Sep 5

 I'm slowly adjusting to my new normal inside of my new normal.

Which is basically a way of saying, I am living with the shit within the shit.

My days are typically a wipe out. Tired. Exhausted. Ill.

Mostly I start feeling better as the evening creeps on. So. Around 7pm. I start to feel a little better.

By 10pm I am usually feeling my best. Some days it's not that great. But most days it's ok. And I do mean ok. Not just the usual ok = I am dying on my arse but it's fine.

It doesn't mean I have tremendous energy or anything. But it does mean I have a little spring in my step around the house and my decisions about eating et al are normal. I can pop around the kitchen without falling over.

Which is the real stupid amazingly different experience.

In the day time standing in the kitchen waiting for a cup of tea is agony. My body is screaming at me to sit down, lie down. I feel wobbly and awful.

In the evening, I don't even think about it, it's not a problem.

Literally night and day. In all senses.

This is, of course, deeply concerning, frustrating, depressing, all the usual mental gymnastic bullshit I have to go through with this. And a problem in an of itself. Too tired to do shit. Useless. Incapable. Dying on my arse. Waiting for the day to roll round when my heart just stops.

But I am slowly. For the bazillionth time I am sick of it. Coming to terms with it. And just writing the days off. And enjoying the windows of normality I get in the evening. It's ok. Just. Live with it. It's not ok. And does at this point lasting damage to my mentalries. I find my confidence draining out of my feet about anything capability wise. Anxiety up. I am turning into a ghost of my former self. But eh. I am surviving. After a fashion.

On background pondering the issue, I have wondered whether my mentalry meds were at least partly to blame for the huge divergence in capability. I have noted in the past they have a strong wax and wane effect over 24 hours.

So the last few days I've stopped taking them.

Which has its own issues of course.

But things have been very mildly better. Not so much as makes much odds to be honest. But it's a slight one.

One thing the mental meds do, is put a burden on your cardio. They tighten everything up - vasco constrictor - raise blood pressure and make your heart work harder. All in all they are a cardio risk. And your doc should keep an eye on you, particularly if you haven't taken them before. At this point in my taking of them ( ooh I dunno, 15 + years in ), no one so much as gives me a glance. Which I'm kind of ok with. But also. Probably isn't good.

Work continues to be a struggle. Getting my two days work in, particularly at any kind of social hours during the day is hellish. But I scrape through. Like dragging my ass over broken glass.

Our developer tackling a big redo of one of our main clients is getting continually stuck. And I think probably making a dogs dinner of the work. Not his fault. As specified before. But it's indicative of just not being able to plug and play any old developer into any old thing, and that Andy cannot just make decisions off the cuff where he does not understand the technical implications.

But then. This is part of kicking the tyres. Andy needs to do that. And fail. Or succeed. Or bodge through it. Without me continually being his saving grace in all things no matter what nonsense he pulls out of his arse.

I have today sat down and very clearly given our dev what he needs to do to get past his issue. At this point, I have basically done the code from a pseudo point of view, all the way to an almost functional spec - use this code here, call this, do that.

I have to remind myself what's easy for me, is not easy for him. He's coming at this raw for one thing. I've been dabbling in that particular piece of code functionality for more than a decade. Even everything else besides, that alone gives me a huge advantage.

Of late I've been watching famous or semi famous people dropping dead. 52. 56. Comparing it to my age. 50. Uh huh. Shit happens. I think my epitaph will be, he died after a long period of being ill. Which is often what you read. A short period of illness. A long period of illness. Without specifics.

In one of my good moments, in the evening, I seriously pondered the idea of what to take so I didn't wake up again. The alarming thing was. I wasn't sad. Or out of my mind. Or anything. I was calm. And not suffering. And very rational. And the whole thing seemed like a very valid and reasonable thing to do. It was close. I rejected it. Tsk. Daydreaming again. But. It was very real. I reflected on it a little after the fact. Was this the rational conscious me deciding that, at the peak of my wax and wane of feeling well, that I wanted to go out on a high, and not come down and feel shit again. And that I wasn't enjoying any of it. Or wanting to see another day. Or another thing. And I was more than ready to go.

In normal society, that kind of thing would be very worrying. Suicidal ideation at the very least.

I don't live in normal society though. I live in a twilight world.

Anywho. Whatever.

Any day now I am sure I will hit the magic curative and be back on my feet in no time.

I think. Quietly. Secretly. This is the bit where loneliness bites.

As I think I can feel my end always swirling around my feet. I just wanna die with someone around. Not die alone. It seems. Important. I couldn't say why. I also know that thats not going to happen. And I will indeed die alone. Such is the path life has sent me down.

In many ways I am a victim of my own cowardice. Never fully choosing what to do with myself. Just drifting through life. Pushed this way and that. Sometimes making a half choice. Oh so rarely making a full choice. But often just following my nose. It's been proposed to me that most people live like that. Maybe. I dunno. It does feel to me though, that I've pretty much just always done whats expected of me to a point. Just. Done the thing. Not amazingly. Just averagely. Plodded along. And arrived at a very blah point. Unsatisfactory. My life feels empty. I have no clue how to fix that. I don't even think it's fixable. But I suspect that's probably just my tired, defeated brain talking.

So.

Cheery.

