greenstorm | Stirring Dull Roots

Ok, here's the thing. Here's the thing.

I'm alive again.

I don't know if I can stress how different my life feels right now. Work isn't permeating every piece of my existence. I got into an argument with Josh when he was here; he asked how often I spent not-working when I was at the office with my last job. I... basically refused to answer the question, I said that even if I was walking around chatting with people in the office or staring at a wall at least 60% of my mind was working. Even when I was at home, even if I was in conversation or doing something else, there was always a cognitive load.

So I told Josh I wasn't going to answer his question unless he admitted he was just looking for optics; if there was someone standing over me with a stopwatch looking to dock me minutes, how many minutes would they dock? What if I talked about work while pouring a cup of tea? Did that count?

I don't think either of us were satisfied with the conversation. He's been working at a similar job in the city. I think I was trying to warn him, probably not in a very useful way.

I was trying to warn him that he might, like me, lose the ability to bring all his *self* to bear on anything personal. I was trying to warn him that he should pay attention to where his inner resources flowed and make sure he had a way to channel them towards his own life as well as his work. It's not that doing other things isn't possible; it's that true, full presence and energy is no longer possible. I was trying to warn him that he was looking at the wrong markers, and by looking at the wrong markers it's easy to be deceived that nothing has changed.

So many of the conversations that I have with other people should actually be with my past self.

Anyhow, I get a day off every second week. Last week was a long weekend for me because of that; the previous weekend was also a long weekend because of my sexiversary which has conveniently been made a stat holiday (I celebrate the first time I had PIV sex as a way to push back on sex negativity).

So I've had a bunch of non-work daylight hours now. I've been able to see things outside in the light (this only happens on weekends at this point). I'm feeling... reconnected. Alive. I'm anticipating things as enjoyable, not just as less on my to-do list. I've been doing yoga still. I've had time with Tucker where I'm not either sleeping, eating, or wanting to go do chores. I've had time doing chores where I didn't just want to be sleeping or sitting by the fire.

Some things are getting made/built.

And now I'm back at work and there's sun coming in over the lake through the window. It's lovely. I think it's going to be ok.

It's good.