Useless ramblings of a random human being: second edition!
Everything is getting weirder and weirder: on the one hand, my mental health is as fragile as it could be before I completely break; on the other hand, I’m trying as hard as I can not to let go of my current habits, although I know for a fact that, if if those habits were any good, I wouldn’t feel like this at all.
I should be grateful for where I am right now, and yet I can’t be. I feel hollow, detached from the “normal” people, from the “normal” stuff. I miss the special someone I never had. I want this nonsense to stop.
Here we go again. My current mental state is not the best, although not as bad as what you can read in the first entries of this new instance of the journal. I register a sharp decline in all interests, which means less music, fewer gaming sessions (if any), no movies, no clubbing. For the last thing, the fact that my usual partners in crime are out of sync with my life rhythm may be the main cause: when they’re available, I’m not, and vice versa. It happens, sure, but it is not pleasant on the short term.
Do I ever feel okay in all of this? Only sometimes.
I’m not mad at all this time: since I’ve come back home, my mood is much more stable and I don’t feel like shutting down pretty much ever. I had the chance to go on vacation to Greece, and it was a very nice trip. I hope more good things will follow.
My bad habits lead to me staying in my bedroom for way more time than I should; it’s been a while since I talked to a stranger, met a new person, felt sincere joy. I’m starting to worry, as summer is already more than halfway, and I fear it will be another year without a girlfriend and with no close friend to whom talk freely about this.
I remember that, when I was 14 or 15, a classmate of mine made me play a silly psychological game. She asked me: “What’s your ideal home like?”. To which I replied my home would be a modern apartment with neutral colours, at the edge of a big city; and it should have a room for guests. “Is there anybody in your guest room?”. “Not at the moment”. Man, the room I’m in right now is a perfect, almost too perfect, incarnation of what I had described at the time. And I don’t like it at all, if only for the fact that I feel lonely in a way that I didn’t think possible.
I’m at another low point. A couple days ago, my mum phoned me and I had the chance to introduce the idea of quitting my internship early, graduating and then spending the summer as an audio/FOH engineer in some holiday village somewhere. She didn’t like that idea, it was clear. She didn’t want to tell me directly, but I could hear her struggling not to say “This is a terrible idea, and you should aim to something else, something better”. I can’t blame her: after all this work, after going to university and so on, who could waste all of that and go towards a job that pays poorly and has no real carreer?
I’m tired. So tired.
I went back to the city. I spent slightly less than a month in my home town to attend some masterclass lectures at uni. While they were interesting, I felt some distance with one of my colleagues, somebody I was keen to calling friend. Well, I can’t expect to maintain a high status if I’m away and I don’t reach out unless I need something.
Next month, exam season will threaten me with two tests, one of which is infamous for being rather hard and unfair. Let’s wait and see.
I’m so sick and tired of everything. I can’t seem to find some peace. I feel ungrateful for the good things, which do happen to me even when I see all black. Will this sensation ever end? I really hope so.
I can’t even believe it: I had more than one good time this week! Granted, I’m not on cloud nine by any means, but I’m still in a pretty good spot. Last night I was able to go out for dinner with a couple newly found acquaintances from the dorm. Being out with friendly people and talking stuff was something I was starting to lose completely. Luckily we managed to sort something out quickly before dinner, then went to a famously expensive area of the city and proceeded to spend a fortune for a burger and a couple drinks. We went to an Irish pub: the atmosphere was nice; the band was cool, yet a little cringe; the food was okay; the drinks were just right.
I sincerely hope this serenity high continues throughout next week, so I can get home with a smile on my face.
What to say? I managed to survive for another week. People I usually have dinner with in the dorm went home. I missed the bingo event and all the chances to better know other people. But it could be worse.
It could rain, for instance.
And yet the sun shines. I rarely see it from this room, but I know it’s out there, and it shines. I just have to endure this for a little bit more, and then everything will turn out just fine.
Today I had the chance to hang out with a friend of mine who is also in the city. At first, I feared she agreed just to be kind, but while I was getting home she texted me and thanked me for the nice walk in the centre, as she had been struggling to find a friendly moment since she moved. The sun was shining; people and tourists were comically weird as usual; it was finally warm after weeks of rain.
It’s not the weekends, then: it’s just weekends spent alone in my room with no view. As long as I remember this, I should not struggle that much again: I can still go out for a walk, even if I have to take the bus to get to something vaguely resembling a park. I will do it nonetheless.
