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I’m back in my funk again, I guess. To be honest, I don’t think it ever really left. It’s more like it’s always been there, just sometimes quieter than other times. Sometimes it gets worse, to the point where I can feel myself on the brink of another major depressive episode. It’s like I’m constantly teetering on the edge, and all it would take is one small gust of wind to send me over.

It’s been a couple of weeks since my birthday, and I spent most of it by myself. I drove two and a half hours to another city just to do this splatter paint thing. I did some other things while I was there too, but throughout the entire day, I kept having this thought in the back of my mind: *I should feel happy right now, but I don’t.* I was doing all of these things for myself. I was trying to make the day special for me because I knew no one else was really going to do it. But even then, nothing really clicked. I was there, doing something that was supposed to be fun, and I still felt like something was missing.

My parents both wished me a happy birthday hours after they woke up, which honestly just made me feel like an afterthought. I’m the type of person who will stay up until midnight just to text someone happy birthday. I know not everyone thinks about birthdays that way, but I do. So when the people closest to me don’t seem to think about mine in the same way, it hurts.

My mother was also mad at me because I turned off my Life360. I didn’t want anyone knowing where I was. I just wanted to make the most out of my day without feeling like I was being watched or having to explain where I was going. Apparently, she asked my sister, “demanding” to know where I was. She never asked me where I went that day, or really where I had been at all after I got home. I have a feeling my sister told her, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

When you actually add it all up, only five people wished me a happy birthday: my sister, one grandmother, one friend, and my parents. Besides the things I did for myself, no one really did anything else for me. My birthday was on a Thursday, so my parents had to be at the venue, and I understand that. But we had talked about going out to eat for my birthday on the Tuesday before. That never happened because my brother took priority.

The Sunday before my birthday, he was having issues with his college house. He was on the phone talking about how he couldn’t use the shared fridge and freezer. Long story short, my mother overreacted and bought him a $200 mini freezer for his room, only for the actual problem to apparently be that my brother didn’t want to go downstairs and interact with his roommates. Then my mother decided she needed to take the freezer up there basically immediately. The problem was that she had to substitute teach Tuesday through Friday, so the obvious answer was to take Wednesday off and make the four-hour round trip to bring him the freezer.

As soon as I heard all of that on Sunday, I pretty quickly put together that my birthday had become an afterthought.

Originally, I was disappointed in my friend too because they hadn’t mentioned wanting to do anything. But I later found out they were dealing with some pretty serious and ongoing stomach issues, so I don’t hold that against them. I understand that sometimes people have their own things going on, and I don’t want to make someone feel guilty for not being able to celebrate with me when they are dealing with something themselves.

I did end up doing something else for myself a couple days after my birthday. I got a tattoo. It was the first opening they had, so it happened a little later than my actual birthday. I only told my sister and my one friend. The only reason I told my sister was because she has a couple tattoos herself, and I was curious about something. My friend actually found out after I had already gotten it done.

I specifically told my sister not to tell our mother.

Not because I planned to hide the tattoo forever. It was something I wanted to tell my mother myself, when I was ready and when I actually wanted to have that conversation. It was something I did for me. More importantly, it was my information to share.

Flash forward to today, when my mother came into my room and saw the tattoo lotion packet sitting on my desk. Of course, she immediately analyzed the entire thing and asked, “When were you going to tell me about the tattoo?”

I played dumb and said, “What tattoo?” because I was hoping she hadn’t actually read the packet. The word *tattoo* was pretty small on it. She then told me that my sister had told her.

I don’t even know when my sister told her. All I know is that it felt like a knife in the back.

I got defensive because I specifically told my sister not to tell her. I told her that I hadn’t even told many people at all. My mother asked me why it mattered so much to keep it hidden from her, and I tried to explain that it wasn’t really about hiding it. It was about the fact that it was something I wanted to do for myself, and it was my information to share when I was ready.

That distinction seems important to me. If I shared something with my sister that she specifically asked me to keep private, I know I would be dragged for it. Not only by her, but probably by my mother too. Yet somehow, I keep trusting my sister with things and thinking maybe this time she’ll respect what I asked.

She never does.

Part of me wants to confront her about why she told our mother when I specifically asked her not to. But I also know my sister can be difficult sometimes, and I can already imagine the situation becoming ten times worse. My parents would probably end up taking her side if it got bad enough, and then I would be left feeling like I somehow caused the entire problem just by being upset about it.

And then I wonder why I have trust issues.

This isn’t even the first time she has done something like this. Another time, I told her that I had been seeing a therapist. That took a lot for me to tell her. This was during the period when everything with my family was really bad, and even admitting it to my sister felt like a huge step. I told her how difficult it was for me to say it out loud.

She then told my mother.

That hurt more than I could really put into words. It took me a long time to trust my sister enough to tell her something like that, and I thought that if I specifically explained how difficult it was for me to share, she would understand why I needed it to stay between us. Instead, she told someone else anyway.

