journaling

(a blend of a personal journal and short stories. fictitious. mostly.)

[thisisafiction]

me trying to not be pissed off that the one day I actually planned something with my sister she forgot and let Mom take her car. so now I'm hungry AND waiting for the bus AND still have a wait ahead of me before I can actually get home and eat. and I know that I will not wanna go anywhere when I actually get home which will disappoint my sisters even tho I'm the one who actually left work early to make time for this thing we've been talking about for the past few days!! like then we'll just be out at my regular after-work hours!!! which was the very thing I wanted to avoid!!!!

[thisisafiction]

I have a project with a deadline early next week that I could have been prepping for and instead I have allergies from the pollen outside. I'm angry. I could have gotten ahead on this project and left early another day on my own time instead of being disappointed that I'm not getting the time out I wanted. and if we leave now Mom will be disappointed and shit and like. ugh. I don't want to deal with that too

[thisisafiction]

me trying to not be pissed off that the one day I actually planned something with my sister she forgot and let Mom take her car. so now I'm hungry AND waiting for the bus AND still have a wait ahead of me before I can actually get home and eat. and I know that I will not wanna go anywhere when I actually get home which will disappoint my sisters even tho I'm the one who actually left work early to make time for this thing we've been talking about for the past few days!! like then we'll just be out at my regular after-work hours!!! which was the very thing I wanted to avoid!!!!

[thisisafiction]

perhaps I don't fucking want to get better. maybe I don't want to stop being the contrary little girl who digs her heels in when people tell her what to do and how to do it. I think this is a problem and honestly my last therapy session had me thinking that maybe the reason I struggle so much is because I don't want to face that little girl and like. then why do I keep trying to make myself?

[thisisafiction]

surprise surprise the one fucking thing I was looking forward to this whole summer is no longer happening

[thisisafiction]

how do people make themselves do things they don't want to? how do they not simply give up? I don't want to work. I don't want to do anything

[thisisafiction]

i wish I was normal. I wish my emotions weren't so big. I'm thirty years old and I've never learned to be anything but the little lonely girl inside of me and I don't think I'll ever learn to let her go. I don't know how to not be lonely

[thisisafiction]

What is it like to not want to kill yourself?

2024-04-22. i imagine it makes weathering criticism much easier

[thisisafiction]

what is it like to not want to kill yourself?

2024-04-09. i do not recommend googling this question

[thisisafiction]

hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. but at least there is tea

[thisisafiction]

me trying not to be angry about delays when I specifically state that I'm trying to get somewhere by a certain time. I know it's unfair of me but I hate this and I hate when I have to wait on someone else and now have an 20 min additional delay bc it's the weekend and the trains are not running regularly. why do I bother trying to be on time for things and why do I act like it's someone else's fault when I know it's really my own fault?? it's a burden to ask someone to take me somewhere and I can't even be grateful bc of my fucking neurosis

[thisisafiction]

death and death and death and death. not a wish, just where my mind has been today. i am so tired.

[thisisafiction]

if you are unable to help yourself, what then? if u don't know what u need, what then? I wish I knew how to let other ppl help me

[thisisafiction]

i know i need a perspective shift

had a call 2day with someone (Z) who very kindly but also firmly challenged me on some beliefs re my career and life and im. not optimistic, exactly, but there's a different weight to my brain right now. like, why? why not allow myself to grow slowly? why not try? why am i always constructing this narrative that makes me, like, not the villain (that would be too much of a main character role), but the incompetent evil henchman of my life?

i feel like i've heard different ppl tell me different variations of 'you need to make a commitment' or 'i know you can do it' or 'you need to focus on your goals' or whatever and none of it has ever really done anything beyond making me feel badly of myself, even when i know the speaker is trying to be encouraging. or, conversely, ppl give me more grace than i know how to handle, which ALSO makes me feel badly about myself. 'you're doing your best' or 'you've done what you can' or '[other person] is being too harsh'.

but Z was just like. look. ur choices don't exist in a bubble. why did u make X choice? why did you make Y choice? no judgment here, but tell me how X choice and Y choice made sense to you at the time. WHY did it make sense to you at the time? does it still make sense to you now?

like. it wasn't about commitment or discipline or goals or doing your best or whatever. like it IS about all of those things, but it wasn't presented like that right at the moment. right at the moment it was: is this the same choice you would make right now? how does this choice impact the life you are living right now? is that the life you want to be living next week? tomorrow? in an hour?

idk. idk. but even though it was heavy and emotional and like. vulnerable, i also. didn't feel badly about myself after. or at least, that wasn't as loud as it usually is. bc it was like. i could see how some of these choices didn't make sense. i could see that. but by talking about how i got there, how i made that choice, the sting was taken out before i could even get to beating-myself-up about it. so it was easier to say that i don't agree with the choice anymore. it was easier to say that i wanted to make a different choice. its easier to say i want to choose something different.

this is probably the easy part. but it just felt like for the first time i had someone who 1) wanted to listen, even to the bits that are contradictory and embarrassing and ugly, 2) would not be disappointed in me for the choices i have or will make, and 3) was genuinely invested in seeing me make new choices. even if just for the next hour.

[thisisafiction]

"you have to save yourself" too bad. I don't fucking wanna. give me a reason since I can't even care about the consequences of not doing so

[thisisafiction]

annoyed. annoyed. annoyed. It's an act of love to remember scheduled call and timezone differences or at least it is to me. I hate knowing I'm squeezed into the space between other people, where time can be found without regard to my time, and not intentionally slotted there. bleh.

[thisisafiction]

how to make soup

plop a bulb of garlic a handful of strong herbs into a pot of salted water that will take so long to boil you'll be halfway through the flickering disaster reel of your current existence before you remember to check the stove and add in carrots - haphazardly chopped in the moments after you saw the water boiled itself thinner - and the halved baby potatoes and the wilting celery and a cube - a second - of chicken roux and belatedly recall the package of noodles dump those, too, and realize twelve unsalvageable minutes later that you've fucked the timing entirely, the herbs boiled to bitterness the potatoes half-raw, the carrots nearly soft enough to pretend you've cooked them the way your mother always did, even with the warring broth and inedible potatoes and offensive celery. did you always put celery in the no-chicken soup? you type, because the memory is fuzzy now, your childhood disinterest in your mother 's cooking directions as offensive as the inclusion of celery, which you no longer believe in, which no one is now able to correct, your sent text a landline hanging abrupt and unconnected.

[thisisafiction]

i am sabotaging myself and i know it and i do not care to stop. especially as it comes to work, I feel badly and dread the fallout and know I should just sit and Get Things Done, Even If They're Not Great but I don't feel like i have the capacity or energy to do so. I resent my career choice regularly, I resent that I am working multiple jobs (who isn't, at this point), and I resent that I will continue to be entangled in my career going forwards.

I want to quit but I have no idea what I would do in its place. I have my business but it's not doing well (thus, multiple jobs). I have lost my ability to say no, which was once something my friends praised me for (the idea that I was clear and firm, two things I no longer am).

sinking requires either fighting upwards or letting gravity take hold. i have been letting gravity take hold. but i have still been holding my breath.