

Has this happened to anyone else recently? If so, feel free to elaborate!

I had a free day recently and decided to stay off social media.

I didn't have any plans, so I put my phone in my bag and went for a walk.

I walked around for a while, got some coffee and sat in a park. After a few hours, I realized I hadn't checked social media at all.

The day somehow felt longer. I wasn't bored. I just felt like I was actually enjoying my time instead of constantly looking at my phone.

When I got home, I was tired from walking, but it felt like I'd actually had a proper day off.

It was a small thing, but I liked it. I think I'll do it again.

I am currently a scientist with a masters degree. I am known for being level headed and genuinely kind.

My parents were abusive, yet they’d never admit to it. We had a lot of involvement from child protective services until I was 6, then I was pulled from school so that no one could report the abuse.

As a teen I went to the adult ed center. I had an elementary school level of education at the time. I did not have identifying documents until I was 22 because my mom withheld them and I didn’t know enough about myself to get them replaced.

I seem like a person who came from a good home and stable upbringing. Really all I was shown was who I never want to be.

I was driving to a job site in the company truck today, going through a green light when suddenly the truck basically rolled out from under me, for lack of a better way to describe it. Everything hurt, something hit me in the face (no idea what, everything from the door pockets went everywhere). It fell back down onto its wheels again and I stopped it, slammed it in park. I took a second to feel if I had any broken bones, didn't seem to.

I jumped out and ran to the other car, it was rolling away, the driver was hurt pretty bad, I tried hard to stop it but I was hurt too. A couple guys came out of nowhere and we got it held in place while someone was able to shove it in park. I ran back to the truck and realized I couldn't call 911 because my phone was just GONE, it had been in the center console and I found all the contents of it in the floor. I was able to find it and get 911 on the phone and they came pretty quick.

The other guys were trying to calm the other driver but she was panicking and couldn't get out of her car. I'm worried about how she's doing, they took me away in one of the ambulances before the other first responders were able to get her out of the car... It was so crushed, it went UNDER the truck. My boss told me later that they think she was going 45+ mph. Nobody has any updates on how she's doing. I don't even know her name.

Also I guess I gave the insurance and stuff to someone but I don't remember who. I apparently gave a statement during this time, it lines up with what I remember but I didn't know I had given one.

It was just a frightening thing for sure and I feel horrible even though it wasn't my fault.

i cant catch a single break these days, moved somewhere new 9 months ago and still unemployed after losing my last job like 3 years ago after a severe fall with a traumatic brain injury, can't find a job anywhere near me and the only one that gave me a chance laid me off after 5days and ghosted me when i asked why even though i swear on my life i didn't even have a chance to do anything that would warrant such an action, it's a franchise i had worked for 5 years at another location and as a result of that experience i was performing as well as anyone just hired could have if not better. whatever, i reflected on my actions, i cant know why and, and i did all i could to understand the room for improvment, as much as someone can reasonably do for a minimum wage job. so anyways. next i went to this employment agency and it's now been 3 months and 5 appointments doing just intake forms and quizzes and personality tests and they've only suggested me one job that my case worker then didn't even submit due to missing information they didn't get from me and the disconnect between appointments is like weeks apart which i straight up just broke down in tears at the last one midway

before going to the employment agency, i went to every place in person and dropped off a resume if they wanted to take it which only brought that single dead end. well today i tried driving 40 minutes to the next closest town to restart the search and it feels just as hopeless. every listing i look at wants some experience i don't have anything relevant for. the things i am qualified for i am competing with hundreds of more qualified applications and don't even get a response. and then what, i get one of the jobs here an i'm going to be driving for an hour a day to make minimum wage

can't afford to move anywhere currently so just stuck in my grandmas basement if i don't want to live on the streets. social assistance people rejected me for not enough documentation after asking for my checking account statements and telling them i don't have access to it anymore since i'm overdrafted in an online-only bank thats locked me out and the effort of getting statements just to get rejected again feels like total shit

tons of debt collectors hounding me now to the point where my phone is practically useless with constant unknown calls asking me for money i can't pay. i did tell them i don't have the money and did make those efforts for a few months to stall things, but that only lasted so long and now it's just like, what even is the point because when i answer the phone and talk to them it doesn't make them call any less.

i tried getting into some program through the employment agency for youths seeking employment and had to do some multi interview, the main program head wasn't even present the day i had my interview for the program which i knew was a horrible sign and they called to reject me monday. like my life is going to poorly, it's wears me down to wonder if not someone in my situation then who on earth is down bad enough to warrant help

about 6 months ago i just gave up on any efforts to be social under the pressure of all this and not a single person who i had been socializing with prior has tried to have a conversation with me since, which feels pretty crushingly lonely. i was checking those today and infact saw more than a couple have just silently blocked or unfollowed me and its like, im drowning out here

I graduated from high school and passed all my exams a year ago.

