How much more sad and lost would I be without the internet?

[demakat]

I need a new icon, especially if I'm going to spend time making blah blah words here more often.

It took me until today, but finally...christmas blows. Which is kind of a record. Previously it was around thanksgiving. The thought of going to my aunt's house, who isn't even a bad person but marginally upsets my mom with things before each event. This year though we aren't going because my grandparents on that side of the family are staying home in Wisconsin. Which is still a good thing, but now I feel overwhelmed with what everyone will do at our house. My sisters are coming back to stay the night and we've only ever gone somewhere else christmas eve. Ideally we play apples to apples or I make people play other things with me and we eat a ton of foods. But this means I have to clean the bathroom, and vacuum my one sister's room cause her boyfriend, who is also staying, is allergic to cats. "I vacuumed it" says my mom, who vacuumed the room after my sister moved out in October. Same mom who likes to tell me that things only have a little butter/coconut oil in it so if I want some. As though getting hives is something that's itchy insanity. The point is, she is not good at this allergy thing. Plus I know that if I do it too early and shut the door, the probability that someone will open it again just because is higher. Then the cat will roll in it because it was a previously closed room that is now open, and at about 2pm the sun is amazing in there. But Stevie you can't know all this! Things might be different! Yes that's always possible, but unfortunately I often start out with the best intentions and get consistently beaten down to "trash is fine with me!"

Second on the list of 'christmas blows' is socializing. Everyone seems to be making posts about fun times with their friends, or the joy of people or some BS. I feel like I'm doing it wrong and that when I try to reach out everyone is turning me down, or isn't responding at all. Knowing better doesn't really stop the feelings. I'm only reaching out to some people, not everyone I know, and maybe not even the people I'm sure would respond. It's almost like I don't want to connect with people, so I'm picking the ones that probably won't respond. Then I sort of spiral off into the abyss of "what the hell is wrong with me?" and "building relationships makes me super tired".

Then I was listening to this podcast on the way home about how people seem set on a track and they do all the things they are suppose to within that track. Go to school > go to college > get a job > work forever > retire?somethingsomething. That you need to redefine what enough is for yourself. I always feel sort of lost with those directions though. For me enough looks like having an apartment, and books, all of the free time I could want and the internet. I think it would take me a long time to get bored with that. A very long time. But outside of that, I don't feel like I actually want anything. While typing that I kind of felt like crying so there's a road marker or some shit. I just do the things. I just did school and I didn't suck and I showed up. I disappointed most of the teachers who cared. Why didn't I try harder, they knew I was smart? Why wasn't I going to be an animation major? Animation never really interested me. I love social studies SO HARD but that not a job and ohh boy the only thing that equals my suck at sales is sucking at research. My ever echoing feel is "I don't care" I have been pretending I don't care for so fucking long. Maybe my whole life.

I do care. I care that this guy from my old job who seemed to like to talk to me hasn't responded to my message to him. It's not even a romance thing, he's married and I don't know that we would work well as a team because of similarities. But just nothing at all? I reached out! I did a thing that is extremely hard for both of us and in it's place I get dead air. I try reaching out to other people as well, but they never just openly talk. If they don't want to talk about anything why am I here, what am I suppose to do? I don't know, so I just go back to my own things after trying. I'm just here. I read swordheart by t. kingfisher (ursula vernon) and while most of it was entertaining I got knocked for a fucking loop by the heroine saying that no one ever comforts the practical people, they're always the ones doing the comforting and have learned to comfort themselves. It's like the "I'm fine" version of the canadian "sorry". You just convince yourself that things will be okay, when really all you end up doing is being okay with whatever happens. I keep waiting for someone to be able to read me well enough to advocate for me. To rescue me from myself. No one will ever be able to fully do that. In the mean time I'm one of those "think outside the box" puzzles where I know there is an answer but I have no idea what it could be. Bashing the wall in hopes it will fall down seems exhausting, and I'm out of other solutions so I'm just sitting down waiting. Maybe forever.

Possibly the thing that has messed me up the most lately is finding out my brother probably drinks. I know my sisters do. Somehow my brother doing so too leaves me feeling very alone and maybe sort of betrayed. I really don't understand why anyone would want to drink at all, though this reeks of convincing myself this is true. I also totally get it and if I were way less astutely responsible, and way less hyperaware, I would probably just not eat food and drink alcohol all the time instead. But I don't want to be that person either. I just want drinking to not be this big deal all the time. I want it to not be a valuable thing, that somewhere has good drinks, that some party will have drinks. I don't want it to even be a conversation I have to ever have again.

I considered also today, making comics. Or some other thing on some sort of schedule. Would it be good to make words on a regular schedule? What kind of words. I've always done online journaling with minimal edits. If I have to come back to it a day or a week later, I read it again and am no longer feeling any of those things. It was once all valid and real, and now it's just there. I could maybe answer questions about it. Even all of this, later I can only answer questions about in an intellectual way.

I don't care about the polite niceties, lets talk about the structure of sentences and how exactly you would use an excavator to get a specific thing out of the earth. How do you do the social thing, have you thought about why you say something and when you say it? Is being anxious the same thing as being observant or does your brain not log the information in the same way?

All I ever want is to fill up my little teacup self with a new learning thing and savor it for a while. Why do I have to go to work, and feed myself or alternately not eat only sugar? Why do I have to keep putting on shoes?

How much more sad and lost would I feel without the internet?