reverie v. reality

https://reverie.bearblog.devreverie v. reality2024-10-22T08:22:04.285074+00:00reveriehiddenpython-feedgenhello there, wanderer!
I’m (or you can call me ).

here you will find a of:

welcome, if you are venturing in.
& if you’re going - good luck...https://reverie.bearblog.dev/rain-in-my-heart/rain in the rooms of my heart2024-08-03T04:46:17.771392+00:00reveriehidden

I had therapy this afternoon - which I was dreading and wanted more than anything to cancel - and plans with Pepper to grab dinner and a movie, which I am really glad I had set up in advance, because I ended up needing the mood boost to balance out all of the crying. I got into a huge fight with my mom Thursday night. Usually, we call each other in the morning after a fight, but today it was radio silence on both of our ends until late afternoon. I cried the whole drive to my therapy appointment (partly my bad, because I should have changed songs the moment I started crying along, but I was kind of hoping to get the worst of the crying out prior to therapy, so I wouldn't blubber my way through the entire session...I am not a coherent crier). It was a little bit about the fight and a little bit about how I feel like I'm just fucking up any and everything I get my hands on these days.

Anyway, apparently I'm, like, therapist-verified depressed, instead of what I thought was just think I've been feeling low and a bit lost-depressed. I had my suspicions, I guess. I definitely haven't felt like myself. I just...thought it was a low point? The sudden apathy towards things I'm usually really passionate about maybe should have tipped me off, but it's always harder to see it from up close, right? So I'm moving forward with trying medication. I've been on anxiety meds before, which means I have an idea of what I'm in for. I'm having...a lot of mixed emotions about it all, I guess. Nice to have someone tell me that some of the behaviors and emotions I've been tearing myself apart over are perfectly normal and very much branches spiraling out from the same source. I feel sad, still, though. And, ah, disappointed, perhaps? A bit relieved? Hard to untangle. I guess in some ways I thought I would pop back out of this feeling any day now. Just - whoosh - sunshine again. Gotta deal with the leaky roof a little longer.

Needless to say, after that big whomp of an afternoon, I was really, really happy to see Pepper. We usually hit this one restaurant next to the movie theatre when we go see a film. We're definitely creatures of habit and this place has good margaritas. Then we walk over to the shop next door to snag some cheap candy before strolling back over to the theatre. Confession: I really cannot resist the siren song of a Cherry Slushee, so I'm always suckered into getting one when we go through the line for popcorn. Pepper has a system where she asks them to fill it halfway, adds the butter, and then gets them to top it off with more popcorn. I was unaware that this was something people were particular about, but we ran into some other friends tonight who were heading to a different movie and I got a good laugh out of Pepper and one of the duo very seriously discussing this system. I made eye contact with the other popcorn-butter-ratio-neutral friend and we both shrugged. I just like to eat Sno-Caps with my popcorn. That's about where my interest checks out.

I thought the movie was entertaining, although there were at least two narrative decisions that I was kind of surprised by? It was a good time, though, with a lot of big audience reactions. I blasted one of my upbeat playlists on the way home. Got pulled into a kind of heavy discussion once I got in the door, but now I've escaped and am enjoying a moment of quietude. Algernon is sitting next to me, which is kind of out of character for him? He's usually sort of an explorer, so I find it funny he's being a bit of a snuggle bug tonight. Maybe he knows it was a weird day.

Good luck out there,
Eve

Spent last weekend tucked away in a tiny cabin with my friend Pepper. We'd planned the excursion out tentatively in the spring, but decided to hold off on locking it in until we were through the majority of July, since it was a really busy month for us both. Luckily, our schedules worked out, so we hopped in the car Friday evening, loaded to the gills with coolers of yummy beverages and stuff for weekend meals, and headed up towards the mountains. It was rainy and overcast pretty much the whole drive up, but considering it literally poured buckets last time we went here (I think that was, like, two years ago?), a little sprinkle was nauttttthin and we managed to get everything unloaded into the cabin with only a little rain tracked in behind us.

There's a local spot to eat nearby, so after we got the majority of our stuff inside, we ran out for a bite to eat. Oh my GOOOOOOOOD, it was so tasty! We split the chocolate torte for dessert and it was seriously incredible. Then, we snuggled down into our pajamas and settled in for night one, for which our first priority was: watch some fun movies.

I'm actually not great at keeping up with movies (though getting a Letterboxd account has helped, since it at least lets me know what my friends are watching and sometimes moves me to give anything they rate highly a try), but Pepper is a movie fanatic and keeps me apprised of good ones. Unfortunately for her, I had panic-downloaded a random selection of stuff, since I didn't think we would have much internet connection...aaaaaaaand, I was correct. Fortunately for both of us, I somehow managed to secure a pretty good array. We finished one movie, started a second, and then paused to go to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up and crushed some mini-muffins (lemon poppyseed and chocolate chip, for me) and I drank copious amounts of coffee. Then we finished the previous night's movie. It was overcast and horrendously humid when I stuck my head outside, but the cabin had great A/C, so we were able to keep it cool enough to lounge around without overheating.

Last time we stayed at this same location, we rented out a different build and apparently that one does NOT have A/C. It was a meltingly hot 48 hours and we had to beg floor fans from the people who run the site, because otherwise it was waaaaaay too warm to sleep. Lesson learned. I checked our reservation about thirty times just to confirm this one wasn't going to turn into an impromptu sauna.

We waffled between a board game or a TTRPG. I have a few two-person TTRPG games I've been absolutely chomping at the bit to try and Pepper was really interested in a few of them, so we ended up playing a session of house and it was really, really fun. We fudged the rules a bit for our own purposes and we ended up rolling a six-sided die a few times to make some decisions that the deck of cards wasn't quite able to narratively satisfy, or where we were stuck on which way we wanted the plotline to fall. We played for maybe three or four hours total, with intermittent breaks for other stuff (like lunch! We made some delicious & super stacked sandwiches). I think we filled out seven or eight pages of a notebook! I want to type it up more neatly when I get some time. I think the game would be a really good lead-in to a longer-form Monster of the Week campaign. I'm gonna be thinking that over for the next few weeks, I imagine.