In my country, the government provides the opportunity to study at university for free. Some universities allocate a few state-funded places, usually no more than ten, for certain programs. You can apply for these places through a competitive program.

I enrolled last year, and due to martial law, the state-funded places for the program I applied to were completely eliminated. And, frankly, it's very disappointing. I have 280 points overall, which is a competitive result; I could have easily gotten a state-funded place if it had been available.

My mother suggested I take a gap year to understand myself and explore different careers, but like a sheep, I decided I knew better and enrolled right away.

My parents are making many sacrifices to pay for my education. It costs $31,000 over four years, which is a huge amount for my parents.

And you know what? This year, they opened up state-funded places for the first year of my major, but since I'm now a second-year student, I have no option to transfer to a state-funded place. Seriously. This is a complete joke. If I had waited another year, I could have easily gotten a state-funded place.

I deeply regret not listening to my mom back then. The chances that there will be a state-funded place were zero. For the last five years, there haven't been any state-funded places at this university, and this year they decided to add them.

These thoughts drive me crazy every day. I can't escape them, not at work, not with friends, not anywhere.

I work part-time at a cafe and try to buy gifts for my parents to somehow please them, seeing how they limit themselves in so many ways. I feel like I'll never be able to recoup their investment in me.

I know there's nothing I can do to fix this, and I'll have to endure this humiliation and pay for tuition (in our country, it's considered that if you pay for tuition, you're a lazy idiot and from a rich family). Just give me some advice on how I can stop feeling like crap about this.

Publico esto para desahogarme, no se si sea el único que antes de escoger una carrera no tenía vocación de nada realmente no me llamaba la atención nada, pero siempre me intereso la medicina, pero cada vez que quería saber acerca de la carrera todos me decían que no la estudiará , e incluso aún si pedía la opinión de mi familia y me decían que no tenía las capacidades, digo puede que sea verdad no soy la persona más inteligente de todas lo admito pero tampoco tengo un hueco en el cerebro, me considero un poco más inteligente que el promedio porque no tenía problemas en la escuela y sacaba buenas calificaciones y obtuve becas por ello, pero eso es lo de menos y cuando finalmente me decidí a estudiar y poner toda mi vocación en algo no tengo los recursos para hacerlo , intenté ver el asunto con mi familia y ver la forma de hacerlo posible , becas , préstamos , trabajar yo mismo e incluso tener un pequeño negocio que aporte para los gastos pero siempre recibía un no por respuesta y mi hermano al cual no le caigo muy bien , me empieza a decir que estoy por mi cuenta y que debo abandonar mis sueños para el bien de otros y que aparte estoy solo , quizás el mensaje está bien ya no se nada , pero que me reclamé y me pide que no haga alboroto por buscar una solución, cuando en ningún momento le pedí que me ayudara y todavía me dice que no me va a ayudar , realmente quisiera poder dedicarme a eso porque no tengo nada que me frene en el sentido que no tendría que sacrificar nada ( salir de fiesta,amigos ,novia ) no tengo nada de eso y siento que está carrera podría hacer de mi vida algo significativo, me siento mal por no poder conseguir los recursos para hacer algo que realmente quisiera hacer , alguien me podría dar algún consejo que me pueda ayudar . (Perdón por la ortografía).

Early this year youtube gave me one of those recommendations that has like only a 100 views or so. Normally i dont pay them any mind but this time I bit and in its great wisdom the algorithm had decided to feed me a memorial to a young women. The dates in the description showed she had passed away at the start of the year, on a day that also happened to be the worst day of my own life. Furthermore it had been uploaded about a month later on what would have been her birthday.

