Tag: infp

Poetry & Poetrish

Jolt.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Jolt.

She dipped her toe in the shallow pool of water and lurched back. She already knew it would scald her, momentarily, but her toes couldn’t resist the test. The jolts of awareness that break up the monotony of the day. Yet another day. Placing her right foot into the tub, forcing herself to keep it there, liquid fire tormenting her ankle and calf. But this time she didn’t budge. She slowly sank into the cloudy bath of mineral salts and the grey reflection of a nondescript ceiling tinged beige in the light.

The water consumed her. At first, through a sudden sting that felt as if she might be being burned alive, and then softer, a warmth which swallowed her deeper. Her toes danced under the still-running faucet, still pouring its liquid flame. Right when she could no longer take its heat she ran her toes firmly against the bathtub knob, pressing into its curved edges, barely gripping it to push it quickly towards its opposite offering. Liquid ice shocked her toes and ankles and calves as she still felt existent heat burning her torso, lying there somewhere under the slipping current resulting from her mere existence.

A bottle of red wine, some blend, opened two nights prior, sat taunting on the counter, along with a wine glass she brought to this very occasion to pour into it the blood red juice of calm into a soul hectic. She failed to remember to drink it, or pour it for that matter. It sat there next to the small heater. A heater which, as her gaze softened on the bottle, turned on suddenly and reminded her of the silence seconds before, which she hadn’t even noticed, with her racing mind always exponentially louder than any sound or taste or touch which dare not to cause clear distraction.

She thought to herself how she needs the sound, the heat, the water scalding, to wrap around her so tightly that for a single moment she gets lost in it. Lost in forgetting whoever it is she is now or was yesterday or who she might be tomorrow, but instead she just pretends to be a creature, any creature, prey and hunter, with the vulnerability of sculpted glass and the strength of unpolished granite.

Bottles floated beside her like dead bodies lost in some battle, left to rot. Bouncing up and down against her flesh, smooth and plastic, as they were. The casualties of sharing a tub with a child. Not at that very moment, but the day prior, without time or resources to purge its victims out on the open battlefield of parenthood.

The water around her too soon turned lukewarm, another victim of reality reflected. She romanticized sinking further into it, her chin and lips swallowed by simple water still. Those pools which are far deeper, intoxicating with their virtue, as vultures make offerings of vice, and so she sinks into it, the lukewarm, the cacophony of a thousand endings, the stories painted in the embrace of tub water displaced into a delicate dance, the same element against her, she reasons, that churns violently about the sea.

Motherhood

Lockdown Day 22: The Bittersweet.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Lockdown Day 22: The Bittersweet.

My attempts were futile. No matter how many times I put the canopy over his head and tried to explain how it would keep him dry, he pushed it off gleefully to feel the rain falling on his head. Soon, he also felt the rain pouring on his feet, as he quickly clawed off his shoes and socks. This was moments after he realized, 10 minutes into our walk, that his father had not come with us. “Where Daddy go?” he inquired over and over again, frantically looking for my husband. “He didn’t come with us,” I attempted to explain to my 20 month old socially isolated son, who, after five minutes of repeating “where daddy go” finally got the memo and replaced his “where daddy go” chant with repeating, in the most adorably sad voice, “bye bye dada. Bye bye dada. Bye bye dada.”

The good thing about it being under 50 degrees and pouring on day 22 of lockdown is that no one in their right mind was outside, at least in our little apartment complex. Being so close to our front door, I opted to let my son–already soaking wet–run through puddles barefoot. This is what childhood is all about… except usually it’s with other kids. But my son, who doesn’t understand why “boppa” and “grandma” can no longer visit, who screams into my phone “call friend” so he can see another kid around his age who makes funny faces at him virtually, seems mostly ok with this whole lockdown thing. He might not realize he traded in friend and grandparents for more momma time, but I can tell he likes that I’m home.

