I guess I'm having some despair.

So aside from *it all*, I've been having some upper back pain for the last week or so. It keeps ebbing and flowing. It feels like the time I bruised my ribcage, sternum, and collar bone. It's a sorta dull ache that comes and goes without a clear pattern.

I moved a bunch of old furniture that the previous occupants of my house left in the basement. I ended up pretty dinged up from it all, and I wonder if perhaps I hurt myself. At the same time, my Mom is reporting a flu with similar kinds of aches and pains. I don't feel sick, but I have had a very mild cough.

It's making things a little hard on me. I've had some knee pain for the past year or so that's made it hard to do my daily running, necessitating me doing the elliptical. The building pains just kinda makes me paranoid that my body is falling apart, even though I'm in the best shape I've ever been in.

A random tumblr post suggested some things to help my mood. Making myself cry is one that I'll probably need to do at some point. Spoilers for some media follow.

One of my go-to things for crying is the end of the show, David the Gnome. The show is all about the doings of a gnome (named David) in this beautiful forest of wonders. The last episode deals with David and his wife realizing that their lives have come to their ends and so they set out to a beautiful field where they reaffirm their love for each other and turn into trees, where their spirits are seen dancing with one another in the leaves.

Ugh, I'm tearing up just thinking about it. But it doesn't always do the trick, so when it comes to needing some waterwork catharsis during a tear shortage, I go to the movie Big Fish. It's Tim Burton's best work to me, taking his whimsy and unleashing it in an oddly grounded fashion, focusing on the stories and the epics we have about our parents, and instead of tearing it down to show a normal human underneath, reconstructs the epic story about your parents.

At the end of the movie, the main character is shown taken to a big river where all the amazing people he's ever loved are there, happy to see him, and he's placed into the river where he becomes a big fish and swims away. Afterwards his funeral is shown. It makes sense in context. And again, getting myself really teary haha

Being a morlock at my company in a locked windowless room has the advantage of liberal crying opportunities. But there are other things.

A little sugary treat from the shitty vending machine type deal here at my company often cheers me up. Gotta be careful not to end up living on it though. It was real easy to let it dominate my diet during the height of the pandemic when worry was plentiful and cheap sugar moreso. I never see mint kitkats in the wild, and now that they aren't here anymore I've lost a considerable amount of weight.

And of course, there is the desperate option: the gratitude journal. Y'know, where you write down any little thing you enjoyed recently that lets you know life is great or something.

Last night one of my dearest friends invited me to a swing dancing community thing. I hadn't danced in a very long time, and hadn't done swing since college a decade ago, but I figured it might be nice to go out and meet new folks.

I danced with this really pretty person who I followed and she made it super fun, like one of the best dances I ever had a chance to do. I had a hard time "vibing" back in college, and it's a lot easier to do now, so even though I didn't remember much about what I'd learned back in the day, I knew enough to vibe with the music and her signals. I guess a weed gummy didn't hurt for this haha

My birthday is coming up, going to have folks over on saturday night, good ol' International Jacob Day. It's been hard to stay present lately, but I do like to be here for my birthday.

And it is hard, it always feels hard. To be here now. Being present is something that has always confounded me, but sometimes, once in a while, I find my way through. The moments are fleeting, but being able to see the world with wonder and hope and reach out and touch it- it's all too beautiful for me, it feels.

I do feel like I'd rather shut myself away for a few days, let my muscles heal if they will. Just get high and look out the window and hope that when I get up I'll be better again.

But y'know how it goes, promises to keep and all that noise.