another new month, and i still find myself scrabbling to lift myself from a lingering depression. it seems every time i have managed to hoist myself up a ledge i am confronted with another wall to scale to reach level ground. i thought i was progressing for the longest time but last week really felt like rock bottom in my brain. i'm just so sick and tired of disinterest and boredom. made all the worse by my severely diminished capacity for adveristy or struggle. i know that i must learn to find wonder and joy in the struggle, as i have known it before. but i have checked all the usual places, and i find all my cabinets empty. i rummage through old keepsakes and manuals only to find dust and malaise. i just want to freak out. i feel the allure of explosion calling so seductively. i want to detonate everything i can, in the hopes that something will fall into place. that i'll be able to divine in the rubble some meaning or direction like one would read tea leaves. but i can't. i simply don't have the option. i know better.

it's sunny today, summer is officially here. the high isn't below seventy for the ten day forecast. trying to not let the old dread filter in. i'm a summer person now. i enjoy direct sunlight. sweating is can be a a joy and a reminder of embodiment. that's what i keep telling myself. eventually i'll believe it.

getting coffee with colton's friend Hannah who i haven't seen since he left the city. i'm really excited, she's an absolute hoot and makes me laugh every time i see her.

had a good session with Mira yesterday. it was helpful even if we were retreading old territory. through it though i was struck by the epiphany that this is the first time since i was 19 that i've not been in some state of transition. started transitioning at 19, detransitioned at 24, and i think i've achieved detranstion at this point so where does that leave me? i don't really know as of now, but it's something to chew on, mull over. am i stagnant? is that a bad thing? i've been messaging some new guy this morning and i mentioned the fear and that it gets me and he in response says that he often gets what he calls the itch which is a killer name for the feeling. complex existential boredom? i can't quite put to words what it entails, but it struck on something i've been trying to describe my whole life. more things to kick around in my head these coming days.

woke up with a fractured will today. a stagnant inertia. i dragged myself into stretching and getting ready for the gym, only to realize a block away i wouldn't be able to lift even the slightest weight. i don't have the substance to do so, i would only feebly press and move nothing. in tears i steered myself home and here i find myself. i don't know what to do. i think i'm going to become presentable and go read poetry at a coffee shop. i'm going to leave my phone at home. i don't want to be reached. i resent being responsible to anyone.

it was nice to see hannah yesterday. had a really good talk, and she inspired me to buy a book of mary oliver's poetry. i cut the hang out short at two hours however. my voice was straining and i was deflating. i don't know why i didn't push through. it seems push is not something i'm quite capable of at the moment.

i have band practice tonight. and all of me wants to quit the band. i just don't care anymore. it's become such an avenue of guilt, dread, and anxiety. when did that turn? what can i do? i can't quit, because i am beholden to everyone else's hopes and dreams as they are tied up in the project. i just can't be moved to fucking care. it seems so pointless, and i hate that i can't contribute anything, i hate that i haven't been able to create for months, and all of this just makes me feel more guilt, making me feel more suffocated. it's a vicious feedback loop that only accelerates as i grow more and more panicked. maybe if i took a break from it. i might ask if after the show on the 10th if i can take a month off for my mental health. maybe i can ask them tonight. i'm giving up on the music video. i don't have the momentum to even attempt. i just want to wither and disappear. i wish i could find a clone to sleight of hand replace myself within the band. i just don't care about it anymore.

i just don't care about anything anymore.

all of my hopes and dreams only inspire fear in me.

and i'm just so terrified that all my naivete and hope was stupidity and lying to myself.

what now?

another bad morning. got up to go to the gym after a night of terrible sleep. got through chest press and shoulder press, saw that there was someone at the chest fly machine, and so i just gave up. cried all the way home. how can i steer myself out of this if not even my hobbies can save me?

i did sort of redeem it by setting an alarm for 30 minutes and playing guitar for that time. i didn't come up with any riffs, but i realized yesterday a possible medicine for my current predicament may be playing guitar every day again. it's been so long, and it would be so good for me in so many ways.

