Captain's Log

❤ *drops off comfy hugs* ❤

Star date 10-17-2022 means 29 days to SO's return!

My father and I took a hike yesterday in the hills around an abandoned dam. A foreboding place to hash things out, that's for sure.

It went well. Certainly not as bad as I had expected. My mom ended up respecting my wishes that this conversation stayed between me and him, free of her "translation" services.

He listened to what I had to say, and he said that he can relate to a lot of my feelings and he is sorry that he has made my life harder. He said that he is very impressed with and proud of me, the way I balance all the things in my life. He said that I am a great person.

There was a time, probably a decade ago, that my heart would have soared at these words from him. But having been what I've been through for as long as I've been through it, I am extremely skeptical that his behaviors will change. I think that he does need professional help to break these patterns, and I don't think that he will get that help.

He says that he has certain "triggers" that cause him to behave the way he does. This cemented my belief that things will not change without professional interventions. He has never developed the skills necessary to function despite these triggers. Many of these triggers are perceived slights, and there's no way to avoid one's own paranoid thoughts. That can't be anyone's responsibility but his own.

I'm glad that he listened to me and it seemed to resonate with him. I have always had the sense that he identified with me a lot more than with my sister, so I can't understand why he wouldn't have treated me as he would have liked to be treated, but I digress. I feel like, if and when I have to see him, that I can be direct now and he can't play dumb.

I don't feel better for having had this talk, and I don't feel that it lifted any great weight off my chest. I am the same, and he is the same. He would have to do quite a lot of self-work to earn any more of my time, and I'm not fool enough to hope for improvement.

Two posts in two days! Chatterbox.

I feel absolutely overwhelmed this week. I feel like I take enough time for myself regularly, but last weekend I feel that I spent too much personal time. First I was wrapped up in helping my friends with an event they were tabling at, then I rested up because I was so sore from running around and being on my feet all day, and then it was time for the meeting with my father and time with friends to wind down. I think, too, that the meeting was on my mind and expending energy in the days before it happened, trying to come up with what I wanted to say.

So I spent no time at all cleaning house, doing laundry, working on my time-sensitive personal project, looking at emails, or opening mail. I need to buy my outfit for a wedding that isn't until next July because the color the event runners want is being discontinued, I need to search up and book flights for the trip in a month, I need to clean up so the house is ready for our party on Saturday. I feel overbooked and overwhelmed. I'm trying to figure out which tasks can wait and which are urgent, and they are all urgent and time sensitive.

I'm at work 8 hours a day, and for the whole 8 hours I just sit and stew on all the tasks I am behind on, and by the time I get home I am so tired from work and so wound up that my activity is frantic and ineffective.

Last night (after a 2 and a half hour stress-nap) I made good progress on finding flights for November. Tonight I have to go to a film festival. Tomorrow I will take my measurements and order the suit, and I'll have plenty of time to alter it if it is wrong. Also tomorrow, I will put in some work on my project. I think that will soothe my brain enough to be able to focus on house cleaning over the course of Thursday and Friday evenings.

I am very grateful to my sister for decorating the salon for the party, and for buying some desserts. Our roommate threw a party this past Saturday, so she ended up cleaning the salon and dining room - I don't think it will need much work to make presentable for my party this week.

@2aphod8eeblebrox The goal you've set is very healthy and nice. I'm sure you'll make it! Also thank you for keeping a log as it can help you see things from a different perspective to clear your mind and organize your thoughts. This also allows you to keep track of your own progress and gain motivation through that. We're here for you!

What a difference a couple of days makes! The film festival was so much fun. I reached out to the director of one of my favorite entries, and they responded quickly. I was energized for the next night, last night, and wouldn't you know it, I finished the time-sensitive personal project! I thought I would need a few more days on it, but I finished the last of it in 2 hours! Man, that felt good. My brain feels so light and free now that it's not hanging over my head.

So tonight I will get my wedding attire squared away and do some house cleaning, which will give me extra time tomorrow to work on stuff that I thought I wouldn't get to until next week! Then I'll be ahead again and I won't be so preoccupied all the time. Brain is calm again.

Got some news on Tuesday that vacation plans may be dashed. We'll see. I'm optimistic that things will stay on track, but even if this trip doesn't work out, there are always more opportunities next year. For now, I am writing my plans in pencil!

I had a lovely party on Saturday, we played games until 4 in the morning! Slept in Sunday and relaxed the for the entire day. I don't even remember the last time I was so completely relaxed!

