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Hello.

I’m in what I can only describe as coming down from a “manic” sort of headspace. I was unreasonably elevated. It happens nearly every spring and I have trouble bringing it down to an even keel. But it was more than usual because I did an opportunistic large data cleaning contract over my break. It’s a little bit of a bummer that I used it all up for that, but the money was insane and the project just fell in my lap unexpectedly at just the right time. I abused the crap out of caffeine to get it done. I spent whole days from rolling out of bed to crashing into it at the computer only getting up for the bathroom, more caffeine, and quick computer gremlin food. My body is wrecked.

I’m also, as the young folks say these days, “crashing out” from a social blunder I’ve made. I’ll get to that later, though.

I went for a couple hours long walk with some work friends at the end of my break. I was able to do it, but my calves are still sore. The rest of my body is all locked up from not exercising or stretching adequately. I started doing yoga again to loosen it back up. It’s heartening to see that the work I put into increasing my flexibility hasn’t faded too quickly, my range of motion is about where it was when I stopped a few weeks ago. It’s just that my stamina is much lower.

I did start on painting my t shirt. It’s going….well. I put the design on the back accidentally (oops!), so I’m doing a small pocket logo version on the front and putting the words on the sleeves instead. I have to go panel by panel and each panel takes 2 days because the color I picked on a black shirt takes 2 coats. So it’ll be done in like a week? And then I have to wait 72 hours from the last coat to wash it. Then I can finally wear it.

I—with strong intention this time—uninstalled Pinterest off my phone. I keep installing, uninstalling, installing, uninstalling. It's been a couple weeks, haven't reinstalled it. I need to get out of the apartment. I’m realizing if I can’t afford to go out, I could just get a second job, save the money up, and at least my time is being spent around new people doing new things. I technically can afford to go out occasionally, it’s just that that doesn’t mesh with my financial goals and desires.

I’m realizing that I need to be honest with myself. I’ve wanted to travel for my whole life, but I have this self-hating, self-defeating working class belief that it is wasteful or immoral to do so. Even if I do believe it to be immoral, I do benignly immoral things all of the time. For example, thinking the things I put in the recycling bin will actually be recycled instead of cutting down on using the products that create things that need to go in the recycling bin. Or justifying my consumer choices in general with the good old “well it’s really more of a systemic problem that corporations need to do better or not exist; there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism so my choices are immaterial” sort of thing. There is a whole world of people neutrally doing benignly immoral things and not even being aware of it, why am I holding myself to an impossible standard?

Anyway, I think I’m going to save as much as I can aside from putting some away for when I am elderly and try to travel, internationally if I can, even though I’m sure my passport will give even more people pause at this point. My intention isn’t to travel to places where I will have an economic advantage and live more lavishly than I can here, it’s to see different places and connect with people since it seems historically easier for me to do that out in the world rather than in my “home” cultural sphere.

I don’t have the skills to be a “digital nomad”, yet? But I’m being forced to come to a decision about moving on job-wise because of the types of cuts the current government is making to my sector. The federal funding for a training opportunity to become one of the actual professionals where I work was just cut because it had DEI language in its description. I was planning on enrolling next year. So what if I just change lanes and do something I am good at even though it will put me in a caffeinated rush then crash cycle? The work itself means significantly less to me in terms of finding meaning in my life, but it seems on the surface like it would afford me a sense of freedom I’ve been dreaming of for my whole life. Maybe the concept of travel is a way for me to run away from the past and from having to make decisions in the present about the future. If I keep running away, I never have to make decisions, right?

While I waffle, the train is still in motion. It never stops. The pausing sensation I get from closing my eyes is illusory.

