Visiting

I’ve spent the last few days in Scotland at my mentor’s house. Prior to visiting, I was terrified that I would be an awkward, anxious house guest and that she wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore after getting an unadulterated dose of what I’m like IRL. There’s a difference between talking to someone over video call once a week and literally staying in their home for 4ish days.

I spent a substantial portion of the days fighting my innate and apparently very strong urge to apologise for my personality and general existence. Y’know, apologising for how I’m quiet, don’t know how to hold a fucking conversation and am probably no fun to be around. Thank you for putting up with me and all that jazz. I managed to stop myself from saying anything more self-deprecating than “thank you for bearing with my silences”.

I know this stuff isn’t a big deal unless you make it into one, so I’ve been trying to not make it into one (if I tried to explain it to my mentor I’d probably burst into tears). Friends are not therapists. I cry myself to sleep on my own time, y’know? I’ve cried at her in the past, but I don’t want to cry at her about this particular thing. It feels selfish.

It has genuinely been a good few days, if we ignore my insecurities for a sec. The highlights were: jamming with my mentor’s wife (she got out the MIDI drums!), getting a tour of the cute local town (I swear to god my mentor knows everyone here), successfully buying a random collection of souvenirs to gift my polymath friend for her birthday (I wasn’t sure what to get her), learning lots at an accessibility conference (and making a new friend on LinkedIn while I was there!) and enjoying a deep fried Mars bar for the first time.

I didn’t have time to do a couple things I wanted to do (twisting my ankle badly yesterday meant that I erred on the side of caution today), and this whole trip has been a staunch reminder of why I hate buses, yet my mentor was talking about what I could do next time I visited. She said I should memorise what their house looks like now so I can mentally compare it with the updated version next time.

The thing I’m trying to force myself to take away from this is that my mentor is up for me visiting a second time! Ergo, I have not fucked this up. I still have a friend and she doesn’t seem to mind that I’m awkward, anxious and quiet in-person. She doesn’t mind that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life to the point where I have genuinely no idea how to talk about myself (it’s so much easier to share stories about friends and family, especially when my dad is the way he is).

It’s been interesting to observe how my mentor and her wife are together. They’re the first couple I’ve met that openly use pet names and are so cute and affectionate with each other. It’s sickeningly adorable. They also get out the phone calculator in the same way that my friends and I have done in the past to figure out how to split dinner costs. They’re married and have a mortgage but, because they’re only in their 30s, both work in tech and seem quite creative, parts of how they function are incredibly relatable to me. It’s surreal to watch them and think that maybe one day I could be something like that. It’s a couple dynamic that I’ve never properly seen before.

I dunno. Maybe this is the way adulting works. Maybe this is how conversation as an adult works. Perhaps I’m not doing everything wrong. Maybe it’s normal to spend your twenties wondering what the fuck you’re doing with your life and why anyone would willingly spend time with you when you’re you (and having to constantly remind yourself that you being you is a plus for some people).

Or maybe I just need to get out more.

A Scottish Wedding Reception

Life is strange in a good way, mostly.

I went to a wedding reception in Scotland the other day. I was fully expecting to spend my day and a bit in the area in a state of awkward, fully fledged anxiety. Instead, I was stupidly happy. Sure it was a little awkward once everyone I knew at the wedding reception left (next time I will think a bit more about how to handle transport arrangements at the end of the evening as well as at the start of it), but I had a good time overall. This is the first wedding thing I’ve been to for one of my friends instead of one of my family’s friends or a relative. It makes a difference. I mean, there was a freaking dinosaur at the reception!!

This was also my first time meeting the handful of UX people that I know from online meet ups in-person (my UX mentor is shorter than I thought she’d be). I accidentally did a lot of networking just by default of being in the UX work friends section of guests. I learned that, had I not appeared happily settled in my graduate job, there had been a very high likelihood of my UX mentor offering me a job at her company.

I wonder what my life would be like if that had happened? Hell, it still could happen in the future depending on how things work out at our respective companies. I’d get to explore Scotland and I’d be working with people that I know I already get on well with. It would be further away from everything and everyone that I know, but it would be an adventure.

One of my UX friends is switching jobs so we chatted a bit about values and what we like and dislike about our roles. I’m starting to think that maybe I should try doing UX in the public sector. At the end of the day, a business needs to generate money. There’s no way around that and I get it, but sometimes I do feel like the bad guy working in a data-oriented private sector company. Someone at work will say something sometimes, and I’ll be sitting there thinking “can you hear yourself?”.

