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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
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I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
Artist: Touche Amore Song: Limelight [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Hey there.  My upgraded membership is expiring in a couple weeks so I thought I'd update my blog once more before it disappears.  I've already exported my entire portfolio here so that I won't lose any of my writing.I'm not going to rehash anything from my last entry, "Invalid Entry"  I feel how I feel about things on the site. I stand by what I've said. I get that not everything is going to work for everyone all the time. There are a lot of things I'm not into right now, like tiptoeing around "controversial" topics which are actually just baseline common sense.The past couple years have probably made a lot of us a bit more misanthropic. I can acknowledge that in myself, but I've also never been into the whole 'toxic positivity lest we make someone feel uncomfy' thing. Well, either way... Just need things I can sink my teeth into a little bit. I'm definitely feeling tired with life and the world right now. Regularly lethargic and mildly dissociated usually. Probably going through a bout of depression for most of this year. There isn't really anything left to discuss. I don't have any mental space left for empathy or anger or really anything. All of my pools are tapped. People tell me about various things that are happening in the US and my only reaction is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just... don't care? I don't feel anything related to it. I have absolutely no motivation to write. I mean, that's not even something that's on my radar as a thing. Over the 6 weeks, I've stopped doing most of the hobbies I was writing about in my last entry. Just waking up and working 5 days a week is a monumentally difficult task. Because, again, I do not care. People bring things up to me at work all panicked and I'm just like .............. There's just nothing there. I have no reserves left to pull from. At this point, I can't really imagine recovery, and I think that's the part that has drained me the most. I don't have the imagination to visualize a post-covid, post-politically divided time. I don't believe in its existence. I have difficulty even engaging with other people most of the time. It's not worth it. I was at work talking to a couple people Wednesday about potential mask mandates being reinstated at the office. All 3 of us were wearing masks. Then one of them said, "Well, I've had to wear a mask during this whole covid hoax so I'm already sick of it" and the other emphatically nodded. I realized I was talking to two antivaxxers who are already mandated to wear masks at the office because they refuse to get a vaccine. I felt like I was going to fall asleep. Really physically and mentally fatigued. What can you even do or say? I just walk away from these conversations without even saying bye now. Just, you literally no longer exist to me as a person outside of responding to required work-related emails. Anything that happens now is between you and your god. I do not care at all. It's unfortunate. I used to care a lot. About everyone. All the time. The past several years have just been an endless. No one can even talk to me. There's no way to get through to me and there's no reason to try. The pandemic taught me I require far less than I'd led myself to believe. I'm sure there was a point to this entry when I started writing it, but like most things these days, my thought process is too muddled to present anything in a cohesive way. I think what I was trying to say was that my membership is going to expire in a couple weeks and not to worry about it. I don't have anything to say anyway, clearly. But I do appreciate everyone who has stopped by and read/commented throughout the years. Stay well.  It’s not how it was but it’s not getting lighter The weight is immaculate, the depth is inspired |
Artist: Barenaked Ladies Song: Pinch Me [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] mic check… testing… testing… Uh, hey there. How goes? I’ve started and restarted this entry probably five times over the past few months. I’ve wanted to update, but I’m never quite sure what to say. Or more importantly, how to say it. I know a few people have asked where I’ve been though, so I thought it might be time to at least update my blog, although I’m not sure if I’ll actually come out of hiatus- now or ever. Where I’ve been… You might think I’ve been living off the grid and fighting bears for the last tin of beans, but alas, no. I’ve primarily been working. I’m still working remotely, although I’ll be returning to the office at least part-time in a couple of weeks. I typically work outside on the balcony and drink iced coffee in the afternoons. Try to get some vitamin d and all that. I’ve been working a lot of hours (so many that I’m actually considering looking for another job), but when I’m not working I spend my time reading or learning something new. I think during Covid it has been super important for me to stay productive to keep from getting depressed. I haven’t spent a lot of time just aimlessly browsing the web or watching YouTube videos. We’ve been so isolated the past 15 months or so, but I’ve enjoyed hanging out with Kira. There have been times I’ve forgotten there’s even a pandemic going on, especially after completely unplugging from the news and sites like Reddit or… here. What’s new… Let’s see. Not a whole lot, I guess. I’ll be fully vaccinated next week, as in I’ve already had both vaccines and I’m waiting the two-week period to have max immunity. I didn’t have many issues with either dose of vaccine and neither has anyone I know in real life. I think my dad had a fever for like 10 hours. On my first dose, I just had arm pain which almost everyone has. The night before my second dose I had the most severe migraine I’ve had in probably a year. After the second shot I had arm pain, some muscle cramps, and complete fatigue that went away within 48 hours. I would have been fatigued regardless of vaccine status given the migraine I had a few hours before. Much better than the family I know right now who has been sick with Covid for the past 3 weeks and has had several members in and out of the hospital. Personally, I would be super embarrassed to get sick with Covid after being eligible to get vaccinated for the past few months, but I don’t try to talk to or rationalize with those people anymore. If they want to get sick, more power to them. Other than that, I’ve saved up quite a bit of PTO time because we couldn’t really do anything last year. I think I have about 20 days right now to last me the rest of the year, so that’s 4 weeks of work I can skip out on, if I can ever find the time to take it. We’ve talked about a couple different places we might want to go this summer/fall so I’m looking forward to getting back out into society, and super thankful that I don’t have to worry about my loved ones getting sick anymore now that we’re all vaccinated. Why I haven’t been here… Honestly? It’s just easy to not come here. I don’t want to speak too bluntly, but it actually started to depress me to come to a site centered around writing and have absolutely no motivation to, you know, write. I didn’t set out with any intention to not respond to emails or to do more than accidentally come to the site every once in a while (reflexes, I guess) for months. There was no catalyst or anything like that. I just didn’t log in one day and didn’t even think about it until a couple weeks later. For years I’ve wondered why a lot of my friends that were on the site when I joined in 2014 have somehow seemed to just disappear- but I get it now. It’s just easy to do. I think I got burned out on seeing the same things all the time. The same people saying the same things over and over in the newsfeed. The same people winning all of the contests. The same people buying community credit or buying in-site currency to give others community credit. The same people writing the same reviews on every item. The same events and activities for years. But most of all, I got sick of myself saying the same shit over and over in my blog. Not writing anything creative. No poetry. No short stories. Nothing except blog entries where I basically more or less answer blog prompts in increasingly similar ways. I’m not saying this to be a dick. I just want a fair explanation for why I’ve suddenly disappeared. I feel like so many of my friends here have disappeared over the years and they always say the same thing: I’m busy with stuff. But 90% of the time, they’re not actually “busy” per se. They’re just finding other communities to busy themselves with because they’ve gotten bored. I’m not suggesting anything. I’m not making recommendations. I’m just saying that when I joined here in 2014, there was always something new going on. The site was like a magical place to be because the community and the activities and events were amazing. The community is still amazing. I love the community here. I always will. I stand by that this is the best group of people, the most empathetic and caring, that I’ve ever run into on the internet. But I’ve watched participation dwindle more and more over the years. It’s difficult to even run new activities because participation and interest is so low. When I was trying to run an activity, the most frequently asked questions revolved around what the bare minimum level of participation was in order to get prizes. And also, “Is that really the only prize I’ll get for completing it?” Not sure if things became too CR-focused or rewards-based or what, but unless I’m massively misremembering, it wasn’t always like that. I remember joining activities when I was first here that didn’t even offer an MB or awardicon or anything like that. It was just like, hey, here’s this cool activity that all your friends are doing so you should do it too. Or like everyone who completed the activity would be tossed into a virtual dice roll for a chance at one winner getting a basic community merit badge. Nothing major. The prizes weren’t really the reason for participating in the first place. Probably out of line to say this. Who knows. But I just don’t want to be one of those, “Ah, I’m just too busy now” people when in reality, I’m not. I’m just focusing my hobbies elsewhere on things that feel more productive than WDC has felt for the past few years for me. I really miss the energy the site had when I was first here. I would love to see it revamped with that energy somehow. I do think the site in some ways gives out what you put into it, but after seeing all my friends attempt participation and getting turned off by the lack of variety and just stuff going on in general, I’ve gotta think there’s more to it than just, “You work to make it good on your own.” I know that some people leaving the site are going to do so just out of natural attrition, but this is something else, in my opinion. So anyway… Probably not the expected update, and I’m sorry for that. Also sorry to the people who have emailed me throughout the months. I haven’t actually opened any of my emails or read any newsfeed posts or anything. I just had a few people I still talk to outside of the site (~Minja~  , Cinn , and 🌑 Darleen - QoD mention that a couple people had asked if I was all good. So I thank y’all for checking in.I do miss you and I want to hear how everyone’s doing. Have you all gotten your vaccines yet? Gone on any trips or have anything planned over these next few months? I’m really not sure if I’m going to disappear again for months or if I’m going to come back or what. I just don’t want to get into that cycle of logging in, scrolling around and feeling uninspired until I log out again. I’m aware that this entire blog post is possibly out of line. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got demoted or banned for posting it, although I think we’re operating in an environment where open dialogue is accepted and we try to work together on understanding each other. I’m completely fine if what I’ve said feels totally off-base to you. Your experience may be a lot different than mine. But it’s the reason I haven’t been here, so I just want to be open about that. It's like a dream you try to remember but it's gone Then you try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What books are on your reading list? Work is being a total nightmare right now.  We're in our busy time of year for the next few months and I don't even have time to finish one thing. Every time I'm knee deep in something, another more pressing thing comes up and I have to drop what I'm doing.I have like 15 open analyses right now and it's driving me nutbar.  