Trying to Get to Carefree
It's almost 7 am and I've been up for about an hour. Woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Something was eating at me subtly but I couldn't figure out what. I still don't know entirely. There's little things eating at me around the edges, so I guess it's an anxiety build up. I got out of bed with the intent to try and tackle a few if they're getting to me.
The other day I wanted to deal with Hitmouse's taxes, but my printer isn't working to print out the proper form. Tried to e-file the stuff, but that requires I spend more money on tax software on an ongoing basis, money I can't spare. So that's hanging over head until I see Josh and have him print out the form for me. I'll order a new printer when my uncle's check clears in a few days.
The new roommate left town for 2 weeks and I forgot to tell him to leave the rent money, so I have to cover that for a week before he returns and can repay me. But my uncle's check has to clear so I can cover that and that's gonna be a few days still, with rent due today. I set aside enough money from last quarter's stipend to cover my rent, but this is overage. It's just something I need to explain to my landlord today and he'll be texting me daily to see if the check clears even if I tell him I'll be checking twice daily and will message him when it does. That's a pet peev in its own right. My finances are stretch thin enough that ensuring I have enough money to cover rent before the next stipend arrives, it's a timing issue of a check clearing the bank, means I have bills I would've paid 2 weeks ago looming and they're due dates near. It also means putting my food bills for the month on my credit card instead of deducting from my bank account, so my credit card is an actual bill this month and that's also due.
I've had an e-mail sitting in my inbox for nearly two years. It's an exchange with a game reviewer for Gnosis Conflict when the game was going to Kickstarter. I paid $200 for a review of the game that was never done and I've been intending to go back at some point and ask for a refund. I looked at it for the first time in a long time and thinking, the review request was really short notice at the time, far more then I realized. It's possible work was done before the Kickstarter failed, making the whole thing moot. At which point it's not right to ask for a refund when the review itself was a rush request to begin with. In the end, it's ony $200 and I don't think it's a substantial enough sum to raise an issue over. Maybe I'm rationalizing rather then risk being told no, dealing with the awkward social interaction and there's the fear of being told no and feeling foolish. Certainly that is a reason, but I'm just not sure if that's my entire reason and I'm being a coward about the whole thing. It's likely the case, but somehow I can't seem to feel sure that it is. And certainly I can rationalize the loss of the money as it's not a lot, but what is or isn't a lot is way too subjective and relative to the situation. Still, it's something that's been hanging over head for almost 2 full years and I can call it done and over with this way. Certainly it was on my mind this morning as I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep.
I'm trying to keep tabs on Susan, but that's been increasingly difficult. She's posting regularly about how unhappy she is, but with no details. Once I messaged her asking what was wrong but got no response. The most problematic thing though is seeing her sortof backslide as she grapples with hating the ex, still loving him and wanting him back and agonizing over financial decisions she made regarding him. I certainly shouldn't judge as I've done the whole love/hate thing before myself, though of course watching someone else do it, it always seems worse. I still think almost daily about how I'd react if I saw Andrea in person again, trying to be true to both emotions at the same time. How to convey displeasure without being horribly offensive. And I'm always reminded of this moment in the manga for Berserk, where after years of hunting down his enemy, once his best friend, the protagonist runs into the guy and is so stunned by his appearance that he forgets to hate him. What bothers me most in watching Susan right now is that I can read between the lines of what she's saying, enough to know there's so much being unsaid, probably so much she can't say. One of the things that I see in my path through therapy is that when I started out, I had no control over the depression; it would flare up randomly and I'd have no idea why. It would feel external to me. Over time as I learned to express myself, I could see how I'd gotten proficient at swiftly shutting down any conscious recognition of the things upsetting me that were driving the depression. Sure, there's always the elephant in the room you can point to, but I've learned that's tied to so many other things that make it so powerful. That's the hardest part in watching Susan, is knowing that's going on and not being able to do anything about it. There's the old familiar temptation to kick in the door emotionally and start dictating answers with a decent accuracy, but that sort of scorched earth policy is best left in the past. Mostly it's just frustrating being patient watching someone stumble about and worse, sometimes not even try to find the light.