Also, I give 0 fucks about the market I’m working in, so I don’t invest in learning about it, which means that I’m probably not doing my job as well as I could or should be. A UXer is supposed to understand and vouch for customer needs, but I find the needs of real estate customers so boring.

I may not have that problem in the public sector, because you potentially get to see your work having a real impact on people’s lives. Also, public sector things legally have to be accessible so maybe, just maybe, it would be less of an uphill battle to make the case for implementing decent digital accessibility across the business.

The downsides to public sector work are limited resources and funding I’m sure, and I bet I wouldn’t be paid as much as I am at a private sector company, but I don’t think I’ll mind if it’s all for something that adheres better to my values. At the end of the day, I got into UX because I wanted to do something that is creative and helps people. I think the second part of that statement could be better met in the public sector.

Anyway, I won’t worry about all that unless I get very miserable in my current job. Talking to my UX friends made me realise that I’m doing pretty well right now career-wise, despite how stressful it all seems at times. I’m in a leadership position, as weird as that feels, and I’m being constantly challenged in a good way. One of my UX friends said that I sound like I’m thriving! I guess it’s only when the challenge becomes persistently upsetting or a mega-roadblock that I should seriously think about moving companies. All is good for now.

Also, I need to go to that part of Scotland again with a friend. There is so much to explore (I didn’t realise how much history there was until I was there). I think it’ll be far more fun to explore with a companion (they will also help to ground some of the stupider things I get anxious about). I wanna go to Edinburgh castle and thoroughly check out the tunnels beneath the city which are apparently a thing. I can even get us a discount on hotel prices through work. I think I know what I want my next holiday to be!

FREEDOM!

It feels like my life has changed a lot in a very short period of time. I moved out, accidentally half-dunked myself in a river while exploring the local area, have become temporary UX lead for a business I’ve only been at for a month, got invited to an accessibility thought leadership meeting at work, and nearly brought my dad to an expensive maybe brothel for father’s day.

2 of the things in that list are good storytelling opportunities for making conversation with people I don’t know that well. I treasure those sorts of random-ass memorable life things that can be inserted into casual small talk. They’re just relatable enough to not result in an awkward silence (the way an in-depth discussion of my creative hobbies or family D&D might) and they help people remember you.

Anyway, it feels so good to have finally moved out and be making life decisions for myself. I mean, I was making them before but everything them feels a bit easier now. I love my parents, but not living with them means that I get to opt into their advice and judgment. I can cook things as lazily as I want to and improvise as much as I’m in the mood for. I can eat as little or as much as I like because I control the contents of my cupboards. My post-work social schedule is no longer constrained by commute times or guilt over constantly asking my parents to pick me up from the station.

I feel truly independent and I love it. I had 2 things on my 2022 goal list and I’ll have achieved both of them this month:

1. Move out
2. Meet my UX mentor (I’m going to her wedding reception! Aah!)

I also love how close I am to the people I care about here. My logical friend lives just a train ride away, my digging friend and polymath friend have both bought flats in my new hometown, my parents are literally a 20 minute car journey (or 10 minute train + 5 minute car journey) away, and I’m close enough to the big city to appreciate the transport links I can use for visiting friends elsewhere in the country. The big city makes for a good meet up place too, if you don’t mind how expensive it is.

It’s surprising how nice it is to be near to my parents. I know that they both went to uni and then went fairly far away from their respective hometowns. I remember mum talking about how her mum had phoned her up to shoot the shit one time. My mum hadn’t really understood why her mother was calling, and wanted to get on with her life, but at the last Table Occasion she said that she understood now and was sad that she’d lost that chance to connect with her mum (my maternal grandmother died when I was little).

The historical pattern in my family is that you go to uni, get a job/move out, and then barely see your family again except for Christmas and maybe birthdays. I’m not gonna do that. Admittedly, social media covers a lot of the communication/life update gap and I don’t need to be with my family 24-7, but I like being near enough to go to events together if one of us spots something mutually interesting and I like having semi-regular family D&D sessions. I guess it’s a lot like when we visited my brother for his birthday and he said it was nice to see us and that we should come visit more often. I like being close to my family but having my own place to escape/return to.

