When I started this blog, I was living with my maternal grandparents, who were also the people who raised me. I lived with them for two reasons: roughly six months before moving back in, I lost a relatively well-paying job and my first, solo, US apartment after being fired for complaining to HR about a superior trying to pull his dick out in front of me. The second reason is that my grandparents were both in poor health, especially my grandfather, who’d been suffering from COPD for around a decade at that point, so it made sense to have someone relatively spry in the house in case of an emergency.

By the time I started this blog, my grandparents and I were recently moved in to a house they’d just purchased. I’d been unemployed (again) for a few months because my prior job contributed to my anxiety and depression in all the wrong ways. And around this time, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and began hospice care at home, with me as his legal caregiver. On March 30th, 2025, my grandfather died. His hand was in mine as he died. I stared at his face and begged him to keep trying to breathe.

I started this blog because of a post from a video games journalist on Bluesky (Nadia Oxford, I believe) that went something like, “At this point in games media, if you want to get into games criticism, just start doing it. Start a blog and do it because you enjoy doing it.” Since I’d been trying to get back into writing on a regular basis and I was unemployed, spending 99% of my time at home, I figured I might as well follow her advice. At first, writing was incredibly difficult for me. It used to be my preferred method of communication and expression, but after years of disuse, that particular skill atrophied. However, it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things, and before I knew it, I’d written a review of the newly released Mario Kart World and just got in as a freelance writer at a small games criticism site.

I was so ecstatic that I did the typical Coco thing of telling everyone I knew about a thing I’m doing way before I’m done with it, which normally ends in some type of self sabotage (typically due to procrastination stemming from anxiety). In my defense, I was about to publish my very first official video game review, something I’d dreamt about since I was an 11-year-old reading about the Nintendo Revolution in Nintendo Power. So, about two weeks after receiving code for the game I was to review, my grandmother kicked me out.

More context is needed, I think. My grandmother (about whom more blog posts will be written, don’t even worry about it) and I have never gotten along. The main reason for this is she is a Bitch. She was raised by an abusive woman, which turned her into an abusive woman. My mother is deaf and was raised by a woman who didn’t bother to learn ASL or have my mother’s three siblings learn it, so until adulthood, she was always ignorant of just about everything going on in her life and the world, as she didn’t receive the best education, either. More recently, I tried explaining to her that she could’ve been another Helen Keller, if only her mother had raised her as she should’ve, but she didn’t understand.

All the pressure of learning ASL for the family’s benefit was placed on my shoulders at age 3. Of course, it was framed as necessary because, after all, both my parents were deaf, and I was being forced by the state of Indiana to see my father on weekends, so to have any chance of communicating with him, I needed to learn. Who knows whether I’ll ever grasp the ramifications of this and the many other pressures placed on me as a child by the adults in my life? All I can say is, there’s a reason I got my first gray hair at 18, and it’s nothing to do with genetics.

As I entered adulthood, I noticed my grandparents—especially my grandmother—developing memory issues. I knew some minor memory issues were typical for people their age, but my grandmother’s issues were a little beyond typical. I would tell her something and minutes, hours, or a day later, she’d forget, whether it was important information or not. I remember living in Japan, during which time I spoke to my grandparents over the phone every single Friday with very few exceptions, and having to remind her (again and again and again) of fairly basic aspects of my life that’d been part of my life since moving, even three to four years into my stay. I encouraged them both to get her examined, and they promised they’d do it, but they never did.

You can probably imagine the mental and emotional state my grandmother was in after my grandfather died. I did my very best to take care of her and tolerate how mean and rude she is (ex: My grandfather and I were once sharing breakfast, minding our business, and my grandmother walked up to me, took a look at my recently painted nails, and went out of her way to comment on how ugly she thought they were.), but it was too much for me to handle on my own. After all, I was trying to find a local job, writing for this blog, about to start writing for a games media site, trying to plan a move to Washington, and taking care of my grandmother, which included managing her finances to the point of writing in a ledger on a daily basis and paying her bills online, not to mention the housework I did on a regular basis. I couldn’t bridge the gap between my grandmother and I, so three months after the death of my grandfather, she kicked me out.

I’ve been wary of asking too much of my friends for years, so I lived out of a hotel that I couldn’t afford for a few days. Thankfully, my best friend was aware of my situation and by the time I had to leave the hotel, I was able to move in with him. Unfortunately, I was about to hit a few more bumps on my way to figuring things out for myself. First, on 8/27/2025, I was arrested while on a work break because I had a warrant for missing a court appearance I was entirely unaware of.

Thanks to my grandmother, I guess I was suspected of “criminal mischief,” so the court “attempted” to notify me through the mail. However, and you can see this on the Indiana MyCase website if you search my first and last name, they made an error when printing my address, so the mail was returned to them. A month passed between the mail being returned and the date of my court appearance, and they made no attempt to contact me again during that time, so I got to spend four hours in a jail cell and $209 of my boss’s money (she bailed me out without my knowledge, as I intended to pay it myself). I also get to go to court in five days.

The next bump on my path came in the form of my lifelong best friend kicking me out almost immediately after my arrest. Two days after going to jail, I saw him again, and he told me I needed to find another place to stay, explaining that our friendship’s felt one sided to him for a long time. Love that he waited until I’d been living with him for two months to tell me.

My tiny bit of luck shone through a couple days later, though, as I contacted a former co-worker of mine from my job at a local dollar store (which I failed to mention I’d been working at for a few months, hence the aforementioned boss), and she and her wife were more than willing to take me in and help me out until I got back on my own two feet.

The final bump that gets us to where I am today, writing this post right now, was when I walked out of my job due to being mistreated. As nice as it was of my boss to save me $209, she only did it so she wouldn’t have to cover for me while I was in jail. In truth, she was a passive aggressive, sophomoric, two-faced, wannabe cop.

I walked out because there was a shift during which I asked if I could take my break, as my area of the store wasn’t particularly busy, and she and another coworker told me I couldn’t take my break until after all the stuff from that day’s fresh truck had been stocked, but they also told me that I couldn’t help them stock that stuff, despite it being the top priority for anyone working during a fresh truck drop off. I was entirely at their mercy, and I really didn’t like it. I waited in my area of the store, and eventually, they finished, so I took my break.

When I came back, my boss had left for the day, but she had the other worker call me into her office and hand me a piece of paper, telling me I was being written up for the second time, this time for supposedly refusing to do my job. I refused to sign that paper but was told it didn’t matter because it was approved by corporate anyway, so I got into an argument about it and what I was told regarding my break and stocking the fresh truck. After arguing for a few minutes, I did some quick reflecting, grabbed my shit, and walked out.

That was one week ago. I currently have roughly $500 in my checking account and an upcoming car insurance payment of $200-300, plus I’m still paying off the credit card bill from my brief hotel stay. I’m trying to find work, but it took a long time just to find that shitty, $10/hour dollar store job, so I’m not especially hopeful at the moment.

I hope to start writing regularly again. I hope the editor of that games media site will accept my review when I have the capacity to write it again. I hope I won’t run out of money before my facial feminization surgery scheduled for the end of October. Fingers crossed!