Progress
========

I talked with 2 today. He asked what was up and I pulled myself together and
went, "Nothing much. Work." Talked about that a bit. In reality, I was thinking
about him and 1 and how it felt like an impossible situation. I asked him how he
was, but after that, I thought, "If I lie, nothing will ever change." So I said,
"Ok, actually, I feel like shit. I've been thinking about social dynamics, at
least today I have. I don't really want to talk about it though. I just wanted
to try *not* lying."

He said that he was actually thinking about the same thing, and that he had
talked with his therapist today about it. But he said he didn't want to talk
about it and maybe *never* would want to talk about it. But a minute later, I
ended up talking about another friend in our group and my issues with them, and
it turns out that that was exactly what 2 was talking about in therapy. Zamn.

Ya know he's not bad when we actually talk, and when 1 isn't there. I gotta get
out of the context of this house more. It's painful to be here all the time.

1 stealing my friend group
==========================

I had two friend groups in college, and it was pretty great. I had my college
group from Cru (christian group, i'm not anymore), and I had my robotics homies.
I had a good thing going in my college group, and one day me and a robotics
homie decided to try running a TRPG. I decided to combine the two groups to get
more people, and 1 ended up joining in on that because they wanted to try. 1
wasn't the best at getting a social group for themselves, so I kinda feel like I
"did the work" for them. That's not a bad thing, really. The problem was that
they became a permanent part of the group, and they changed the vibe a *lot*.
Idk if it was their autism or their strong and strange personality but they
tended to twist around the social dynamics of the group like a gravity well.
Everything felt a little different, a little weird. To me, it felt like we were
accomodating them. And I felt like I couldn't be myself with my friends anymore.
1 (remember, they're my sibling) has that effect on me for some reason. Maybe
it's because I haven't been upfront about how all of this makes me feel. Idunno.

So they permanently altered my friend group and basically destroyed what once
was. It was different after that, and it's evolved since then into a group that
I don't feel I really belong in. This is a big realization for me, really.

I like a lot of the people in it, I'd like to keep being friends with them, but
the group itself is just not my thing. We're a conglomerate of disparate people
who have all happened to find themselves in this group together. I feel like I'm
part of this friend group by chance, and thus the friendships feel more
superficial.

So, I'm thinking I need to hang out with a smaller group, and with different
people, and even find a new group to find belonging in. Robotics was PERFECT for
that. Going through the fire and the flames together was an incredible
experience and I can only pray I find a group like that again. Maybe that lies
in mentoring a robotics team, but I'd like to have peers... I need to find that.
Having a shared goal like that is huge. I was lucky to find some people I vibed
with there as well, and we were also almost all Christian, so that glued us
together more, but still. The experience of creating together and sharing the
load in a monumental task is nothing short of incredible.



My Name
=======

Ya know, my name, soda, does originally come from me, but it also partially
feels like it came from 1. That doesn't feel good to me. It's from a quote from
Chika from Love is War when she says, "I'll give you a soda!" to pres. I love
that quote. And it was my username of choice for a while. And shortening it to
"soda" makes so much sense and it sounds great. But... dammit, it's marred. It's
linked to 1. They started calling me it in real life, and I actually asked them
to not do that a while back, but they started again at some point. You know
what, I need to tell them not to call me that again. I don't like it. They call
me "Sodie." It's cutesey, it's a pet name, but I just don't feel comfortable
enough for them to call me that. Nah. Stop. I'll have to tell them that. Maybe
if they stopped that, the name wouldn't bother me so much. I just hate this
feeling that to some extent, *they* named me.


Alright I hope you have a good one. Long one today. You know, typing is just SO
MUCH FASTER than writing in a journal. I get so much more out.

-sfirmam