questions – untitled atm

078b – rest and recovery

Fun, beauty and truth. Maybe just incorporating enough of these elements in a sustainable way is what I need to be doing for this chapter of my life. It’s been incredibly difficult over the last two weeks and yet, I know that I’ve faced difficult life situations before and why should this be any different? Or even if it is, it doesn’t mean I can’t face it.

Writing and music are the two things I can still do while nothing else makes sense, so here I am.

I’ve started anxiety medication again (the last time I tried them was in 2021) and I don’t know why but my body seems to be resisting them a bit. Obviously I’ll discuss this with therapist and psychiatrist but regardless wanted to note down this feeling.

My biggest worry with medication has always been whether it can hamper my creativity (since overall toned down feelings could potentially reduce my motivation to “express”), but in the past that wasn’t the case. I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case this time as well.

When I started the “what do I like to do” question journey, something I would constantly tell myself is that it’s okay to not know. I wonder why I’m not able to tell that to myself when it comes to the gender question also? Gender is going to be such a complex thing, how can I possibly know in a month or two? I need to be open and patient with myself as I address this question.

Of course, I might need a lot of help, from people who aren’t even in my universe yet, so I need to make actionable tasks for how I can possibly find this help, support and resources that I might need.

If being alive is the ultimate creative act, maybe it’s okay to take my time as I figure out what I want “me” and “my life” to look like.

But yes, I do feel some apathy towards my form which I’m obviously not very happy about.

How to approach open questions sustainably, then, becomes an important question.

When I had a lot of work stress I asked my manager if I could take a week off. Maybe right now I just need a week off from personal stuff. From everything. Maybe I just want a week off from thoughts and feelings. I suppose that’s okay too. Because survival over truth, at the moment.

Yes, I think it makes sense to want rest, physical and mental. I’m just going to take it easy till Sunday. Do the bare minimum, and not push myself. Maybe focus on food and rejuvenation.

Alright looks like we have a plan, onward!

074 – you have to write about the questions too

I don’t think enough writing can be done if your aim is to only write about the answers. I think you have to be open about the questions too, primarily because for someone like me, even the answers are found through writing. Of course, this is one of those times where the questions I’m seeking answers to are a little scarier than the ones that were present in my life over the last couple months. Questions like “Do I like to write as much as I think I do?”, “Can I make 10 original songs?”. Based on everything that’s happened this week, those questions are easy. Even “failure” in that aspect feels so easy to cope with.

So what questions am I talking about then?

This week, the questions have been:

Q: Does the label woman not fit me well anymore? Could I benefit from labels like genderqueer or gender-fluid or nonbinary a little better?

This one obviously came with a lot of grief. Realising how attached I was to this label was a revelation. Actually, it wasn’t a revelation. I knew I was quite attached to it. Growing up, I was quite often called a “tomboy” and I never actually liked the word. I don’t know why but I didn’t like being made feel “masculine” just because I liked to wear conventionally non-feminine clothes. So, then, feeling feminine and actually liking the label “woman” was a relief. If I liked the label, if I liked feeling feminine in my own ways, then clothes and presentation didn’t have to matter as much. I actually remember feeling quite happy when I got my first period. Despite all the crap it meant (ie monthly bleeding, cramps, PMS, etc etc), it made me feel great – like I finally belonged.

I don’t know enough about how I feel about this label anymore, but I’m going to take this slow. It’s entirely possible that the label has served me well until now but it just doesn’t anymore. We’ll find out.

I will be moving (or attempting to move) towards some detachment from it so that I can find out whether I’ve just been “tolerating” the label or whether I actually like it.

Of course, it’s also worth keeping in mind that I may not want to think in terms of “man” or “woman” anymore. Currently, both words make me feel a bit icky. Which might be understandable because both words currently carry so much more within and around them. What a conventional man or woman looks like, their associated qualities, what society expects from each of these roles, etc etc.

Why is this scary?— someone had asked me earlier. I think it’s only scary if I start thinking about the sexual identity aspect along with this as well. That is,

Q: Do I not like my female body anymore?

This one, I don’t think I want to explore just yet, not by myself. I want to understand how I feel, internally, before I start thinking about my form. After all, I am more than my form. I am more than body. Of course, I’m grateful for my body— it helps me sing, it helps me write, it helps me dance, it helps me paint, it helps me play instruments, it helps me smile, laugh, run, walk, sit, talk, eat, see, sense, etc. So, yes, I’m grateful for my body, and currently, acceptance and gratitude is all I can offer it.

I wish I could tell you that writing about these questions makes me feel better. But the truth is, it only makes me feel a little better. So— then— there are some other questions that I think can help me cope with the heaviness of these ones, while I live and figure out the answers.

Q: How do I comfort myself?

I know I have people who love me, support me, are willing to talk to me about all this and that’s amazing and I’m incredibly grateful. But here’s the thing. Sometimes the hardest moments are just your own. You’re the only one who has to witness them, and you’re the only one who has to remind yourself that everything is passing. Compassion, music, kindness, self-love, I have to vocalise all this to comfort myself. I have to explicitly tell myself that I’m capable of finding my way out of this chaos, that I am capable of supporting all these confused, fearful, anxious parts of me as well.

