another weirdly half-victorious day:

Relapse didn't cross my mind til about eight minutes after midnight which means I went almost a whole day without thinking about it. That's something. That's one Friday, but I'll take it.

Insulting language didn't show up til 5.30pm which is actually huge. It made me notice it more AND it seemed more absurd and dismissable instead of par and worth steeping in.

Phantom hands only showed up for about ten minutes just before 7pm and started again just before going to bed but they're stupid (read: not something I can actually control but their absense makes a day better).

In a different column, yesterday was the first day I felt truly like I was a staff member, that I had a place among my coworkers. It was a thing where I was being myself, I was relaxed, and I was included. Just amazing. What a feeling.

In fact, for big chunks of yesterday I was feeling exactly like myself, like a self I recognise but also a self I haven't grown into. Yes, yesterday felt rather growsome. It is possible that I spent more than half of my day feeling unburdened. Baggage-free. It's not accurate but it's a break and I'll gladly take it. I will take the rest when it's here and I will take the crash when it comes.

With some fancy brand of immaculate wisdom, a friend recently suggested that I may learn to be happy just like I've learned to cry these past few months. The first time tears tried to come I stopped them up and very soon deeply regretted it. Then I was given more opporunities and made the better choice, and I built the skill (if I can put it that way).

Since I thwarted my prolongued happiness two weeks ago, I've been waiting for re-presented opportunities to make the better choice now that I know what's better. There have been a few opps and I have been practicing and yesterday I didn't even have to think about not thwarting. I simply was who/how [anagram] I was and it was fine. It was fine. I was fine. It was a good day. I saw my different-ness reflected in other people's responses to me. 

It was kinda neat. In my baggage-free, I-am-Jesskah, laughing-smiling, calm-present moments, I felt alive in a funny way. I felt distinctly centred. Now that I think about it, I'm probably describing just one moment in my day but there were a few close runners-up. Excitedly discussing Isaiah and non-Bible books, work, life, and funny things, I felt like just one person and it was glorious. I know her (partially) and I kind of like her. I think I subconsciously wished for gravity boots to keep me from floating away in elation because I was just one me, centred, balanced, OK, happy, fine. For fifteen minutes out of my day, I'm grateful. 

I felt present and alert and lighter. That's another marker of a pseudo-victorious day: I did not nap nor feel the urge to nap for the first time in months. It will be nice to fully wake up, I suspect.

And if a month of blackened skies is what begins today, I will take it. A day of rest from what has felt rest-less since approximately the 13th of October makes me feel fuelled to do another six months in the dark. I know that's easy to say right now but I said it.