It's been just short of five months since I wrote anything here and I am sorry. I think of things to write or things I need to get out of my head, and then life happens, and instead I play hide-and-seek with my anxiety and somehow I wind up here.
Since it isn't worth your time as a reader or mine as a writer to jot down every dang thing that has happened, I'm going to do a top 5 list. Or two.
The Best 5 Things to Happen Since May
1. We all got to the states safe and sound, had a wonderful time, and got back just as safely.
2. We all enjoyed playing with my baby niece and family drama was minimal.
3. I got to do GISH with my family, which meant cosplaying with my mom, which was fantastic.
4. We've had an observation day, orientation day and interview day at Julia's potential new school (in the rich Sendai Suburb of Izumi, made of and for the fancy, which I am not) and I haven't had an anxiety attack about it. Yet. Julia seems genuinely excited about this private school and it does honestly seem like a good fit for her (not because she's fancy, but because she's outgoing and kind <and fancy>).
5. In preparation for my trip stateside, I inadvertently convinced my family to take the Mensa admissions test with me. Due to some extra drama, we almost didn't make it, but in the end we did and I got in. I paid my (half-price, for half a year) dues the other day and am considering the next 6 months my trial period with the organization. American Mensa has a large online following and many subgroups that I did not expect, including paranormal researchers and doomsday preppers. I'm going to see if I can find some smart and/or interesting friends from far away.
The Weirdest 5 Things to Happen Since May
1. I got an in-person apology from one of the women who triggered my anxiety attack last year. Maybe my departure helped them understand what little weight they had to throw around or maybe she just thought that was what she was supposed to say. It is possible she genuinely feels bad for triggering not just a terrible physical and emotional event in my life but also my immediate departure from her company. I do not know why. I do not especially care.
2. Last week, a friend from middle school unfriended me on facebook after I responded negatively to a few shared posts of hers that I found in spectacularly poor taste. One was just a transphobic article, rampantly misgendering trans-athletes that they did not have the decency to name. The other was joking about how naive the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must have been when greeted with atomic bombs during World War II. I did respond especially negatively to the second one, though I did provide alternative reading for the first. She apparently took my comments very personally and it may have helped trigger a mental health scare. I applaud her for unfriending me. Either the mental health situation is serious and my calling her out for sharing garbage will really hurt her, which neither of us want, or she's making it up to manipulate her other liberal friend into staying by her side, in which case she should still stay away from me as I have no time for those games.
3. Today my brain mis-interpreted the back of a minivan in a partially shaded tiny parking lot (half obscured by a building) as a random guy in a large brown cardigan, sitting in a strange "man in his study smoking a pipe" sort of position.
4. I have somehow begun managing to run through dissecting traumatic past experiences and filing them away in record time. Last night, my husband and I watched show in which the plot involved a coercive sex act, and I spent a few hours remembering how much I resent some past relationships and all they stood for. It's not made better by the fact that now we're all grown up and have families and children, at least not when we still have mutual friends who praise them for their current skills at whatever it is they are doing. Not when I am still pissed off about ever having been with them. But if not for that awful relationship, I would have been less picky going forward. Also, I am very very happy that I got the chance to grow up before I had to latch myself to another person long-term. I'm actually really happy with my husband.
5. I have come to realize that despite a terrible lack of studying I have managed to come to a Japanese fluency level for average conversation being around 50%, given that they aren't intentionally using fancy words I don't know. That's not to say that I speak adult-level Japanese. I just understand more than I have any right to considering that I do. not. study. Also my husband's English is about the same level as my Japanese, but with a wider vocabulary and fancy accent.
Also, this week we survived a typhoon. It did wash out some roads and damage some areas near us, but we were fine. I did stop cooking dinner when the sound of the wind coming through our cooking vent started making me nervous. Otherwise, most things have been fine. I'm just tired. I'm always tired. We're reached the falling-asleep-watching-TV-on-the-couch-after-dinner phase of my life.
Still trying to clean my house. And edit my novels. And write a new one next month. Wish me luck?