But the days of working from home have turned into one big blur. I made a commitment to myself yesterday that everyday at lunchtime I would eat a super quick lunch, then take my son out for a short walk. It was definitely the perfect day to commit that to myself in an area that typically has nice weather, the day before it was 48 degrees mid day and pouring rain.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the weather (what’s a little rain?) and I asked my husband to get my son ready for a quick walk so we could get some fresh air. My son was already enthusiastically shouting “need go home a park go home*” (“go home” means “go out” to my son) when I opened the door and noticed the little rain was actually quite a lot of rain. I grabbed an umbrella, threw on a hoodie, and figured the rain would keep us safer. One might say my son could catch a cold from being out in the rain and getting all wet, but–he won’t catch coronavirus.

After I quickly lost the battle of “keep the canopy down so you don’t get soaked,” I watched my son sit up in his stroller, uncovered, staring in awe at the rain, the heavy grey sky, and the sopping wet verdancy around him as he reached out with delight to brush against the soaking leaves–leaves only slightly less soaking than his outgrown brunette hair and fuzzy Elmo hoodie. Given he couldn’t get much wetter, I opted to take him out of his stroller to roam free. I questioned whether I was being a bad mother for letting my son run shoeless through puddles in cold-for-California weather, but I made the call to not care either way–he was having fun, and fun comes in short supply these day. Splash splash splash, he stomped, from one puddle to the next. I let him wander freely with the exception of keeping him far away from the postman and the construction worker who were having a socially-distanced chat by the mailboxes.

We weren’t outside for long. We headed back to our apartment to get warm and share all of our adventures with “dada.” I went back to my bedroom to resume work and prep for a call, and my son went back to the other room to watch too much Sesame Street. As I curled up in my bed and got back to work, I felt the same unsettling mix of deep existential sadness swimming through my veins in tandem with a tinge of peaceful delight that I’ve felt for days now. The deep pit of guilt for feeling anything positive in any of this, with so many suffering, and yet, finding so much of “this” is making me happier than I’ve been in a long time. The long focused periods of work where I can perform my best and not be distracted by severe anxiety. The getting to see my son for a few minutes on breaks and give him a quick hug or see the newest thing he has learned (or visit, after finishing one big project for the day, when I heard him giving dada a credit card and telling him that he wanted to “buy a mommy.”) The eating small portions when I’m hungry versus stuffing my face all day long with too much food. The being home and fully present when I’m done with work versus having to drive 45 minutes in traffic and arriving home too exhausted to do much with my family other than sit on the couch and survive social interaction before it’s time to go to sleep. Getting to see my son go down for his nap in my husband’s arms. Doing what’s best for my mental health and my professional productivity. Living a life that feels like I have a life… I mean, one where I can’t see other people outside of my family and where I’m constantly worried about my loved ones getting sick and dying… but a life nonetheless.

This weekend, as I roasted onions and garlic for fresh red pepper tomato sauce I was attempting to make for the pasta my husband found at the supermarket last week, I stood in the kitchen and let the thick, blood red aroma fill me. I reveled in the suspense of potentially cooking something edible, and the likelihood of it being barely that. Ultimately, the pasta was undercooked and the sauce too bitter, but that didn’t matter. I found joy in the process of making it. In the process of doing something just to try it out. Anything not entirely burnt was preemptively deemed a success by yours truly. And as I ate my pasta too-al-dente with sauce surprisingly flavorless and thin, I grew excited about what I could do next time to experiment and make it better. Because now, for the first time in years, I have the time to just be present in the world where the future is so uncontrollable I’m forced into sweetly hovering in the present. My anxiety still stabs my heart and takes my breath away at times, but lesser and lesser each day this lockdown wears on. I connect with a few friends and family members here and there, in text messages and on zoom virtual happy hours, but my contentment seems more to do with the semi-solitude that social isolation forces (and enforces.) It feels as if my little family of three is floating out amongst the stars, light years away from other sentient creatures, despite radio contacting others for comfort here and there. And there, amidst those stars, I finally am getting a taste of what happiness can be, and it tastes far better than my pasta sauce, though perhaps equally bittersweet.

Politics, Etc.

It’s all going to be ok. Right?

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on It’s all going to be ok. Right?

People who do not have anxiety disorders may understand a smidgen of similar panic these days—that deep sense of dread that no matter how hard you try and plan you just are not in control of anything in this rabid little big giant world of ours.

