I've been going to the gym fairly regularly with a friend. So far so good, we're going about twice a week for around two hours a time. I'm considering going more often, maybe by myself, though. I definitely like working out with her (it makes it so much better), but I think that maybe I'd like to go three or four times a week, and I don't think her schedule aligns with mine enough to make that possible.

Tonight we went to a class that the instructor described as "cardio hell"-- and it was... pretty tiring! I regretted eating dinner before going, because I felt a little sick from the exertion at first. Guess an hour and a half wasn't quite enough time to let the food settle. It got better as time went on, though, and I drank a fair amount of water, which maybe helped. After the class, we went to one of the unused classrooms and did some stretches and chatted, which was nice. My friend needed to go home a bit earlier today to work on a paper, so she left once we were done with that. I stayed awhile longer and went on the Stairmaster for ~35 minutes. I set it to burn 350 calories, which covers... one of the four slices of pizza I ate today, just about. >_> The entire pizza was around 2600 calories, and I ate half yesterday and half today... but that was like all my food for the day besides some fruit and a chocolate, so hopefully I won't get fat.

I think I have gained a bit of weight since starting at the gym, because it makes me feel hungrier than usual, and I think to myself, "It's okay if I eat ___. I worked out today!" Dumb reasoning. Considering it took 35 minutes to burn 350 calories, I don't think I can eat nearly as much as I feel like having.

I'm trying to tell myself that it's more about appearance/fitness than weight, though. I think I'd rather be 115 lbs and toned than 110 lbs and squishy. As long as I don't get close to or higher than 120 lbs I'll probably feel okay about things.

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Even though I am exercising somewhat regularly now, I'm not sure if it's helping my mood or not. Some nights I lie awake and feel this intense anxious dread about things, and it's hard to relax and hard to sleep. I'm also still having a hard time getting started with a lot of things, and I feel like my energy levels haven't really improved much overall. It's only been a few weeks, though, so maybe it just takes more time. I do feel more energetic right after exercising, which is part of why I want to try going to the gym more often, but I guess I was hoping I'd have more energy on the days I wasn't going, too. It took me like two days to motivate myself just to walk to the bank (which takes like 15-20 minutes) and make a deposit. >.> I dunno, it's hard sometimes.

There are days when it feels like trying to fight the depression is like trying to keep the tide from coming in by building walls in the sand, and all I have to work with is my hands. It's a really tiring, Sisyphean-seeming endeavor, and I want to give up a lot more than I tell most people. Sometimes it's what my mind jumps to before anything else. I've never successfully given up yet, though, and even though I don't know why at times, I know I have to keep pushing on. It's hard to believe that things will be good sometimes, but so far, acting as if they will be has seemed sufficient for the most part. Can't pay too much heed to the distorted thinking.

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"Money" by The Drums.


I wish I had enough money to buy people I care about presents whenever I felt like it. There are a lot of times where I see something and think "Oh, so and so would love that!" and I wish I could get it for them, but I can't really justify the expense. I like giving people things "just 'cause"... It's a less stressful/difficult way of showing affection or care than outright saying it.

Probably the same principle at work when I give people baked goods. Maybe giving gifts is one of the love languages I'm most comfortable with or something...

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I've been watching Adventure Time. This song is nice, but for some reason it feels sad. Maybe mono no aware.

"Everything Stays"... I'm sure this will be taken down eventually, or maybe soon.

Let's go in the garden
You'll find something waiting
Right there where you left it
Lying upside down
When you finally find it
You'll see how it's faded
The underside is lighter
When you turn it around
Everything stays
Right where you left it
Everything stays
But it still changes
Ever so slightly
Daily and nightly
In little ways
When everything stays

Something about it reminds me of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails.

Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

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Speaking of mono no aware, this story by Ken Liu is worth reading.

And since I'm on the topic of things that don't last, I watched this video this morning before I got up, unfortunately, and I guess it might have colored the rest of my day a bit.

A comment I saw said the title translates to "parakeet won't let his dead spouse go"... but the video is kind of self-explanatory if you watch it. It's not clear if the little guy even knows exactly what's happening, but regardless of whether he understands his girl is dead, it's pretty sad.

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One of the callers I got at the crisis line tonight asked if I had ever been lonely-- constantly, every day, for a long time. I didn't know how to respond to him. We're not supposed to tell the callers about ourselves. He said that he thought if he just had a girlfriend, it would stop. In my head, I said sometimes that's not enough, and you still feel a deeper sense of loneliness that your partner just distracts you from for brief periods of time, but I didn't say anything to him. Eventually, he said "I guess you don't want to answer me."

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I finally wrote up a small statement of purpose and sent it to the professors I asked for letters of recommendation from. I've been paralyzed with anxiety for weeks over that. Literally weeks. Months, even? But it couldn't wait any longer. I need to have those recommendations written, and I need to write the full six page autobiographical essay for the application.

It feels terrible to wake up every day and think about having to write something, and staring at a blank page, and having nothing come out, and feeling guilty, and feeling tired, and feeling like you're not allowed to do anything enjoyable until you finish. That's basically been my life for the past few weeks, excluding my responsibilities outside of the house.

It's been on my mind so much, all day, every day. I go to bed and lie in the darkness and think about it, or I stay up and try to distract myself so I don't have to lie in the dark and think about it. If I could fall asleep more easily I guess I wouldn't stay up so late.

Oddly, I did feel relieved a few days ago, which unfortunately only prompted me to put off writing the brief statement longer. Now that it's written, I... don't feel significantly better? Maybe because I'm not done yet.

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In better(?) news, I got a new babysitting job offer! For $18-20 an hour, which is pretty luxurious compared to the $12 an hour I asked for my current babysitting gig. Gonna be rollin' in dat dough, assuming it works out.

Also, I've been skimming some etiquette guides, and I kind of wish that finishing school was still a normal thing. I feel like there's a lot I could learn from that. Sometimes I just feel entirely ignorant of social etiquette, and it would have been nice to actually go somewhere and be told the right way to do things.

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