I'm okay with having a couple open projects at a time, but I feel like I haven't actually completed anything in like two weeks. Anyway, I have a very long reading list this year. I'm participating in "52 in 52" . I've only finished one book for it so far, but I'm like 80% on another book that will cross one of the weeks off. I also read a lot of graphic novels, but I'm not sure if I'm going to include those for 52 in 52 because they are quite short usually. I think if I read any that are over 300 pages though, I'll probably include them because that would take me like 5 hours to get through probably which is plenty of time to be a valid read, in my opinion.I just read Little Fires Everywhere and you'll see from my review that I didn't enjoy it much. I read it as part of my online book club discord. I've heard such good things about the book too, no idea why it didn't mesh with me at all. Or really, that's being generous, what I really mean is that I have no idea why people are raving about this book.I've noticed that the more popular a book is and the more I hear about it, the more confused I am when I read it. I'm just like, how is this one of the most popular books right now? I'm almost at the point where I don't want to read popular books because I almost always find myself struggling through them. And this isn't like one of those "I hate popular things" things. I actually genuinely get hyped to read these books because everyone I know who reads is talking about how amazing they are and it makes me want in on the action too. I can't believe that people, with a straight face, are saying that Little Fires Everywhere is exhilarating... captivating... genius.  I've read more realistic characters in less than 2000 words from people here on WDC.Honestly, so confusing. I'm also reading Anxious People right now as our second book club book this month. Next month we're reading Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I'm looking forward to it because I don't really read the romance genre frequently. I'm happy we voted for a book with an LGBT theme too. Other than that, I created a list of books that would fit the weekly themes for 52 in 52 back in December so I have plenty of choices throughout the year. Being able to read out of order helps a lot because I borrow pretty much all of my books from the library so some of my to-reads for each category have long wait times. I started reading a lot more in 2020 with the pandemic going on. I hope I can keep up the habit if we have to go back to the office. It's a lot more difficult to find time to read when I have to commute back and forth to work. If you want to keep up with each other's books, add me on Goodreads and I'll add you back. It's always good to have more books on your radar. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What do you do to escape or distract yourself from negative thoughts and emotions? How do you take your mind off something you don’t want to think about? Oh heyyy. Been a minute. I've actually started writing a couple entries for various prompts and then I just fall asleep or get distracted with something else. I just haven't felt like, um, being here? Alright, so, how can I put this lightly... The first thing I thought of when reading this prompt is avoidance. I don't think covering up negative emotions or thoughts through escapism/distraction is always the healthy thing to do. Like, yeah, you can go on a spending spree with money you don't have or drown your sorrows in a bottle, but these things are all temporary solutions. Sometimes you need to confront negative emotions and deal with subject matter that makes you feel uncomfortable. It's part of being a well-informed, well-rounded adult. The reason I'm a little harsh on this subject matter is that at some point in the past few years, I feel like some of these avoidance measures have become a bit of a dog whistle. When you talk about masks and someone responds by saying that they don't want to talk about politics, there's a coded message in there. When you talk about police brutality and someone says they don't like riots, there's a coded message in there. I've grown incredibly tired of people suggesting that we just don't watch the news, talk to anyone about current events, or focus in any way on anything happening around us. I wouldn't go quite as far as to call it toxic positivity, but it's certainly close. We don't need to stick our heads in the sand for the sake of being positive. I don't know when acting positive became like the primary socially accepted virtue, but it's a bunch of bullshit. For the past couple years especially, people have been looking at things like the political climate or the pandemic and saying, "Oh, hey, I know this one from history." I've personally pointed out several times in the past that Trump clearly views himself as a Mussolini-type character who thinks he can build a cult around him to fulfill his dreams of being a dictator. We don't have to wonder if this is the case. This is 100% the case and it's proven through history and his own actions. For years people have been responding to this kind of thing by saying: "I don't talk about politics." "I think it's best not to watch the news." "I just focus on other things that are positive." "There are good and bad people on both sides." I haven't talked to people much since the attempted coup, but I'm guessing the response is a similarly lukewarm. This entire, "Put your head in the sand and shut the fuck up" thing feels a lot like gaslighting. It reminds me of times from childhood when I questioned something that was completely abnormal and people in my life attempted to normalize it by saying things like, "You're just being overly sensitive." "You're overthinking it." Like, if putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA" works for you, that's great. It's your life, do whatever the hell you want with it. But to pretend like it's negative or dramatic for someone to actually stay informed on current events and be like, "Ah, shit, someone's attempting to become a dictator!" while that person systematically builds a cult following that attempts to overthrow your government is simply unacceptable. It's not something I'll tolerate any longer from anyone I speak to. The last thing I need is for people to invalidate my very valid feelings in the name of "unity" or "positivity." It's fake. I don't give a fuck about it. Yes, there are times when your mood is just off and escaping into a good book might be the perfect distraction. Everyone has their various coping mechanism- good and bad. Some people spend a bunch of money they don't have because it briefly fulfills them. Some people take drugs or drink to escape for a while. Those same people often have healthy coping mechanisms too whether it's reading, writing, exercising, watching movies, or whatever else. But I don't have space for people who just don't want to think about anything "negative" ever regardless of how real and important it is. Avoidance isn't a flavor I have a taste for anymore. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What movie universe would be the best to live out the rest of your life in?cWell, wouldn't we all just love to escape to a movie universe. I tend to watch pretty dark movies, so I'm not sure most of them would be any better than our current reality. I mean, I wish I was living in The Truman Show so I could just punch a hole in the sky and escape all this bullshit. These past 12 months have just been laughably bad. I mean, I'm used to personal life issues. That's not new. But everything around me being on fire simultaneously? That's a new one. I almost felt delirious when I was in a meeting today and someone said that Trump supporters were storming the capitol building. I didn’t even want to look at the news. It’s like a fever dream. I can’t even muster up anger anymore. I just feel total apathy toward everything. My new doctor suggested that I seem depressed and I didn’t think much of it until today. Because there is no non-depressed version of myself that could watch citizens attempt to overthrow our governments democracy and respond with, “Meh.” It’s nothing surprising to me. I’ve known it for years. I’ve watched Trump’s cult build and become more and more unhinged. I’ve talked to his supporters in real life, I’ve seen them screaming into the void of their blogs here. The pandemic wrecked the few brain cells they had left. For the past 8 months they’ve basically just been crying about how covid is actually a flu that doesn’t exist and that Bill Gates made this nonexistent flu so that he could implant them with liquid trackers. Just to be clear, I have literally been in the hospital with people who suffer from schizophrenia and their wildest delusional ramblings made more sense than the things I hear Trump supporters say. These people are beyond the point of being unwell. But I’ve been done with them for a long time. I don’t expect them to condemn this, although they cried endlessly about property damage during BLM protests over summer. They’re nothing if not hypocritical. My dream scenario is for these people to be completely shunned in society, as you should be when you choose to belong to a group that is attempting to overthrow the democracy of your government. You shouldn’t be accepted in social groups. You're not patriotic in any way. You're an obvious traitor to the country. You're aware of that, I'm sure. Putting one person as your God above the Constitution and the well-being of your country is pretty black and white in terms of things. The election wasn't stolen from your God, you just have difficulty with basic math and you're a spineless follower. Outside of your conservative bubbles, these things are known as facts. There is a generation of children growing up right now who are watching this and rightfully thinking that your entire party is an actual joke. You chose to kill your own party for Trump. Big yikes. Have fun during future elections. I've already done my part of cutting Trump supporters out of my life, which is exactly what they deserve. I don't respond to their messages about anything. I don't care if they're family or friends. I don't comment on their blogs here or engage with anything they do. Actions have consequences and one of the consequences of joining a cult and undermining our democratic election process is having people fucking hate you. You don't get to try to destroy our democracy and still have friends. My hope is that when Biden and Harris are rightfully inaugurated on the 20th, we'll all keep in mind where these people stood on protecting our country and our citizens. They've known the divisiveness of this administration for a long time now. They enjoyed it. They said "fuck your feelings" every time someone attempted to point out something that wasn't morally/ethically/legally okay. Now they've completely tapped out my well of empathy. I hope we all remember this for the foreseeable future and handle our personal lives in line with that. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Start your entry with this statement: “I am frustrated about ________ because ________.”I am frustrated about not feeling myself because it makes it hard to write and socialize with people. After a few weeks of just feeling off I finally met with a new doctor today. I put in for the appointment weeks ago because I just knew something with my moods and how I was feeling wasn't right- and that it likely wouldn't go away without some help. I've had Jordan at my house since the second week of December, and that's been really nice, but also really difficult because he's only recently left rehab. I suddenly feel a lot of responsibility for taking care of him and making sure he does the 'right' things, which is nearly impossible. They wanted to get drink for New Year's Eve and I was like, "Nope, bad idea." He had a mega tantrum and started screaming at me telling me that I don't want him to have any fun in life and that I don't care about it.  I still said no and then went to sleep. The next morning (NYE morning), I woke up and no one was home. They came back 20 minutes later with a bunch of alcohol after I'd so explicitly said no.That caused me to fly into my own episode and get super drunk because my brain was like, oh, hey, just drink it all yourself! Anyway, that's not the point I was trying to make I don't think. I was trying to say that I just haven't felt like myself for most of December actually. I've not really been able to be here on WDC. I haven't even been able to read people's blogs so I have no idea what's going on with anyone.  I thought this would be a good prompt to jump back in on because people are maybe saying what's been up with them in their entries today. I don't know exactly what's been going on with me. Possibly a bit of depression? I talked to the doctor today and she was so sweet and open with me, which is usually the exact opposite of my experience. She agreed to let me go back on xanax, with her monitoring closely. Mostly, I think 2020 broke some part of my brain. It's just a combination of things and now I'm having a lot of trouble interacting with people outside of my little book club group. I did do a lot of reading in December. I also did a lot of sleeping. My holiday is officially over tomorrow and I'm expected to work 12 hours a day during our 'busy time' which will be the next few months. Hopefully that time will go quickly and a bunch of people get vaccinated in the meantime. I don't know if it's obvious, but I'm having trouble even writing this much. I'm going to go check in on a few other people now and see how they're doing. I'll try to be around and connect a little more. