I'm on my way on the road to somewhere Little clouds like wounds that blow away Listening to the radio like a friend that guides me Playing out every song we used to know

 I posted a lot of this in this thread on Twitter, but here are these same thoughts reorganized in a much better way.

Hi, this is me. Unfortunately, a washed out version of me, because that's how cell phone cameras opera, but this is me. I don't use filters or air brush any of my photos because I have facial and body dysmorphia. As in, actually diagnosed, not just learned about it on Tumblr and decided to adopt it as a personality quirk.

Here are too more photos of me, unfiltered, and not necessarily the most flattering.

No wrinkles or grey hair (knocks on  wood), and not that that really matters.

I am turning 35 this year, and this is the first birthday I've really been Not Okay with hitting.

There are many reasons for this.

My birthday is actually one of my trauma anniversaries and a reminder that my abuser gets to keep living their life like nothing happened and keeps being rewarded for it. I don't even get to have my own god damn birthday.

I think a lot of my friends have insecurities about aging that I don't, but they are heavily projecting onto me, and continue to make shitty comments. If you wanna feel bad about yourself, keep it to YOURself, stop trying to make ME feel bad. Those things I mentioned don't really matter, but apparently they matter enough to people who are (supposed to be) my friends. Other people projecting onto me, and, for whatever reason think that's appropriate or I'm an easy target, is really starting to effect me, especially since they know my history. Why are you trying to make ME feel like my life is over, when you KNOW I have hardly been able to live at all?

These are people who know I have a history of SA/DV/ IPV, self-harm, body dysmorphia, etc. They know this. They know this and they choose to continue to make comments they know are harmful.

I had a complete re-start on my life when I hit 30. I had a nervous breakdown (like a real one) because of abuse I had suffered. My life didn't actually start until I hit 30, because poverty, disability and abuse has /stolen/ most of my life from me. My music career couldn't even start until after my grandmother passed away because I had responsibilities to other people. My friends say things like, "what would have happened if you were a recording artist?"--like I don't have a whole catalog of music online. Seriously, like, WTF.

I lost two years of my life to Covid, like everyone else did, but unlike most people I knew, lost even more hours of their life because of the bus schedules, many of which have not been restored. Again, disability stealing  huge parts of my life. I also lost years of my life being exploited by someone who I believe purposely set me up to fail. I am no where near where I should be in my career, and am only NOW getting to a place where I can even remotely be considered competitive.  And I know 35 is still considered /very young/ for an opera singer, and is STILL, by all accounts, VERY YOUNG in terms of our time on earth, *but we don't get to sing that way forever.*

And, because I am constantly (still) being pushed to my physical limits, I have almost stopped singing.

I also really, really, really wanted to be a mother, but that window is becoming ever smaller, I realize that it's not possible with a body that fails me. I lost almost a decade of my life that I could have started this sooner, which, again, friends make inappropriate comparisons to. I am not the trauma gatekeeper or the trauma police, but lengthening what is at worst a mild inconvenience to something that stole an entire decade from my life and has made it so that I am too traumatized to really start over from is not appropriate.

Again, I would like to not bear  the weight of other people's insecurities and personal problems. If you feel shitty about yourself, keep that the fuck to YOURself and stop being mad at me and try to tear ME down because I don't hate my body the way that you hate yours. 

I never really got to live my life because it was stolen from me. You had yours and you fucking wasted it. We are not the same.