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    do I get a happy ending?
    do I get a happy ending?
    do I get a happy ending?
    Ebook125 pages1 hour

    do I get a happy ending?

    By Valentin Mings

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    About this ebook

    This memoir doesn't focus solely on the past; rather, it gives the reader an inside look at what the author is going through as it happens. Written almost like a journal, the author makes a point of discussing topics that society has deemed taboo or inappropriate, in hopes of starting conversations about those very same topics. Readers are shown Valentin's unfiltered emotions as they grapple with their most vulnerable desire yet, being intimately known while trying to be a person they could've looked up to as a child. They do this by processing past traumas out loud, hoping to figure out how their life arrived at the point it did, by unpacking themes of sexual assault, depression, discovering sexualities and gender identities, alone-ness, and fitting into an unwelcoming world. Valentin hopes to start conversations among others about the same or similar topics, forcing the taboo and controversy surrounding these topics to be dismantled one casual conversation at a time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNewman Springs Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateSep 9, 2024
    ISBN9781684988501
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      Book preview

      do I get a happy ending? - Valentin Mings

      Table of Contents

      Title

      Copyright

      Preface

      --

      cover.jpg

      do I get a happy ending?

      Valentin Mings

      Copyright © 2024 Valentin Mings

      All rights reserved

      First Edition

      NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

      320 Broad Street

      Red Bank, NJ 07701

      First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

      This book discusses sensitive material, including but not limited to sexual assault, suicidal ideation, death, abusive situations, body image, religion, violence, and more.

      ISBN 978-1-68498-849-5 (Paperback)

      ISBN 978-1-68498-850-1 (Digital)

      Printed in the United States of America

      Preface

      When I started writing this book, I was sitting in a metaphysical weight of my depression and anxiety surrounding my life. I was failing my classes and didn't really have any friends at my job yet. I was new to a city and wasn't getting along with my roommates, and my friends that already lived here didn't have time to see me. I was sitting at my desk, and I had the sudden thought, How the fuck did I get here?

      So I decided to write about my life. For the protection and privacy of everyone involved, I excluded all names and changed genders and details and locations of events, without affecting the integrity of any situation. I resolved that I was going to take the time and map out how I got to be where I am. Soon after telling my therapist about this book I was writing, he asked me how it ended.

      What does your ending look like? Do you get a happy ending?

      At the time, I didn't have an answer for him. Shortly after I started writing, Misha Collins's poetry book, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You, came out. An absolutely beautiful collection of poetry and thought-provoking writing that ultimately made me realize I also didn't want to feel like that. I don't want to leave a situation, to leave this earth, and realize that I've left so many important things unsaid. So this became a memoir of sorts, everything I didn't say at the time that I wish I had, all my thoughts and feelings that I left unprocessed for so long. It was draining to unpack them after all this time.

      This is my story. This is my life. This is for everyone who has passed through my life, everyone still in it, and everyone I will meet in the future. This is my soul.

      This is my path to a happy ending.

      --

      I think I was five. No, four. Four and five, it was my fifth birthday. I was a princess. Well, I was dressed as a princess, everyone was. It was a princess party. I had two cakes; one was a smiley face, but I can't remember what the other one was. Why did I have two cakes anyways? Whatever, that's not important. I was really excited for a neighborhood boy to come. I don't think I liked him. He was in high school, but I did look up to him, I guess. Anyways, I guess that's my earliest memory, everything after that is blurry until middle school, unless I really focus. Is that normal? I pause and look at him, waiting for validation or an easy answer. Anything to make me feel, well, normal. His eyes are gentle, amused, concerned.

      Is that a good memory?

      I twist my bracelet around my arm.

      Yeah, I guess. It's good. I was having fun. Fun. When was the last time I had fun? When was the last time I went outside? This appointment is the only reason I've even left my room recently. That's not good. I don't do that many fun things anymore.

      Why do you think that is?

      I have no one to do fun things with anymore, I say. My best friend lives almost three hours away, and everything costs money, money I don't have. Everyone said the transition into college life away from home would be hard, and I thought I had a handle on it. I thought I could do it. I keep remembering what my ex said as we drove across the state line: You can't plan life, they said.

