I've been hanging out with my boys, Furlak and Bne, and missing my sweetheart who didn't come with me this time. Of course, that's just my physical location.

Walking around the mall yesterday with Siochain was good for me. I wanted to buy shoes, but didn't feel very well. Not in my tummy, but in my head. Things just seemed wrong. I'd been trying to talk to her about some serious stuff, but I wasn't being much help because I didn't feel like I was truly there. She made me laugh and told me I was pretty.

In between looking at shoes I didn't feel like buying because no one was being nice to me (they weren't being not nice either) and being told I'm pretty, I realized that all of things with the house this year had taken their toll on my psyche. Not being outside in the summer to de-stress in the sunshine, not knowing when my neighbour might flip out at me next, having to spend gobs of money to fix everything, and above all, all the time and waiting it takes to fix all these things and it being out of my control. I had to ignore most of it after I'd done my part, but keep it relevant so that it still got done. It's almost all taken care of now except the parts where I get to be in control, so things are looking up dramatically.

All the stress with those things are low level, but didn't mix well with the work stress and all the energy I put into my daily life. So something had to give and it was my ability to truly let go and be happy and cheery and desire to be social. I hadn't laughed at Cheruby's jokes in a long time. I was still being nice most of the time, but that's not enough. I was almost completely focused on people other than myself. It's easy to do especially when my whole job is focusing on other people. The only time I was focused on me was when I felt I wasn't being nice and that's not good attention even though necessary.

A couple weeks ago I was actually laughing at Cheruby's jokes and it felt really, really good. Work got in the way again, but I'm on vacation now and am feeling better already.