#mental-health

Bit of burn-out and discouragement and also annoyed to have to go to bed early during the very rare occasion of having Sammy all week, so I skipped the gym this morning. Will get back tomorrow...

If you have ever had a conversation of any length at all with me, you know that my father was killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing when I was ten. My line is that I like to lead with that so I can generate sympathy to offset an alienating personality.

It's a good line, and I think it is funny and charming and endearing to people with whom I never develop more than a peripheral relationship, which is almost everyone. But there are a few people in the world who probably do not find it funny.

The truth is that I love having a dead father. He is with me wherever I go. I can talk to him whenever I like, and he always tells me exactly what I want to hear. He asks nothing of me. We never argue. It's for this reason that I've always agreed with the line someone once said: "Tell me what you think of your father and I'll tell you what you think of God."

This is important because I work from home so days will sometimes pass without any in-person human interaction. But I talk aloud endlessly. To God, to Dad, to myself.

For about three years after my marriage ended I dated a schizophrenic. But really, we dated for two months, then she broke up with me based on something to do with the CIA. A few months later she reached out, apologized, and asked for another chance. We met up another time or two, then again, some delusion forced her to call it off. Maybe a year passed and the same thing happened.

When we were actually together, I typically wasn't very happy. She would go into the bathroom and scream at herself, or often just sit crying. But in the gaps when we weren't actually communicating, it was one of the best romantic relationships I've ever had. I figured we would probably see each other again which removed the rare urge to find someone. I already had the box checked. I had a girlfriend like I had a father.

The reason I'm writing all this out is because eventually, this past September, on a whim, I decided to try to find someone. The only reason was because a friend took a picture in which I thought I looked sort of handsome and figured maybe a girl would think so too. So I made a dating app profile and met someone and within a week was certain I'd be with them forever.

I don't have the emotional capacity to rehash everything that happened, but a couple of weeks ago after a few lesser abortive efforts, I finally managed to sabotage it entirely.

Now I'm back in that comfortable solitude, hoping to never venture out again. Surrounded by imaginary friends and family who never require consideration or compromise; able to love anyone purely and wholly, provided they are never around.

There are many wonderful aspects of having a fully remote job; working the hours that suit me, being able to do things around the house (apartment), et&... but there are also terrible hazards, namely the accessibility of my couch and bed where I can lie and pass literal hours scrolling through Instagram Reels for an IV drip of dopamine.

There is also the illusion of connection; which raises the other hazard of remote work, which is that it's not unusual for me to spend a day or two or five without any meaningful human, in-person interaction. Having a long for that sated by watching a story of a former student vacationing in Croatia likely isn't healthy.

So I deleted the app from my phone (though not the account, for now). I'd prefer to post things here anyway, in spite of the fact that Google Analytics informs me that it gets all of 3-4 visitors per day. It's nicer being able to see things all in one place, with the blasts-from-the-past that I always enjoyed about Facebook (eg. today I see is the one year anniversary of Cafe Maud's soft launch, which is wild because it's since become such a regular haunt--we did Father's Day brunch there yesterday.).

I knew a girl at Cambridge who was half-English and half-German and spoke both languages natively. In discussing useful German words that had been adopted into English (like my oft-used schadenfreude) she lamented that we had not taken in schweinehund which translates literally to pig-dog and refers to one's inner voice that always counsels laziness.

I tend to think I have an especially prolific one.

Working from home with a bed and a window air-conditioning unit mere inches from my workspace does little to muzzle the schweinehund.

I don't think I'm unusual in that; but I do think it probably causes me a bit more agita than the average person and ultimately makes me feel a lack of agency in my own life, which has historically been the underlying issue in any of my life crises. Because it puts my present constantly at odds with my desired future. Obviously my past-self never aspires to spend hours on my bed playing a game on my phone or watching Instagram reels. Just like my present-self never sees any appeal to getting up early or running laps around Tompkins Square Park.

All of which is to preface that yesterday I decided today would finally be the day where I force myself back into a routine of more intentional days. As much as I (or the schweinehund) try to talk myself out of early morning exercise, the inherent value of the thing itself is secondary to the initial, immediate conquest of getting out of bed much too early and doing something miserable.

I aspired to six laps around Tompkins Square Park (having calculated that each one is roughly 0.55 miles, so six would be something like a 5k), but settled for two today (with a third walked in-between) since I've gotten even more out of shape than I was the last time I settled into this sort of routine.

There wasn't any sort of euphoria in it. Nor in the breakfast afterwards, nor the Bible reading nor DuoLingo rounds, nor the shower, nor the New Yorker readings over coffee. Mostly there's just a low-level tiredness. But if there's a point to any of this, it's that the pleasure of the present-self doesn't amount to much. It isn't lasting. I know that last night's self that worried whether I would have the wherewithal to get up with the alarm would be happy. And I imagine that tonight's self, feeling deserving of the bed he crawls--exhausted--into, will be as well.

#labile4life