Closing Out the Year
Christmas is over and the new year is looming ahead. This seems like a good time to catch everyone up and to reflect on the year as a whole. First and foremost, I am well. Don’t get me wrong, I can feel myself sinking into a depressed state, and my anxiety is even more out of control than usual…but I am healthy, relatively happy, loved, and safe. Those are the things that really matter most.
I have given up on all dating sites except for eHarmony (my subscription doesn’t end until April 24, 2021….I don’t think I will be renewing) and Facebook. I stopped my Facebook dating profile for about a month because I felt I was turning into a judgy jerk. That’s not who I am. My leaving of FB dating was hastened when someone I knew several years ago matched with me and was….more interested than I wanted. I hope he has grown up a lot since I knew him, but he had some narcissistic tendencies, and I’m not willing to risk him not having changed. Narcissist + Empath = Recipe for Disaster. He “liked” with me again when I rejoined and I blocked him. Sorry, dude 🙁).
The only good thing to come out of eHarmony so far has been making friends with a nice guy who lives in Europe. Before you go trying to warn me about that situation, yes….I’m sure he’s a real person, we video chatted….messaging hours check out for where he says he lives, and I am going to stress the word FRIEND again. My empath intuition says he isn’t really interested in me beyond friends, and that’s okay. He is nice, friendly, easy to talk to, and tells great stories. Exactly the kind of person I want to be friends with. If my intuition is wrong and he’s just….hard to read….we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, I am content with friendship.
Since my last dating related post, I have interacted with three more catfishers and two more super creepy dudes. It always makes me laugh when they realize that I am on to them….and when I stand up for myself. My girlfriends and I talk about how men judge me and expect me to be needy, gullible, and desperate. They always seem shocked to find that I am intelligent, I’m confident, I love myself, andI am sassy to boot. They also don’t know that my empathic abilities tell me pretty early on when someone isn’t honest with me. Unfortunately, due to my investigatory nature and inherent desire to believe that people aren’t what I think they are…my brain always wants to see just how long they can keep their charade up… Curse my need to understand what makes people tick!
Okay, I think we have sufficiently covered the dating topic. Let’s move on to my new “hobby”……TikTok. I talked about this a little bit in my last post, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I honestly think that TikTok has saved me a little. Watching people’s videos, leaving them uplifting comments, feeling like I’m having some sort of human interaction….it has made my life seem more full and less lonely. I look forward to seeing what my new friends are up to. I’ve met some people that I have bonded with. I’ve gained more self-confidence. It’s nice to be able to make videos and be myself. If other people don’t like it, they can just keep scrolling.
I’ve made a LOT of videos since that first one. Most recently I have been posting a daily tea review of tea by Witches Tea Flint. I have loved all of the teas so far, with only one being kind of iffy. The owner of the tea shop is one of the people that I have also come to cherish on TikTok. She is wonderful. Another one of my favorite people writes poetry and does spoken word videos on her page. She has been through some PTSD, and her poems make me and my CPTSD feel like we aren’t alone in the world. My last favoritest favorite (I have more favorites) is a Gen Xer from Canada. Her positive vibes are so infectious. I love watching her videos and feeling the endorphins they give me.
So, to reflect on the year. 2020 has been a dumpster fire….and what’s sad is it has been that way for pretty much everyone. COVID-19 is still here. There is a new vaccine out that some people have already taken. I am leary of it….not because I don’t want to take it….but because I usually end up with the weird side effects of drugs and vaccines and there hasn’t been sufficient testing to find all of the effects yet. When the time comes, I’ll do whatever feels right. My dissertation finally had some movement. I am hopeful that I will get to move on to my Institutional Review Board review in the coming quarter and hopefully get to start my research. Fingers crossed. I got a nose piercing for myself for Christmas. I think it suits me and I kind of feel like it has always been a part of me, you just couldn’t see it until now.
Anyhow, I suppose that is enough babbling for today. I hope you are safe and well. I hope that your holidays (whatever you may celebrate) have been safe, happy, and filled with love. Until next time: be kind, keep your chin up, and remember that you are enough. Much love.