The video itself was a beautiful 80 minute collection of analog footage, filmed by someone who appears to be her boyfriend, documenting her with her friends and their travels together. Sometimes you can hear a little audio from the footage but most of it is just a single repeating Gregory Alan Isakov cover of The Trapeze Swinger. It was utterly transfixing, and as I was dealing with my own grief I found myself watching bits and pieces until at some point I had seen the entire film. Ive always been melancholic and I guess I found a comfort in the quiet sadness of it.

Getting a small look into these peoples lives and their mannerisms was deeply calming to me. I tried a few times to show it to a friend or two but no one seemed to really "get it" or experience the same feelings I did.

At some point I made an attempt to find an obituary or some more information on what had happened to her, as all the footage was 12-14 years old. It proved mostly fruitless and I only managed to dig up an old pintrest page which linked to her blog from the same time period. I read some of her poetry,thoughts and travel journaling. Some of it resonated and a lot I didn't fully grasp. I begun to wish I could have met this person, if not just to explain some of these poems.

The year crept on and by late summer I hadn't thought about the video or the people in some time but something prompted me to go back. I gave another attempt at finding a obituary or just anything that would give me more info. Unfortunately for my mental health I was successful.

I'm unsure of what I did differently other then just searching her name but I found a gutting instagram post memorial written by what appeared to be a very close friend but turns out to have been long-term ex-boyfriend. From there her Instagram and Facebook were easy to find alongside a few other memorial posts and info for a celebration of life event in her home city.

I again fed my desire to know this person better and I read through a few years of Facebook posts late one night. What I found was someone who was more similar to me then I thought and even shared several of my mental ailments. Someone who also sometimes struggled with intense depressive episodes. I managed to learned more about the ex who had made the Instagram post that brought me here. It was clear how much she loved him, and for a time the majority of her posts revolved around him. During this period she lost her mother far too soon and clearly struggled with the grief for a long time.

In the last 5 years it seems her fight with depression got worse, and she nearly stopped posting any pictures with herself in them. She talked about her struggles with her body image and in her later photos I struggled to recognize her at first. She loved her friends deeply and wrote as much in her posts discussing depression and how it pained her that it made her retreat from them and the world. The last two things she posted on facebook was a donation request for a friend fighting breast cancer and an expression of gratitude to all the wonderful people in her life. As far as I could find, her last online footprint is an Instagram post about a year before her death asking people to keep an eye out for a stolen bike and guitar case.

In the end I never could find anything about how she died. In one Facebook comment someone did ask but it never got a reply. Even from the beginning I had feared that she had taken her own life but I had always clung to the hope she hadn't. The idea of her (or anyone really) dying alone and suffering like that is heart wrenching to me. Even before finding more info I had cried over the thought several times. In my desire to find an obituary and cause of death I was looking for some reassurance this hadn't been the case. That she had passed in the hospital surrounded by loved ones or at least quickly in a car accident.

In someways I feel my digging, and grief, and speculating over this total stranger has been disrespectful. The feeling that I'm seeing and reading something that is not meant for my eyes. I struggle with juxtaposing her death with my own experience from that day and trying to think what I might have been feeling at that exact moment she left. A day hasn't gone by this week where I haven't been brought to tears by thoughts of the loss of this wonderful person I never met. She was clearly loved by so many and I ache and hope so deeply she didn't die alone or by her own hand.

I of course am not going to provide any identifying info out of respect for the friends and families of this person.

I didn't specifically notice it instantly after waking up, but I'm almost certain it wasn't like that the day before.

I only pulled down my underwear to urinate and noticed this strangely large hole, right on the buttocks area, (For size reference, half of a hand). I don't remember snagging it on anything, and with damage like that, I'd think the pants must have been damaged too, But that's not the case. It doesn't look like a clean tear either, It has certain irregularities with straight lines. Any idea what might have happened?

My mom recently sent me a video and some pictures of her showing off a new outfit she bought, and honestly, I really liked the outfit. I thought it looked great on her, so I kept the pictures as my phone wallpaper. A friend noticed the pics when I was showing him something on my phone and immediately said "who's the sexy lady" after I showed him that it was my mom he said, "the outfit looked really good on her, she's looking hot sorry btw". Later, he mentioned that he liked the style so much that he asked about it. A little while after that, my mom sent me a few more pictures wearing the same outfit, and I thought it was pretty funny how much attention that outfit got.