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What’s something GOOD that happened in 2020? Well, if you're reading this, you survived the worst year in modern history. So that's good. I did a big oopsie yesterday and started drinking way too early so I was pretty sick by midnight and passed out immediately after. 2020 was a sloppy year and I ended it in a sloppy way, which is fitting.This morning I'm just drinking a cup of coffee and eating plain toast because n a u s e a. I know that a new year doesn't really mean anything new. I know all this craziness is going to take up at least half of 2021 too. But I do try to take the new year on with a hopeful outlook. If we have to keep dealing with everything we've been dealing with, might as well try to look at the positives. There were a couple good things that happened for me personally in 2020. 1. Started my career. I mean, technically this was the last couple days of 2019, but 2020 was the year I learned how to do corporate life. It's not easy. It can be a bit toxic with expectations. I'm still happy I managed to keep my job for all of 2020 because I know some weren't so lucky. I'm more comfortable with my role now, although I still learn something new every day. At the very least, I fully know and understand the day-to-day duties of my job after my first year. 2. Started reading more. With all the free time in 2020, I reconnected with reading in a big way. In previous years, I've been lucky to read 5 or 10 books a year. There have been several years that I've only read 2 or 3 books. I didn't keep track of my reading habits in 2020 until December when I made a Goodreads account, but I read 4.5 books in that month alone. I'd guesstimate that I read around 20-30 books in 2020. I also joined "52 in 52" for 2021. I'll be posting my book reviews on my Goodreads account throughout the year. I set my reading goal at 24 tentatively because that's a couple books a month and won't demotivate me if things go back to 'normal' and I have less free time. I really hope I'll hit that magic 52 number though. That would be the most books I've read in a year ever, I think.This isn't a New Year's Resolution though because I built these habits naturally in 2020. If not for all that free time after work and on the weekends, I wouldn't even be interested in a reading challenge now and I definitely wouldn't be in the book club I'm in. 3. Working from home. It feels bad to say, but 2020 did bring on some good for a lot of workers. I've discussed remote work with my co-workers and all of us love it. We're saving so much time and money by not commuting. Our productivity is the same, if not better, because we're less tired and more focused. Back when I was in the office, I was exhausted before I even got to work in the morning. I was waking up at like 5 or 5:30 in the morning to get to the office in time. My commute wasn't even bad and could still take easily 45 minutes each way. Some of my coworkers had double that. By 3pm, I'd been up and on the move for 10 hours and I was absolutely exhausted every day. Now I wake up right before I need to start working and I'll have a bagel or something while I go through my emails in the morning. It's so much less stressful. 4. Trump lost. And he lost by a lot. He and his rabid supporters are never going to admit it because losing is hard, but I'm so happy we don't have to deal with 4 more years of this asshat. True conservatives are now realizing that he was never a Republican. He used their party and tore it apart so that it likely won't even be a valid option in the future. He's divided the country so much that I don't even know if it's repairable, but at least he won't be able to continue doing damage. January 20th can't get here soon enough! So overall, yeah, 2020 was a bitch of a year to get through. For me personally, I was very fortunate to have my job. I've had a lot of family members, friends, and coworkers get sick, but we haven't lost anyone so far. Hopefully we can all get vaccinated before it comes to that. I'm an empathetic person and I've certainly felt bad for people every day. This whole thing has just been really tough. My hope for 2021 is that we get this under control by summer and that we do the right thing in the meantime to mitigate further loss. Yeah, I know, pipe dreams. |
"JAFBG" prompt: Some traditions are a lot of fun. Others are a pain in the ass. What are your least favorite holiday traditions?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Pumpkin Pie Day. Are you a fan? Why or why not."Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" /"Blogging Circle of Friends " prompt: Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad, Seasons Greetings or simply Hi. If you're in a writing mood feel free to post your entry.I desperately need the holidays to be over. Nothing happened. I just got hit with this panic-level need for the holidays - all of them - to be fucking over and done with. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin with the need for the holidays to never be mentioned again. This Election Day to New Years Day time period in 2020 has felt literally like 8 fucking months. I need it to be over. I don't care. We don't have to pretend like shit is awesome. We don't have to pretend "for the sake of the holidays" that anything is business as usual. This is the shit that makes me hate the holidays. "Well, gee golly, I couldn't possibly celebrate THE HOLIDAYS™ away from my family. Let's talk about holiday traditions that are a pain in the ass. That's the big hitter. This fucking bizarre idea that a random Friday in December is a #bigdeal. It doesn't matter. It's an illusion. Meaning is being placed on this arbitrary date as though specific things have to happen on that exact date. Like you couldn't possibly do the same exact thing on a random Wednesday in June. I don't want to hear about THE HOLIDAYS™ or how there's this life or death need for people to see their family members on those specific dates. This year has made it especially apparent how little this shit matters to me. There's only so many baked goods you can make (and consume) or so many holiday movies you can watch or gifts you can buy or whatever you're expected to do on these dates. It's especially annoying that you have to feel weird if you're doing something normal on the eve of a major holiday, like, just reading a book or something. It's like, "Oh, you're not celebrating?" Celebrating what? Explain to me what we have to celebrate and then I'll consider it. Until then, I'm just going to read a book like every other day because this.is.every.other.day. It's the exact same as last Friday. Next Friday will also be the exact same. And the one after that. It's not "scrooge-ish" to say this. I don't care what holidays you celebrate or don't celebrate. I don't care what you believe in or don't believe in. It's just... blah. Are you feeling my panic-level need for the holidays to disappear? Because I'm feeling it. Like, can it be mid-January when people can stop pretending like we have to give a fuck about any of this? This isn't even a 2020 thing for me, to be fair. I basically want to skip from November 1st to January 15th every year. I don't particularly care whether or not the holiday cheer is real or not, although I can say that a lot of people who have 'holiday cheer' aren't especially kind throughout the rest of the year, in my experience.It's the just the whole ado of it. This weird pressure to somehow participate even when you're like, "Oh, hey, file that under things I don't care about." When I'm thinking of holiday traditions, I find almost none of them to be anything to write home about:  Eating a bunch of food. Not my style. I hate the feeling of overeating so I never do it. To answer the 30DBC prompt, I don't mind the food. I do like pumpkin pie, depending on my mood. I can also make that at any time of the year and I'd likely prefer it around Halloween. But I just hate any pressure placed on me to "eat more" and I think it's a very American-centric issue. Like, while a normal human wouldn't require any more food than you've had, please continue to stuff your face because it's the holidaaaayyys. Gifts. I've ranted about them before. I hate them. I hate trying to buy something for people who make way more money than me and also have no hobbies outside of work. I hate receiving gifts and being like errr, thanks, a decorative cat plate! Cheer-mode initiated. I hate that I can't even write what I'm writing right now without people reading it and likely thinking, Bah-humbug! No, you can be in a bad mood, even if it's the holidays. They're the exact same as any other day which means it's relatively normal to have good days and bad days throughout the 2-month period. The family stress. I hate seeing my family under the pressure of the holidays. Is something stressful from the past going to get brought up? Is that one distant family member going to say something weird again? Is everyone going to like their gifts? Is everyone going to like the food? Is everyone going to have cheer mode initiated? Seeing people outside of the holidays has a totally different, way more chill vibe.There are things I liked about the holidays at one point. For a while, I enjoyed seeing my family and we'd play board games and have a few drinks. It was pretty nice. Then my brothers both got married and started having a bunch of kids. Now our holidays are like what you think of when you see a stressful holiday movie- not enough seats for everyone, distant relatives of in-laws that you don't really know, g-rated conversation because of the kids, constant screaming and crying from the kids so no real conversation can be had. I love the kids in my family, obviously, but from my perspective the holidays kind of look like driving super far only to have everyone who lives in the same area show up an hour late because they have kids. Being forced into awkward conversation with my sister-in-law's great uncle. Not being able to talk to anyone I actually know because they're rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off. Getting a migraine because someone is microwaving eggs and the kids have been screaming for an hour straight. Then wandering off at some point feeling like I wasn't actually there because the only evidence I have of my being there is that I now know how my sister-in-law's great uncle lost his left pinky toe. It's, um, awkward? But that's not my real beef with the holidays. I can handle that although I wouldn't really call it fun or interesting in any way. I get that things don't exist to entertain me. What I can't get over is bullet point 3 in my list. This fetishization of joy that you're supposed to, without question, feel for an extended period of time because it's THE HOLIDAYS™ and you're being a real bummer if you don't follow the known rules of them. Like, come on, we don't have to get manic every single December. It's not that big of a deal. And as far as covid holidays go, yes, it sucks that you can't safely see your family members. I empathize. But what would really be cool is if we could stop pretending like something has to occur on an exact date or it's all ruined. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. That's like primary school level knowledge. Get vaccinated and celebrate coming out on the other side of all of this in May or whatever. The weather will be better anyway. I've counted blessings while confessing I've some to spare Beg or borrow, swallow sorrow I have come prepared ~TA |
