wixbloom's journal

Oh, sorry! Hugs anyway.

 

Feel a lot better! Making an effort to avoid the drama, and, when I fail to, I'm trying to take even more of my own advice and work to frame things that upset me less as Deliberate Malicious Aggression and more as just tired, sad and angry people saying things without thinking them through. Which doesn't justify everything, but at least helps create a sense of equanimity and empathy and I think that helps community interactions be better, and also helps the world to look like a less scary place to me.

Made some extremely good art, feel like I've probably found the direction I'd been wanting for the past year or so of artmaking, though it's still gonna take time to refine the technical skills necessary to do the work I want to. Can't wait for the markers I bought to arrive, though it's gonna take a couple of months, and in the meantime, I'm happily organizing a mental list of tiny art treats I can get myself this month (I'm thinking some colors of ink, new dip pen and nibs, and maybe a few more colors of gouache).

I was thinking the day before yesterday how for the first time in literally years I've been genuinely feeling that I'm a happy, loveable person with a bright future of joy, love and accomplishment ahead of me and a lot to live for. I know the world's going to shit but on a personal level, I'm feeling increasingly stronger, more self-assured, more loving of myself and happier. Less afraid, to paraphrase a thing I read recently, that people will erase me by denying me love.

 

Fun fact: "The traditional Brazilian family" is right-wing buzzword term in Brazil, comparable to the use of "family values" by Republicans in the US. And me, my dad and my bro traditionally get dinner together twice a week, a habit that started in 2004 when my parents split up and has been ongoing ever since. So I privately and jokingly refer to those dinners as "dinner with the traditional Brazilian family".

The joke is, of course, that we're a divorced man who lives alone with his 2 dogs, a young man who lives with his mom and a young transmasculine bisexual person who lives with 3 cats, and we definitely don't espouse the values of "the traditional Brazilian family"

 

Note to future wix, here's some artist grade art supplies that you can buy from Brazilian stores so you have less risk, no surprise import taxes, and also support your country's economy at least a little:

Sennelier Watercolor

Schmincke Watercolor

Winsor & Newton Drawing Ink

Huge Fucking Set of Amsterdam Acrylics*

Albrecht Dührer Watercolor Pencils **

Huge Roll of Moulin du Roy Watercolor Paper

The store I linked also has tube refills of the paints listed, so you can feel free to buy them in Portugal and go replacing the pans with tubes as needed! ALSO, they sell Inktense pencils if you want to ever get more <3

* They're student grade but their lightfastness is excellent and honestly that's the single most important thing to me so SHRUGGLE

** I was unsure how interested in them I was but then I saw this video and, my body is ready

["It's My Party" plays in the background but instead the lyrics say "it's my journal and I'll link art supplies if I want to, link art supplies if I want to, link art supplies if I want to"]

 

Went to muay thai yesterday, and screwed up so much and apologized so much that my instructor had to tell me to stop saying "sorry", at which point I switched from "sorry" to "pardon me". I feel a lot of dysphoria when I exercise, which makes it hard to do so, especially in such a social environment. I try to remind myself that nobody's there to look pretty, that everyone is a mess, and that they don't see me through the lens of dysphoria that I see myself through, and that helps.

Also, today I found out that my grandma is in the hospital again, having had her... sixth stroke or so. I feel a lot more prepared to deal with this now than I did last year. What do you know - I've actually matured. Still sucks, though. A couple years ago I made a sigil that said "my grandmother is happy in life and ascends to heaven when she dies". I don't believe in heaven, and, in fact, the thought that there might be any sort of post-mortem reward-and-punishment system terrifies me - not because I think I'd be punished, necessarily, but on principle. But I hope for her sake that, at least, there's one for her. And I hope she gets to be happy on Earth for a while longer, if possible, before going off to see it.

 

Brain: "Hey remember also that your dad's ED is probably relapsing and you're powerless to do anything but watch him self-destruct again :)"

Thanks pal, now shut up.

