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Another Life Update
Time for another life update!
Apparently I haven't done one of these in more than two weeks but in my defense, everything was on fire and last week was the leadup to katsucon, and before that I decided I'd rather write about Shiraishi Kuranosuke instead of myself. I have no regrets.
I guess part of this might conceivably be a con report, but mostly it is a "here's some shit about me and my life as a preface to the social media hiatus I am about to take." The current plan is to continue to do these while I hiatus so if you're going to miss me and can't text/email/get on discord, watch this space.
As previously stated, I have been stressed out of my MIND about needing to move. The situation as I understood it was that my housemate Raino is finishing his graduate work and has received a job offer in California, and that my housemate San has gotten quite serious with his girlfriend and wants to move in with her. This has left only Jules and myself to find a new place for two people, because the house we are living in is just not affordable for less than three people splitting the rent.
And because I've been so stressed out about this housing thing, I never took my tax law test and have missed two weeks of tax prep. I was getting really close to just calling the supervisor for my site, who I do consider a personal friend, and letting her know that I can no longer volunteer this year. The stress about moving fed into the stress about taking my test to the point where I couldn't make myself do it, and then the stress about not passing the test and inconveniencing the other volunteers fed into the stress about moving and it was just this awful cycle that magnified both problems to the point where I couldn't deal with either of them.
I was really afraid that katsucon was going to be a bad time for me because I'd gotten to the point where I felt so stressed and sick I was barely eating or doing other basic self-care, but actually... Katsucon was so nice. It was so good to get out of my usual environment and to not think about all of the problems piling up in my real life for a while, and to just spend the weekend with friends. It was a blissfully drama-free con for me, personally, and I loved it.
And then I came home from katsu and pretty much the very first thing that happened was San calling a "family meeting." Which made it seem like some big, stressful deal, but actually... All he did was propose that when Raino moves out to take the job in Cali, we do sign a new lease to stay in the house, with his girlfriend as the fourth tenant on the lease. If we give San and Janet the entire downstairs space that gives her room for an office to work from home (which was one of her biggest issues with all of us trying to move somewhere ELSE together) and all of our rent stays the same and none of us have to deal with the bullshit of moving house this year.
I'm so, so relieved to be able to stay here. There were some aspects of moving -- new bathroom that isn't fucked up in a ton of ways, a dishwasher, a new washer and dryer, not dealing with some of San's bullshit that always stresses me out -- that I was really excited for, but the tradeoffs were making it more trouble than it's worth. I was really struggling to find someplace with these amenities, in our price range, that was public transit accessible and NOT sketchy according to reviews online. I'd really like if NEXT YEAR we can try to move again, especially because by then Jules and I might have each worked out the "having a car and a license" thing which would remove ONE of our big limitations, but. For now, this is good.
Which means I need to figure out whether I still CAN take my tax test and volunteer as I'd planned, or if the degree of meltdown I've had about moving has messed that up for this year. I kind of want to just throw in the towel, since I'd finally gotten myself to accept that volunteering on top of moving was too much for me. But it makes me sad to do that now that I'm NOT moving and it SHOULDN'T be too much.
And then there's katsucon! I'm not really going to give a con report, because it would just be me trying to remember which friends I hung out with at which times, but. I know I went to AA on Friday, dealer's on Saturday, and AA again on Sunday to actually make the purchases I'd been deliberating over. Friday night we watched the men's free skate in their hotel room with Samy, both Kats, Jihye, Em, and the folks actually rooming with Samy who I wasn't previously acquainted with, and both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went to the game room to play jubeat while it was slow and the majority of my friends were still getting ready. Saturday night we had the usual extended sports fandom cuddle pile and unofficial meetup and that, too, was excellent as always.
It was just, a really chill, fun con because I didn't cosplay and got to spend the entire time with friends. Some cons I get really stressed about trying to hit up EVERY PERSON I know at the con at some point over the weekend but this year, I tried to be a little more chill about it. There were some people I saw only once for like five minutes (and I'm glad we got to talk for even that much!) and some people I didn't manage to see at all. I'm a little sad about that, of course, but it sounds like those friends had a good time with their own plans and this is just how con goes. For the most part, they're people I'll be able to see again in the future and I have no regrets.
I also went for all-you-can-eat sushi after con with AJ, Kay, Vee, Whit, Lauren, Jihye, and Em and I'm sooooo glad we managed to coordinate that as well as we did. I felt like I hadn't seen Kay and AJ as much as I might have liked during the con itself, and they're friends who I really have no idea when I'd see again since they're all the way in Australia, so it was just this really nice extra time with them outside con and I treasure that a lot. After dinner I took Jihye home with me to meet Nico, and I'm so... Glad that Jihye is the chill-with-anything person that she is because I was sooooo not ready for company or ready to MAKE myself ready for company but Jihye sure did just pull a blanket over herself on the second bed which totally still had half a pile of unfolded laundry on it to pass out and like. Jihye is a gift, I love her so much.