I know I ought to stop reading the news, devouring every qualitative and quantitative data point about this virus. I hadn’t spent a single minute becoming the world’s expert on the flu or other causes of death at scale so why do I find it so impossible to look away from the many articles about infection spreading across the world?

Maybe it’s the tightness in my chest that hasn’t fully dissipated for two weeks despite a full course of strong antibiotics. Maybe it’s knowing that many of my loved ones—my mother, in-laws, and grandmother—are in the at risk category which means things could get very scary if any of them got infected. Given worst-case projections that 75% of us many get sick it’s hard to not worry.

There is also a chance this will all blow over fairly quickly. Maybe the rates of death are much lower here than they have been in other countries. Maybe medicine will soon keep the worst of the disease at bay. It doesn’t help much to be a pessimist, though I wonder how much it helps to be a realist in this situation. I mean, it is important to take necessary precautions and isolate, but beyond that what can we do? How panicked do we want to be?

I don’t understand those who don’t feel the heavy weight of anxiety right now, but I envy them. Those who are in the what will be will be camp seem to accept this may get pretty ugly, but they aren’t particularly worried about it. Then there is the camp that thinks the entire situation is being hypersensationalized. That the media is playing up our fears when the data is not yet available to get an accurate analysis on what is really going on. That this is all not worth shutting down our economy over, despite acknowledging that some people will die from this who weren’t otherwise ready to meet their proverbial maker.

But it’s challenging to pretend everything is business as usual when it so clearly isn’t. Ignore the news—fine. Don’t engage in conversation and social media chatter about hospitals becoming overwhelmed and people of all ages becoming critically ill and unable to breathe. Got it. I just don’t know how to tune out how dramatically life has changed, in an instant. How we can no longer see our friends, or anyone really. We go for walks and sprint to the other side of the street when anyone heads our direction. We do not have a moment to look a stranger in the eye and exchange a friendly silent hello or an awkward accidental glance in anyone’s direction.

Two weeks of this is certainly survivable. It may be longer than that. How long? So many think it won’t be long at all. It doesn’t make sense for this to be a month or two and then we return to normal. To defeat this thing it seems we must accept it will seriously disrupt our lives for quite some time. Months? Years? Certainly not weeks.

There are positives to the isolation as well. It forces us to return to simplicity, in solitude or with our close family. We cannot go out to be entertained, we must entertain ourselves (or at least cozy up on the couch while watching Netflix.) It provides pause to a modern life that sprints ahead with no retrieve, and gives us the opportunity to think, create, and, if we can quiet our minds enough, sleep. So I’m trying, I’m really trying, to focus on the positive and not expect the worst. The focus is to keep loved ones safe, keep ourselves safe, and take everything one day at a time.

Isn’t that what the non anxious folks do?

Mental Health

Restraint.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Restraint.

Inside our skulls we are wired for pleasure. Robotically we seek out these highs which do their best to ensure both our survival and the survival of our species.

But, what if we can actively retrain our minds to no longer seek pleasure?

This is a central theme to my 2020 and my immediate consolidation of all of my resolutions—pleasure, in its simplest form (all and any comparable to ingesting refined sugar) is hereby and as of 1/1/20 banned from my existence. Dopamine and serotonin will no longer control me. I will have as much free will as a human can have, and that starts by releasing oneself from the chemical desire for a momentary high of any sort.

Some who I have shared this idea with have said this seems unhealthy (everything in moderation my dear) but as I’ve learned with intermittent fasting and a strict 1400 calorie diet with 1-2 high calorie days a week followed by a restricted 500 calorie day, I have the ability to retrain my mind (and quickly) to no longer seek the quick and empty pleasure of a morning muffin or secretly eating a dozen candy bars because they simply exist.

In removing simple pleasure, all that refined sugar, from my existence, I can retrain myself to experience pleasure from subtlety and perhaps heal my addiction to it and replace it with something far more productive and positive.

For example, when you stop eating refined sugar, the natural sweetness of vegetables is much more noticeable on the tongue. We need to eat but we do not need ice cream or chocolate bars or muffins to survive. And, by removing quick highs from our palate, we can eventually taste so much more.

