Hello, world.
My slump seems to continue. I missed several classes again last week. I overcame some reluctance-towards-everything in order to attend a session I had booked almost a month ago with my counsellor on Friday. I spent just about the whole time venting and ranting and voicing my assessment of the great streak I had been on for a while, and the restfulness, and then restlessness, of my disengagement since February 19th.
The next day, I went back to the gym. I had a headache, that ebbed and returned while I was working out, and part way through my strength exercises, my willingness to exert myself gave out. My muscles seemed to be doing alright. It wasn't pain or pushing near the usual shaky intolerance that made me stop one of my sets at eleven, and the next, when I elected to try it again, at ten. It was something closer to boredom, or apathy, or reclusiveness.
I saw the coach who had originally set me up with my work out as I was heading up the stairs, and he asked cheerfully how I was, but I had nothing cheerful to say back, so I only waved. It was nice to see him again, since he was a positive acquaintance and very energetic and understanding from the beginning, but it was uncomfortable to be seen.
I noticed the other day that I had completely forgotten to pay rent to my landlord in February. In a fit of profound embarrassment, I immediately sent him an e-transfer for two months' rent to cover February and March, and filled the comment box and another email beside it with my apologies. He was gracious, and made nothing of it except to thank me for the messages. This landlord has been uncommonly good to us. I count that a dear blessing.
The kitchen continues to be wretched. The stove covered in grease and burned debris, the floor just dirty enough to be slightly sticky sometimes, and slightly slidey with a layer of dirt which is not secure on the floor at others. It is an unhappy, weighing thing to see.
Friday night my roommates had friends over. I have been trying to sleep at night again, and have been having some limited success, sleeping in late evening and remaining awake five hours before waking up on my own. However, I cannot measure my progress very well when I am not left to myself to wake up. I woke Friday night to the sounds of people, coming and going and loudly talking. I did not have the energy, or perhaps simply did not have the will, to move. I only lay in the darkness, awake and tired or perhaps sometimes vaguely approaching sleep again for a while before the voices roused me. Someone laughs. Someone swears, and my tension ticks up another little notch. I do not know how long I laid there before I found whatever I had been lacking and moved.
I should note, it was not paralysis this time. Sleep paralysis feels very different. I was stuck between rest and motion, not between my nerves and the waking world. It was very tiresome, but was not claustrophobic in the same way.
Eventually I stirred, rolled over, groaned, and turned on my laptop to check the time. About 1:30 AM. My thoughts grew darker, but were still tired and predominantly wordless. I wrapped my housecoat around me and staggered out to boil some water and fetch a snack, casting dark, empty looks toward the corner where those two roommates and their guests sat or stood or lay variously on and around the couch, talking loudly and not seeming to do much of anything else. I did not talk to them. I did not have the grace or the desire. In the short term, I was already woken, and in the long term, I no longer felt any inclination to believe my words would make any difference at all to their behaviour. Perhaps they do not understand the affect this has on me, but I have tried to make it clear to them before.
The loud speaking continued until 3:30 or 4 or so. The next morning, the area was scattered with pieces of chips, an empty chip bag, a large empty vodka bottle. The common area thus decorated was slightly worse than usual. Since then, the bottle and bag have been tidied away, but the pieces of chips have not. A few days ago, I left out a note on the counter that only said, "The STICKINESS on the floor is GROSS. Please CLEAN it." It has shifted around and been pushed toward the section of cabinets I reserve for myself, and the marker has been smudged with wetness and the paper spotted with grease, but so far as I can tell nothing has been done.
This afternoon I confronted one of my roommates in the kitchen, toneless, dark, not feeling enough of myself to give of myself. I greeted her and said, "Does it not bother you to see the kitchen like this?" She said quickly that it does, and that she would clean it tonight when others were not in the house. I heard it listlessly, almost feeling this gambit were unfair. I told her that if she did not, I probably would, and that I had a friend I wished to have over tomorrow.
I do not particularly believe her, but I will look to see whether anything is done. She also told me, the other day, when I sent out a text to the household and the landlord complaining that the thermostat had been turned to 78 degrees, that the landlord had set it so after she had complained of the cold, and it automatically reset to 78 if they changed it. I heard from the landlord in response to the same message that he would put a lock box on the thermostat.
I went out and bought some groceries, mostly frozen things to heat in the oven. The freezer I share with another roommate is mostly full. I send her a text message offering to make room if she needs it, and saying she shouldn't worry about it if she needs to rearrange the freezer or anything. I have generally gotten on well with this particular roommate, although she is rarely here. The kitchen bothers her more than it does me, and she has a boyfriend she can spend time with away from here, so I suppose why wouldn't she?
While at the grocery shop, I bought Monster energy drinks again, and had one as soon as I got home. I had been feeling deadened, disinterested, wondering whether my slump had degraded into depression. Shortly after the drink, though, as generally and bizarrely seems to happen, I felt... better. Cheerful, in a way I have not been. Why does this happen? What is it about the energy drinks that sloughs away the misery in a way nothing else does? I find it... concerning. I have a sense that I ought to be able to feel this alert all the time, without having to rely on a drink to trigger it. Why is it that they make me happy, even if I still feel tired and sleepy? Do I really feel my fatigue more as emotions than fatigue? I do know that nothing saps my energy like getting upset, but I didn't expect it to work so thoroughly the other way around. I know tiredness manifests as a form of sadness, but I do not expect energy to manifest more as happiness than as perceptible energy.
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