december 3

Today's been weird.

Yesterday I ended up eating chocolate, I couldn't sleep until like 7AM, it was awful. I forget that happens, so I wrote it down in the diet book (I'm keeping one for Spice, all visuals and log data, because memory fails). It's forbidden now, set in stone.
I was with Genesis for most of yesterday, and for the morning when I couldn't sleep. I forgot what he's like, too, in the quiet times. He's been quieter than usual lately, anxious, worried sick about me when we're on the road. It's deeply moving, it tugs at my heart to see such care, but it also hurts to understand why. I'm not doing so hot. But we spent the morning together and he lay down next to me like he used to back in college and that was it, just us as the sun rose, exhausted but happy.
I remember seeing Chaos at some point, before I fell asleep for three blessed hours. He thought I was having "floating space" troubles, immediately said the conversation would go no further until he was sure I was coherent and conscious. He was anxious too, but more... hurt? The look he got, when that doubt hit, it was very worried but it was heartbroken, too. "Please don't let this be happening again." But it wasn't. And I smiled in spite of myself when he asked that, you really care that much, it meant more than I could say.

I got up at 10AM with two big things on my schedule-- one: do the daily shopping errands for myself and the family, and two: go to Cannon's old campus to see them light the annual Christmas tree at 4PM. I planned to leave around 2, but then mom called, and said I had to go clothes shopping first. I got overwhelmed for a moment, which I felt very guilty about-- I need to stop complaining-- but said I'd try.
Problem was, I realized I had no choice but to eat before I left. And I tried, I really tried, but derealization + stress = couldn't keep it all the way down. But I did make an effort. So that helped. I just regret eating more than once a day because of that.
Anyway. I made sure to put the hormones on today (I've been skipping lately because the family is making me feel guilty about them, also rushed schedule) and so I was out the door by 1:30.
We stopped at Wegmans and of course I went to their scented-oil section and put a bunch of it on my coat, it smells so nice. I like mixing peppermint + vanilla + clove bud + cinnamon, it smells like me. Genesis kept me from dissociating, so we got one bag of coconut chips and some collard greens (can't remember what they're like, going to try em again) and left.
I got the shopping done for the family next, but it was already 3:15 so there was no time left for mom's request (that wasn't important thankfully). Still, Genesis and I ran into a local Kohl's so we could honestly say we put an effort in. There were these fluffy pink sweaters that I showed Julie, she immediately put one on in headspace. Lynne and Josephina wanted to look around (Jo saw this lacy-sweater thing he loved) but I told them we had no time, so after looking at the coat selection (we do need a winter coat but I cannot stand fur or down so that's tricky) Genesis and I ran back out the door so we could make it to campus on time.

We parked behind the music building and I was shocked to realize there was no residual memory from the college days. Instead there was only data from the childhood, when we'd go to that same building for piano competitions. So I knew the place, but not from Cannon's eyes. Same as we walked up to the rotunda and went inside-- no data. It was strange. They're putting up new buildings now anyway, so the landscape is shifting, that whole time period is getting wiped off the map (spinny's old workplace practically doesn't exist any more either; the store was entirely redone; thank God).
I got there at 3:30 so I set my laptop bag against the wall and stood there for a while, looking at the tree. I realized that there is emotional memory of the rotunda, tied to Genesis specifically, and that was so warm and loving and quiet it was no wonder I loved being there. However I realized something else strange as the crowds started to grow. I had this weird, aching yearning to connect to everyone else there, to stop feeling like a stranger, to stop feeling "less" or "more" than anyone else there for whatever ridiculous reason. I wanted to know everyone, I wanted everyone to know each other. I wanted to stop feeling like my coats were a barrier between me and the person sitting beside me, like passerby didn't "politely" avert their eyes when ours met for a moment. God, I wanted to feel like part of a system with everyone there.
And it hit me. It hit me hard. D.I.D. has given me an achingly tragically lovely view of the world, and my place in it, as it relates to everyone else. I'm used to looking at the faces around me and knowing that we're all cut from the same source, we're all ONE, quite literally, and yet we are all our own selves. That's what it's like in headspace. I am not "I" because my soul-substance is inherently bonded to at least 70 other people's soul-substances, we're "we" always and forever and that is gorgeous. No one is a stranger, no one can be a stranger, and everyone KNOWS, deeply and unquestionably and instinctively, that each one of us only exists because we were needed. Not one of us is "worthless" or superfluous or redundant. We were all connected as irreplaceable pieces of this grand puzzle, and looking at each other we could feel that, we know always that we are united.
I wanted that with everyone, outside. Because it's true outside, too. But how many people keep that at the forefront of their minds? How many people are used to never having being alone in their own body? So it hurt, to not know if I could have that sort of rapport with everyone there, or how. It's this stupid emotional processing thing. I'm so used to feeling, how do people use words, how do you interact with someone who talks with their face and mouth and hands, why is everyone's mind walled off from me, why do I feel so endlessly open and yet cut off entirely? Watching everyone around me I felt like a guardian angel again, adoring the world, but unseen somehow. I didn't want to be unseen. Two little kids ended up standing right in front of me for a while, eating sugar cookies, seemingly unaware that they were barely an inch away from bumping into me. I smiled, imagined my wings lightly embracing their shoulders, until they left.

They lit the tree (I took photos but I have no way of getting them off the camera currently so you will have to wait), and I got close enough to it to see my face reflected in the big gold bauble ornaments. I just stood there for a while, staring up at the LED lights, watching them blur and unblur in my vision, quietly blissful. I wanted to stuff my head into the branches and smell the pine but I didn't think that would be appreciated, haha. Still, it hit me about five minutes in that this probably wasn't considered "normal behavior" either. Who stands dead still and stares wide-eyed up at a tree for that long? Me, that's who. So I didn't care, maybe people would catch the wonder. I was perfectly happy to be there.
When Genesis and I left, I noticed there was a bare-branch tree with raindrops clinging to its branches, little perfect orbs, against the overcast sky. I paused. There was a memory for that. It was because we took a photo of it once, just like that. I considered doing so again, but decided no, let the original stay.
We walked back to the car and the sunset was painting the clouds in fluttery pinks and blues, it was beautiful.

We took the long way home, so that meant we got to drive through the ritzy section and look at all the RICHASS HOUSES and their EXTRAVAGANT DECORATIONS. Even better, since it was evening a few of them had lights on inside, so I got a few glimpses of the vast grand interiors of those places. Holy heavens. What I'd give for an invisibility cloak and a lockpick, just to look at such a house from the inside. I'd lie on the floor for hours and just soak it up, seriously.


…


(on the way home. food trouble. voices saying don't get it, problems with primal girl voice? screaming in rebellion no matter what was said. realized I was siding with her, because I was trying to justify "obligation" that I didn't even want to follow, not sure why I do that)

(got home. tried to get ebay stuff together, apply for jobs later, got so stressed out that I ended up stopping and just reading online comics and eating an entire candy cane at 10pm. that wasn’t smart. but I got so oddly depressed that I wasn't sure how to manage it and I wasn't thinking.)

(I think this gum is giving me a sore throat? I remember it did once before, actually, but a different flavor. so unfortunately I have to stop. need to find a kind that isn't problematic because the chewing helps the stress/ eating disorder junk SO much)



(entry ended abruptly here)