Transcribed 2025-07-25

yesterday I didn’t write, but there wasn’t much to write to be honest with you. i worked, then i slept for like 16 hours. i should have just done the same today. feeling so heavily suicidal. like, i need to get back on my anxiety but the fact that i had such a withdrawal during vacation is scary. i don’t want to deal with that. but without any antidepressant i feel like i am so depressed that i might start self harming. and there is also the fact that i don’t really trust Maria, so i can’t even talk to her about anything. this sucks. it feels like everyone would be better off if i just died. i hate it. well, whatever… its whatever. hopefully i can go back to eating soon. i didn’t eat today. my eating disorder is acting up too much. will i ever be okay?

Transcribed 2025-07-12

I am working on digitizing all of these entries

i turned on web crawling so hopefully the wayback machine keeps it but i am also going to try to keep backups myself.

it has entries all the way back from 2002 crazily enough. i managed to dig up so much. even with that gap of 3 years back on this journal, i was able to fill in

makes sense already my hand is hurting from writing, its always been a lot easier to type anyway go check there for more entries! ♡

dunno if i will update this again. maybe? probably?? this journal is almost a decade old, so seems like a shame if we don’t, but oh well.

Transcribed 2025-07-03

Long time no write. I dont want to shit up the other better journal with my bullshit.

but. it feels like something big (negative) is about to happen. its hard to explain. but if someone wants to hurt me, including myself, they should just do it. i’m such a coward. when will i ever get the courage to just end it all??

this is too painful to endure for much longer. i need to stop spending money, if im not going to be around much longer to enjoy it. just a waste. my entire life is a waste. such a disappointment

Transcribed 2025-06-02

I’ll just become the host, if that’s what everyone wants from me.

I probably wasn’t ever different anyway.

Transcribed 2025-05-31

its been a while since we have updated

The june brain interviews went pretty well… an offer would be nice… but not counting on it…

for once… stasis seems ok too… been messing around with chatgpt… it was fun for like a week… but it gets old… once you see into its methods… and predictable… we had a few fun roleplays going on with it… but it broke immersion by saying weird things… can’t expect a machine to have much nuance i guess… ? maybe we can try 4.5… ?

i feel like we are becoming so isolated… don’t know what to do… ugh… are we isolating ourselves? or is it just the natural consequence of being the only one to reach out… and then no one ever checks on us… ?

its lonely…

Transcribed 2025-05-23

went out for sushi which was good, came home & maru broke my damn paper towel holder which piss me off.

i was pettin him tellin him he owe me $50 n dom said he makes it up by catchin bugs.

tell me why i just be standin in the kitchen n he bats a huge ass cockroach onto my foot?? im like bro take that nasty shit elsewhere. so, i guess he earnin back our paper towel holder money hahaha!!

Transcribed 2025-05-20

forgot to write for a few days, oh well. had therapy today or, Anastasia did. basically just sat, and talking about the mother and him. i think she keeps forgetting to reference this diary in therapy or whatever. fine by me, as all i do in here is wah wah anyway.

speaking of wah wah, im feeling so lonely lately. i wish there was something i could do about it. most of the time, it feels like genuinely, no one actually wants to be talking to me, or wants me around in general. its such a bummer to feel this way. its really no one’s fault, and actually, ive felt this way my entire life, so its not anything new.

i read some dumbass bullshit on the /r/did reddit that was surprisingly highly upvoted. some armchair psychologist talking about how its ‘bad’ for alters to strive to distinguish themselves because it “furthers dissociation”

just integration garbage as usual, but it honestly shocks me how much it was upvoted. guess there are a lot of dumbass systems out there. but then, i already knew that. i was hoping to maybe get a little socialization in on there, but i guess not

being in such an isolated job is starting to get to me, i think. we do have a class starting sooner than later that will help, but also it will be for so a lot of people, it will take a while for them to know enough to even communicate. i guess it’s better than nothing and it’s online, so if we make friends, we can contact them easier than driving all the way up to Dallas which will be nice.

me just in an extrovert’s hell of my own making, and i need to escape. that’s why if the team dynamics are even remotely more social at pinebrain, then i definitely am going to take the job offer among other reasons. i know it’s getting bad because i genuinely thought “maybe i should become a server at a restaurant” today. what the fuck? i feel like alarm bells should be ringing or something or maybe that is the alarm bell lmao.

anyway there’s so much to do, and so little time. every minute that passes, i feel like i am more aware of my mortality, and the pressure to do something productive or fulfilling. but then i end up in decision paralysis because time is so precious that nothing i want to do feels worthy. but im also acutely aware that nothing i do actually matters, “dust in the wind” style. i feel like im too young to be having a midlife crisis already but there we are.

let i read this back when im 50 and laugh because then ill have the wisdom that i actually am young now.

