Category: :)

start again, part 1

so much has happened, i don’t even know where to start. one thing i do know however is that i have to start again. not being able to write for this last month has been exceptionally difficult for me. i feel it building up inside me… pressure.

i stopped writing because this place no longer felt safe. someone who was never supposed to see this place, found it, and started reading through it.

before you say anything, i know, i know, what did i expect, this is published on the internet… that said, i have done my best to make sure everything in anonymized, i do not have my name, or anyone else’s name present anywhere, i don’t talk about specific events or things or even locations which could be even loosely correlated back to me or anyone i know… so despite this being public on the internet, the probability of someone i know stumbling across it is pretty much zero… unless they have some kind of access to my internet browsing history and can see what URLs i visit… and then look into them themselves. which is kinda what happened. gross.

hopefully, by changing the URL, changing the devices i use to access this place, and waiting a month with everything dormant and locked behind a maintenance window, this will have passed.

i’ll be keeping a close eye on the server logs anyways. if you’re here, and you know you are not supposed to be… can you please consider maybe just… you know… fucking off? this place is important to me.

notice to those who know me

what i write here is just what is going on in my head at any given moment. it is neither fiction nor fact. it is just thoughts. sometimes i might say things that are scary. sometimes i may say things which are troubling. sometimes i may say things which are unhinged or unfounded or just straight up wacky. but sometimes i say things which are also filled with love and hope and cheer.

take it all with a grain of salt ok?

that said, i am considering anonymizing this place once more. it feel safer when i know it’s only strangers reading my nonsense.

i’m (not) sure

should i consider my recent lack of motivation to write a good thing, or a bad thing?

i’m not sure.

on one hand, typically i write when i feel like my head or heart might explode. it’s a pressure relief system. its an outlet which lets me express how i am feeling so it doesn’t eat me alive.

so now on the other hand, i am not feeling so motivated to write lately… does that mean there is less pressure to relieve? does that mean i am feeling better? does that mean i am starting to be happy and feel less tortured?

i’m not sure.

yesterday a friend of mine came to pick up l to bring him on a hike with her son. when they got back she came in to chat for a quick minute and asked me if i was feeling happier, because i looked happier. am i happier?

i’m not sure.

a lot of things which i can’t quite put my finger on it seems…

there are some things which i am sure of though. for example, my stress level is down and my hope for the future is up.

in a couple weeks a will be coming to visit. i am really, really looking forward to that. i feel like it will kind of determine what happens and what is prioritized for the rest of this year.

home

while on the plane headed home yesterday, i was texting with a and she made a comment that really struck me. she reminded me how several months ago, i looked forward to escaping “home” any chance i could. even a trip to the store was a sought after break from my reality. a lot of things then were really about escaping. about getting away. about separating myself from my then life. be it short trips, long trips, even virtual trips into video games or movies… it was all the same motivation.

and then yesterday, high above the atlantic, heading back home after 9 days of being nearly 6000 kms away from everything i knew, all i could think about, all i could talk about, was how much i wanted to get back home. not my home from 6 months ago, but my home from today. i missed my cat. i missed my coffee. i missed my couch and my desk and my projects and my shower and my kitchen and my kids and.. i guess.. my life. weird. not bad weird. good weird. still weird.

i still think about k a lot. i wonder how she is doing. i hope she is ok. i know my thoughts have been wildly chaotic and often not so happy though out this whole thing, but i also had been processing for months and months and months. i don’t know for sure that she is in the same place. she might be where i was months ago but without some of the uncertainty… i suspect we were reading from the same book, but i was a few chapters ahead of her and i told her what was going to happen… but she still needs to read the book. eugh, that was a sloppy analogy, but hopefully it makes sense.

214

oh, another thing… as of this morning, 214. what… the… fuck… that is over 50 lbs removed from my body.

FIFTY!

that’s a bag of cement! that’s a 5 gallon water bottle! that’s 200 apples! that’s 5 bowling balls! that’s 2 car tires!

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

discovery

wow… i am… i’m not even sure of the word… surprised? deceived? relieved? happy? sad? shit, i don’t really know.

for the last 18 years i have largely been exempt from most of the household chores. things like laundry, a lot of the cleaning, tidying up, etc… however i was absolutely responsible for a whole slew of other things, yard work, repairs, maintenance and also all of the shopping and meal preparations among other things. anyhow, everything seemed more or less fair to me. k never stopped complaining about never having enough help with her share of the work though. i regularly felt bad, like i was not carrying my weight. at one point we even hired a cleaning lady! i’ve also tried repeatedly to instill a sense of responsibility in the children by incentivizing them to do chores based on their allowance. all the while picking up chores here and there when i knew they needed to be done and i knew i wouldn’t “do it wrong”.

well.. after a week of living on my own, most of which was with the kids, the house has never been tidier, laundry has never been more washed, dried, folded and put away, the kitchen has never been more spotless…

i think i got the short end of the stick for a very long time. sure, it’s work, it needs to be done, but holy hell, it’s not hard and it really doesn’t take much time at all. anyhow. perhaps in another life i was a homemaker.

additionally, i have signed up on “the apps”, just to see. jesus tapdancing christ has that ever been an ego boost for me! wow! never in a million years would i have expected that kind of attention. whether it leads to anything or not, who knows, but it is a nice to feeling when someone thinks you’re desirable, so i’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

routine

i have to remember to do certain things. i need to consciously remind myself.

  • don’t drink too much coffee
  • eat something with nutritional value
  • take a shower and brush my teeth
  • do some kind of excercise
  • practice guitar or drums
  • clean up the kitchen
  • write something
  • practice spanish

there’s obviously more things i need to do in the day, but those are all things which i need to do for myself that no one else gives a crap about. so i have to remind myself.

i have been doing a terrible job at that lately. for example, looking at my health app, i have not done any exercise in like almost 2 weeks. yesterday i finally broke that pattern and rowed for 20 minutes.

i feel my mental well being slip when i am not taking care of myself. it’s a 1 to 1 relationship, just on a delayed timer.

better help – conclusion

back in july i decided to try out online therapy. i went in a skeptic, and to be honest, i still am but… BUT…. i understand the value of this kind of thing a little more now.

so, the funny thing i’ve learned about therapy, is that it is only as good as your therapist, and then also, even if your therapist is amazing, if you don’t want to do it, it’s still going to suck. at least for you, at that specific point in time.

another interesting thing… no one has ever talked to me about their own therapy experiences, until i told them i was trying it myself. so… there is some possibly unintentional gatekeeping involved with this too. likely because most people will consider this something they need to do because something is wrong with them (a negative thing), not because they want to better themselves for the sake of betterment (a positive thing).

in learning about other people’s experiences i have to say i feel rather fortunate to have met my therapist, linda. unlike some of the horror stories i heard about other people’s therapists, linda’s approach was overwhelmingly pleasant. maybe even too much at times, which really is the only genuine criticism i have. it made it feel very fake at first. she’s very much been my biggest cheerleader, my biggest fan, my biggest source of encouragement about everything. so much so that i found myself kind of calling her out on it and ultimately arguing whatever the appropriate counterpoint would be with myself, while she cheers on both sides.

in the end… that’s maybe what her plan was all along because it’s been quite helpful for me and over the last few months. i have developed a habit of kind of doing that exact thing on my own now. it doesn’t always work, sometimes i get myself caught in some kind of loop, but many other times, the thing, whatever it is, ends up getting resolved in my head, all on my own. neat!

that said, i’m finding myself in a spot now with this where i kind of know what linda is going to say when i tell her something and so our conversations are more like friends catching up, except very one sided. and the problem with that is that it is a rather expensive one sided friendship. i don’t really want to put an end to this, because i actually really like my therapist, but i can’t justify the cost anymore. at least not right now.

so tomorrow will be my last session with linda for now. would i recommend better help? yeah, i think so. the platform works well and if you find yourself a decent therapist to talk to, it can be pretty helpful. they make it easy to switch therapists whenever you want, so you can flip flop around until something clicks.

things i need to be happy

  • continue therapy
  • reclaim and reinvent my own space
  • spend more time with z and l
  • lose 25 more lbs
  • avoid sugar
  • avoid milk/lactose
  • eat more fruits and vegetables
  • keep learning spanish
  • exercise every day 20+ minutes
  • 0x nicotine ever
  • 6x alcohol per week max
  • 2x caffeine per day max
  • get 7.5 hours sleep every night on average
  • make 1 new male friend who lives nearby
  • make 1 new female friend who lives nearby
  • play drums 3x per week
  • play guitar 2x per week

last day of the year, lets review…

lots of changes this year…

  • i set a goal to lose some weight. at the time, i weight 267 lbs. my goal was 225 by end of year. last week i got to 227, but with christmas feasts, apple pies and other sweets, as of this morning i am 232. if i am grading with a pass/fail scheme, then this is unfortunately a FAIL.
  • i resolved myself to kick nicotine entirely. i had been waning myself for years, cigs have been gone for a long time, but things like vapes were still around. i wanted that shit gone. this is serious. and i am happy to say, i have been completely nicotine free for several months. no turning back! this is way more difficult than i had anticipated… in the process i learned a lot about myself actually, and i learned to trust myself a lot less than one might expect, more on that some other time. PASS
  • i decided to be more active. i started walking every single day, and when it got too cold for that, i bought a rowing machine and have been doing that every single day. it’s hard work and sometimes i am REALLY not motivated, but i do it anyways and will continue to do so because it is important and makes me feel better. PASS
  • i needed to talk to someone, therapy seems to be popular answer to this. so i tried it, despite my skepticism. to be honest, i am still not convinced. but i have stuck with it for several months now and i am not going to give up on it just yet. i guess it can be helpful in some ways…. anyhow, PASS.
  • i wanted new friends. friends which were not connected to my current circle. i re-established a connection with k8, which at first felt very successful, though recently has felt a little less so. i hope it is just a temporary lull. i also sought out and made 3 new friends through reddit. c, you called me your bestie yesterday. i liked that and i think we could really become that. j, you were unexpected, we were on parallel tracks until your train fell completely off the rails. i wasn’t sure how that was going to work, but so far so good. i am happy we met! and then last but not least, a. holy shit, a, you have really captured my heart and my mind. i don’t remember the last time i felt a connection with someone like i have with you. you have become so special and so important to me, no matter what the future holds, i want you to be part of it. PASS
  • i recognized earlier this year that i was miserable, and had been for a long while. there were several contributing factors to that (see above points) but there was one in particular which overshadowed everything. when it comes to love, as in romantic, passionate love, i have a giant, gaping hole in my chest. k and i simply were not good for each other like that. we’re good together in many other ways, but being roommates just isn’t enough. the built up resentment and frustration that has accumulated over the years has simply become insurmountable at this point and before things completely overflowed and go ugly, i made the decision that i would rather end things now and try to remain on good, amicable terms. this is still in progress, but it seems to be progressing well enough. i think it merits a passing grade for this year, but the real test will be next year. so for now, PASS.