[4/9/26]

I am back after half a year.
Things are weird, I went so 
many places, changed my life
in so many ways, and yet I am
right back to where I started 
during 2024. Mentally, I feel
better than I was back then, 
reading through those old logs,
especially the HOWSMYDAY logs
is like eating thumb tacks, I
had a lot of problems. Now, I'm
just bored as hell. Shortly after
I last talked, I left my high school,
lost it, and then got enrolled back
into an independent study program.
Did good there, got sent to Job Corps,
made a lot of friends, also did well there.
Though I had a problem! My best friend who
was an adult tried to hook up with me and
was overall depraved. When I reported it
the poorly sculpted rendition of shrek that
runs the mental health department then put
me on an indefinite mental health leave, which
in turn kicked me out of the program. When
I went to her office, she told me that this
wasn't a residential treatment facility
and then condescendingly told me that I needed
to use my coping skills. My thoughts are that
it was easier to kick me out with my correlation
of past mental health issues than it was to kick
out Job Corp's closest equivelant to Jeffery Epstein
because of his lack of treatment history. When we
emailed them to ask for the reasons I got kicked
out, she didn't get back to us. When we went a step
above her and talked to the person running the whole
operation, they told us that they couldn't do anything,
seconds later we got an email from that absolute bitch
that we got a letter stating why. That letter arrived 
two weeks later, where they used that I told the person
running the class that I needed to go and report someone
as one of their core reasons for kicking me out. Their
exact wording being "failure to fully attend class". It's
bullshit. Later, a couple of days ago on my "birthday" with
a couple of my friends, while waiting for our curry, I got
a call back from the mental health department lady. She smugly
asked me if I did the steps to go back to job corps. I made little
mhmm remarks while she was talking, doing that active listener shit,
until eventually she stopped talking, where I told her to go and fuck 
herself and then hung up the phone. I heard her screeching like a terrier
while I was bringing my ear away from the phone. It was amazing.

Getting off of that topic, some shit happened in december, all of it
on the same day. My aunt texted me that one of my childhood dogs was
going to be put down. I contacted everyone I knew, even the people I'd
known only for a bit to see if they could drive me to his house and
stay there for maybe an hour so I could say goodbye. Nobody could take
me. Grimacing at the thought of having to talk to my mom about this, I
called her, she didn't have shit going on today so there's no reason why
she can't take me to see my dying childhood dog one last time. I call
this asshole and she tells me that I'm only going to see the dog for 10
minutes because she doesn't want to lose sleep for a shift. I got really
pissed at her, and told her that she disgusted me, I didn't know if I'd ever
want to have a full relationship with her again. Because of that, I had to then arrange
to get a ride with the two last people I'd ever want to get in a car with,
my dad and my step mom, to go 20 miles into the trees to see my dog. I
haven't had a relationship with these people in two years, and with good
reason. When I got to the place, I saw the dog. He looked like an old 
stuffed animal that started getting cancerous growths all over its face.
For a second I couldn't believe that my dog,  somebody I'd idolized as being so
resilient had withered away into this barely breathing husk. When I asked
my dad what had happened, he told me that the two dogs had gotten into a 
fight, their final fight. The two dogs never got fixed, my dad never gave
a good reason to why. They'd fought their entire lives, their dynamic
switching as one dog got older and the other stronger. I guess that day
the younger one had finally won. Every single snarl and scream had been
woven together with jealousy over lost love, even though both couldn't
live without each other. Looking back on it, the story mirrors Cain and
Abel. The day had gone on for a bit, my ex finally decided to completely
cut contact with me after an awkward situationship held together by
nostalgia and desperation. His final full message to me being "have fun". As the sun went
down, it dawned on me that the dog wasn't going to be put down today.
My only option for getting home was my dad, of course, he roped me
into going onto the plot of land I used to work on, it was the only
place in the area that I felt wasn't affected by the light polution
of the neighboring city, so whenever I got the chance to, I'd sit on
the dirt path after tying trees or checking lines to watch as the purple
sky started to grow stars. He'd told me of the figure that appeared when
the area grew still enough, some of the people living there believed it to
be my grandpa, though no matter how far along the dirt path I'd walked, 
the only beings that acknowledged me were the crickets and the frogs. 
Eventually, we left, and he took me home. Out of respect for the animal
that had accompanied me through many fights, I promised to come back tomorrow to
watch him. The day rolled around, I got back into his car and watched
as all reason I'd known slowly melt away into the trees. He talked about
how I could stay in a trailer that he had, or stay with my cousin in-laws
I had not seen in years. Both in my fisheye lense of reality sounded appealing.
In the garage sat my little cousin, she was crying. The last time I had seen
her was when she was 8. I told her that the dog liked being pet in between
the ears. I should've said more, but I didn't think it was my place. Hours later,
the vet had arrived. With an empathetic look in her eye she talked him into 
administering the drugs and ending the rasp. The doors were closed, everyone
in the room watched as he calmly left this world. After everything that dog
had gone through, seeing him finally be able to rest left me with closure. We
drove out to the middle of nowhere, we dug a hole and I lowered the dog into
his final resting place. My time with him should've been through. but it just kept going. He returned
back to his cold businessman exterior and talked of a marijuana farm he had 
invested in. We got in his car and headed that way, I was scared, we drove east
until the trees towered over us. We met with his business partner, he gave me 
a very bad vibe. Talked about his time growing weed, his business had slumped
in the growing years. We left just as it became hard to see, we went southeast
to a little diner. He was a broken record, talked about the same stories 
he shared when I lived with him. He was diabetic now, his already obese frame
had grown larger. He probed me on my life, I deflected. He asked if I was alright,
I told him I was. We drove southeast for an hour until we reached a diner.
The establishment was family owned and had the town's history shown on each booth.
We were greeted by somebody no older than me, they did not have any formality within
them and talked out of pocket. She took our order. I got the burger, replaced the fries 
for a fruitbowl, my step mom had gotten a salad, and my dad the steak. When we finished, 
we went back home. After hours of being asked the same questions, I finally broke and told
him my situation. He pulled into a Home Depot parking lot and told me how my mom was an evil
person and how he had always known it'd come to this, how he would let me live with my cousins.
There was always another angle to what he would do, it was the reason why I left, even in my dazed
state I was reluctant enough that he gave up and drove me home. The next couple of days he texted
me, I blocked him once again. The deal that he gave me reasonated in my mind, I didn't have anywhere
else to go really, I had been looking to get away from my mom for a while, to live with my cousins
might work in my favor. I talked to my brother on it, he told me it would be the worst decision I'd
ever make. Weeks later on Christmas Eve he knocked on my door and demanded that I get in his car. I
closed the door and haven't seen him since. A month later I went to Job Corps.

After everything was all said and done, I went back to the campus I went to a year ago, told my counselor
to rush me through high school as quickly as possible. I'm going to college a year early. I don't know
if I really want any of this though, I've been unable to really picture anything I want anymore. Hopefully
as time goes on I can think of somehting. I've sort of made amends with my mom, I still don't like her, and
we're really mean to each other all the time, but it's the only option I have right now that isn't sleeping on
benches or living with some of my drug addict friends that also got kicked out of Job Corps. I guess I just
have to bide my time and wait things out. 

That's all, the second to last paragraph sounds like shit, but I'm going 
to bed. 
-Sage