the thoughts of a parrot cosplaying as a human

and i thought i didn't need to work too much on myself in this regard.

the incident that sparked my new spiritual/psychological discoveries was and accidental payment of a non-existent package. i was trying to see if a promo code worked and i was pressing buttons too quickly, which resulted in me paying about 3€ for the shipment of a package that did not exist. not a lot of money. very tiny issue, yes, i know. but to my anxious, autistic, obsessive-compulsive brain these tiny things are very much big deals and can make or break my entire week if i'm not careful.

so what happened was obviously immediately as i realized i had accidentally paid the price for the package i felt the usual 'oh no what did i just do' panic but at the same time i burst out laughing. it was so utterly ridiculous that i immediately switched to being entertained by this mistake and not bothered by it. which is a completely normal response and if i had the brain of a neurotypical person it probably would have been the end of the story. but alas, i don't so it wasn't.

you know the feeling when you're so used to being stressed out by any minor inconvenience that when something happens and you don't freak out you start stressing about why you don't freak out? something similar happened to me in those few minutes while i sent a few messages to my friend, telling her what i had just done. even though i felt calm, i sensed the anxiety starting to creep in, fearing that any minute now i could start freaking out about this tiny mistake.

so i did what i always do, what i do best when my mind starts panicking and going all over the place: i grab the reins called 'making sense of the world and myself using my intellect' and started analyzing the situation. i told myself it's honestly no big deal. i tried to calm my ocd-based anxiety about losing money, and things not going the 'perfect way'. i tried to find a use for that package so that it doesn't go to waste. it didn't work. as usual, with my rational mind i could understand all of these things that i was telling myself, but my blood kept racing, my chest kept tightening and my brain kept panicking.

but as i was sitting on the sofa, i suddenly thought about a different approach. what if, instead of rationalizing the problem, i just... sat with it? these feelings were clearly not going away when i tried to reason with them in the language i speak best; so what if i tried speaking their own language. i'm far from fluent in it, in fact i keep forgetting words and grammar, but for the first time in a long time i felt confident that i could make myself understood.

so i sat cross-legged, hands on my knees, closed my eyes and just... was. a song that'd been stuck in my head all day was the quite loud background noise to my experience. rational thoughts kept popping up in my mind and i gently pushed them aside to make space for.... what? this was new. i felt my chest tightening, i heard the veins behind my ears pumping the blood way too loudly. and i just let it. accepted that this is how i feel. started breathing slower, deeper, trying not to tell myself that it's okay to calm down, but to... feel it instead? almost as if i were to convey the emotional component of this soothing message without saying any words. like, when you look at someone with meaningful eyes and hug them. i looked at my feelings the same way and tried to hug them, without saying or thinking anything.

it actually worked. for the most part, at least. i felt some relief almost immediately, but some part of the anxiety still lingered on. it still does, more than an hour later, and i think i've realized why, now that i've allowed myself to get rational and analytical about the issue once again.

whenever some minor thing happens to me that generates similar reactions, i almost fear forgetting about it, because then if i remember it later, suddenly all the anxiety comes rushing back. so it's like i'm always on guard by keeping the issue on my mind, tucked away in a corner, so if i think about it again, it's not so overwhelming when all the related feelings are suddenly also felt, again.

she has mentioned how much this conversation changed her several times since then. that it was so freeing to have someone validate her, to be given permission to have kids if she wants to. and i've been thinking a lot about this second conversation.

maybe all we really need is someone to tell us that it's okay. it's okay to want to buy that silly little thing that would make us happy, even though we don't technically "need" it and could live without.

that it's okay to be into things purely because of the aesthetics and we don't need to find deep meaning behind every single thing that we enjoy.

that it's okay to grieve the loss of the stupidest little things: a sweater that we didn't buy but later wished we did; a coupon that we forgot to use and payed full price; a perfectly shaped spoon we lent a stranger and forgot to get it back.

i'm anxious about losing so much time of my life doing nothing. which is such a silly way of thinking, because i'm doing things. i'm existing. i need to find that spark that would make me feel like i'm doing *something* again.

• regularly doing yoga and working out

• progressing in my finnish studies

• making time for doing puzzles while watching my comfort series

• drawing, a lot, so that eventually i can find a style that i'm happy with

i don't need to have everything perfectly in place to start doing the things i love.

there won't be a time when everything will be 'done' and i can start doing the things that i've procrastinated.

there will never be a perfect time to do the things.

i can plan, i can enjoy the planning, but i have to also start doing the things.

i don't have to figure out every single thing that i already have in my life in order to start new things.