the angle
failure is not a sin, success is not a virtue, and time is a resource. i am a drill and my emotions are the trajectory i send it
to be a competitor means to come up short nearly every time. in a double elimination bracket, everyone loses twice except for one person. i (and i'm sure others) understand the statistics - that we are, almost always, doomed to fail. but the pain and doubt that grips my heart after every loss is still so crippling every time. in that moment, the hopes and expectations i have for myself are crushed, as though all of my efforts have been in vain. how much of a folly is it to chase something i know is so unattainable? i lose and i think about quitting for the longest 2 hours of my life. i think about whether i am worthy of love and if i have any redeeming qualities. i think about putting all of my melee time into other things.
what is the point if i can't win? why does everyone believe in me so much if i continue to come up short over and over again?
in the events i've attended this year, i've been slumping incredibly hard. at genesis i was completely unconfident about my entire life, much less my play. from then to element i had no fire to win, and i hated how i felt. i would win and not be happy and i would lose and not care. i tried to rediscover the things that made me tick and why i cared. at pats house, i did ok. i felt super foggy in winners and i just went for a big sprint before my losers sets and i felt fantastic after that. i had a close set with zaid that made me feel incredibly hopeful about my play because it felt like i had cracked the code. i figured out that exercising was the key difference between how i played at locals and majors.
i came to altitude sickness and woke up at 7:30 in the morning before bracket to take a jog before i headed to the venue. i went up 2-0 against ultra, who shat on my chest last year at fight at the museum, and i got reverse 3-0ed. and i didn't take a break after that set and went straight into my losers set against panos and also got shit on and under placed my seed pretty hard. losing feels so fucking bad, man.
when i compete at majors, i always feel my ears and face getting so hot, as though i am embarrassed to be here, as though i am embarrassed to win, as though i am embarrassed to lose. it makes my sets always feel like a ticking time bomb. i am on a timer and if you last long enough in the set you will overtake me because my head will feel like there is steam coming out of it. my breathing is always so raggedy despite my best attempts to gasp for air.
by no means did i lose to bad players and by no means did i really even play that bad. it hurts so bad to feel like i'm so close and just not able to prove it. but how bad do i deserve to feel if i don't give my all to this? i have a job, i have a girlfriend and a boyfriend, i go to the gym, i write, i do interviews, i try to hang out with my friends. i have a child. i do a lot of introspection. i try to read and do other shit. i like going outside and hiking. i probably play a max of 10 hours a week of melee. i dont play every day. i skip locals to go to parties sometimes. meanwhile umar got married and he said he reduced his playtime from 5 hours a day to 4 hours a day. im watching tony sit at the unclepunch setup for 5 hours on tourney day and not talk to anyone and still lose (no flame btw man i feel for you). most of the time i see top players at tourneys and they are not hanging out with anyone they are just kinda alone most of the time. it makes me think about all of the sacrifices they make to win at this beautiful and stupid fucking game. and here i am, feeling like i've sacrificed next to nothing in my pursuit of the game, desperately clinging on to everything in my life that i hold dear. compared to them, i feel as though my pursuit is not nearly as dogged as theirs. when i lost in pools at genesis 9, i was so pissed. but the fact of it was that i didnt deserve to be as upset as i was because i simply didn't practice at all. nowadays i do practice, but there are so many things i do on top of melee that it feels hard to break into the upper echelon against people that seem to play much more than me.
but i also see my friends hanging out together online and getting closer and all i think about is not having the time to do that and how i wish i could hang out with my friends in real life more. all i think about lately is wanting more time. i can't give up my full time job, i need the money. i care about my career prospects. i started sleeping 8 hours a day and felt so much better than when i slept 6. i started going to the gym and i feel all of the brain fog enclosing my head just dissipating when i stay consistent. i feel so accomplished when i learn or read. i feel my heart fill when i hang out with my friends. and yet, my fatal flaw continues to be my greed.