"JAFBG" prompt: Some say this is the time of year to make peace. What are you coming to terms with as 2020 draws to an end?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Winter Solstice. Our shortest day and longest night... We’re about to enter the season of winter: Quiet. Reflection. Incubation. Going Inward. Write something inspired by that."Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" prompt: What was your biggest learning experience in 2020?Oh hey. A week since my last entry and three prompts that complement each other fairly well... Might as well write. Today is my first 'real' day of my holiday break. That's because I ended up having to work the entire afternoon of my birthday (despite getting approval to begin my vacation that day several weeks ago). Then Friday I went Christmas shopping and wrapped gifts, on Saturday we went on a little road trip to deliver said gifts to the kiddos in my family. I played ding-dong ditch, basically, although I did talk to my parents for half an hour or so (outside with masks on). It was the first time I'd seen anyone in my family since March. On Sunday, I had Jordan help me put together some furniture that I got Kira for Christmas. I also got her a french press and a waffle maker. Jordan very nervously shopped with me saying, "Isn't she going to get pissed off if you buy her kitchen appliances!?" Today I've told everyone I need to do nothing. I need some time to be alone and decompress, just read and nap or something. I never knew I needed alone time like that. It must be a new feature of 2020? That's a good segue into the prompts. As we enter the winter solstice and the end of the year, I'm taking some time to quietly reflect on the journey of 2020. My pandemic diaries are nearly full. I think I have about 4 pages left in the journal. There have been so many punches to roll with this year. I don't particularly expect 2021 to be much different as it's clear that this will continue well into next year. But I do feel that I'm more at peace with some things now than I have been in the past. And by 'at peace' I mean still totally perplexed and pissed off, but attempting to let it go for my own sake. I've been able to calmly analyse various situations and accept them for what they are, which is an improvement over most of the year. Here's the biggest learning experience that 2020 brought me: It's okay to have limits on what personality attributes and opinions you'll accept from other people. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was told my entire life. I was always under the impression that you have to accept someone's opinion, even if you disagree, and still embrace them as a potential friend. Regardless of political affiliation or whatever, I always took other people attributes into consideration and weighed the pros and cons of them as a person so I could take in the whole package of who they were. Thanks to people for proving me wrong, I guess? Apparently, I have a whole laundry list of shit I just won't accept as a reasonable opinion from other people. I spent much of the year attempting to convince people to take the pandemic seriously, to take democracy seriously, and to do the right thing. I'm 100% over that, luckily. My empathy has been stretched so thin that it's snapping. I won't accept: 1. "Opinions" that result in harm and death to other humans. (i.e. I refuse to wear a mask or social distance because it's my right to spread a contagious illness.) 2. "Opinions" that diminish the laws of democracy. (i.e. I refuse to accept election results unless my candidate wins.) These just aren't things that I'll accept from other people. If you hold these views, there's a 90% chance that I've already observed your behavior and written you off as a person. I have absolutely no empathy left to give for people who downplayed covid, ran around refusing to wear a mask properly, and ended up getting sick. I mean, I just don't have the ability to even slightly feel sorry for you. I have people in my OWN family who are sick with the virus directly because of the fact that they're brainwashed by Trump and thought wearing a mask or making basic mitigations efforts was a political affront to their affiliated party. My cousin has been sick for over a month with the virus. She has been in and out of the hospital several times. She's now developed pneumonia. My mom tells me about it and I'm just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Too bad, I guess. I wonder how many other people she infected who are struggling to get back to 100% or have died. I just... couldn't care less. I don't know how Trumpers did it, but they managed to get one of the most sensitive people ever to just... not care. I only have so much empathy to give. I'll reserve it for people who did everything right and still got the virus because you chose your comfort of not wearing a mask over their well-being. I'll reserve it for healthcare and frontline workers who have had to stand in the face of the virus every day while you threw a tantrum about your rights to get people sick. I've long assumed that these people are specifically anti-American and are actually on covid's side. It's the only thing that makes sense. As we enter 2021, I can only hope these people slink back into their holes in shame, as they should. But regardless, I have a bunch of people who I've just given up on. I can't explain it because it's so unlike my personality, but I just don't care about them anymore. I've been watching people closely this year, observant as I am. I've been watching the things people write here on WDC. There are people I've known since I joined in 2014 who I just have totally distaste for now. I don't want to read anything they write. I don't want to talk to them. I don't want them to speak to me. That doesn't even begin to touch on the people in my real life who I've just had to cut out. It's a metaphorical death to me. It took me pretty much all of 2020, but I've accepted those losses. At the beginning of this pandemic when it was spreading like wildfire through the cities, my cousin said, "Looks like it's just the democrats getting sick and dying OOPS LOL." She posted this verbatim on the internet when the virus was brand new to all of us and there was widespread panic. Looks like it's just the democrats getting sick and dying OOPS LOL Can you imagine? Can you imagine being such a heartless person? I've seen people in their blogs here saying, "No one is going to tell me to wear a mask! If you're scared of the virus then stay home." As though people don't have to get food, get medical care, or go to work. "It's not fair that we aren't allowed to gather in a huge group for this completely unnecessary event!" As though our hospital system isn't completely overwhelmed with patients. You want to hear a fun story? I have someone in my family who had several ministrokes in a row. He went to the emergency room seeking help twice in 24 hours because ministrokes are often a precursor to major strokes. Both times, the hospital turned him away and told him to come back if/when he had a major stroke because they don't have the capacity to deal with transient ischemic attacks. Imagine thinking that you deserve to gather in large groups inside restaurants without masks while people who are having ministrokes are being turned away by the hospital system. Maybe it's a BPD splitting issue, but I've split completely on these people. People with borderline personality disorder often split and see someone as either all good or all bad. I see them as all bad. Any 'good' attributes they have can easily be found in other people. I just don't care anymore about trying to make excuses for them or finding redeemable qualities. I give up. As 2020 comes to a close and we enter into 2021, these are the affirmations I've come to: 1. I've quietly observed what people have said and how they've behaved this year. I trust myself to make a qualified decision on who is unwilling to be inconvenienced for the greater good. 2. I'm okay with losing friends and family members who have been lost to wild conspiracy theories, anti-science babble, and narcissistic apathy. 3. I give myself permission to reject these people from my life and no longer associate with them in any way. After the year we've had, this is a cathartic and healing step. It's not enough to disagree with these people. Changing their mind is impossible. They're in a cult. They don't think rationally. They make fun of any efforts to get them to see a different perspective. They're mean, cold, lost people who need to be outright rejected. I spent too much of this year trying to be understanding. I don't make resolutions or anything like that, but I'm at peace with the fact that I can't change these people and I also can't allow them into my life any longer. There's a feeling of acceptance and anger melting away when I think about dropping the pleasantries I've attempted to maintain with them. The healthiest thing for my own sanity is to write them off and cut them out of my life in every way. I really think others should do the same. I don't see it as an act of anger. It's more an act of refusal to encourage and support people who don't care about the health and democracy of our country. Just wash your hands of them and their hateful echo chamber, seriously. Well, you look like yourself But you're somebody else Only it ain't on the surface Well, you talk like yourself No, I hear someone else though Now you're making me nervous ~flora cash |
"JAFBG" prompt: Congratulations! You get to kill one holiday song and never have to hear it again. Which will you choose?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Every Christmas holiday we all sing about "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...." But, have you ever roasted chestnuts!?I've had quite a listless weekend. I agitated my own self with my previous blog entry and thought it better that I take a few days away lest I continue to pick at my past and become further engrossed in the concept. Instead, I spent the week alternating between reading, napping, and watching movies. I completed my very first Goodreads review and I've been working on diversifying my feed there by making some friends. You can add me if you have an account. Here’s my review of Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett.I only wish I'd made one sooner, after spending much of 2020 in isolation reading my weekends and free time away. I can hardly remember now anything that I read or any feelings I might have had in relation to those books. I don't know if that says more about me or about the books. Regardless, I plan to keep up the hobby of reading at least one book a week. I've found it easy enough to read about 50-80 pages a day, depending on the material and where my mind is that day. I'm using Goodreads to help fill out my to-be-read list for "52 in 52" , and I've joined a Goodreads book club on Discord that reads and discusses a new book each month. I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised at all that I've not run into anything similar on WDC.But onto the prompts... I've actually never seen anyone roasting chestnuts before. I don't even know what this would do to them. Does it soften them? Are they hard to begin with? Does roasting them change the texture? I can't imagine eating anything hard with my TMJ issues. I've not enjoyed eating once since those muscles and joints started bothering me after my surgery this year. It's a miracle I don't starve. Even just the motion of chewing causes lightning-like pain in my jaw joints. I have constant tinnitus, which apparently over half of people with TMJ issues have as well. Either way, suffice to say that I probably don't like chestnuts, roasted or otherwise. I know the worst Christmas song too. It's Mariah Carey's cover of "All I Want for Christmas Is You." I dread it less now that I'm not working in retail, although I've been informed by my boss that the office actually plays Christmas music for all of November and December each year. There are legitimately okay-ish holiday songs. This one, um, isn't one of them. It's played into the fucking ground every year. This song also has nothing to do with Christmas or the idea behind Christmas spirit. Not that I care much about that, but it's just a generic love song that uses the holiday in its lyrics and it's suddenly one of the best Christmas songs of all time? Puh-lease. Here's the deal with Christmas songs for me. My grandmother and I used to hang out all the time in the weeks leading up to Christmas, drinking hot cocoa, baking cookies, working on jigsaw puzzles, wrapping gifts, and yes, listening to Christmas music. I don't actually hate Christmas music as a whole. It reminds me of my grandmother and those memories with her. My personal favorite was "Silent Night" and she enjoyed "O Come, All Ye Faithful" a lot. Now my favorite is "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues and I can't listen to those traditional Christmas songs because they make me sad. “The monster you lie with is your own. The struggle is endlessly private. I thought it was over.” ~Adam Haslett, Imagine Me Gone |