So, now that I’m on track for meeting my current 2 life goals of the year, what’s next?

I want to earn enough through my work Sharesave scheme to buy a place of my own, but that’s a long-term goal. More immediately, I want to pick a friend(s) to go on holiday with somewhere (it’s been too long since I’ve gone on a none-family holiday). I want to go to at least one fancy, interesting conference where I can learn stuff and make friends. I want to get better at disconnecting from work and meeting up with the friends that I currently have. I want to get a baseline sense of how my finances and budgeting should work now that I’m financially independent renting. I want to sign up to the local dentist and GP. I want to join at least 1 extra-curricular group (at the moment I have my sights set on the local ukulele society). I have plenty to be getting on with.

Perhaps all of this life admin stuff sounds banal to you, but I have never felt more excited about it (you should’ve seen the grin on my face when I officially joined the local library today). I finally have the freedom to choose this stuff for myself!

Little Things

If having a 9-5 job has taught me anything, it’s that I need to make the most of my non-exhausted brainspace time.

I do not want my job to be my life. My hobbies and a decent handful of my friends exist outside of my job. There’s a bit of overlap, sure, but I don’t feel close enough to anyone at work for the overlap to be substantial. It is hard enough keeping up with the friends that I have; I’m okay with not having work besties. I haven’t been at this company a year yet and uni has established that it takes me at least a year to form those kinds of relationships anyway, if I’m lucky.

I returned from holiday with the rents on Good Friday. Our week away was fine, but I’m glad to be home. Now that I’m not hemmed in by an awkward language barrier, I have the whole Easter weekend ahead of me! I’m gonna get myself a big Easter egg, do some admin and maybe book theatre tickets.

Sometimes it’s the little things that count.

In Come The Feels

Last week was a really intense week. Just, stupidly intense. And now I’m on holiday with the rents for a week. There’s potential for emotional intensity here too (language barrier + trapped in another country as a third wheel to my parents’ miscommunication bickering + general tiredness = anxiety), but I’m trying to focus on the fact that I get a break from work for a week. Having a holiday is a good thing. I need one.

Last week was intense for several reasons. I had train cancellations plus an accommodation viewing last Monday, months of my work on accessibility culminated in a presentation at an important UX meeting last Thursday, and we did a team psychological safety workshop on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The viewing was probably the most uneventful event out of that lot.

I’ve spent the last few months trying to understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), checking what accessibility resources my company has, auditing the accessibility of some company stuff, and interviewing stakeholders to get a sense of people’s attitudes towards and understanding of accessibility.

I wasn’t sure what to do after that, so I messaged the team lead (she’s autistic and extremely enthusiastic about accessibility) to admit that I was flailing. We had a meeting, and she altered my perception of everything I’d been working on by saying that she doesn’t expect me to implement things. Instead, she wants me to present my recommendations on what the team can do next. I presented those recommendations to all the UXers in my placement company on Thursday, and I have a slot booked in to present to product and tech next.

The presentation I did on Thursday had the desired effect. I received a lot of compliments, and the people in my immediate team are already starting to discuss what they will do in response to my recommendations. I am exactly where I want and need to be with this, and it was worth the anxious preparation (technical rehearsals on graduates, running my slides past team members, relentingly rehearsing my presentation patter, etc) to reach this point.

I do actually like presenting to people, for the record. It’s a version of storytelling where you get to share learning with people as creatively as you want! I like getting people to engage and react to the information I present them with. However, it requires a lot of energy, careful preparation and knowing my audience inside-out for me to be happy with a presentation. If you add on my emotional baggage of not being listened to in previous work roles, and the fact that accessibility is an extremely personal issue to me, I now need some recovery time.

In the lead up to this first presentation, I was scared of the hypothetical scenario where my audience would nod, smile and pat me on the head for presenting my graduate passion project, but do nothing with what I’ve told them. Fortunately, the team lead is on my side with accessibility. She said that, whatever happens, the people I present to will learn something from my presentation. She also suggested that I follow up with the team in 6 month’s time to see how things have progressed. Everything is going according to plan, so I can relax now.

The other major thing I’ve experienced this week is psychological safety workshops. Wikipedia defines psychological safety as this:

Psychological safety is being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career. It can be defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected.