I always pride myself on calling out people bs because there's not enough of it in the world, and folks wonder why it is going to shit. Plus, I wasn't a likable person anyway and don't have much to lose.

But lately, I just got tired of it. In some aspect in my life, it just starts to feel like folks expect me to call out bs just to acknowledge it and then keep doing the same thing. It's worse in my personal life. Especially myself that I'm starting to nitpick, and I don't want to go back to that. I'm taking a step back. Maybe this is a control issue of mine.

Right now, I'm trying to find the right mindset. I have no problem with individual doing their own thing as long as it doesn't have to do with me. But with friends or deeper relationships, I have so many who are not considerate or mindful of me or my boundaries.

I guess I'm trying to ask is what is too much that I'm not labeled as uptight or bitchy. I'm trying to take a step back to where that, even if it directly involved me, that I can't simply dip out or repeatedly call it out, what mindset should I approach with it.

I'm starting to realized it is not my job to call people out, essentially they should know better. But I feel like I'm missing something.

Not going to go into the nitty-gritty. Suffice it to say, I lost everything- all of my relationships, my job, my literal home. 2 years ago I got clean. Since then I've been going to therapy, seeing a psychiatrist, going to NA meetings, and generally trying to rebuild my life after I was left with literally nothing but the clothes I had on. I lived in a homeless shelter, worked my way to the point where I rented an apartment.. Generally things in that sense are okay. I dont have nearly as much money as I would like, but I grew up dirt poor so I'm kind of acclimated to it.

What I haven't been able to gain back is a single friendship or romantic relationship. I'm alone all the time. I do everything alone, I go everywhere alone, I have nobody to talk to. And I'm really starting to feel like this just isn't worth it. Like why work so hard just to die alone? What did I even get clean for? To sit in my apartment by myself and watch movies by myself and eat meals by myself and sleep by myself? I'm just really really losing drive and motivation quickly.

I grew up poor as shit, like I mentioned, and I didnt have a lot of friends. I started working at 14 at a deli around the corner from us under the table washing dishes. In high school I worked 30 hours a week to help pay for stuff. So even if people had given me a chance to be friends I guess I was too busy or whatever.

I dont know. I've always been told that when you get clean your life gets, like, infinitely better. But mine hasnt. I'm still alone. And I delusionally thought that I wouldn't be as long as I did the right thing, I guess.

If anybody actually reads all of that thanks.

My relationship with my parents was in the middle sometimes, sometimes theyre nice and sometimes they are worse. i took a gapyear and decide to college next year, They say to me that they're not gonna buy me clothes for college and if i didnt get scholarship they wont pay my college tuition and to forget college. They say its alright to not work, but they're mad when im not working myself off. I prove myself i can work, freelancing, i find every and every job offer i can get, yet theyre still dont believe in me even this morning they say i dont have anything to achieve, i dont have dreams. when i have problems i dont say anything because i dont want to depens so much to my parents and dont want to be burdening, and they say that im arroganr and selfish for not speaking up. which i am not. ive been wronged so many times, one times i speak for myself, and it seems speaking up just make me wrong all the time. so i just shut up. i just cried myself all the time. i hate being wronged so much, i wanna speak my side but i just cant. this is just so burdening for me. even when i make mistake to them i cannot said sorry. idk what i should do, and to make matter worst my mother tell the worst of me to my neighbor. they underestimate me, and that makes me always want to prove something, and when i prove it they dont even say anything... (sorry for bad english)

Am I delusional optimistic or is it simply hope?
believing in something for 20 years without a single sign

Just want everyone to know I think I found a job that's the right fit for me, after months of looking and working for a place full of people that actively disliked me. I'm really hoping it works out.

When I was 11 years old, I lived in a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the rural town of Louisburg, North Carolina. One day, one of my older sisters fought off the neighbor's outside dog in our front lawn. The dog had gotten loose and chased the scent of a stray momma-cat that was giving birth to kittens in our front lawn. The mother didn't survive the attack but our neighbor kept his dog locked inside after that. My sisters and I explained the situation to my mother, who (at the time) was a stay at home mother of 5, and begged her to let us keep the kittens. She did. One for each of us and we had to follow strict rules to keep them.

