Confusion

I feel sad today. My key slipped out of my pocket in the car this morning when my host dropped me off at Meeting and he went to do a climate change demonstration so I was locked out of the house till mid-afternoon. It wasn’t a huge deal and I walked down to the lake for a bit to pass time but I still tried for quite a while but unsuccessfully to pick the locks. I was surprised I was able to find piece of metal to pick it with. I listened to more of this audiobook about Abraham Lincoln. He is said to have remarked in his younger years: “If I ever get a chance to hit slavery, I’ll hit it hard.” Reading about Lincoln kind of comforts me…

My shoulder hurts. I have so little range of motion in my right arm, I realized. I don’t know when it’s going to get better. It was feeling a little better, for a while, but right now it hurts. And other people are wanting me to do things their way and you have nooo idea how quickly, for some reason, that can lead to feeling pressured into doing something with my body that would much more secerely injure me. If I do things other people’s way, and right now I feel I have little choice but to do that, I could be physically disabled in no time at all and nobody knows how true that is. People try to get me to do things I have no business doing when I am exhausted or injured or when it is just not good for my self care and ahhh it is so lonely not having people who understand how hard it is to feel like in some ways I feel like I have less control over my own body and my own life and though I am so confused about what to focus on myself having people think they know better than me what I should do about this or that and knowing I can’t make everyone or even me happy with what I eventually decide to do is so hard. What I need is people supporting and nourishing my soul and my life speak for itself and… I don’t know, I want to be free like an eagle… I can’t imagine anything comforting me at all being severed feom my dog. 🙁

I feel listless and depressed and stressed out… I am feeling like I have way too many emotional problems, like something is wrong with me, and I do not know how to explain to anyone the terror I sometimes feel out of nowhere, this pnic like everything is going to fll apart and I want to feel comforted but I have no idea today what could begin to comfort me. Even years ago when I got really depressed I had some sense of what would be comforting and enjoyed those things. Today I feel like I don’t enjoy anything and I don’t really know what I could do that would be comforting or any activities l I could do daily ir frequently to keep me feeling comforted long term and get me in a better mindset. At the shelter getting to swim was making a huge difference… now I am just lonely, I wish I had a dog with me or something, and I’m so sad…

I am stressed out feeling like everyone wants something different for me or has different ideas of what I should do. Sometimes it is spoken, sometimes I just feel it, but it feels so lonely, feeling like other people have ideas of what is best for me that are soooo not me at all… and maybe I don’t know what is best for me either but I think I know better than anyone else, if I trust myself.

My host here wants me to do transcription *and* apply for jobs *and* start a dog sitting business so he can subcontract under me because he doesn’t want the potential liability of doing it himself on his own property. He wants me to get a haircut for this interview, he’ll pay for it. *Sigh* I’ll tell him tomorrow, fine, I’ll do it, I really don’t want conflict especially about something as silly as cutting hair, but I can pay for it, he doesn’t need to do that for me. And I know if I get a job like this and stick with it for even a few days my shoulder will hurt a lot more. But he has his ideas on how I shoukd do things and as long as I am here I can’t get myself to stand up to that.

My mother does not really want me to go to South America and though I’m sure she’d be fine with it I kind of felt guilty today for that being what I want to do. She was successful in finding an apartment for me around here for a lot less than the going rate but no matter what I do I’ll be missing out in something: if I stayed here and rented a close-by apartment I might be successful in convincing my mother to let me have my dog sometimes, or even keep him with me altogether, but if I went to Latin America, I could save money which will make a big difference a few months down the road and do lots of things rather than just being lonely and depressed and bored… so I feel guilty because she found an apartment that might work for me and what a shame if I end up going to Latin America and waste such a good find… I think she even went to look at the place… but even more I feel guilty if I don’t stay close to my dog, and I am just lost. Maybe they are open to a short-term rental and I could just try it out fir a month, as a way to transitioning from here to more independence. I would have more space to be *alone* if I stay here, more silence, distance feom people, because while I might have my own space in Latin America, I am guessing it wouldn’t be as quiet as this might be… and that could either be good for me or it could depress me and distract me from the so many benefits of going to Latin America.

I could still probably save a good amount of money if I got this apartment but a fair amount less than if I were in Latin America. Not enough to explain how much more financially free I feel about going to Latin America as opposed to feeling trapped in an apartment here (albeit all on my own): it has ro be more than just budgeting letting me save a bit more that makes Latin America feel so much better for my finances than this even though if I stayed here I could have solitude and nobody bothering about anything and maybe even affection from my own dog. If I had a car here would that lean me a little bit more towards trying out this apartment? Maybe, but not enough. It feels like I lose my dreams if I stay here somehow, like I will be in a better soace months from jow if I go to Latin America, but that is not true. Partly it’s like, you mean I have to pay a dollar more for this apartment in the United States than for that apartment in Colombia or Argentina???!!! That is such a rip off, why be here when you could be in Buenos Aires?!

And yet with the cost if apartments around here these days might this be a rare opportunity to get an apartment at a price that isn’t *that* much more expensive than a nice one bedroom apartment in Colombia which means… fairly cheap. My heart is broken, necessarily, no matter what I do… everywhere I can think to take it feels like it takes me away from everything and breaks my heart no matter what I do or mhow I try. I feel so torn apart, how do I find my centre? How do I remember and have a felt experience if what makes life feel worth living? An oak does not need to think to figure out how to be an oak. What are the activities I do and the places I go and the ways I flow through the day that put me and my heart in alignment with who I am most naturally meant to be? I hate that others can’t just tell me what that is, ir see it in me more than I see myself. I feel sure I will die thinking maybe I have never just been me for one moment in this entire life. How do I get my sense of meaning back, my aliveness back? But now I have these meta-auestions like what is the purpose or what is the point if feeling passionate about something? I am not saying I don’t see life as worth living but what is the point of having a mindset that life is worth living? What is the point if not being in fight/flight/freeze/etc. mode all the time, what is the point of healing? What is the point of wanting friends or wanting a relationship, what is the point if being i timate with myself, what is the point of meditating, am I doing this all wrong, why does any if it even matter? When people have ideas I am approaching it wrong I second guess myself all the more…

But what can help me feel better ’cause even if it’s Aldous Huxley’s soma I’m dying for a remedy… to this existential pain, that makes me right now question and second guess everything I do with my life. I feel like I did it all wrong so far so I’m probably doing the wong thing in this moment too. It’s like I expect there to be report cards issued at the end of life and I’m the only one who knows about this but I am also expecting all Fs and a detention slip and when I show up St. Peter or whoever is going to be like, yeah, all Fs, and by the way, it’s over, poof, you’re gone. none of it mattered anway… that’s why I’m a mess and can’t figure anything out, can’t figure out even what it takes for me to have fun. I am lonely for people I can be around and have fun with… everybody thinks I should do something different and I son’t know what to do myself and I am burned out. I am trying to find meaning and purpose and magic but I feel so disillusioned I am still asking myself, what is the point, I am likely going to be too sad about my life at the end of it anyway and regret so many things no matter how hard I try to ever make any of this worthwhile. That’s one of my big fears today…