"JAFBG" prompt: I had neighbors decorating for Christmas before Halloween this year. How do you feel about Christmas starting sooner each year?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Human Right's Day. Write anything you wish about this.Even though I wrote this "JAFBG" prompt, it actually didn't bother me at all that my neighbors decorated so early. I thought it was a little weird because it was like mid-October, but I figured they were just crushingly depressed and trying to get into the spirit of the holidays early.That being said, anything that flashes or makes noise is a violation of my human rights. As someone who gets migraines and vertigo, it should be illegal to do blinky lights in a public area. I'm trying to think of how in-depth I want to go on human rights here. Not sure if I'm up for a rant after working so many hours today, but we'll see how it goes. I think people get confused about their rights frequently, be it Constitutional rights, human rights, or otherwise. You do have a right to free speech, and your employer also has a right to fire you for racist speech. Those are standalone rights of both parties. Another thing that happens frequently is that rights get violated all the time. That's like a daily thing. For example, one of our universal human rights is that we shall not be subjected to torture or to any kind of cruel, degrading punishments. Yet that's common, legal practice in many countries. I also know plenty of people who have been subjected to cruel and degrading punishments. It's not out of the norm in any way. I'm going to be American-centric here for a minute to go over some human rights that we 100% don't have even though they're in the universal declaration of human rights. The reason being that it's funny how we just don't have these basic human rights that were set forth in 1948. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Oooooh really?? "Equally accessible to all" is an absolute joke for almost every single aspect of our country. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Tell this to the people I work with who work 80 hours a week until they have a mental breakdown. Tell this to those working minimum wage jobs who literally never have a paid holiday. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. *looks around awkwardly* Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. I'll stop here because this is my favorite one. This sounds so ideal, but it is so incredibly far from reality. You can do everything right and then circumstances beyond your control can knock you on your ass, bankrupt you, make you lose your home, and ruin your entire life. That is some actual bullshit. But we can't advance our society because that would be SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM. I've never seen such a large group of people who are directly against their own self-interests. Almost my entire extended family collects welfare while simultaneously being ardent conservatives and Trump supporters. I have a theory that I've been building pretty much since I had the ability to think. People probably won't like it or agree with it, but I've seen a lot of things and of this I'm sure: There is a strong connection between Christianity, conservatism, and sadomasochism. Okay, now hear me out. Let's start with this: - 85% of conservatives identify as Christian - 52% of liberals are Christian I grew up in the Catholic church and there is not a person anywhere ever who will convince me that this religion is not drenched in masochism. First of all, we have Jesus who masochistically suffered torture to save humans because they were naughty. I mean, really, that's what the entire religion is built around. This masochistic choice to suffer punishment to redeem the souls of sinners. Then, growing up in the church, I was taught that if I didn't believe what I was being told, if I didn't repent, if I didn't do what God wanted me to do, I would be endlessly tortured in the lake of fire for my insolence. I grew up watching people say, "Well, God doesn't give me anymore than I can take." "If God wants me to suffer, I'll suffer for him." "I know that I've lost everything in my life, but God giveth and God taketh away." You know what this sounds like? It sounds like a sadomasochistic relationship. When God decides you must suffer for him, you suffer for him gratefully and it's called a holy relationship. When Logan makes me suffer for him, I do so willingly and people call it an abusive relationship. Explain to me. As I've gotten older, I've seen an eerily similar pattern with conservative talking points. "Well, yes, that one person has more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime and my family and I would literally starve without government assistance, but I deserve to suffer because that billionaire is smarter/better than me." You might hear it phrased as, "Well, if he can get that rich then more power to him, I'll tell ya what!" Along the same lines, "Nothing in life is free! You gotta spin your wheels endlessly if you wanna feed your kids." "Why shouldn't people be in massive debt from student loans? No one made them get an education!" "Why should we all have healthcare? Only people who have good enough jobs to be offered health insurance deserve healthcare. Gotta pick yourself up by the bootstraps if you want healthcare." I'm probably not smart enough to articulate what I'm trying to say. But I've grown up in these relationships. They've molded who I am, and I swear, there's a correlation. I'm not even saying that it's a bad thing. If you enjoy being masochistic and it makes you feel good, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is with the word deserving. Catholicism taught me that I deserve anything bad that happens to me. It's my cross to bear, as they say. And anything I work hard to achieve isn't actually my accomplishment because it was gifted to me by God. We become complacent to human rights violations in this way. We see a situation like, Wow, this person works 2 jobs to try to support their family. They don't have access to healthcare. They're barely making ends meet. They're one paycheck away from being homeless. And instead of responding to this with, "This isn't right. Humans should not have to work two jobs just to be one paycheck away from homeless. Humans should not have to spin their wheels without access to healthcare for themselves and their families." We hear: "Well, God tests us all, but he doesn't give us more than we can take so be blessed with what God has graced upon you." OR "Well, if you wanted to be able to survive you shouldn't have started a family. If you get sick, that's not MY fault. Why should we have to foot the bill for your issues?" This is a fucking problem. We work hard and we deserve to have social safety nets. We don't deserve to bear the weight of illness without access to healthcare that won't put us into massive debt and bankrupt us. We are an allegedly civilized, advanced society. We deserve access to reasonably-priced education for the betterment of ourselves and our society. We don't deserve to be under the thumbs of mega-corporations so that we can make a few people obscenely rich off our backs while we debate whether to pay our student loan bill or our rent this month. This idea that we must chronically suffer with a grateful smile is toxic to humanity and it is the antithesis of human rights. In Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black. And I held my tongue as she told me, "Son, fear is the heart of love," so I never went back. ~DCFC |
"JAFBG" prompt:It's reverse Christmas! You get to steal one thing from someone else and claim it as a gift for yourself. What are you taking?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: National Pastry Day. Write about an experience of eating pastries. What did you eat, with whom, etc?Yeah, I dunno, I'm with Robert Waltz  here. I'm having trouble even making prompts work for me at this point. It's just hard to talk about pastries or the holidays when, you know, *motions wildly at everything* Like, I don't even give a shit to rant about the holidays this year.Honestly, if you can keep holiday cheer this year then more fucking power to you. Also, teach me all your secrets. Let me recap my day for you. So, before I even started work today, we all got a memo letting us know that one of our coworkers died. Really sad because she was a very welcoming and sweet person to me when I first started in the office. She checked in on me several times in my first month just to make sure I was settling in okay, even though she wasn't part of HR or any other department that would need to do that. She was only in her early 60s which is pretty young when people regularly live into their 80s and 90s. So that was kind of shocking, though not completely because as I've mentioned, I have several coworkers sick with covid at this point. It’s just statistically bound to happen at some point. Regardless, I moved on with my work for the day and busied myself compiling and sending reports. At lunch, I decided to talk to Kira about having Jordan stay with us for a few weeks starting next Thursday, which is my birthday and the first day of my vacation. She immediately said exactly what I thought she’d say, which was, “Do you really think that’s a good idea? You’ll need to talk to Logan about it.” Just as I began to protest this, my phone rang and it was one of my employees. He had a family member who had just died from covid and he was letting me know that he was going to be out for the rest of the week. I gave my condolences and told him not to worry about work and to just take care of himself. As we were getting off the phone he said, “Hang on a second [Other Employee] needs to talk to you.” So she gets on the phone and tells me that she has all this stuff she’s supposed to do this afternoon and she can’t do it. She was out with covid for a few weeks but has been back since the end of last week. She told me she’s exhausted and can’t even stand up for more than 10 minutes, feels like she’s going to pass out, etc. I told her to also just go home, don’t worry about it, get some rest. At that point I’d totally lost my appetite and just went back to working instead of having lunch. I also messaged Logan to let him know that I was having Jordan stay with me. He immediately responded with, “No. Bad idea.” I told him basically that I’m not seeking permission. I’m letting him know out of courtesy that I’ve decided to do this. He just responded with, “I see.” And I didn’t hear back from him again. About 20 minutes before the end of the work day, I got a call from one of the higher ups. He asked if I let Other Employee go home early today because she was tired. I told him yeah and he seemed pretty annoyed. He was just like, “Well, we can’t all quit working when we’re tired.” I told him we’re not all recovering from covid and she really wasn’t feeling well. He said okay, but told me to remember that we still have things to get done by the end of the year. I don’t really know what they want me to do. If someone is too fatigued to stand up for more than 10 minutes they can’t really work for 10 hours straight. I dunno. Later when we had dinner, Kira asked me a bunch of questions about Jordan staying here. She asked how long I was planning on having him over, if I really thought he was clean and how I could be so sure, what we were planning on doing while he’s here. Basically just a total interrogation. I told her she’s had her friend living with us for years so if I want my friend to come hang out for a few weeks, I’m going to do just that. I told her I don’t really care how she and Logan feel about it. I was annoyed knowing they likely discussed it without me. She said if I’m set on doing that, there are going to be a lot of ground rules. Things like staying isolated beforehand, which we’re both already doing. No drinking or smoking, which I’d try not to do around someone who’s just out of rehab anyway. Where everyone’s going to sleep, what we’re going to do all day, and all that kind of stuff. She said it’s a bad idea because my mental state has been up and down too much lately and she thinks we aren’t healthy for each other to be around. But despite all that, I’m kind of relieved thinking they might let it go and let me do what I want without hassling me too much. Obviously, I understand the concern because of our previous relapses together and our history and all that. But I’ll feel better having him here and knowing that he’s not alone trying to stay clean during the holidays. Overall, just kind of feeling like I’m surrounded by badness. Too much going on with the virus. I can’t wait to go on my break just so I can stop hearing about people having it and being sick and stuff. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too insensitive. I do care and I want everyone to be okay, but because I have no control, I pretty much just don’t even want to know about it. I have no will left with this pandemic. It’s brutally depressing. I’m at the point where I don’t even care about the covid minimizers and deniers anymore. Like, I don’t even have the energy to be angry. If I could steal something from others this year and claim it as a gift for myself though, I would steal every single one of their electronics and make a bonfire of it. Take away their access to fucking facebook and shitty media so they’re forced to use their own pea brains to form an opinion about the virus. Alright, maybe I do still have the capacity for anger. Shocking. It’s just absolutely baffling to see people still downplaying the virus. “Everyone is overreacting! The media is fearmongering! It’s not even a big deal!” If it’s not a big deal then why am I, someone who doesn’t watch the news or use social media outside of WDC, spending 11 hours a day five days a week attempting to keep things afloat and on track at work because so many people are sick or losing family members to covid? Seriously, I’d be fucking stoked if someone could explain to me how my real life experiences aren’t actually happening. It would make me feel much better. But it’s not going to happen because these people are just gaslighters who attempt to invalidate other people’s experiences because what’s happening doesn’t fit the political narrative they’ve been pushing on this since jump. Lacking compassion and empathy never falls off trend with these people, I swear. So I really need to just have a bonfire with all their electronic devices. This would be cathartic and mentally soothing for me. Luckily, my brain has gone into self-preservation mode. It can now instantly block out this kind of bullshit. It won’t even really register in my brain at this point. I see someone writing about how it’s unfair it is that they can’t gather in a huge group because people are being dramatic and my brain automatically crosses them out of existence. It’s helpful because with a quick glance I can be like, “Ooh, your opinion is trash. Got it.” without attempting to reconcile what the person is saying. It saves a lot of time an energy. Seriously, you know that when I give up on you that people are genuinely sick of you and it’s your fault. Because I desperately attempt to understand other people’s perspectives to the extent that I’ll make nearly endless excuses on their behalf. Even if they’re straight up abusive my dumbass will be like, But they mean well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This year has broken my brain. Oh, and are croissants a pastry? If so, I choose those to have alone around my bonfire because I clearly need space. I've counted blessings while confessing I have some to spare. Beg or borrow, swallow sorrow, I have come prepared. ~TA |