I'm still feeling really good after con, honestly, but I don't want to use this temporary high to justify staying around on social media when I'd planned to do otherwise. I know there's a really good chance I'll crash within the next day, and I know that even if the housing thing is "solved," I have a lot of residual stress going on that I still need to deal with. I'd started a good thing with journaling daily and tracking the habits I want to get into and I've fallen out of it entirely in the past two or three weeks because it was just one too many responsibilities to keep up with, but I want to start again.
I also am aware that I haven't been the very best friend to everyone I know lately, and I am sorry for that. This is something that happens with me periodically, so I kind of take for granted that my friends know to expect it and will be patient with me when my mental health nosedives and I'm just not able to be good online company for everyone. I prioritize talking to whoever is easiest and gentlest at the moment because I need the dopamine hit of rewarding social interaction, but the flipside is that some conversations are just... Too hard for me, and I'll be short with people or just not reply to them at all.
This really isn't something that is in my power to correct. If I'm so low on bandwidth that my social interactions have gotten this way, I need to reserve all my remaining bandwidth for myself, to spend it on resolving my own problems so I HAVE more bandwidth and can BE better company again. And honestly, I feel I am pretty transparent about my mental health being a perennial issue, and that it isn't unreasonable of me to ask friends to wait for me while I work on myself.
However, if anyone feels I've been unfairly rude or abrasive with them above a level that they find understandable for a stressed out basket case... Please do talk to me. And be willing to work things out with me. Please LET ME KNOW if you just... Miss me and want to do something like rabbit stream a movie or TV show when I feel a little bit better, or if you're sad because we haven't talked and you want to say hey. I become very short-sighted when my brain critfails so I just, literally cannot see if I'm being rude or distant. I do need to have it pointed out to me. All I ask is that it be pointed out to me kindly, and because you want to make specific improvements for the future.
Thank you all for being my friends; katsucon has been very illustrative that I have great ones and made me feel better about how perhaps I am not ruining all my friendships, but I can always! Do more friend things!! Just like... Little by little, is the thing.
Apparently I haven't done one of these in more than two weeks but in my defense, everything was on fire and last week was the leadup to katsucon, and before that I decided I'd rather write about Shiraishi Kuranosuke instead of myself. I have no regrets.
I guess part of this might conceivably be a con report, but mostly it is a "here's some shit about me and my life as a preface to the social media hiatus I am about to take." The current plan is to continue to do these while I hiatus so if you're going to miss me and can't text/email/get on discord, watch this space.
As previously stated, I have been stressed out of my MIND about needing to move. The situation as I understood it was that my housemate Raino is finishing his graduate work and has received a job offer in California, and that my housemate San has gotten quite serious with his girlfriend and wants to move in with her. This has left only Jules and myself to find a new place for two people, because the house we are living in is just not affordable for less than three people splitting the rent.
And because I've been so stressed out about this housing thing, I never took my tax law test and have missed two weeks of tax prep. I was getting really close to just calling the supervisor for my site, who I do consider a personal friend, and letting her know that I can no longer volunteer this year. The stress about moving fed into the stress about taking my test to the point where I couldn't make myself do it, and then the stress about not passing the test and inconveniencing the other volunteers fed into the stress about moving and it was just this awful cycle that magnified both problems to the point where I couldn't deal with either of them.
I was really afraid that katsucon was going to be a bad time for me because I'd gotten to the point where I felt so stressed and sick I was barely eating or doing other basic self-care, but actually... Katsucon was so nice. It was so good to get out of my usual environment and to not think about all of the problems piling up in my real life for a while, and to just spend the weekend with friends. It was a blissfully drama-free con for me, personally, and I loved it.
And then I came home from katsu and pretty much the very first thing that happened was San calling a "family meeting." Which made it seem like some big, stressful deal, but actually... All he did was propose that when Raino moves out to take the job in Cali, we do sign a new lease to stay in the house, with his girlfriend as the fourth tenant on the lease. If we give San and Janet the entire downstairs space that gives her room for an office to work from home (which was one of her biggest issues with all of us trying to move somewhere ELSE together) and all of our rent stays the same and none of us have to deal with the bullshit of moving house this year.
I'm so, so relieved to be able to stay here. There were some aspects of moving -- new bathroom that isn't fucked up in a ton of ways, a dishwasher, a new washer and dryer, not dealing with some of San's bullshit that always stresses me out -- that I was really excited for, but the tradeoffs were making it more trouble than it's worth. I was really struggling to find someplace with these amenities, in our price range, that was public transit accessible and NOT sketchy according to reviews online. I'd really like if NEXT YEAR we can try to move again, especially because by then Jules and I might have each worked out the "having a car and a license" thing which would remove ONE of our big limitations, but. For now, this is good.
