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Day 46: Another Day of Sun
Jun. 5th, 2023 09:39 amYesterday we went to Taplands with the Sack Lunch Bunch -- including a new friend that R. has made from work, a fellow furry we'll call A. Dog. He's a good dude, I think. There's a little social awkwardness, but I think that comes with being performatively gay in the way that happens when you're a young dude in the community. He has an interesting relationship with R. that feels fairly close but also very physical. I'm very happy that R. gets to have that.
After Taplands, we took A. Dog back to the burrow with us to hang out and watch TV. All of us (except A. Dog) had edibles at that point, and L. needed to sleep off the worst of it like you sometimes do. R. invited us to the complex's public hot tub; they had wanted to do that earlier, but the schedule never worked out.
I just didn't want to, for a number of reasons. I was high and comfortable in my own home, but I also didn't want to be out in summer clothes with children about. I'm still learning to be comfortable in my own body, and right now I'm at the stage where I take comfort in the fact that I'm taking steps to improve my physical condition. That being said, I'm nowhere near beach-ready.
So I was honest about it -- with R., and this relative stranger. I'm not sure why I made the decision, but it felt like the right thing to do. Part of working through your issues is learning how to talk about them, I guess. I also want to work through the deeply-ingrained instinct to hide what's going on inside my head and to be more vulnerable with the folks I trust. Body image issues aren't uncommon, and I think it helps remove the stigma to talk about them openly.
Anyway, R. and A. Dog went to the hot tub (which they thoroughly enjoyed) while I played Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I've started a new playthrough with Aasimar Shifter (a new class that basically lets you be a martially-oriented were-critter) with the intention of going through the Azata Mythic Path this time. A few friends have told me that the Angel Mythic Path is the one with the best story, though, so I might have to do that instead. I could always do an Azata playthrough sometime later -- maybe when the next Pathfinder CRPG comes out.
R. and I also had a talk while making dinner about my recent acid-based realizations. Jungian psychology has become a useful way for me to talk about this stuff; it feels like a lot of my work is centered around the parts of myself I don't really like, or the person I'm afraid to be if I take certain ideas too far from moderation. The Disciplinarian, in many ways, feels like my Shadow. This is the part of me that demands more and more sacrifice in order to achieve a level of execution that would be impossible otherwise. It's the part of myself that feels like you have to give all of yourself to an endeavor, all the time, or it's not worth doing.
I've been thinking about it a lot, anyway, but the current season of American Horror Story we're watching features a blocked writer as the protagonist. He takes his wife and daughter to this creepy New England town hoping it will inspire him to finish his pilot, and it does -- but only after he falls in with two other writers who owe their success to a mysterious black pill. Desperate, of course he takes it, and while his muse is back and he gets to write feverishly, he's also become an unforgivable asshole to his family in order to keep writing.
I worry a lot about that. Maybe there's a flawed assumption that in order to do something great I have to discard anything that doesn't feed that greatness. If I want to make a living from my writing by, say, age 45, it'll be a necessity to give up a lot of things that might make those close to me unhappy. If I wanted to be a psychologist or therapist or social worker, it would require a lot of study and effort that disconnects me from the family I've made.
That might be the fundamental dissonance for me, that success comes at the sacrifice of my relationships. In order to be a writer (or therapist) I'll need to be more disciplined, but the work now is to find a way to build that discipline without disrupting the harmony of my surroundings. R. mentioned that he needs help to be more disciplined as well, which I get. It's something we'll both be working on through the month, I think.
One thing I didn't handle very well is a small thing but...like most small things points to an important issue. R. had been eating from the pot of leftover pasta after dinner, then went to the bathroom and asked me to store the leftovers. In general I say yes to these kinds of things because they need to be done and I like being helpful, but they often also frustrate me. I do the cooking and the cleaning, the laundry and the folding, keep up the house as best as I am able, and I'm still being asked to do more? It's an irrational thought to me because there's always more to do and who else is going to do it?
But it would be nice to feel that we have an equal share of the chores, and it doesn't feel that way right now. R. recognizes this and says he'd like to be more helpful, and I know that's true. But it takes spoons for me to ask someone to hold up their end of the bargain and I'm still not QUITE there yet. It's hard for me to use my poker face with him, so he got by the slump of my shoulders that the request felt like a burden and quickly walked it back. But I stored the leftovers when he went to the bathroom anyway.
I think I feel worst about trying to hide my frustration and then not being honest about it when he mentioned it. It felt more like default behavior than anything, but that's not a habit I want to continue. It's important for us to talk about the things that frustrate us and if I'm going to help R. become more disciplined sharing the chores is a pretty low-effort way to do that.
