Sun, Oct 2, 2022, It's all the same

 Let's start this day off with my accomplishments. Maybe this is my version of a gratitude log. But I like my idea of focusing on the things I do vs what I used to perceive as being done to me. 

Accomplishments:

- Took a bunch of photos, that made the event more fun. It gave me a personality and I could live in a fantasy world where people viewed my photos. I actually liked looking back on them. Uploading them to the shared album (only 1 person really views them) is fun too. 

- Removed 2 people from the shared album that weren't viewing them (#petty?)

- Went to the zoo! Remember I was thinking of not going and spending the day indoors, but it made for a full day and no time for negative thoughts!

- Went to the pumpkin patch

- Ordered fried rice because I knew fries were going to make me feel worse

- Made pancakes yesterday

- Updated my spreadsheet yesterday

- Made it through another month

- Getting excited about budgets and plans for next year!!

Anyway I woke up in a mood. After reactivation from my last CBT session, I found myself stuck in that negative space. Confounded with much too long an interaction with mediocre white man, it was tough to shake. Then spending the day with the pumpkin patch group - where they glommed to the French girl. *eye roll*. I mean they were bending over backwards to accommodate her and feed her. I was sitting at the same table with the same pizza and you would have thought she was a refugee the way everyone was forcing her to eat to the point that she finally relented. Crickets where I was. It reminded me of the instances of Call Center #1 with Alyssa and they way they bent over backwards to accommodate her food restrictions but I was seen as difficult. 

There were 2 white guys that were clearly into her and actually moved tables to talk to her. 

I keep replaying Friday's terrible encounter. You've never been in a relationship, mean white man asked? Nope. It's a pretty open secret that skinny white is the standard of beauty and the rest of us are relegated to a small subset of people that have to see us for our "inner beauty." I literally don't even know any black guys. I barely know 1 black girl. So what happens to girls like me? 

I don't even notice anymore that I'm the only black girl at these events. It doesn't matter. I can't control that and I'm not going to try to.

You should just see the way the mood changes when a skinny white shows up at these events. You definitely feel a queen bee vibe. 

But listen, I wanted to go the zoo and the pumpkin patch. And I did!

It's my world and it has to be okay that I'm the only one living in it. There's no other choice.

I think that's mostly what I'm coming to terms with. My Katie Counselor hasn't really tried to sugar coat things. She pretty much was like there are people who don't find joy in life and they don't kill themselves.  She asked the question, well what if you don't find anyone, then what. I don't have the answer. The answer at the time of my acute crisis was to kill myself. A life alone was not a life I wanted.

And it's still not, and killing myself is always an option.

But I want to spend more of this money.

I'm still figuring out what to focus on if building community isn't it. 

So part of why I wanted to blog this morning is I started to feel that door closing in on me - if I'm going to be alone and outcast, why am I spending all this money to be in Seattle and to feel bad.

But then it was like - to spend the the money, I guess.

I don't know. I don't have a reason yet.

*shrugs*

So yeah, I'm keeping my fun budget because my current budget speaks to all levers of my life right now: 

- Meet basic expenses

- Save a little (with a background goal of reaching a milestone)

- Spend a little more

I like this. This is good.

I do have to get used to spending $20 for crab fried rice though. Yesterday I got chicken fried rice that wasn't very good.

I will say it's a little freeing to just be quiet in these meetup groups. Just watch the silence or disappear into my own world. With not motivations or targets to hit or goals to reach or objective to meet, or culminating event to get ready for; no prize to win; no life-affirming community to build; I can just phone it in. We're all just passing the time. I owe no one an explanation. I owe nothing to anyone. Literally, no one. I can do what I want. I can come and go as I please. Once burdensome and restrictive this freedom, now actually the buddings of what it means to be free. Untethered to an outcome. All just silently floating to death. Even the ones screaming and fighting along the way - the march is the same. We are all united in death. Never to be remembered as the full humans we were - just floating images, caricatures of the people we once were. 99.9% of us will never be talked about again. 

P.S.:

- Oh, my worry that Maryland Aunty was going to come visit...laughable.

Oh I woke up congested this morning. I was already on the fence about going to volleyball today. In case, it's the outdoors making me sick, I might sit this one out. I can rest and breathe my own air. 

I am refusing to be scared about October. I'm on vacation!!

It'll be fun to spend more money next summer. (Can you believe MERJ is planning for something this far in advance!!!) It just has to be true at the time. So thinking of it as a vacation vs prepping for a life here frees up some spending. Yay!