The Fog

As the days grow shorter and colder, it’s that time of the year when I am most susceptible to a feeling of despair and loneliness. I see folks younger than me get married or have kids, and I wonder if I’ve missed a really important train in life. The truth is, it appears I did. But I’ve also never wanted children — at least not with the person I was with at the time, or so I think.

I am not even sure if I want any children even with the right person. It seems like a daunting and exhausting task, and I find the world hard enough as it is. That is, today, my most difficult battle. Being a productive part of society, making connections.

After my last entry in this series, I made the decision to take some time off next year. I think it’s the right decision, and it will most likely lead into a new period of my life where I start looking for other opportunities in terms of work and goals to pursue.

An Unexpected Message

In the aftermath of that decision, a certain someone decided to get in touch to let me know that “if I ever felt like I had to talk to her”, I could. Someone was wondering how I was doing. I chuckled and ignored the message, but as always it fucked with me a little. The audacity and tone of the message felt totally off and wrong for all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps the message was truly motivated by some innate good qualities, but the truth is that everyone in my personal friend circle said to not engage with this. “Unless you have a really, really good reason to want to talk,” a friend said, “you shouldn’t.”

I remember laughing at this specific piece of advice because it was a (smart) woman who gave me this advice. I tend to listen to women more when it comes to emotional introspection and insight. A few other smart women also corroborated this take, so here I am. Having ignored the message.

Managing Emotions

I think it’s the right thing to do, but it doesn’t feel right. The problem is that our emotions can sometimes overwhelm us. At that point, it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself: why am I feeling this emotion? Why do I feel disappointed, or mad, or sad? Understanding why you feel this way can help you figure things out.

In the end, you can choose your own mood. Yes, if you ignore all the warning signs, you will not succeed at doing this. But if you choose to work on yourself, it can be done. I’ve been succeeding at this. It’s why I’m trying to identify where my biggest shortcomings are, and seeing what I can do about them in a reasonable way.

Emotions are easily manipulated, even your own. So take care and analyse them along the way.

Accepting Responsibility

One of the things that I do now as well, is assume that I am in fact the problem if a problem comes up. Even when the injustice is not of my own making. If I was involved, I must have made a mistake somehow.

The truth is that I may not always be right, but doing this allows me to take responsibility for my own actions related to the problem, and guess what?

I can almost always do something to make a shitty situation a little less shitty. Deciding to give a fuck has the benefit of increasing the odds that something can be done to address the situation. Sometimes that means I have the ability to walk away, which is also a very valid course of action.

So… Yes, you can’t solve all problems by yourself, but you can certainly do your own part. That part does not need to start big… it can start small.

Fog

Another thing I’ve slowly learned to appreciate is how much better I am doing from a health perspective. I wasn’t aware how much bad sleep, nasal congestion, mouth breathing, poor heart health and more were limiting my every waking moment.

I was not thinking clearly and I’d found myself performing this sad, blind routine. I wasn’t even aware of my own feelings on things, including the relationship I was in. As I heal, I am starting to recognize that my relationship wasn’t going anywhere, and that I must take responsibility for my failing there.

There wasn’t any intentional malice on my part, it was just the fog of illness and poor habits that had escalated. I wish I could apologise to my past self, at times.