 

The nurses' boss has, indeed, changed the password of the one PC that I managed to learn the password for after she caught me using it on wednesday morning.

Meanwhile my reception colleague is using the one PC I actually have access to to watch porn. Oh, by the way, that's a thing he does regularly! Watch porn! In the reception! I've caught him doing it more than once!

But God forbid I use a VACANT machine to check my e-mail. Can't have that now. Only porn and a sense of smug superiority now!

 

TIME TO MEDITATE

 

Oh my god, does your boss know that?? Jesus fuck

 

I don't think so, and I sure am not going to tell them because I'm the only person in this office who is not tenured, my reception coworker and I get along well, and attracting anyone's animosity right now is a recipe for unnecessary troubles, especially considering how obviously full of shit my bosses and the nurses' boss are.

 

Oh god :C
I'm sorry to hear that

 

Right now my work-related goals are these:

- Earn a couple of raises at work through taking online courses that add up to pay bonuses
- Study hard this year so next year I can try to earn an income through art making
- Armed with this extra income, change my work hours from full time to part-time
- Use the extra free time to make more art
- Eventually, if possible, ask for a transfer to another location
- Eventually, if possible, quit altogether and live solely out of art and freelance jobs connected to my English degree (as a tutor, reviewing documents, making translations et cetera)

 

Heck yeah, that's a fantastic plan.

 

• Triggered in the morning
• Anxiety in the afternoon
• Triggered in the evening
• Also clumsy attempt at manipulation was leveled my way
• Luckily by that time I was so furious that I shut it down without even realizing what it was
• And then right as I was drinking some tea and getting ready for bed, tumblr recommends me a TERF blog.

And yet, thanks to a ton of coping, I managed to have a good saturday

This calls for a fucking medal

 

It's 45 minutes since I said I was going to bed and yet here I am

Seething in my rage like an asshole

 

I was having such a nice day today but now I'm suddenly really upset and I don't remember why?

 

Aaaaaahhh yes, I remember what it was.

One of my very few remaining friends who still lives in the same state and country as me is hosting a party next week and I don't wanna go. It's a pool party and I'm gonna have dysphoria, plus this former friend I want to distance myself from is going, and I realized yesterday that there'll be nobody else there who I know since all our other mutual friends have gone away, and I feel like I'm a failure for not wanting to go, and a failure for having lost so many important relationships that I never wanted to lose, and please kil me.

 

Plus the thjng is in another city and I have nobody to give me a ride and would have to stay overnight and when I try to figure out the logistics of it I just get hit with this fog of depression and anxiety

 

It is okay to not want to go to a thing. It's okay to look at logistics and decide it's not worth it for you to go to the thing.

I hope your brain will relax and let you go back to having a good day.

 

Yeah, and to be honest, this friend is very much like me in sometimes not wanting to go to a thing, and he even failed to attend our friend Ana's send-off (she moved cross-state last week) and has in fact not attended my last 2 birthdays - and that's absolutely OK! I don't hold it against him a single bit at all, but my point is, he, more than most of my friends, understands not wanting to go to a thing even though you love your friends. He would be entirely understanding, I KNOW he would. So I KNOW that there's no rational component to being this upset.

It's just that a cruel voice in my mind goes "oh, you're just trying to rationalize the fact that you're unable to maintain your ties due to depression and dysphoria". And that's NOT TRUE. I'm NOT unable to maintain friendships, my friends have been moving away! It's not my fault! We still talk all the time, and I've in fact been so obsessed with tying my worth to my ability to maintain friendships that I have actually stuck around for some really unhealthy ones, including this girl I'm trying to disengage from! And as I previously stated I'm learning to value myself regardless of my relationships for the first time in my life, and that's good! That's essential, even! But these pitfalls of self loathing and self doubt are very difficult, and it's easy for me to overthink myself into ignoring my own needs and desires.