Ok so the so-called “crashing out”. I finally reached out to that friend through email, and they’re happily married and kept bringing up their spouse in the emails. They said they’re up to meet up and catch up and I can’t tell if they’re just being polite and are uncomfortable with the energy I brought in the emails we’ve exchanged so far, or if they’re genuinely interested in catching up as friends. I have reset my brain to be ok with the knowledge that they are unavailable, but now I’m incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassed that I reached out and didn’t just say why so that they could say “I’m married” outright and save us both the time and me trying to wiggle my heart into believing I could still meet up as friends knowing that. I think I’m going to just back out because it feels inappropriate to go to brunch with them.

The disappointment and embarrassment is immense, crushing. I feel very exposed and cringe. I’ve been having some shakes and sweats from the anxiety I’ve whipped up about it because I bungled the shit out of responding quickly and gracefully to their initial response with something like “oh shit lol sorry I didn’t know you were married—thanks for responding but I’m gonna need to leave you alone, bye forever”. A lot of not being able to focus at work or on things in my private life because I’m spending so much energy fixating on feeling embarrassed.

I guess I’ve unintentionally triggered the ruminating circuits of my brain by trying to be more brave and forward with my feelings but still not fully committing to it. If I take the long view, none of this matters because I don’t care about what their spouse or anyone else we went to school thinks about me being forthright about my feelings and then politely backing away forever. It feels like a big deal because I made a mountain out of a mole hill a decade and change too late. But also, I wasn’t ready to reach out until now because of who I was in the past and the work I needed to do to get to this point. So. Euughhh.

I talked to a couple of close work friends about it and they said it was brave and at least now I know. I know I did it eventually, but was it brave to wait so long out of fear of how they’d react? Was it brave to let the friendship die because I couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance of being in a relationship with someone else while not understanding why I was having difficulty being around them all along?

I was also talking to my friend who is studying to become a therapist about it. They said that it sucks that it seems like me and this other person’s inner children are/were connected but missed the timing based on how they responded to my initial email. I dunno. I feel like I keep getting humbled and sobered by rash things I do and it’s going to lead to something more authentic and grounded if/when I do “find” a person. Hopefully I will have a greater sense of humility but also a better instinct to be straightforward from the get-go by then.

I really need to cancel the plans and own up to why I reached out ASAP, then not see them or contact them ever again but I’m stalling by writing this instead.

Basically, I’m playing early mid-life crisis bingo, and it seems reaching out to a formerly close high school friend to finally fafo was on my card.

I keep telling myself I can’t let getting into and being in a relationship with someone else to be my solution to my existential questions. But, I keep hyperfixating on people before really getting to know them and getting demolished by the nothing burger that results from not just being a person with them and keeping my mind in check. This was a little different because I did at one point, know them very well and vice versa. But, I created a whole different, non-reality version of present them before reaching out, because it’s been forever. I know I need to build up all the other categories of relationship instead, like close friendships, colleagues, hobby-based-group friendships, perhaps getting to know some local old folks. I dunno. I know I’m trying to meet needs that a partner can’t provide. I feel crazy, like I’m repeating the same mistake over and over and over again, and it’s what I’ve been talking about forever, and I haven’t figured out exactly how to not let my mind hijack itself.

I feel like people that grew up in more stable environments are highly-trained greyhound dogs on that track they run around to get the fake rabbit, following a clearly demarcated path. I’m some stray dog that wandered onto the track that didn’t realize I need to be chasing the fake rabbit because there are real rabbits around and I’m hungry. And also I have mange or something (but like, in a cute way, somehow). But also, I’m not actually in the race because I don’t have the background and the papers and the team behind me making sure I stay on track. But I made it onto the track by blundering around and that has to count for something??

I’m so torn between being glad I wasn’t raised in a religious setting because of how shame-based it can be and it making me (I am making a massive assumption) more open-minded, and being bitter that I was intentionally kept away from learning the social rules, expectations, guidelines, and general metaphysical blinders that seem to make other peoples’ lives make sense to them and to each other.

