short, informal thoughts not fitting for a full blog post. so far, i mostly touch on mental health stuff.

i've been feeling tired as usual. what's new? and it sucks because sometimes i'll be too tired to even watch tv or do things i really want to do like read fiction, read blog posts, or otherwise browse indie sites.

i've also become overwhelmed, following so many webmasters that i don't know where to look, and i feel bad about it. i want to be more familiar with all of you, but my energy is finite.

if you, dear reader, would like to, please feel free to reach out to me at any point in time(!) via my guestbook or site profile (if it's not currently deactivated) and ask me to take a look at your site. Even better if you have a webpage you're particularly proud of or want eyes on. I'll do my best to take a look at it.

2025-03-01: last time i did my nails, i started watching trigun (1998), which was on my 'to watch' list. i associate doing my nails with watching trigun now, but it may fade with time if it were only a one-time deal. i decided i wanted to keep on and maybe make it a tradition/ritual, so i turned it on while i did my nails this time.

i'm really not much for light-hearted, comedic animes that are also episodic in nature. i'd prefer if there was more of an overarching plot. it ever so slightly reminds me of fullmetal alchemist (2003) with their adventures, but al and edward have a clear goal from the beginning. i know trigun has its serious moments, but pasted over it is the same levity that vash carries himself with. i know there's a thick irony in the great vash the stampede who leaves destruction in his wake being this dorky guy who's lucky to come out of each altercation unscathed but, like the other characters, i have a hard time accepting him for who he shows us to be. granted, he wouldn't be vash if he was all serious, now, would he?

2025-03-01: a solicitor for some unnamed charity approached my friend and me when we were out yesterday and i was extremely uncomfortable. my friend was quick to decline by giving a believable half-truth and the man left.

i felt bad after, as uncomfortable as i was, because his cause seemed noble and he supplemented it with a touching personal story.

afterwards, i turned toward my friend and said, “i think i indirectly killed somebody today because i didn’t donate.” i actually didn’t say a word to the solicitor, but i didn’t buy what he was selling either.

it started sort of as a joke but also a (slight) hyperbolic representation of my guilt, but the more i said it, the more i believed it.

we called that evening and talked until early morning. my friend said she was proud of how she masterfully yet politely declined the offer, and i merely kept repeating, “i indirectly killed somebody today because i didn’t donate.” we were both laughing at the absurdity of my statement and she clearly cared enough to try to reassure me otherwise, but i kept repeating it.

i’ve really felt like a fundamentally rotten person lately, and i can only theorize the cause. i think it's a mix of things.

“i indirectly killed somebody today because i didn’t donate.”

2025-02-27: last night, i did my best girl voice over the phone for my best friend to see if i could do it and, each time, i could feel the visceral cringe from her. she said afterwards that she's never cringed so hard, body curling in on itself. she said, "it was evil. it's just not you," and when i told her i wanted to put this in the blog she said she'd provide a testimony to which she reiterated, "i'm sorry for saying that. i love you, but it was evil and it sucked and i hated it." i told her it was affirming that she said that.

there's something really nice about meeting new people when you're well into your transition. meeting new people, you have the gift of them only knowing you by your current name and your current voice. there's no wondering if, in the back of their mind, they refer to you with a name you no longer use, or if they hold onto that old version of you. i think it's a unique love; to be loved for who i am and not who you wish i would return back to.

2025-02-27: i think there's something oddly spiritual about the morning hours, from roughly 1am to 6am. i'm such a night owl, but how it usually goes is that i've finally built up all my momentum and you're telling me i'm supposed to break it by going to sleep? lately, i've felt an incredible resistance to falling asleep because of this. my vision could have long gone blurry– as it is now– but i ignore the tiredness as i always do.

settling into the quiet morning hours (or what i still consider night) can feel so special. there are no demands placed on me. the world is quiet. i know i'm not the only one that feels this way. i've seen other survivors of abuse talk about how they appreciate the early mornings most as a solace. i wasn't allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door when i lived in my childhood home, even well into adulthood, and it was another act of control and a way to strip me of my autonomy and healthy need for boundaries. i would get paranoid that my dad would open my door without warning. you don't have to worry about stuff like that at night time, when everyone is asleep.

a note i wrote to myself via discord message after hearing gymnopédie no. 1 in an ad of all things. i loathe the everyday barrage of asinine advertisements, but this one sounded beautiful. i have a weakness for this song. do note, i accidentally spelt his name wrong.

