Well, Shit.

I’ve been going to the local rec center’s gym with some small amount of frequency, which has been an interesting experience. Mostly I commit the crime of wearing leggings in public as a fat person, and use a treadmill/elliptical/bike and sweat for 20-30 minutes and then come back home. It’s only been a couple weeks, and exercise -- it turns out -- is fucking BORING, so idk if I’ll keep up with it. But my body is capable of things and that’s good to know!

This week, I finally split from my family’s cell phone plan AND their auto insurance, so there is officially NOTHING in my life that they are responsible for anymore (except for all the trauma lmaooo). It’s an extra expense that I’m a little nervous about having taken on somewhat impulsively, but... I just had to break away. I’ll eat PB&J for a while until things stabilize.

I started TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) for depression yesterday. 20 minutes a session, 5 sessions a week, 7 weeks. It’s a commitment, and expensive, but it’s eating up my insurance out of pocket for the rest of the year so I guess I’m gonna go to all the doctors I can in the next three months to take advantage of it. Dermatologist is stop #1. I’ve never had a skin check and probably should, especially as a redhead who has burned to a crisp multiple times throughout my life.

I had a one-on-two hang-out with the guy I’m fond of and his brother last night, because everyone else was busy. It felt like real buds hanging out having a good time, and that was a big moment for me. I’m still an awkward bumblebee, but they included me in conversation and we just ate Thai food and watched YouTube shit all night and it was fun. They could easily have said “Let’s just skip this week” when I asked if they wanted to hang, but it means a lot that they didn’t.

I’ve been trying to take more time to myself, like journaling and reading and practicing tarot, and just... being with myself, centering and growing and paying attention. It’s been paying off, I think. It’s fucking hard to be alone with myself sometimes, but it’s getting easier. We’re starting to connect in here, you know? The pieces of me are starting to play a little nicer with each other. I’m doing my best to be a good guardian to all my broken selves, and get us on the same page, together. Being off tumblr has been a piece of that, if only to remove a source of distracting noise and the opportunity to self-harm through the anxiety I can work up here.

I’m prone to revert to an extremely paranoid, anxious, defensive and hypervigilant creature here. I want to have a good time, and it always starts that way, but eventually I start worrying about the sniping, the vagueblogging, and remembering X person doesn’t like Y fandom/character/song/whatever and thinks anyone who does like it is garbage, so I just shouldn’t talk about it to be safe and respectful... etc.

It’s just generally not a great space for me, no matter how much I try to cultivate it and focus on the people who are supportive. And while I care deeply about people I’ve come to know here, the trade-off of checking out of my life in favor of worrying about spats that don’t really mean anything, avoiding fandom drama, and reading some funny text posts is just... tough to justify. It doesn’t mean I’ll never use it again (obvs, like right now), but, I think I need to be careful.

tl;dr - I’m trying to build a better me, and I know I don’t use this space responsibly. Too much baggage, too much opportunity to harm myself with it. But a lot of good people, also. I’m pretty busy these days, so I don’t check in enough, and I am sorry for that.

I don’t fancy myself an integral part of most folks’ existence on the internet, but if it helps to know that this weirdo cares, I do! And I’m happy to share my twitter handle(s) or contact stuff with mutuals and such.