Nothing looking to claw its way out of my chest and heart to expose itself on this website.

For now, to note, this blog exists in a stasis of sort.

“There are no rules.”

I’m going to get some sleep.

After over two decades of reading, I have started my list of books I have read. It’s not worth thinking, ‘if you had started this when you first starting reading, you’d be able to go back and re-read books that brought you joy,’ BUT – since I am starting now, I’ll be able to look back decades from now, and feel that exact same way!

1. Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
   • Of all books to start with, this was great. More later. But I did start the list!

Can never have enough prepositions, to be sure.

I was going to write about what I’m doing, and the combination of all things, and how, in theory, it should be great and rejuvenating for the soul. To sum up, watching LOTR, writing on my blog, safe and comfortable, living at home.

I know that a good life needs a good mix of comfortability and its opposite, I suppose, discomfort? A bit ago, I asked my friend for a tarot card reading, the first I’ve had, asked for, etc.. My question revolved around asking how to get in the ‘driver’s seat’ of my life. And the cards he pulled and the explanations he gave me, were very eye-opening. It’s hard to describe.

Truthfully, when he did the reading [it wasn’t in person, he lives across the pond] I absolutely wept. A simple mind shift occurred, but it truly did wonders. ‘Coasting’ through life, what I have felt most ‘guilty’ of, still requires one to be in the driver’s seat. I have not crashed the car. I’m in the car, on this godforsaken mortal coil [it’s a goddamned pyramid scheme! with Frank right in the middle of it!]

Is it common to re-read blog posts as you’re typing? I would not wish anxiety upon anyone, but perhaps, there may be a select few. Good night.

The Lord of the Rings, not the 9/11.

I learned a lot today, I looked and listened a lot, too. It is exceptionally nice to embrace simply ‘saying less.’ There’s nothing to justify, or say louder, there’s no need to make a point, or involve myself in something.

Just because I could be a great mediator does not mean I should be involving myself in things I normally would not. Sometimes, you just let a rock fall down a hill.

I need to up and out, I need to up and move. I don’t know what I want out of life. That’s not true. I want to help people, I want to improve the quality of life for other people.

In my head just now, I was thinking ‘I would definitely make some hard choices and give up things so other people could have it better.’ But – I can’t do that for myself? I can’t give up things and make hard choices for me? Where does this warped sense of self come from? Who does this? What is wrong or incorrectly connected in my brain?

On the other hand, which is a good hand, I have a really good relationship with my dad. I’ll never forget when my therapist from way-back-when told me, to paraphrase, that I have ‘father issues.,’ which of course made me cry because yeah, duh, of course I did.

This upcoming weekend, we are going to do some minor construction on his late parents’ house as they prepare to sell it.

I’m getting too addicted to my phone, that’s what I was doing in that break. I hate it, I hate life on a phone, that’s not living.

I know for a fact that one person can change history.

About maybe nothing in particular. I’m writing this as I started LOTR: The Two Towers.

I got my hair cut today and was chatting with the stylist, who is someone I think I’d like to be friends with.

When you first get out your computer to write, it’s usually with a purpose. But between the act of thought, acceptance, opening the laptop, setting up the HDMI, you suddenly lose that track of thought. And then you think ‘oh gosh no, what do I write about, I must write about something/’

I could write about the movie I just watched, Where the Crawdads Sing. Beautiful film, I cried my eyes out at the end. Beautiful. It is hard to do but I am trying very hard not to think in advance of what I’m going to write. I don’t want to know where I Want to end up at, maybe just ntoice I am there when I arrive.

‘Be where your feet are’ is something I heard somewhere’ and is nice to hear in theory, but harder to do. Everything seems hard. ‘Choose your hard.’

The life I want to live, it’s available to me. Living in a walkable city, with a community, doing a love that I really enjoy, being a train ride away from Mom and Dad, doing something HUGE. I was the first of my sisters to travel far for college, three hours away. I would not be the first of my sisters to live outside the state, but I don’t really count my younger sister’s time in her city.

The dark and early cold are going to be hard. I might have to look real hard to find greenery.

I would have to get a loft set-up for my queen-sized bed, I think I touched on that last post.

I am very very lucky to report I have a good friend in my life, whom I can call at a moment’s notice, and if available, he would pick up.

He’s a good friend. He’s made my world a lot bigger, and has given me a lot of perspective. I consider myself lucky.

It’s a difficult thing to decipher and address – and I don’t know if they could even be considered feelings. I find myself thinking about him often.

I have been having some crazy dreams lately. Turns out, if you own a Ferrari, letting other people drive it can be a huge liability. That may only be true in my dreams.

I sometimes don’t feel like I have or add value. I often think because I am not ‘doing’ anything with my life that I don’t have anything to say or add. I can and do talk about books, movies, video games. I value my family, but I guess I should be doing more with my life.

According to whom?

Myself. I know I should, and I want to. It feels like such a big switch, a big flip, that it would be an unknown world. Living at my full potential. Doing my part to do good in this world. I hate the world we live in, but I don’t do anything to change it.

I have done some volunteering, I more than help out my parents and do what I am able to. I am growing every day, I am learning how to be a better person and daughter.

Being the person I want to be doesn’t happen overnight. It cannot. And while it can be normal to be stressful about an unjust world, it should not consume my soul.

