Better

I'm feeling so much better :) 

After lunch I took some cushions out to the backyard and just lied on my side staring at a tree for while. Yesterday my friend did this excercise with me to notice small details of your environment to calm down from emotions or an anxiety attack, which worked really well. She asked me what pattern was on my bedsheets and what the weave looked like, etc. So I tried to see all the patterns in the bark. The top layer was mostly worn off, it was all cracked secondary layer, so many divots and bumps and lines. I watched bugs crawl up and down it. I noticed a bunch of tiny places where the sap had bled through and made a tree's version of a scab. At one point I saw a tiny spider catch an even tinier bug and walk away with it. Then I watched a rolypoly while its way up the trunk and noticed how it used its antannae to sense where it was going. When it felt a bump in the bark, it went around. I also watched my dog play for a while- he only seems to play when there's someone with him, so I decided to stay so he could enjoy himself. He likes to roll onto his back with a tennis ball in his mouth. The whole time I had flies swarming the hell out of me- which I had to bat away. I guess not everything can be perfect, heh 

Overall, it was nice... lying there I had some pretty depressing and scary thoughts, but they just had to pass through my system. Staring at the sky through the leaves, looking at all the green and blue and rustling, I just felt more in touch with the world. 

There are a ton of things that happened yesterday that I don't feel ready to acknowledge or think about, because when I do, I feel like I'm getting dragged down again. Emotional breakdown after emotional breakdown. I must have been crying for half the day. I'll speak about it when I feel ready. 

It feels like I let go of something that was holding me back, and I have no idea what it was. I think in my mind I made a resolve to never give up my life, but ironically gave up to living a mediocre life. So I had no energy, no drive to push myself. I had no life in me for so long. All this time I've been looking up at the person I used to be... I used to be furiously independent and confident, I wavered a lot but I could regain my footing at least. 

(my dad just called up to me, and I felt this horrid rush of annoyance and a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach... he calls to me jokingly but it makes me cringe knowing the other side of him) 

I think after the Alaska trip, I was really me. And in a way I didn't know who I was for a while. I loved that place. The sun set at 9, so I wouldn't have problems with productivity if I actually lived there (I'm more productive in daylight). And now I'm just trying to find who I am again, and maybe go beyond. I don't like setting my sights on "getting back where I used to be", because it kind of feels... not worth it. Like I'm admitting that I failed and I need to expend all this energy just getting back to my place. I'd rather do something different this time around... keeping the good and replacing the bad with something better.

I think my last, like... 10 journals have been some depressing shit. Trying to put words to my feelings can help, especially with noticing I've been sad for way too damn long. At that point, I felt hopeless to the point that looking for solutions felt stupid. Everything did. 

I'm trying to accept now that things are just uncertain and I can't give up just cause I'm not sure what's in my immediate future. I'm watching a new show today, and the opening song is just MMMMM. I've been listening to it all day. Here it is: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSrrRaVyQHQ 

These kinds of loud, motivational, tangentially unrealistic songs like "History Maker", "We Are The Champions", etc. are great for me. I could listen to them forever if they resonate with me. I like being told I can do something. Or I can make a difference somehow. I'm sure most people do, and it's an ego stroking thing of sorts. Well, can't it be a healthy, good thing, too that I feel capable? 

I got lost to the flow for what I think is the first time in ages too- I was drawing for like an hour and a half and I forgot about time passing. I've been so anxious and time-aware that I haven't felt it in so long- maybe months, maybe a year. To me its a signal that I'm slipping back into myself again. 

So yeah... maybe it takes a huge breakdown to really get back onto my feet. Even if that shit sucked ass. Really, I don't think people understand how much sadness is humanly possible until they experience it, and it's so much deeper than we think it is. Sometimes I feel we as humans, or just I, can feel much deeper sadness than we can happiness. I hope that I just haven't experienced the full bredth of what happiness is yet.