Wikipedia

My favourite colleague has to do a communications challenge thing with the team as part of some leadership training she’s doing at work. She chose to run psychological safety workshops because she, like me, felt quite demotivated at work a while back and hadn’t known how to deal with it.

I was all for these workshops, but I wasn’t expecting to have such a strong emotional response to them. At the start of the first workshop, I was hit by the combined shock of “my feelings are valid on a Google-did-research-about-this level” and the fact that I would next have to actually talk about said feelings. I went off-camera to cry for a bit and then had to sheepishly admit to the group via the group chat that I was having quite an emotional reaction to psychological safety, because psychological safety.

I default to bottling things up, so the idea of coming clean in this session with my colleagues was a tad terrifying, especially when I’m not good at understanding or articulating my feelings on the fly. There’s a reason why I write this shit down, but the sessions were good I think. They were a nice way to break down barriers and get a sense of how we each prefer to operate, but dear GOD I have a lot of work baggage. I mean, we all have some and I knew mine was there, but it felt like every single answer I gave to a question stemmed from that work baggage.

The sessions left me feeling a little raw in a similar way to how I remember feeling after therapy. I was trying hard to be emotionally honest, because I felt like I’d be letting the team down if I wasn’t, but there were some things I simply couldn’t tell them in the moment. For example: I vent to my parents, friends outside of work, and fellow grads because it feels safer than venting to my team. Grads in particular can relate to my grad struggles. If I want to vent about work, I’m often venting about people on the team or our approach to things. I cannot do that type of venting to the team itself without jeopardising professional relationships (Lily keeps saying that we’re all friends on this team but that makes shit ten times harder for me. That means that I’m leaving my friends as well as my placement company in May) and putting my team members in awkward positions. Also, as soon as you vent to someone it colours their professional perception of you. I’m very aware of how that might hurt me at the start of my career.

I was more honest with them than I normally am though. At the end of the final session we were talking about next steps and how we’d found the workshops, so I asked whether it really matters what I think when I’m leaving in May (the collective verdict was that it does matter). It was fucking scary saying that thought out loud, and I couldn’t get myself to articulate the full length of it, but I did say it. For me, that’s progress. My favourite colleague messaged me afterwards to ask how I was doing, so I ended up properly venting to her in writing. I have now finally told someone at work that I feel like there’s an expiration date on half of the relationships I’ve spent the last few months forming. She was reasonably reassuring about it.

So, that was last week. This week I’m in Germany with the rents. Happy holidays people!

Listing Out My Future

It’s been a busy week. The table event happened, I met up with almost all of my old high school friends in one go, and I’ve just returned from staying with one of them for a few days. I feel tired but invigorated.

I cannot emphasise how much I needed that bout of non-familial socialness. It was lovely to catch up with my friends; one of them pointed out that I could live somewhere with an easier commute, instead of choosing to live in the city I don’t like that much!

Every now and then I did get hit by the “oh fuck I’m not adulting fast enough or well enough” panic, but I’m generally self-aware enough to pull myself out of it. I know that I shouldn’t compare myself to people with different goals and lives to me, and I know my friends well enough to know that we all have our insecurities. Even strangers who look like they’re on top of the world have their insecurities. It’s a very human thing. The important part of it is that I’m moving at a pace which works for me. That’s good enough.

Chilling in a city for a few days with someone I’ve known since nursery school was nice. I needed to get out of the hometown bubble and, even though I only did that for a few days, it was well worth the wait. My sleep schedule is more manageable now and I actually have a vague plan/list of things to do tomorrow when I feel more awake (a lawnmower wouldn’t shut up at an awkward time this morning).

1. Go on a charity shop crawl.
2. Figure out what number I have to call to reschedule my second Covid jab, and call it.
3. Attempt to get a train ticket refund.
4. Force the motherfucking train people to send me my motherfucking railcard that should have arrived last week.
5. Make plans to explore potential commuter towns I could maybe live in.

Those are a few things from my list (the full thing isn’t worth reiterating on here).

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to lately in case anyone was wondering.

Things

Things are a bit weird at the moment: it’s just me and dad at home, I’m remotely nudging my brother into getting his uni shit together, grandpa’s gonna die soon, I’m still on the UX job hunt, and the UK’s second lockdown has fucked my birthday plans. But it’s fine. This is the way things are now and I’m as fine as I’m ever going to feel about it.

