cynical optimist

 may 15, 2024

i'm having another episode, and i think it's culprit is PMDD. i should be getting my period soon, anyhow, so i can be fairly certain this won't last. 

it's not as simple as "don't trust my mind." there are still valid things happening outside of the thoughts and feelings that result from the combination of hormones flooding my system. 

there is lots of grounding in the routine that i have been building for myself. there is lots within the relationship i'm developing with Cali. there's lots within the experiences i'm having socially and professionally. there is still a richness that i know my depressive brain does try to minimize. so perhaps that's the focus of this exercise--to celebrate that richness. to acknowledge it and see the connections rather than moving farther away from all the things. 

it's another rainy day. on one hand, i'm bummed i may not be able to do more in the dirt today, but at the same time, i know there are therapeutic things that happen even with some mud. i'm to spend a few hours working on finding work today. i ended up reclaiming monday for myself, and it's been hard to have faith. but there is a lot of grounding and recentering every day, and i'm grateful for that practice too. 

i am glad i have my exercises. and music. it makes me feel bad that i need them so much, and so angry that once i start giving up more of my time to an employer, i'll have less energy to engage with them, and when i do engage, it'll be largely to process the stress from my employment. this depresses me. consistently. i have lived it. i have gotten through it. i have suffered for it. 

my queerness is not something i can change about myself. i can't simply make myself want children, for example. i've tried. i've thought of worst-case scenarios with my nephews, and what would happen if i had to foster one of them. i've accepted that possibility, but i pray regularly that my sister remains happy and healthy for as many years as she needs to finish her earthly work, and that's all i can do. i can't change the fundamental desire not to bear children and be a caretaker. 

now, i know part of that is wrapped up in what i was forced to do. maybe not forced, but what 13 year old is going to stand up to her mother to say that she does not want to raise a child, and resents the fact that she is being given an opportunity she would not choose for herself. 

i guess that pattern repeated 3 more times when grace had kids. and then every time someone else close had kids--because there was this worry that i'd be pulled into caring for that child too.

and as i've gotten older, i've come to really see how that frustration is not because i don't enjoy children. it's from a need for my own needs and dreams and desires and experiences to be enough for me to contend with. there is so much that i am still taking in on a daily basis, as though the terror and wonder of being a child never wore off, and i don't want the added responsibility--when i do have a choice (since in much else, i do not) of raising a child. i want to remain my priority, and thus far i have not been able to be consistent with taking care of myself. and grownups have not proven reliable either. i need to know i can rely on myself, and i am still learning how to properly show up for myself three years into my fifth decade in this body. i knew from a young age it was too much for me. and i resent all the sentiments about what a good mother i would make. anyone would make a good mother if they had access to the right environment and resources. it's like people made assumptions about my mothering based on how well i could communicate, and don't realize the ways that i have also engaged in plenty of toxic behaviors. it hasn't been until much later in my life that i've been able to recognize triggers (many of which involve my family) and how this relates to never having a way to frame how i was different before. 

my queerness isn't separate from my neurodivergence for me. my brain operates differently. i'm a word processor, so i like using language to work through things that i have a hard time grasping. i have a need to grasp things too. though there are some things i'm okay with not knowing, and i have faith in the experts. i know that even though i haven't found my thing, there are lots of people out there doing their thing, and helping to advance things for all of us. but i also know that capitalism doesn't care much about the future, and that many of our current practices are going to lead to our ruin. 

i know it's much easier to type when it's the thoughts from my own mind coming out of me. i haven't made a mistake in sentences--ope i just did. but it's because i was thinking more about what i was doing instead of just doing it. 

at this juncture in my life, i have no idea which side quest to take on. i like the idea of becoming a notary, but i don't know how feasible it is for steady income. i like the idea of continuing to work from home, but with something that is like entering data into a database that is not being used for any evil purpose, so nothing like data mining or anything. and nothing i have to worry about someone trying to steal or whatever. i like the idea of continuing to work from this office, and having maybe a day or two a week that i am in a different office, where there is good coffee, where it doesn't smell bad, and where i have a decent window to look out of from time to time. i don't want to be in an office more than 12 hours a week. my office here at home is set up for me. for my sensory needs. for my organizational needs. for my spiritual needs. 

it's been so hard to find jobs i'm eligible for that will have the hours and rate i need. i understand taking a pay cut. but i was earning 27 an hour. so the idea of going down to 18 is rough. and significant. it means still scaling back considerably with the things i enjoy. 

but i do know that i've continued organizing my home to provide me with the spaces for different facets of my being, my creative needs. i've got the space in the basement for music, there's a treadmill, the toilet is fixed down there now so it's functioning and the sink has hand soap and a hand towel. the kitchen has a music speaker right by it when i'm able to use it. 