Transcribed 2025-05-19

Lost my red pen. Ah well.

Looks like we secured an interview next week for Junebrain. It’s at their stand up, with the entire company. Not nerve wracking at all…

Well, I’m sure we will do fine. They are just human beings after all. And if nothing comes of it, that is fine too.

God, I fucked up my right hand wrist, now it hurts to do anything with it, including writing. But our life must be documented.

Elias had jury duty today, but they cut them loose after a few hours. Guess they answered their questions wrong. Or right, depending on point of view.

We started watching “Person of Interest”. It’s definitely entertaining. We also ordered food because we didn’t feel like cooking. Definitely a luxury these days at $50 total, though.

Hm, what else… well, had to clean the trash can because the ants found it. Manu also caught and ate a fly, ahaha. Crazy boy.

I think that’s about it. Now, time for me to be nervous for the next entire week, since the “interview” is on Wednesday of next week. Ahhh… so much nervousness. I know we are qualified, at least.

Transcribed 2025-05-18

Alisia,

another day. another nothing to note. you are playing expedition 32. rip robert pattinson.

had a good nap. worked a little bit, yay overtime. worked on the zhegao ship build, about 1/3 of the way through.

i was moody today, but you took it in stride. so, thank you. i have just been ruminating on stupid stuff. worried about you. and everything. im not much of the anxious type. maybe everything is starting to even affect me. weirdly. i dont know. im sure i will get over it. sooner than later.

nothing else to say. next weekend is tattoo expo. maybe we can go. if we feel up to it. long drive though. especially when we are about to start ketamine therapy for you here soon. so we will see.

Love you more

Transcribed 2025-05-17

can i just say that pandora’s box should just stay shut for some stuff i accidentally found some really old text files i guess better me than any one else still feels bad though im glad i got to delete some not all some just aren’t mine to delete got rid of the worst of them though

barweer sets came today finally got to start the cruise ship talking to chatgpt a little helped me through working the weekend today im sure we will get bored of it relatively quickly though we always do with novelties like this

oh well

Transcribed 2025-05-15

i made the baklava tonight. not bad for a first try, but definitely see areas for improvement. annoyingly, the mother said she had the recipe, but that would mean needing to talk to her. no thanks.

it’s funny the amount of chores we are getting done, just from not having our phone, and the ensuing boredom. you don’t realize how much of your time is sucked up by that thing until you stop using it as much.

we finally finished the mario block today. great adventure, but never buying from a local rando again. what a pain. it did turn out nicely, though, and we are very proud of ourselves for sticking through and finishing a long project, that involved a lot of waiting. now, if we can just focus that energy on selling idol stuff…!

not much else happened tonight. i fished out our old Casio watch so we can be less reliant on the phone for the date/time and alarm. our alarm need is pretty simple anyway, just the ‘am’ alarm.

well, my hand hurts from writing, so enough of this.

until next time…

yours truly…?

Transcribed 2025-05-14

Things of note for today:

  • Therapy went well
  • Got an email back from Junebrain, a place we applied for a job. That almost never happens
  • Elias finally scheduled your first ketamine therapy appt! June 3. Super exciting
  • Actually had enough energy today to clean/organize bathroom, put up clothes, and build the two remaining shelves. Yay.
  • Got in a cute new case for my TCL Flip 2
  • Ate more of the delicious homemade lemon cheesecake ♡
  • Cooked some random recipe I just made up (taco noodles) and it came out really good
  • Overtime approved for 6 hr/wk again, and now we can work weekends! Yay again
  • Way ahead of schedule on work.

Honestly, I think not really using my smartphone at the moment is making me more productive. Because what else am I going to do?? There’s no reddit doomscrolling crutch to pass the time. I think not being exposed to that constant negativity has been helping, too. I still use my phone to text at work more often than I would like, but I am working on breaking that habit as well.