Mariah has been very distant these past few weeks. I was pushing her about running some challenging content in warcraft and prodding her to not give the same excuses she'd been using for 3 years. I thought I had gotten her to agree, but the day of she canceled on account of her boyfriend having a bad day at work or something about his ex also eating at him. She wanted to be a good girlfriend and spend the time with him, which was the right call I know... But I've never reacted well to people canceling at the last minute. This idea of blocking off time and looking forward to it, I don't react well when that happens. The more I look forward to something, the larger the window of when canceling bothers me. Canceled therapy appointent, 3-4 hours is enough notice for it not to bother me. Canceled trip, need a few weeks to not be upset. It's an expectations thing and I know this goes back to childhood and my parents...what doesn't? Before I digress though, when she canceled, Mariah also mentioned that the boyfriend was likely also jealous of me and she didn't wanna risk upsettting him. He's been told I'm a good player and she's raved to him about my intelligence, wisdom and maturity, so he's gonna be insecure around me. I can't stand dealing with people's insecurities, just the ones when it comes to measuring up to me, or when it causes them to fail others. I responded gruffly about not wanting to deal with his issues and we've not really spoken since.
We've traded a few links, but it was a stark contrast to the routine we were getting into talking in voice chat weekly. I asked a friend about things, and she said Mariah had been distant after, but I don't know if that continued. So I've been wondering the past few weeks if she's mad/disappointed in me at my reaction, is avoiding me because it'd be easier for the boyfriend, or is off dealing with other stuff right now and is just busy. I was responding to Susan on FB just before this and I can see that Mariah has been putting a profile picture to this messenger account she's using, and it's a selfie with the bf, whose face annoys me. Andrea used to say there was this German word that roughly translated to "a face that needs a fist," and that feels appropriate to me. Maybe it's the moustache that I think looks ridiculous or the hat he seems to be wearing, I can't tell for sure if he is with the image so small. But I'm thinking that Mariah has told me probably all of the guy's dirty laundry since they started dating and pretty much nothing good about him...then wonders why I have such a low opinion of him. I find this is something women do and I do not understand it one bit. They seem to revel in telling that guy in the friend zone or the ex or closest friend how terrible their boyfriend is, and then act confused when the friend doesn't like them and suggests a breakup. I swear it's some unconscious desire to inspire jealousy deeply hidden under the veil of you're a trusted confidant, why wouldn't they tell you those things?
Of course I could be completely off base here. Looking at my own behavior... I'm sure most of the times I brought up Mariah in therapy were negative, such that my therapist would be hard pressed to explain the relationship. And on the paradigm of hidden drives, that'd be me saying I was unhappy in the relationship but never openly admit it enough to end things. The possibility that that might be true angers me - unconscious drives annoy me, it's my desire for control. You can't control unconscious desires, trying to control them is probably why they're unconscious, you need to accept them. But if I were to think back to Jessie, I'm sure most of the time spent talking about her people would not have had any clue what I saw in her. To be fair, I couldn't put it into words until years later. That actually may be the hardest thing in a relationship, being fully honest about why you feel drawn to a person or happy around them. I still don't have well-defined answers for Andrea and Mariah I think.
Quickly touching back on the whole parents thing... My mother used to go monthly to the mall for these 7-8 hour long shopping excursions. As an adult I'm utterly perplexed by the idea of spending an entire day shopping like that. As a child I had to go since there was no one else to take care of me. I would usually get some time to go off on my own or me and my sister. That meant a trip to the music store and bookstore, later the comicbook store. I could stretch this out into maybe 2 hours of window shopping, but if I really only needed half that time. Most of the day was spent standing around and waiting for my mother, grandmother, and later sister, in clothing stores. It was boring to say the least. It was worse when I was younger as I didn't go to any of those shops, and then only adding them one at a time as I had money of my own to spend an my interests expanded. It was 8th grade when I got a stereo system and started buying cds and tapes. 7th grade when I started buying Star Wars novels, but that only lasted a few years and then I stopped going to the bookstore. After awhile it was just the comic shop I wanted to go to, all the local ones near me had closed. I remember sitting in the car on a trip home from the mall once and I had agreed to go just so I could get 15 minutes in the comic shop. Actually, I don't think it was so much an agreement as my mother was forcing me to go as it was my job to carry all the things. That was sort of my function in the family growing up, to lug things around when my mother went shopping. Even as a child I felt a bit demeaned and objectified by the whole thing. Anyway, my mother needed stuff carried that day, so I get several hours of work and standing around, and all I asked for was to get a few minutes in the shop i wanted. It didn't happen, and when I sulked on the way home, I remember being told I was being melodramatic. That was generally my parents' response to me and my sister being upset about things. I don't like going to malls anymore and I don't really understand the appeal or American experience with them. My happiest memories were going to Friendly's for lunch (that's where we always went for some reason), where I always ordered the same thing, the hot dog. But dam that witch-cone sundae was awesome and my single happiest memory of the mall.