Q: How do I find joy and hope when I’m sitting in what feels like rock-bottom?

Overlapping with the previous one, mostly. Went to a really nice concert last night and that really helped. It has in the past too.

I remember April 2022, it had been over a month since I’d moved to Amsterdam. The housing market was proving to be super difficult and I was terribly anxious about not being able to find a place in the time-frames that I wanted. I was staying in my third hotel in less than 2 months, and I was about to enter a depression pit. But we had tickets to Peach Pit (one of my all-time favourite bands) and I put in all the effort to just GO. It was kind of the same last night. So I guess community events that are also aligned with my values and interests could be an important way. And of course, affirmations. We’ve made it this far, we can make it farther.

Q: When do I feel powerful?

I don’t know where this came from exactly and power is not something I seek, but maybe so many feelings of of fragility, insecurity, weakness naturally beg this question. I think mostly, I feel powerful when I’m in awareness. Every time I can remind myself to come into awareness, whether it’s with positive daydreaming or even negative thought-spirals, coming into awareness can be an incredibly powerful and revolutionary act. Yesterday morning, it was after doing a “what am I feeling?” exercise, and turns out I was feeling a lot. So yeah, I think I feel powerful when I can be aware of everything I’m feeling or thinking and not let it consume me. It’s not about control, more about simply not being controlled by anything.

059b – weekly updates and open questions

Last week was a busy week. It was a decent week, though. Lots of ups and downs— but lots of rich moments and experiences, so that’s been nice. A good amount of movement on small tasks and things I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, so that feels great.

However, I’m a little tired of all evaluative aspects of my life. Or the fact that I’m approaching all aspects of my life with an evaluative lens (maybe because I feel like I need to “figure things out”). I think the most confusing part of life is work and career. I feel pulled in many directions and a part of me knows picking something can be important to “move” but part of me is also not okay with giving up certain things.

Although I told myself last week that I’m NOT actually pulled in too many directions, ie it’s manageable if I don’t want to give up any of them yet, I think I get triggered when something new inspires me in a way that I feel like acting upon it immediately. Basically, I get triggered when something (a new piece of information, event, experience, stimulus etc) makes me question or doubt my prioritisations that I may have done. What does this mean for me? I suppose it just means that I go over why I’ve currently prioritised tasks/projects the way I have and then just trust that reasoning. And then treat new piece of stimulus as important enough to maybe “make a note of” but then not go into a reprioritisation exercise every-time I do get triggered.

I guess there’s still a lot more scope for action over thinking on a daily basis. That’s essentially where the dissatisfaction is coming from. Even if I need to reflect or “think”, I should only be doing it in the written / journal / notes form. Thinking within my brain is definitely not helping me at all. In fact, it’s starting to become a major blocker / time-sink.

Open Questions / Todos:

Reflections on art and in what ways I like to engage, are there limits? Can I add 1-2 hours of structured learning a week so that I can make more progress on the skills I want to improve on? Should these skills only be pursued if I aim to “make” something out of them (ie a career) or can I trust that learning for the sake of learning is fine too?

I’ve been thinking that I want to start looking for part-time jobs or internship opportunities probably in Jan / Feb. Does that feel okay and if not— why?

I’ve been wanting to make a short trip to a hilly destination for a while now but haven’t been able to make this a priority yet.. though I’m not sure why. So yeah I suppose I should prioritise this now.
I’ve been giving 3-4 hours a week to volunteer work, but it’s been a bit draining and I’ve had more requests come to me. I do want to continue to do this though, so I need to figure out a way that I can plan this better so it can be a little easier on me.

036b – blocked

Feeling very blocked since the last two days. So I need to get a word-vomit out before I sleep tonight. Blocked, how? Mainly, creatively. Living at home really takes up a lot of mental space. So I think I’ve found that it’s comfortable and mostly pleasant, but not fulfilling enough. What makes me feel fulfilled? I think when I’m spending enough time on my hobbies and other creative pursuits. And I really do need dedicated time-spaces for that.

I was home for my sister’s wedding and that’s now been wound up for exactly 10 days. It’s about time I get back to the things I want to be doing in my daily life. Will also have the weekend somewhat to myself so I can dedicate that to wrapping this up, for good. Will also try to make a todo list after I’m done with this write-up. I think there’s been a lot of joy around for the last month but all of it feels like it’s been on borrowed time. It doesn’t fully feel mine, especially since it feels like it didn’t come out of my “daily routine”. It’s a one-off thing. Does that reduce the value of it? Probably not, and yet.. I’d thought about various things I could have done if I was home for longer than a month, and I haven’t really committed to any of them. I don’t know, time just keeps slipping away. It’s been hard to focus, anyway.

Really couldn’t focus on this either so I tried to make a quick todo list. I think it’s helped already. Should I just give this up, though? I remember how the voice in my head used to be so loud and incessant. And now I barely have anything to talk about. Why’s that the case? It’s the open questions that really kill you. I’d mentioned these in my previous word-vomit but they’re still very very open and very very icky. What do I want to focus on in life? How do I want to be spending my time? How do I try to find someone / how do I look for relationships? Where do I wanna be, geographically, long-term. Does the geography question matter if I want to be seriously dating?