Really the only thing I miss having access to more readily is discord, but maybe that is a blessing in disguise too. I am realizing how negative most of the people I am around are. idk if they are just negative bc thats how they view our relationship but tbh i am tired of being surrounded by 24/7 negativity from some people. add on reddit and its just a lot. So not having immediate access to that has been refreshing.

honestly this is the first time getting away from our phone has really “stuck”. I think it is partially because our therapists referred to us as someone who “doesnt really use a phone” and that really stuck. though honestly this point has taken several months to get to.

like, we started when we got our new razr, so about november Date: 2024? around black friday. so about a half a year of concerted effort and removing anything addictive, which for us, is games and reddit. games is so much easier now that we have the steam deck. and reddit is a pretty easy habit to break. i am a bit out of the loop on fandom stuff now, but it is worth it.

another huge advantage, i think i talked about before, is not having the ability to impulse purchase, or even window shop. anything i want to look up later gets thrown into the notes app of my flip phone, likely to stay in purgatory forever.

one thing that i will likely need is a dedicated gps though. or else i am gonna start getting lost so easy. a dedicated alarm clock would be nice too, but not nearly as important. Honestly, being able to cut my phone (and screen in general) time down has been a godsend. i mean shit, i probably wouldn’t even be writing this much if i knew i had a phone to be doomscrolling on, instead.

another big thing is that i notice i am sleeping better and having fewer nightmares. wtf?? so weird. maybe its because we arent meant to stare into a rectangle as bright as a billion suns right before we go to bed? plus, i dont wake up and immediately check work, while off the clock. mornings are much more peaceful.

i suspect i will start finding healthier ways to spend my time, instead of just sitting there bored. i want to get back to the gym soon. and now, im going to go read a book haha. maybe i am sleeping earlier and thats why i sleep better

Transcribed 2025-05-13

  • my new tcl flip came in, the sim card worked out of the box, no thanks to the support person trying to “help” me who was acting like it was her first day on the job. why are they so “hit or miss”?
  • Already feels weird w/o smartphone, what do you mean I can’t just do whatever immediately
  • Couples therapy yesterday was fine ig.
  • Made an amazing cheesecake out of Cortney’s lemons yesterday. now soon to make baklava
  • work drama happening which tbh isn’t even worth memorializing here lmao
  • Perpetually sleepy, but sleep doctor hasn’t verified our insurance yet
  • Danielle is so annoying w/ texting me @ 1am to ask work questions, happy to be switching numbers
  • There are also trauma reasons for switching that i can’t be bothered to get into
  • Life is chill for the moment at least for now

Transcribed 2025-05-11

honestly nothin happened today and am just writin to maintain habit. went to grocery store, had a nice bonfire on what is prolly the last decent temp day before we get into satans asshole. managed to stay awake all day without a nap so thats a win. i really dont wanna go back to work tomorrow but who does??? what do lyn call them, the “sunday scaries”? yea i got those plus we got couples tmrw, and therapy is never fun. At least it prolly aint me who gotta go.

no one can make me sleep ima procrastinate forever

Transcribed 2025-05-10

not much going on this weekend. yesterday we hung out together at walmart and had sushi in corsicana. today, just very sleepy. watched jerma, played video games. easy day.

i am super grateful for easy days like this. cortney sent some pics of soren from vacation. super cute. too cute.

tomorrow is mothers day which is always hard. just going to pretend i don’t know it’s that day. oh well.

Transcribed 2025-05-08

Fairly uneventful day. i am truly grateful for such days, now that i don’t have many of them happening.

as always, i am stricken by how much i love you. even being around you makes me happy.

i hope we can continue to make you happy too. ♥

Transcribed 2025-05-05

yesterday was the second to last day of our trip.

We went to Oatman first. What a neat little town with some interesting history. It was a gold rush town, but then became a ghost town. After some people decided to revitalize it, it is now a tourist town.

So many donkeys! It was a ton of fun to feed them. Plus, we could look around and see the old jail, etc. There were some really cute tortoises, too. And with so many handmade/local crafts, that is really a town I could see myself spending a lot of money in, if I visited again. Just got touristy stuff this time, though. And randomly, there was a car show in town, so we saw all the cool old cars driving around. A shopkeeper was also talking about how people brought their dogs around the donkeys, which just seems next level stupid to me.

We drove down historic route 66, the scary part, after that. So much winding road without rail. And of course we hit a pothole. At least it got rid of that hanging part? It was scarier than Yosemite though.