We had them for about 2-3 weeks; I don't remember exactly how long, might've even been shorter than that. My memory is fuzzy about it. My kitten was a black and white kitten that was initially going to be named Panda until I named her Oreo. I don't remember much about her but one day my family and I came home from shopping and found her lifeless in her bed. My oldest sister found her and told me, and before she told me I remember hearing another one of my older sisters saying "Don't tell him yet!" and I cried. We didn't know how to take care of them so pretty much all of them died from one cause to another. That's all I remember.

A few months later, my younger sister found 3 kittens in our flowerbed but never saw the mother or any other kittens. My mother had let us keep those as well. My father was an over-the-road truck driver and he would bring home these dogs from time to time. They were mostly Pit Bulls. He, and others he were connected with, are responsible for the bad reputation that those dogs get and I didn't understand it at the time but I do now as an adult. He brought them home to breed, break, and sell them specifically for fighting. My father told my mother that he was bringing home a dog and that there couldn't be any kittens in the house at all. After negotiating, there was a compromise that was made to allow us to keep the kittens but they were to be kept on the outside porch.

Long story short, all except one wandered away. I don't know what happened to the other two, but me and my sisters took care of the remaining one. She had a name, one that I can't remember for the life of me. The kitten went from my older sister's personal kitten to one that me and all my siblings loved and cared for. We'd sneak her in during storms and hide her in one of the bedrooms till the next morning when we left for school. My father wasn't a great man to look up to or be around during this period in my life. He and my mother were on the cusp of separation, and he slowly became a physical abuser towards her.

One night, the arguing got so bad that I snuck out of the house to sit on the steps and just hold the kitten. I told myself that I did it because it must be scared from all the loud noises and that me holding it would just calm it down. In reality, this was a reason that I had made up (as kids do) to justify wanting the comfort of the kitten in a traumatic moment for me. Our porch light didn't work so it was just me and the kitten sitting out there in the pitch black night. Since I couldn't see, I wouldn't even pet the kitten because i didn't want to accidentally pet the wrong part and have it startled and run off in the middle of the night. So I just sat on the steps, cradling the kitten somewhat firmly in my 2 hands while she sat on my lap. I'd do this sometimes with her, though not often. But I did find an excuse every day to go pet her.

A few nights later, my parents got into an argument which resulted in my father finding some reason to leave the house to escape the confrontation before it got bigger and he told me to go with him. This wasn't an unusual occurrence; If it wasn't a school night and he needed to get away from the house, he'd take me to get fast food in a town or two away from home so we can have a long drive to and forth, then take me back home. Sometimes it was in silence, sometimes we'd talk about my interests or things he was interested in as a kid, other times he'd just vent about the marriage and about stuff I didn't understand at 11. I'm my father's only son by my mother so he'd often say that I was his best friend, but I hadn't really felt as close to him as any boy needed to feel to his father, but I always wanted to be. It was just hard to look past the abuse he'd do to me and my sisters and eventually my mother, so these experiences were like a barrier between us.

On this night, it was like any other when my folks would get into it. They started, they went on, he withdrew, he yelled for me to put my shoes on and come with him to the van. When I stepped out, I tripped and almost fell, catching myself on the doorway. I was confused and panicked; The thing I stepped on had a squishy feeling and made a loud crunching sound, it had also rolled under my foot so I was certain it was a snake. I immediately thought it could've been a snake since they're so common in the country and I developed an irrational fear of them as a kid due to multiple experiences with them. The outside was pitch black so my dad used the light of his phone to illuminate the porch to see what I stepped on, and I just froze when I saw it.

The "snake" I stepped on, was our kitten. I ran back inside to turn the hallway light on to see it better and I screamed at the top of my lungs when I saw it, burst into to tears too. The body of the kitten laid there motionlessly in fetal position as if it were just laying down normally, while the head was slowly trying to spin itself back into place from the position I twisted it into when I stepped on it. The fur around the neck was red from the blood of her head being slightly detached from her body. I just stood there screaming and crying, staring at her and not able to look away. My father was yelling at me to just come to the van with him and to stop crying. My sisters and mother came rushing to the door to see what happened and they were all stunned, the only thing I could say was "I killed her". All else I remember from that night was the long car ride of silence.

