If I recall correctly, I wrote my first entry here on 02/09/2024. I try not to add dates to my entries, and just let the journey flow more naturally. Today is 07/06/2024, 3 days before the 5-month anniversary of this site.
In some ways, this space is a big help to me. It helps stave off the loneliness I often feel. A text editor will be there whenever I need or want it. I think... I still live my life on the schedule of others and feel that when the tears come I have to find outlets that aren't talking to other people. Luckily I don't drink or medicate with illegal substances, and my addictions seem fleeting in general. I don't think I mentioned how I can't get addicted to one thing, but perhaps that's a subject for later. So knowing that I have a reliable something that is quietly there for me, without judgment, whether I am happy or sad has helped me. I can never get the timing right in my interpersonal relationships. I think I understand why now. When people are fond of me and want to be closer, I am distracted from processing the information which is one hurdle. So by the time I reciprocate properly, they have given up thinking I don't like them. I also get overwhelmed constantly and don't do my part in the thing consistently, giving the impression that I don't care. Sometimes I get scared that people close to me don't care about me as a person. That they found something about me that they would like to exploit. So as maladaptive as it sounds, I distrust. I don't think I could have articulated those things had I not spent five months belly-gazing and writing about loneliness.
So the writing did help. It softened the sharpness of my pain. It made me trust that something is there for me so I can express myself. My journal will never be too busy or distracted or bored. I never did seek happiness. I know happiness is like a firework. Beautiful but momentary. All I wanted was to not want to die. Sometimes I still do. I think I will always wish there were some escape. But I'm not despairing every day. On the other hand, I feel that contentment, which is what I do want, is still elusive. Life always feels chaotic and scary, and even I am not a source of reliability, which makes me often feel unstable and scared. I have no clue how today will be. And thus, I have no future vision or dreams. I just always try to survive the next task or 5 minutes and can never think beyond that.
If my depression were a mountain, I would now be going down the peak. I would look down, and see miles of ground to traverse before I make it to the soft grass and the bottom. In that grass, I hope to see my future and sometimes feel a firework or two. Or laugh long and loud until my belly hurts, and love the world without fear of it slicing me open. To trust fate, and chaos, and the people around me. Trust that even when I am cut open, the tears that come clean me, instead of simply perpetuating my pessimism.
Five is my lucky number. The only reason is perhaps Jonny Five from Short Circuit, which is in line with everything about me. There is never any reason for me being me. I fall into it somehow. In five more months, I will check in again. I am grateful for what I've done, regardless of how many times I backtrack and have to retread the ground I already had progressed on. Five months will be in January of 2025, I think. I was never good at math.
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
– Albert Einstein