I Feel Good? & Internet Retrospective

05 Sep, 2025

It's been a little over two weeks since I got back home after staying away for 3 months. It doesn't sound like much, but it was the whole of winter here and in a very different place, surrounded by a very different type of people.

I left feeling scared, insecure, shaken, and doubting everything in my life--from the professional to the personal. I don't think I came back super different, and maybe this is the new dosage of the meds speaking, but I don't feel as distraught as when I left. I'm finding that things that used to really bother me are... ok now. It's like I'm almost at peace with my surroundings, which is a novel feeling.

The struggles are the same, but I don't feel hopeless anymore. I can say that I like the life I built for myself here. My cats, my partner, our little office nooks around the house. It still needs work, but that's just life.

I also realized something this week, and I hope I don't jinx myself but: on October 14th this blog will be 1 year old. Which sounds like nothing in internet years (or IRL years) but it's a huge fucking milestone for me, a known inconsistent, dropout, leave-things-half-finished, writer-who-hasn't-written-anything-in-over-a-year ADHD person. The only thing I do more than start a new project is dump it (you'd think mathematically this wouldn't be possible, but it is).

I feel immensely proud of it. The fact I'm still blogging? Which means writing? For a whole entire year? Mindboggling.

It was around the same time I started crafting The Pixeliana and using Listography. Other two things I thought I'd leave behind and feel bad about. But nope. My Listo is alive and kicking (and I'm so proud of it!), and my website--though not updated every single month--is still going and I still got things I'm (actively) working on to put there. They were the main things I was excited about a year ago and they still are... which is insane to me, considering my history with Doing Stuff.

Of course I didn't keep up with everything I wanted to--I haven't logged in on my Pixel Cat's End account for months now, even though I think about it constantly. The whole PCE vibe/aesthetic speaks to me in an almost spiritual way (and weirdly, this isn't a hyperbole)... which I cannot explain tbh, but at the same time I'm reticent of going back to it because... what? I don't know.

And then there's also the Bookbug Club that really didn't work for me, and The StoryGraph. That last one though I remember thinking it wasn't going to stick. There's something about it that is off-putting to me. The website feels so... sterile. I liked Goodreads with its many columns of content and different tools to create community interaction -- lists, message boards, DMs, challenges, news, interviews, polls, etc. In comparison, The StoryGraph is a dead wasteland with its minimalist aesthetic. I guess that's why I ended up pivoting to LibraryThing.

Other than that, I really wish I could interact again on the 32Bit Café message board. This one's a bit of a mystery to me. I really like the vibes, I log in, read stuff... but stopped interacting there. It may be my social exhaustion. My feeling of not belonging. Who knows.

But overall, I feel good about stuff in general. Not work, that is still an absolute pit of despair at this point, but... I can be content with other things, can't I?

God, I hope this isn't just the meds talking.

Updates

• Listening: the sounds of the street, the rain falling.
• Watching: A LOT of Dropout.tv. And I just finished with Buffy, now on to Angel.
• Reading: Absolution still, what can I say.
• Playing: Outlanders 2; the addiction is real, y'all.
• Thinking: It's September but it's still cold, like winter hasn't left yet. Weird.
• Other updates: Got some lists from Listo up on my website now. One of my besties is in China now. CHINA. The time zone is crazy. Today is my flatmate's bday, there's good food in the horizon. My partner got into the Masters program he wanted! It's Math but nobody's perfect I guess. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯

#blog #eng #internet #life