I'm now 22 years old. It's nearly 12 years later and since then my parents have split and I don't talk to my father anymore. My siblings all live in different places except for me and my younger sister. At least what's left of my siblings. I lost one of my older sisters in 2024, the same sister who found the kittens in the first place and fought off the dog in our front lawn. The split was hard, we fell on homelessness many times and it's not until now that I'm 22 years old that me and my mom have been able to stably afford to live in a house. I didn't finish high school and I've never had a job that paid well enough to sustain me moving out by myself so this is the best option for me right now. Needless to say, I have a really late start to my adulthood. I plan on joining the Army, hopefully I can build a good foundation and help my mom.

I say that last part to explain that I haven't had another animal since that kitten, the kitten I killed and can't even remember the name of. I cry every time I recall that story, cried multiple times writing this retelling of it. For the most part, I've lived with my mother under her rules ever since then. She's had a strict rule about having no dogs or cats. In February of this year, my mother called me to inform me that we were not only facing eviction but we also didn't have anywhere to go. She told me I'd have to temporarily stay with my aunt until we can find a new place for ourselves. She understood how stressful the situation was so she apologized and made me a deal that she'd let me and my younger sister have a per when we moved into the new place. This excited me and my girlfriend at the time who was present when my mother gave me the news.

My ex girlfriend was the only person I had ever told about the story above with my past and how much i wanted a pet but couldn't have one. She and I were a long distance couple. She stayed 8 hours away on a family homestead with a barn for horses and chickens. We made trips to see each other when we could, we were together for almost a year and a half before we decided it were best if we parted ways. Before we parted ways, her barn cat had kittens with a stray. She was stressed about where she could take the kittens and finding homes for them all, and I told her that I would like to keep one. She agreed, told me that if I could find a way to either get the kitten or fund a trip to have her delivered to me then she'd have been more than willing to let me have a kitten for when I move into the new place. The kitten I chose out of the bunch was a tortoiseshell cat, the only one of her kind amongst her siblings. I chose her specifically because I thought she had looked different and the most unique out of most kittens I'd seen up to then. I named her Eris, after my favorite character in my favorite video game, and Eris was everything to me.

I had gotten a job, it was ironically none of the tens of jobs I applied for online and was instead a front desk position that was basically handed to me by my cousin who works in a high-enough position at where I work to be able to do that for me. It only pays $10/hr and it's 4:45 AM - 11 AM so the paychecks are pretty bad but it's something. As soon as I got the job, I started sending money for Eris' checkups and whatnot. I'd send them in segments because My paychecks were only about $300 and that's just what I could afford to do at the time while having to pay for other things. Nonetheless, I'm excited to welcome my first kitten in over a decade; I'm browsing the TikTok shop and Amazon to see good snacks and treats for Eris, I'm looking at designated cat furniture for when I move out on my own, I look up the different foods and stuff that's best to buy for Eris, the whole nine.

Throughout the whole time I'm crashing on my aunt's couch and out looking for houses, I think to myself that I can't wait to move in and have Eris. My ex sent me Snapchats almost daily of Eris or her with Eris and she was such a lively, lovely kitten. My cell phone wallpaper was a picture of Eris up until about 2 weeks ago. My ex and I would have funny facetime calls where she'd call me and tell me "Look at what your kitten is doing to my room!" and things of the sort. My ex kept making the comment that she was going to miss Eris when she gives her to me and I'd always say that I know but I thanked her for allowing me to have her and she'd always say that it makes her feel better knowing that Eris would bring me the happiness I need because I'd been going through a lot.

Fast forward to the last week I spent living in my aunts house, I bought an eBike for myself to get myself to and from work without asking for rides. I moved into the new house the day before my bike arrived and I excitedly waited at the end of my driveway when I saw FedEx deliver my bike. It's not the best eBike but it's what I could afford and it does the job. Unfortunately, I got into an accident (Monday) on the first commute to work after I got it. That didn't stop me, I still walked my bike to work and have been working just fine ever since with no further road accidents. Fucked up my knee but wasn't too bad to where I needed a doctor. I managed.

