Mother, Mask, Media

 Okay, so I am not a big writer. I have a few problems when I write, like typing too fast, misclicking letters, just not knowing how to spell due to being dyslexic, but I still wanted to make a blog post. Shit post?? I don't know what to call this, but welcome to my blog, where I will talk about everything and maybe nothing simultaneously. On my blog, I will be raw and maybe brutally honest, so here we go. This is my first blog called Mother, Mask, and Media. I will be ranting about my day and how my thoughts take over once again. You can call me 404dirtbag. So today is 05/20/2025, aka March 25th, it's Tuesday, 12:57 pm as I write this. Okay, let's get to the point. Growing up was different for me than it was for others, obviously that's how it is, but I truly struggled 80% of my life, money-wise, food-wise, mentally/emotionally, and physically. No one taught me a lot of things, no offense to my mother. I know she tried, but my memory is fuzzy when it comes to the teaching part. It could have been my fault? I also struggled in school since elementary school. I will say though some of those teachers really picked favorites and it was very irritating some of them saw me as helpless and maybe even retarded at times. It was like that for my whole 12 years of school, and somehow I didn't have to redo any grade; maybe they just wanted to push me along so they didn't have to deal with me. But like I was saying, I didn't know a lot of things, whether it was how to cook, how to do math, how to take care of myself and etc. I just didn't know what to do or what I was doing, not emotionally, not physically, not mentally. My mother took care of herself sometimes, that is for sure, she knew how to dress in her way, how to do her makeup, how to stand when they wanted her to fall, but I guess those things never really got passed down to me. But what child back then would care about all that? But then again, it gets to a point where you aren't a kid anymore and you have the will to watch tutorials and look nice, and not even just that, just be nice, keep your room clean, and not be messy. Now my mother wasn't cruel, necessarily; it could have been worse, of course. I have to give her props, though. It was all our first times living and surviving. She didn't have the time to teach me those things because she was doing the right thing, which was working to put food on the table with little to no help. Now me? I didn't really have the motivation. Depression played a big part in it all. We didn't have the money for nice clothes or skincare routines or even to experiment with what "style" could be. So I stopped caring. What was the point?

Now I live with my in-laws, and they always look good. They are put together, stylish, and confident. And being around them makes me kinda insecure and self-conscious. I start to worry: do I look like a bum next to them? My other always said I looked like a bum when I was going to school or something. I had a hoodie on 90% of the time with so much dog hair on it and jeans with shoes ripping because she would buy us clothes once a year for school, and it would probably be 5 things like 2 shirts, a pair of jeans, if you're lucky, shoes, and socks. Christmas was nice, I guess, because we would also get clothes, but why do I have to get clothes on Christmas when I know I'll be in my bed sulking, not wearing them till school comes around, but then again, it was an excuse to not get clothes for school. Now, don't take what I say about my mother wrong, there is always more than just the parts I talk about here in this blog. I love my mother, I just wish she or maybe we did things differently. Now, back to the in-laws, I worry when I'm near, not only do I look like a bum, but when I try, do I look like I'm doing too much or trying too hard? Like I'm wearing a costume that doesn't quite fit?

The truth is, I still don't know what my style is. I don't think I've had the chance to figure that out yet. If I had the money, maybe I could play around more, try different things, find myself in the process. But the internet makes it all look so easy, like people saying "just thrift" are often the ones who've never had to worry about money in their lives. It's annoying. Tone-deaf. Unrelatable. 

So when it comes time to go somewhere, like the library with my in laws today I end up doom-scrolling on tik tok and pinterest for outfit ideas, knowing damn well I don't own anything like what i'm seeing. It messes with my head. Why am I depending on social media to tell me who I am? Why can't I just... know?

Why have we normalized looking outward instead of inward to find ourselves?

I don't know. Maybe I'm weird for giving in to it. Maybe this is all part of the process. But it's frustrating. I'm trying to unlearn shame and figure out who I am outside of poverty, a scary word, poverty. Some have it worse than I, and I'm sorry you do, because I feel like I had it pretty rough. Not just outside of poverty, but outside of depression, outside of not having a foundation to start with.

Thank you for reading this. if you're someone whos struggling like I am, trying to figure out who you are, how to take care of yourself or how to feel like you belong, I see you. i wish you luck, patience, and peace as you figure it out, Were not alone, even if it feels like it sometimes. See you in the next post, 404dirtbag out.