I don't want to die...just yet

 Lessons learned from every love interest:

I always jump the gun. 

I always fall too fast.

I always want to fast forward to the end.

I always forget I DESERVE TO BE EARNED. ( I literally knew this when I was 12.)

I always forget the social conditioning and the roles our evolutionary (or lack thereof) biology.

I always, always think there is secret love.

I never accept the No. 

I never accept that people have agency to move on.

I have 40 years of bad data...well good consistent, reliable data that me being a scientist has failed to ignore. 

I'm so smart and pretty and nice but for whatever reason these romance outcomes are hard to swallow. I think because it just doesn't make sense. But no matter HOW HARD I TRY, I can't change the social conditioning of an entire generation, species, or gender. I just can't. 

I think I'm going to go on a 30 day detox from my cell phone. Go back to my simple Android phone that just works on wifi. 

Objective: just a mental reset. reboot to a safer space. a safer emotional space. emotional recovery. i was unsuccessful at dating. i don't want to set any intentions with what i will do in the future.

reaching fire has caused so much emotional turmoil with this need to now make the BEST decision possible to enjoy whatever time I have left. but maybe it is like the lottery where you just need to sit on it for like a year and make no big decisions. FIRE happened about 4 years earlier than expected which I am forever grateful for but for a methodical person like me it is not without upheaval. 

i mean it's what I hoped and prayed for and it seemed like it was never going to happen even when I was living just above the poverty level and hoping to accelerate my growth, it was just a dream. and dreams don't come true for girls like me.

I don't really have a year because anything wild and crazy that costs money above my target $20k/yr spend will need to happen in the next 20 or so months. So really like a year. The year I'm supposed to be acting like this big monumental thing didn't just happen. 

I don't want to think too much about what happens next because there was one part of me that was transitioning into this solo life and abandoning these loose connections i have with the current people in my life.

this is why i never wanted a phone. i got fooled by my colleague. it has caused turmoil. so i'm turning my phone off and putting it away for 1 month. 

it was like a hope stone that turned into a death accelerator.

all the puzzle pieces made a nightmare.

In other news, I maxed out my 401k for the year! Remember when that was a cause for celebration. It still is but as long as I keep making money (i.e. working) and nothing catastrophic happens, this is a likely outcome. It's not a feelings variables for me. It is something I can control with the above conditions.

I wrote a bunch of stuff in my notebook on my way too long commute from DC. 

Hey listen, I made it 7 months out of a year where I mostly wanted to be dead. That's something. That's 58%!

58% of what, I don't know but for a girl where every single minute is a struggle, that's something... I think.