when i was younger, i used to treat my potential as an indication of my worth. the fact that i could do something was equivalent to actually doing something. then i grew up. and now at 25 i have been trying to be good at melee for just over 3 years now, ever since i drowned in pools at genesis 9 to a player i thought i was way better than. for 3 years i've been clawing away at all of the goals i've set for myself. i went from an unranked player to #6 in my region. but my tenure feels so unstable. perhaps it's better this way because it's more likely that my opponents are just really good and not that i suck and am really inconsistent. but between all of the things i want, i feel as though i don't have enough time to allocate to make everything i want to happen a reality. i feel like if i had like another 4 hours in my day i could accomplish everything i've ever wanted. i feel like i manage my time well, too. the funny part is that all of the growth i've made in the last 6 years of my life is so incredibly tangible. graduating, moving out, adopting a kid, finding a full time job, dating my two beautiful partners, moving jobs, doing all of these fulfilling things all the time - and yet, i will lose in a bracket and feel that i have never been fulfilled in my life. sometimes i will "waste" a night rotting and not doing anything and i feel as though i am giving up on myself and my goals and my dreams. i see my friends hanging out with each other and often feel like i'm on the outside. i don't think i've ever had a best friend that wasn't a partner. i don't know what to think about that. i don't know if that's weird, but it makes me insecure. i feel like having more friends to hang out with irl would probably help me a lot here but i also feel so strapped for time already with all of the things i want.
it's funny, i feel like the way money and time work the same way for me. i make livable money (45% of my area median income) and it's enough to pay for the necessities and some treats and travel and a lil savings and the rest of my bank account feels like it's being ripped apart by a million little worms that all want like $10 from me all the time. in the same way, i just keep wanting to spend 15 minutes a day here, 30 here, an hour here, until all my time is exhausted. time is money and we all pay so much for convenience and efficiency and speed because most people simply don't have the luxury to take their time and slow down and be more deliberate. but does the luxury lie in having more time to be deliberate, or will slowing down and being more deliberate feel like luxury? i suppose it could be the second. perhaps the fact that i am trying so desperately to do so much every day is making me feel like i'm running out of time and not making any progress. i look back and i see i'm so far away from where i began that i can't see the starting line anymore. but day to day, it's so hard to acknowledge any growth i've made. i want it so bad but not enough to give up on the other things i want. i don't know what that says about me, whether it says that im greedy or that i don't actually want it bad enough or that i'm asking for too much. whenever people talk about obsession and wanting something so bad, i think about how it's always about wanting one thing. but i hate the idea of settling. i want to believe in myself that i can do everything i set out to.
i recognize that a lot of people would kill for my life, or at least what they perceive it to be. whenever i'm not at a tournament, i think about how blessed i am in my life to live with my girlfriend and be able to afford living in the bay area, to feel attractive, to be able to go to the gym, to have treats and food on the table, to have a car, to have a job, to be in nature at a whim, to afford to travel to visit my boyfriend, to go to majors, to have friends that love me. but sometimes they feel less like blessings and more of just the result of my hard work. i don't know if anything has ever fallen into my lap before. i'm so happy falling asleep in a big bed with my girlfriend. but this desire to win at melee has been permeating my soul from the inside out for the last few weeks. it rots my flesh and burns it away and hurts so fucking bad, and i cry and scream and yell, and yet i never expunge my heart of the yearning, because i know i would never forgive myself or be happy in the long run. it's not enough for me to settle, i think. it's not enough for me despite knowing that it would make my life so much easier and less stressful. my vice is that i am an infinitely expanding cancer that wants for nothing but to grow.
is 10 hours a week enough in a game where competition is genuinely the hardest i've ever felt it to be? i was challenger and immortal and yet this game wrings infinitely more sweat and blood and tears and effort and emotion out of me. perhaps there is infinitely more sweat and blood and tears and effort to wring out of me since i transitioned. is this the ceiling of what i can do with the time i'm allocating? is it enough for me to be near the top of my region's pr? 2 years ago, it's all i wanted. and now that i'm here, all i can do is continue to aim even higher. i'm sure that if i ever break this barrier, i'll feel the same way as i do now. maybe in another 2 years i'll be top 50 and just want to be top 10. but it's just as likely i don't reach that if i don't start investing more time into this. when i got ranked top 10 for the first time in norcal last season, i was really happy. i felt great for like, a month. then it was back to the grind. i genuinely quite like the grind but fuck is it so heartbreaking to lose. it's fulfilling for me to improve and put thoughtful time into doing so. blah blah the journey not the destination and shit but like fuck man i really wanna reach my destination too. the growth i've made is quite apparent, but for the most part, it's only apparent to me. but i'm not a fucking monk, you know? i want recognition. i want people to see me play and watch me win and know my name and think i'm so sick. i hear it in my head from someone that i should be doing this for my own self growth and not care about what other people think. And fuck you, version of jess i've constructed in my head. i want both of those things.
