I hate the way I go about my life.

This is kinda a vent I guess? But I want to get this off my chest.

My life feels so boring, so meaningless. I'm not unhappy, I don't hate my life, in fact I'm the best I've been in a while. I'm not suicidal anymore and I've been doing well.

But I feel like I'm trapped in a cage. My parents, they say that it's too unsafe for me to go out alone. I can't go too far if I do go out alone, the farthest I've been is around a block away from my house. I rarely see my friends just because my mom has to work and she won't let me just WALK to my friend's house, so I never get to go out. I spend my whole day on a call with my girlfriend, sometimes with my other friends on a group call. But I feel like I desperately need to fight for my own freedom. I haven't seen my friends in 4 months, I think. I don't even do anything valuable anymore. I lose interest in things so fast yet I have nothing to fill the void after so I end up watching YouTube and Instagram all day. And even THAT isn't entertaining. It just feels like something to occupy myself so my mind doesn't race from the fact that I'm letting it think.

Last time I let my brain race, I ended up almost crying just because I wanted to desperately come out to my mom but I was scared she wouldn't react well. And that was at 2am, in the darkness. The whole thing with algorithmic social media is that everything flashes by before your eyes, and it feels like you don't even remember it unless you see it again.

I tried to fix this problem. I decided I was gonna delete YouTube but keep Instagram with a time limit because my girlfriend uses it to send me reels. I ended up having the urge to scroll again and redownloaded YouTube. I tried replacing YouTube with movies, anime, etc... but that didn't work perfectly. I thought things would be better because I started playing Minecraft more than scrolling but I lost interest after losing all my valuables 3 seperate times because I suck at the game.

I always want to go out. I wish I could just go to the park, go on a walk, do anything whenever I want to but I've always thought "Maybe when my life isn't controlled by my parents, I can. Just a couple more years." But I can't wait those years. I feel like I'm wasting away these precious years of my life.

I did hang out with my friends during the school year. But that was because I always got picked up late due to how far my brother's school is and no one checked my phone to see where I was, so I never stayed where I was actually supposed to be. Getting boba, having a fun group hangout in the library teen room, going to the park, hanging out near the river. I loved it. But now I can't sneak around just because it's summer. I hate summer. 

You might be thinking... "Why don't you make more plans with your friends if you feel like you're wasting away?" It's a stupid reason... but it's because I need a haircut. My hair grew so long that I have no idea what to do with it and don't like any approach I could take. Middle part the bangs? Ugly. Headband? Ugly. Even putting on a cap? Ugly. I feel so hideous and I don't even want people to see me.

But it's making me hate my life. Not in a "my life is meaningless and I should kill myself way," in a "I don't do anything and I'm wasting my teen years" way.

I'm done ranting- sorry for the long vent T_T