Author: Genevieve Backes (Page 1 of 2)

It’s 6:41 AM and I’ve been up for three hours. An old friend reached out, and it has lingered on my mind since.

I’ve only ever been in love once.

Actually, I’ve only ever experienced any sort of romantic attraction once.

This friend—let’s call him P—was my first romantically. He was my first crush (that was fun going through that at 19). He was my first love. He was my first heartbreak.

It was over before it could really start. We met at my dad’s birthday, and we just clicked. We talked about anything and everything for hours, and by the end of the night, he had asked me out. I looked a hot mess—I was in a Camp Crimson SGL shirt, shorts, socks, and sandals in true camp counselor fashion—and he still liked me anyway.

When I met him, it was the first time I got it. When kids at school used to talk about crushes and dating, I lied to fit in. I would pick a random kid and decide if I “liked” them or not and would call it a crush. Looking back, it’s wild that I thought that was how people got crushes, but I didn’t know any better. I never saw myself with someone. I mean I knew I wanted a relationship someday, but I never pictured anyone specific. But when I met him and then later fell in love, I got it. I finally knew the warmth and butterflies everyone was talking about. I finally felt the anticipation of waiting for responses and the next meeting and clumsily having conversations when you thought too hard about it. I finally understood the rush you felt when you thought about how happy they made you and how much you wanted to give them in return. I finally knew what it felt like to have your breath taken away and to truly want it.

But it wasn’t my happily ever after. He ended up not being kind to me. It started off small with him not responding and last-minute canceling our date. Then, he started to ignore me completely when he saw me (I had blocked him at this point so he couldn’t snap me). He evolved to being hot and cold with me. He would show the smallest glimpse of who he was and the warmth he had, and then shut me out in the cold. He kept me there for the longest, and now if his girlfriend is around, it’s like I’m not even a person. The more he hurt me, I deeper I fell, and now I’m haunted by the what-ifs. What if he didn’t cancel? What if I didn’t live out of state? Would it have worked? What if he didn’t have a messy past that came back to haunt him?

What if I never met him? Would I prefer the numb detached view I had before and wonder what’s wrong with not liking people like that or do I want to keep the brief warmth of love I felt and wonder if this is all I will ever have?

I’m scared of never loving again. He was my first, and I’m 21. Will there be another and will it hurt as badly as it did the first time? Is this it for me? It feels like it is. Everyone tells me to just give it time and I’ll love again, but it’s three years of actively searching and healing with no results. Not even the faintest hint of a crush or romantic attraction.

Love is bittersweet, and while I’m glad he got the sweet side, I don’t know if I can escape the bitterness.

It’s 3:23 AM and it’s been over a year since I saw someone about my sleep problems.

I figured since I named a whole section of my blog, Gen’s Insomnia Hours, I owed you an explanation of my sleep journey—or lack of it.

I noticed my sleeping problem in my junior year of high school, I was put on Lexapro because, well, life and it was the first time I noticed I was getting sleep. Sure, I had the not-so-occasional all-nighters and routine late nights, but I figured that was just the effects of being an overachieving AP student and not an actual problem. On Lexapro, I started sleeping at night, which was good at first, until I started oversleeping at any point of the day and I wouldn’t wake up unless someone—or something, like my dog—physically awoke me. I got off of Lexapro before college since I was joining ROTC and my over-sleepiness stopped. I thought I just had a bad reaction to the meds.

It wasn’t until 2020 that I noticed how bad my sleep was. I downloaded a sleeping app on my Apple watch after a lot of sleepless nights to track my sleep pattern. My God was it awful. The first few weeks that I saw my reports, I thought it was wrong. There was no way my sleep was actually that bad, so I decided to record myself sleeping, which was a humbling experience watching it back, and it was right. The app said I was waking up on average five times a night spanning from thirty seconds to thirty minutes and that I was only getting about four to five hours of interrupted sleep a night. Not to mention, it noted my wild sleeping habit. I always knew I was a wild sleeper. I’m prone to injuring myself in my sleep and waking up to bruises and sore limbs. Twice, I’ve slammed my head on a bed railing and have two permanent knots on the side of my head. I’ve chipped walls and kicked a lot, and my now-stepmom used to refuse to share a bed with me because of my sleep. I taught myself to lock my limbs as a kid, but I almost always woke up hurt.