      I couldn't plan life. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's hard to admit it. They were right. I tried my best, but I'm at the wrong school. The wrong school in the wrong city with the wrong job with the wrong people. Sure, I actually have friends at this school; and yes, I'm studying the right thing. Still, it's just all wrong. I'm burning out. I've burnt out. How did that little princess with two birthday cakes turn into me?

      When I was a child, I resented that I had a winter birthday. I always wanted to have a pool party, like my brother, but never could. It was too cold to go swimming or play outside. While I understood the logic of that, I never liked it. It was one month after Christmas, slightly too close to Valentine's Day. For some reason, I always thought Christmas and my birthday would merge into each other, that, eventually, they'd be celebrated as one event. It had never been suggested that something like that would happen. I just always assumed it would. It was almost like I wanted these bad things to happen to me. Of course, I wanted to be liked and loved and to be friends with everyone, but I also wanted bad things to happen so I could act like something was wrong until someone noticed and asked about it. I suppose I craved some kind of attention. I'm not sure why. Maybe I felt ignored, tucked away into a box to be dealt with later.

      The most embarrassing day of my life, so far, was in fourth grade. I was ignored that day. I felt sick, really, terribly sick. I was at an after-school workshop, and we had just gotten up from our desks to walk around or go to the bathroom. Minutes after we got back, I felt it. I needed to throw up. Bad.

      Naturally, I raised my hand. I was being ignored by the teacher, which isn't unusual, even to this day. However, the consequences were horrifying. I waved my hand. I bounced up and down. I pointed. I tried to get someone else's attention. Until finally, my lips couldn't stay closed anymore. I still feel so terrible for that poor soul who was next to me. I puked, on them, on me, on the floor, the table. I also started sobbing. That was the worst day. For some reason, from that day forward, I threw up every year, every single year like clockwork, around March, until my senior year of high school.

      In eighth grade, it was so bad that I couldn't even walk up the stairs to class. I'd go up the stairs for class, get sick, go down to the office, get sick, go back up to class, get sick, go down for lunch or another class, get sick. I had to get an elevator pass just to avoid that. This boy I was dating rode the elevator with me. I wasn't necessarily scared of elevators; I just didn't like them much. I told him all of this. I asked him to not do anything stupid. But once in the elevator, he immediately jumped. We didn't break up for another few months. I was in love.

      I know how crazy that sounds. A middle schooler? In love? Yes. Love. Love means something different to me now than it did then. My understanding and definition of the word has changed and matured as I have changed and matured. I've heard people say something along the lines of I thought I was in love, but I didn't know what love was.

      I've even said that a few times. Then I realized, I knew what love was. Love to me in middle school was just as real, just as intense, just as deep as love is to me now. The only difference is that now, I can feel more intensely, deeper, more passionately. Love now isn't crying about missing each other or kissing to make up after an argument. Love is understanding boundaries and respecting them. It's being able to talk about disagreements calmly and rationally without fighting. It's sitting next to each other in silence without any awkward tension in the air.

      Sometimes I'm afraid I won't find love, I say. Wait. That's not what I mean. Well, no, I know I can find love and fall in love even. I guess I'm afraid I won't be able to maintain a healthy relationship with anyone, ever. Really, I'm afraid of getting hurt again.

      I wait for an answer, but there isn't one. I open my eyes to see my ceiling staring back at me. I lost myself in my subconscious. I like to plan out conversations before I have them, something about feeling like if I say the wrong thing, I'll lose all my friends. Dramatic. I know. But this time, I hit a problem I can't subconsciously solve for myself. I close my eyes.

      If I can't tell people the parts of myself I'm most ashamed of, how will anyone know me intimately enough to spend their life with me? To love me?

      I can't even admit some of these things to myself. I guess that's why I pretend. Avoiding responsibility is so much easier than owning it and trying to convince everyone I've grown from it. Even if I have.

      People don't change, they say. But sometimes, sometimes they do. Shouldn't they be given a chance to show that they have changed? Do they deserve that chance in the first place?

      --

      The day I realized that not every girl sometimes pretends to be a boy, I was already pretty sure

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