Welcome to What If I Want!
Hello! Thank you so much for reading! My name is Marian, and I'm starting this site because, well, I think I might want to.
About two and a half years ago, right after my 27th birthday, I went to therapy for the first time. Since then I have been through just about every level of mental health treatment there is, and after a few sessions with every therapist I've talked to, they have asked me the question, "What do you want?" And every time I've responded, "I have no idea," probably with several frustrated expletives mixed in.
I've always thought that I'm just a person who doesn't have any interests. I've never had a dream career. I've never stuck with a hobby for more than a couple of months. I've never made any big decisions because I wanted to. It's always I should do this, I should want this, I want to be a person who wants this or does this. I've always believed that I'm just an empty shell who needs fantasies and delusion and masks to pretend they're interesting.
But in the last few months I've dared to have the thought, "What it I do care about things? What if something is important to me?" And that thought is terrifying. Because then fuck it all, I guess I need to do something about it. (This blog will probably have a lot of explicit language. I meant to tone it down for publication, but fuck it. This space is for me above anyone else, and this is how I talk. And I'm a little drunk right now so it's even harder to care.)
But anyway, my name is Marian Catarina Mok. And I'm 29 years old. And I'm a mixed-race, bisexual, non-binary, vegan middle child with a terrible case of anxiety and treatment resistant depression. I have OCD and an eating disorder and a fractured spine. I had a 4.0 GPA in college, and now I'm two thirds of the way to a doctorate in dentistry and I hate every second of it. I have no idea what the password is for my overdue student loan payments, and I delete every email about them without even reading them. I live vaguely near Seattle, Washington and I'm supposed to be figuring out what makes a life worth living.
Things I enjoy are gay Chinese fantasy novels, yaoi, writing Haikyuu fanfiction, Taylor Swift, and the Youtube channel Smosh. I grew up more Christian than you could possibly imagine, and every day I hope I get the news that my mother is dead.
I'll probably use this space to talk about things that mean something to me. Like a diary of thoughts I can't share anywhere else. Some ideas I have for posts include: Am I allowed to love my conservative childhood friends? How do you curate a wardrobe when you hate yourself? Is fanfiction real literature? What do you do if you have a perfect boyfriend but think you're a lesbian? And more!
If any of that bullshit speaks to you, it would mean the world to me if you follow along with my journey. Even though the word journey is cringe as fuck and I hate using it. But more than anything I'm desperate for validation, so here I am in front of the whole internet asking them to love me.
But I love writing. And if I wasn't a broke and insecure child of immigrants who have a lot of expectations, I'd probably try to make a career out of it. So for now, this baby blog is the best I can do.
Subscribe if you'd like to read short stories about fairytale romance or a depressed 29-year-old's musings about the bleak outlook of our modern world. If you're a person who has no idea what the fuck to do with their life and falls asleep fantasizing about being someone else, then you might be my target audience. And I'm afraid that, as of yet, it's an incurable condition. So you might as well find some community here.
Anyway, that's all for now. It's nearly midnight on a Monday, and my boyfriend who actually has to work in the morning is telling me that my pink, cat-shaped keyboard is too loud. If you've made it this far then you're my hero and I'll love you forever.
Welcome to What If I Want.
Talk soon.
Marian