So, I knew my sleep was intense, but I didn’t know how bad it was until I downloaded the sleep analysis app. It told me I wasn’t getting REM sleep (I used to average 5-10% max when I was supposed to get 25% on average), which explained to some degree why I move in my sleep and don’t dream often. The REM stage is where the body repairs itself and starts dreaming, so the paralyzes it so the body doesn’t do the actions it does in dreams, like running. But since I hardly REM sleep and am often interrupted if I do, I don’t dream often, and my body doesn’t paralyze properly. I apparently talk in my sleep and spend most of my night drifting between light and deep sleep.

In the Fall of 2021, I said enough is enough and saw a sleep doctor (which I didn’t think was a thing outside of Stephen King). I had to drive down to Dallas on Halloween weekend and spent the night in a lab, so they monitor my sleep. Due to my intense sleeping movements, it was safer for me to be monitored so that if I did tangle myself in the vast number of cords, someone could come to get me. It was, naturally, one of the best sleep sessions I had gotten in a long time. I only woke up once and I only kicked off my leg electrodes. I didn’t get on my phone, and I felt well-rested.

I remember telling my doctor that before we went over the results, and he gave me a mixture of a smile and a grimace. Apparently, my sleep hadn’t been that great. In fact, he said it was concerning. He told me I had insomnia, which I then learned was not just having a problem falling asleep, but also staying asleep. I woke up six times over a four-hour period because I apparently have UARS (upper airway resistance syndrome). This is when my tongue falls back in my mouth and blocks off my airways, not completely to cause an apnea, but enough to startle me awake. This consistently happened before or during the REM cycle and once the REM cycle is interrupted, the body has to start the entire sleep over again.

So, I learned why I don’t sleep at night. So, how did I fix it? Well, I didn’t. The suggested sleep remedies were a CPAP machine, which I was advised against due to my sleeping patterns, or an oral device that would move my jaw and help my tongue not fall back. The problem was not medical, as I was all set to go to a sleep orthodontist, but an insurance issue. My old insurance ended, and my new insurance wouldn’t cover it. I couldn’t afford a $2000-$3000 device when I was paying for living and college, so I never got one. I just suffer through the night as sleep gets worse.

But, hey, at least I got a cool segment out of it.

“It’s 5 AM, clinging on my couch and everyone I’ve ever knew is standing in my house; Oh, I wonder who I’m looking for, ‘cause you don’t go to parties anymore.”

– “You Don’t Go To Parties,” 5 Seconds of Summer

It is 5:27 AM and I’m staring at the off-white lights that line my wall. I’ve long given up on trying to sleep and decided to listen to music instead.

It hit me that I’ve been a fan of the band 5 Seconds of Summer (or 5SOS for short) for almost a decade. I think that’s the longest I’ve been actively dedicated to an artist before. Sure, I still listen to some of my childhood music. My mom raised me on Paramore, Evanescence, and My Chemical Romance, but all of those bands broke up at one point and I’ve been a casual listener to them. I went through phases of heavy listening and obsession over some artists, like the dark hole of Billie Eilish and Joji or the middle school era of Fall Out Boy, but I haven’t really stuck with one artist besides 5SOS.

I remember waiting for their Eps to arrive in the U.S. iTunes store (their label at the time was British) and waiting for any album news to drop. I remember running into Target in 2014 to buy their first album with my sister and memorizing all of the lyrics to their songs. I remember when the second album came out and I hated it, but I still listened to it because it was them.