I don’t even know if my mother still thinks I see a therapist or not, and I’m definitely not going to ask.

I guess all of this is part of why my therapist recently told me I should write down some kind of goal timeline. Another problem I have is that I have a really hard time actually starting things, even when they’re things I genuinely want to do. It can be something huge, like changing my entire life, or something as small as writing down a timeline of my goals. The problem is that once I start something, there is a possibility that I could fail.

If I don’t start it, I can’t fail.

I know that sounds ridiculous when I actually say it out loud, but I think that is a much bigger part of my thinking than I realized. It also connects to how much I worry about what other people think of me. I’m constantly imagining how other people would view me if I failed. If I create an event and no one comes, I imagine people thinking I’m a loser. If I apply for a job and get rejected, I feel like I’ve proven that I’m not good enough. If I start something and don’t finish it, I see it as another example of me failing.

But I’m starting to realize that a lot of those imagined judgments are actually coming from me.

I’m my own worst critic. I just project that criticism onto everyone else and assume they’re thinking the same things about me that I’m already thinking about myself.

So I guess we’re writing the timeline.

The biggest goal is still getting to New England, preferably Massachusetts. In order to do that, I need to save money and pay off my credit card. In order to do *that*, I need a job. And that’s where things get complicated, because I can’t seem to find one. Either no one is hiring, or I keep getting rejected.

So maybe I need to stop waiting for someone else to give me the opportunity I want and start creating my own.

That means making events.

The idea makes sense on paper. I want to work in events anyway. Creating my own events would give me experience, give me something to put on a résumé, and potentially help me build the kind of career I actually want. If I can eventually use those experiences to get a job in Massachusetts, then everything starts connecting.

The problem, of course, is that creating events means there is a possibility that they could fail.

And there I am right back at the same problem.

What if I create an event and nobody comes? What if I put all this work into something and it doesn’t work? What if people think it’s boring? What if I spend money and don’t make it back? What if I try and fail?

But then there’s also the other side of it. What if I actually do it?

I have a pretty good setup right now. The venue is somewhat at my disposal, which solves one of the biggest problems with hosting events. I don’t have to immediately worry about finding a place to rent every time I come up with an idea. I can actually experiment with things here.

That obviously wouldn’t be the case if I moved to Massachusetts. Nobody is going to just hand me a venue because I want to put on an event. Maybe someday I’ll have enough money to buy a run-down building and turn it into something of my own. Maybe I’ll build a venue from the ground up. I just know that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running a traditional wedding venue. I hate weddings.

What I really want is to bring people together.

That’s where my brain starts going in a million different directions.

Maybe someday I could have some kind of music store and hangout space. Something that sells vinyls and CDs across different genres, but also has a place where people can actually sit and hang out. Maybe it has a slight convenience-store café aspect to it. I’ve always liked the idea of those little ramen cafés where you can buy a packet of ramen, use a hot-water machine, and sit down with it. Or where you can buy a drink in a pouch and pour it over ice in a cup. Maybe there’s boba. Maybe there’s coffee, even though I don’t actually love coffee.

Then maybe at night it turns into more of a bar lounge.

During the day, people could come in and work. There could be tables and comfortable seating. Maybe it’s more like a coffee bar without necessarily being a traditional coffee shop. There could be paninis, flatbreads, mac and cheese, soups, cobblers, and other easy food. Then maybe there’s a larger space attached to it where bigger events and festivals could happen.

And yes, I realize a music shop, café, lounge, bar, convenience store, restaurant, and event space don’t exactly sound like they belong together.

This is why I’m not writing an actual business plan right now. I’m brainstorming.

But I think there is something underneath all of those random ideas that actually makes sense. I keep imagining places where people have a reason to stay. Not just somewhere you go, buy something, and leave. Somewhere you can discover music, eat something, meet people, work for a few hours, go to an event, or just exist around other people.

Maybe that is actually what I’ve been trying to figure out this entire time. I don’t necessarily need to build some massive business or become incredibly successful. I just want to create things that make people happy and give people somewhere to go. I want to bring people together.

That’s probably why events keep coming back into my life, even when I get scared of actually doing them.

So maybe the timeline doesn’t need to be perfect. Maybe it doesn’t need to be some detailed five-year plan where every single step has a deadline. Maybe it just needs to remind me what direction I’m trying to go.

Right now, my goals are pretty simple. Don’t fall back into another major episode. Keep working on my two current events. Maybe brainstorm a New Year’s Eve event. Keep putting effort into my other two side projects. Keep looking for ways to build experience and eventually get myself to Massachusetts.

And somewhere in all of that, I want to get to a point where I’m happy enough that I don’t have to constantly question whether I’m happy.

I don’t know exactly how I’m going to get there yet.

But I guess the only way to find out is to actually start.

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