ah, there's another snag. it's been really hard living with someone who isn't as joyful. it's ironic that the point when our relationship finally snapped was when he got annoyed with me for processing about going through shit at work with my friend, and here we are in a cycle of him always coming home to bitch about work. but i'm the one he thinks needs to change. 

when i think about it, i keep coming back to well how do i afford to live alone here? i could have maybe pulled it off when i was working at my last job, but it would have still been stressful. i could ask him to leave and ask kelly to move in, but i don't know if living with her will be any easier because i do have a lot of idiosyncracies, and i have a lot of stuff. so there really isn't much room for someone else to have a lot of stuff, and i think she does. and it isn't fair for her to keep having to limit the stuff she needs and conform to how the other person is living. anyway, i've brought it up to her, and she didn't seem too keen on the idea of living together anyway lol. 

regardless, the issue is still one of how living with someone who doesn't really care about you takes a toll just as much as working a job that makes you cry every week. 

i don't know if it's also just an illusion or naivete to think that at some point life will not be as difficult. that it won't take constant work, constant labor, to exist. that having a home space where you can fulfill your needs freely and without being chastized is within reach. 

i don't know where to begin, and no one seems to be able to help me. which probably means i have to help myself, and i'm trying. 

my money finally came through. note to self that it took 4 business days. noted for future reference. i don't know how to tell if i'm not in survival mode, but i think that period of time when i didn't have any depressive episodes to speak of was it. just a brief little glimpse into what it could feel like that i was gifted in the middle of a pandemic that for so many others was the worst time of their lives. of course my issues still pale in comparison to what the sudanese, congolese, or palestinian people are experiencing. but then the grief of those injustices, of all the death, is also wrapped up in my feelings. and i know i can't dwell there forever, but it's there, taking a toll on my psyche and spirit anyway. something else i have to fight. more labor. 

i can't have known how much work would be part of being a human and have chosen this. it doesn't make sense to me if i worked so hard in other lifetimes why i would even want to come back. on the off chance i had a better life? i mean, i guess living in a 3-story townhouse apartment with an ex-boyfriend who doesn't think he needs therapy is still better than being crucified by romans, but it ain't a life of luxury here. maybe that's what i wanted to learn. how all struggles feel heavy. how fighting for what you believe in is just part of being able to believe in things, because humans will disagree. 

noah discussed, argued with me once about that. about human nature being violent and corruptible by nature. i supposed i believe that our healthy nature is loving and caring, and that anything else is a result of white supremacy or mental illness. for example, people who are born pedophiles have something different in the way their brain is wired that causes that deviation. it's a true deviation--there is nothing whatsoever beneficial about having a sexual attraction to children. nothing that would promote the advancement of our species, and nothing that could benefit society or the individuals involved. in cases where a sexual abuser is perpetuating the same trauma that they experienced, that is simply another example of generational trauma and abuse that gets cycled onto a new person until someone decides to break it. 

maybe that's another part of not wanting children. maybe i wanted to avoid passing along any trauma that comes from our blood. 

but i think if we all had our needs met then society would be good. if criminals had their needs met by the facilities that helped them after they committed a crime, if pedophiles underwent brain surgery to fix the synapses in their minds, and could still find engaging and meaningful lives even while still being under some watch, to ensure the procedure worked correctly. if everyone had access to the resources they needed to be well. if everyone could have the kind of schedule that made sense for them. if everyone had food, shelter, clothing, and people didn't have to compete to snatch up pieces of pie, then we wouldn't have the issues we have. that would be a utopia. 

and noah's point was that this can never happen, because it's born from my brain, and not everyone thinks like me, and there would always be people who would do bad things to each other or try to steal more power for themselves, or behave in some such way as is human nature. 

i think that's a colonizer mindset, but what do i know?

i know that when we don't have examples of things, it makes it much easier to believe they are possible. i don't have any examples of myself when i'm older. maybe rosemary. but she has a kid. she is still a mom. and she had a long-running career. i don't have that. i know it's not too late to start one, but i just don't have much faith that i'm suddenly going to find a job that checks all the boxes and can last until retirement. i'm open to it. believe me, i want that--i don't want to go through this in another ten years. i just want that part of the game to be settled. to have the job that satisfies my income needs, allows me to build retirement, and allows me to set up whatever other care i need for my older self. i don't want to be a burden. i don't want to keep struggling like this until i die. i literally cannot live like this forever. 

is that the point? that people do just keep accepting over and over how shit it is, how suffering is inevitable, and then they just keep going forward anyway? i am still not so sure i understand why suicide isn't more readily understood. how in some cases it's just a way to go with some honor rather than letting the enemy take your life from you on their terms. i dunno. but i never develop a plan. i never work on obtaining the means. i just keep hoping that by the time i'm in a position where i need constant care, since there will be no one to provide it for me, i'll be able to choose death with dignity and take control of when i say adios to this world. one can hope. 

in the meantime, i've got to look for a job. i've got to see if there is anything in the interwebs today that could be the next answer to how i will pay to exist.