i don't think i'll ever have as much as time as i want to do all the things i want. so somewhere, in some way, i need to give some things up. or maybe i don't. maybe i just need to slow down more and i'll feel better. maybe i need to stop flirting with the idea of adding even more to my plate. actually, i definitely need to do that. it's hard for me to stay as focused or as sharp when i slow down. but it's probably less about literally slowing down and more about focusing on exactly 1 thing at a time. whatever the solution is, i think i need to come to terms with what i can and can't do, just in terms of my time. i'm allowing myself to potentialman here for some of these things that are less important to me right now because i literally do not have the time to do all of it. i just try to do everything ever. and then for some crazy reason i don't think i have enough time in my week and i'm always stressed the fuck out. maybe i need to go to therapy to figure out how to detangle my sense of self worth from my accomplishments and social and material value. the thing is that i am actually so chill about this most of the time and then i lose or don't grind for 2 days and it all comes rushing back to me. as though it's reminding me where i came from and how quickly i could fall back down and how fickle everything i've built is. the problem with being self-made is that i am acutely aware that i can't rest on my laurels if i want to be someone i'd be proud of. the problem with healing is that i have to just keep being a good noodle every day or else i can derail my entire life and years worth of progress within a couple months if i'm not careful. or it feels like that. at the end of the day, i am still just a scared little girl sometimes, despite what others might think about me. i'm scared of losing everything i've built in an instant, as though my life is a carefully constructed house of cards. i'll always have myself and i know that, but who am i without other people? no one, really. no one that i'd care very much about. maybe i feel this way because our economy is in fucking shambles and i'm always afraid of losing everything. i'm so scared of having to rebuild from nothing for the 5th time. i'm so scared of dying. i wasn't always, and i'm glad that i am now. even if it's scary.
a couple days ago, my boyfriend gave me a deep tissue massage. i told it to go really hard on a specific part of my shoulders. it hurt so good and i just started sobbing for like 10 minutes. i wasn't aware that that was something that could happen as a result of massage therapy. but i felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. i sobbed from relief and what seemed like crystallized emotion being melted out of my body and being released like memories into the air. it felt like blue fireflies had given their light to me and all of it was flowing out of my shoulders. in that moment, i think i internalized just how hard things have been for me. between my kid and all the stress that came with that, the ODs, the financial drain, the lack of sleep, the arguments, and everything else, i had pushed everything down so that i could continue to carry it and not tip over. if i tipped over, i knew i would never get back up, and neither would she. but the burden i carried was not one that could be held up by one person for very long. recently, i decided to stop carrying that burden, but clearly it had stayed with me. maybe if i got like 5 deep tissue massages it would just save me. i don't know. there's so much i don't know. i think it's really easy for me to get really detached whenever something really hurts me. it's almost always my first line of defense and it's all i can do to not do anything worse. but i'm sure that my body keeps the score, as it does.
being a formerly broken person is so annoying because sometimes i step on a piece of soul glass that i didn't see and didn't pick up and my foot just starts bleeding and i can't even put it back where it's supposed to be cause there's a shard of glass in my foot. i have to sit down and take it out and wince and disinfect and bandage my foot and wait for it to heal and rebandage it every couple days and then i can put it back. it's just so fucking slow. i hate having to wait to heal for every little piece. there's so much i have to do. it keeps feeling like my body and my pain is holding me back from the things i want. but i am ultimately my body. i can't remember the last time my shoulders have ever felt this light. maybe they never have. and it's crazy to think that a lot of people just walk around like this all the time. am i spiritually disabled?? that seems weird. i don't think i want to claim that. it seems problematic for me to say that. kacey if you read this can you let me know if it's problematic? i trust your opinions so much on this. anyway.