I’ve been with them since 2013, which is a decade next year, and it’s all thanks to my sister. She was a big fan of One Direction, and they toured together in 2013. She used to show me their music when I was 11, and while I teased her at first, I got started to like them too. Now here I am, at the ripe age of 21, listening to their fifth album and finding a place in their music.

It’s 4:51 AM and I’m lying awake in my bed once again.

Yesterday, I watched The Boy (2016), which I thought was going to be ten times scarier than it actually was, and I can’t stop thinking about Brahms (heavy spoiler warning for the movie).

Brahms is weird and not just live-in-the-walls-and-watch-you-sleep weird or definitely-has-an-Oedipus-complex-due-his-upbringing-and-clingy-mother weird, but in a mysterious weird. He’s creepy, yes (especially the more you think about him actively stalking Greta), but he’s just weird.

First, he uses a literal glass doll to communicate. It’s a horrible idea not because he decides to use a doll (I mean to each their own. It’s not my business), but because he decides to use glass. And what does glass do? It breaks. So, when it breaks in the movie, it’s not that big of a shocker. He was born in the eighties and is shown playing with a plastic doll in photos of his childhood, so this man knew about plastic dolls and still chose glass. For what? The aesthetics? Do you know what I think is more aesthetically pleasing? Not having a smashed face. Additionally, you’re really trying to tell me that no one broke this glass doll over the span of twenty years of actively using it. I don’t buy it.

Second, I know this man smells. When we are first introduced to him—like the real him—he is covered in dirt, grime, and possibly grease based on the brown stain (God, I hope it’s grease). He looks crusty-dusty-musty, and I can’t even imagine how bad this man smells. At one point, I would’ve called the exterminator because I would’ve thought something was rotting in the house. He is visibly unhygienic, so I want to know how no one smelled this man in the house. He wouldn’t have a chance to clean himself if he didn’t want to get caught by Greta. Sure, he had that big ass bathtub in his “apartment area” (by the way, where is that area in the house? I feel like I would notice if there was a big space with nothing there in my house), but he would only be able to use it either 1) at the same as Greta and if they have a tanked water heater, which they probably do, he’s screwed or 2) he bathes at night, but that’s unpredictable in itself because of Greta possibly waking up. This house is old as fuck, so if you’re using water, you will hear the pipes and that’s a no go if he’s trying to be discreet.

Third, he’s dumb. Why did he cut Greta’s hair at the front? Why didn’t he use the back? She would’ve been a lot less likely to notice had he done it in the back. Also, While the voice-changing thing (I still want to know how he did that. Does he that good at impressions? Does he have a voice modulator? Surround sound?) was smart, it doesn’t work that well when I see you as a grown-ass man. A six-foot-plus dude wearing a creepy mask and then actively trying to talk to me with a child’s voice is just weird. Not creepy, just weird. Also, he can’t fight. Sure, he got Cole and a couple of punches in on Malcolm, but if a screwdriver is his demise, I can take him.

Finally, this man travels through walls. If he travels through the walls and eats the food from the freezer, which love that for him, why would you keep your head by the wall once you figured out what was going on (I’m looking at you Cole)? I already don’t like Cole (his relationship with Greta has so many issues, but that’s a different topic for a different day), so I’m already not rooting for this guy, but you’d think as a man in construction, he would have a little bit more common sense. Now, onto Greta and Malcolm. When you’re running from this guy who visibly shows that he knows this better than you because he’s showing up in random places, why are you locking yourselves in rooms, especially ones you know he can get into? Do you just want to die? And then you’re shocked when he shows up. Pick a struggle.

Ultimately, it wasn’t a good movie. There were many plot issues, and the camera didn’t need to move in every shot. Stinky wall boy has a lot to learn and, hopefully, one of them is how to bathe.

It’s 10:28 PM and I’m finally unpacking my bag from Thanksgiving break.

I know it’s been three weeks since when I drove back to my dingy college apartment from Dallas, but life has been a lot, okay? I’m doing it now and that’s what counts.

In my bag are two wigs (one brown and one white), two bodysuits, a skirt, a blue top, a prop gun, bunny ears, and a neckpiece.