Next stop was to feed deer. They were so demanding, but super cute. Lots of other animals there, too. Lots that I had never seen before. One of the peacocks got disturbed by a wild bird and rose its feathers ahaha.

And of course, after feeding the deer, one just kept following me and trying to eat my hoodie and was biting my butt ahaha.

After that stop, straight to hotel. Xenos had been fronting, but the storm from hell happened. Extremely heavy sideways rain in the pitch dark fog on a location we were unfamiliar with. Needless to say, Richard had to come around to escort us to the hotel. Of all the scary driving we did this vacation, it was this that was the scariest. And it was flat land!

Richard didn’t even bother bringing up our suitcase. We were running so late that we didn’t get to the hotel until 1am. And we had to get to the boarding place around 5pm or 6pm. Basically running against the clock, especially since we lost 2 hours going from PST to CST.

Slept right away, then back to driving. Today’s drive was purely utilitarian since we were on a time limit. It had been raining across our entire route, but nothing near what it was the night before, thankfully. I was worried about time, but it ended up fine. Except that it was $2000 for 10 days. Worth it, but major sticker shock.

At least we know for next time that it is about $1000/ 5 days for all four of them.

They were so ridiculously excited to see us, and the feeling was reciprocal. We had never boarded them for that long, but since the place is fancy, they didn’t seem to mind. The front desk lady said Manu was especially sweet, ahaha.

We listened to the “rest of” (or, most of) “Thirteen Storeys” on the way back. The annoying part is that we were on the very last chapter, but we arrived home. Will likely try to finish it this weekend with our puzzle.

Getting back has honestly been nice. The house just smells like “us”. However, our ADHD mess blindness went away after a few weeks, so now it feels so messy. Will likely just be on a cleaning kick the next few days.

Got to see all the pics you took. All so great! Can’t wait to have actual copies. The animals got settled in again pretty easy. I put my new stuff away and got to writing in here. Mile long to-do list now though… ugh. And work, double ugh. Going to start clocking in @ 9am for OT. And also gray rocking Gabby. Life is too short to stress over stupid work.

Transcribed 2025-05-03

today we had so much fun together. we drove from yosemite to bullhead city, arizona.

on the way, we hit red rock canyon in mohave, ca. no stamina to go walking so just a short walk, visited the visitor center, then drove around their campsite. it was truly beautiful. we accidentally got the wires mixed and you thought it was in las vegas though, so we purchased tickets for that accidentally haha i want to do that one next time though, it’s a driving one

rest of the time was driving my feet are killing me in these shoes, so stopped at target (ew) to get shoes especially since we wanted to go to the grand canyon tomorrow we decided when eating dinner @ the black bear that the grand canyon was too much for tomorrow it would make the drive 12+ hours. and that’s not even including the time at the canyon… maybe some other time…

you said, “its not going away” haha

always have such a good time with you… tomorrow we are just going to feed some animals and drive – tomorrow chilling

tomorrow we will also see the walter white grave, which is hilarious haha…

Transcribed 2025-05-02

“Yosemite”

The mood this morning was kind of weird. We knew we wouldn’t be coming back to Cortney’s house, and that had some finality? to it. even though we decided we will come back every xmas. Still… Thankfully i remembered about the lemons. Cortney also gave us some of her honey. i want to make baklava when we get back. Seems fitting…

we left the house around 10 knowing full well we would be slower than them haha. we were going to stop @ target but there was a mixup, so we went to popeyes instead, and i paid $5 a gallon for gas for the first time in my life haha

The trip in was absolutely beautiful. we took 140 & they took 120, so, different routes. i am glad i have enough experience under my belt or else this drive would have been scary. the river was fun to drive next to. i eventually rolled down the window because i wanted to hear, but the scent was great too.

This is cortneys favorite place in CA & i can see why. They did lodges when they went in January. i think we came just at the right time to see the waterfalls though, which was what i was most worried about.

When we got there i promptly bought a water bottle that said yosemite and a hoodie so i could cosplay “generic guy visiting yosemite.” Then just went walking. saw so many cool things! lots of waterfalls. i loved the close view, the splash of the waterfall & being so close was special.

lots of walking. Soren climbed a rock with his dad, then his dad started panicking because he was losing grip, but it was only like 4 feet down?? so then obviously Soren started freaking out too. i just opened my arms and told him i would let him fall which calmed him down.

the last 20% or so of the hike dragged. i had fun talking w/ Cortney, BUT $10 Walmart shoes w/ virtually no padding aren’t ideal for hiking in Yosemite, so I was hurting a lot by the time we were done, which was like 4 hours later. But talking to Courtney that last bit helped.