The birthday thing is a bit annoying. Normally I don’t know what I want, but this year I figured out something a little more special than watching a film and eating something nice. I was gonna go to a nearby city and buy myself a new electro-acoustic guitar. I was going to find one that was easier on my arms and sounded beautiful. I think dad was going to pay for it, even though I can technically afford the dent in my bank account (the only things I currently spend money on are charity donations, my phone bill, books, and presents for people). I can’t do any of that now.

It’s fine. I’ll buy myself an annual Masterclass pass and learn storytelling stuff from Neil Gaiman for 17 hours straight. That’s been on my to do list for a while now.

Also, dad casually mentioned having a backup plan. I was so fucking shocked that I didn’t know how to respond. I keep wondering if I misheard a pronoun in the sentence somewhere; maybe he was saying that I should have a back up plan, instead of him already having one for this kinda situation. I am trying not to get my hopes up about anything at the moment (hope seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to cultivate right now) but damn if they’re not rising.

So that’s my birthday maybe sorted?

I have no idea what Christmas is going to look like what with family stuff and the current global situation. Christmas is also in the future. I’m trying not to look too far ahead of where I am now because I’m an anxious enough person without imagining those worst case scenarios. It’s better to focus on the present.

I stopped bullet journalling a while back because it felt like organisational overkill, but it definitely got one thing right: focus on doing things that meet your values. Am I doing that?

My values are: caring about people, enjoying my hobbies, and doing work well. I’m currently brother wrangling, have recently joined a UX volunteer thing, am learning as much as I physically can about diversity and inclusion, am applying to UX jobs, am going to UX meetups in an attempt to network, am doing my transcription work adequately enough, and have done a lot of binge-reading YA to de-stress (which I guess could be counted as a hobby?). My focus is primarily split between caring and working, which leaves little time for the hobbying – that’s probably why I keep buying new books for my Kindle at 1am.

Anyway, my birthday is coming up and I already decided that I want to make November my AI month (for NaNoGenMo reasons. Google it). All this means is that it’s time to up the hobby aspect of my life. Then I can have just as much isolation fun as I do isolation stress (hopefully more fun than stress)!

That’s the goal. Let’s see if I can get there.

The Brother Whisperer

It’s been a weird day. Hell, it’s been an uncomfortable week.

I’ve been getting into the swing of applying for things again, fuelled by the excitement of last week’s UX conference. This means that I’ve spent most of this week psyching myself up to get rejected by various hiring managers and algorithms. I knew it would happen. I know this is how the job hunt works. I’m not gonna stop, but it still stings.

I can’t talk to dad about it. He keeps giving me random practical career advice like “Have you ever thought about moving to another country?”. Um, what? In the current fucking climate?! No. Not in the current climate? Ha, also no. I’m good enough at isolating myself without the added cultural barrier, thank you very much.

He was trying to make the point that being able to relocate at the drop of a hat is something I can use to sell myself to employers. I’m not tied down by anything at this stage of my life. He meant well, but I really wasn’t in the mood for unsolicited career advice after having spent most of the week carefully prepping/panicking for an immersive online assessment, spending 3 hours doing said assessment (shut up, I wanted to be meticulous), and getting promptly rejected by an algorithm. On the upside, at least I’ll get detailed feedback for this application, unlike every other application I’ve submitted over the last few months.

I’M NOT UNEMPLOYED, for the record. I’m self-employed. I am trying my hardest to become “employed” in the traditional sense, but that’s going to take time in the current climate with my skillset. I want to scream that at people sometimes. I am literally doing all that I can to become employed but it never feels like enough.

Dad probably thinks it’s weird that I’m still living at home. It only took him 9 months to find a job after graduation. I’ve got more qualifications and better grades than him, but times have fucking changed since then. Also, we’re in the midst of a fucking global pandemic.

I had another surreal moment today where dad asked for my advice on an email he wanted to send to my brother. I added 3 paragraphs in and, to be honest, I would’ve changed the tone of the entire email if I’d written the damn thing myself. It was so negatively framed that I knew all it was going to do was freak my brother out. That’s a bad result in my opinion, especially when said brother has this whole thing about being a burden. I prefer pointing out what he can do to help himself instead of forcing him to consider the scary consequences of everything.

