I do in fact like being touched by others, and I have had a distinct lack of it in recent years. I've been living by myself for a few years now and also been a bit of a homebody so opportunites for physical contact have been few and far between.

But man, I'm absolutely the person who's like hey, hug your friends. Lean on each other on the couch. It's healing.

While I don't think that there's any particular place I like being touched, I will say that a feeling I've been chasing for years is when I was with my ex and she'd be on top of me, sometimes our bellies would brush against each other and it drove me insane. I was fat, she wasn't, but she did have a little bit of a tummy, and when our bellies would touch it felt really fucking good. Of course, she was embarassed about being "fat", even tho I was twice her size and she'd constantly talk about how much she liked how I was fat. While that was really affirming, and definitely helped me get over any insecurity about being fat, she would say shit like "boys are allowed to be fat, girls aren't."

Well I'm girls now and I'm fat so really what does she know.

The extra bit to all of this is that nobody's really touched my body ever since I transitioned so like, lemmie get back to you on this one.

I got a raise at my job AND a year-end bonus! So with that I was able to finally pay off the last bit of my student loans! After making payments for literally 18 years im DONE and it feels great.

It especially does because now my last line connecting me to art as a career I can finally cut off. It's an odd way to see it but I'm so stoked that I can fully see art as just a hobby and not as something I have to make money on.

Plus like, i got laid off from my last two jobs, both within the same year. To not only work at a place for a full year AND get a really good performance review AND get the full possible raise AND a bonus is really affirming. Like oh right, I do have a good work ethic and it shows, and finally people who employ me are recognizing it.

It feels like real sellout shit to be excited about my job but honestly it's meant a lot that one of my biggest stressors of the past few years is settled.

Oh uh, I guess my girlfriend gets me excited or whatever.

this is a tough one because there's a lot of ones that impacted me over time and I didn't realize it until years later. Like ranma making me comfortable in the idea of "huh what if I could be a girl part time" or death race 2000 implementing the idea of "hey maybe hero worship is terrible and those being worshipped should use their platform to make sweeping change"

If anything, media I've enjoyed has given a voice and/or words to my experiences that I couldn't find before. Sayonara Wild Hearts touched me with a visual and audatory representation of my struggles with anxiety and burnout, and how recovery isn't a straight line.

Actually I think it's Sayonara Wild Hearts because that game kinda became a signpost for when I realized I was no longer drowning, and was actually recovering. That moment when you realize you're no longer in danger, and your body exits survival mode, and all you can do is cry to let every bit of emotion out that you'd been holding back.