Let me be frank for a minute: I don’t like that I’m in need of being back here again. I would have rather preferred to be in good mental shape. Yet here we go again. If you’re reading this and want some extra context, below you can find the previous iteration of this alt site of mine. It isn’t the only site I have, but it’s the only one I know for a fact nobody IRL can associate me with. And I don’t want to waste a perfectly functional account on an obscure Web platform just to ramble about random things until I feel better and back everything up on a random cloud provider and forget it for a year or two, do I?
In the last 18 months, many things happened. If I were at home, I would pull out my bullet journals, skim through them and enumerate the most important events of 2024. Unfortunately, I’m in a new city right now, far enough from home that I plan to go back just for Easter, and for a couple days at most. I’m here because I found a job and wanted to try to live away from the safety home provides. The trial period ends in August, and then the company and I will decide on my future. As you can guess, coming back after 472 days of radio silence (based on my Status Cafe page) means that my psyche isn’t exactly in perfect shape.
But I’m already digressing too much. This wannabe journal is public for a reason: I want it to be a little bit more sincere than what it would be if I wrote it on paper. I have a shitty bullet journal with too many things to do and too few recent good memories, but I always have a weird, uncomfortable feeling when I think of actually writing down all I feel on something anyone close to me would be able to read. And yes, I’m also used to writing about myself online too much: the word “I” is too frequent on these entries, for my taste. But it’s a journal, a diary if you will, so maybe it’s just normal, and I’m setting too high of an expectation for myself, as usual.
Let’s go in order, more or less. In December 2023, I graduated. In the meantime, I had chosen another school for my master’s degree. Oh, and also I was trying to recover from a deep crush that ended quite wack and made me feel useless and aimless. 2024 was an okay year compared to its predecessor: I met some new cool people at uni, I had the chance to go to the seaside after a couple years devoid of any travelling, I was more on time with my exams. And yet the feeling of not being enough, not having any success with girls (damn, they should be called women at this age!), having no clear purpose never went away.
And now I’m here, in a distant (not really) city, with no real thing to do outside working and studying for my remaining exams. Weekends feel bad. I took up pornography after months of not even feeling the need for something similar. I spent hours watching YouTube last Saturday, because I feel like I have no reason to go out and meet new people—it feels hopeless. And when I feel a little bit better, some random thing reminds me of some terrible thought, be it being single, a loser, unfit for everything I care about or all of the above.
Right now I’d rather go home and avoid the truth, i.e. I’m not ready for this. And this is why I must stay here as much as possible: when this internship ends and I get to avoid inhumane Excel spreadsheets once and for all, I don’t want to forget how miserable life without my family and friends is. I don’t want to forget my privilege of living in a quiet, clean neighbourhood where nothing ever happens. I don’t want to take the calm of not getting embarassed for any woman passing by for granted.
This journal will help me remember all of this. Hopefully.
Why did it have to happen? Why does is always happen? I don’t want to suffer for this nonsense anymore. I want no butterflies in my stomach, I don’t want to be just one step away from crying, I don’t want to feel useless when I’m with my friends.
I was in a corner when I saw you last time. You were beautiful. You are beautiful. Such statements fail in describing you: you’re always there for your friends, you have no malice even if you aren’t naïve, you’re striving to get everything together.
And I feel ashamed, as my only reaction towards you signals I have nothing and I’m scared of having nothing. I feel worthless compared to you. And I know it shouldn’t be like this.
Well, here goes another month with no updates… I’m not feeling the need to share, right now. I think I’ll pick up this journal again in September or October.
I didn’t think I needed to add ‘eat pizza for three nights in a row’ on my Bingo card for 2023. Well, no problem: the situations that surrounded those three pizzas were worth it. On the 6th, I visited a friend of mine who was having a nice weekend with her boyfriend, but wanted to invite over some friends; this was the craziest situation of the three for sure, because I’m not used to drunk girls. On the 7th, Monopoly night with the boys. Yesterday, another friend of mine celebreated his birthday; EDM-heads are still a kind of people I’m strangely okay with.
Next week won’t be like this: I actaully have to do stuff at home and some friends are getting their degrees soon, so I’m going to help with the respective parties (if any).
