Experiment Complete

Well, it has been 52 days since my last entry. Wow. That certainly is unprecedented in all the time I have been writing in diaries online. 52 days – not even one entry in September. I did this in an attempt to see how different things would be if I did not update here – if anything changed for the better.

The result? It brings me a certain degree of pain to write here. Where I once felt only release, I now feel the stigma of accountability. Here, I must face my weaknesses head on. Here is where I come to pour my heart out. And here is where I must see my failure, written down for others to see and scrutinize. Here is where I am reminded of my feelings of being stuck, of my stagnation, of my laziness, of my mistakes…It’s scary to confront on-screen the obstacles of real life – just in your face –“here, here you go, now see what you have done now? And now you told everyone what’s going on but yet things are still the same.”

Where did the joy all go?

I got tired of being berated for my feelings. It’s bad enough to feel and hear them in real life, but made so much worse when confirmed with the printed word. All I can think is – don’t you think I know what my shortcomings are without being reminded over and over? Don’t you think I am tired of hearing that I need to “get over it” and just go and do?

“Get over it”. I loathe that phrase – a hoity phrase uttered by those who think it is that simple. If it was that simple I would have done it already – again and again and again!!! They think they know. They see the outside without bothering to take a look inside. They forget to see the person and just base their thoughts on some banal misconceptions and are happy with such opinions.

Positive, positive, positive!! Yes, why that must be the answer! Well, let me just say I continue to try and it still has left me in the same spot. I have concluded that for the most part positivity just leads to greater disappointment in the end when expectations aren’t met. Yet I knew that all along and had chosen to ignore it.

Time flies so fast that I am barely aware of the passing days. Is it already Friday? Didn’t we just do Tuesday? And what do you mean this is halfway through October – but the year just started! Isn’t it still summer?!

My words remain the same, because my actions remain the same. I’m scared to act and to not act, if that makes any sense. So instead I find the path of least resistance, floating day in and day out and doing the least that I need to do to make everyone think things are okay. Floating by and letting myself get pushed around because it is less painful than being treated like shit for standing up for myself. Floating by and trying with all my might to ignore the fear of living another day in the same manner.

How can I possibly even feel good emotionally when health is once again an issue? This time I don’t even bother with the doctor because I am so sick of being told there is nothing wrong with me. If it’s not my swollen abdomen, it’s my period that can’t decide if it wants to come or not, or it’s my head that can’t stop hurting, or it’s my arms feeling numb, or it’s my legs in so much pain that I can’t walk normally without feeling it (neve mind working out). Or my personal favorite, the all around “no energy and no desire”. Today it’s the head and the abdomen, for variety. Sleep? At least that has been reasonably okay, mostly because I fill my days with such blahness and numbness that it just kind of lulls me away into the dark of dreams. I kinda like it that way, except for the subsequent emptiness that sits in when I am actually both awake and coherent.

Here’s hoping that in the next few days when I try taking some saliva test to measure my hormones can lead to something else. If taking things as they are hasn’t helped, maybe something chemical to balance things out is the key. My father in law is a pharmacist who is into compounding, so we will see what happens from that. His earliest idea based on my answers to a mood survey is that I am hormonally imbalanced (which I was already aware of) and that more likely than not I am low on progesterone. Joy wonderful happiness – just what I need, yet another medical issue to deal with.

That of course will mean more money, which is always in short supply. With every price going up thanks to the exhorbitant gas prices, it just seems like paychecks don’t last as long as they used to. Don’t get me wrong, we are still paying all the bills ontime and whatnot, even allowing a mini-vacation to Minneapolis at the end of September, but it just doesn’t seem like we can use the money as well as we used to. At least Travis’s temp work has been fairly regular of late – that helps keeps him sane (which in turn helps keep me sane) and keeps the checking account looking better. And from left field I have a tiny chance at a new job that pays me more, also with the city but in a new department. The potential boss asked me to apply for it personally but then she also told me not to get my hopes up. So we will see what happens – it would mean a small pay increase that will help things a bit.

That said, why do people toy around with others and jobs? Either you have it or not, don’t dick around. These are people’s careers, livelihoods, incomes, and futures you are fucking with. Just be straightforward and not be a prick in the hiring process.

I think the one thing that affects me the most about not having extra funds is that it limits what I can spend on “fun things”. More things that help keep me busy, sane, and on track. Like beads for my jewelry making. Like yarn for my crochet. Like all the things I need for scrapbooking – especially film and developing. Just about all of it ends up on the backburner out of necessity, and that’s where my hobbies end up. Forgotten. So I find myself poring longingly at a bead supply catalog and crying because of all the potentially beautiful things I can make but cannot afford to right now. The only one that has made any progress – small, but progress nonetheless – is the crochet. The blanket is about 40% done, and I am also working on a scarf to match my Marlins hoodie, and it is also about 40% done.

What’s left? Books, books and more books. Get books out of the library and devour them. Bury my head in them and not look up unless I have to. Again, path of least resistance. At least I get something out of them – unconventional education, if you will. And they are free, late fees aside.

Does this make any sense? Probably not. All I want to do is vent and venting is what I am doing. I hope I have found some of the words that are deep inside my soul, yearning to get out. Maybe this is that new start, to getting ideas into some sort of sense to leapfrog me away from oblivion. Or maybe it’s just another chapter in my string of shortcomings, for me to stumble upon later and be ahamed of, ashamed of who I was on this very day.

At least I made it through the week without cutting, the new hardest time since I stopped. Small victory, I guess.