At the conclusion of the game, we tried to go out for a walk along the path that lines the cabins. The clouds, which had been mulling over the possibility of a rainstorm all day, took that moment to make their decision, so we pulled on our shoes to the sound of raindrops starting a slow beat against the roof of the cabin. Still, we figured we'd at least get outdoors for a minute; maybe the rain would stay light and we could meander for a little while. Picture me with my ankle-high rain boots, holding an incredibly flimsy umbrella (taken from the work lost-and-found, after no one came to claim it for a month). I gave Pepper the more structurally sound umbrella and we set off into the drizzle. Unfortunately, we only made it about three minutes down the path before the storm doubled down and we were forced to hoof it back. We gleefully settled in for resigned ourselves to more movies, in place of a walk.

The cabin didn't have a full kitchen, so I made microwave risotto. Wild experience, because the spinny-plate would NOT stay on track and I had managed to forget a measuring cup, so there was a lot of eyeballing measurements and hoping for the best. I told Pepper if she hated it, she had to forgive me for cooking her something terrible. It was a bit of a spectator sport for her, watching me try to wrangle the meal together. Still boggled by the amount of onion the recipe called for. I halved it and it still seemed like 85% onion??? It ended up being edible, though, so - whoooo! I win!

Anyway, we had planned to do s'mores outside over a fire to end the night, but it was still sprinkling and we couldn't find the firewood that we thought was provided in the rental, so we just decided to go full-microwave with it. I have not laughed harder over a s'more in my life. There were at least three points were I thought I might choke to death on marshmallow, because so many things were going wrong but also we were trying to eat them before they 1) fell apart or 2) coagulated into something horrifying. At one point, I opened the microwave and Pepper touched a marshmallow to check its meltyness. The only way I can describe the level of horror in her scream was, like, that moment in scary movies where someone touches a person and they turn to goo under their hand. Tears in my eyes the whole damn time. It was really awesome. I just have so much fun with Pepper, even when we're doing something so incredibly stupid.

We watched Twister (1996, dir. Jan de Bont) in preparation for going to see Twisters (2024, dir. Lee Isaac Chung) this weekend. So, that's something I'm looking forward to tomorrow! Though, I haven't seen the trailer for the new one, so I'm walking in blind in terms of what the plotline could possibly be. More Twisters, I would reckon. Guess we'll see!

Good luck out there,
Eve

I have two brothers, both of whom are between a half-decade to a decade younger than me. We got along alright when we were little. Although, between my somewhat insular nature as a kid ¹ and the gap between our interests, I wasn't as close with them as they were with each other during our adolescence.

It took a long time - pretty much all of my undergraduate and well into my grad school years - for me to feel like I finally knew and understood them. In part, this was just because of how our age stratification played out with school stuff. My middle brother didn't graduate high school until I was finishing up with my undergrad and my youngest brother only moved on to college after I was already done with my Master's program. (That is SO weird to see written down. The passage of time. What the fuck.)

We never co-existed in school spaces; only at home, and we were often in our own little world, because I was utterly disinterested in Roblox and Minecraft, and they could not have cared less about whatever ridiculous TV show or romantical 2010s novel I was engrossed in at the moment. (So fair of them.) We didn't have much overlap in friends, either, and when we did, it was just via our friends' siblings being at similarly stratified ages, but we never hung out in a larger group or anything.

It's not that I don't have fond memories of us being close when we were younger (I have tons, actually: like, we used to take turns trying to beat levels in Scooby Doo: Night of 100 Frights, but we all really sucked at it so mainly it was just a lot of commisseration over how bad we were or overzealous cheering when one of us actually managed to clear a section), but when I think of myself at ten or fifteen or twenty, there's so much difference in who I was, what I felt, and what I wanted from life. The pieces of my brothers I knew when I left for college were wildly changed when I returned, and I was changed, too. In a lot of ways, we were totally new people when I finally moved back to the same state. It was a weird realization: that we were reconnecting, even though we'd seen each other at every major holiday throughout the years.

Like: Hi, you've known me your whole life, and I've known you so long it might as well be my whole life. Who are you, again? What's your favorite movie now? Are you still convinced you hate mangoes? When did the family dog start loving you more than me? You had my same English Lit teacher; did you like the books she had us read? Have you grown out of your grass allergy? Tell me what music you're listening to. Where are you trying to go next?

Maybe this says more about me than anything else. I can't say I wasn't pretty in my own head throughout undergrad and grad school. Luckily, by the time I had to move home to save money, we were all in a much better space life-wise for bonding and I'M SO GRATEFUL - I will shout it to the hills - because my siblings and I locked in on being buddies once I returned. As torn as I was about the decision to move, I'm glad I made the choice to come back home, if only for the fact that it's allowed us all to grow closer. If I was still far away, I'm not sure how much more time would have passed before we reached this point. And I really love all of the moments that we have now that I've had a chance to get to know my brothers as the people they've grown into.

I see more of my youngest brother - let's call him Trout² - since he and his girlfriend swing by to visit me pretty frequently. Our middle brother (Badger) moved away for work near the end of last year, so I don't get to see him in person often, but we hear from him pretty frequently over calls and texts (when they're not busy being Really Cool Trendsetters in the small town they absconded to). He and his fiancée - Shrimp - sometimes lay low for several weeks at a time, depending on their schedules (Shrimp is starting an artists' coaliation and Badger is making crazy code at his job), but when Badger finally hops back on a long-distance family-game-night after a long hiatus, the rest of us cheer uproariously.

Trout and I have grown to be fast friends over the last few years. This is sometimes to his detriment, since it means he often has to cope with my following him around incessantly at family gatherings³ so that we can at least bounce the conversation back and forth to one another instead of succumbing to the full force of an Aunt or Uncle's what's going on in your life questioning.

