PERSONAL

1

874

Connected and Distracted

6 months ago1,275 words

I've been ususually social recently! But not very focused on Dreamons work I'd like to be doing.

I'm updating this because I can't focus on things I'd like to be focusing on, and want to feel productive.

And it's not because of mental illness this time! It's because there are strange men literally right outside my bedroom window loudly scraping this house's gutters or something.

I'm currently living in this house with my mum and step-dad, but we don't own it, we got it at part of the job my step-dad got as custodian of the adjacent community hall. Which means that the actual owners can decide they want some work done on the house and organise it without even telling us, which is what happened here. We had no idea they were even coming.

I'm not terribly anxious about it anything, but I'm annoyed and unsettled. Wouldn't anyone be? I just hope they finish soon. I have my curtains shut, but can see his shadow and hear him clanging around and occasionally hitting my window. Ugh.






Also, I've finished all the models of the Dreamons characters now, though I've yet to make any of the animated scenes with them. That's what I should be doing now, but... I'm struggling to find the motivation, largely because I have no clear place to start or story I desperately want to tell. I'll have to come up with something for the sake of coming up with something, which is more difficult.

I've done a bit of brainstorming, but nothing came of it.

Instead, I've been spending much of my time composing music (for it's own sake rather than for a project). This is similar, actually, in that much of the time, I'll want to compose for the sake of it, but no ideas come to mind despite fiddling around, and I just give up, frustrated, and do something else for a while. Other times, though, I'll be struck by a bolt of inspiration that'll possess me for days. Getting started is the hard part, and with creative things, there does seem to be that big uncontrollable chance inspiration element that I just have to sort of wait for.



Speaking of music, I had my best day yet with this daily achievement medals system I recently made for myself:



The only thing I didn't do that day was add music to YouTube. The point of these medals is to establish habits, but the hardest part with that is taking the first step, doing it the first time, and with this I just keep putting it off because I know few - if any - people will even care, so it doesn't feel worth the effort.

I'll just need to set aside some time one day to force myself to do it despite doubts, or something.



Also, I've had a conversation with a friend every day this week! Three days in a week! Wow!!!!1

I did a video call with a uni friend on Monday evening for two or three hours, and she liked it enough that she said we should do another the next day. Then she liked talking to me so much that time she wanted to do another the day after that.

I also got a call from my other remaining uni friend on Tuesday, and I needed to go for a walk to the doctor's (I'll get to that in a minute), she also needed to go to her doctor's, so we sort of went for a walk together, though while speaking on the phone rather than being physically next to one another. That meant I talked to two whole people (for several hours in total) AND actually left the house in one day. Such a massive change from the usual shut-in routine!

I moan a lot about being isolated and lonely, so this has been a welcome light in the usual darkness... though I'm very much the Nice Guy friend who listens to my female friends vent about their emotionally rough boyfriends while bitterly simmering internally about how it's been more than a decade since I had anyone to love.

I suppose it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, though, and if anything I've been thinking a lot - based on what they tell me about their experiences - that maybe I'm better off without all the pain in my life. Or rather, the pain of a relationship wouldn't necessarily be better than the pain of isolation. There's going to be pain either way.

These two women do seem to enjoy interacting with me, though, so that's something, I suppose. Not something I've ever been used to.



I mentioned going to the doctor's; I had to, because I'd previously been prescribed folic acid supplements and told to take them until I had another blood test, to see if they were addressing the deficiency... but I wasn't given as many as I needed? I'd run out and didn't know what to do, because all the medical stuff I've had done over the past few years has been done 'for me' via the cancer centre.

Because the doctor's surgery is so close by - about a five minute walk - I found it easier to just go in there and ask at the reception than it would have been for me to make a phone call. It was quickly resolved, and I'll have to pick up more medication tomorrow (though I don't look forward to that since the last time I was in the chemist's - just recently, when picking up the first batch of medication - I almost had a panic attack).

I also got a call from someone at the cancer hospital the other day, just to check how I was doing; I've got a few of these over the years, every few months or so. I mentioned this fainting and subsequent getting-of-medication episode, and she said it's the norm to not get follow-up appointments with the doctor where you're actually told about the prescription that's been made. It has something to do with changes made during the COVID lockdown, apparently. So that explains that recent frustration.

Concerningly, though, when I walked to the doctor's and back, while talking with my friend on the phone, I began to feel very faint, got sensations like derealisation, confusion, feeling like I was in a dream or was watching myself from a distance. I suspect it was due to a combination of social anxiety about the brief interaction I had to have with the receptionist (mostly uncertainty about whether going in and asking was an unusual thing to do, since I'm not familiar with the whole medicine-getting process), being out at all - which is rare for me - and walking while hurriedly talking, which was probably depriving my brain of oxygen. I intended to wander around for a lot longer - while talking on the phone - after leaving the doctor's, but had to head straight home, which was disappointing.

It's concerning, since I'd like to meet up with both of these friends in the near future, but worry that my body's too frail to endure the journeys.

I just need to get used to at least going out every day. The friend I walked with agreed to do more of these phone-call-walks soon, though we've said this before and it took a long while to actually happen. So who knows.



...I think the men have left now? Good!