For the sake of context, my brother’s current situation is this:

• He failed a resit for one of his first year modules at university.
• Because it was a core module, he has to redo first year.
• He is only allowed to do that one module. This module starts in semester 2.
• This means that the entirety of his academic year will consist of weekly personal tutor tutorials, that one module (when he finally hits semester 2), and nothing else.
• It’s bullshit.

In retrospect, the email felt a lot like victim-blaming my brother for the weird-ass decisions of a shitty institution. I couldn’t recognise that until I explained the situation to my fashion friend, who was also enraged on my brother’s behalf.

So I messaged my brother, talked to dad again, and am starting to iron things out as best I can. My angle is this: I want my brother to have an enjoyable university experience in which he doesn’t experience feelings of suicidal ideation (unlike mum, and/or the cousin that actually went through with the whole suicide thing). Dad wants him to have a worthwhile experience from an employability perspective. He wants my brother to get his money’s worth, which I guess makes sense since our parents are financing ny brother’s university experience alongside the government.

Ugh. The money thing. Dad keeps on saying that the money he and mum give my brother for uni is my brother’s money to use as he sees fit, but dad also gets judgy whenever my brother doesn’t use said money the way he’d like him to. I’m just sitting there like “So which is it huh? His money or yours?”. I’ve pointed out the hypocrisy a few times but maybe next time I’ll be more explicit.

Personally, I don’t give a fuck whether uni makes my brother more employable and I doubt that he does either. I didn’t know what I wanted to get out of my degree. Even people who do know can have a complete change of heart after graduation. Your degree doesn’t have to predict your life. Maybe it does for some people, but not for everyone. Shit happens, y’know? Frankly, I care about whether my brother’s having a decent life experience or not. That’s it. I want him to enjoy his course over 50% of the time on average, if that course is what he wants to do right now.

Since I am reluctantly what I’m starting to call “the brother whisperer”, I think we might be getting somewhere. I was able to determine that he just wants to get on with his course and hang out with his mates, but is realising that it’s not that simple. I pointed out to him, perhaps more firmly than usual, that he has to hold the university to account for the current shittiness if he’s going to do that. He’s going to email his tutor tomorrow and report back.

And if the tutor bullshits him? Well, I’m sure I can root out the relevant number to call. Mum’s busy caring for her parents and dad doesn’t like to stir up shit, but me? Oooh you negatively impact my brother’s wellbeing and I will fucking come for you.

Dad doesn’t think it’ll come to that. I disagree, but I hope he’s right. Being the bolshy family member will probably mean more coming from an actual parent, and I’m not overly fond of phonecalls.

I’ll do it if I have to, though.

Right. That’s it. Tomorrow is going to be a fucking recalibration day.

A Potential Fix

Turns out that a 2+ hour walk (half exploratory, half going to the “local” train station to pick up train tickets) is a good way to deal with feelings. What I mean by this, is that it’s bedtime and I’m calm. I’m going to start trying for sleep at 2am, and my low-key worry about the stranger I have to interview tomorrow has yet to fully return.

Or maybe I’m less panicky because I’ve finally recovered from 2 weeks of on-and-off overthinking family stuff.

Or maybe it’s because I tried to do minimal work this weekend.

Perhaps it’s a combination of things. I dunno. But it sure feels nice and I want to replicate this feeling for future bedtimes.

When I’m stressed, there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t want to do. The list includes but is not limited to: sleep (to be honest I’m not a big fan of sleep either way, but I am more tolerant of it when less stressed), social interaction, watching films, reading things (including emails), and so on.

Today I wanted to binge watch something. I have no idea what I want to watch, or if I’ll be able to watch it like a normal person (sometimes I have to watch stuff with subtitles on and the sound turned off because I’m too on edge to handle audio that evokes emotion), but I do want to watch something!

Technically I can watch some stuff, like enjoyably sarcastic YouTuber film critiques, but it can be difficult to watch anything more than that in the company of fellow humans sometimes. I need a way to hide if I start bawling (to be fair though I think I have mastered the art of silent crying. Having long hair helps), and the option to flee the room if something starts to feel too intense. I can’t handle intense right now.

Trying to maintain the general aura of “I’m not freaking out” can be a bit much for casual viewing with the family, and I know that watching things in a way that makes me comfortable will irritate anyone else (I stop and start things a lot). This reduces my family viewing options down to not much. Either it has to be a kid’s cartoon, or it has to be the kind of thing where I don’t invest heavily enough in the characters to feel for them (difficult when characters are my favourite part of any story).

