Author: xen6

i haven’t been sleeping well. i haven’t been feeling well actually. i need to write more. i have started writing posts here over and over and just never completed them, never published them. i don’t know why i do that. i really should just publish. if for no other reason than to hold myself accountable to my own thoughts lest they twist and turn and morph and fester in my head turning into something far worse than they ever were intended to be.

i need to do this, even if it is not easy. even if i don’t feel like it. even if other things pop up, i need to make this a priority.

i cancelled my therapy today. ever since switching from weekly meetings to monthly, it feels disconnected. it feels like just catching up on the surface and then that’s it. it’s not helpful any more. switching back to weekly is just too expensive. so that’s that. i’m not sure how i feel about it. it’s not a good feeling.

—

last night i had a long chat with a. it was not a chat i was really prepared to have last night, but i think that it was ultimately necessary. no conclusions were declared, but i think that deep down we both know what is happening. i can tell she is trying to bring me along a certain path so that she doesn’t need to say the things she doesn’t want to say. i don’t blame her.

i’m sad. i’m disappointed. i had hoped that this would be something it is not turning out to be, but i guess that’s just how it is.

do i continue to hold on to hope? i want to… but it’s selfish.

—

last week work things went completely off the rails. i thought i was in a good position, however, it turns out i was not. and the level of condescension, underhandedness and outright betrayal that yielded this result is just unfathomable.

imagine you are responsible for a basket of fruit. your charge is to make sure the basket if always full of fresh fruit. easy, right?

okay, now imagine you are not permitted to purchase more than 1 piece of fruit a day, and even then you need approval from 3 other people before you can spend the money, and it often takes days, if not weeks to get the approval. also, you cannot place multiple orders at once.

now imagine there are 10 people who are all permitted to take fruit from the basket on their own, without needing to so much as notify anyone. they can use whatever method they want to collect fruit, they can use their hands, they can use a shovel, they can use a tractor or a golf club or a machine gun. no rules apply. you cannot impose anything on these people.

remember, YOU are responsible for the fruit basket. YOU have to make sure it is always well organized and filled with the freshest of fruits. so obviously you have to make it known that your ability to ensure an immaculate basket of fruit is not possible under these conditions. everyone understands, agrees and accepts that the basket will be a disaster.

so, imagine your surprise when years later, this is now completely unacceptable, no one has any recollection of any previous events, and all they see is a ruined fruit basket with your name on it.

you have failed, and you should be ashamed. you have let everyone down. you had one job, make sure the fruit basket was full, fresh and plentiful and you couldn’t even do that.

so, you need to now admit your mistake and commit to making it right. you can swallow your pride and forget your excuses or explanations, the only way forward is to assume “ownership” of the fruit basket.

upon doing so, you get told this will be good for you. it’s a turning point in your personal and professional growth. if we’re going to achieve great things, we need to own up to our mistakes.

barf

—

this weekend has been challenging. i’ve been sick with what i can only assume is covid and it has severely limited my energy, my patience, and my ability to actually do anything.

unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to register with a handful of people. maybe for some it is because they are just too young to care about anyone but themselves, or maybe it’s because i downplay the severity to not appear weak or whatever, but fuck… a little empathy would be nice.

things with z have been… uhmm… difficult. twice she has made plans for herself this past weekend, which is totally fine, the only thing i ask is “where are you going, and when will you be back?”, that’s it. and both times she has completely disregarded that. for example, she said she would be home by 9:00pm, and instead shows up at 11pm, no heads up, no explanation, no nothing. and when asked about it, i get a “bro, why do you even care? it’s not that deep.”…

i tried bringing it up with k because i could really use some parental backup in this regard, i don’t think i am being unreasonable. instead of backup though, i got condescension and was told i should calm down, she’s only 14 and doesn’t mean any harm by it. i just stopped the conversation there and didn’t respond any further after that. talk about a slap in the face.

so… maybe i am wrong? i don’t think i am… but what am i supposed to do here? i am sick and tired of being the bad guy all the fucking time. am i being unreasonable? should i just not care about this kind of thing?

this isn’t right. it’s not that something’s broken, or missing, or misaligned. it’s not like the furniture’s all wrong or the light doesn’t hit the windows quite right. it’s not that something hasn’t arrived yet or that something’s been forgotten. it’s not even chaos. it’s not noise or clutter or imbalance. it’s just… not right. completely and fundamentally not right. like an itch you can’t reach or a word that’s just out of grasp.

it’s like stepping into a house that looks exactly like yours. same number on the door, same creak in the floorboard when you step in, same smell in the hallway. but none of it settles in your bones the way home should. none of it says you belong here. you try to make it make sense—check your phone, retrace your steps, say maybe i’m tired, maybe i’m overwhelmed—but deep down, you know. this is not right. it looks like it, but it isn’t.

and i’m halfway across the world at this very moment, technically somewhere beautiful, somewhere people save up and dream about, but none of that lands. it feels like i’ve slipped out of sync with everything. like the version of me that was supposed to be here is stuck in traffic and i’m just the understudy waiting to be told what to do next. i sit still, i try to be quiet, i try to rot in peace. and even that—something that should be so easy—feels off. like i’m failing at doing nothing.

i reach out, throw little lines into the water. a few texts, a few updates. but everyone’s busy, everyone’s in their rhythm. they’ve got their right houses with their right people and their right routines. and that’s fine. really, i mean that. i’m not bitter. it’s not resentment. it’s just observation. if i were in my right house, i’d probably be unreachable too. i’d be folding laundry or making dinner or doing some deeply mundane thing and loving it because it would feel like mine. but instead i’m here, floating above everything like a ghost in my own life.

i wonder if i’m supposed to be doing something about this. like, is there a map? am i supposed to be hunting for the right house like a lost dog sniffing its way back home? or is that the wrong metaphor. maybe you don’t find the house, maybe you build it. maybe you unpack one box at a time until the wrong place softens and reshapes itself around you. maybe it never feels exactly right, but it becomes less wrong. but i don’t know. i don’t even know what kind of wallpaper i’d pick if given the chance.

i keep trying to find something to hold onto—some thread that will anchor me—but most of the time i just feel like i’m slipping. not in a dramatic, falling-off-a-cliff kind of way, more like a slow slide into nothing in particular. like time is leaking out around me, pooling on the floor, and i can’t scoop it up fast enough.

so here i am. suspended in this almost-life, with too much and not enough all at once. feeling like i’m burning daylight, squandering beauty, letting things wilt in my hands. but i don’t know how to stop it. or change it. or even name it properly. i just know this isn’t right. and that i’m tired of pretending like it might be if i just squint hard enough.