I spoke to my sister end of last week. For a good couple of hours. Sometimes she gets uncomfortable and goes. I can sense it. That awkward, well I have to go now. My brother does it too. Most of the time they don't have to go. They just get uncomfortable. Me being me. I am well used to multi hour phone calls. With pauses. And listening. And I'm not at all bothered with being silent around someone for any length of time. Some people just can't do that. Over my life, I have been trained to do that. Not consciously. Just how it happened.

But in any case. This time I talked with my sister for a good couple of hours. She went through all her news. Niece moving. Nephew doing better. Other nephew trying to move. She reported she had gone through all the tea I had bought for her birthday. Some good. Some bad. Some habit changing. Which was nice. I was glad she liked the experience. And it has helped her navigate her own health issues. With caffeine. And sugar. And weirdnesses. All of us are getting old. I am allegedly the baby. Both my sister and brother now have a bunch of ailments.

It was nice to talk to my sister.

Of late my sub conscious has had an issue with her. Dreams filled with scenes where she doesn't care about me. Always distracted. Never bothered. It's not exactly wrong. Although it's a hard way of putting it. I am on the periphery of my sisters life. Always have been. Always will be. That's just the way we are. But clearly some deep animal bit of me is sad / angry about it.

It's probably just slow drawing poison from the damage caused by the way we were raised. To be independent. Not a touchy feely family at all.

My sister noted my brother wasn't doing great. Nothing terrible. Nothing great either. He's struggling in that half shadowed world that he's been in for nearly a year now. Combination of things. Stress. Dealing with the old man. Caring for his wife. His own problems of retirement. Ever changing health. And age. Difficult. Life in general.

Not sure what I can do to help him. I think I am going to try to arrange a regular online game night. Play for a few hours. Once a week. I think that might be the tiniest change that might help the tiniest bit. What else can I do ? I will talk to him. And make sure I keep talking to him. I haven't really properly been doing that of late where I have either been awfully ill - until its too late to talk to anyone - or busy doing shit for everyone else.

So.

Might play through Baldurs Gate 3 with him. For a few hours a week. See if there are maybe one or two others to join. I dunno. He used to like doing those games a long long time ago.

Moving on.

I find I am living in my head more and more of late. Not a conscious plan. But it's happening. Often when I am snoozing. I day dream about doing things. Getting shit done. And I live out a different more capable life in my head. And it's nicer. And I am falling back onto living that unreal life in my head. Rather than the shitty incapable one in actuality. I have stopped judging myself for it. And am instead embracing it. Just. Live in your dreams. Fuck reality.

The most enjoyable lovely bit of my day. Is when I get to go to sleep. My pains and suffering and everything tends to fade out. Dulls down. If not entirely goes away in my dreams where I can't feel it. My dreams are sometimes awful. But even then. It's usually mental torture. Not physical. That being said sometimes my ill health does puncture my dreams. Headaches. Migraines. Breathing. It entwines its way into dreams. And you wake up with a raging version of the thing you were dreaming of. Oh.

I've been thinking of my mom a lot lately.

I miss her.

Her and Ares. I still have no closure with death. I do not understand it. It is cruel.

Sometimes I wonder what she would think of X. Or say about Y. I find myself wanting to ask her. And dealing with the fact I can't. And what her life meant. What any of our lives mean. It doesn't destroy me. It's soft. But it's there. Frequently. Hovering over my shoulder. Hey mom. You're not here anymore.

That being said.

I had an awful dream about her last night.

I was with both my parents. Younger. In the house of some old rich person - a lovely dude. Encouraging. And enthusiastic. And lovely. And we were visiting him. Someone I hadn't seen in many years.

And he had lots of my art. And creations. And models. And things. And he waxed lyrical about all the cool things I had done. And I was amazed. I had forgotten what I had created. Oh yes. I remember this. And it was amazing to see all the things there. And I realised. They were cool. In the moment I discarded them. Ok. Meh. Whatever. But had forgotten them. And come back to them. And seen them how this dude saw them. As really cool things. Works of art. Weird. And cool. One of them had some USB stick to go with it. Plug it in. And it played an animation to go with it. I was astounded. I had entirely forgotten I had done that. In 3d. It was amazing.

And then there was my mom. Glowering. Well enough about John she said. He's had enough praise.

I immediately recognised her reaction. And leaned into it. Yes. Enough about me. Let's not talk about me anymore or the things I've done right ?

Yes. She snarled.

And I got up to leave. Where's the exit I said. I am lost. And moved us all to leave. Keeping a brave face on it. But hurt. And angry. And just wanting to be away from there.

I found my coat, my mom still glowering at me. I was so angry. I wanted to hit her. Rail on her. Tell her how sit a person she was. Instead I just grabbed her glasses off her face. And walked off with them. With her squawking outrage behind me.

I discarded them on the kitchen counter top. And silently got ready to go. My single act of defiance. My mom demanded my dad do something about me. And in slowly walks my dad. Downcast. Clearly not of a mind to punish me. Aware of how shit it was.

And then I woke up.

I suppose. This is again poison surfacing. A remake of my childhood into fantasy. A jealous hard mom. Who never praised me for shit. Either of them. Kind of making me learn to not value anything I make or do. That whole malarkey.

Ho hum.

What a fucked up set of lives we all lead.

Each of us flawed in different ways.

I sometimes feel like without some of those weights on me, I would have soared. But eh, probably not. And perhaps some of my capabilities are exactly because I was brought up in a shit environment. Perhaps I would have just coasted without it.

Who can say.

I think we can all probably soar given the right environment and shaping. And all fall. Just human.