But maybe now that I want to read blog posts and find TV shows to binge again, it’ll be easier? That’s what I hope, at any rate.

Sleep, Death and Socialising

Sleep has been kinda difficult lately. I know it’s a stress/anxiety thing (it always is) but that doesn’t mean I know what to do about it. I only try deep breathing exercises if I’m at my wit’s end because, most of the time, I don’t have the patience for them. Patience is one of those things I should try to cultivate more of but, again, I don’t know how.

The only thing that seems to reliably fix my sleep schedule is having an important thing I need to get up early in the morning for. A thing that resets my body clock. I don’t have that right now and, with the way my job hunt’s going, it might be a while before I do.

The persistence of family visits lately has essentially meant that I haven’t bothered to apply to any new UX jobs. It’s too difficult to force myself into applying for stuff I don’t think I’m qualified for on top of trying to be sociable with relatives I don’t know that well, beating myself up for not being sociable enough (even though I know I’m the only person who’s bothered by it), and then beating myself up for beating myself up about my perfectionist standards because self-compassion is really not my strong suit.

Plus I’ve had some super depressing transcription work to do lately. I don’t like transcribing crying interviewees on the best of days, but trying to explain a particular bit of work to my uncle made me recognise the uncomfortable parallels between the transcription and some of my own family dynamics.

It was the kind of transcription that made me want to find my brother, hug him and remind him that he doesn’t get to die without my explicit permission (he’s at uni so I can’t do that right now; virtual hugs aren’t the same). A side effect of transcribing murder documentaries, for me at least, is that you start thinking of family interactions in terms of “Will I regret this if they die tomorrow?”; the likelihood of relatives dying in the present climate is not reassuring me.

Grandpa’s definitely on his way out. He knows it to the point of methodically gifting away his stuff whenever we visit, not that we can visit now. He’s had a long life and survived a lot of things; part of me is faintly curious about what will eventually pick him off.

After grandpa inevitably dies, it’s only a matter of time before other relatives follow. Mum’s brothers are all older than her, with the exception of her step-brother, and I think my dad’s sister is older than him. My paternal grandparents both died relatively young from sudden heart attacks, which went on to inspire my dad’s mid-life crisis (I’ve genuinely used said crisis as an example in the past to reassure my guitar teacher that he’s handling middle age fine), but dad’s still here. No one I’m particularly close to has died yet, so I’m sorta waiting for it to happen.

God transcription makes me morbid.

But I have my creative projects so not all is lost. In fact, I’ve even hesitantly suggested doing a creative collab with my polymath friend, partly because I need the creative help sorting out my podcast and partly because I wanted an excuse to meet up with her.

It’s kinda silly that I came up with an excuse. I don’t need one. She’s my friend and I could just suggest meeting up in town for a milkshake and a chat, but we haven’t met up in a while and sometimes it’s easier to talk to people when you’re working on something together. Also, I reckon she’s a good collaborator choice for this particular project.

She hasn’t seen my collab messages yet. She’s a busy polymath and doesn’t always do timely responses. That’s fine but. You know. Sometimes it feels like shouting into the ether. Except I’m not shouting; I’m just trying to talk to someone and failing miserably. If she’s not down for the collab thing then I will suggest a milkshake meetup like old times because I am way more isolated than I need to be right now.

Another meetup option is my guitar teacher, who’s back to teaching in schools again (he was not a fan of the remote teaching set up for several very understandable reasons). He teaches at my old primary school a 5 minute walk away from my home and has actively suggested meeting up. I should probably pounce on that opportunity.

Isolation is strange. Or maybe I’m just strange. The idea of going out to meet up with people feels like such an effort now, since I’ve grown used to whatever this is. But going out and meeting up with people is necessary if I don’t want to become a complete hermit. I should seize my chances before the next lockdown gets introduced.

Various parts of the country that my family reside in have already been locked down for a second time. It makes me nervous about my upcoming trip to see uni friends. The trip is only a month away now but what if covid shuts that down too? Will I ever get to see my uni friends in person again?

My fingers are crossed and my hopes are, as usual, about as low as I can get them. It’s difficult to disappoint a pessimist.

But anyway, it’s 4am so I should stop writing now and focus on not becoming nocturnal.