Last Sunday when i said i was going to come back and finish that journal entry the next day, i really meant that i was going to come home from work and FINISH THAT JOURNAL ENTRY THE NEXT DAY.
I’m in a trap and i’ve been in this trap for a long time. I don’t remember what i wrote last week and i’m too lazy to look at it but i think i outlined the general problem- weekdays are comprised of waking up at 04.30, starting my shift at 06.00, getting home around 15.00 and almost always in an absolutely depleted state. Just emotionally and physically drained. I might do some housework but it probably won’t be much and some evenings i don’t do any at all. Some nights i put together something to eat, provided it doesn’t take much prep time.
This goes on Monday through Friday.
Saturdays are a mess. You’d think they would be fantastic days because i don’t have to go to work but there’s something i haven’t explained.
I am no longer able to sleep through the night most nights. I will wake up anywhere between midnight and 2am; give or take an hour. I will not be able to fully wake up but i’m also not able to go back into REM. I do not obsess or fixate on anything in particular and exercises like reading, breathing exercises, counting, etc… do nothing for me.
It takes me about 2, sometimes 3 hours to fall asleep again.
Then always, always, always, i wake up around 04.30. My alarm is set for 05.00 but i’ve only slept that late on a weekday maybe twice in the last 5 to 7 years. I just KNOW when it’s time to get up.
Here’s what happens to me on Saturdays. EVEN IF i get a full night of sleep, i am stuck in this perpetual fugue state. I just cannot get out of it. I’m unable to be fully in the moment, i’m barely able to concentrate, my motivation is absolute shit and while i MAY get some things around the house done, they tend to be relatively minor, although i do mow one of the lawns if it needs it.
Then Sunday comes along. This is the only day of the week where i feel fully present, mentally alert and motivated to do anything. And that “anything” is always, always, ALWAYS running for groceries in the morning, then housework, yardwork and laundry.
And this has become a cycle of… i don’t want to call it self loathing because it’s not but it’s certainly self directed anger and frustration because i want to paint, i want to write and i have guitars, a bass and a keyboard and i never do anything to learn them because from start to finish on a Sunday, i have shit to do. And because i’m an Eternal Bachelor™, there’s no one to help me. Anything that i want to do, i have to do. Anything that i need to do, i have to do. I don’t have anyone in my life to help me and i don’t make enough money to hire anyone to help me.
By the time that 4 or 5p rolls around, it’s time for me to shower, get my laundry sorted and wind down.
This has been my life for years now. And i don’t know if it’s because of this or i’m like this for other reasons, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to connect with people.
I don’t know if i’ve talked about this before and just as i was a few minutes ago, i’m still too lazy to look at my previous entries. But it’s the singular issue that makes me think of this journal and what i would say about it.
I have to explain something so that statement makes sense. Very few people read this if any. I’m kind of a cul-de-sac on the internet. A tired, old house that has zero curb appeal and is about as inviting and enticing as a manual on dental tools from the 70s. And because my finances are so tight (adjusted for inflation, i make SIGNIFICANTLY less than i did 5 years ago, which probably deserves an entry of its own), i can’t afford a counselor. And while i’m certainly not against a counselor or psychologist, i’m also not sure what i could tell them because whatever it is that’s causing my growing separation from people isn’t specifically identifiable. It is a shadow that hides in my peripheral vision and doesn’t let me look directly at it nor does it offer any hints as to how it came to be nor how to dismiss it.
And i suppose this would be yet another case of my general rambling into the void but something happened a few days ago that caused me to reflect on the distance i’ve traveled since 2012.
I have some unused gmail accounts that have fallen into neglect. One used to be my primary account. After the breakup and some particularly bitter emails from my ex, i abandoned it. Ugh… let me come back to this account and some things i came across another time.
But there was another account that i created before the breakup that i used for a Fetlife account that i don’t think i’ve logged into for 8 or more years. As a side note, if anyone feels the need to try to shame me for having a Fetlife account at any point, be aware that i am absolutely, 100% impervious to being shamed when it comes to matters of sexuality. That sort of shit is for insecure, broken little whining shits and they can fuck off.
ANYWAY – as i was saying… i used that account to correspond with some women. There might have been one or two that were women that i corresponded with because of Fetlife but the others were women that i’d met through other means.
It was a reminder of just how dark and broken i was back then. To be honest, i don’t really need much of a reminder for that. What i don’t like is having to acknowledge just how fucking desperate and stupid i was then. I used so many coping strategies to maintain a relation with someone that my friends and i now see as well disguised white trash who got pulled into a pseudo intellectual cult riddled with the human wreckage of broken people incapable of knowing how to distinguish getting fucked from being loved.
I don’t know. Polyamory isn’t a cult, per se. Unfortunately it’s rife with people with cult adjacent behaviors, beliefs and who mistake both for critical thinking.
That’s an albatross of shame that is difficult for me to fully forget. I’m not too ashamed of it mind you. I understand why i went down the path of polyamory, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is probably worth it’s own journal entry if i haven’t done so already.
The thing that caught me; the thing that i probably could have just said outright several paragraphs ago now is that reading those old emails from the person i used to be – there was a certain brightness to him. There was hope, desire and certain flourish in the way he wrote. And while i have no desire to be that person again, i have very little, if any hope in my life now. The years of solitude and loneliness have carved and hollowed me into someone that wakes up, goes to work, is too exhausted to do anything fulfilling when he gets home, is too discombobulated and too busy on the weekends and never makes time to do the things that matter: paint, write and learn music theory.
So there you have it. This is my casting my message in a bottle into the endless seas under a sheltering sky. If you’ve read this, know that just by virtue of getting this far, you’ve been my silent therapist.