Which means I need to figure out whether I still CAN take my tax test and volunteer as I'd planned, or if the degree of meltdown I've had about moving has messed that up for this year. I kind of want to just throw in the towel, since I'd finally gotten myself to accept that volunteering on top of moving was too much for me. But it makes me sad to do that now that I'm NOT moving and it SHOULDN'T be too much.
And then there's katsucon! I'm not really going to give a con report, because it would just be me trying to remember which friends I hung out with at which times, but. I know I went to AA on Friday, dealer's on Saturday, and AA again on Sunday to actually make the purchases I'd been deliberating over. Friday night we watched the men's free skate in their hotel room with Samy, both Kats, Jihye, Em, and the folks actually rooming with Samy who I wasn't previously acquainted with, and both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went to the game room to play jubeat while it was slow and the majority of my friends were still getting ready. Saturday night we had the usual extended sports fandom cuddle pile and unofficial meetup and that, too, was excellent as always.
It was just, a really chill, fun con because I didn't cosplay and got to spend the entire time with friends. Some cons I get really stressed about trying to hit up EVERY PERSON I know at the con at some point over the weekend but this year, I tried to be a little more chill about it. There were some people I saw only once for like five minutes (and I'm glad we got to talk for even that much!) and some people I didn't manage to see at all. I'm a little sad about that, of course, but it sounds like those friends had a good time with their own plans and this is just how con goes. For the most part, they're people I'll be able to see again in the future and I have no regrets.
I also went for all-you-can-eat sushi after con with AJ, Kay, Vee, Whit, Lauren, Jihye, and Em and I'm sooooo glad we managed to coordinate that as well as we did. I felt like I hadn't seen Kay and AJ as much as I might have liked during the con itself, and they're friends who I really have no idea when I'd see again since they're all the way in Australia, so it was just this really nice extra time with them outside con and I treasure that a lot. After dinner I took Jihye home with me to meet Nico, and I'm so... Glad that Jihye is the chill-with-anything person that she is because I was sooooo not ready for company or ready to MAKE myself ready for company but Jihye sure did just pull a blanket over herself on the second bed which totally still had half a pile of unfolded laundry on it to pass out and like. Jihye is a gift, I love her so much.
I'm still feeling really good after con, honestly, but I don't want to use this temporary high to justify staying around on social media when I'd planned to do otherwise. I know there's a really good chance I'll crash within the next day, and I know that even if the housing thing is "solved," I have a lot of residual stress going on that I still need to deal with. I'd started a good thing with journaling daily and tracking the habits I want to get into and I've fallen out of it entirely in the past two or three weeks because it was just one too many responsibilities to keep up with, but I want to start again.
I also am aware that I haven't been the very best friend to everyone I know lately, and I am sorry for that. This is something that happens with me periodically, so I kind of take for granted that my friends know to expect it and will be patient with me when my mental health nosedives and I'm just not able to be good online company for everyone. I prioritize talking to whoever is easiest and gentlest at the moment because I need the dopamine hit of rewarding social interaction, but the flipside is that some conversations are just... Too hard for me, and I'll be short with people or just not reply to them at all.
This really isn't something that is in my power to correct. If I'm so low on bandwidth that my social interactions have gotten this way, I need to reserve all my remaining bandwidth for myself, to spend it on resolving my own problems so I HAVE more bandwidth and can BE better company again. And honestly, I feel I am pretty transparent about my mental health being a perennial issue, and that it isn't unreasonable of me to ask friends to wait for me while I work on myself.
However, if anyone feels I've been unfairly rude or abrasive with them above a level that they find understandable for a stressed out basket case... Please do talk to me. And be willing to work things out with me. Please LET ME KNOW if you just... Miss me and want to do something like rabbit stream a movie or TV show when I feel a little bit better, or if you're sad because we haven't talked and you want to say hey. I become very short-sighted when my brain critfails so I just, literally cannot see if I'm being rude or distant. I do need to have it pointed out to me. All I ask is that it be pointed out to me kindly, and because you want to make specific improvements for the future.
Thank you all for being my friends; katsucon has been very illustrative that I have great ones and made me feel better about how perhaps I am not ruining all my friendships, but I can always! Do more friend things!! Just like... Little by little, is the thing.
no subject
Yeah that's... Kinda... It's the case that a couple people have let me know lately that I've been abrasive without realizing it and it sucks to find that out but also like? I would rather know? On the other hand, someone else basically yelled at me for prioritizing some friends over others (among other not super great things said about me) and with that? Excuse me, no, that literally is my right as a human being to decide who I want to or am able to spend time with and on at any given time. No one is ENTITLED to my time and even if that isn't what was intended to come across, it's what came across and it really ruffled my feathers.
I am tryna be chill about it so I don't really want to talk about it further or have the person in question criticized I'm just fucking tired.
Wehs softly, thank you.