It's also really nice, because I get along really well with Trout's girlfriend, Fawn. She's a regular staple in family game nights and as the only two Sims players who have been abruptly displaced into completely different gaming systems, we often end up running around together during video game nights (we're brave, but we prefer to go in a pair during the horror games, since the boys will just fucking disappear around a corner - Fawn and I have each other's backs, haha). Honestly, Fawn probably texts me more than Trout and Badger combined, which truly makes me laugh. It makes me really happy to feel like my siblings' significant others feel welcome around me, because - quite frankly - my immediate and extended family are a lot of big personalities and opinions and are therefore a very intimidating group to walk into.

Also, while I'm sort of guiltily grateful not to have a sister (some strange underlying fear that, if I had a sister, everyone would compare us constantly, I think?), I feel like I get a shadow of sisterliness from Shrimp & Fawn, while also getting cool friends who are welcome additions to the family dynamic. I mean, of course I'd rather get along with prospective family members than not, but it's nice to actually really get along instead of the perfunctory we tolerate one another deal that I've seen from other people.

I just really love them all, I guess.

It means a lot to me when I get glimpses that I'm not just accidentally third-wheeling (fifth-wheeling???) whenever we all get together. Like, for example, after a group lunch⁴ on vacation when everyone started to break off to go do whatever they wanted: I try not to insinuate myself into anyone else's little pockets of alone-time, so I wandered off on my own, expecting all of us to meet up later. It was no small amount of surprised delight that filled me upon hearing my name called out as I turned to see Trout and Fawn come careening around the corner of the building, trying to catch up with me. It's wonderful, to feel like people enjoy your presence; that they might even seek it out.

I'm just grateful for the relationship I've been able to cultivate with my brothers now that we're all older and can meet each other as the people we've grown into; and while, obviously, we all still have growing to do, I feel like we've already forged a steady base for our friendship and understanding of one another to build upon.

(Also, slightly tangential to my rant about how much I love my little brothers - but my siblings also have several friends who we've known for years who I absolutely consider family, too. They've come along on trips and seen the nitty-gritty of embarassing family fights and heard us all ramble on long car rides. One of them keeps asking me to come to this dance social night. Like, not even trying to get Trout to go, too. He just told me he thought I would like it. I cannot express how touched I was that he very insistently made sure I'd noted it in my Google Calendar. I think he found out that this guy that asked me out once several years back attends and is trying to engineer a meet-cute (is it a meet-cute if you've already met???) but it's so meddling-little-sibling-vibes that I can't even be annoyed about it. It just makes me laugh.)

Ah, I just love my siblings and all of their nuances. I can't wait to see who they become as they move through their twenties.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

a collection of messy & unfinished things¹

• • • • • • • •

and it takes forever to arrange the words in any semblance of a meaning.

I am moving sideways now across a
very small amount of space and it will
never end.

• • • •

tearing apart old poems
to find what they're made of.

i want the base components -
blood or sorrow, joy or pride.
i want a room that sings it back
to me. it's building up a chorus.

I had it once - a well-spring,
where there were tens of thousands
of stories pouring out and into
waiting palms.

I spelled the water into ink
and wrote until the page was far
too darkly sodden to see.

• • • •

the need to separate shards of myself into neat, perfect boxes.

a journal for my clean self, a journal for the mess. a room where I am lost and a room where I am blessed. infuriating. meaningless. standing within myself and screaming, "we cannot break apart like this!"

as if in agreement: the same sunshine no matter the room. the same handwriting, just from a different view. cultivating a tenderness towards the self that's new.

• • • •

swear that you'll know me.
swear that time will not change us.

turn and bear away the shade that creeps, shyly, overhead.
the trees grow taller, thinner, sharper.
breakable. brittle,

like small bones.

i thought that life could play in reverse;
that it could flow uphill to the old roots.

i thought that time would bear us back to how we were,
forgetting that the river runs in only one direction.

• • • •

where the sun is streaming evermore over the hill, thin and soft as though through leaves or water

• • • •

There you stand: with a fine line of sunlight painted over you,
growing brighter then turning away.

Where am I, now?
Ahead or behind you?

If I grow around you, if I grow away from you,
if I tear down bricks and boards and stones,
how, then - how, again - how can we go on?

I'm asking you to love me.
I'm asking if I'm worth the knowing;
can I been seen without cracking open the contents of my stomach and ribs?

• • • •

deliverance defenestrate dally disparate dispense delegate dour drown desperate delicate despicable drought double destitute drawn daughter denounce diligent diffident distillate diversion driven divest dolorous demonstrate derelict disenchant derail dreamt

deference
disdain
doubt
deliberation
demiurge
denouement
distance

• • • •

anything to get the words out - set the words free - let them spill, messy and unpolished, onto the page. so desperate for something other than pale, empty space and the hollow echo that is heard when the room is void of everything real.

• • • •

first things first:
anticipate fear; anticipate soul hunger.
say a word and then consider the implications.
inhale wanting, cold and blue as smoke.
not catharsis, but a step beyond it:
wrung dry of sorrow or seething rage.

• • • •

For a moment, forget the ending: the longing echo, the ripples now still. Stand in a quiet hall, looking long-ways out to the end, like peering down a well. There is no real difference between horizontal & vertical, other than the awareness of gravity. You land much the same as a coin the in water. With your eyes closed, you're falling inside either way.

• • • • • • • •

Another trip at an end. Despite having a moment of panic mid-week where I was like, I should have shortened this trip, I'm straight up ruining everyone's schedule, everything went really well & I'm so, so happy with the entire experience. My friends' (let's call them Riley and Taylor) baby was SO cute and hilarious (as babies almost always are) & I have a soft spot for kids a mile wide, so I was really pleased when he started grinning at me outright instead of giving me suspicious little side-eye looks of Mom, why is she still here? everytime I showed up in the same room.

While some plans fell through, new ones happened pretty spontaneously and I think it all balanced out well. Riley is really organized & a great planner, so I think she had some stuff on the back burner for if I choked and totally failed to come up with things I wanted to do and/or see while I was in town. I'm kind of glad we didn't have anything set in concrete because Taylor's work schedule is very sporadic and it was good for Riley and I to be able to make quick changes to plans based on the baby.