In some ways, it feels like I'm learning how to be kind instead of nice. Sometimes you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to improve your relationship with someone -- or at least make sure that relationship doesn't blow up completely. Being more open will be uncomfortable right now, but will produce much more comfortable, deeply-understood friendships in the long run.
After Taplands, we took A. Dog back to the burrow with us to hang out and watch TV. All of us (except A. Dog) had edibles at that point, and L. needed to sleep off the worst of it like you sometimes do. R. invited us to the complex's public hot tub; they had wanted to do that earlier, but the schedule never worked out.
I just didn't want to, for a number of reasons. I was high and comfortable in my own home, but I also didn't want to be out in summer clothes with children about. I'm still learning to be comfortable in my own body, and right now I'm at the stage where I take comfort in the fact that I'm taking steps to improve my physical condition. That being said, I'm nowhere near beach-ready.
So I was honest about it -- with R., and this relative stranger. I'm not sure why I made the decision, but it felt like the right thing to do. Part of working through your issues is learning how to talk about them, I guess. I also want to work through the deeply-ingrained instinct to hide what's going on inside my head and to be more vulnerable with the folks I trust. Body image issues aren't uncommon, and I think it helps remove the stigma to talk about them openly.
Anyway, R. and A. Dog went to the hot tub (which they thoroughly enjoyed) while I played Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I've started a new playthrough with Aasimar Shifter (a new class that basically lets you be a martially-oriented were-critter) with the intention of going through the Azata Mythic Path this time. A few friends have told me that the Angel Mythic Path is the one with the best story, though, so I might have to do that instead. I could always do an Azata playthrough sometime later -- maybe when the next Pathfinder CRPG comes out.
R. and I also had a talk while making dinner about my recent acid-based realizations. Jungian psychology has become a useful way for me to talk about this stuff; it feels like a lot of my work is centered around the parts of myself I don't really like, or the person I'm afraid to be if I take certain ideas too far from moderation. The Disciplinarian, in many ways, feels like my Shadow. This is the part of me that demands more and more sacrifice in order to achieve a level of execution that would be impossible otherwise. It's the part of myself that feels like you have to give all of yourself to an endeavor, all the time, or it's not worth doing.
I've been thinking about it a lot, anyway, but the current season of American Horror Story we're watching features a blocked writer as the protagonist. He takes his wife and daughter to this creepy New England town hoping it will inspire him to finish his pilot, and it does -- but only after he falls in with two other writers who owe their success to a mysterious black pill. Desperate, of course he takes it, and while his muse is back and he gets to write feverishly, he's also become an unforgivable asshole to his family in order to keep writing.
I worry a lot about that. Maybe there's a flawed assumption that in order to do something great I have to discard anything that doesn't feed that greatness. If I want to make a living from my writing by, say, age 45, it'll be a necessity to give up a lot of things that might make those close to me unhappy. If I wanted to be a psychologist or therapist or social worker, it would require a lot of study and effort that disconnects me from the family I've made.
That might be the fundamental dissonance for me, that success comes at the sacrifice of my relationships. In order to be a writer (or therapist) I'll need to be more disciplined, but the work now is to find a way to build that discipline without disrupting the harmony of my surroundings. R. mentioned that he needs help to be more disciplined as well, which I get. It's something we'll both be working on through the month, I think.
One thing I didn't handle very well is a small thing but...like most small things points to an important issue. R. had been eating from the pot of leftover pasta after dinner, then went to the bathroom and asked me to store the leftovers. In general I say yes to these kinds of things because they need to be done and I like being helpful, but they often also frustrate me. I do the cooking and the cleaning, the laundry and the folding, keep up the house as best as I am able, and I'm still being asked to do more? It's an irrational thought to me because there's always more to do and who else is going to do it?
But it would be nice to feel that we have an equal share of the chores, and it doesn't feel that way right now. R. recognizes this and says he'd like to be more helpful, and I know that's true. But it takes spoons for me to ask someone to hold up their end of the bargain and I'm still not QUITE there yet. It's hard for me to use my poker face with him, so he got by the slump of my shoulders that the request felt like a burden and quickly walked it back. But I stored the leftovers when he went to the bathroom anyway.
I think I feel worst about trying to hide my frustration and then not being honest about it when he mentioned it. It felt more like default behavior than anything, but that's not a habit I want to continue. It's important for us to talk about the things that frustrate us and if I'm going to help R. become more disciplined sharing the chores is a pretty low-effort way to do that.
In some ways, it feels like I'm learning how to be kind instead of nice. Sometimes you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to improve your relationship with someone -- or at least make sure that relationship doesn't blow up completely. Being more open will be uncomfortable right now, but will produce much more comfortable, deeply-understood friendships in the long run.
