November 28, 2022

I've been inexplicably irritable over the past few days and I'm not sure why. I just feel bothered by small things, I overreact, and then after a while I cool down and feel a little embarrassed and want to hide. I think that other people can be completely careless and thoughtless in going about simple day-to-day tasks. I'm very much married to my way of doing things! I tend to put a lot of thought, care, research, trial and error into figuring out what is the "right" way of doing things (like household chores, for example). Because I put so much thought into it, I feel pretty confident in believing that my way is at least good if not optimal. Not all people seem to work this way. Half-assing tasks or just doing things in a way that makes absolutely no sense to anyone who would take one minute to think about it. When I was younger I really struggled with putting my (probably excessively high) expectations and standards onto other people in a condescending and belittling way. That's been something I worked hard over the years to stop doing so much, because I know it sucks to treat people like that. This past week or so has been a challenge on that front.

I finished nearly all of my Christmas shopping already. Didn't have too much room in the budget for all the gifts for family this year and now trying to come up with easy enough crochet or baked gifts I can include. Those have always been well-received in the past. My family has the expectation of giving/receiving gifts from everyone in the family (so parents, siblings, siblings spouses, their children) and it keeps adding up. My siblings keep having more kids and it's more and more money each year. Oh, and we did put the Christmas tree and some other decorations up after Thanksgiving. I want to put the rest up, but just haven't really been feeling it in the way I feel I should feel it? I should just do it.

Also I finished the final season of Dead to Me and found it kind of disappointing. It felt corny and the writing was just... not that great. I really loved that show before, so I was disappointed. I got the $1.99/mo black Friday deal for HBO Max so now I can finally watch all the stuff on there that I haven't been able to see before. I've been trying to be more careful with the spending on streaming services because it's honestly pretty excessive. I cycle through them whenever one has new stuff I want to watch and it's been working really well. I thought I'd miss having them all at the same time, but I just don't really think about it in actuality. Also looking forward to my annual routine of watching as many bad Hallmark Christmas movies as possible this year ^^

November 21, 2022

Over the past few months I keep finding myself in a repetitious cycle about finances. I'll have a panic about the future, "how do people afford to live anyway?", "how could we ever retire?", and so on... after that panic I'll go a while trying to come up with a variety of simply not worth the time ways to save or earn a little more money. Then I get burned out doing that and try to bury my head in the sand, treat myself a little bit and then later feel guilty about that and start over again. Is this just the way it is for most people? I lack nothing that's truly essential and I'm grateful for that, but I really wonder how people who make the same amount or less afford what they do. Maybe they're all in debt that I don't know about.

Also, I saw John Singer Sargent's "The lady with the umbrella" for the first time today (online, sadly not in person). I've been a fan of his portraits and even have a print of one hanging in my home (Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon), but had never really looked into his watercolors. They're actually really nice on the whole, but this one in particular just draws me in for some reason.

I'm kind of dreading going into work tomorrow. There have been some issues with my pay and other annoying stuff that I'd just rather ignore. I doubt there's been any progress on fixing the pay issue, but I'm really hoping to not have to keep pushing on it. Where I work is always, always, always in a perpetual state of chaos and unnecessary changes that come down from up on high with no input from anyone who actually does the work. Constant turnover, low pay, neverending bullshit. I can't work much due to health issues, and they've supposedly been "working on" a way for me to work from home sometimes so that I can work more often, but there's been no progress on that either. Sometimes I don't know why I keep working here.

November 15, 2022

I'm planning on making a more dedicated diary page at some point, but for now I'm choosing to write here. It feels so freeing to have a space like this outside of the social media zeitgeist. I haven't posted any of my own content online in years. I just reblog, retweet, whatever because I'm not sure I have something of value to share and it just feels like there's always people looking for a reason to attack so I find it better to just keep it to myself. I'm a very isolated person now, though I wasn't always like this. Not lonely by any means, just separate from a lot of the extra bits and pieces that one might consider essential to the "human experience" of community. I mostly became this way for several reasons, imo: ideological differences with mainstream culture (aka being a weird and socially awkward person), years of anxiety and depression, chronic illness too I guess but I honestly believe the reason is just me, my personality, and the way I think. I don't feel this way because I think I'm better than others, to be clear. It's actually the opposite I suppose. Though I'm not sure I really see it that way either. I don't think I'm worse than most people, I think I've just always felt on the outside for better or for worse. Maybe it could be summed up as me just being a sensitive person, I'm not sure.

It feels like my 20s have been a time for me to hide more than anything. Personal growth, maturity, yeah, of course. But as for a firm sense of self, I'm not really sure. In my teens I had a genuine and defined style, was outspoken, passionate about my interests. In my 20s I think I've found it easier to just sneak by as invisibly as possible. I don't want to be that way, but in a way, it feels like culturally it's what's expected. You grow up, get a job, talk about your kids, talk about the show everyone else is watching, go on your family vacation once a year, numb yourself and follow the conveyor belt for the rest of your life. Part of this is probably also coming from the fact that I don't have kids and don't really know anyone irl who doesn't have kids at my age or older. So that alone puts you on the outside of society.

I guess I'm feeling like I've just been running afraid of myself for years now and I want to stop. Somehow I've been running while carrying the corpses of everything I've tried to be. All the times I've tried to reinvent myself or become "better", more likeable. I don't know what I've been so afraid of, truthfully. Am I afraid that people will think I'm weird if I'm unashamed of myself? They probably already think that anyway, or more likely, they don't think of me at all. Why should I care anyway? If someone will find me odd then I'd be saving myself the discomfort of trying to interact with them if I'm just upfront about who I am in the first place. I want to be liked, I want to be left alone. I want to be free, I want to be invisible. It's hard to even know what I really want from here in the fog of a lifetime of shame, but I want to try to figure it out.

Step 1 of figuring it out: stop hiding, at least sometimes.