One of our other friends - Maia - (who Riley knows from childhood and who I know through Riley) joined us for a bunch of outings, which I was really excited about. I didn't think she would be able to join as often as she did & it was a pleasant surprise each time! She & Riley have a rapport that I find frankly comforting to observe. It's very obvious that they've been friends for forever; there are no airs put on, no silence is awkward, no spindling thread of conversation is stilted. I could go silent at moments, listen, & let myself be buoyed on the wave of their well-worn camaraderie.

Also, Riley & Taylor are two of my only friends who own and regularly play board games, so I was making use of that fact every possible evening. Calm two hours while the baby naps? Hey, guys, what about a board game? I got to try maybe four or five new games. A blessing and a curse, because while the introduction was welcome, I can rarely wrangle any of my friends at home to play. I'm going to have to strong-arm some people into going to the local board game cafe soon, so I can get my fix.

• • • •

A moment within the trip that I was not expecting at all: I sort of stumbled down the conversation path of telling Riley & Taylor that I'm asexual.¹

I went to bed that night and just lay there laughing as quietly as I could for about twenty minutes, because not only did I start the conversation on a completely separate note and had not expected it to veer that direction, but it went really well and they were both really kind & supportive in a way I've only really heard from other ace friends. I'm tearing up a little right now, thinking about it.

In a funny way, I felt a bit like they accidentally unlocked a "hidden dialogue" path, because usually I'm pretty good at skirting around questions and topics of conversation surrounding my dating life, but they were asking about if I'd gone on any dates recently & I said, truthfully but leaving a lot of stuff out, no, not really, the last few I went on weren't great, so I'm just kind of not worrying about it right now.

Taylor, who is a pretty straightforward person, asked, "Well, do you like dating?"

In all the years of friends asking me about my dating life, I’m not sure I can say that anyone has ever asked me that question. I guess it was enough to shock me into admitting outright, "No, I pretty much hate it. People always want me to know after a few dates if I'm interested in them and I just can't tell that quickly."

\[the ensuing conversation, with a lot of paraphrasing\]

Taylor \[with honest curiosity\]: You can't tell if you're interested in someone immediately?

Me: Not really. Sometimes I think people are good looking right out of the gate, but I can't tell if I like someone until I've know them for a while. I think I've had maybe four crushes since high school and all of them have been people I've know for maybe a year or more.

Taylor: Oh, okay, so you don't think 'they're attractive, I want to get to know them better'?

Me: Um, yeah, not really. I want to get to know if I like people in general, first. And the people I've gone on dates with seem to think we're both immediately like, I like you romantically and you like me romantically! and I'm still stuck way back in what feels like an earlier chapter of the platonic to romantic book or something.

Taylor: Oh, okay! I think some people would say that their romantic, sexual, & friendship interest grow alongside one another.

Me \[trying to be brave & not dance around the point as usual\]: Yeah, I've heard that from some other people. I don't think my levels of interest increase on the same scale - they kind of jump at different intervals. To be honest, I consider myself, like, asexual and maybe some level of aromantic - I like people, but it takes a long time, so it's hard for me to go on random dates because people typically want an answer about how into them I am way earlier than I can comfortably say.

\[Taylor & Riley take a moment where they're clearly re-analyzing previous conversations they've had with me about my dating life - I have a little laugh about it internally.\]

Me \[to Riley\]: Sorry I never said something earlier. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, it’s just that I don't really know how to bring it up, sometimes.

Riley: I mean, I guess I'm not totally surprised? I remember all the times you'd come back from a date while we were roommates. I definitely thought, at one point or another: Wow, she really does not enjoy going on dates.

Me: Yeah.....so, um. That's why I'm kind of weird about people trying to set me up with their friends. Because they might be really nice, but it's hard to gauge how my interest and attraction might go. And I've discovered— through a lot of trial and error and hurt feelings - that I'm typically not operating on the same playing field as other people, to really mangle the metaphor.

Taylor \[earnestly\]: You know we love you and support you, right?

Me \[beyond flustered by the turn this conversation has taken and a little overwhelmed by this direct admission\]: Oh, yes - um, thank you, I mean - I know, yeah.

Taylor \[trying to lighten the mood, since it’s obvious I’m emotional\]: I’m an Ace Ally!

Me \[laughing\]: Oh, that’s great - that’s really great, maybe we can get you a t-shirt.

\[end scene\]

At this point, the conversation meandered around that for a bit until we ended up wandering off to other topics.

I don’t know. I’ve only spoken to a few friends about all of this; the majority of which (read: two) are also ace-spectrum, so I was really taken aback in a good way by the flow of the conversation.

Not that I necessarily thought they would be rude or cruel about it, but a few of the family members I’ve talked to have definitely had some difficulty wrapping their heads around all of it. Which is fine, to me. I don’t need everyone in my life to understand me perfectly, as long as they love me for who I am. Would that we could all be Known & Understood clearly, but on the whole, the reality of all of us being separate people with unique experiences & understandings of the world is something I enjoy about life, so I think it’s a fair trade off.

Anyway, I had a really great trip. I feel very grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. Oh, man, I’m misty-eyed again. I just really love my friends. So many of my friendships formed years back have dispersed to different cities and states and countries. I feel immensely lucky when distance and the business of all of our lives doesn’t dull the connections we forged. I really hope that my friends enjoyed having me muddling about in their house for the week. I got to cuddle their cute dogs, play many spirited games of peek-a-boo with the baby, and loaf on the sofa with Riley just like old times.

I can’t lie, though - I am more than ready to collapse in my own bed and I’m itching for the opportunity to smother Willow & Algernon with kisses they’ll pretend to hate but come poking after once I’m tucked in bed and dead tired (the joy of cats, am I right?).

God, I also got the cutest postcards while I was in town, as well as the funniest baseball cap I’ve ever seen. I’ve been provisionally prohibited from bringing my younger brother anymore cool caps or t-shirts as gifts since he’s sort of overrun with them (that is my bad…I just really love to bring back gifts) but I shot off a quick text as soon as I saw it, because it had me howling with laughter. Needless to say, the hat ban was temporarily lifted because the cap was much too good to pass up.

I have zero plans the rest of this weekend and I’m so ready for a Sunday full of Doing Absolutely Nothing. (Here you can envision me discreetly kicking my unpacked bag behind me. We’ll deal with that later. That’s weekday!Eve’s problem.)