At least word-vomits still don’t take more than 30 minutes. I don’t know why I dread starting this still when I know a small post will barely take any time. Maybe I’ve lost some of my “reflection” skills. Whatever that means. Oh man, living in the present is just so difficult.

This is probably one of the least interesting series of sentences I’ve ever written but I’m going to post it anyway, since that’s the only way I get to continue / move past this. Hope you all have a better start to the weekend than mine!

012 – why say, when you can ask?

I want to free some thoughts from my head. I woke up early (proper early – 6 am) since my mom’s visiting from India today and I plan to go and receive her. But there’s a delay (duh) so I have some free time as I wait to leave. I’ve barely slept 5 hours but I feel much better than I expected to feel. The sunrise’s scheduled for 7:15 am (it’s 6:45 am right now) and I’m torn between trying to write on here or go down and click pictures. Decisions, all the time. They weigh so heavy on my shoulders but there’s always many to make.

We’re constantly doing resource management, of course it’s going to be hard. Why is it harder for some people? I feel like I have a few problems. I don’t trust the budgets that I set for myself so I’m often optimizing for money, even though it would just make more sense to (or make my life easier if I could just) trust the budget. There’s probably reasons to why I don’t. It’d have to be a whole other annoying examination of everything I’m not tracking currently.
What about time? What structures can I have in place to reduce the worry of time-optimization in daily life? Monthly goals setting? Big and small? I do suppose that could help. It’s also the first day of February (short month!) so it seems like an opportune day to be thinking about this.. and maybe even attempting it, oof.

Not sure where this is coming from, but something about people and draining interactions.

How do you teach people to ask questions, instead of giving (mostly unsolicited) advice? I don’t know, constantly being “told to do something” has made me strongly averse to listening to people. I often feel a visceral recoil when someone gives me advice or says anything along the lines of “do this, do that.”

Even a conversation like this often bothers me quite a bit:

Me: I’m thinking of doing X.
Friend: Yes, you should do it.

This obviously has multiple possible explanations – maybe I already had some feelings about X, maybe I don’t like my friend as much as I think, etc etc. But, I think it’s also that a lot of people don’t know how to talk very well. Or maybe I’m very particular about the semantics.

Here’s a few examples of responses that wouldn’t have bothered me:

(Best)
Me: I’m thinking of doing X.
Friend: Oh yeah I think that’s a great idea! / That sounds so nice!

(Not the best but still decent)
Me: I’m thinking of doing X.
Friend: Oh yeah I think you should do it.

Maybe I just have a really bad relationship with “being pushed”.

And while I know that talking in terms of “I think” and “I feel” is generally regarded as good practice for communication between most “close” relationships, I wonder if that’s too much to hope for from all relationships?

Decisions and draining conversations – how do these relate? I think I know how. I think every-time I go through a draining conversation, I have to, in real time, decide whether to have the “you’re saying this, but I’m hearing this” conversation. If I decide not to do it in the present, it still persists and eventually I have to decide whether I want to have the “when you said this, I felt this” conversation. Even if I decide not to do it, I still have to resolve my feelings around the whole thing, LOL.

This brings me to another question. Lately I do feel like having the “when you said this, I felt this” kind of conversations with a lot of people. These are generally quite acceptable in personal relationships.. but how do we feel about them in professional relationships? Do we want to be having them? I see nothing but major benefits. But I don’t know, haven’t seen enough of these happening yet.

—

Unrelated. What is it about immersing your whole body in water that feels so good? I suppose it can be meditative. A few minutes of not being answerable to anyone (including self), not being accountable to anyone (including self), not having to make sense of anything. I can allow myself to exist, without having to be anywhere. Almost as if my feelings seek an outlet, and the water can sometimes provide that.

I’ve been wondering about the deep desire to be understood, I know I’ve been talking about it a lot. But where is it coming from? Today morning I had an extremely strong reaction to a misunderstanding between myself and my mom. I couldn’t figure out why being misunderstood feels like such a threat to me. I think it’s something about.. if people don’t understand me, then they have power over me. Do other people even matter though? Perhaps it’s more about myself.. If I don’t understand my feelings, then they have power over me.

I know the truer reframe for that is “if I don’t accept my feelings, then they have power over me”, but I hope it’s obvious that it’s so much easier to accept after understanding. So maybe all I’m really look for is my own understanding of my feelings. This is a nice little motivator for me to unpack as well. I could simply want to understand myself better so that my feelings don’t have (as much) power over me anymore.

—

How do I feel about writing that builds on what other people have already written? Last night I was questioning (again) why I’m doing this. I found this thread (of course it’s Visa) and I liked how much of a case he makes for being in touch with our feelings. I was looking for something like that and I found it and it resonated with me. When will this happen by itself though? When will I really be able to give myself the permission and encouragement to do this, solely because I want to? …I suppose it’s okay, can’t really question everything so much. There’s only so much time in a day.