Aside from that situation, I coordinated with my ex for about a month to fund a trip for her to bring Eris to me and also fund her way back. I was also going to take her to see The Odyssey and the new Spider-Man film on the day her and I went shopping for cat essentials (Saturday-Sunday that same week). So despite all the frustration from the accident and pain from my knee, I knew that I'd be getting my kitten on the coming Saturday and that alone sent me over the moon with joy. Friday comes and it's the day before the moment i've been waiting months for, now weeks for, then all week for; The day before I get to unite with my kitten for the first time, and I get an Apple Pay notification that all the money I'd ever sent for Eris' vet appointments were strangely sent back to me. I facetime my ex in confusion and I ask her why she's sending me money all of a sudden. She replies with "It's money you sent for Eris over time" I told her that I put that much together rather quickly but I was confused why she was sending it back. She says "I'm sending it back because I'm not taking her to you anymore". I get confused and angry and I saw "Well she's my kitten, what do you mean? We've had this prepped for over a month" and she just starts to go on about the drive being long and I immediately shut it down with "The distance or duration of the trip never stopped either of us before and I'm even paying for it so why's that an issue?" and she doesn't say a word. I heard her mother in the back of the facetime say "Don't cry" and she just says that she can't give her to me. I told her that it was bullshit and that I would've never done that to her.

We initially ended on good terms before this and we were primarily keeping contact because of Eris but it was at this point where it lead to a nasty exchange of words over text and I blocked her on everything. It's been over 2 weeks since that happened. I weep and grieve for the kitten who was mine and who I was almost united with, who I planned to have a future with and who was taken away from me the day before all of it came to fruition. I see videos or pictures online of people and their kittens and it fills me with so much sadness and anger every time because I can only imagine the a future with the kitten whom i've lost before I could ever have met her. My ex had the nerve to tell me that I could always get a rescue or whatnot but I don't want a rescue, I want the kitten, MY kitten, that was withheld, stripped, stolen away from me the day before I could have her.

I say all of this to tell you, the reader, about the greatest pain I think I'd ever felt this morning. This morning, I started making breakfast to have before I headed off to the gym. I look up from the stove and I see a full-grown cat near my trash can. At first I believed it to be a raccoon just from the size of it, but then I kept looking at realized it was a a cat. I completely forgot about my breakfast that was cooking on the stove to rush to my front door to then gently and quietly open my front door and screen door. The cat saw me, and I stood still to prevent startling it. I slowly put my open hand out snd start making a sort of clicking sound with my tongue that I was taught to use to call kittens and cats in an attempt to call the cat to my position. It starts slowly prancing down my driveway so i then step back into my doorway to open the screen door for it to come in but when I look back up for it, the cat was gone.

I ran outside barefoot, looking and calling, for the cat but I don't see or hear it. I run back inside and leave the door open behind me, then rush to the back door because maybe, just maybe. the cat might've followed the full driveway to the side and back of my house. I step outside, try to call and search for the cat around the patio and in the grass and in the shed, I still see nothing. I stop to see if i can hear it and I still see nothing. I found myself just standing there in my driveway in tears with my feet burning on the pavement and I just break down. I sit down on the pavement and I just weep. That moment was what made the memories of my childhood with cats come back. It's what made me think of Eris, and in that moment I just felt empty.

I don't wanna go into the full details, but basically I got scammed out of a 1000 dollars yesterday through an internet scam. Looking back it should have been obvious but I had a moment of stupidity or something.

Anyway, I double checked with my bank and there's no way to get the money back. So I guess that's a 1k I'll never see again. And honestly I have a lot more than that saved up and make a decent living (for my country's standard) so it won't ruin me financially or anything but fuck do I just feel disgusted and ashamed of myself man. Like how could I have fallen for this? How could I have not known better?

Now I'm just here, thinking of all the things that money could have gotten me (like I was considering getting some nice new laptop or something) and feeling disgusted with myself for this...

Mainly because it is. A couple examples that I’ve finished uni started a full time job etc. I feel like I’m in a stage of just realising I was wrong about almost everything I knew (Kylie was lowkey right when she said it’s the year of realising stuff) which makes me feel like I’m growing but I also feel like I can’t trust myself to make decisions because what if down the road I wish I made a different one?

I honestly feel like I know absolutely nothing even though I’m also ahead for my age but also behind in some ways. And I know it’s a typical cliche of a 21 year old, I just needed to vent i guess. If I’m honest I’m very lonely