I've been stressing going to the gym and weight loss as of late. Largely I don't feel it's been a problem, but it always has the potential to be too much of a preoccupation. I stagnated with weight loss for a few weeks, and then I missed out on a week and a half at the gym, first for the weather and then just some depression inertia. While I was happy the over-indulgent eating during that period didn't cause a problem, I've been eager to get back on track this week. I've been really good about my diet, but as expected the food cravings kicked in yesterday. When I get food cravings, they can be pretty specific and yet vague, so I was pacing the apartment for a half hour trying to figure out what i wanted. I wanted a sweet bread, not a cake or a cookie, but something from a suitable bakery, but nothing would've been open by the time I got there. I settled for takeout, not even closely related but hoping it'd scratch the itch, but I overly guilted myself about the meal. Waking up at 6 am and only getting 5 hours of sleep, I do not expect I will have the energy to go to the gym today as planned. Fortunately I have Monday as a backup if Sunday doesn't fit, it's nice to have that flexibility in the schedule, but I'm stressing it now.
All these little things just sitting in the back of my head. I'm blaming the lack of sleep on them. And if it's effecting my sleep, I need to write about it and/or start scratching a few items off the list.
An interesting thing happened last night though, I felt relaxed in a way I very rarely ever do. For a brief period last night, I felt like it was 7 years ago, when I was working at Apple. Life was simpler then, and I don't mean that in a nostalgic way. I didn't have things weighing on my mind, it was the last time I had a job and my finances were problem-free. I remembered what it felt like to walk with calm and a sense of being carefree. In theory, my life should be carefree - my expenses are covered and I have no imperative to be anywhere or do anything I don't want. And yet I feel so confined and burdened by all these things I want to do or am trying to do. I could clearly see the prison of my own mind is self-imposed, not that I could fully make out the details of it. But it felt like being let out of the cage for a little bit. This was setting in as I paced my apartment trying to decide on a way to satisfy my craving. And it occured to me I wish there was someone I could call on a dime and say "Let's go out to dinner and hang out for a few hours." My first thought was to share in this feeling. The second thought was imagining what my relationship with Mariah would been like without the stress of the guild or Hitmouse.
Maybe this has been in the back of my head since I was lecturing Daniel last November about traditions and rituals. But part of what made holidays special was this ability to transport yourself someplace else mentally for a day. To forget about your problems for a few hours and just celebrate. I mean, vacation is just an extended way of doing that, like a holiday not tied to a specific calendar date each year. I've been trying to figure when was it that I stopped being able to do that and why cant i get back to it even when I try. It's so hard to connect with my fondest memories, because most of them revolve around holidays and feeling so carefree. The whole idea of how to get back to carefree has been on my mind though. Last night, as it felt like it did 7 years ago, I asked myself, what was life like then. Life was simple, i had my job, I went home and played video games. I hung out with my roommates, I did a few chores. That was it. I didn't have any ambition to do anything greater, I had no long term goals or plans. My job paid the bills and I squeezed out a few hundred in savings each month and that was enough for me. The lack of ambition is really Andrea talking, but it's also not inaccurate. I'd add I also lived completely in my comfort zone...and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly I've been thinking for awhile that maybe my only recourse in life is to be content to live within a fairly narrow comfort zone.
That's all stuff that's been churning in the background and I don't have an answer, or one I'm willing to accept. But last night felt nice for an hour or two, to feel carefree. I just wish I had someone to share it with.