"JAFBG" prompt: This is the most wonderful time of the year! Now, tell us why that's total bullshit."30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: There are many types of brownies:Fudgy, cakey, 'special', with or without nuts, etc... Tell us something about brownies. Is someone offering special brownies? I mean, I'll take some? I dunno if you all have ever gotten 'special' treats before, but the portion sizes are really funny. It'll be like a gummy bear and they'll be like, yeah, start with a tiny amount, like 5mg, which is half a gummy bear. So you're supposed to just bite its head off? It's hilarious because we're used to eating way larger portions of snacks. It's super easy to overdo edibles because one cookie will be like 8 servings. It takes a while to kick in too. Everyone I know who has taken edibles has eaten too much at least once. It's like a rite of passage. Anyway, this time of year is so far from wonderful. I got disillusioned to these holidays fairly quickly when I saw people acting nice for 3-5 weeks and then spending the next 3 months until spring acting like dicks to everyone. You shouldn't just be nice and pleasant around the holidays. You should always be a respectful, kind, and thoughtful person. Working in retail during the holidays was the nail in the coffin for any kind of holiday cheer for me. It's basically just a rat race of trying to prove that you give a fuck about people by buying them something. Even if you try to make it not about that, your hand gets forced through societal expectations. It's just, um, stupid. I still haven't mentioned my friend staying with us over my holiday break to Kira. I know I need to because he'll be here for almost 3 weeks, so it's kind of important. But I also know it's going to be a thing so I'm not too eager to deal with it. Especially because I've basically already made my mind up about it. Like, we can discuss it, but I'm also not going to compromise. I've hardly taken any days off from work all year. I even worked while recovering from surgery. So I want to spend my time off however I want to spend it. It's one of those things where you know everything someone's going to say before they say it, so you don't even want to listen. I also decided that I'm going to go deliver my nieces' and nephew's gifts to them. I'm not going to go inside or stay for a visit or anything, but I need to get out of the house anyway and driving for a few hours will help me get a change of scenery. Plus, I want them to at least see me so they'll remember that I still exist. I'll do that probably the weekend before Christmas because I'll already be on my holiday break by that point. I could just mail the gifts to them, but it's not like it's dangerous to be in my car with people I live with or anything. Oh, I almost forgot! I'm planning on doing "52 in 52" in 2021. I've barely been writing, but I've been reading a lot all year. I like the idea of doing a themed reading challenge. I've been gathering 3 book ideas for each category. Once the week rolls around, I'll read a sample of each book from my library before picking whichever one I'm going to read for that week's theme.Week 1 is A book with the first letter of the title being "A". The three books I'm debating between are: Allegedly by Tiffany D. JacksonA Separate Peace by John KnowlesAnd Then There Were None by Agatha ChristieThe challenge should be pretty easy because it allows you to just blog about the book you read that week. Easy enough to slip into an entry once a week. A lot of times I don't do reading challenges because they require product reviews and I hate trying to give star ratings to books. I mean, if I finished a book, I at least mostly liked it. I'm not the type who struggles through a book if I'm not enjoying it. You have, like, 50 pages to grab my attention and hold it. If I get that far into a book and I'm not enjoying it, I just assume it's not for me and toss it into the "did not finish" pile. I made a Goodreads account to try to track what I read in 2021. I thought I had an account before, but couldn't seem to find it.  Anyway, if you're doing the challenge too and want to be friends over there (or if you just read a lot), feel free to add me:https://www.goodreads.com/charlieabney And I’m just a risk A colossal near miss Prone to resist what is best for me ~TA |
"JAFBG" prompt: How is covid changing your holiday plans and how do you feel about that?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Write a letter to one of your favorite characters. Which book and who's the author?I’m feeling a little bit better today. I’m cautiously optimistic. Which is a dangerous thing, by the way. Having any kind of hope can be a really bad thing when you're, um, me. But either way, covid holiday plans... So, typically I travel a couple hours to my family's state. I usually shop online for gifts for the kids. I like to get them cool, unique things that you can't pick up at a big box store. Then we drive out and spend a day at my oldest brother's house or at my parents' house. In case it isn't obvious from my previous entries, I'm tense around my family. My dad and I haven't spoken since March, so that's like, 9 months now? I've not talked to my oldest brother in almost a year. We'd probably honestly never talk if it weren't for holiday and birthday celebrations. I go to those for my nieces and nephew who only know that Uncle Charlie is cool and brings expensive gifts. That being said, I still care about my family. My family still cares about me. There's just so much pain in our history that I simply can't move forward from. When I hug my dad, I just feel this aching, gaping hole inside of me. Sometimes when I leave, my dad and I hug and we both start crying because I don't want to let go and he doesn't want to let go either. But we can't have a relationship because there's too much hurt. I know I've said it before in my blog, but I usually cry the entire way home from seeing my family. Like, that's normal for me and Kira is used to it. But that won't be happening this year because my family isn't celebrating the holidays together due to the virus. I'm sure Kira is relieved. Part of me is also relieved. It's a triggering situation for me, although I do miss the kids. I talked to my oldest friend today though. We've been best friends since I was like 17, and I've written about him here many times. Also he has a WDC account that he won't tell me the name of so I know he reads my blog once in a blue moon. So, hey, Jordan, on the off chance you read this. Ha, now I just made myself uncomfortable about writing with the idea that someone I know could potentially read it. Um, okay, so yeah. He got out of rehab a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how many times he's been now, but it's definitely a lot more than me. But I'm super proud of him because he has been clean now since the beginning of October. It's a really long time for him, and really anyone who has an addiction. When we met, we were both full-blown addicts and our friendship kind of was built around that. We kept dragging each other back down into it. I remember a time where he was in rehab for quite a while and came out clean and just looked and seemed so much healthier. But I was still in the throes of it and I was like I can't believe this asshole is leaving me alone in addiction like this. So he started using again with me at that point. Then when my university classes started getting difficult, I was like okay, I'm going to have to give one of them up- either my addiction or my education. And with that ultimatum in front of me, I was finally able to get clean. I love Jordan, but he took this as a personal affront to him. Similar to how I'd behaved years earlier. Perhaps because of how I'd behaved years earlier. Either way, our friendship since then has been kind of rocky. Like he’ll call me a sellout and then I’ll relapse. My last relapse was in June when Jordan was staying with me during the BLM protests. Kira and Logan (especially Logan) put a stop to that very quickly. The reason I mention this is that I talked to Jordan today and he mentioned to me that he has just been sitting around since he got back home. Even though he has basically been quarantined since then, his family isn’t doing anything for the holidays either. He spent thanksgiving by himself at home. So I had the thought that because he’s quarantined and I’ve also been pretty much quarantined for weeks, we could spend my holiday work break together. I have a vacation from my birthday (17th of this month) through the 5th of January, minus a couple days I need to work near the end of December. As long as we both stay quarantined until the 17th, there’s really no reason he can’t come stay with me. So I invited him to do that and he was really excited. No one wants to spend the holidays totally alone. The only issue is that I didn’t pass this by Kira first and I’m not really sure how she’s going to handle that. She might be okay with it, or she might tell me it’s a bad idea. It could really go either way. She knows he’s super important to me, but because our history is so rocky, I’m just not sure. I’m kind of worried that she’s going to tell me to pass it by Logan first knowing that Logan is going to say no immediately. At the end of the day, it’s kind of my apartment so I feel like if I want a guest I should be able to do that. But also, they’re my support system so I try not to alienate them. Hopefully it goes fine because spending the holiday with him would make me feel better. As far as a letter to my favorite book character, well, my favorite book character is problem Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. A lot of people find him to be annoying, but he’s my spirit animal. I read that book at just the right moment in my teenage angst. Honestly, I think it’s the popular reaction at this point to write the character off as melodramatic and whiny. But let’s look at the character for a minute. Spoiler alert, I guess, in case you haven’t read this book from 1951 and you’re planning to. So, first of all. We have a 16-year-old kid. People who call this character immature make me laugh because... yes, he’s a child, so...? So we have a kid who has depression and post traumatic stress disorder from the death of his brother. The book’s author also had PTSD and understood the disorder well. And this kid is dealing with PTSD by being cynically detached from everything around him because he’s terrified of loving and losing again. He spends the entire book attempting to hold onto and protect an idea of innocence, especially the innocence of his little sister and women in general. He’s wildly switching between an adolescent and adult mind frame, as you do at that age, and he’s looking for the innocence in others that he doesn’t see in adults and that he has lost himself. Plus, he’s in a mental institution the whole time. So like, can people give this kid a break? There’s a ton of things left unsaid in this book, and that’s blatantly stated at the end. I can’t write a letter to Holden Caulfield because Holden Caulfield is J.D. Salinger. So, to Salinger: I see you taking your personal trauma and building into a coming-of-age story. I see the fight to remain innocent and protect innocence for as long as you can. I understand that there is no individual person who can save everyone, even when we want to protect others from going through difficult times. I see the alienation you felt and tried to build into this character. And I’m sorry that people expect a 16 year old who’s in a mental hospital dealing with trauma to be more emotionally developed. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say 'Holden Caulfield' on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say 'Fuck you.' I'm positive, in fact. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye |
