A variety of things that have been on my mind lately, starting with the not-so-great.
Not really sure what's going to happen with my car. I was going to fix it with my tax return and sell it, but my tax return is MIA, so I have to find some other way to liquidate it before I can move. Not looking forward to trying to navigate government bureaucracy, but 1K makes an (almost literal) world of difference right now.
Been in a rough patch the past couple days that usually starts with me not getting enough sleep on work weekends, and then falling off a lot of my basic routines. Finally got a good night's rest though, and I feel like bouncing back from these is where antidepressants have helped me the most.
Learning a new area at work that's going to be more demanding than what I've been doing up until now, which is the cushiest job in the store. Nervous both because I feel like I have something to prove to my coworkers, and because the extra shifts I would be getting scheduled for from this cross-training will give me the extra hours I need to start putting money towards moving costs.
The great:
I've been remembering things lately! Not in the “living in the past” way that I'm weary of, but in a Justice way of reflecting on the past to understand where I'm going in the present. Probably one of the best things this has yielded is over the course of reflecting on an early and unhealthy part of my internet life, and a series of conversations with friends, I've realized I've actually come a really long way! I might even go as far as to say that in the area of online relationships, I'm kind of thriving right now. I also feel better equipped to avoid repeating the mistakes that have made it become an unhealthy thing for me in the past. Also, yes, I was just a kid! Going easy on teens extends to my past self too.
999 seriously broke my mind about time travel after I played it, but my brainrot (positive) seems to be paying dividends. Imagining a future for myself in a metropolitan setting has caused me to change how I move in my present one. 999 is such an important piece of media to me, and heavily informs my personal theories on the nature of time travel. that would be its own page though. queers can do it, naturally.
as an addendum, having some trouble striking the correct balance between being comfortable just being myself in public and doing a certain amount of autistic masking. particularly, it takes a small amount of conscious effort for me to not have kind of a scary resting expression and monotone. a little bit of a pain point with my very bubbly personality. been thinking a bit more about the relationship between sapphire and the person behind the keyboard typing this. I feel like I'm beginning to better understand the connective tissue that bridges us.
earlier in my life, the negative experiences i was having offline led to the negative experiences i had online, but at some point in being online, i underwent a positive transformation that i'm now ready to backport to my offline self. it's gonna be real good, i think. had a pretty interesting conversation with aloe this morning (i've yet to have any other kind) and something they said cracked a lot of this open for me. in particular, about doing things to try and impress people. my mind keeps running across this passage from brothers karamazov again and again. it was one of my first points of contact for the book:
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.
Also, depending on how the events of the book play out, I think Katerina Ivanova might be a contender for my fictional girlboss hall of fame. Absolutely on the to-do list for a website page, or at least something in my private wiki. Presently on book 2 chapter 10. A little behind the book club, but at this point, I'll be glad just to finish it for its own sake. Really can't emphasize enough the moderately brain-rewiring elements of this book. It can be like a fever dream sometimes but there's a real human drama to it. Gonna go try and read a little in bed, but the hydroxyzine's about put me under for the night.
Back to diary.