Now, I know that sounds weird, but I promise I’m not crazy. You see, I just cosplay.

This year, I’ve gotten the chance to cosplay at four conventions with a fifth one coming up at the end of the month. So far, I’ve gone as Sukuna from Jujutsu Kaisen, Itadori Yuuji from Jujutsu Kaisen, Shinobu from Demon Slayer, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Jill Valentine from Resident Evil, and Miruko from My Hero Academia.

Cosplay is a lot of fun! It’s liberating for me, and it allows me to dress up as my favorite characters and meet other people who love cosplay at conventions. But conventions aren’t mandatory if you want to cosplay nor is making or buying costumes. You can use the clothes and/or makeup you already have and go from there with a closet cosplay (that’s what I did for my Jill Valentine one)!

I first got into cosplay when I was fifteen. My sister had introduced me to an anime, and I drove headfirst into fandom culture. I learned how to use Tumblr, unfortunately, started using Wattpad and Fanfiction.net heavily ( I wasn’t woke enough to use AO3 yet, but it would come later), and I was introduced to cosplay while scrolling through Pinterest one night. That fundamentally changed me, and I worked up the courage to cosplay after years of watching and following others on social media do it.

I’m not ashamed of my hobby, much to other people’s chagrin, and through cosplay, my confidence has grown. Plus, I look pretty good while doing it.

It’s 3:23 AM and I’m lying in my bed with my dog curled up against my legs. I tried going to sleep an hour and a half ago, but those stupid TikTok audios live rent-free in my head.

As much as I love the creativity that thrives on TikTok, I don’t appreciate how I have become the unwilling host of dramatic and heart-wrenching ideas that stem from TikTok edits. Most of the time, I have no idea what I’m even listening to, but I know it makes my brain happy.

One of the most popular sounds right now is the stupid “You came… you called” dialogue overlayed on top of Chance Peña’s “In My Room.” I happen to like “In My Room,” but I can no longer listen to that song without thinking of that lady dramatically turning from a window and longingly saying “you came” to this Edward Cullen-Mr. Darcy hybrid. He then stares at her before whispering “you called” and the beat drops. The couple meets in the middle, and they don’t even have to touch for me to feel the love and longing between them. I have never seen this show. I couldn’t even tell you what the name of it is, but I have already created three alternative scenarios with my emotional support couple.

Another audio goes to the same song, but this time the narrator has mommy issues. He says, “the first to betray me was a god; my creator; my mother.” And if that didn’t get me in my feels, I don’t know what else would. This audio had me falling to my knees in a Walmart parking lot. I was emotionally distressed when I first heard it and I don’t think I’m going to be able to recover from it.

These edits fuel my creativity, but for the love of God, please let me go to sleep.

It’s 2:33 AM and I’m looking out my apartment window. The lamp posts are on and the porch lights from the neighboring houses illuminate the street below.

The Resident Evil: Village DLCs just came out and one of them focuses on Rosemary Winters, the daughter of the main game’s protagonist, Ethan Winters. The DLC, Shadow of Rose, is very meta and involves Rose killing mutated versions of herself and confronting her mommy and daddy issues.

As someone who is actively confronting her own mommy and daddy issues, you can guess how well this went over with me.

It caused me to spiral and mourn the loss of my childhood. Similar to Rose, I didn’t get a real childhood. Rose’s was taken away due to supernatural powers given to her by the megamycyte and the security force that watched over her. Mine was taken away from me by my parents. Sure, it wasn’t intentional. My mom couldn’t help that her mental illness took over and caused her to become a real-life Mrs. Everdeen from The Hunger Games. My dad was so desperate to cling to the illusion of happiness and the idea of being a parent that he burdened me with the role of caretaker, daughter, and messenger between him and my mom. I know he just wanted to provide for us the best he can, and I had to step up because he wasn’t allowed in the house, but they took something from me that I will never get back.