This is an addendum, and a random one. I write these journal entries on the old and outdated Live Journal site. While everyone has abandoned this place for years, it suits my purposes. If I wasn't writing here, it'd be in a plain word document. This just has the added benefit of being easily shareable with people. It's silly I'm explaining this, but this explanation is really for my therapist who just gets a copied and pasted text. LJ has these icons or Avatars you select, and you were able to pick from a few you've uploaded. I've been using the same one for several years now, none of the others I've uploaded and everytime I make a post I look at that picture and want to explain it since almost will know what it's about.
The image is from the anime Inuyasha, and is of a young man with long black hair looking sternly while there's some grey/silver hanging from the front of his hair. In short, the series is a fantasy setting with the title character, and guy in the picture being a half-demon. He's an anti-hero of sorts, mostly because he's someone whose known very little love in his life. The whole half-demon thing has the perk of powers sure, but the character grows up being shunned by both worlds for being a half-breed. A lot of the series is him learning to get over that and care about people. But the picture itself is from a specific episode, I think episode 6. In the early part of the episode, Inuyasha is being more difficult then usual, refusing to help some people and being in a rush. As his efforts to avoid trouble fail and he and company are assaulted by giant spiders, they are forced to run when normally it wouldn't be a problem. The image is of Inuyasha pulling spider webbing off his head to reveal his dark hair, which is normally silver. He explains to his companions if they think they'll be protected like usual, they're mistaken. One night a month, he loses all his demonic powers, he's left human and in his mind helpless. The whole idea of this is something he has kept secret, especially what night of the month. He is forced to be vulnerable and he rather resents the whole idea, hence the stern expression on his face. That and there's a hint of him resenting the people who rely on his strength and take it for granted. To someone who only knows the world as a hostile place, vulnerability is weakness and waiting to be hurt. At the same time, that scene also represents the first time the character is truly honest with his companions, and is one of the first big steps in his development towards trusting others and letting them in. I have maintained using that image since I started therapy and it describes much of the emotional relation I have to my own writings.
I want to go into a bit more detail about the series as there's more emotion stuff I wanna pull out of it. I discovered it in college, was getting bootleg fan subs out of Chinatown before it got imported and dubbed (terribly). Inuyasha's storyarc is bound to the characters of Kikyo and Kagome. Kikyo is a priestess who befriends inuyasha and the two fall in love. Through the machinations of the series' villain, the two are duped into believeing one has betrayed the other with Kikyo being mortally wounded. Inuyasha steals a magical item that Kikyo is protecting in order to make himself fully demon, in his mind removing his human weaknesses, like love. Kikyo had hoped he would someday used it to make himself human instead. Kikyo halts Inuyasha's theft and just before dying seals him away, choosing not to kill him despite believing her fatal wound was his doing.
Kagome enters the series 50 years later as the reincarnation of Kikyo, there's a whole time travel thing that isn't relevant. Kagome unwittingly frees Inuyasha from Kikyo's spell and the series gets underway. At first Inuyasha resents Kagome for reminding him of Kikyo, and later for not being strong like she was, but over time appreciates her for who she is as an ongoing will-they/won't-they love arc. She's utimately a softer version of Kikyo, without all the tragedy baggage, and over time pushes him to be a better person - the sort of time Kikyo never got to really have an effect on him. The series is drama heavy, so Kagome's soul gets split and Kikyo is resurrected. Kikyo is stuck in this endless loop of both loving and hating Inuyasha for their past, constantly tugging at his heartstrings. It doesn't really end, b/c stories done by that particular writer aren't written with an end in mind.
I introduced the series to Jessie shortly after starting it. While I've come to dislike the series over the years for its repetitiveness and melo-drama, it starts off well and it has a lot of meaning to me. I empathized a lot with Inuyasha's trouble with others and the gruff persona he'd developed to compensate. Kagome was the bright spot that drags him away from that, and for a time Jessie was like that for me. There was a brief window where Jessie and I were close, dancing around the topic of dating. I was so closed off in those days it's difficult to explain what i was like, but there were a few conversations where Jessie prodded me to be open with her and I struggled to. I remember fumbling over words, long silences as I forced words out, because I wanted to do that for her. Jessie took to the show and I passed on tapes as I finished watching them. I never discussed how I saw us in there. I always assumed she understood, but in hindsight I think she only half-understood.