yesterday was good until it wasn't. i guess i had a good hour or two. i went to analog (left my phone at home) with a book of mary oliver's poetry and some sad cds. Kristian came by and for some reason decided to sit and talk to me, which wasn't really invited but that's okay i guess. i should be social. after that, the music inside was too loud so i went and sat outside and just sat and listened to strange mercy and shade while reading the occasional poem. it was lovely. there were so many finches about and it was perfect to just sit and be mindful. but then life came in again and i had to scurry off to get my hair cut.

hair cut is fine, i'll adjust to it in the next few days.

i was supposed to do laundry after that, but again i went to reach for the will to animate me and came upon absolutely nothing. i decided to nap, but i wasn't tired, so i just ended up dozing and tossing in bed miserably for two stupid wasted hours. stupid stupid stupid. now i still have to do fucking laundry.

band practice was a bore and a drudgery. i don't fucking care about it anymore and i just want out. stupid stupid stupid.

work today, hopefully it's mostly painless. all that can be begged for at this point, merciful sparing from pain.

i can tell i'm at a crisis in mental health because i fucked with my phone again. disabled all push notifications from even the phone app so that i am unreachable. have been leaving it at home. i plan to leave it at home when i go to work. left it at home when i went to band practice. i think i want it to live at home except when i go to the gym. keep it in it's place. i also ruined instagram, made it unentertaining. unfollowed every meme account, most news accounts, and anyone i didn't need to follow. now it's just earnest posts from people i know in my feed and who cares about that. on top of that i reset my content preferences so my explore tab will be nothing that interests me. why? to what end? what is anything for? what can i hope to achieve with anything?

beginning to only be able to believe nothing.

i feel so pathetic with all of these cries for help, as dostoevsky says these crafty moans meant to inspire concern, pity, or sympathy. i understand that we are communal creatures and are being suffocated by alienation and hyper-individuality, but i can't help but refuse to ask for help. what would help actually look like that wouldn't feel like pity? what could anyone do for me? i must drag myself out of this with a grin and simply bear it. one day in the future i will look back in my wake and see that i have healed the wound for the time being and feel relief. i won't know until that day comes, and until then i just have to continue to limp along in the pathetic ways that i am forced to. stupid stupid stupid.

feeling marginally better today? i think? i'm pretty sure. still feeling my well of will waning, lacking. but i, maybe naively, can hear some trickling in and raising the water line. it can't get any emptier, can it?

i couldn't stop thinking yesterday how frustrating it is to be back at this point after so many years. i really thought that i had built enough fail safes to prevent this descent repeating. i guess not. is there ever going to be any time that i will be safe from recurrence? a deeply troubling thought.

yesterday work was miserable. i could barely function. and of course so many people noticed and showered my with sympathy. very kind and caring of them, but i am incapable of not feeling patronized, of not viewing it as pity and reacting with aversion. i should work on that, but i just don't know how. it makes me feel like a sucker, a mark.

decided to post on instagram that i am stepping away from my phone and will respond to anything when i get around to it. that was probably a mistake because now i have a million messages to get through. but i guess i really don't. i could respond to them next week and it would be fine. i said as much that i would get to them when i get to them. i'm going to let them sit for as long as i feel like it. i just have to combat the guilt. but isn't that what i'm trying to shake with this? the guilt and obligation i feel constantly?

it's fourth of july today, which sucks because the outfit i really wanted to wear today happens to be red, white, and blue. have to pivot and wear something else. what a serious struggle.

not taking my phone to work yesterday was interesting. i found i barely missed it. i'm going to bring a book today for my break as that was the only time i really felt i missed having distraction. otherwise it was so easy and refreshing. and to be free of the portal to worry that the phone has come to represent, what a relief. i find my hand going to my back pocket all too often, but that's a habit i can shake with enough time. hopefully i can make this a semi-permanent habit. fucking stupid that i upgraded my phone right before this. whatever.

it's going to be so busy today with the holiday i haven't the spirit to manage the hordes of stupid idiot customers. of having to perform cheer. it's times like these that i wish i had a desk job. but let's be real, if i had a desk job i'd be dead by now.