A couple days ago, I joined the Travelers of Agora Road webring. It is a nice addition to my rather poor home page. I like those guys at Agora (at least the sane ones).
My life is still continuing. I’m in the middle of the exam season, and God, it’s so hot I’m melting. Today I woke up earlier to be able to update this thing (eheh) and also to have a couple extra hours to study for my next test.
I hope everyone, including you that are reading this, is doing okay.
Well, a lot of time has passed since my last update. All I can really say is this: some thing improved a lot, while other stayed almost the same. My mental health is slowly improving thanks to a small but steady dose of therapy. I started to appreciate the little treats ad things even at uni. Maybe I found a girl to love and be loved.
Happy Easter, everyone!
I know, I know: the unhinged part of this journal is steadily taking over. I’m starting to lose interest in updating anything. This is unfortunate, but I’m not in a good mood recently, so the things I do that may be appropriate to put here are discarded because “Who would care?”. Moreover, I realised that a journal can be only so much private and without references to my actual identity – and that’s a thing I wanted to avoid when I started writing here. The issue is I can only be so vague and still write something.
I started consulting a professional: maybe she will help me brush off my constant feeling of not-being-enough-ever. I really hope so.
It’s been a while. My mental state has already transcended anything sane, but it doesn’t matter. I am still here, but not to suffer.
Last Sunday, I went visiting an ex-classmate of mine in her new university city. She seems to be okay (and her boyfriend, too!). We went on a tour around the city and visited the local museum. It was a long day, but it was worth it.
The first week of lessons just finished. Needless to say I got my schedule wrong in every way possible: no time to recover from commuting, no time for copying notes and studying, no time to catch up with my friends. Well, almost no time for my friends: luckily I managed to have breakfast with a colleague of mine before rushing home to hang the laundry.
There are other things I felt during this week, and some of them are symptoms of a disorder, but I hope I need no trips to Psycholand.
Finally. I am free from exam season! Well, at least for two or three days: next classes are next Monday, so… yeah. Words can’t describe how much I needed a break: the entries on my bullet journal kept getting sadder and more tired every single day; I should have asked for help more than I did, but I managed to reach the end anyway — and that’s a positive for sure.
By the way, I’m not the only person “back”. My boy Skrillex released a couple albums and a bunch of singles within a single month. I still don’t have an opinion on most tracks, but the last one uploaded on his YouTube channel isn’t too bad.
Tonight is film night: we have the second LOTR on the menu. I hope it’s as good as the first one!
There was a Bingo afternoon at my local church yesterday; I helped with the tickets and with moving the tables in position. It was quite fun and we received lots of compliments. Finally something good, useful and fun!
Speaking of fun things, I added Res Arcana to my “treat” shopping list. This game isn’t too difficult to grasp and at the same time it isn’t boring, since there are enough randomly assigned cards so that two matches never play the same. A friend of mine lended me his copy of the game and my little brother approved it for some dank gaming nights.
Let’s just say there’s a lot of work I have to do on myself to get out of my questionable mindset. A straight month of Bullet Journaling on a real, paper notebook is helping me remember the good things that happen, so that I don’t focus on the bad ones too much. Even if some days I just feel like doing nothing, the pleasant situations outweight the blue hours, for now.
I guess this journal will be weekly from now on, at least until March. I’m not having enough things to report in a meaningful way to write an entry every single day (or couple of days).
Yesterday I went to university for an interesting seminar about the foundation of logic and mathematics. It was one of the most inspiring lectures I had in a while. The only bad thing is that it’s over now.
I stumbled upon this video by Tantacrul. I didn’t know such evil people exist.
I was on the edge of a breakdown. Luckily, I didn’t alienate my friends in the process, so they listened and offered a solid different perspective. I can’t thank them enough; I’m so happy they exist.
I’m trying to fix my sleeping schedule. Today I woke up at 6:30AM to go to uni and study. The problem is I was sleepy for too much time, so the time I actually studied was quite little. I hope tomorrow will be better in this regard.
I write for a small themed blog. I’ve been bouncing ideas with the blog’s owner for a week. Today I shared some of them with the rest of the team, but they weren’t exaclty enthusiast…
Oh, dear, how much negativity in my entries! All it took was one afternoon of good work and studying with no constant distraction by Reddit and HN to feel better. Perhaps my brain categorises studying at a higher level than mindlessly reading other people’s comments on things I’m mildly interested in. I need to take notes on this.