The other day I wanted to deal with Hitmouse's taxes, but my printer isn't working to print out the proper form. Tried to e-file the stuff, but that requires I spend more money on tax software on an ongoing basis, money I can't spare. So that's hanging over head until I see Josh and have him print out the form for me. I'll order a new printer when my uncle's check clears in a few days.
The new roommate left town for 2 weeks and I forgot to tell him to leave the rent money, so I have to cover that for a week before he returns and can repay me. But my uncle's check has to clear so I can cover that and that's gonna be a few days still, with rent due today. I set aside enough money from last quarter's stipend to cover my rent, but this is overage. It's just something I need to explain to my landlord today and he'll be texting me daily to see if the check clears even if I tell him I'll be checking twice daily and will message him when it does. That's a pet peev in its own right. My finances are stretch thin enough that ensuring I have enough money to cover rent before the next stipend arrives, it's a timing issue of a check clearing the bank, means I have bills I would've paid 2 weeks ago looming and they're due dates near. It also means putting my food bills for the month on my credit card instead of deducting from my bank account, so my credit card is an actual bill this month and that's also due.
I've had an e-mail sitting in my inbox for nearly two years. It's an exchange with a game reviewer for Gnosis Conflict when the game was going to Kickstarter. I paid $200 for a review of the game that was never done and I've been intending to go back at some point and ask for a refund. I looked at it for the first time in a long time and thinking, the review request was really short notice at the time, far more then I realized. It's possible work was done before the Kickstarter failed, making the whole thing moot. At which point it's not right to ask for a refund when the review itself was a rush request to begin with. In the end, it's ony $200 and I don't think it's a substantial enough sum to raise an issue over. Maybe I'm rationalizing rather then risk being told no, dealing with the awkward social interaction and there's the fear of being told no and feeling foolish. Certainly that is a reason, but I'm just not sure if that's my entire reason and I'm being a coward about the whole thing. It's likely the case, but somehow I can't seem to feel sure that it is. And certainly I can rationalize the loss of the money as it's not a lot, but what is or isn't a lot is way too subjective and relative to the situation. Still, it's something that's been hanging over head for almost 2 full years and I can call it done and over with this way. Certainly it was on my mind this morning as I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep.
I'm trying to keep tabs on Susan, but that's been increasingly difficult. She's posting regularly about how unhappy she is, but with no details. Once I messaged her asking what was wrong but got no response. The most problematic thing though is seeing her sortof backslide as she grapples with hating the ex, still loving him and wanting him back and agonizing over financial decisions she made regarding him. I certainly shouldn't judge as I've done the whole love/hate thing before myself, though of course watching someone else do it, it always seems worse. I still think almost daily about how I'd react if I saw Andrea in person again, trying to be true to both emotions at the same time. How to convey displeasure without being horribly offensive. And I'm always reminded of this moment in the manga for Berserk, where after years of hunting down his enemy, once his best friend, the protagonist runs into the guy and is so stunned by his appearance that he forgets to hate him. What bothers me most in watching Susan right now is that I can read between the lines of what she's saying, enough to know there's so much being unsaid, probably so much she can't say. One of the things that I see in my path through therapy is that when I started out, I had no control over the depression; it would flare up randomly and I'd have no idea why. It would feel external to me. Over time as I learned to express myself, I could see how I'd gotten proficient at swiftly shutting down any conscious recognition of the things upsetting me that were driving the depression. Sure, there's always the elephant in the room you can point to, but I've learned that's tied to so many other things that make it so powerful. That's the hardest part in watching Susan, is knowing that's going on and not being able to do anything about it. There's the old familiar temptation to kick in the door emotionally and start dictating answers with a decent accuracy, but that sort of scorched earth policy is best left in the past. Mostly it's just frustrating being patient watching someone stumble about and worse, sometimes not even try to find the light.