2025-02-26: the "holding space" wicked press tour meme is so funny to me especially with how many people, cynthia and ariana included, were confused with the "holding space" jargon. as a reformed self-help addict, i was immediately like, "that's just therapy speak, lol." you see it a lot in some corners of the internet. psychology and mental health have gone mainstream and been commodified, and so you get sentences like, "i don't have the capacity to be in relationship with you anymore because you no longer serve me. i'm doing all the emotional labor and you never hold space for me." lol. you can talk like that if you want. it's just very impersonal and weird. i think a lot of people using this language might often feel more "enlightened" and more "healed" than someone not "doing the work."

2025-02-26: "i'm not allowed to be myself. i won't be understood. i won't be digestible. people won't accept me." fine. don't be understandable. don't be digestible. let them choke on you in all of your acrid taste. yes, safety, acceptance, and support from others is important, but suppressing who you truly are will both eat you up inside and attract the exact wrong people that often will, in some way or another, punish or reject you if you ever start showing the true parts of you that you are hiding. it's lonely being around people who don't see you for who you are, and to make it worse, it's because you won't even begin to show them out of fear.

i say this all out of sympathy, for you and for me. i understand unmasking and accepting your true, unfettered (and likely messy, weird, cringy self) is hard and scary. just know your existence doesn't have to make sense. live in contradiction or know that two opposing truths can be true at the same time.

2025-02-26: i used to struggle a lot with anticipatory grief. it still comes up, but i handle it in a different way now.

as an autistic person, i was never able to keep any friendships for more than a few years. i was typically oscillating between what people call "anxious" and "avoidant" attachment. i was closed off with most, high masking and mirroring what i thought others wanted of me, desperate to try to make friends. but when i was fortunate enough to make a friend, we were usually fundamentally incompatible. maybe, for a brief window of time, my compulsive people-pleasing and masking would artificially align us, but eventually, when the mask started to crumble (because it always does), i'd have a falling out with the friend.

i remember befriending somebody a few summers ago. we got along well and seemed to have similar enough temperaments, but i was masking hard. i remember spending time with them and instead of feeling joy, i'd feel anxiety and grief, wondering just when this great thing would fall apart, because it always falls apart eventually: nothing is forever.

well, it did fall apart, and it was painful. i'm glad it did though. i don't think we were as compatible as we thought. since then, though, i've begun to find my real identity, unmask, and accept more parts of myself. i met my now best friend in the fall of last year, and i think we truly are compatible. i went into the friendship as unmasked as i could, showing her my "freak" cringe side, and it gave her permission to show her "freak" cringe side.

i don't worry so much anymore when things will end. my friendship seems secure enough, and now i've got relationships that have lasted for 2+ years now. sometimes the anticipatory grief comes up, when i look at my cat and realize she's going to die someday, or how some day, i'll miss this phase of my life. i'm not much one for "mindfulness," at least, not in the pop psychology sense, but the solution for me has been slowing down and just taking in the moment. i pet my cat, feel the softness of her fur and the weight of her laying on my chest, and i assure myself that she's alive right now, and that some day, when she's gone, i'll wish for this exact moment again. it's anti-taking things for granted, and it's recognizing that anticipatory grief does little to prepare you for the real thing. if anything, it just robs you of a beautiful moment while you're still in it. everything must end. everything. so enjoy it now.

i'm also not huge on affirmations, especially saying things you don't yet believe about yourself, but i heard one the other day that i like, and that is, "these are the good days." even if i, personally, am in hell during a certain phase in my life, once i'm out of that phase, i forget a lot of the pain and grief and still feel nostalgic for the little pockets of good memories that are no longer.

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