Yesterday I had a video call with my sweet SO! 20 whole minutes to catch up and see each others' faces. Our last call was months ago. With some luck, we will reunite in 21 days.

I finally had my doctor's appointment yesterday. My old doc left the practice and it took months to find a new doc who was accepting new patients, and then the soonest they could see me was several months out! I had to ration my meds to avoid disaster, which of course I really shouldn't do. I was dreading getting raked over the coals for it, when I really had no choice. I can't get my meds without a prescription.

Thankfully, the doc only explained why I shouldn't ration my meds (which of course, I know. My alternative was stopping them cold-turkey for 7 months, and I don't think you have to have a medical degree to imagine why that would have worse results)

So I now have a new prescription of my old dosage, and an order for a blood test so that we can assess what I might need for new dosage.

I have a feeling that I will need a major increase. I really do feel alright, but I know I was too optimistic/wishfully thinking for the past 6 months as to how much I have slid out of homeostasis. I have no heart palpitations, but I do run a bit warm and my hands have been shaking since February.

When I told my new doctor about my hands shaking, she walked over with her stethoscope. Just having her hand on my back, she said "Your whole body is shaking!" It was funny, this whole time I thought it was just my hands!

I am extremely relieved to be back on my meds. There is no greater stress and helplessness (and frustration) than not having what you need to stay alive and comfortable. Especially when you have known all this time exactly what you need, and you can't get it. I don't even care that I have to start all over again with dosage adjustments and constant blood tests. I stayed out of the hospital, and I'm safe!

Another lucky streak! When will it end? Let's not think about that right now.

So, what's new? Last week was rather uneventful, my roommate and I finished House of Dragon and felt the withdrawals coming already, so we started Chainsaw Man! It's fun to have something to watch every week.

Saturday, we did an outdoor escape room that my friend had found months ago and organized a group of us to be a team. It was very fun walking around the city solving puzzles. I am best at riddles, and that group of friends work in hard sciences so math comes to them quickly. One of my friends was especially good at visual puzzles. Overall, we made a great team and beat all the other teams...for about an hour. It was an all-day event, and at the end of the day we finished at 11th. Not bad for our first try!

We went to get gyros for lunch and while we were eating, my SO messaged me with fantastic news - they will be back on Nov 15th as planned! Our vacation is officially on the books!!!

Saturday night my sister asked if we could go on a late night snack run. I love doing that, and I love when she invites me rather than the other way around.

Sunday morning I made crepes for my friend who came over to carve pumpkins. We each carved two pumpkins and played video games when we wanted to come inside out of the sun.

And that's the story up to now. I really tried to stay ambivalent about the possibility of the schedule changing and the trip being cancelled, but as I looked at flights and destinations I could feel myself being hopeful. Very happy now that it's worked out!

That's the tricky part of emotional distance - if you shield yourself from being sad, you also shield yourself from being happy. And I do love to be happy.

I'm booking the tickets today, as I've heard Tuesdays are best for airfare. I will absolutely have a smile on my face through each transaction.

So as of today, that's 15 days til SO's return - two weeks and a day to clean house. I'm really glad SO is not the type to expect gifts, because in 11 months I have done exactly 0 of the things that I had sort of planned to do for them, even though I had all these ideas of projects to do when I started to miss them too much. I'll for sure make food, since that's easy. And I could probably pull together a card in time. The return date used to feel so far away, time was stretching, and now it's looming and leering at me!

I'm even having irrational thoughts about 'what if we feel like strangers now?' And I know it's irrational in the sense that we've maintained communication (about surface level things, mostly) just about every day since departure. But it isn't so irrational when I consider how I was before we met. I am (or used to be?) a very touch-averse person. I don't know if I'm like that now, and I likely won't know until SO gets back and goes for a hug. I don't want them to feel hurt if I back away. Hopefully not.

It's just a strange concept, to be in love with a person you haven't seen for a month short of a year.

SO is coming home early! We will spend this weekend together. I am so excited. 4 days has much, much less needless worry and much more joy than 15 did.

As of this morning, I have officially booked EVERYTHING for our trip. Hotels, Airbnb's, trains, planes, and automobiles. Now I just have to find some things for us to do! I was going to say that's the fun part, but really the whole thing has been fun. And I appreciate my partner's appreciation for the work I've put in. When we were traveling last year, they did most if not all of the planning and preparation, so of course I wanted to return the favor this time! It is amazing to have someone who is also competent. We both know what it's like to be the one in charge, so it's nice to take turns on responsibilities. And it's nice to be appreciated by someone who understands that it's no accident when things run smoothly!

