I have no idea what day it is.

I woke up at 2:30pm. God knows what time I went to bed last night.

I wrote so much. It’s just like it comes out of me without stopping. I have absolutely no control over it. It’s just… it’s killing me.

This is not okay. I have to go to this meet up tonight with all these professional women and I do not have my shit together. Like, at all. My nails are not done. My eyebrows are not waxed. My mustache has grown in. I just woke up 30 minutes ago and I haven’t had a shower yet. Everyone in the coffee shop looked at me with pure judgment for wearing the same outfit there three days in a row while sporting a scrunchie in my hair. I’m wearing socks with slides for Christsake!

I am a mess and a half.

That’s what they said about my writing last night when I asked for reviews on the latest batch. They told me it’s messy. They’re right. It is sooooo fucking messy. I am messy. And yet I cannot stop being messy because I have no idea how and I have no support system to get me there.

I just have a bunch of assholes calling me delusional and deranged and constantly manipulating me into having epic meltdowns so they can use my reaction against me.

I can’t believe I’m going to attempt yet another group meet-up tonight. Ugh. I don’t know why I keep trying to be around other people. It always ends the same. God help me. The last thing I need is another Bali, though to be fair that was not on me. Those people were just… ick. Ick! Full-on ick.

I think I blame myself too much for other people’s shitty behavior. As you can clearly see, I am fully capable of accounting for my own shitty behavior. I carry too much weight. I constantly hold myself responsible for other people’s shitty behavior. Like maybe if I wasn’t such a mess, people wouldn’t treat me the way that they treat me. But then I remember that people have always treated me this way. Ever since I was a child, people have treated me like shit. I am the way I am now because my whole life has just been one big long shit fest.

Why did I agree to meet up with total strangers? Why did I go as far as to plan an event for all of the other lost souls to meet up for New Year’s Eve? Why did I take the lead? Why did I take it upon myself to take charge? We all know how this will end. They will all make friends with each other and then find a reason to hate me and then they will exclude me and then I will just end up all alone again.

That is what always happens.

And then I will go to another place and repeat this same cycle all over again.

It’s like… I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. How am I ever going to find a job when I know that me being around other people always ends the same way?

Days like today I just want to cave in to the call of death and throw myself off of a high-rise. However, I cannot do that. It would be such a waste. I already attempted suicide three times in my life and I failed every single time. I have also survived several very bizarre near-death experiences. And then, somehow, magically, the universe dumped me off here in Hong Kong. So I owe it to the magical universal life force to at least wake up every day and get out of bed and just try. Even when I have absolutely no fucking idea what I’m doing or where I’m going or how to function like a normal human being. I have to at least try.

In the end it will be the Cajun McCrispies and cigarettes and booze that get me. The odds are in my favor, unfortunately. My family has long lifelines on both sides. Good genetics, terrible mental health. Lots of personality disorders. If I do live to be 90, it will be the Alzheimer’s that gets me. I’ll have to move to Idaho and go out Hemingway style. A lot of people think that’s why he did it. Really I think he just couldn’t stand to stay in Idaho one minute longer. I haven’t been there, but I did live in South Dakota for 16 years. I totally get it.

I need to take a shower and chug a bottle of water and then go to the market and get a large bottle of coconut water and then chug that too. I am not okay.

Damn, even Paddy the Spy Pigeon has abandoned me. They were watching this mess unfold and flew back to Hermès in Thailand with a note that said, “Fuck this. I quit.”

I believe they call this state of mind “Hangxiety.” It’s fine. It’s just a New Year’s Eve party. Just show up and be your charming self like you always do. If it all blows up in your face, mehhhhhhh, whatcha gonna do?

I am the Dragon. I must show up and lead the event I planned. It’s too late to back out now. I made a flyer on Canva and wrote a post in the voice of Gossip Girl. I am committed to leadership, even in the face of failure and rejection.

This is the catch with being a Dragon, right? I scare people just by virtue of being myself. I can’t help it. People fear what they don’t understand. That’s why we’re always hiding out in our caves to get away from them. We come out, we try to lead, they all scream and run away or try to slay us and steal our treasure for themselves. Meanwhile, all we really want is peace on earth and good fortune for all.

Sucks.

Man, people are such assholes. I have been through so much in this life, yet I keep getting out of bed every single day and trying again anyway. I get no respect for anything I do. I’m just a punching bag and a scapegoat. The least any of them could do is be nice to me for five minutes.

The weight of my deathbed promise to my father is so heavy today. I didn’t know what else to say in that moment. He couldn’t even speak to me. I just remember the look in his eyes when I was holding his hand in those last final moments. I just told him I would do what he always wanted me to do.

And here I am doing it. I get up every day and I do it. I’m working so hard for nothing. I don’t know what I’m doing it for. I just keep waking up every day and writing. That’s all I know how to do.

Okay, Betsey. Stop crying. Go take a shower. Check your Facebook page for meet-up information. Go get your nails done so you don’t appear messy on the outside. No one needs to know what a mess you really are underneath the pretty clothes and long beautiful hair.

I am the Dragon.