Timmy Will Rise Again. in Whey and Sonic Screwdrivers.

Like the drop-off when you're expecting a positive emotion, perhaps relief or elation or excitement, but instead find yourself sad, empty, and even a little anxious. Over two months since I gave notice, today was my last day. True to form, I ended up staying an extra hour (hello more overtime) because the registers crashed. That part of my ego that never wants me to accused of screwing anybody over.

The part of me that needs to be seen as a good person. But that's a whole other entry.

Much like after I end a relationship, I look back at where I was before the relationship started. I look back seven years ago and ask myself where I was, what I was doing with my life. The first thing I did was put my keys and wallet back on my chain. I stopped using a chain, because I wasn't wearing the same pants in a single day. I remember before I got this job, I got horribly depressed every weekend. The sadness I feel now feels awfully familiar. For all the terrible things it was, it was SOMETHING. And SOMETHING somehow made me feel like I had overcome SOMETHING, and had therefore earned relaxation.

It's a gamble. I'm taking a chance. I want the school chapter done. It's scary, out of fear of failure. As well, it's scary out of fear that I actually will finish. What do I do then? I don't deal with change well.

I almost wish my birthday party didn't line up tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I have this immense introverted desire right now. To curl up in a little ball and push the entire world away. I almost recognize it as the desire to ... shut down. I used to be so good at it. At blotting the whole world away.

Elissa and I split some champagne. Stuck to my plan to avoid hard liquor. Twenty days without vodka is the longest I've gone in the past year.

She made the observation the other day that I tend more towards manic depression/bipolar, as I do have DEFINITE highs. A couple nights ago, I had a massive downward swing. Yet kind of knew I'd snap out of it by morning. Like clockwork, I woke up energized. Went to the gym, saw the new TMNT movie with her, and then SPENT FOUR HOURS CLEANING NON-STOP. I just couldn't stop until I felt "finished". As she has depressive tendencies, she said she doesn't have manic episodes.

Emotionally, it doesn't feel like this will end. But cognitively, I know this downward swing will end. I'm just not sure when. Emotionally, as a start of something new, I feel very little positive. Cognitively, I'm supposed to be doing something better for myself. I feel all alone, even while I want to run and hide.

I wish I was excited about "one last year". I feel like I've been out of gas for the past two years. Just. Nothing left. No inspiration, no care. Just. Keep going because the alternative is far too dark to utter aloud.

I do wonder if I feed into the negativity at times because it helps get past it. To cleanse myself of it, so anything positive that remains is something worth holding onto.

A cognitive memory of an emotion I want to relive. Control has shown itself to be, time and time again, something that makes me feel good. I feel a victim of my own emotions at times, not feeling what I want to feel. Making a plan and doing it brings different stimuli into play and ultimately making me feel different things. And to control one's emotions, in any facet, is rather empowering. And such empowerment feeds into itself, like a feedback loop. It makes me feel almost detached from the world, like some powerful entity looking objectively at events. To then say, "given this circumstance, this is the course which will lead to optimal emotional enjoyment. It is only logical."

In a way, I need to be sad before I can feel better. As much as it's my acknowledgement of a hypothetical manic depressive mood curve, it's also necessary given that I did feel irrationally sad after I clocked out. It's an emotion I felt, and something I need to embrace and work through, not hide from. I have an obsessive personality. When I'm giddy, I do so with every essence of my being. And when I'm sad, I will take the entirety of existence with me.

On the upside, if I find a good depressive swing in November, I'll crank out one HELL of a novel. I.. don't want to think about nice things right now. Out of fear of expending them? No. Not ready yet. Maybe in the morning. Running, always running. Make a list of activities, accomplish them, 'feel better', and never look back.

Identify the emotion. Ruminate about the source. Speculate possible courses of action. And then move to a neutral or pleasureful activity to clear the mind after expression.

That's kind of how I feel right now.

Uncertainty. A need for stability. Anxiety over the unknown. Yes, of course, all things I know. Thankfully a small voice resonates, one that's developed all on it's own over the past seven years. After so many days on end, or so it felt, of that place and the stresses it wrought, I came to realize that I could deal with anything. That no matter what would happen on a daily basis, the day would end, nothing REALLY mattered that much (only my propensity for caring made it so).

I became the next level of Neo without realizing it. It's because of my humility that I can confidently say that my decisions are almost always right. I never blindly made decisions. I remind myself that as I plunge into the unknown, that I'm smarter than I give myself credit for.

And suddenly I feel like that.

Because... somewhere deep in my being, even as was suicidal last year, some part of me does not want to die. I don't believe in the no-win scenario. I usually keep to myself because all this expression tends to come off overly dramatic and drawn-out. Yet, that's me. The dizzying highs and the cold lows. As if.. only when I start to let myself doubt myself do I feel the need to prove that side of myself wrong.

Perhaps this is why I need to be alone a little. This isn't a dialogue that I can share with someone else. I need comfort, no doubt. But if someone is trying to make me feel better, my instinct is to fight them. That's why I need to be the one dragging myself down, so I can fight myself instead. It's scary shit, but I've been doing it for so many years, cognitively or not, that I feel safe in the cycle. Like penultimate boss charging up for some massive attack, I need to cocoon for a bit before rising again and smiting all in my path.

I think it's time for blitzball.