I Drag This Hope In Hand

I know I don't say it enough and we joke about depression and how loneliness is eating up our lives, but it will be okay. I promise you it will.

I love your writing and I just read your "Dead above" snippet/excerpt and I'm so intrigued and interesting in your plans for it as a whole, is this a snippet of a book your writing or another project.

Thank you! Dead above is the title of the book I'm writing and the post was a snippet from it, I intend to finish the first draft and be on the second by the end of this year and hopefully (fingers crossed) publish it. I have very limited knowledge about how to get published, but at the moment I'm just excited about the writing process. Thankyou for taking an interest, it's very motivating 💛

We connect with people without words everyday, some hold a door open, you share a smile with someone at the bus stop or  when passing by each other on a walk, we say I don't know you but I see you, here we both are living together on this little rock, living this little life that is all to fleeting but so worth it.

It reminds me of a friend I had in school. Diane moved from Russia when we where 13, she didnt speak much English, and the few Russian speakers at our school where so much younger than her that she barely saw them. I remember seeing her in the corridor outside our first science lesson, she was leant against the dark green tiles lining the walls, her school uniform brand new and her hair dyed auburn. Everyone had already grouped up with their friends, talking and laughing so loudly it created this mass of sound that only kids can make just before a lesson. My science class was rather chaotic and hyper. Diane stood silent away from everyone.

I wasn't known as the most outgoing in our class, if anything most would have described me as shy, but really I just never had much to say. Seeing her there though, I knew I had to say something, I knew none of the other girls would try and bring her into their social fold, so I went up to her.

"Hi, are you new" she looked at me hesitantly as she tried to piece together bits of language in her head "Yes, I'm Diane" 

"I'm April" there was a beat of silence, neither of us knew what to say and I wasn't the best at small talk, so instead I just looked towards the rest of our class and said "they're a little" and I made a large frazzled gesture with my hands, trying to encapsulate the chaos. She looked from me to them and laughed nodding.

After that we'd sit with each other in all our shared lessons, at the beginning I would write her work for her and I know I probably shouldnt have. but when your 13 and your friend is freaking out over homework being due or not having her notes written down you just end up doing it. Eventually we realised she could write her English assignments in Russian then put them into Google translate, and then I'd re-write them  grammatically correct. This wasn't perfect but it's not like she had a language aid or anything so we made do. Our jokes usually consisted of calling each other suka or using our made up gesture - a sideways palm from the centre of our forehead down to the table. It meant get a load of this nonsense, ffs or I'm an idiot, usually used when someone was making a fuss in lesson or when we'd make a silly mistake.

We didn't need words, not when we had laughter and silly little gestures, sometimes I felt closer to her than with friends I'd had for years. I guess what we have now is a language made up of vine and tiktok references, that you could giggle with someone over even when your language didn't translate. And in some ways we're more connected over those trends and references than anything else despite the language barriers. We connect over joy, humour and humanity.

Diane moved back to Russia before we turned 16. I don't know where she is now or how much she remembers of me, but I do treasure our friendship. Wherever you are suka I hope your okay. I miss you.

Just before covid hit my brother and I at 15 and 19 found our selfs homeless. I had a choice, my brother would go into care or we could stay together, but only if I took responsibility for him and had somewhere to live. So I applyed for social housing, the guy that processed my case was sympathetic and at some points I was holding it together better than him, do you have any other family? No, Do you know where your mother is? I wish I did, how old is your brother? 15 are you in any fulltime education? Not anymore. He looked at me like I was something tragic and I suppose I was, there isn't a metaphor for what I looked like that works any better than just what his naked eyes saw; a girl abandoned by her mother, her life in a bag on her back completely thrown on how to deal with everything, and all he could do was fill out a form and send it and me off. it's going to be okay.

Somehow despite the odds we where given emergency accommodation and a year later a property to rent, I suspect we where pushed up the list because of my brothers age, we where lucky, some people wait years in hotels or streets all over the country, living out of suitcases and rucksacks.

As lucky as we where, luck didn't cover all the things I suddenly had to know. I had no idea how bills worked or paying my taxes, I didn't even really understand what "taxes" meant until the final notices where piling up in front of us. It's something they don't teach you in school or at least mine didn't. They never taught us how to survive in a world like this, they assume our parents would be there to explain or we'd be much older before it mattered. what's more useful in real life, how to formally address someone in an email or how to keep the lights on or how to find food when a tin of beans is too expensive.

Though I suppose the email ettique lesson was useful for something in the end,

To whomever it may concern, I'm writing to you regarding my payment plans and how I'm choosing to fork over alot of money and won't be buying enough food to live off this month. My regards.

Sometimes this comfort rots. Sometimes this resting mocks me (about the life I want to live).

This, but what about the times when you suddenly don't feel the same joy for your hyper fixations as you did literally the day before. It's like this thing that was the source of most of your happiness and contentment, just suddenly gets switched off in your dopamine centres. You're just sat there like, wtf do I do with my time and self now? its especially awful when you feel all your apathy and depression start to take centre stage again because your hyper fixation isn't there to push it back anymore. So you just end up waiting in limbo for the joy to spark again.

people who don't experience hyperfixation don't know what it feels like to hyperfixate so much on something that it becomes not only your subject of obsession but also your source of happiness and literally the main reason why you still keep going; literal source of strength and life.

shoutout to my favorite fictional characters, favorite people, favorite ships, favorite movies, favorite tv shows, fanfics and archive of our own

hello :) i love your blog theme, the header + pfp look so cute together!!

Thank you so much!! 💚 At the rate in which people keep saying they like my theme I'm going to need a tag for it lol

Screw it , I'm going to write this book.

Excerpt from wip Dead above

The night won't last forever. Wait for the sunrise.

the biggest lesson im learning is that nothing is as extreme or as permanent as our emotions convince us they are. nothing is certain and things are always fluctuating and there are always exceptions and there are always mistakes. there is always pain and there is always love. everything is a delicate touch away from changing