Judy2

*and now i'm almost happy again, for a few moments, here and there. my luggage has also been found and will hopefully be sent to me, which is a huge relief.

...................................................................................

okay, that sounds good.

i met someone at a hostel two weeks ago and we had a few conversations. we didn't exchange numbers, but i liked him and he was very charismatic. found him online and i am wondering if it would be weird to reach out to him? he's a little older than me, so maybe he'd find it weird if i leech onto him like that.

i feel a lot better, though, now that i am back in my apartment. having been away gives me a whole new appreciation for having my own place that is comfortable and that largely reflects my own aesthetic preferances. my parents stopped by briefly and we managed to stand each other surprisingly well for those three hours. at my request, they left me a colourful glass sphere that used to belong to my late grandmother. they are selling the house and this is one of the objects i remember being fascinated by as a child, even though they seem to have barely noticed it when it sat on my grandparents' living room table. well, it's on my desk now and i'm quite fond of that inheritance♡

and what's my excuse for googling him?

a few years ago, i had zero access to anger. i mostly just felt sad. i feel so angry now, and i can barely stand it. so violated. i want to hurt myself, want to do anything to stop feeling this way. this was such a challenging trip for me, it's something i'd been too scared to do before, and everything went wrong. and then mum thinks she can comfort me by pointing out that i had such a good trip....how would she know? she has no right to judge that. she doesn't even have access to all the information needed to accurately judge that. it's the same old problem, that it's never even acknowledged just how tiny and hurt i can feel. how overwhelmed. this was so stressful, especially the past few days. also a few days in, when my credit card stopped working. i hate myself for going. i should have just stayed home. i knew exactly that i would hate the hostels, the people, the noise, the chaos...i should have just stayed home. i feel so ugly and guilty.

today was one of the worst days i have had in a while, and also the worst airport experience ever. i got up at 1 (could have slept longer but didn't wanna risk it), drove to the airport, and at 4.15am i was told that i wasn't allowed to board my 6.20am plane and should wait until 1pm instead (i should have been home by then). so i hung out at the airport all morning, which was super boring. then two planes, and at 6pm i arrived....but of course i was informed that my luggage is now lost in Amsterdam. i spent around two hours waiting in line, trying to figure out how to fix the situation....and was super overstimulated and overwhelmed at that point. i didn't, but i kind of felt like destroying things, ripping my ticket into pieces and smashing my phone on the ground....because there was little else that i could do to help resolve the situation, and i was so desperate. there was an overwhelming amount of emotional charge that i couldn't really channel elsewhere. it's 10 pm now and i just came home. praying that i'll get my belongings back.

yes, it's a matter of degree and complexity.

animals are also prediction machines. think Pawlow. (when talking about conditioning in my psychology lecture they called this "predictive processing"). maybe even plants are prediction machines. sometimes they orient themselves toward the sun or have circadian rhythms and close their petals at night.

maybe Taylor Swift will announce a pregnancy or something.

i've been contemplating the topic of happiness and while there's been an increase in my baseline level of happiness, generally (but also practically) speaking, i still see some obstacles that i would like to discuss with you. i mean, even when life is good or when we see some improvements, we can still worry about the future, what may go wrong, what may be taken away, what may fail....and if we followed through with that logic, it could technically mean that we can never be happy because there is always a chance that something will go wrong. how do you free yourself from this anxiety? just detach completely? but it's also naive to say that our happiness as human beings isn't tied to certain conditions (health, social bonds, etc.).

very odd question but whenever i see him speaking in a video, i feel like his lips/mouth/teeth look kind of weird? but i don't know what exactly it is that looks so unusual. has anyone noticed this before and could specify?

i need to get this off my chest and hope it won't be used against me by anyone. i have been teaching three sisters French for a couple of weeks, since they switched schools and need to keep up with their peers. i have an undergrad degree in English with French as a secondary subject. the girls' dad pays me cash after the French lessons and is sending me heart emojis all the time. (that combo makes me feel like a prostitute.) more hearts and kisses than i have ever received from any lover. he praises me a lot, touched my back twice when showing me out, but other than that, he hasn't acted inappropriate. he insists on paying for lessons that we had to cancel, and i am hesitant to accept that because usually, no one has ever offered to do that, let alone this amount. he also pays more than any other parents have ever paid me before for tutoring their children. i feel a bit overwhelmed and don't know how to communicate with him. my goal was to hand in a document for my tax report in September (since i also have other students and would like to advertise my private tutoring services more officially), but his response was "don't be like that" and i felt too shy to be more persistent. what do i do? do i just start writing official invoices and present them to him via email, and he'll have to accept that? he's so fond of me for some reason and voluntarily upped the amount he pays me a couple weeks in, so if he thinks i'm so important, he should handle the fact that i want to do this the right way? i think it's just so strange he voluntarily sends me more money all the time.

ok, that sounds doable

i'm not romantically interested in him, if that is what you are asking. i am tutoring his children and like to think that i am a person they can place trust in. he is like 60 or something and has another daughter my age who already has children. the way i see it, he has more of an administrative role but the main focus of my work are the three girls, and i get along well with them and also feel that they deserve the tutoring i can offer. if things escalate further, i think i'll have to make him aware to keep it together for his children's sake. maybe it's stupid to wait to say something unless something worse happens, but i wouldn't know what to say or how to say it now.

@Olaf that's not exactly what the question was, but since i generally agree with what @Emerald said right in the beginning (didn't read everything after that), i thought i would offer a new perspective. my thoughts are that your investment in this topic seems a bit excessive, and that in itself tends to be off-putting. (sorry to be so harsh...i just noticed the amount of posts you start on this topic...) perhaps it's okay for some time to focus on improving at game or pick-up or whatever, but if that's all someone has to offer in terms of "hobbies"? it's okay to spend some time intentionally improving in this area, also in terms of social skills etc., but eventually, in my opinion, it would be wise to move on, actually "have a personality", be a little more self-sufficient. and then, since you have acquired that ability during this prior phase, only approach when it feels truly authentic. i can usually tell when i'm just the warm-up in what is practiced as a sport, vs when someone makes a genuine compliment. *i hope this doesn't sound too mean. it's not meant to sound that way.

last night, i had to sleep at a hostel that was way too loud and busy for my liking, and it didn't feel like a particularly safe place to sleep in. i woke up startled by noises several times, and when i drifted off to sleep again, my dreams reflected the sense of unsafety. i dreamed of a tortoise whose carapace had cracked, and then it had slipped out completely and was lying there, exposed and naked, maybe dying. it felt like a familiar image that i'd dreamed of before....like a threat that had been lingering at the back of my mind for quite some time. my brother has a pet tortoise, so i have actually pondered this before during my waking hours. i remember feeling pity for my tortoise....a bit of guilt, too. maybe it was my fault that its carapace had cracked. then i wondered if i could get to a vet in time to help it heal again. after some time, i was blessed to find myself with a baby in my arms that i nursed, which was quite calming to the both of us. maybe at that point, i was able to allow myself to relax into sleep again.

maybe it would be nice to get in touch with them:) even just a phone call or a dm.

have you got pets, friends, or family that you can spend time with?

@Michal__ is there anything meaningful you can do while you are off from work? anything to be kind to yourself or help you heal?

cool:) how do you feel now?

maybe just start with a few that are easily available to you and see if you get any value out of it?

i was a bit scared that it might be too difficult, because i've attended yoga classes before where i couldn't keep up. but the instructor here is really nice and the pace is quite gentle.

i'm on a yoga retreat this weekend (my first one ever) and so far, it is a surprisingly positive experience.