I don’t want to say it’s enough to want to care, and change, and act, because it’s often not.

Getting here, to the point where I’m writing this, messaging about moving, telling people I want to move, planning my resignation letter. It’s not easy, my chest still hurts.

I don’t yet know how best to serve ‘me’. Because future Me isn’t enough, and present Me is a little less than inept. It’s all the same Me.

I separate myself, I don’t feel like I own my actions, the things I do matter to me, make waves for me. My mind, body, soul, spirit, psyche, all are sort of scattered. I am not continuous. Or, I don’t feel that way.

I feel like a table lamp, but simultaneously, in the box still, to be assembled, then together in one piece, then shattered on the floor. Do I sweep up the chards? Do I sculpt the glass? Am I the lamp? How do I care for this lamp. Am I still in the box? Have I been shattered and broken yet? Do I have to sweep?

Maybe I’ll strike that from the record later. I just, admit I feel at a loss. And even admitting that feels like losing.

I feel like I’m inside the lamp too?

FRAGILE. Maybe I’m an Italian lamp.

‘Moving to New York’ is not one thing you do; it is a lot of little things. And each little things can be broken down further. There are several steps ‘ones’ in the process.

Linearly, it’s tricky. Finding somewhere to live? Sort of hard, but I did message my aunt.

I don’t know what I wanted to write when I first started writing. ‘I’ll write about my anxiety or my plans to move to New York, or my anxiety, or my trouble with my sister, or my insomnia and anxiety.

I’m currently watching A Quiet Place: Day One as I’m writing this. I bought this website to write about, the death and birth of the old to new “Me.” I haven’t yet made a final decision on how I’ll refer to myself in this blog.

I haven’t been sleeping well, or even good, for about 6 months now. I’ve been anxious, and physically sick. I haven’t been taking care of my psyche. I work a job [I dont’t mind] at a company that’s just plain awful [I mind] but am living at home with my parents. My commute is nothing, I don’t pay rent. Most of my food is paid for, I have a smoking habit [weed.]

But I know if I lived by myself, I wouldn’t be fiending for weed, I wouldn’t be smoking as often. There are maybe a handful of benefits to smoking while I can think of many more to stopping.

I want to do good in this world, I want to make the world a better place, even for one person. And I’m not doing that. I’m not doing anything besides supporting my friend’s music career. My job is actively lying to clients and overcharging, and it’s deplorable. But what’s messed up is my gov’t is even more corrupt, and it actually hurts my heart and my chest when the right things aren’t being done.

I almost have a hard time writing it. There is too much money in too few bank accounts, and mostly everyone I know is suffering.

‘But that’s not what the blog is about, you said you would write about xyz tonight’

I should and will write about what I need or want to. This is for no one. Obviously you think ‘hey, Hyperbole and a Half’ got really famous, what if you get famous and people will love what you write’ and then I think ‘oh then I should write well and have good content’ but what’s the point of writing for an imaginary audience, you know?

That doesn’t serve anyone.

I half weaned myself off an anxiety medication, Gabapentin. I physically don’t feel well, my chest aches.

I’m anxious mostly because of the rift with my sister – I asked her to do something less than a favor, and she said no. She also, while driving me, and with me awake and conscious as her passenger, she picked up her phone and read a text message, that was a few sentences long.

Within such a short time, she went from my best friend to someone I wouldn’t be friends with. I’m tired of how she takes advantage of the love we have for her dog, that my parents often watch.

That really exceptionally hurts. I don’t hesitate to admit I relied on her a bit for socialization when we were younger.

Things have been rough socially here. My best friend died in 2021. I wasn’t living in that area anymore, but I hadn’t had a friend group here in so long. I’ve been in two unhealthy relationships, I haven’t really wanted to spend time with anyone outside of my family.

I like spending time with my family, I love it. And the expectations are low. I’m used to it.

So what can be considered a great thing, I don’t have anyone here that I’ll miss too terribly. I won’t be tremendously sad, and I won’t have people knocking on my door to come and visit.

There are a lot of jobs in New York. There is a lot of food in New York, a lot of walking. If I get a job there, before I live there, I can take a train and listen to music/my books.

I don’t have to have things solved. It’s okay and normal to not know what I want. But I have a clearer idea than I did five years ago, and then even just a year ago, and even last week.

I’m in a great position to get to where I want to be. I have the support of a lot of people. I have people I can call my friends. I have a job, a bed. I do have certain standards, I’m not dating anyone. There are a lot of women in NYC. I can dress and wear whatever I want, I don’t have to worry about my family. I can dress and do my hair however I want.

I don’t have to be the ‘posh’, I can wear my hair short.

I will fit right in in New York, and no one will look twice at me.

I have to find a way to have a room to fit my queen-sized bed, I’m thinking one of those loft-type one there bed is on top and there is room for activities below.

I send gifs of Fast and Furious movies to my friend during work, like alllllllllllllllllllllll the time.

It really makes me laugh.

I’ve been playing a lot of Hades lately, and I picked up my ‘The CopyEditor’s Handbook’ that I actually started reading [definitely did not hit page 4, yet]

I think my mind and body know I’m restless, they know I’m spinning my wheels.

[Bluey is now playing, big fan]

I’m not spinning my wheels though. I’m spending time with my family and saving money.

Hitting publish. Hoping to sleep better. Good night.