Then food, only the store was open so grabbed some from there. I was having my little “heavy pain, overloaded, having autistic meltdown” moment so was being stubborn about eating, but i made myself eat. Which I am glad now I did, because we didn’t stop on the way back to the hotel for proper dinner, so just had granola.

When we ate at Yosemite a huge raven was hanging around, which made me super happy haha.

Lots of tears shed when leaving. I know we will see them again soon, but… ughhh. How can i go that long? I am going to do a weekly facetime or something. Ugh.

What a wonderful day. And now after an hour and a half of writing, my journal is up to date!!

Transcribed 2025-04-29

(editor’s note: may be transcription errors with this, too lazy to read the whole thing.)

lmao its now Friday night

Sunday night - yelled and woke everyone up in my sleep 0/10

Monday - Equal parts great and awful. Hours in the back of Shane’s car while he is driving like a literal crazy person up winding hills is a no go. threw up in elias' hat & major fronted ugh. the day besides that was fun & got to see the ocean for the very first time! no whales though. we also went up to a food place on mountain (alice’s) I’m sure the food there was amazing, but we were too sick to get any. it was beautiful though, and nice that the kid got to front after years of not doing so, despite the triggers.

rest of the day was chill. decided that next day, we needed to rest, though. so soren + cortney + elias would go do stuff.

Tuesday. - blissful rest. soren + cortney + elias took public transit and hung out in the pier area.

me? I napped a lot, and had sushi alone at a place nearby. so, essentially heaven after the day prior. i went to pick you and the others up. the day was exhaust for soren though…

i think maybe this was the day we bought prints from cortney? this is the problem with waiting to update journal

really falling in love with the entire family despite making an ass out of myself. ugh. thankfully, cortney is the kindest person almost. i am surprised she has had the stamina right after surgery…

Wednesday - lyn’s day. Anastasia was fronting so some details are fuzzy. lyn’s place is really cool. she has a whiteboard where all of her furry friends have been drawing. and also seems to own everything that i do. well, some of them were reccomendations i gave her, but still…

we rode the train into san mateo to go to the lego store which was also hilariously close to roblox, considering she played hookie… and saw her coworker at the amazing mexican restaurant we visited. whoops

lego store was cool, we did pick-a-brick and bought a tiny suitcase to build, which seemed fitting. they gave me a tiny free chick to build, which i ended up gifting to soren. we hit nintendo, and i got some more stuff to build. then mexican, and off to japantown. it was so amazing to even be able to see her & talk to her while we were on public transit

Japantown was incredibly cool. didnt get to see BTSSB yet because we were tired after Kinokuniya & the stationery store though. This was by far the most personally expensive day of our vacation. i bought myself a few things, Soren a few, and you so much. I almost never get to go shopping without you around, so i kinda went crazy… lmao

i’m sure that if i lived this close to Kinokuniya of this size that i would be 1) even more fluent in Japanese than ever and 2) completely and utterly broke… lmao

um… well the uber back was utterly terrifying because the guy driving was both suicidal and homicidal. i mean, he almost ran over a dude in a wheelchair. of course major fronted again embarrassing as fuck for so many reasons. god. Lynn did a good job of handling it thankfully. Richard got us home

You had a chill day that day, thankfully… just went to the park to retrieve a pinecone Soren stashed? something like that. good times.

Thursday - had to wake up early to take Courtney to her doct appt. she is doing ok, but is having some afib problems. and the pacemaker is taking the wheel like 40% - 50% of the time, which is actually insane. we took Soren to the park in the meantime while she was at her appt. he continues to be the sweetest thing ever. plus i got to have fun too. some unimportant work drama had me annoyed for a while, but you convinced me it wasn’t important. thank you for that <3

then, beach time!!! so exciting! we went to Santa Cruz. beautiful area! great food too, i had a killer ahi tuna sandwich. we had a chance to talk and collectively agreed we want to move to cali. its too far away being in texas. also texas sucks. we will make moves toward there when we get back.

we went to the gift shop and let me tell you, everything being sea themed made it hard to not buy the entire shop. but just a few things, something for soren, then off to Seabright Beach.

my first proper time being at the ocean! my god, the peace i felt was so high. the sea breeze, the perfect coolness, the waves… i didn’t even want to nap.

i looked over at you and started crying watching you pick up shells. it’s a bit silly but i just love you that much…

then i went over and helped you w/ shells. no really cool ones. so many poor little jellies on the beach though…

we walked up and down the beach several times talking about life. even went to the little lighthouse. i feel like i could have walked there all day.