I feel like being the types of neurodivergent and messed up background I have going on have made my personal development more noticeably delayed and public? Like things that many people learn by being taught or having it explained to them by reasonably mentally healthy, regulated people I figured out much later through extensive trial and error and brain-breaking-levels-of-neurotic introspection. Maybe I would be like that no matter what because I always ask too many questions, but I feel like it wouldn’t have taken me so long to arrive at a spot where I can support myself and be “productive” in the way that neurotypical folks from nicer backgrounds can. I think the regret about believing I missed my chance with this person is coloring my beliefs about myself right now. If I take a step back, I like who I have become and I like being me. I don’t need someone else to cosign on that. I don’t know if/when I would arrive at that (even this softly formed version) if I hadn’t had the adverse experiences and lack of any sense of guidance growing up.

Is that an American thing? I feel like the general Puritanical/Born Again culture here really breeds this sort of, I dunno how else to put it, maybe pride in shame and suffering? Or like, being molded into a “redeemed” and/or “worthy” person through shame and suffering? From what I’ve seen/heard from many different denominations of Christian here as well as from my dad, who was training to be a Catholic priest and then went fuck that, “I love women too much” (I don’t know why he tells it that way), that seems to be a main theme in Christian thought anyway. Suffering is an opportunity to get good. I hate that I’ve come to agree with that to an extent, but my reasoning comes from a different place. Wait please let me explain--

The way I see it, suffering is a subjective experience that living things are and will always be subjected to. There is nothing a living thing can do to completely avoid experiencing suffering during their lifetime. Since it is a non-negotiable, I think it is possible and important to study one’s relationship to it then. To be clear!--not the suffering itself, but one’s relationship to it. If you will be subjected to it anyway, what can you gain from it? What can it teach you about yourself, about the world, about living, about why it is happening? Is there something you can change, especially about how you feel about it or experience it? Is it a universal suffering experience, so it is something that can bring you closer to others through relating about it? Is it self-made?

I guess, I also don’t seek to answer why we suffer generally anymore, I just accept it and seek to deal with it. We suffer because we exist? I don’t know. It just is. I don’t think people are wrong to seek an ecclesiastical answer to that question, but I do think it can end up leading to some odd justifications for cruelty and discrimination.

I also don’t believe in wallowing in suffering as a moral/philosophical pursuit, at least in most ways, even though I actively participate in wallowing and ruminating. I am a hypocrite that way, and I am trying to adjust things in my life to more closely align with not wallowing and not ruminating. I don’t know if this is a fundamental misunderstanding I have about Christianity, or if I am generalizing practices that are only in particular groups to a broader group. But. It feels like there is a sort of enjoyment in one’s own and others’ suffering in American Christianity, and depictions of Christianity I’ve seen internationally as well. Like collectively. Like groups within Christiandom are getting off on suffering, maybe because it makes a person more like Jesus?? Like I get it that BDSM is a thing, but it feels like the fixation on suffering colors everything. Also there are a lot of more conservative American Christians that are secretly into BDSM. Plus, have you ever seen the self-torture devices monks and priests “used to” use on themselves?? I am familiar with self-torture methods yogis and monks of other faiths have practiced in the distant past as well, but I am not well-versed enough on present-day practices to have a meaningful opinion in that regard.

Anyway, I’ve decided that the relationship I have to most forms of suffering can become non-negative, or neutral. I haven’t developed a positive relationship with it in the present ever, but reflecting on my relationship to past suffering can become positive because it can teach me lessons. I think I have to be wary of applying that to other people or expecting them to apply it to themselves. That’s where the empathy starts to slip away, maybe? If I’m not careful.

Life just gets weirder and weirder with each rotation. I think a person has to fight for it to be a good kind of weird. At least I’ve found that to be true for me, anyway. I hope you’re doing well. Don’t be impulsive like me. Or do? Maybe you have better strategies around damage control afterwards. Or whatever you’re doing is at the right place and the right time. I dunno, just make sure to make it count! Seeya later.