2020-05-22 — Old Fears

I finally got to bed around 3 o’clock this morning after coming upon a hopeful solution to my cell phone case problem. I found a web site that would let me search cell phone dimensions as part of my filtering criteria, so I started searching for phones that were roughly the same size, in the hopes that I might find one that had a similar design as well.

Aaaaaaaand, I found the Alcatel 7. It looks almost like a clone of the Blade Max View phone I just got. The only substantive differences that I can see are #1) the headphone jack is on the opposite side, and #2) the camera flash is as well. But the other buttons seem to be the same, so I’m thinking that a strategically drilled hole will let me use the headphone jack, and a carefully cut out half moon will expose the flash, and… maybe, just maybe I’ll have found myself a workable phone! 😎

Fingers crossed.

Getting to bed so late wasn’t so good. I had an early job, so I only ended up with about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, I’d guess (not good for my already on edge mental state).

Things were looking up though when a third of the way into my second job, the sky got dark enough that you would have thought night was coming, and I made it out of there a few minutes later, just as the clouds cracked, and the buckets dumped (including 50mph winds, as I was told, [which is why porches don’t really help keep you dry in Arkansas. Our rain often times goes sideways 🙃]).

Anyway, at that point, I called it a day and went home.

It felt great to be heading home for the day before 11 o’clock had even rolled around, but being home today was hard. I started working on my singles profile on Match.com, and that awakened plenty of fears. Fears I’ll never get married (probably one of my biggest adolescent fears). Fears no one will find me attractive (historically, I don’t get much in the way of responses from the women I message, and as you’ve perhaps read from one of my other posts, apparently, I don’t look like my pictures, and I’m not very attractive in pictures. (Not so good for online dating 🙃). Fears that even if I get responses and get some dates that the women will lose interest very quickly (historically, I’ll usually get about 2 or 3 dates in, and they’ll be bored of me or something.)

I’m really good at being kind, understanding, and compassionate, and all that, but I guess I’m not so good at the formal dating thing. I’m just too serious, I think. Much better in groups with friends than formal dates with relative strangers.

I’ve always generally had trouble with the formal dates. But now I have trouble just having fun in general.

It never used to be that way.

I was the crazy one. I was the entertainer. I was the adventurer. I was the jokester. I was the spontaneous one.

That side of me doesn’t come out much anymore. I’ve forgotten it. I’ve gotten so caught up in reaching my goals financially, so I can do the things I want; and I’ve gotten so caught up in feeling sorry for myself and running away from the pains of the last few years, that leisure and fun, adventure, and all that other stuff has just vanished from who I am.

I honestly don’t know how to get it back. I think maybe I feel like I’m trying to catch up–make up for my massive financial losses from a handful of years ago that set me back years. But I might do this anyway, even if I hadn’t lost everything.

I don’t enjoy leisure time anymore because my brain has somehow managed to convince itself that leisure time is a waste of time, so instead of soaking it in, I’m thinking about what I “should” be doing instead to be productive.

It’s sad.

How do I override this new programming (or was it always there?)? Either way, I want to override it, so that my days off are actually days off instead of feeling like I’m wasting my time and should be getting my massive to-do list whittled down instead.

I don’t know. I think I’ll honestly have to just sit down and ponder it, outlining overtly to myself why good leisure time is just as important as eating, sleeping, and working. Unless I overtly address it with myself, I’m guessing I’ll never really work past it.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent.

So… yeah… thinking about dating brought up all those fears, and I started thinking about past relationships, and people from my past, and before you knew it, I was melancholic and a little down.

I guess on the bright side, I made progress on my singles profile, but I know I sound like a cheesy person in my “about me” section. Peace and love and happy joy joy kind of talk, …but that’s me, so…

Anyway, I planned on taking a nap, but then I forgot about a job I was going to do, so I did that. Then I remembered that it’s going to rain something like 10 out of the next 12 days, so I mowed the lawn.

Uh-oh… I’m falling asleep.

It’s 1:13 a.m., and running on 3.5 hours of sleep, I guess it’s not a surprise, eh?

Then I spent a couple two or three hours organizing my day tomorrow. Then I went for my 23-minute run, getting back a bit after midnight, and now here I am…

#1. I’m grateful that I got mostly rained out today.

#2. I’m grateful for free public restrooms (and that they’re so clean!!!! during Covid-19!)

#3. I’m grateful to be still going strong on each of the habits/addictions I’m trying to cultivate/remove from my life (respectively).

#4. I’m grateful that I like mowing the lawn. It takes like 2 hours or so, but I just like it. I still feel a little stress to get it done, and I’m a bit stressed while doing it, hitting more and more tree roots, even when I’m upping my level of carefulness. But at least it’s not something I hate. I enjoy it.

#5. I’m grateful

…

Whoops… fell asleep again

I’m grateful that I’ll get more than 3.5 hours of sleep tonight–I hope!

Well, folks, as you already know,

…

Yikes… fell asleep again.

It’s 1:22.

Lift the World.

~ stephen