I am applying this to my entire life this year. Yes, it is a drastic shift, but it is much needed. This will help me stabilize this year, simplify and repattern my values. Pleasure is a vice and one worth experiencing but not necessary to repeat or desire. It sounds very Buddhist of me, I guess, but I’m not here to be one with the world. I’m here to teach my mind and the chemicals therein that they do not own my actions. They’ve had 36 years to prove themselves worthy of this power and have only led me into the darkness. In taking away that power, I am here, ready to lead myself into the light.

Random Musings

2020.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on 2020.

Maybe I’m just in an uncharacteristically good mood today, or my post-massage “toxins” are intoxicating my mind, but I have a good feeling about 2020. I know the change from 12/31 to 1/1 is an arbitrary a delineation of time from one period to the next as any, but for some reason, everything feels different. I am thinking in five year chunks right now, and 2020 is the beginning of this chunk. A new beginning.

2019 was the end of trying to be something I’m not and letting that turn me into someone even worse. I am still scared but I am accepting now that failure is not only ok, but that it no longer means getting on the same horse and expecting not to fall again. I am not meant to ride a horse. I’m maybe meant to surf on starlight or fly a rocket ship. The world is full of possibilities and I’ve been so limited by fear. Fear is there for a reason but I’ve realized what is really terrifying is that 15 years into “adulthood” I still feel as lost as I did in 2005. Maybe more so, in some respects. For someone so lost, I acknowledge I’ve managed some level of achievement in all areas of my life—but everything is slightly off kilter.

The next five years are about finding my balance. Split nearly in two, the first half is dedicated to simplification and productivity. Semi-minimalism, reduced social media use, sleep, intermittent fasting, pescatarian mostly plant-based diet, daily movement, high-value time with my family, saving (not spending), and focusing through stretches of time are the themes of these 2.5 years. At the end of this time, I will be 38.5 and prepared for the next phase, the entry into my 40s. For the second half of these five years, I will add to the now-routine simplicity and healthful way of living and add substantial change. This change will lead to a 40s of fulfillment where I can build and create on a daily basis (exact meaning of that is unclear, but through phase 1 I will identify my objective and work towards acquiring knowledge to empower this transition.)

Everything starts with simplicity and sleep, starting tonight. Starting now with these “toxins” sweating out of my flesh and breathing in the fresh air of one of my favorite Bay Area towns as I take the time to walk around and fully reset. I became toxic in 2019 and there is no going back to undo my thoughts or actions. But I can change everything going forward. I can stop projecting my own lack of control into trying to (and failing to) solve everyone else’s lives. I need to love myself, as cheesy as it sounds, and truly accept the things she isn’t good at, and provide room to grow where eventually she can add the most light to the world. That light is there, at the end of the proverbial tunnel. She sees it. She feels it burning hot on her flesh. The warmth embraces her with possible possibility.

Health & Healthcare

Weightless and Weightloss.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Weightless and Weightloss.

170lbs. Not the largest I’ve ever been, but with a healthy weight targeted 120lbs, I have a long way to go.

Getting healthy in 2020 is top priority, both mentally and physically. I want the energy to keep up with my son and any future children, should I be able to have any more. My last pregnancy was rough as I was 225lbs (gaining 45lbs) when I was only supposed to gain 10. Oops. I really want to get down to 120 before I even consider having another kid. I might not have one, but it’s as good a motivation as any.

I know how to do it and I also know exactly why I fail time and again.

1. My diet sucks. I don’t prepare healthy food. I get super stressed and binge on chocolate and bad carbs. I don’t eat enough some days and I eat way too much others. I want to focus on a mostly (entirely?) plant-based diet (maybe some fish) in 2020. I was vegetarian for 13 years as a teenager but the least healthy veg in the universe so I want to do it right this time. Cutting out dairy would be awesome but hard to do that as I also want to reduce my carb intake.

2. I don’t drink water. Not like—enough—water. I don’t drink any water, unless I’m working out. I need to force myself to drink constantly. Not booze. H2O. No more tea or lemonade or diet soda. Water.

