u/Extension_Effect_983

Magdalena Bay - Angel on a Satellite

on the website, I can push the "save" button but the reply i have typed itself disappears.

on the mobile app, i can't even push the button because it's grayed out.

I've had a rambunctious, semi-gross family. Growing up, I got used to my family talking about unhygienic things in the dinner table, changing clothes in the living room, my house being a mess all the time, no surface that's cleaned is actually cleaned (traces of black mold left behind) and a family that always ridiculed me for trying to take care of my skin and called my skincare, makeup, and sense of style "vain and wasteful". Bedsheets are torn but still used, pillows are yellowing from sweat and never thrown, blankets and towels never folded, just thrown to the side. Cans of iced coffee and sachets of juice I threw away in the trash will somehow re-appear magically on the side of the windowsill. Underwear are hastily and carelessly hung by the railing of our neighbor's house no matter how many times I put it back to our own clothesline. Tupperwares are always greasy because when my grandmother washes them, "there are other things to worry about than spending too much time cleaning plastic / it's just food anyway". the gaps between forks, the corners of spoons, knives, and other cutlery still have remnants of rice in between even though my mom swears she washed them already. When I wash dishes in the sink, papa always glances at me and tells me I'm being too meticulous for no reason. Then he would purposefully dip the serving spoon into his own plate of rice, then place the rice-covered serving spoon back into the pot of ulam just to show me that mixing ulam and rice aren't a big deal and I should grow up.

We were always happy. My family has never left me hungry or destitute. I was always well-cared for to the best of my abilities. But growing up, I started to notice how my family would get weird looks from people. At first I thought it was simply because people will always stare. But then I noticed it: Papa's clothing is rarely ironed (he insists it'll get crumpled anyway), my mom has no care for sweating or sneezing loudly in public or talking about gross things like laughing about my brother's small privates despite already growing fast. My maternal grandmother would always laugh and point at people who she thinks are unconventional, saying "uy tingnan mo yun oh, ang taba / ang itim / and singkit!" while having a torn SM plastic bag because she says she doesn't like new things. my paternal grandmother always picks her nose and teeth in public, not washing her hands after slicing fish (her door handles are always oily, the stench of fish has clung to the walls in her dimly-lit house) even when she goes out.

No matter how cleanly I present myself, try to change myself, or have the perfectly composed demeanor, once I'm with my family I'm always smeared by the faint stench of sweat, fish, and sun. And watching these movies where the entire conflict and the laughing stock is the "weird family" made me realize that the only man who will be able to stomach me is someone who can stomach my family's grossness. And my greatest fear is that even if I leave home and build a life for myself, that grossness will always follow me because it's a part of who I am and how I was raised. I'm afraid I'll never be able to erase it.

my bot keeps going back to the first scene and I wonder why even if i shorten it, it keeps going back to that welcome message scene