So.

I have this kalimba. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/63931885

Tiny, metal, little teeth‑like keys, it weighs almost nothing. Sometimes you get a gift like that, something someone really thought about, and you just cannot bring yourself to share it with anyone. Not because its bad or anything, but it feels too personal maybe. Like the world gave you this quiet nice object and you stare at it thinking “Yeah. Not yet. Maybe never.”

That’s this.

This girl shows up at the anticafe on mondays (maybe on other days too but I’m there only on mondays) and it’s like the whole place brightens up a bit. She knows all usual crowd - the regulars who’ve become family in that weird, low-key way. She remembers everyone’s names, their stories. She’s got this whole... performance of enthusiasm that would be exhausting if it didn’t seem so effortless, making the community dinner feel like a party even when it’s just six of us hunched over some vegan stew. And to me it is a facade. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Maybe she is really that exited to see everyone and hug and eat food together - just thrilled to be alive. Like a dog is happy to see their owner so it stands on its hind legs with the tail swaying wildly. That’s the thing about people who are genuinely warm - you never know if it takes effort or not.

So I asked her to my birthday party. You know, a tiny one. Four people in a tiny room, big enough to fit us all but barely. Me, my step-sister, her and another guy from anticafe - Steve. Steve is a treat. Born in St. Petersburg, Florida his family moved to Switzerland, at 18 he decided to pursue a career of game design so he went to Russia to attend a very specific course that he still thinks gave him an edge over his colleagues. He also cooks great Indian-inspired dinners and the couch at his place is so wide you would think it is three beds stitched together. Very soft too. So we are sitting there, eating ramen, singing karaoke. And they decided that it’s time to give me gifts and… She went out of her way. For me. And I need you to understand what “out of her way” means, because people say that all the time and they don’t mean it. “Oh, she went out of her way.” No. She went out of her way. She looked at me - the guy who’s maybe a little too online, a little too in his own head - and she decided, deliberately, with intention, that she wanted to know me. Not the version of me that shows up to Monday dinners and laughs at the right moments.

Me.

She knows I’m gay. She knows I’m a furry. She knows all the parts that I’ve learned to sort into “safe to share” and “don’t tell or you’ll go to jail” social folders and she just... Didn’t do the thing where people say “oh that's totally fine” in a voice that tells you they’re already composing the group chat message about you. She was just... there. Supportive. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. It’s funny how that works. Right around then – like right around then - I started talking to the guy who ended up my boyfriend now. Funny how timing works. Universe gives you someone who gets you, then your heart flips for another person. Kind of a mix of sweet and mean.

And I wanted to post it back then - the kalimba, the birthday, the happy little story. “Look! My friend drew it herself! Look at this cool thing!” But I didn’t. Something… stopped me. It’s this small, gentle, deliberate gift. Not expensive. Not flashy. Just thoughtful. The kind of gift that says “I paid attention to who you are and I picked something that I thought would make your specific soul happy.” So I closed the tab. And I told myself I’d do it later.

December rolled in. Woke up one day and realized I had not wanted to talk to anyone for a while. Didn’t want to text back. Didn’t want to pretend I was excited. Didn’t want to move in any direction or toward any goal. Like everything was different and I was different. I went to a professional. He helped me last march with my anxiety. He watched me for two more weeks, just to be sure he doesn’t put me on medication that I will have to take for at least the next half a year without a solid reason… Yeah, reason. It’s somewhat unsatisfactory that I don’t know the reason for my own depression. People always want that one big trigger, the spot you can point at and say “THERE. That’s where it went wrong.” And sometimes there isn’t one. Sometimes your brain just... decides to stop cooperating. It doesn’t need a reason. Or maybe it has too many reasons and they all blur together into one big, gray fog.

And in that numbness, I finally saw myself. Really saw. All those people - the roleplays, the late-night begs to be used, desperation and need for physical contact. I’d used them. I wasn’t cruel… but used them. Just wanting to feel something. A thrill. A spark. Anything to know I was alive. And now? The meds dulled even that. And I thought: is that all I am? Just a guy who uses people until I don’t need them anymore?

He sat on the windowsill with coffee and a smoke, looking into the distance with some longing. His boyfriend stirred veggies in the pan, glancing over. If it was real, he thought, no late work, no sad tunes, no small worries no more. Mechanically continuing his movements, his thoughts split in two: “you like this fantasy because it feels good” and “when you get what you want, you cool off, hobbies or people, same thing” It's interesting, unusual, very pleasant for you to be with this person, and you want to spend more time, isn’t that enough? Do you need a boyfriend or a key to freedom from your life full of people who have been trying to keep you on a tight leash for a quarter of a century? Does every person in your life have only a function and your role adjusts so that he can fully satisfy this function? Am I myself when I talk to colleagues, friends, family, when I’m alone in bed, or with someone - which one of them am I? Am I there? And if I don’t find out who I am, or is that all that happens to me and has generally happened in my entire life? Why do I always cry during hypnosis?.. The bird twitched slightly from a hoof on his shoulder. “Is it ready yet? You know, I’m so hungry that I’m ready to take a bite out of you,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. How much I love him, he is mine, my most beloved person on earth. What a nice fantasy this is.