3. Working out is too all or nothing. I go a week or two when I make it to workout classes 3-4 times then I don’t move for a month. I need to figure out a routine that works. Speaking of work, most of the women (and men) are in really good shape. I’m not sure how they find time to work out (well most don’t have kids!) but I want to be inspired by their size 2/4/6 selves and get myself back into my size 6 banana republic jeans in a box of wishful thinking under my bed. Not sure I’ll be in them by July but hey, pigs might fly.

4. I don’t sleep enough. I need to prioritize sleep right now. My lack of sleep has made me go crazy. At 9pm every night I need to shut down and close my eyes when my son does. I can’t stay up reading social media or catching up on work. Sleep is my top priority. Even above drinking more water!

5. Alcohol = bad. I’m considering a sober start to 2020. It’s so so hard to cut out booze, esp as someone with social anxiety, but I can at least reduce how often I’m drinking and how much. Unfortunately I’ve acquired a taste for beer lately but overall I need to cut back on socializing in alcohol-infused situations and try to find friends who like to do healthy things like go on walks and jump up and down at concerts without looking down on me for avoiding the bar. Maybe I’ll do 1 or 2x a month drinking nights and limit to 2 drinks max.

Hmm.

Weightloss goals…

Feb – 160

Mar – 155

April – 150

May – 145

June 140

July – 135

Aug – 130

Sept – 127

Oct – 123

Nov – 120

Dec – 118ish

Hey I’ll be happy back at 150!

Mental Health

Drift.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Drift.

Grab the wheel tight, though all control is long gone. Since the day your eyes first were introduced to light and the world appeared before you with all its people alien to you from the start. And now, at 36, you’ve accepted, or try to accept, that you will never find a path to feeling like part of it all—you won’t just grow out of not knowing how to relate to or respond to others. This is you at your unenviable core. You will not change. Your best bet is to numb. Medicate.

You are drifting yet again. Floating on some field hockey table as a particular puck being slammed against everything. Life moves so fast, especially now, it’s hard to catch a breath. And the hunger to be seen and understood grows with each passing year as the potential to be part of the surrounding world diminishes rapidly.

My value is questionable. I exist to exist. I offend, shock, but rarely awe. I am a mother and that should be enough. Even as a mother there is the shame of not doing enough, not connecting enough, not sending thank you or holiday cards enough.

And I cherish my friends but am a horrible one. I come up with all these ideas and plans that I fail to see through—and I don’t know why other than self diagnosing beyond the depression that every psychologist assures me, along with anxiety, is “all” that I have.

Is it the mood instability or is it the craving to feel connected and consistent which causes all of the instability? Does it even matter anymore?

I am never right or in the right. This is where I disintegrate into myself. I throw my mind at the wind towards anyone who might understand and relieve me from all of this, but it is something I must do on my own. For a person as absurd as myself the only means of survival seems to be slipping deeper inside myself, fighting every thought with rethought, with a giant grin plastered across my face so no one notices. Pure survival mode for now and maybe forever until the end of it. Because no one has time to care about or deal with a 36 year old woman who is so utterly lost she barely can find her own breath.

This is not just being over dramatic or immature or what have you. Look at my words and actions and awkwardness and how I fail daily to come across as an acceptable specimen of acceptable humanity. If I stop talking I am saying too little but if I start it’s only a matter of time (count the seconds) before I say something regrettable, blurt it out and grasp at the vibrations of voice wishing I could swallow them back. The shame of merely existing becomes far too great sometimes.

There lies the conundrum of why or why bother but there is plenty of it in motherhood and the alternate unanswerable question of why not? This is all a big game where every single one of us loses in the end, but I guess it’s still worth playing to pass the time.—if only its chutes and ladders weren’t so isolating and rough.

Mental Health

Undoing.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Undoing.

Where I am right now, finally, I guess, is willing to accept that childhood trauma can and does impact the brain in ways that are chemical and physical. I’m talking to a new online therapist who has a history working with those who have far worse trauma then I’ve ever experienced, I find she immediately understands why I think the way I think, and it’s refreshing to not be fed the same basic CBT lines without a solid understanding of the way I react so sensitively to everything and why.