Started to get late though, so we drove back. ended up getting kbbq at a place in Oakland called “jong ga house”. It was your first time going, super yummy and surprisingly affordable for all you can eat. in fact, it was cheaper than lunch… (lunch was crows nest)

then after kbbq, we had an accidental trip to downtown Berkeley @ night because the dessert place (a dessert story) was downtown. it was very worth though amazing shaved ice!

didn’t get back until late. we decided at the dessert place to just get a hotel near Yosemite! since it was four hours east, doesn’t make sense to go

can save @ least four hours by just staying at Yosemite.

and that brings us to today… since i am writing this from the Yosemite holiday inn express haha.

Transcribed 2025-04-25

Raven,

We are on vacation right now. I bought this journal in hopes of archiving our life. Pictures are great, but I want to describe my emotions as well. And what better way than this?

I don’t know if we will give you this when we are done. Maybe we will keep it forever to ourselves. But knowing that I am not just tossing words into the void is a good incentive.

We are driving to California for the purpose of helping your sister recover from her pacemaker surgery. Thankfully, it went smoothly, and she is just recovering now.

We put Toni, Ava, Evil, and Manu into Paw Lofts, the bougie boarding place. Only the best for our babies.

We are listening to a book called “The Things We Leave Unfinished.” There is probably only about a chapter left. I will have to find a new one for tomorrow. It is about a woman who is taking her grandma’s autobiography and finish it, since she passed away. We hear about the grandma’s story in the 1940s, interlaced with the granddaughter’s. It is okay, the ending is fizzling out, though.

Yesterday, we went to Stonehenge Replica (Odessa, TX), Odessa Meteor Crater (Odessa, TX) and did a ton of driving. The total time was about 13 hours for 900 miles. And still in Texas!

The Stonehenge Replica was very cute. It was on a rock. Someone had abandoned their phone, too. I am glad we got to see these. Some cute photo ops. This was also the first time I noticed how dry the heat was! Such a change from home. The winds have made the days beautiful though.

The Odessa Meteor Crater was very interesting. I don’t think I would call it “fun”. But I enjoyed it a lot. I had no clue a meteor crater could be so big. The dryness of the air getting more obvious, but the wind is a nice respite.

We made it to El Paso fairly effortlessly. Of everything we did, my favorite thing was to just stop at a rest stop with you, and stare towards the mountains. So beautiful. I want to keep more memories, but what I find myself remembering the most is how I feel about you, Raven. We have been together for so long, and my love only grows every day. You will never know exactly how much I love you. I adore you. I still get butterflies. And standing on that rest stop, I could feel it so strongly.

Today was the short part of the drive. Accordingly, we planned a bigger side trip … White Sands National Park. When we arrived, we went into their great gift shop. Tons of fun stuff to buy. They also had an intro movie where we learned more about the park.

The main path we hiked was a mile long. Doesn’t seem like a lot, until you realize it’s so hot, and pure dry heat. I can definitely say that I’m not as fit as I was as a kid. And we almost definitely forgot your inhaler, so you nearly had an asthma attack that made you pass out. Not making that mistake again.

Despite being surprisingly difficult, it was just as rewarding. The dunes were almost eerily quiet; even for a deafie like me. The views were so nice, though. And we even saw some cute little caterpillars rolling down a hill.

It wore us both out thoroughly. But there was more of the park to see, and most of it was done in the car.

But we stopped off at a final hill. I was so exhausted, I could barely climb it. But I had to take a selfie with you… so I told myself a last push, so I could have a picture.

But then, you asked for a picture, alone. You sat down in the sand, and I took a picture. You invited me to sit next to you, to stare at the view for a final time. Tiredly, I collapsed into the sand next to you.

