Hi in Going public

Phew, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I still read here religiously but haven’t felt inspired to write. I think with therapy and venting to friends I feel the need to write less urgently. Today has been tough and I was thinking about things that I can do right now to make myself feel better, and journaling has historically been one of them.

I got a decent amount of sleep and woke up feeling pretty good, but felt pretty crappy by mid-day. It was sort of one of those days where everything just seemed so hard.

Work has been especially uninspiring lately. We have been working from home for a month and I half now I guess. It’s not totally out of the ordinary for my team (half of them already work from home full time - my boss lives in a different state than me.) Normally when I work from home I just use a remote connection to my office computer, but that can be somewhat unreliable, so I brought my entire workstation home. That definitely made everything feel more serious. I had a mini-review with my boss yesterday in which he said I was doing great, and to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m not being put up for promotion this round (didn’t expect to be), but he said he intends to next fiscal year. So that was a bit surprising considering I feel like a major POS when it comes to my work life. It’s just so hard for me to stay focused and productive. I chip away at stuff and deliver good work eventually, it just takes way longer than it needs to and I have some zero progress days.

I’m just having a really rough time with quarantine stuff. I live about 15 minutes away from that nursing home in WA that was the epicenter for the pandemic in America. So around here we’ve been feeling the effects for awhile, and the lifestyle changes they’re implementing to handle it are still evolving. Today the governor laid out a plan to re-open the state, but it looks like it’ll be a solid 3-4 weeks before I can have any social interaction.

On the fitness front - there’s been no more gym, no more personal trainer, no more lifting weights, no more spin class with my bike friends, no more outdoor bike club. I’m getting back in the saddle (literally) because I broke down and bought a Peloton bike. It was WAYY too expensive but so far I have no regrets. I also have some 8lb dumbbells here and some bands, but that’s it. I’ve been doing some videos, but the strength situation is sad. Before quarantine I was deadlifting like 200lbs. Nowadays carrying heavy groceries home made me sore for 3 days. I’m also running a bit, but that is my least favorite thing right now. It’s actually stressful to go out and run, having to dodge people constantly. And people (men) still try to talk to me when I’m out running. Like in this time of fucking pandemic you’re really still going to try to hit on me?? I’m not even that cute. Fuck.

Sophie died in March. It broke my fucking heart.

I broke up with my boyfriend 6 days ago. We were together around 5 months. I broke it off with him, and he didn’t see it coming. Honestly it was probably the healthiest relationship I’ve had yet. But..ultimately there were some things about him that I knew I didn’t want to deal with long-term. He had serious issues with being.. well.. spineless when it came to people in his life. He is such a sensitive and caring person that it made him weak and unable to stand up for himself. It was a ‘you teach people how to treat you’ kind of situation with several people in his life and he just didn’t demand respect from those around him. It made me worried that if we got married and had kids that he would be unable to stick up for us, and that makes me feel really unsafe. Other issues I had with him I think ultimately stemmed from his ADHD - he had sort of an inability to think things through carefully and logically. Again, I imagined this to be a nightmare when it comes to (eventual) childcare and managing a household. I refuse to micromanage my partner because they are unable to handle things on their own. That kind of thing makes me feel very lonely and overwhelmed.

But it’s hard because it’s quarantine. I live alone with my cat and he was the only other human I was seeing. Now I have a month ahead of me with no ability to go out and socialize. I can’t even drown my sorrows in random hookups with men. I’m still in constant communication with a variety of friends, but it’s not. the. same.

People from my lab back in grad school are finally graduating with their PhDs. There was one defense a few weeks ago, and one today. They’ve been defending over Zoom, so I’ve been able to tune in. It’s wild to me that I left so long ago and have been doing so many different things. I moved cities 3 times andhad two different jobs, while they just continued on grinding away in the lab, living that life. Watching these things is strange because there’s a wild contrast to listening to academics talk vs being in the corporate world. I far, far prefer the corporate world! The guy defending his PhD did a good job, but the professor I worked under is just totally batshit crazy. There are eccentric and shitty personalities in tech, but academia (at least in physics) is on a whole ‘nother level.

That’s enough for now. Hope to talk to you all again soon.