I remember my birthday being somewhat, ok not ok, I guess? That my acquired/forcibly inforced knowledge of what birthdays are supposed to be like manifested into myself always pondering always comparing always searching for what went wrong — I guess have ripped me off the ability to truly, without pretense, simply enjoy my existence being a year longer. I kept ticking on boxes, this and that, of things occuring on one's birthday that should bring happiness (it should be, for me, bring happiness, as a list less virgo is a listless one, but anyhow) I remember feeling... Quite lost. Mostly always during the previous years, but even more so this year. It's like, wow, thank you, I appreciate this, should this be your idea of what should make another person happy, but I'm not sure this is what happiness felt like. My own definition of it, that is.
The week of my birthday I happened to watch Ad Astra on such an, I would say, ideal watching condition: was joining a friend of mine on a whim and as a result got a separated seat, the seats next to me empty, was in a messed up state for the last several months & tired after a long day at work which requires me putting up a friendly normal working sane person profile. Not that it's always fake, but that's not the point. Don't you just love one of those occurings where everything just effortlessly clicked that it felt like a conspiracy?
I hadn't cried that much in a theater for the longest time, just, pure feelings.
(I admittedly cried manically all through 3 floors' worth of escalators by the end of avengers end game and during supper the same day would start tearing up by any mention of peter parker but! I stand with scorcese that this capitalism fed intricately designed to manipulate your feelings isn't really cinema!)
I don't even have that much daddy issues I think? But then again I'm an awful estimator of my general state of everything, so. It just felt very universal all the while personal. I guess that's what interstellar movies are all about. I loved it.
That being said, I'm not even close to my previous goal (that is to stop living in other people's head, assuming I still write my feelings this way), but I guess I've been avoiding developing a healthy way of seeing/perceiving/taking time to know other people & each their own social dynamics in (supposedly) favor of not getting myself hurt. I realize now that maybe, maybe it's the very thing that is ruining me.
Earlier this November I had this awful set of rashes on my wrist down to the middle of my arm that looked exactly like chicken pox, even though I already had one back in elementary school. It just happen so one morning, my arms feeling itchy, and turned liquid-filled-like and darkened by the next day. All I remember happening several days before was me waking up late one particular night from mosquito bites, a work related site visit the next day after, and the week before camping out in the outdoors. My mum decided it was probably some kind of virus, and with the right meds it receeded within the same week. Also on one of my birthdays in college, I was struck out of nowhere by this all encompassing gaussian blur on my left eye despite not having any minus or cylinder whatsoever. T'was also a virus, the same family/kind probably. I remember the doctor saying: "the main difference between a bacteria and a virus, is that bacteria works pretty sloppy that you'd feel yourself hurting even in the early stages; while viruses work a bit smarter that you wouldn't feel too much pain while your condition deteriorates even worse."
I guess this is my self inflicted virus. To not get myself hurt, to not feel, to render myself numb. To always feel too much, to feel always not quite right. To always seek extremes, to avoid them at all cost, to feel unexpected satisfaction from lukewarm relationships.
Be present. Be. Breathe.
—
I'm steady, calm. I slept well, no bad dreams. I am active and engaged. I'm aware of my surroundings and those in my immediate sphere. I'm attentive. I am focused on the essentials, to the exclusion of all else. I'm unsure of the future but I'm not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live and I will love.