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

It's odd, being underfoot at a friend's place. There's something I love about it - getting to see the flow of someone's daily life - but I'm definitely someone who worries about interrupting habits and preferred timetables, so I always feel a little nervous when I come to visit someone and it's not for some big event (like a wedding, etc.) that shakes up everyone's schedule. Luckily, my friend is a teacher and gets the summer off, so I'm only disrupting summer-break schedules, instead of normal-work schedules.

I told my friend when we set out dates for my visit that I wasn't worried about planning a ton of stuff to do while I'm here. I've visited before (though it's been a minute), so I've seen a lot of the "main stuff" - and they have a baby that needs to be considered when planning outings and events. I figured plans that work for everyone would kind of fall into place and I certainly didn't want her to feel like she had to make massive changes to her schedule to accommodate me when I'm more than happy to just hang out at her house and catch up.

Since she lives a bit of a trek from me, we don't get to see one another in person often. Last time she was in my town, I only saw her for only a few hours and she hadn't been able to bring the baby along (it had been for a work trip). I wanted to come meet him before time flies and he's suddenly, like, five or something. It happens so fast!

I'm a little worried I'm stressing them out by not giving them concrete things I want to do, but honestly, I really just wanted to go see the coffee shop I spent most of my time in while I was up here for work (I got to do that yesterday! It looks exactly the same, despite 7+ years!) and maybe go on a small hike or something. (I'm heading out for that in about twenty minutes!).

The weather is a little chillier than I anticipated, but I think it will be a welcome change compared to how hellishly hot it's been at home. You couldn't pay me to go hiking in my state right now. I would make it half a mile and then lay down under a shady tree until the sun set.

I'm a few hours offset from my usual time zone, but luckily any jetlag has yet to crash into me. I think it's more likely it will get me on the return home, but I suppose I'll have to wait and see. I feel like time changes on trips are overpowered by my sense of excitement and/or anxiety, but once I get back to stasis, all of the time-fuckery has a chance to catch up to me. And catch up, it certainly does.

We woke up around 7 / 8 AM the day after I arrived (the baby wakes up pretty early), drank some coffee, ate some breakfast, and went on a long walk around the neighborhood. Yesterday we went to a bookshop and coffee shop, then came back and read in the sunshine for an hour and played board games - Flamecraft and Explorers. I'm really loving the very relaxed pace of this adventure. Sometimes it's nice just to have a very chill hangout with people you've missed, and there's a nostalgia to this adventure because it reminds me of when this friend & I were roommates, as well as of my time spent up here for work on the train line.

I'll try to snap some nice photos of the waterfall at the end of this hike!

Good luck out there,
Eve

Friday again. The weeks have been absolutely flying by! I find myself more than a little disoriented by the internal flash of light and color as June hurtles into July. And now I have to meet with the fact that we're halfway through the year & I only have so much to show for it.

Here is where I might usually lay into all of the ways I've fucked up my goals and plans for this year...but I don't feel like doing that right now!

I'm in a really good mood. So I wanna talk about what I feel like I've actually done a good job of this year!!!

Okay! Number one: I've been so social! This is probably the most social-butterfly version of myself I've managed to muster up in years. Maybe not so much throughout this month in particular, but I've been recharging from all of the events, reconnections, and hangouts I was navigating from January to May. Next month, I have two more relatively 'high-level socialization' things to tackle and then I think my social calendar (who the fuck am I?) is cleared up in the most beautiful way. Not that I don't love seeing people! I do. I have seriously been so thrilled about the relationships I've been nurturing over the past year - and even just the last few months! I just get overwhelmed super easily, so it's nice to have some time to myself again.

I think one of my favorite things in the world is when you meet up with friends you haven't seen in a long time (say five-plus years, right?) and not only do you click back immediately, but it's like they're really excited to see you? And they try to make further plans with you??? Like, holy shit, you want to hang out again? YES! I'm in, I'm totally in on this plan. I got invited to a reconnection-friend's husband's birthday party and I did a little dance in the laundry room, I was so excited. I'm birthday party material! Yay!

Also, I love getting to know newer friends on a deeper level? It takes time to meet people in all the varied layers of themselves, but it just makes me grin like an idiot when I get another little hint or tidbit about who someone is. I especially love when people start sharing things they like with me! It feels a lot like being a little kid again: your friend carefully passing you the stuffed animal they carry everywhere with them, and there's this moment where it's kind of like being trusted with a little piece of their soul, you know? What an honor! Even now! It's a warm, glowing thing to me.

…Moving on before I wax poetic about it for twenty more paragraphs. My tangents have tangents, when I really get running.

Oooh - another thing: I'm already more than halfway through my reading goal for the year. I set it at 20 books. Currently, I'm clocking in at 14 (and I'm almost done with another novel and another poetry book, so I'll hopefully be at 16 by the end of the weekend). If I can keep this momentum up, I might change my internal goal (but not my Goodreads or StoryGraph goals - I'll just take the win there, haha) to 50 books. Last year I only read 7 total, so I'm really pleased that I've more than doubled that number just from April to now. I love to read, but I often hit mental ruts where I can't bring myself to crack open a book; or, I can't keep up with a book long enough to finish anything, so I just end up hopping between dozens of them with no actual progress in any of them...that's pretty much what happened last year.

Also, as much as the change-up in my job has been a pretty frustrating ordeal, I can't say I'm not grateful for the fact that I'm able to tear through audiobooks again. When I started at my position, I was free to shut my office door, pop in my headphones, and focus up on my tasks. That was not as easily done once I was a little more settled in. Now that I'm in a weird, wobbly middle-ground, I'm back to relative obscurity and I don't need to keep an ear out for coworkers calling out for me throughout the day. There are times when I'm really glad I went with an audiobook version, too. Sometimes I think certain narrators really bring out the character in a way that I might not have explored with my internal narration.