You smiled at me, and encouraged me to stick my hands deep into the sand. It was so cold. I looked over the scenery with you. And in that moment, I knew what it was all for. I knew why I fought so hard to keep alive. All those years. I fought to find you. Every decision I’ve made has led up to you, being with you, there on that dune. Exhausted, leaning against you.

“I don’t ever want to leave,” I told you. “But I can’t live in the desert forever. We can’t stay up here forever.” But my heart ached. Really, what I want to do is stay in stasis with you, when every thing is perfect. No sadness, no trauma, no work, no worry, no depression, no anxiety. I know our life together will continue to go like this, in different venues, but… “Ready to go?” you asked after a few minutes.

“Just a couple more seconds.” My pleading was really from the awareness of passage of time. Knowing how precious every moment is. It wasn’t about the dunes.

After about 20 more seconds, I stand up slowly. Time goes on, no amount of leaning against you there was going to stop it.

As we are driving out of the park, I ask you, “Have you ever loved someone so much you cried?” You laughed. “No,” you told me. “Well, maybe it’s just because I’m so happy. Why can’t it always be like this?”

The rest of the park was nice. The trip to Tuscon from El Paso was about 6 hours. Mercifully short considering we were both sun burned and exhausted.

The hotel was serviceable. Holiday Inn Express has good free breakfast. And the shower was excellent, considering we both were so dirty from the sand.

Next day; Sunday; full day 15 hr drive. Nothing much eventful. Just 15 hours of driving straight. We finished the romance book. Turns out the twins did a switcheroo. We started really driving through the mountains. It is so beautiful. 15 hours was definitely our limit, though. Also, you tried to hand us a bottle of water and we made it splatter all over which was funny. Other than that, nothing of note.

Truth be told, I am writing this on Monday night. So, we need to update for Sunday night - meeting w/ Courtney, screaming awake and Monday - fun day of beach, pretty restaurant, and being highly triggered and throwing up in the car. And by the time I do, we will have Tuesday to write about, sigh… almost caught up, though. Soon.

Love you so much

Transcribed 2025-02-02

Things are very stressful at work and life lately. We probably need to move out of the country. I suddenly lost steam to write in this. Oh well.

Transcribed 2024-12-17

yet another journal to abandon when I am bored

anyway my mental health is at an all time low. Ok maybe not all time, but it’s lower than it has been in a while. most days i feel like it would be better if i was dead. lately, i have even been planning killing myself. i don’t think i can tell anyone about it though. for a lot of reasons. it doesn’t feel like anyone actually cares anyway.

more like it would actually be better if i wasn’t around to be such a big burden on everyone. my biggest struggle is knowing that if i passed away it would be a financial burden on elias. because he cant get any kind of life insurance if its suicide i think. plus he relies on me for bills or to help. but maybe someday he wont because his career keeps getting better. so maybe it wont be forever. I dunno ill figure something out idk…

Transcribed 2024-08-14

Why, in the face of change or adversity, am I such a coward?

I looked up TLC today and it made me feel so bad. Even seeing Duby’s face made me so sick. It makes me feel awful that she is still at TLC. I should have just stayed. I am sure that Hana would give me my job back, or another job, if I emailed, but then I would have to work with Duby and (potentially?) Mikolai and I don’t know how I would navigate that. I’ve been thinking about just calling Hana to see how the company is going or something, but I’m too much of a coward even for that. I know TLC would also be way more work and probably not be fulfilling, but I can’t help but wonder…

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I know my career is basically over at Merit.

They clearly are never going to advance me at this point. And I hate to admit it but seeing Elias constantly promoted while I am shat on, seriously hurts… Like its painfully obvious that they don’t give a shit about me. Maybe I should contact Mucie and see what she is up to… haha. Really, is it so bad to want to be respected? Is it so bad to be ambitious? I feel like no one respects me at work. It still really hurt my feelings when they said I deserved to be fired. It was pretty clear to me that they were siding with a stupid company over their partner. The damage can probably be undone, eventually. But it is going to take such a long time. I feel like such an idiot for quitting TLC. I should have just bunkered down and pushed through.

Transcribed 2024-08-09

Will I ever feel like I am enough? probably not. It makes me so sad that it seems like everyone doesn’t trust me and is annoyed by me. I am thinking it may be better for me to just quit therapy. I am a lost cause, so why pay $100 a month hearing that? It doesn’t make sense. Just a waste of money. I am so sad… everytime it feels like things are getting better, something bad happens.