"JAFBG" prompt: Do you think the holiday cheer is genuine or do you think most people are just acting fake around this time of year?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Marooned Without a Compass Day! So where are you and what are you going to do?Excuse me, hi, yes, how the fuck are you guys even functioning? I know people who are in the full swing of holiday cheer. Literally how. On any given year, I figure it’s half fake cheer and half real cheer because of all the paid holidays and vacation time getting used up at the end of the year. Makes sense. But this year? I’m gonna need more than a fucking compass because I’m beyond lost. I’ll cop to the fact that I have mental health issues, but what we’re dealing with right now isn’t conducive for anything positive. I know so.many.sick.people. My coworkers, my friends, family members. And before it was like, “Well, we threw a super spreader event, whoopsie!” Now they’re like, “I don’t get it. The only place I’ve been is the grocery store and the vet clinic!” How are people even coping with this? I feel like I’m being gaslighted. Everyone’s like, “Yeah, it sucks, but you gotta stay positive!” Stay positive how exactly? To me, that’s what you say when you get lost on a road trip in the middle of the night and then you get a flat tire. Like, yeah, that really sucks, but everyone’s okay and your road trip won’t be ruined as long as you chill and stay positive. This isn’t one of those situations, in my opinion. “Just make sugar cookies and decorate!” And I get it. People are holding onto things that feel normal. It makes sense. But it also makes me feel like I’m going totally insane. Like, serious uncanny valley vibes when people are like, “Did you hang a wreath up yet?  ”Like, I don’t get how your hospitals running out of capacity and ~3000 people dying a day (all before we even see the effects of Thanksgiving travel) is a “stay positive” situation. Yes, we have a vaccine in the pipeline, and that’s awesome, but we’re still going to have to get through this winter and it’s fucking bleak. My mental health is hanging together by wisps of smoke. I get that there’s nothing we can do about it aside from wearing masks and social distancing, but I have such a difficult time with throwing my hands up and saying, “Oh well, a bunch of people are dying, but they’re mostly old or have underlying conditions anyway.” Or even just, “It’s out of my control so whatever, it is what it is.” It’s just not my personality type. I don’t haven’t stomach or the heart for it. Let’s just go through the past two days so we can examine how precariously threaded together I am right now. So starting with 7am Friday morning... I was drinking some orange juice before work and Kira shows me this picture of iPad stations being set up in a hospital for virtual end of life video calls between dying patients and their loved ones. And I instantly burst into tears. She was like, "Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't know you would get that upset!"But it’s so fucking sad?!?!! I just immediately pictured all the family members having to watch their loved one die through a small screen like that. Not even just patients with covid, but all the other patients too who are dying of other things and have to die alone. I don’t want anyone to have to go out like that. It’s just grim and incredibly depressing. So I pulled myself together and worked for 11 hours. It was another very stressful day because we have so much to do and our team is so lean to begin with that when you start throwing in widespread illness, it becomes quickly impossible to get things done. At 3 o’clock, I got a “business continuity” meeting thrown on my schedule for 5pm (on a Friday, which is unheard of). The meeting basically consisted of higher ups telling us that we still need to get everything done even though we’re short staffed, but they didn’t really provide the how part of that. By the time I quit for the day, every muscle in my body was aching from the constant tension I was holding. That tension and anxiety quickly built into a full-blown panic attack. I was just saying, “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t” over and over. Kira and Lauren were trying to calm me down. Kira told me to just lay down, so I was just lying on the ground kind of writhing with totally unfiltered panic saying, “I can’t.” Kira filled the bathtub with hot water and I just got into it with all my clothes on- which, let’s just pause here. If you ever find yourself fully clothed and immersed in a bath/shower, you are not okay. That’s like the biggest red flag in mental breakdowns.But either way, I found my way into bed (in dry clothes too!) and they made me soup so I spent the rest of the night watching shitty movies and sleeping on and off. All good. Then today I woke up and I was like okay, I’m gonna be ‘positive’ today, which is the epitome of what humans are supposed to be, apparently. I think I was doing a decent job. Until Kira and Lauren were watching some crime show about domestic violence while I was drawing. They started having a conversation about why women stay with abusive men. Lauren was talking about how her mom used to stay at work late all the time because she didn’t want to go home and be around Lauren’s dad because he was an asshole and they’d argue a lot. I wanted to join the conversation and tell her about one of the times I vividly remember my parents fighting in their bedroom with their door closed when I was like 7 or 8 years old and I heard my mom screaming so I ran into their bedroom. My dad was on top of her and had her pinned down and she was screaming my name for me to help her so I started pulling on the back of his shirt, which was entirely futile. And I can type that now perfectly fine. It doesn’t upset me or make me sad at all. I feel nothing about it. But when I tried to relay this story to her, I got this far into it: “Yeah, I know it’s rough when your parents fight all the time. I remember one time my parents were fighting in their bedroom with the door closed and my mom started screaming for-“ aaaaand I burst into tears. Again. And again, not like just teared up, but started sobbing. Kira was instantly like, “Okay, no more of that conversation. We don’t need to talk about this.” She started apologizing for upsetting me and said they’d turn the show off. I got myself under control super quickly. Like within 30 seconds. But it was so frustrating because I was trying to tell her that I wasn’t upset. And she was like, “You’re clearly visibly upset.” But I wasn’t though. Like I don’t know what happened. I thought I could verbalize it as easily as I can write it down. I didn’t realize I was going to get emotional or I wouldn’t have said anything. But I don’t want every conversation to end when I get emotional. We were talking about a triggering subject and maybe we shouldn’t have been doing that, but for me a conversation isn’t over when I get emotional. That’s just kind of standard for me. I felt like such a fucking tool because they both felt guilty that I got upset, even though I really wasn’t upset. I just want to be like a normal person who can have a conversation about slightly difficult topics without crying. It’s so awkward and it’s fucking weird to get emotional that easily, especially as a guy. I felt like such an idiot, I just went to the bedroom and spent some time listening to music and reading. People walk on eggshells around me like every single conversation or storyline in a TV show could set me off out of the middle of nowhere. I don’t want it to be like that. I want people to be comfortable having vulnerable, real conversations with me. So, I dunno. How’s that for being lost with no holiday cheer? Sometimes the slightest thing will split my head in half A crooked picture frame, or the volume of a laugh I can’t deny, it’s disheartening ~TA |
"JAFBG" prompt: What do you absolutely NOT want for the holidays this year?"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" prompt: Waiting for the Barbarians Day! Ok, tell us what you're up to and how you are preparing.Man, everything has me feeling some kind of way lately. I have actual covid fatigue at this point. I don't even follow the news about it, but of course I hear about it from everyone I talk to. Because it's so rampant in the States, I know several people who have lost family members. I have friends in the hospital. I have coworkers who are sick or in the hospital. One of my direct reports was just out with it for 3 weeks telling me how horrible they felt every day. We're breaking records daily with our death counts and hospitalizations. It's only going to get worse. I feel so bad for people all day long, but I'm really at my own breaking point with things. It's like, I'm supposed to focus on the analyzing the numbers, then I go to reach out to someone to figure out what's going on with their team and it turns out half of them are sick. I don't even know how to work at this point. Luckily, I've saved most of my paid time off this year, minus the days I used for surgery. I only have one more full week of work this month. After that I'll work 4 days and then have like 10 days off in a row, which I think I need(?) I say think because maybe my job is stabilizing me enough to keep me afloat right now. It's hard to say. So, my break will either be a very good thing or a very bad thing. We'll see. None of us want covid for the holidays, but I'm at the point where I don't even want to hear it mentioned. Like, I get actually tired when talking about the virus. I'm about to fall asleep right now. I was talking to one of my coworkers about it because we were trying to figure out how to get this deliverable met from a team when they're missing half their members. Morale is so low. During this conversation, I felt myself really nodding out. Sometimes I just fall asleep during stressful situations. For the holidays, or for any day, I don't want to be that person who's harassing people to get their work done when there's a global pandemic and people are sick/losing family members. It's not a good look for anyone. I had a coworker actually say, "He gets sensitive about stuff like this" in reference to me advising that we not give a 48-hour deadline to someone who returned to work this week after recovering from the virus. I'm not sensitive. It's just common sense that putting a strict deadline on someone who's probably still recovering and not even caught up with their emails yet is kind of cruel in my opinion. As far as the barbarians go, they can come get me. No preparation needed. Maybe they've figured out a way to live totally off the grid somewhere that doesn't have a horrible virus outbreak. I guess worst case scenario, they can bludgeon me instantly and I won't have to think about it anymore.  Actually, I probably wouldn't even notice barbarians if they snuck up on me. I almost always have headphones on, just doodling away on my tablet. In la-la land, as they say. Barbarians could probably sneak up on me, toss me in the trunk of a car, bring me to a remote cabin, and I'd still just sit there stress drawing while listening to music. That's a thing by the way. Forget stress eating. Stress drawing is totally hot right now. |