I still write “2022” on this thing’s date. That’s mildly annoying.
Almost nothing happened today. The highest point in the day was this mix I listened to while doing stuff on the computer. And by stuff I mean waste precious time. My resolutions are not helping me — and why should they? I should help myself.
I watched the first LOTR film for the first time in my life. I was quite missing something, to be honest. It still isn’t my favourite film, but it’s good stuff nonetheless.
I’m probably going back to university on Monday, and since exams are in two weeks I may update this little thing way less than I would like to.
I’m updating this thing today, because yesterday’s dinner was the only thing worthy of note. I went eating sushi with some friends of friends I’d never met before. They were good people, to be honest, and some of them were quite fun as well. Unfortunately there is a little issue going on with a mutual friend: his girlfriend isn’t welcome, as far as I understood the situation. I’m not a fan of this, since said friend is my friend nonetheless, and it would be sad if we didn’t meet again due to his girlfriend.
Today I drove my parents to the train station: they’re going on a 2-day trip (I can’t remember where they did go, but whatever). The problem is I had to wake up at a sensible hour instead of the usual 11AM I’m used to at the moment. Well, I caught up with the sleeping as soon as I got home.
This is the first day of the year I dedicate to studying. Yay…
Yesterday I set my bullet journal up with a couple of custom sections I may need throughout the year, especially the theme ideas section: since I want to choose a different theme for each season/quarter, I may need ready-made ideas if the next thing isn’t obvious to me.
Happy New Year, everyone! I’m starting 2023 with a really bad cold, but at least I’m still here, and not to suffer.
Following the suggestion from CGP Grey’s video, I decided to start the Winter of Management: I realised my life is going nowhere specifically, and that may be due to a lack of me actually managing what happens to me. I don’t know whether this theme thing will do the trick, but at least I must give myself some months to try it without whining about “nothing going as planned” (if nothing is actually planned, nothing can go as planned).
Of course this journal will contain eventual failures or successes of this journey. I bought a physical notebook (slightly bigger than A5 in size) to track some other things, but having a public interface for it can have some good effects on my mental being.
I don’t know why, but the Catbox service stopped working. To be fair, the whole website seems unreachable. I hope it’s a temporary problem, and nothing to worry about.
Luckily, someone else is doing the preparations for New Year’s Eve. Thanks, my friends, for letting me sleep these days! :)
I discovered a good album on Bandcamp. You should check it out here!
These last days have been quite good: the Mass was okay, the dinner with relatives was fine (I guess) and the trip with the parish’s kids was actually quite fun.
Today is the day I wrap up everything and start studying again. I know getting back to the “usual” rythm will be hard, but I must do it, because exams aren’t that far away.
Christmas is coming, if you didn’t know. I’m feeling it right now, because I have some preparation to do and everything is due tomorrow or even the 25th and I would rather chill and do nothing for days. Luckily Christmas is only once a year.
Winter officially started yesterday, but the sky is grey today as well. My will to live is still quite shaky, but I can do this.
I wonder if being always within the last three updated sites on Ichi makes me eligible for a prize, maybe a peluche toy.
Yesterday was all about catching up with schoolwork. After dinner, I lost three hours watching some top EDM charts. Going to bed at 1AM wasn’t a great idea.
Just before lunch, I watched GMTK’s beginning of “Developing”, and my mental state went quite high. I was looking for the link and found this as well. What?
I want to test whether FLAC files can be directly accessed on HTML or not.
The answer is a clear yes.
The social thing last evening went fine. The guy who helped me was very nice and supportive. Unfortunately, when I got home I was informed my brother was sick.
Yet again, I’m struggling to find the motivation to study. Tomorrow will be better, I hope; but for now I need to concentrate.
Not feeling great lately: it’s like I lost interest on my usual hobbies. Not even music cuts it anymore. I hope it’s not because I feel the need to be engaged to someone instead of something.
The first paragraph was written at night, but now it’s actually the new day. I should have studied, or at least should have read something from lecture. But no, nothing. I always hope my future me gets better at this, but I’m never that future me.
Well, at least this evening I can be useful to somebody: there is an event in town and my help is needed for the preparation. Unfortunately, the guy I usually work with in these cases is sick (thanks, COVID), so someone new will come.
Finally, at 3PM I found some will to study. I need to thank this song.