Mariah has been very distant these past few weeks. I was pushing her about running some challenging content in warcraft and prodding her to not give the same excuses she'd been using for 3 years. I thought I had gotten her to agree, but the day of she canceled on account of her boyfriend having a bad day at work or something about his ex also eating at him. She wanted to be a good girlfriend and spend the time with him, which was the right call I know... But I've never reacted well to people canceling at the last minute. This idea of blocking off time and looking forward to it, I don't react well when that happens. The more I look forward to something, the larger the window of when canceling bothers me. Canceled therapy appointent, 3-4 hours is enough notice for it not to bother me. Canceled trip, need a few weeks to not be upset. It's an expectations thing and I know this goes back to childhood and my parents...what doesn't? Before I digress though, when she canceled, Mariah also mentioned that the boyfriend was likely also jealous of me and she didn't wanna risk upsettting him. He's been told I'm a good player and she's raved to him about my intelligence, wisdom and maturity, so he's gonna be insecure around me. I can't stand dealing with people's insecurities, just the ones when it comes to measuring up to me, or when it causes them to fail others. I responded gruffly about not wanting to deal with his issues and we've not really spoken since.
We've traded a few links, but it was a stark contrast to the routine we were getting into talking in voice chat weekly. I asked a friend about things, and she said Mariah had been distant after, but I don't know if that continued. So I've been wondering the past few weeks if she's mad/disappointed in me at my reaction, is avoiding me because it'd be easier for the boyfriend, or is off dealing with other stuff right now and is just busy. I was responding to Susan on FB just before this and I can see that Mariah has been putting a profile picture to this messenger account she's using, and it's a selfie with the bf, whose face annoys me. Andrea used to say there was this German word that roughly translated to "a face that needs a fist," and that feels appropriate to me. Maybe it's the moustache that I think looks ridiculous or the hat he seems to be wearing, I can't tell for sure if he is with the image so small. But I'm thinking that Mariah has told me probably all of the guy's dirty laundry since they started dating and pretty much nothing good about him...then wonders why I have such a low opinion of him. I find this is something women do and I do not understand it one bit. They seem to revel in telling that guy in the friend zone or the ex or closest friend how terrible their boyfriend is, and then act confused when the friend doesn't like them and suggests a breakup. I swear it's some unconscious desire to inspire jealousy deeply hidden under the veil of you're a trusted confidant, why wouldn't they tell you those things?
Of course I could be completely off base here. Looking at my own behavior... I'm sure most of the times I brought up Mariah in therapy were negative, such that my therapist would be hard pressed to explain the relationship. And on the paradigm of hidden drives, that'd be me saying I was unhappy in the relationship but never openly admit it enough to end things. The possibility that that might be true angers me - unconscious drives annoy me, it's my desire for control. You can't control unconscious desires, trying to control them is probably why they're unconscious, you need to accept them. But if I were to think back to Jessie, I'm sure most of the time spent talking about her people would not have had any clue what I saw in her. To be fair, I couldn't put it into words until years later. That actually may be the hardest thing in a relationship, being fully honest about why you feel drawn to a person or happy around them. I still don't have well-defined answers for Andrea and Mariah I think.
Quickly touching back on the whole parents thing... My mother used to go monthly to the mall for these 7-8 hour long shopping excursions. As an adult I'm utterly perplexed by the idea of spending an entire day shopping like that. As a child I had to go since there was no one else to take care of me. I would usually get some time to go off on my own or me and my sister. That meant a trip to the music store and bookstore, later the comicbook store. I could stretch this out into maybe 2 hours of window shopping, but if I really only needed half that time. Most of the day was spent standing around and waiting for my mother, grandmother, and later sister, in clothing stores. It was boring to say the least. It was worse when I was younger as I didn't go to any of those shops, and then only adding them one at a time as I had money of my own to spend an my interests expanded. It was 8th grade when I got a stereo system and started buying cds and tapes. 7th grade when I started buying Star Wars novels, but that only lasted a few years and then I stopped going to the bookstore. After awhile it was just the comic shop I wanted to go to, all the local ones near me had closed. I remember sitting in the car on a trip home from the mall once and I had agreed to go just so I could get 15 minutes in the comic shop. Actually, I don't think it was so much an agreement as my mother was forcing me to go as it was my job to carry all the things. That was sort of my function in the family growing up, to lug things around when my mother went shopping. Even as a child I felt a bit demeaned and objectified by the whole thing. Anyway, my mother needed stuff carried that day, so I get several hours of work and standing around, and all I asked for was to get a few minutes in the shop i wanted. It didn't happen, and when I sulked on the way home, I remember being told I was being melodramatic. That was generally my parents' response to me and my sister being upset about things. I don't like going to malls anymore and I don't really understand the appeal or American experience with them. My happiest memories were going to Friendly's for lunch (that's where we always went for some reason), where I always ordered the same thing, the hot dog. But dam that witch-cone sundae was awesome and my single happiest memory of the mall.