Meanwhile, there are definitely cases where the narrator ruins things for me outright. (I put out a Libby hold for The Tale of Despereaux, which is one of my favorite books from childhood that I haven't read in yeaaaaars. I was like, Oh, this will be really nice to revisit! I'd love to see how they work with the characters! but when the narration started, I realized it wasn't the author reading it, but some guy????? My internal voice I'd always read it in was what my kid-mind imagined Kate DiCamillo sounded like, right? So you can imagine - maybe even just a smidge - my abject confusion and immediate woe upon this discovery. In hindsight, I should have just pushed on because maybe he did a wonderful job with the narration, but I was so thrown!!! Like, who are you??? What's going on here? Kate? Kate???)

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes! I've been playing the guitar again. More than I have in two years, even. I'd only picked it up a handful of times, which is a shame because I actually have a really gorgeous acoustic guitar. When I go too long without playing, I start to feel guilty that she's just stuck in the corner. I hadn't felt much like singing, either - not like I used to, at least. I used to sing pretty much non-stop: in the car, making dinner, drying my hair, out-of-breath while on a run, the entirety of my walk from my apartment to my workplace, when I got bored in the evenings. I really can't pinpoint when and where it fell away, but now that the desire is crawling out of its well, I've noticed its previous absence.

I don't know. I think it's good for me, to sing. It tells me I'm in a good headspace. And I've been sooooo brave with guitar (read: done something completely normal and not even a little bit scary) by pushing myself through my fear and loathing of barre chords. It's small victories - the smallest potatoes ever. Any yet, I'm proud to say that I have - finally, finally - successfully managed to stop substituting Fmaj7 for F. Please clap - I know, it's a tremendous feat. This has only been my entire guitar career in the making! When I tell people I'm "campfire-songs-good" at guitar, I think they believe I'm being modest, but it's a stone cold fact. I only get away with people thinking I'm passable because I can play stuff that gets everyone singing along, so they don't typically notice how well-and-truly I am fucking up the chord progression, haha. Still, I enjoy it! I think that's the most important part.

I really can't pinpoint why I'm in such high spirits today. It's been a murky, rainy day. Typically, that puts me in a bit of a mental slump, but I've got some kind of psychic shield up right now or something!

Big fan of whatever is going on in my brain space at this moment.

Here's a line of poetry I really enjoyed recently.

From Tuesday by Alex Dimitrov¹:

And you can begin anytime
like this whole world began
out of nothing. You can walk out
tonight and feel totally new.
All you need is the right pair of boots.

Let's count this as my mid-year checkpoint. Pretty good things behind and ahead.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

Sometimes I do feel like I can see the future.

Yes, yes - I know that this is just a symptom of being a chronic overthinker & catastrophizer. I can dream up about two thousand worst-case-scenarios, so if something goes wrong, it's likely that at least one of them will come true. And yet, there are cases where I see the writing on the wall so clearly from the get-go & no one around me believes me, or they think I'm just being my usual overly-worried self. (ffs, I feel like Cassandra!¹)

Take for example a situation I was navigating in the latter half of 2023: A co-worker mentions that she has a family member she thinks I would get along with. This is pitched initially as a romantic² set-up, then slides sideways towards a potential friendship when I repeatedly demur at the topic (but I can still read the hope that I will be interested in this person's family member in their tone).

I grit my teeth and walk into the situation with my best "you always jump way ahead in your conclusions, so don't make this a bigger deal than it is" mindset. But I can tell pretty much from the get-go that this person is way more interested in me than I am in them & I think they fully believe I'm approaching every conversation from a "we're mutually interested in one another & therefore feeling things out" mindset, where as I was very, very firmly in the "I don't even know if I want to be friends with you yet, so I am definitely not romantically interested in the slightest right now" state of mind.

Everyone I talk to about it tells me that I'm making assumptions on what they're thinking. I think: okay, sure, perhaps. But previous experience has proven time and time again that there are certain patterns that mean I'm not just on the wrong page, but the wrong book with someone else. I have done this dance more than once, at this point! I think, I've just got to say something. I don't want a potential friendship to blow up down the line because I wasn't upfront. But my friends and family say I'm putting up walls too early and I'm going to hurt this person's feelings.

The wire inside of me that signifies my particular brand of inflexibility makes itself known, winding itself tighter and tighter with each new text that lights up my phone. I grow evermore tense and - regrettably - sharp.

I've never liked being set-up.

This next part is pretty embarrassing to confess, but here it is: the weeks go by and I become increasingly wretched to be around. I'm mean, short-tempered, and easy to upset. I'm slow to respond to this person and I feel like I'm pulling teeth when I do write back. I burst into tears sporadically. Any time they're in town & want to meet in person, I erupt in hives beforehand and have to cancel plans. When my coworker asks how it's going, my collarbones and neck break out immediately into a mortified flush and I hum and haw and commit unforgivable vagueries until she laughs (uncertainly) and gives up.

A friend tells me I am not acting like my "usual, sweet" self. (I fucking know!!!!) I feel like I'm leading this person on! And I think they're nice, so I feel so very guilty. At the same time, I'm being told I'll "really hurt them" if I tell them I'm just interested in being friends right now. I know that when it becomes apparent to them that I'm not interested (because I only respond to one out of every five texts and am clearly not even meeting them in the middle of a friendship level of communication for fear of it seeming like romantic intentions), Set-Up and my co-worker will be furious with me for stringing them along. I wonder if my co-worker will be directly furious or if she'll ice me out. I start to mentally prepare for how I'll escape my job.

At some point, I have a total meltdown about this situation and decide to go back to therapy³ and spill all of this in a sobbing heap across my therapist's (admittedly very comfortable) couch.

My therapist says, "Tell them you're not interested."

Oh. (I can do that?)

I do that.

They say they understand. That they're a little disappointed, but they get it. Their family member/my co-worker is a bit tense with me for a few weeks, as I was worried might happen. I, now free of the crushing weight of my guilt, actually feel like I can text them without running myself into the ground in worry. They go a bit distant (I think understandably), but ultimately continue to text back.

We're, like, friends now. Things with my coworker return to normal.

But I was right. Maybe not perfectly spot on...but I truly believe if my therapist hadn't given me the go-ahead to say what I needed to say, all of my worst case scenarios would have come crashing down on me just like I imagined them.

