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Day 18 of 107: There's a Big Cat in Me
May. 8th, 2023 09:22 amQuitting marijuana is harder than I thought. I've definitely formed an ingrained habit, but I knew that already. I'm not sure if it's the relaxation I feel smoking is the direct result of THC or a placebo effect, but I do know I feel way more accepting and connected when I'm high. The problem is I'm a lot more passive too. I could write, or I could play this super-fun video game. Or I could play a less-fun video game while listening to YouTube videos.
I think I'm just afraid of what I'll be like as my body normalizes to life without it. Will there be a big crash in serotonin levels? What will that look like? Will I be unhappy and irritable? Will I be catatonically sad? Or will I just be me, only with fewer spoons to spend and an ambitious to-do list to spend them on? who knows??
I've known for a while that my use of marijuana was a barrier to doing the things I want to do. Now I have the ultimate excuse to abstain -- any job I get might do drug testing and I should be able to pass it clean. Besides, there is a fear that I might end up losing time in a pot-induced haze and this is not the economy where I can get away with that. I don't want to see this as an excuse to give in to sloth. It's an opportunity to refresh myself and come back clearer than before.
So today is a bit of a soft reset. My goal this week is to turn in applications to 12 openings, (finally) apply for unemployment, make beans and rice for lunch this week, bake a loaf of bread and/or cookies for a friend's birthday this week, and plan out the next set of stories for my Dungeons and Dragons game. I should write down these goals in my Bullet Journal too, just to hold myself accountable.
The severance payment came in from Udacity, and I was able to budget out my runway. I should be comfortable with what's in the bank until September; that's when I'll need to start dipping into my savings to make it through the month. Based on the budget I have in YNAB, I'm burning through around $3,000/month. It's a little insane to me I was taking home around twice that at Udacity. I was living comfortably, but I also could have been saving a lot more and being a bit more careful there. There are a lot of subscription services I don't really need, but since I'm so bad at tracking them down I get hit with those charges. I also spend a lot of money on restaurants and weed.
Learning to live within my budget is going to require a lifestyle change. I'm mostly comfortable with that; the changes I'll make are generally better for me anyway. But it says something to me that I can't imagine being happy or relaxed without marijuana. Over the summer I'm going to have to do real work on my anxiety and slowly but steadily allowing myself to be vulnerable and open.
The issue there is I've gotten used to being avoidant and re-learning how to translate my inner landscape for an external audience feels so daunting. I'm trying to change my perspective about it as a necessary step toward being a good storyteller. Any artist has to be a good communicator, and I'm...not great. Learning how to speak to people in a way that truly connects with them is hard, but it's also my calling. I have to learn how to do this if I want to live up to my potential.
But mistakes are hard, and it...drains me when I put a lot of effort into speaking and people are dismissive or misunderstand in response. I get into a headspace where I feel like I'll never be able to say what I mean or be taken seriously by the people I care about. Sometimes it feels like the people closest to me love a version of me that they're still trying to shape, not the version of me that I am or am trying to become. It can feel very lonely. I feel desperate at my worst, resentful that I'm putting in all this effort and other people don't even notice or care.
So to stop caring quite so much I'd smoke pot and just...accept things the way they are. It's a lot easier to get along when I don't have the drive to make myself heard anyway.
But that's not who I want to be either. I wish I could find a way to care about how I craft my message while being a bit more accepting of the reception being outside of my control. But at the end of the day I just don't trust myself. What I'm being told feels wrong, but I'm not the most reliable judge of a situation.
It's a knot that feels hard to untangle, but it's also something I'll need to keep working on. Maybe my anxiety is just pushing this as a reason to exist and this isn't as hard as I'm making it out to be. I just never know.
I think I'm just afraid of what I'll be like as my body normalizes to life without it. Will there be a big crash in serotonin levels? What will that look like? Will I be unhappy and irritable? Will I be catatonically sad? Or will I just be me, only with fewer spoons to spend and an ambitious to-do list to spend them on? who knows??
I've known for a while that my use of marijuana was a barrier to doing the things I want to do. Now I have the ultimate excuse to abstain -- any job I get might do drug testing and I should be able to pass it clean. Besides, there is a fear that I might end up losing time in a pot-induced haze and this is not the economy where I can get away with that. I don't want to see this as an excuse to give in to sloth. It's an opportunity to refresh myself and come back clearer than before.
So today is a bit of a soft reset. My goal this week is to turn in applications to 12 openings, (finally) apply for unemployment, make beans and rice for lunch this week, bake a loaf of bread and/or cookies for a friend's birthday this week, and plan out the next set of stories for my Dungeons and Dragons game. I should write down these goals in my Bullet Journal too, just to hold myself accountable.
The severance payment came in from Udacity, and I was able to budget out my runway. I should be comfortable with what's in the bank until September; that's when I'll need to start dipping into my savings to make it through the month. Based on the budget I have in YNAB, I'm burning through around $3,000/month. It's a little insane to me I was taking home around twice that at Udacity. I was living comfortably, but I also could have been saving a lot more and being a bit more careful there. There are a lot of subscription services I don't really need, but since I'm so bad at tracking them down I get hit with those charges. I also spend a lot of money on restaurants and weed.
Learning to live within my budget is going to require a lifestyle change. I'm mostly comfortable with that; the changes I'll make are generally better for me anyway. But it says something to me that I can't imagine being happy or relaxed without marijuana. Over the summer I'm going to have to do real work on my anxiety and slowly but steadily allowing myself to be vulnerable and open.
The issue there is I've gotten used to being avoidant and re-learning how to translate my inner landscape for an external audience feels so daunting. I'm trying to change my perspective about it as a necessary step toward being a good storyteller. Any artist has to be a good communicator, and I'm...not great. Learning how to speak to people in a way that truly connects with them is hard, but it's also my calling. I have to learn how to do this if I want to live up to my potential.
But mistakes are hard, and it...drains me when I put a lot of effort into speaking and people are dismissive or misunderstand in response. I get into a headspace where I feel like I'll never be able to say what I mean or be taken seriously by the people I care about. Sometimes it feels like the people closest to me love a version of me that they're still trying to shape, not the version of me that I am or am trying to become. It can feel very lonely. I feel desperate at my worst, resentful that I'm putting in all this effort and other people don't even notice or care.
So to stop caring quite so much I'd smoke pot and just...accept things the way they are. It's a lot easier to get along when I don't have the drive to make myself heard anyway.
But that's not who I want to be either. I wish I could find a way to care about how I craft my message while being a bit more accepting of the reception being outside of my control. But at the end of the day I just don't trust myself. What I'm being told feels wrong, but I'm not the most reliable judge of a situation.
It's a knot that feels hard to untangle, but it's also something I'll need to keep working on. Maybe my anxiety is just pushing this as a reason to exist and this isn't as hard as I'm making it out to be. I just never know.