Maybe it’s not bipolar. That’s a self diagnosis that could be wrong. I’m just looking for something to explain this energy and all of my mistakes, and specifically how there are months where I am clearly depressed and others where I feel like I can take on the world’s biggest challenges and solve them by being so raw and real that people will be inspired and turn to exploring their own psyches and find out that we are all pretty much the same in our bitter-beautiful mortality.

And yet.

There is a problem with how I am. A problem not with who I am but the consequence of it. I am, apparently, an adrenaline addict, which is a thing childhood trauma and PTSD can do to a brain. I’ve been using the word “addict” a lot to describe my challenges so it makes sense.

In my preliminary reading on the subject matter — attachment disorder with adrenaline addiction — I feel myself nodding as I read the content. Basically stable life is boring and I crave chaos. I create chaos. Others do not understand this. I don’t really want chaos but it is an addiction. It is that self sabotage that happens over and over again because I’m way more comfortable with turbulence than smooth skies.

This is something, I’ve read, that is etched into my mind, but that can be mostly unwired. I hope that’s true. Because the gist of it is that the things that today have the potential to make me “happy” are the same things that trigger my next demise.

I’m told I should go jump out of airplanes to fill this need for adrenaline, but I’m not the skydiving type. But one can also do things like performing or running (30 seconds beyond feeling like you can’t run anymore) to get that dopamine in healthy ways. That makes sense—I’m happiest when I am regularly exercising because I’m burning through some of the addiction cravings temporarily. Once my back issues are resolved I’ll be making exercise a priority. I already planned to in 2020 but now it’s part of my treatment plan.

I really wish I could know what it’s like to live without any history of trauma, and can only imagine how hard it is for others who experienced far worse. I feel like somewhere in all of this there is a guidance to my future career as a therapist/author, maybe, helping others with similar pasts and making sure they understand that their brains have been altered from a young age, they are not crazy, they are just addicted to things that are not healthy in that they impact the chance to be truly happy and stable, if that’s what they want.

In the meantime, this adrenaline junkie has to stop with the involuntary self destruction and find motivation to strive for the status quo. I think my new online therapist will help me with tactics that work for PTSD which will hopefully alleviate my cravings for the ugly high of self combustion.

And, I think it is fall-winter too, that triggers the worst of it. Historically so. The fall winter turbulence followed by deep winter depression and by spring I’m ready to pick up the pieces but it’s far too late. Maybe because it’s my birthday and every year I got older the expectations to fit into this idea of the perfect little girl grew exponentially. All I remember from childhood outside of feeling like an outsider, longing to be accepted by others, is getting into trouble, being whipped, and apologizing for being a horrible, broken person. I’m pretty sure that isn’t everyone’s childhood experience.

And I relate only to those with similar childhoods, it seems—the high functioning of us, anyway. Those of us who rebelled against it. Because we want more than this and yet we aren’t sure if happiness is actually achievable in a state of stability. We have the choice between medicating away the highs that drive us (to both the good and the bad) and experiencing the flatline of emotions, or we try to get a handle on the madness etched into our minds with every gaslight comment, every burning snap of the belt against our flesh, every moment that took away our confidence and our understanding of who we truly are or how to make that person happy.

I guess it starts with accepting that SHE (he) deserves to BE happy. Not in an epic, adrenaline-inducing, self destructive sort of way, but in a calm filled with gratitude and acceptance that transcends the day and becomes a natural part of being way. There is a path to recovery and I’m going to find it. I will undo the toxic mind and somehow give birth to a woman who respects herself and believes she is worthy of her own happiness. And, that, ideally, happiness need not be synonymous with emptiness and instead actually, somehow, feel good.

Mental Health

How are you doing?

by Life With Interest1 Comment on How are you doing?

It is a nicety and essential question of small talk: “how are you doing?” Variants of this question include “how was your weekend?” or more directional “don’t you feel amazing today, the weather is just perfect?”