Urghhhh, I don't remember where I was going with this. Maybe: Is it really pre-cognition or some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy? Is it my people-pleasing tendencies? Is it my avoidance? Am I actually fucking capable of seeing the path something might take or am I just so deeply anxious that I'm getting out the cart for the problem, even before the horse has left the barn?

I mean, I told everyone I knew how I felt and what I wanted from the get-go and then still went along with what they wanted, despite it taking a direct and drastic affect on my mental health.

Why does someone showing the slightest level of interest in me create a reaction not unlike someone playing Battleship with my fleet of neuroses? I mean, I have my suspicions vis a vis my enduring neutrality around romantic relationships, but that might be a post for a different day.⁴

I can feel that this is just building into a rant, actually. Sorry? Not sorry? It's my blog, I can rant if I want to? Still...seems unfair, when you have to read it. Hopefully my restless ravings are at least somewhat palatable, reader-wise. (Me, to me: Am I a joke to you?)⁵

I think I might have really terrible issues with self-doubt. Self-trust? Either one, I guess. Even when I can see the path I'm on will lead me to nothing but discomfort, I'll stay on it long after I should just because I can't tell when to take my own agonizing seriously. It doesn't help that I agonize over things that are so unserious. How can I trust when it is???

In a way, I can see the pieces of me that make up my messy, tangled-up issues all sitting together, holding hands, and singing a little song campfire-style. The inflexibility, the fear of unknown rules, the doubt, and the tissue-paper-ness. They all put me on high-alert for certain scenarios.

I can't say it hasn't been a useful tool, at times. There are definitely situations where my desire to look at a potential outcome from every angle has served me well. Sometimes, it can even soften the blow of a bad outcome, especially if the reality is a little less drastic than what I anticipated.

But I don't love when it takes over my life - when it makes me a different version of myself, you know? I don't think of myself as mean or sharp or short-tempered, but I become all of these things as the weight of a dozen possibilities press down on me. I've learned to dig myself out of the feeling for some scenarios, but others are like a rockslide that I can't claw my way out from under.

And I know I've spent a few posts talking about the friendship I ended earlier this year, but you'll have to bear with me here, because most of my long-standing friendships are deep enough that the end of them feels like a really fucking terrible breakup. As much as I stick by my decision to say my piece, I keep mulling over everything. I mean, I knew pretty much to a T how that conversation was going to go. I know now that it's a large part of why I put it off for so long.

Is it possible that things could have been different if I'd spoken up earlier? Sure, maybe. But also, likely not. There was a reason all of my anxiety senses went haywire whenever I thought about it. I think I knew it would be the beginning of the end, no matter how I went about it. (Urgh - & I begin to doubt myself again. Hey, if you're also never sure if you're making the right decisions, we should start a club or something. I could use the company.)

Now I'm here, in the aftermath of two big Scenarios, right? But neither one really feels put to rest to me.

Set-Up is moving to my town in the next few months & while I think it will be nice, because we do have a lot in common and I'm sure it will be good for them to have a friend in the area, I worry I'll go immediately wary and defensive over little things. People often think I'm flirting when I'm completely unaware of that interpretation, which makes me even more nervous and high-alert about how I act and move and speak.

And my old friendship still lives nearby and is in the loop with other people I know. I'm not sure how an interaction would go if we ran into one another. I can think of a few possible options, but all of them are so incredibly different that I don't know which one to brace for, since our last conversation ended on an unhappy but relatively "mild" close, overall.

I guess I feel like I'm afraid of making myself miserable over "what ifs". It's not that any of these things are pressing on me right now, but I hadn't anticipated just how quickly I would turn into a tightly-wound mess back in October. It freaks me out a bit.

....And now I'm worrying about the possibility of a possibility.

Okay, no.

Isn't this why you went to therapy, Eve? you might ask. Yes. Yes, actually. So, alright - what do I do here? Talk myself down from the worry, I guess. Here goes nothing.

Set-Up moves to town. I've already stated where I stand. That's one thing down. Maybe there's further miscommunication & we're on the wrong page again. Worse comes to worst, I have to reinstate my position. I've already done it once. I can do it again.

I see my old friend. Worst case: it's an uncomfortable, possibly confrontational interaction. (Well, I'll hate every second of it, but I can handle it.) Best case: it's an awkward but overall friendly conversation. Most-Likely case: we sort of barely acknowledge each other and then go about our day. All things that can be dealt with.

Saying that again, for my own sake: all things that can be dealt with.

Huh. Actually, writing all of this out made me feel way better. I think a lot of my fear of bad outcomes is a latent belief that I won't be able to handle them. But I can (right?). I totally can.

I have to start telling myself it's true.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

Figured it's been a minute since my last listening post, so here are some songs I've been enjoying this year. I've been trying to separate my songs into monthly playlists on my Spotify, just so I can better see what I was really looping at the time. It's kind of fun; I make ugly little cover art for them & blast the same twelve songs for a month, then make myself swap it up when the new month ticks over.

Anyway, here are the songs I've listed on my about page under my current listening between January to now!

Song Title \| Artist \| Album

• "Never is a Promise" \| Fiona Apple \| Tidal
• "Linger" \| The Cranberries \| Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
• "cellophane" \| FKA twigs \| MAGDALENE
• "Obsessive Thoughts" \| Madi Diaz \| Weird Faith
• "Motorcyle Drive By" \| Third Eye Blind \| Third Eye Blind (Self-Titled)
• "All of This Will End" \| Indigo de Souza \| All of This Will End
• "Talk Down" \| Dijon \| Absolutely
• "Presumably Dead Arm" \| Sidney Gish \| Ed Buys Houses
• "Is There Something in the Movies?" \| Samia \| The Baby
• "Beatrice" \| Dizzy \| The Sun and Her Scorch
• "Collector" \| Daffo \| Pest
• "Witness" \| Mt. Joy \| Rearrange Us
• "Knock the Wind" \| Dizzy \| Dizzy

• • • •

I haven't felt like blogging this last month. Partly, I think I've hit the end of a busy period and so my bandwidth temporarily shut down. Also, I've been a little ummmm maybe uhhhh depressed...or something close to it? Feel like I'm coming out of it, though. Sometimes the sadness just slogs me down for a while.