Had this trip planned for October, to see my boyfriend. We are long distance. Because of COURSE we’re long distance. Because nothing in my life is allowed to be simple. So I had this trip planned and well he said it won’t be possible cuz he was moving to another city and then turned out this plan didn’t work out so I had to cancel my plans for nothing and I was pissed. And “pissed” is a funny word because it sounds active, it sounds like you’re doing something with your anger, throwing tantrums but really “pissed” just meant I was sitting in my room staring at my carpet. I felt like the universe owed me a romantic getaway because I’d been good and I deserved it. For every tough day at work, for every time I said “I love you” in our DMs.

And then I started doing the thing. The thing where you’re in a relationship and you’re hurt and you don’t know how to say “I’m hurt” in the way that would convey the meaning you really try to say so instead you say “why don’t you come to my city” or “let’s go on vacation” or “make some grand gesture already! Prove this is real! Prove you love me because I can’t feel anything right now and I need external evidence that you care at all” I started asking him for things that weren’t really about the things. I was asking him to fix something that wasn’t his to fix, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. And my boyfriend… poor guy. He was on the other side of a phone, trying to love someone who demanded something when he just wanted a quiet moment. I started to feel like he was an asexual but it couldn’t be.

June. A guy in his mid twenties in the army hospital. He has cancer, getting bombarded with radiation, wanting to get back to his life and spending a lot of time talking on the internet with other guys, sharing his desires and fantasies. “Oh to be prey in the fangs of a hunter, to feel his claws on my back, I’ll resist, of course, his nature’s call will be my moans and I’ll love every second of it”. Sounds nice. “You can whimper and kick, but you’ll still be slammed in the tailhole like a good girl, sugar feather, making you all wet and sticky.” Sounds so nice, doesn’t it? Makes you blush just thinking about it. Engaging in those roleplays was so exiting. I’ve known him for four months at this point. And he supported me through a very tough time with my soon to be ex-boyfriend.

My ex is a kind of guy… who… “You ask for it every time.. and every time it’s not enough for you... and every time I personally am not on your wavelength, and the problem is always with me, and you are always the only one who needs support. Instead of starting rp, you will wait until I do it, and I will not do it, because I am already cold to all this. I told you from the start it won’t work. You crated a world in your head where I’m into you. Now convince yourself that you are done with me and try move on, eh.”

You know, no one ever steps on enough rakes to learn not to step on rakes. That is not how any of this works. What you learn, after the tenth time the handle cracks you square in the face, is - what is a rake. You learn the tiny almost-nothing of weight under your boot. You learn the quiet click that comes one half second before it rises to hit you. You will still step on them. You will step on them your whole life. Some days you will be tired, some days you will be looking somewhere else, and you will put your foot right down on it again. But you do not stop doing it. You stop standing there screaming at the universe about how unfair it is that this happened to you again. You are already turning your head, already breathing through it, before it ever touches your jaw.

Six months after we became boyfriends I wanted to end it. I couldn’t handle being at my lowest. But we kept going. Because you do. That is what you do when you love someone - when you want to love someone - you build bridges out of tiny things. We watch movies together, our screens mirroring, typing comments in chat like we were in the same room. We play COTL or Barotrauma and die screaming into the void, laughing at the absurdity of it. We text every day. Not deep, profound stuff - just “how was your day?” “this meme killed me” “Us? :3” Little lifelines. And slowly… the numbness cracked.

The meds work. I feel the need to say that. The meds do work. Three months in and I can feel the gears starting to turn again. Not all the way - it’s not like someone flipped a switch and suddenly I’m me again. It’s more like... you know when your foot falls asleep and then the blood starts coming back and it’s this horrible tingling that’s half pain and half relief? It’s like that. I’m starting to get interested in things again. New topics. New projects. The productive juices — god, what a horny phrase — the productive juices are flowing again. Slowly. Like a faucet that’s been frozen and is just now starting to thaw. Maybe I needed this breather in my life to look at a different angle.

Maybe that’s the thing. When I was asking the universe for fireworks - all I really needed was someone to sit with me in the quiet. Maybe happiness isn’t some grand gesture. Maybe it’s just… a kalimba. Or a movie night with someone special. Or text chats at 2 a.m. That worked for a big part of my adult life. The fact that I can sit here, at 3 a.m., typing a monologue about how I almost lost myself and the person I love the most. But I’m back. Sort of. Not whole, not perfect. But present.

So I try.

I really do.

I try to be happy.

Thank you.