Anyway, SO has veto-ed my plan to make food for them. They have missed our local restaurants, so we are going to those instead. I will still make a card - something witty.

A few days ago I went to a concert with some friends. It was a fantastic concert, and we had so much fun. I am so lucky to have goodhearted and fun friends. November has been very lucky and joyous this year. It was pretty joyous last year, too - that was when my roommate and I managed to avoid homelessness and found this new house to live in.

Next time I write, SO will be home!!!

As of last Friday, SO is officially home! We spent the weekend together before returning to our separate houses. SO has a LOT of unpacking and organizing to do, but we call each other and talk all the time, now that daytime is daytime for both of us, and they are not restricted by their job.

Of course our reunion was perfectly lovely, and not one of the little anxieties I had imagined came to be. We are even more at ease with each other than ever before. Holding hands, or an arm around the other, or a hand on the other's leg, I don't think we took our hands off of each other for more than a few minutes for the bathroom. I couldn't stop touching and holding SO's face. I missed their eyes so much. Really I missed everything about them.

I've found that, when someone is away for a long time, you reconstruct them in your head. There is always a gap between your impression of a person and the Actual Person (whom nobody can ever really know, as the Self changes from moment to moment, often unknown even by the person themselves!) and this gap is widened when time is spent apart. I found that the image I constructed in my mind over the course of the year was much more cynical than my dear SO really is. Sure, they don't believe that people are basically good, and they feel that vengeance would heal them to some degree, and these are (to me) cynical ideas. But they also love, wholeheartedly, things that many people would write off as "not real art" or media that most people would overlook. My roommate and I made some projects for our living space this year, and I predicted which elements SO would dislike. Well last weekend I showed SO all that we had done, and was only met with compliments and praise. Not a word otherwise. And I know it's true that SO pulls no punches, if they don't like something, they will say so!

I had been so fixated on when SO would be home, I feel like our trip departure date snuck up on me! We are leaving in exactly 7 days. As of last night, I am completely packed except for toiletries, which I will put in the front pouch of my bag. My bag will be checked, and SO has two carry ons - one for their luggage, and the other (taking up my overhead space) will be an EMPTY bag to fill with shopping on our travels. I think it's very clever - I've never brought an extra bag just for souvenirs, I would always shove them wherever they fit.

There is much activity in the runup to our departure. Since we get back so late in December, I had to square away all my end-of-year tasks like medical plans, holiday scheduling, and projects for work. Add to that all the planning that goes into international travel like acquiring an international drivers license, making reservations for transit and lodging, packing strategies, entertainment for the plane and long train rides. I feel that I paced all of this quite well. I want the only thing on my to-do list to be: relax.

I got back home 13 days ago now, and I'm still in denial that I'm back. I haven't checked my emails, opened mail, nothing. Well, it's partially the resentment about having to return, but mostly the fact that immediately after I stepped off the plane, I got a sore throat and then a head cold. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't then become a full-blown bacterial infection, which crashed through my minimal Christmas plans and left me a quivering ball of pain, begging morosely by phone for someone to see me before the holiday weekend, which of course they could not. So I endured through Christmas, high on any over the counter thing I could find, and then on Monday scrounged for the one office in the county that was open. After 6 hours, I had a prescription, and although the next morning was horrific, by Tuesday afternoon I was feeling alright at last. Today I feel better than yesterday. It feels like eons since my body has felt "ok," and it doesn't help that the last time it did, I was in a foreign land having a bubble bath!

But enough pity party. SO is near! In fact, they unexpectedly brought me groceries yesterday and cuddled on the couch for a bit. We are spending the day together Friday, hopefully I am feeling well enough by then to keep our dinner reservation.

There is so much I could type about our 3 week trip! We saw everything from cathedrals to concentration camps and salt mines. So many museums and old towns to explore. We made sure to climb the tallest tower in every town we visited. I especially loved Poland, I don't even know if I can choose a favorite city there. Vienna was beautiful - we found an opera singer and her string trio rehearsing in an empty chapel and sat there for 20 minutes. I've kept a beach rock that SO found on the coast of Italy in my pocket, and touch it whenever I need to be somewhere else.

It's so interesting (and fun!), being romantically involved with the person you are traveling with. The Christmas lights over the streets always make us mushy.

We make a fantastic team, and I appreciate that SO looks after my comfort with such dedication. Massages, nice dinners, cocktails, right down to the angle of my seatback. It boggles the mind. I'm not sure how to express my love in the same volume, but I'll keep trying.

I think my favorite souvenirs are the cheap (or free!) little things that remind me of my love.