Recent days have been difficult. The vague cloud of ominousness that I call my anxiety disorder has changed tactics on me and it has me taking cover during a time I'd usually be pushing my line forward.

I've mentioned before that it might be ulcers linked to some kind of histamine intolerance which sometimes can develop after gallbladder removal, since there is physical pain I feel in my guts more often than I used to as well as antihistamines providing a palpable sense of relief. But I'm not so certain.

My workouts aren't as reliable in subsiding the anxiety as they used to be, but even that isn't uniform. Some days even doing a hardcore workout has a middling effect whereas other days a mild amount of strain releases a horde of endorphins. And then the next day I find myself in a sunken moment.

I also managed to catch a cold this week and that always carries a good depression slump with it, even before I have any symptoms.

I woke up yesterday in a bit of a slump and popped open Reddit, which I know is a mistake. I saw a post about character tropes, specifically about "characters who had horrific things happen to them and deserved every minute of it" with the prime example being Griffith from Berserk.

I wondered if I deserved the darkest parts of my past in that moment. Of course, I haven't done anything on par with Griffith, and I don't see myself making such vile choices as he ends up making, even with the hurt I carry in myself some days.

I had my self hatred on the run not too long ago, not sure how it's caught up with me. Though y'know, progress through life isn't always linear. I knew I'd backslide like I had a dozen times before and I'd have to push through again.

I wonder if it feels like the first time every time. I wonder if I wonder that every time.

So I went for a run. I've probably mentioned it before but there's a lovely bike trail through a forested wetland that runs along a river only about a stone's throw from my back porch. I walk there with Caitlin once a week and run through it at least twice more in that time and often visit it with my other friends and sometimes just by myself.

It's my favorite place in Columbus. This time of year, its lush with greenery. The deer are out in force, the raccoons climb trees and watch passersby, birds of just about every stripe flock en masse.

Whenever I run, it's usually a rocky start but soon my lungs and my legs start cooperating and working in tandem. My Dad always insisted on me trying to do my runs completely breathing in and out exclusively from my nose. When it's humid that becomes a challenge but I do like to think I look pretty stoic when I manage it. I can't help but hold a smile when I realize I will be able to do the entire run. Other runners wave and smile back as we pass. Sometimes I see folks I know.

On my run yesterday I thought about Ursula K. Le Guin's words in the Dispossessed (1974) which I admittedly haven't read yet:

"Speak not of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think"

I try to live by that. What we deserve and what we don't is meaningless or at least unproductive to think about. One person might condemn another that would be elevated by another for the same reasons. We live in an era where kindness is spoken of in increasingly hostile tones. I've sat with the moderately downtrodden who blame the extremely downtrodden for their troubles, and with the mildly well off who condemn the moderately well off for their modest fortunes. It seems that any of us can find the sin in each other if we look hard enough.

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that we can find the sin in ourselves and use it to chip away at ourselves with ease.

If the world inflicted suffering on me, my deserving has little to do with that. The world hurls its slings and arrows with outrageous fortune because it can. If I find myself inflicting suffering upon myself, my deserving of it is so skewed by my proximity that it is meaningless as well. I do it because I can.

But I can inflict other things on myself. Joys, wonders, gifts. I'm a big believer that you get what you give and ultimately that we have to remember to give ourselves grace.

My runs through the woods on sunny days are a great gift. On days the hurt of the past catches up to me, I find there's a lot of joy in the present to indulge in. Have you checked out Spider-Noir (2026) yet? It's really good, Nic Cage is at his best thriving in an environment of just plain weird.

One of my big joys is bacon. Aldi sells this thick-cut peppercorn bacon that I adore. I'm a big fan of breakfast for dinner, which some folks say suits me for some reason.

This morning I wasn't keen on going to my job. The turning of the world and the shining of the sun were a lot more real and it seems a waste to miss them while in a windowless room tending to the machines that keep everything going like a morlock. I wonder if the morlocks of the far future take joy in eating the eloi.

But here I am, writing posts and listening to songs from simpler moments. Modest Mouse rambling about death always takes me back to dry days in the desert, wondering if I would ever figure out how to stop wasting my life.

I guess I'm wondering that now. Then again, time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted. Life is meant to be lived, and you live it even when you rest, even when you laze about. Even when you lament dark days.

So I'll have to figure out how to get my dark clouds wrangled once more. I'll probably have to figure it out again and again.

A very long time ago, someone I didn't know how to love asked me to have kids. I told her I couldn't do it 'cause I hadn't grown up enough to be an adult that could do right by them. She asked me when I'd be ready and I told her when I was 40, the age my folks were when they had me. I imagined I'd be an adult by then, even though I could never imagine a single day ahead of me let alone the abyss of years.

Well here I am, at the appointed time and I'm as clueless as I ever was. I'm kinder now. Stronger. But if anything I'm just more conscious of how much I don't know about the world I live in, much less how to navigate it.

I know you're all eager to tell me the concept of adulthood doesn't exist or is diluted by late stage capitalism or was always bullshit or we all go at our own pace. I was there when the generation before me told me the same thing.

It feels like I missed a dance step at some point. Like I've lost my rhythm and now I've gotta run to get even. Sometimes it feels like there's some ceremony everyone undergoes to become a human being and somewhere along the lines I got lost and never showed up.

I'm guessing most folks feel this way. Was there some award I was supposed to get and just missed?

Or was it always just that we get what we give, and I've spent so much time giving myself pity? Should I pretend I never did that?

Is that how we move on? Is the only way forward to fake it 'til we make it? Pretend we're in the next moment until we actually are? There's something about that that feels so dishonest.

Well, maybe it's time I moved on from this train of thought at least. My gut is holding an uneasy truce with my nerves at the moment. Might just be that tonight will be best served with a long sleep and a prayer that my dreams will lead me to a better tomorrow.