I've been pushing myself socially, which maybe sounds overblown, but I really am both incredibly awkward and deeply introverted, so even if I have the best time in a social situation, I tend to leave it needing a lot of time to come back to myself (and also, I replay every stupid thing I said on repeat for several days in a row, which slows the recharge process down and sometimes nearly convinces me to blow up all of my friendships in order to avoid future mortification).

With all of the weddings and get-togethers that overloaded the beginning of my year, I think my writing brain was like, "Ohhhhoho - no you don't. We have talked to people WAY more than we usually do, there is no chance that we're about to turn around and go talk to the internet right now! We already have far too much material in our Stupid Shit You’ve Said That You Should Be Embarrassed About Highlight Reel without you adding more to the list."

Also, I realized recently that I actually am really rusty in one-on-one hangouts? I hadn't been aware just how rare they were for me over the last few years. When seeing friends, it was almost always in groups of three or more. I'm having to relearn how not to totally muck up a conversation, because - in an effort to make new friends and reconnect with old ones - I've ended up in dozens of one-on-ones.

I spent two days with a friend for a sleepover at her cute new apartment (it was a bit of a drive, so I drove up Friday and stayed to walk around the town with her on Saturday) and I had pep talk myself the whole drive, despite the fact that I was, like, really excited to see her and catch up! I went to get brunch with my best friend this past weekend and it was great, but I did realize that I am so terrible at dealing with natural pauses in conversations - even with someone I've known for years!!! (sigh) Practice makes perfect, I guess.

• • • •

I got some photos back from an old point-and-shoot camera I've been carrying around (Olympus XA1, thrifted by my younger brother) and while I got some fun shots, many of them were blurrier than I expected. I felt a twinge of frustration when I first flicked through them, but after letting it rest for a day and returning to them, I think I like them more than I thought. The imperfection of film is part of its charm and all. I do wish I knew why it was so unfocused. I've been trying to dig around online for hints or tips, but I haven't found anything useful yet.

I carry the camera around with me in my purse, so I have some shots from my Grandma's birthday party, brunchtime bagels with my best friend, a walk through a terraced community garden, and a dozen other random moments. Fingers crossed that my next roll of film will turn out a little more in-focus - but if not, these things happen. What can you do?

• • • •

Oh! Another related anecdote: I went to a concert by myself this month for an artist I really like. (I used to go to things by myself all the time when I was in my grad school program! Another thing I'm rusty at now.) Anyway, it was...not good. Which I feel so guilty saying, because I absolutely adore this singer, but the show was just kind of a hot mess.

There was that same twinge of frustration during the first fifteen minutes of the show where I was painfully disappointed that things weren't turning out quite like I hoped...and then I thought, "Actually, you know what? This might as well happen. Honestly, it's kind of hilarious." And I had the best time for the rest of the show and I got in my car afterward, blasted the recorded versions of my favorite songs that were played at the show, and laughed the whole way home.

I should note that I have a feeling that this show was something of a fluke, because I know from friends and family that this performer is amazing live, so if they ever come back through town, I'll still definitely roll up for the next performance.

• • • •

To wrap this up (& in the interest of maintaining some through-line within this series), here's another clip. Disclaimer that I'm out of practice in singing and guitar, so this is edited to cut out the worst of my fumbled chords. I really love this song, so I hope I didn't completely mangle it.

Good luck out there,
Eve

I'm flying out of state for a wedding this weekend.¹ I absolutely adore the bride-to-be and think of her often, but I don't actually get to see her much. I was flattered and thrilled to get an invite (and lucky enough to be able to make the trip happen). It's one of the best possible excuses to go see a friend, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, since it's her wedding and brides tend to be very busy, I know I'll only see her in passing moments. It will be nice to celebrate with her, even tangentially. I realize that I was incredibly spoiled to have so much time with the brides at the last wedding I attended.² Hopefully I'll get to talk to her a little bit at the more casual event tomorrow night! I'll also get to see another friend & her husband. A little reunion, since it's been a very long time since we've met up. I'm glad to have a least one pair of familiar faces among the others guests.

• • • •

I've made it to the airport now. Just waiting on my flight. I picked a late one, since red eyes are a little bit less expensive & I didn't want to take work off today. This way I'll get the most of Friday, instead of spending it in the limbo of airports and ride services. I've never been to this city - I haven't even been to the state I'm visiting. The weather is supposed to be cold and windy, with a bit of rain on Saturday during the wedding.

I'm hoping to wake up early tomorrow and go explore the town. I always dream of being an archivist of all of my memorable experiences, but I'm not so great at putting that into practice. Maybe, since it'll just be me calling the shots this trip, I'll try to set aside time to write up a memento for myself, much like the very cool recaps that misu puts together on his blog. I've been scouting out some areas of town I want to wander through & it would be fun to have a log to look back on.

I feel a complicated mix of emotions about having most of Friday and Saturday morning to myself: joyful anticipation in being able to plan and set my own schedule, to decide what shops or meals or detours I want to explore, to wander aimlessly...but also a hint of melancholy. Even when I've travelled alone recently, it's usually to meet people. I want the solitude and freedom, but I'm conscious of the empty space that's usually filled by sharing an experience with people I care about.

Maybe this is a nebulous worry leaking over about other things. Anxieties about belonging, maybe. Nothing to bring that out of you like being thrown into a large group where the people you know are center stage, and you might not even register to them day-of. And, really, I do get that people getting married are on what is essentially a multi-day meet & greet, so I don't resent that in the slightest. I just think that feeling is perhaps ricocheting off of some other emotions that have been laying dormant recently and would very much like to make themselves known.

I have this vague and unrealistic fear of being there, but not there at all. I envision it in the stage set-up of a bad dream: of blazing onto the post-dinner dance floor as the music and lights go up, only to find myself out there alone, even in a crowd of other people. It's not so bad, the loneliness; I can make the most out of it, change it into solitude - but I still prefer dancing with my friends.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •