Only on Tuesdays.

I am highly susceptible to feeling obscurely guilty for enjoying things that others viscerally hate. Not in a religious way, but in a “oops, my bad” kind of, “sorry for offending you with my choices” sort of way.

I mean, if they phrase it in such a way that implies that they not only dislike said thing, but think that no one else should like it either. Mind you, I don’t stop liking that thing. I don’t feel that particular type of guilt at all.

But I do like to at least make a stab at fitting in, and if a whole group of people dislikes a thing that I like and is vocal about it, there’s a pretty solid chance that I’ll pick something else, probably something weird that no one has strong opinions about, and label that my favorite thing, or make that the thing I talk about when they start spewing hate instead of making any attempt to defend or change their minds. I don’t typically care enough about my own subjective opinions to push them on other people or talk about them in places they could be interpreted strangely.

I do have a propensity for being fond of side characters and oddballs anyway, so it’s really exploiting that as a way to silently avoid mentioning the thing they hate.

I’m not unhappy. I’m not full of glorious joy and energy and the ability to catch bullshit flung at me and set it down with aplomb. I can’t be that person anymore. I try, but part of getting older is the awareness that you don’t need to let people stomp on you. You can, in fact, walk away.

I used to think I was pretty good at walking away, but it’s definitely a skill that takes some degree of learning to use it effectively.

Know when to hold ‘em, fold ‘em, walk away, run — it’s the song, you know. It’s all there, laid out in a soulful tune about a gambler. I’m not a gambler, though I do certainly enjoy a gacha or blind box here and there.

But I’m not unhappy. I like existing and I like moving and taking care of cats and looking at strange animals on the internet. I like reading, even if concentrating on one thing is sometimes more of a trial than it used to be. (I really seem to be bouncing off that book. I’m enjoying it, I think, but it’s odd to have a book give me the same issues that watching Lain or Boogiepop did. Very strange. But I’m struggling on. I’ll get there.)

I think maybe this weekend was the con? I could go check, but I’m vaguely content to let my memory fuzz just chill on that. It was lovely and awkward in equal proportions, and I’m glad I went. I’m always glad when I go, even if getting there is more exhausting than it was.

It’s apparently time to dig everything up again, now that it’s a new month. Start anew, refresh myself valiantly … the usual.

It was a perfectly lovely weekend, really.

And yet I still. I still —

{silence, a moment of silence}

And in the gap between space and time I exhausted myself completely. It’s becoming a bit of a race — to reach a destination, complete my intended activities, and return to a place I can rest before my body and mind start turning into blobs. I danced and rested and danced and still pushed myself into five hours on buses and walking in sunshine I was too heavily dressed to accomodate and a girl bleeding from her brow — today’s children are so matter-of-fact about their damage, in ways I am myself, and good for them, probably.

But I paid for it the following days in mindfog and aching joints. I’m still just so tired.

Anything whatsoever. Nothing about it is lovely, there are no flowers blooming in the wake of each proclamation and the future they portend is ugly.

—

I had a dream that I almost remembered, something something on a field trip though — wait, have I dreamed this before? Is this remnants of summer camp? Or the houses of friends?

I don’t remember anymore, the last wisps shimmering into nothing even as I type.

…to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time (dictionary.com)

It has been at times considered a disease of the mind: weakness that preys on people with quivering hearts and shadowed minds; the propensity for becoming lost in a past that you remember more in your soul than in your actual memory. Some days I understand that — walking down a winter street and feeling more than remembering the way you walked down that street before, the friends you were with, those who have passed. Some days, I walk into the shop and I think only of shepherd’s pies and house-made root beer, long-ago birthdays and apple-blackberry pies with custard, but there are layers there too, memories on top of memories. I cannot see it as it is because the was is too strong for me. The stagnation of time belied by the gray in our hair, masks on our faces, and the bells on the rope across the door.

a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past (cambridge)

I don’t regret letting people go. If we have lost the thread of what binds us together, more blessings on them, go in peace and be well. Once in a while I hear news and wonder what I would say if we were still speaking to each other, but not often and not with any strength. What attacks me is the memory of who we were when we were together, the lunches eaten in the sun, the walks we took, the music we listened to, the beats of our hearts always out of synch. Sometimes I live with the memory of people and animals even before they’re gone, collecting each moment in a scrapbook with constantly fluttering pages. I remember I remember I remember

Nostalgia’ is a portmanteau [blended] neologism coined in 1688 by Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer, from the Greek nóstos [homecoming] and álgos [pain, ache]
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201411/the-meaning-of-nostalgia

It doesn’t usually hurt. Even the sliding shadows of those who have passed on dim as the light of the future rises in the east. But sometimes it does. Sometimes I find myself falling into the crawling feeling of no, now is wrong, it should be like this. They should live here, not (I don’t know where, I don’t want to know); they should be walking down this street in these clothes, not (I don’t know what, I don’t want to know); do you remember, do you know, do you think you do, even if you don’t?

I’ve been like this since I was small, I think … I think that is not a unique experience. Nostalgia is a thing that consumerism weaponizes against the population, trying to get them to focus on making things great again rather than considering that things could be better now in any way at all. Remember how wonderful things were back when things were the way they were?

Nonsense. The thing with nostalgia is that you can never truly return to those spaces. It doesn’t matter in what language one refers to it, we are all moving inexorably forward and there is no stopping, time will never stand still for you as long as you live in this consciousness.

A lot of things have gone wrong in the last several years. The paths have branched and branched again, each time following the one with the worse outcomes. That’s pretty pessimistic to say, though, and I’m trying to recover from that mindset.

I feel strangely smooth so far in the first week of the year, like something stabilized, someone added some cornstarch or an egg or a bit of flour. I’ve been taking it slow (too slow?) and easy and letting myself exist in a simple flow.

Slamming out all those words probably helped, or at least didn’t hurt.

Some gentle hum as the generator kicked on, a whirr of electricity or the steady rustle of a breeze in the sails, I don’t know.

I feel at ease and that, itself, makes me uncomfortable.

I’m not asleep, but I’m not awake, either.