i kinda forgot what this entry was supposed to be about. i just started talking. competition? something like that? it's so painful and so fulfilling. i want everything ever but i go too fast and expect too much. my life is really awesome a lot of the time and then i lose and all of the accumulated stress from the last 25 years comes out and explodes my brain and goes freaking kaboom. i can't stop competing even though it hurts so bad because i know it's what i want and need. competing is kind of like transitioning in a lot of ways. it's terrifying and i have no choice but i know i have to do it because otherwise i'll die unhappy for the rest of my life. happiness from results are fleeting and always will be. i don't just do it for the self growth though, i want attention and to be seen. how scared i am to lose everything. how fragile my life conditions are. releasing trapped emotions from massage. i am my body, despite my mind trying to run so far ahead. moving forward.
daigo said recently that whatever you gain from winning, you lose from losing. but we all know that losing feels so much worse than winning feels good. we all chase it anyway for some fucking reason. it is so beautiful to be a little bit irrational, in a way that defies "common sense". a feeling that feels like no one would understand if they haven't felt it themselves. i love all you fucking freaks because you get it in the same way that i do. and it makes me so so happy to be among people that are misaligned in the same way that i am. we are just all addicted to gambling but in a woke and awesome way that often leads to self-actualization outside of the game, and i think that's beautiful. or maybe we're not. but that's why i'm in it.
losing is an inevitability, and all we do in competition is try to stave off loss for as long as we can. if not this tournament, then perhaps the next. i draw some parallels with this and death. i'm not scared of dying so much as i am scared of dying before i get to do the things i want to do. i'm not scared of losing so much as i am scared of losing before i get to play players i think will get me more recognition for beating. i want so desperately to live; i want so desperately to win. so i'm going to figure out how to do that or i'll fucking die trying.
i think i've almost run out of stuff to say today. but reading this back over, i think my problem is not that i am greedy, but that i let it run wild. i can't have everything in the world, and my eyes are far too big for my stomach. but at this point, greed is such a central feeling in my life, because i want as much as i can get. and i don't think that's bad. but it's not something i should let run wild in the way that i do. it seems like the central thing i keep coming back to is about focus. presence. something i learned about in the last few years but something i struggle to consistently implement across all facets of my life. i'm always thinking about the things i need to do, and less about the things i'm currently doing. i live so far in the future because it feels like my time is so limited that i need to borrow more from the future. the future feels infinite while my present feels incredibly small, and perhaps that's why i feel as anxious as i do. it all comes back to that. slowing down is not the solution, it's something that will happen when i choose to focus on whatever is in front of me right now. eyes on the prize, i suppose. sometimes i get trapped in the desire and i dream without doing anything to make it real. this is why lesbians are like that.
i'm learning that it's not actually about who wants it more, despite what countless commentators have said. it's about who makes it happen. and it's an incredibly important distinction, because there are surely people in this world who want it more than me. and the reason why my name will be in the history books is because i will be someone that makes it happen. i was a thinker for most of my life, and it's an incredibly misleading duality. it's not about being a thinker or a doer, it's actually more like being a doer that doesn't think or a doer that thinks or someone that does nothing. if you're just a thinker, you don't actually do anything. if you're a doer that doesn't think, you might fall into a cult soon or you might be a liberal or something. and if you're a doer that thinks, hit my line. i'm looking for friends.
unfortunately, having something tangible (or at least able to be felt) is infinitely more valuable to myself and others than something that never exists in the real world. results aren't equivalent to skill, but what they are is much more important - they are the proof that you were able to accomplish something. and with proof comes confidence, and with confidence comes more proof. self-fulfilling prophecies don't have to be negative. the spiral drill that drives into the mantle of the earth and blows up the core is often the same one that could pierce the heavens. the strength has always been there, but it will always be on me to aim it and bring out all its potential. will i point it up or down?
the answer seems so obvious when i put it this way. but sometimes the hurt and doubt and pain are so strong that for a moment, i convince myself to drill into the ground. the heavens are so far away, and every time i've drilled upwards so far, i've missed. it's hard not to get discouraged. but faith is unfortunately both foolish and incredibly vital to dreams. i have to believe in myself to make it anywhere. it's so obvious but so easy to forget, at the same time. but blind belief, blind doing, and unfocused desire have lead me to purgatory over and over again. there are things that i need to hone to make it. not just the sharpness and force of the drill, but also the brevity of my focus and the clarity of my mind.
success is not a virtue but it'll sure fucking feel like it when i make it.