i finished a real book! i finished reading krish ashok’s masala lab, finally. dismal speed but hey this was the first book i finished (from the 11+ i started) since march this year. i’ll take it. i think i might be able to finish the one i’ve started right now too (yes i’m still trying to impress the person from the previous entry). i think the important thing for me is not to get excited by other books and cheat on the one i’m reading. this is very common practice and i’ve indulged in this with great success as well in the past but i think i’ve aged since then and i don’t retain the mental capacity for it anymore. feyerabend shall have to wait.
a new hobby has a more solid presence in my life now. i’ve started watching long ass kinda academic videos on youtube while colouring. colouring keeps me grounded and im actually able to pay attention to things as well. it’s nice to have this tendency of floating thru nerdy things online back. feels like im living the life i was at 18, but more sensibly. in many ways i think im living 18 year old me’s dream to be honest. damn. that didn’t hit me until now. hmm. i still think “more sensibly” was the key phrase in that sentence; i was a lot of things at 18, a few of them good even, but sensible was not one of them.
i’ve been watching a bunch of stuff on netflix, nothing too regularly, and that’s nice. i did resume my evening strolls. i think it’ll be easier to fall back into that habit now. my workouts weren’t great this week, but they were decent. i went back to riz ahmed’s the long goodbye this week and once again, i am in awe of it. i’ve also been listening to spiritualized’s ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space, which has the best version of can’t help falling in love (another artist my bestie n. introduced me to — thank you mi amor). work’s been alright. i’m starting a new side project in the coming week and it feels nice to have the space/energy for more work. productivity/efficiency is not a conversation i’ve even considered having with myself in the past year, it feels good to be at a point where i can think about this again.
i’m not sure how to say this well but im going to try. i am present, i am most often in touch with what i’m doing, why i’m doing things and what’s going on around me but i still don’t feel anything. sometimes i still feel removed from myself and things feel mechanical almost always. i’ve fallen into a routine, i know what to say/do/be from muscle memory and it doesn’t feel like there’s a link with feelings. i do think it’s better than before. but i think there’s still a long way to go. the good thing is that a lot of dealing with what led to the perpetual-and-big dissociation has happened, in fact, i know how to deal with it independently when i catch the triggers too. and i can feel myself slip when it’s severe, which is… quite something. feelings are still absent. rather, they’re present, i just don’t feel them. i wish it wasn’t like that. but i can’t wish the ability into existence. the problem is i can’t work it into existence either, ive worked at everything i could work at, pretty sincerely and with intention at that, but this — this is just about patience. i’ll get there. when people told me in march that it would get better after i’d tweeted something about how my mental illness had changed me and made me hollow, i was touched by their kindness but it was still difficult to believe that it could happen to me too. i’m not quite saying i dont feel hollow anymore, but i feel hollow less often now. i know why it happened, i know what to do about it, i know how to get out of it. today i believe them, and i agree, it gets better. and i think it might just be okay in time.