I've been stressing going to the gym and weight loss as of late. Largely I don't feel it's been a problem, but it always has the potential to be too much of a preoccupation. I stagnated with weight loss for a few weeks, and then I missed out on a week and a half at the gym, first for the weather and then just some depression inertia. While I was happy the over-indulgent eating during that period didn't cause a problem, I've been eager to get back on track this week. I've been really good about my diet, but as expected the food cravings kicked in yesterday. When I get food cravings, they can be pretty specific and yet vague, so I was pacing the apartment for a half hour trying to figure out what i wanted. I wanted a sweet bread, not a cake or a cookie, but something from a suitable bakery, but nothing would've been open by the time I got there. I settled for takeout, not even closely related but hoping it'd scratch the itch, but I overly guilted myself about the meal. Waking up at 6 am and only getting 5 hours of sleep, I do not expect I will have the energy to go to the gym today as planned. Fortunately I have Monday as a backup if Sunday doesn't fit, it's nice to have that flexibility in the schedule, but I'm stressing it now.
All these little things just sitting in the back of my head. I'm blaming the lack of sleep on them. And if it's effecting my sleep, I need to write about it and/or start scratching a few items off the list.
An interesting thing happened last night though, I felt relaxed in a way I very rarely ever do. For a brief period last night, I felt like it was 7 years ago, when I was working at Apple. Life was simpler then, and I don't mean that in a nostalgic way. I didn't have things weighing on my mind, it was the last time I had a job and my finances were problem-free. I remembered what it felt like to walk with calm and a sense of being carefree. In theory, my life should be carefree - my expenses are covered and I have no imperative to be anywhere or do anything I don't want. And yet I feel so confined and burdened by all these things I want to do or am trying to do. I could clearly see the prison of my own mind is self-imposed, not that I could fully make out the details of it. But it felt like being let out of the cage for a little bit. This was setting in as I paced my apartment trying to decide on a way to satisfy my craving. And it occured to me I wish there was someone I could call on a dime and say "Let's go out to dinner and hang out for a few hours." My first thought was to share in this feeling. The second thought was imagining what my relationship with Mariah would been like without the stress of the guild or Hitmouse.
Maybe this has been in the back of my head since I was lecturing Daniel last November about traditions and rituals. But part of what made holidays special was this ability to transport yourself someplace else mentally for a day. To forget about your problems for a few hours and just celebrate. I mean, vacation is just an extended way of doing that, like a holiday not tied to a specific calendar date each year. I've been trying to figure when was it that I stopped being able to do that and why cant i get back to it even when I try. It's so hard to connect with my fondest memories, because most of them revolve around holidays and feeling so carefree. The whole idea of how to get back to carefree has been on my mind though. Last night, as it felt like it did 7 years ago, I asked myself, what was life like then. Life was simple, i had my job, I went home and played video games. I hung out with my roommates, I did a few chores. That was it. I didn't have any ambition to do anything greater, I had no long term goals or plans. My job paid the bills and I squeezed out a few hundred in savings each month and that was enough for me. The lack of ambition is really Andrea talking, but it's also not inaccurate. I'd add I also lived completely in my comfort zone...and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly I've been thinking for awhile that maybe my only recourse in life is to be content to live within a fairly narrow comfort zone.
That's all stuff that's been churning in the background and I don't have an answer, or one I'm willing to accept. But last night felt nice for an hour or two, to feel carefree. I just wish I had someone to share it with.
This is an addendum, and a random one. I write these journal entries on the old and outdated Live Journal site. While everyone has abandoned this place for years, it suits my purposes. If I wasn't writing here, it'd be in a plain word document. This just has the added benefit of being easily shareable with people. It's silly I'm explaining this, but this explanation is really for my therapist who just gets a copied and pasted text. LJ has these icons or Avatars you select, and you were able to pick from a few you've uploaded. I've been using the same one for several years now, none of the others I've uploaded and everytime I make a post I look at that picture and want to explain it since almost will know what it's about.
The image is from the anime Inuyasha, and is of a young man with long black hair looking sternly while there's some grey/silver hanging from the front of his hair. In short, the series is a fantasy setting with the title character, and guy in the picture being a half-demon. He's an anti-hero of sorts, mostly because he's someone whose known very little love in his life. The whole half-demon thing has the perk of powers sure, but the character grows up being shunned by both worlds for being a half-breed. A lot of the series is him learning to get over that and care about people. But the picture itself is from a specific episode, I think episode 6. In the early part of the episode, Inuyasha is being more difficult then usual, refusing to help some people and being in a rush. As his efforts to avoid trouble fail and he and company are assaulted by giant spiders, they are forced to run when normally it wouldn't be a problem. The image is of Inuyasha pulling spider webbing off his head to reveal his dark hair, which is normally silver. He explains to his companions if they think they'll be protected like usual, they're mistaken. One night a month, he loses all his demonic powers, he's left human and in his mind helpless. The whole idea of this is something he has kept secret, especially what night of the month. He is forced to be vulnerable and he rather resents the whole idea, hence the stern expression on his face. That and there's a hint of him resenting the people who rely on his strength and take it for granted. To someone who only knows the world as a hostile place, vulnerability is weakness and waiting to be hurt. At the same time, that scene also represents the first time the character is truly honest with his companions, and is one of the first big steps in his development towards trusting others and letting them in. I have maintained using that image since I started therapy and it describes much of the emotional relation I have to my own writings.
I want to go into a bit more detail about the series as there's more emotion stuff I wanna pull out of it. I discovered it in college, was getting bootleg fan subs out of Chinatown before it got imported and dubbed (terribly). Inuyasha's storyarc is bound to the characters of Kikyo and Kagome. Kikyo is a priestess who befriends inuyasha and the two fall in love. Through the machinations of the series' villain, the two are duped into believeing one has betrayed the other with Kikyo being mortally wounded. Inuyasha steals a magical item that Kikyo is protecting in order to make himself fully demon, in his mind removing his human weaknesses, like love. Kikyo had hoped he would someday used it to make himself human instead. Kikyo halts Inuyasha's theft and just before dying seals him away, choosing not to kill him despite believing her fatal wound was his doing.
Kagome enters the series 50 years later as the reincarnation of Kikyo, there's a whole time travel thing that isn't relevant. Kagome unwittingly frees Inuyasha from Kikyo's spell and the series gets underway. At first Inuyasha resents Kagome for reminding him of Kikyo, and later for not being strong like she was, but over time appreciates her for who she is as an ongoing will-they/won't-they love arc. She's utimately a softer version of Kikyo, without all the tragedy baggage, and over time pushes him to be a better person - the sort of time Kikyo never got to really have an effect on him. The series is drama heavy, so Kagome's soul gets split and Kikyo is resurrected. Kikyo is stuck in this endless loop of both loving and hating Inuyasha for their past, constantly tugging at his heartstrings. It doesn't really end, b/c stories done by that particular writer aren't written with an end in mind.
I introduced the series to Jessie shortly after starting it. While I've come to dislike the series over the years for its repetitiveness and melo-drama, it starts off well and it has a lot of meaning to me. I empathized a lot with Inuyasha's trouble with others and the gruff persona he'd developed to compensate. Kagome was the bright spot that drags him away from that, and for a time Jessie was like that for me. There was a brief window where Jessie and I were close, dancing around the topic of dating. I was so closed off in those days it's difficult to explain what i was like, but there were a few conversations where Jessie prodded me to be open with her and I struggled to. I remember fumbling over words, long silences as I forced words out, because I wanted to do that for her. Jessie took to the show and I passed on tapes as I finished watching them. I never discussed how I saw us in there. I always assumed she understood, but in hindsight I think she only half-understood.