Who knew it'd been so long
I didn't remember writing in Livejournal after moving to Portland. I thought for sure that'd stopped before the move. I guess there was a fair amount of overlap.
It's so strange seeing all these ideas in these old posts. I recognize them in my head now, they're not all that different, just... smaller. More chaotic. Like looking at a tiny sapling, then the tree it grows up into. Bigger and more filled out. More comprehensive. Admirable that there's so much similarity though, I didn't jump track, I just followed all these thoughts onward.
I've realized in the intervening 10 years that I get most introspective when I'm alone. Traditionally that was a state brought on by having no partner, but I've had a partner for nine years now. But when she goes out of town, I get a six pack, and I get introspective. When I'm not alone, introspection turns into self-doubt. I define myself by the people around me because I don't really know what criteria to use on my own, so when I'm alone I just map the boundaries of my character, and when I'm with others I get angry that so many parts of those boundaries don't land exactly where I think those others expect they should.
I haven't had long stretches of introspection like I did back then, when I was alone a lot more. Or was flitting from one place to another. One person to another. It's amazing how quickly the ever-unnamed "girl" would change in these old posts. I never considered myself doing all that well in romance, but I think that has as much to do with bad timing and fumbling advances as it does with having any prospects. I remember telling someone I thought I loved them, and getting a shrug, then having them tell me they thought they were falling in love with me later, and giving them a shrug. One side of that definitely hurts more than the other, but both sides end up being sweet memories. It all works out alright in the end. Or at least, it works out somehow, and who's to say what's alright, right?
After 25 years of riding a rollercoaster of anxiety and depression, I still somehow manage to be shocked every time it comes back around again. Someone told me recently that they recognize their cycles of depression coming back on, and have developed methods for dealing with it. They also see a therapist, which I think turns ephemeral ideas about dealing with things into concrete lingo and tactics. I probably should have seen a therapist somewhere along these years, but I still never have. I took some pills for a while, and it helped, but they made me so tired. So every time the depression cycle comes back around for me, I get surprised that this wasn't the time that it wasn't going to come back, because every time I'm sure THIS is the time it's not going to come back, then I do the emotional version of biting your knuckle until it bleeds so you don't feel the other pain that is not worse, but it's deeper. I put my head down and power through, then I come out the other side with memories of being sad some more. It seems like there's always at least one memory that sticks with me. The worst one was the depression combined with coming off the pills though, just sitting alone at home, so angry but about nothing in particular, and so sad but for no real reason. Just feel it and let it pass.
I've revisited this journal several times over the years. My memories of my experience of re-reading it has been as informative as actually re-reading it. I think this is the first time I've read it and been forgiving to myself back then. Before I was spiteful at someone who knew less then than I knew at the time I was reading it. This time I feel like I understand what they were saying. I still say it. I just say it different now. It's more tired. I'm more tired. But it's not an idea I'm saying to myself so I'll absorb it. They are not ideas I'm saying to myself so I'll absorb it. It's just part of who I am. I've learned to accept people for who they are much more than I did. "Accept people on their own terms." It's allowed me to accept myself on my own terms... more than I did, anyway. I think.
Statistically I'm almost halfway through my life now. I live every day feeling haunted by mortality. The person that wrote these previous posts faulted people for convincing themselves they'd never die, that they weren't mortal. Now I wish I could convince myself. I used to think asking "why?" was powerful, but now I wish I'd left some of those questions alone. "Why are we here?" Anymore it feels like looking for answers that don't have a direct application is just cutting the legs out from under yourself. I'm not scared of my own mortality, but I know that my own age means I'm steadily approaching losses of people and things that I love. That old me never had a sense of the passage of time, and now I can't escape it. I feel it sitting on my shoulders, every day, every day, every day.
I'm not discontent with where I am. I'm not subjectively or objectively discontent with where I am. I still struggle with admitting thoughts to myself that I think might hurt people I care about, because maybe they seem incongruent with current state. But they're not. As long as I can remember, I've worried that venting myself too much would make people think I wanted to kill myself. I don't, and I never have. I'm just scared that being hurt will hurt people that I don't want to hurt. And above all, I don't want to hurt.
There are probably a lot of days between now and the last one. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all of them. I'm not sure what it means to use them meaningfully, if there's no base truth to build meaning off of. I'm just not sure of much, and that is core to my daily experience now. I want to be sure like it seems a lot of other people are sure. My predominant feeling used to be that they were sure because they knew something I didn't, now I feel like probably they just don't know something that I try very hard to learn. Ubiquitous They keep themselves preoccupied. Ubiquitous They are running out the clock. So am I, I just FEEL it.
In the last ten years I've moved from the "I want to be an adult" side of the line to the "I miss some things from when I was a child" side of the line. Honestly, both sides are fine.