"JAFBG" Prompt: Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week.Well, I'm completely fucking infuriated today so let's rant. My doctor wants me to try yet another medication. I'm like a fucking guinea pig with medication. I feel like they show throw everything but the kitchen sink at it and are like, "I dunno why you feel like shit all the time?" Maybe because my brain chemicals are being constantly manipulated and every pill you take comes with a slew of side effects that are worse than what the pill was supposed to fix in the first place. I can't even tell if Kira wants me to take the new med or not. She's like, "Well, it's your life." I have no fucking clue what that means. It's your life so don't take a new med that's going to cause side effects OR it's your life and your mental illness is bad enough that you should try every med possible until you find something that works? Then she dropped this line on me: "There's always something wrong with you." Please do not ever, ever, ever, in your entire fucking life say this sentence to someone who has a chronic mental or physical illness if you care about them at all. Not only is it extremely dismissive of that person's issues, but it also makes them feel guilty as fuck. There's an implicit and on that sentence. There's always something wrong with you... and it's a complete burden. There's always something wrong with you... and it's annoying. There's always something wrong with you... and I don't believe your issues are legit. There's always something wrong with you... and it makes me not like you. As if it's not enough to be trapped inside your fucking head 24/7 or to have chronic pain issues. Now you're in the spotlight to explain yourself and your behavior. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to say. Yeah, there's always something wrong with me. That's kind of how chronic conditions work. If there wasn't something always wrong, my issues would be acute. I'm at the point where I'm done even trying to talk to people about my issues. Like, I don't talk to anyone in 'real life' about any of my issues. But they sometimes "confront" me about something. Like, "Why are you being so fidgety?" "Why are you sleeping so much?" "Why aren't you sleeping at all?" And it would be super fucking nice if I could be like, "Oh, I had a nightmare and I can't fall back asleep." without it being like, but there's always something wrong with you. Like, what fucking purpose does saying that even serve? Ah, gee, I'll try to stop having issues that are completely out of my control? People have always made me feel like such a fucking burden to them. My parents kicked me out when I was 16 because I was a burden on their relationship. My brothers kicked me up repeatedly when I tried to stay with them and told me to my face that I'm a huge burden. As an adult, everyone around me treats me like a burden. Like my issues are a fucking hassle for them. Which, honestly, I get. You try to keep someone balanced but you can't because they have #issues. I understand that it's frustrating. But there's a missing piece there where it's like, yes, dealing with someone who has those issues sucks. But can you imagine actually having those issues and having to wake up every single fucking day as, you know, yourself? I really think I'm at the point where I'm done trying to talk to people about anything going on with me. Even here, I write about something that's going on with me and I feel this vibe like I'm being overly negative or annoying. I know people care about me, but because there's nothing they can do to fix the situation, I feel this energy like I should stop talking. And the people who made me like this just go about their business like it's nothing. Like, I've had them vaguely acknowledge me, just to the extent of telling me, "Wow, I fucked you up pretty bad." But what good does that do me? Now I get to just be in my twenties and be fucked up forever? Awesome. I'm just entirely incompatible with life. "Sometimes we talk, it's a total mistake." ~TFB |
  "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition?Wow, we made it through another month. Somehow November was both incredibly slow and flew by. It was probably all the not sleeping that I did this month. I should have guessed this prompt was coming up. I somehow forget that this is the Day 30 prompt every month. Congrats to everyone for making it through. As always, I've enjoyed blogging with you all, reading your entries, commenting, and reading your comments on my own entries. Can't wait to do it again. There are a couple different parts to this prompt. First, my favorite prompt to write for and my favorite prompt to read entries on are usually two different prompts. I usually list like 5 different prompts when I write this entry, so I'm going to try to stick to just two this time: My favorite prompt to write for was Write about a “crucible moment” in your life. A challenging time that shaped you and altered your view on your life and/or the world. For which I wrote "Invalid Entry" First of all, a lot of us didn’t really know what a crucible moment was when we read that prompt. When I started blogging way back when I joined the site, I decided that I wanted to use my blog as a semi-anonymous journal. I wanted to show my authentic self and let people in on the journey I’m on. We all have journeys that we go through in life. I appreciate the feedback I get on mine and I take every comment into consideration. Over the years, I’ve made a lot of progress and any prompt that lets me do a bit of self reflection is ideal for me. With that prompt, I was able to talk about the things I’ve learned about holding anger. The reasons why I become so angry are more important than the emotion itself. The reasons behind feelings allow me to take more objective, analytical approach to things and make decisions based on that. My favorite prompt to read other entries for was Write about the biggest risk you ever took. What was the result? When I read this prompt, I knew there would be some interesting stories going around so I was looking forward to reading those entries. Similar to my favorite prompts to write for, I like to read entries for prompts that require the writer to dig a little deeper. I like to learn something new about the writer whenever possible. I know it takes all types of prompts and everyone has their preference. My least favorite types of prompts are ones that can be answered in one word or sentence. Double badness if it’s related to food. What’s your favorite pizza topping? What’s your favorite midnight snack? I just, frankly, couldn’t care less about whether someone prefers pepperoni or just cheese on their pizza. I’ll pretty much read and comment on any prompt for the most part, but some prompts definitely are more exciting to read entries on.As far as the most rewarding thing about the challenge, it’s the same every time I write in it. It’s rewarding to write something every day for a month. But the most rewarding part by far is interacting with other writers, making new friends, and getting to know old friends better. It’s a very community-centered blogging challenge. I say it every time, but it bears repeating— if you’re only writing your entry and not reading or commenting on anyone else’s, you’re missing out on half the challenge. It gets a lot more addictive, interesting, and fun when you’re interacting with the community and they’re interacting with you.  Stoic Thought of the Day: “Associate with people who are likely to improve you.” -Seneca |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: We need your help filling the Challenge War Chest! In your entry today, write three of your own prompts and then choose one of your own to complete your entry. Okay, let’s see. 1. Write about the movies and books that remind you of your childhood. 2. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? What about the worst? 3. If you had to choose between going to space or going to the depths of the oceans, which would you choose and why? Umm, I’ll go with #2 today. The best advice I’ve ever received was “be scared and do it anyway.” Coupled with, “Count to 3 and then just do it.” As someone with anxiety, I feel scared to do a lot of things. For example, it’s hard for me to say something aloud if it’s unfavorable. Like, if I need to fess up to something or ask someone a difficult question. But in life, you have to say things and do things even when you’re scared or uncomfortable. I’ve long since adopted this advice. If I’m upset with someone, but I’m scared to confront them even though I know communicating is the best thing for the relationship, I just acknowledge that I’m scared, form in my head what I need to say, count to 3, and then say it. Anyone who’s ever been in a serious relationship knows that those moments come up where you need to say something. It’s boiling just beneath the surface. Maybe it something you need from the other person, maybe you need to admit to something. Either way, you just need the other person to know. This advice helps me through those moments and so many more. Need to ask for a raise? Need to get on the plane you’re afraid to fly in? Need to take an exam? Need to make a doctor’s appointment for something you’ve been putting off? Be scared, then on the count of three, do it anyway. Now the worst advice I ever got is advice that I think a lot of people have gotten in life. When picking a college major or "what I want to do in life" I was regularly encouraged to choose something that I was already good at. I think this is such shitty advice. I don't have a natural aptitude for math, and I do finance and accounting which includes a boatload of statistics. If I had listened to my advisors, I wouldn't have my career and I never would have discovered those skills that I clearly have the ability to possess. Instead, I'd probably be ruining all my hobbies by struggling to make a career of them while still making rent. Instead I can still pursue my hobbies and have a day job. I really don't know why the question is, "What are you good at?" Instead of, "What do you want to be good at?" Have some confidence. Stoic Thought of the Day: "First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do." -Epictetus |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What’s on the top of your mind right now that you need to tell someone about? Thanks for the kitchen appliance gift advice on yesterday's entry. I have some research to do this weekend. Also, sorry for not making my rounds on everyone else's entries from yesterday. I'm about to explain on this entry why I've been slightly MIA (although probably not noticeably so).I ended up having a bad reaction to the medication I started earlier this month. I wasn't loving the side effects from the onset, but I was trying to push myself through them because I know that with any mental health medication, it takes several weeks for your body to adjust. Within 24 hours of my first dose, I noticed that I was super tired and feeling a bit depressed. Nothing unmanageable though. Within a few days, I started having noticeable drops in my blood pressure every time I stood up. If I stood up to quickly, the room would spin and my vision would go black at the edges. I casually mentioned it to my doc and he said, "Yeah, that's a known side effect. Just stand up slowly and drink plenty of water." So on I continued for a few days, feeling exhausted, a bit dissociated and depressed, and standing up in slow motion. I thought everything was going fairly well, and I was actually feeling pretty upbeat on Tuesday. Then late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning hit. My mood just spiraled wildly out of control. I felt extremely depressed, far more than in previous days. Despite being so tired all day, I was still barely sleeping at night, like just a couple hours every day. I don’t know how, but my good mood from the day plummeted to the point where I was almost getting suicidal. Kira kept trying to get me to go to the hospital to get checked out, but I was like there’s no way I’m going to the day before Thanksgiving. I knew I’d probably get put on a psych hold given my medical history and I have no interest in doing that. So she sat with me while I paced around doing my counting, losing my mind kind of thing until my doctor’s office opened. She called my doctor and told him what was going on. He was on speakerphone and asked to talk to me too. He asked what was going on and I said I was starting to feel better by that point. He asked if I thought I needed crisis care and I told him no, I need to start work. He just said not to take any more of them because he hasn’t realized they’d made me depressed in the first place. He gave me the whole spiel about how antidepressants affect your brain chemistry and everyone reacts differently to each med. He started talking about some other meds we can try, but he said we’ll want to wait a bit to allow my serotonin levels to balance out before we jumped into another medication that would alter levels of that neurotransmitter. I told him I’m really not interested in trying another one any time soon given the fact that I’ve tried a bunch of them and my body and brain seem to reject them every time. He told Kira to just keep an eye on things and gave her the crisis hotline number in case we needed it. I didn’t take the meds Wednesday night and felt so much better Thanksgiving day. I didn’t sleep well at all. In fact, I only slept 90 minutes and spent most of yesterday with my heart rate going crazy every time I tried to stand. I was probably dehydrated and exhausted. Not sure. But either way, mentally I felt so much better than the previous days. I didn’t feel depressed at all. We had a super chill day, just lying around watching movies and hanging out until they started cooking dinner. Mostly though, I feel bad for scaring Kira and putting her in a position where she didn’t know what to do. Lauren kept telling her they should call 911 and have them come force me to go to the hospital, but that’s an absolute last resort for Kira. She knows one of my biggest fears is having a confrontation with the police while having a mental breakdown. I feel like they’d just end up shooting me, and because I’ve seen videos of them doing exactly that to mentally ill people, it’s not an unfounded fear. But luckily she just hung with me through it, knowing that as long as I was just pacing around in one room I wasn’t really in immediate danger. But she did tell me that next time something like that happens I’ll have to go to the hospital whether I want to go or not. That kind of stuff makes me nervous because it’s like you can be fine one minute and in the hospital the next. So yeah, that’s what’s on my mind. Blame Em for asking. On the plus side, I’ve been off the meds for two days now and the cloud over me is staying lifted so far. I’m just feeling a little withdrawn still. Side effects are wild. Stoic Thought of the Day: Only time can heal what reason cannot. -Seneca |
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