Those years of my life are gone, and I never got to be a kid. I wake up every day wondering what I missed out on and dreading how it negatively affected my development. Is that the reason why I can’t sleep at night? Is that the reason why I have a cruel sense of responsibility for everyone around me? Is that why I’m burnt out and emotionally underdeveloped?

Shadow of Rose caused Rose to mourn her childhood and the life she’ll never have, and she dragged me down with her in her spiral.

If you asked me back in August what movie I was most excited about, I wouldn’t hesitate to say the new Black Panther movie. However, with the recent release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I feel conflicted over whether to see it.

On one hand, I loved the first movie. It was invigorating to see a movie focusing on Black people that didn’t focus on racial struggle or trauma and to have an African society depicted as high-tech and sophisticated. The first Black Panther movie went against everything that Hollywood deemed as “Black” and the overwhelming focus on trauma in Black stories. As a black woman, it was refreshing to have a movie treat our community with respect and care. Black Panther also became a rallying movie for the Black community because of the clear positivity and love that was put into the development of the movie. Also, T’Challa and Shuri are badasses, which automatically made the movie great.

On the other hand, the same amount of care that made the community fall in love with the first movie was not put into the second one, at least promotion-wise. When Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hosted its premiere, there was a notable absence of black women influencers among the other invited influencers present.

While popular Black TikToker StrawHatGoofy was present and other white creators were invited, black female creators weren’t. Nique Marina, one of the most popular Marvel TikTokers, was outspoken about her lack of invite to the premiere and called out the producers for not inviting Black women creators. Due to public outrage on TikTok and Twitter, TikToker Amanda Castrillo was invited hours before the New York premiere. She later posted that she was just happy to be invited in the end, but why is it that a movie that focuses on the stories of Black women neglected to invite Black women to their premiere?

Are our stories and struggles simply a narrative for Hollywood to use and then toss us to the side once the script is done? Do we not get to see the benefit of our work or our journeys? Why is it that other creators get to walk down the red carpet and Black women—the same community that the main characters represent and voice—must cause public outrage before one of us is invited?

I was excited about this movie, but this lack of respect has turned me off. I will not be watching this movie and while this may seem silly or an overreaction to others, watching it would feel like a betrayal to me.

It’s 11:20 AM and I’m sitting on the couch on the first floor of Gaylord.

I know that 11 AM isn’t exactly insomnia hours, but I’m running on a collective three hours of sleep from a nine-hour attempted sleep session. It’s the best sleep I’ve gotten this week, but worse than my already medically declared horrible sleep. So, I’m counting it anyway.

It’s foggy outside, which means the air is sticky and will ruin my hair, but I like it anyway.

It’s the pattern of my life. I love things that ruin me.

I love driving with no destination in mind, even though it could kill me.

 I love my oldest sister enough to drive from Texas to California during dead week of my sophomore year despite her not caring enough to call except for when she wants something. 

I love my oldest sister’s dog enough to take her in with little help, even though she cried for the first three weeks of classes when I wasn’t home and ripped up my belongings. 

I love my middle older sister enough that I’ve dropped everything for her in a minute and destroyed my mental health only to beg for three years before she visited me in Norman. I live less than three hours away.

I love my dad enough to tell him about how horrible his relationship was with my stepmom and that he should leave. I told him how she was planning on using him for money and risked him disowning me because no one else would. He didn’t react when I told him I will graduate in May with a self-designed major and two minors. He watched me struggle and fight throughout my college career, and he didn’t even say he was proud. He treated it like a mundane fact, despite him talking about how proud he was that my sister graduated with her associate degree last year and putting so much academic pressure on me.

I crave my dad’s affection, but it only feeds my self-doubt.

I think the reason why I love it—the ruin, the destruction—is because it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s probably all I will ever know given my self-destructive streak that, no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to fix.

It’s like the fog outside. It lingers and seeps into your hair until there’s no more room for it to fit. It leaves your hair full of remorse and poofs it up with regret until it’s unrecognizable.