Well, it becomes challenging to answer “how are you doing” with the socially appropriate response when you are challenged in your current state of mental health. The “correct” answer is always “good” or “great” but here’s a list of alternate answers that may be socially incorrect but a bit more accurate…

  • I’m horrible at the moment, thanks.
  • Ok. Why in this context does Ok sound not Ok? Like anything less than good is not Ok?
  • I was just contemplating the most painless way to put an end to my existence but I’m doing great! High five!
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. I have a toddler.
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. My mind was racing. I had a thousand ideas and wrote two blog posts. I’m tired now gosh darn it.
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. Was crying for hours then binge watched some series on Netflix then the sun came up.
  • Numb. Like. What are feelings anyway?
  • I think my feelings are better explained in an impromptu song and dance. (Starts to sing)
  • Really shitty. But I’ve come here to binge on candy and chips so I’ll feel worse soon, don’t you worry.
  • Spectacular. I just finished something and I think it was good. But don’t ask me later because I’m sure someone will tell me it wasn’t as good as I thought and then I will feel the opposite of spectacular.
  • I don’t know. I thought I was ok. But then I just remembered that Trump is president and our cops are shooting innocent people and getting away with it and the world is filled with horrible selfish people and I think I’m pretty horrible and selfish but at least I’m not a republican. You?
  • Like the Bay Area is too fucking expensive to live in. WTF?
  • Restless. Like I want to start a fight. Any interest? Oh wait I don’t know how to fight. Want to punch me in the face? That would be exciting. No, seriously. Punch me.
  • Sick. (Oh do you have a cold?) Mentally (said staring back blankly into the asker’s eyes.)
  • I plead the fifth.
  • You don’t want to know. If you do, read my blog at…
  • If I told you I’d have to kill you.
  • Like I don’t fit in here or anywhere else. You?
  • Hyper as fuck.
  • I do not have an HR-appropriate response to this question.
  • Let me send you my Spotify playlist that answers this appropriately. Think lots of Radiohead and Coldplay.
  • Can’t you tell by looking at my hair?
  • Unsure if I’m actually here at present or this all a dream or reality split in two this morning and if so I hope other me is faring better.
  • Well, I gotta pee. That’s why I am walking to the bathroom. Can we discuss my feelings later or else I’m going to feel something else and I won’t want to tell you about it but I promise you it will ruin my day.
  • Like an idiot because I overshared my overthoughts again and made things awkward and potentially harmed a friendship that means the world to me and I’m so mad at myself right now and want to erase the entirety of last week. How’s your morning going?
  • Great. (Starts to cry.)
  • Feeling sad because I don’t know if I can or should have more children and being pregnant is hard and having young kids is hard and I work full time and need to be employed for a year at one place to get maternity leave and my mental health challenges make that very difficult and I’m terrified I’m going to lose my job at the absolute worst time so I probably should not have another child but I want one and I’m getting older and… oh, you didn’t want to know all of that? Why did you ask?
  • Am I awake? Are you awake?
  • My back and arm hurts but I accidentally overdosed on Aleve so feeling great!
  • Like the world’s worst mom.
  • Good. I think. Wow. This is what feeling good feels like. Thanks for asking!
  • What are feelings? Why are feelings.
  • Pinch me and I’ll tell you.
  • Fuckkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Fine.
  • Confused.
  • Good. Good. Good. So good.
  • 36
  • 16
  • 8
  • 2
  • 82
  • Like an imposter.
  • Generally ok.
  • Fleshy.
  • Maybe alright?
  • Hungover. From 5 days ago.
  • Horny. I’m feeling horny. You?
  • Embarrassed. Chronically embarrassed.
  • Like I wish I was someone else.
  • Better than yesterday.
  • From 0-10? About a 2.
  • From 0-10? About 1000!
  • From 0-10? -1000. Can I leave now?
  • So excited! Isn’t it amazing today?
  • Fearful that life has no meaning.
  • Like my bones can feel the heaviness of the season and are cracking with each step.
  • Infatuated.
  • Extremely apathetic.
  • Mildly sociopathic.
  • Hypersensitive.
  • What?
  • The best I’ll ever feel.
  • Like a magnet.
  • Like a magnet that repels everyone around me.
  • Like a human.
  • Like someone slowly dying and existing in a meaningless void of space but appreciating that existence nonetheless because why the fuck shouldn’t I, you know, it’s all pointless so I’ve got to make it all pointy to feel anything at all. So, how’s your day going? How do YOU feel?