Pneity

Today is a big day in my household. My parents (who I live with) are going on a two month long RV trip with some other family. They've been planning this for a year now and today's the day they leave. It's gonna be lonely here with me. There's a lot of mental prep I've been doing to try to acknowledge being alone for that long. I've only ever lived alone once for two months and that was 20 years ago.

Yesterday, I spent a bit of time here and there going upstairs and talking to them. I tried but they were busy preparing. I'm so very bad at being present. Even when my sister came over and said her farewells. She and her son brought ice cream for all of us. I talked a bit and quietly bailed out. I don't enjoy my sister's company. There's bad blood there. We're friendly enough but it just sucks.

My writing so far has been terse because it's all just background for today's events.

Started working at 8 AM. Three people on shift instead of the normal seven. Lucky it's a relatively quiet Monday morning and I was able to cut away on a break at 9:07 or so. Specific time, I know. That's because I got upstairs and my mom was talking to her doctor; they have been screwing her around on her medication for months now and they failed to put in her extended prescriptions for the length of the trip. She cries a lot over stresses like that and I could see it in her eyes.

Talked to Dad for a minute before he got busy elsewhere and I spent some time petting the dog. That dog hates me but I hope to see him again when they all get home. Therein is my biggest concern, really. Not for the dog, though.

My Dad is not in the best health. I've spent the last three years mourning is loss; a loss that hasn't happened yet. He got a bad diagnosis last week and will be undergoing some surgery in August, when they are back from the trip.

I just hope that they make it home safe and sound and the trip was wonderful.

I was giving them hugs and saying my goodbyes since they are leaving in about an hour and I was going to have to return to work. I wanted to spend a few minutes talking casually to them. But Mom was too upset from the pharmacy stuff. Dad was talking to me about the freshly harvested sauerkraut batch he pulled from the crock last night.

Then it all broke loose. My phone started blasting work alerts. I looked at the alerts and they were the exact set of 11 alerts that tell us something severe is happening and our systems were all down. I gave my parents a quick hug and retreated back to work, six minutes early for the end of my break.

Four down system calls on hold. Two regular line calls on hold. Three technicians logged into the queue.

Goodbye, Ma and Pa. Safe travels.

After work today, I was trying to unwind and listen to some music. I cried like a baby. Caught me off guard. I hated that. I don't know what success looks like anymore.

But I'm going to visit friends in Ohio tomorrow. Hoping for better times there.

It's been a week and a half since the folks left the nest. They are crossing the country in an RV with my aunt and her husband. God, what a story that sentence is. In a few years, I want to look back at this part of my life as "that time I thought I felt really isolated" so I can laugh at real hubris. There will be a time they are really gone and I'll probably have fewer friends to help me out.

I've been very busy. This week, work has been absolute hell. We are existing in a time where the company announced that everything we are doing now will be gone at 2-3 times the speed we had ever hoped! But I work in support and my entire skill set is based on what will then be legacy applications. I should be excited but I feel like shit. Even from the perspective of the current software, it's in such a tech debt that I have 8 cases in my name that make me want to jump off a high place when I look at them. I don't know what to do with them either, Manager.

I got two lunch breaks out of five work days. I worked extra hours on each of those missed lunch days, too. Today should feel like a godsend but i stare at this case load and it makes me sick.

But I did get to hang out with a bunch of friends I don't see often. Old roommate is in town for work and he met with us at a bottle shop we used to hang out at all the time. Back when those were my stomping grounds, north of Pittsburgh. I miss those days pretty bad. I felt more free.

Tonight is a baseball game as a quarterly work outing. Another drive into the city. Why does that bring me so much stress? Even worse, the weekend is more stress. Helping a friend move. They say helping people move in your 30s and 40s is an impossible task. I believe it and I don't look forward to it. But it is what it is. It shouldn't be a huge deal. We'll make do.

But even while busy, I haven't had time to take care of myself. I had meals planned, groceries to be cooked already bought. Haven't cooked and I haven't eaten well at all. I haven't had time or energy to get out and get active. It's been raining a lot and has been unseasonably cool. But during the day, it gets hot and swampy. I heard a rumor last night that we've had more rain than the Amazon. Two counties over, across the state border, they had generationally unheard of flash flooding. Ten dead.

If work stops pounding my asshole and the weather normalizes, I hope to get out a little bit. Enjoy the air. I also want to clean and get caught up on projects. This fucking text recognition engine needs to be built.

I checked the mail earlier and the mailbox is infested with earwigs. That's not a metaphor, the mailbox has earwigs. That means they'll be inside soon. Gotta clean and be ready for an infestation. I had an infestation when I was 16 or so, they took over a box under my bed. Turns out, the bastards can bite.

Kill 'em all.

I was in VRChat last night and my country started another forever war in the Middle East. I wish I could see a world where we never did that. I want to know what it's like to live with a clean conscience. I want people to stop being murdered, an end to aggression, and unified efforts towards prosperity.

It's all selfish because I just want a house I can stretch out in.

I'll never be free of guilt that all that I have isn't enough.

But I'm not killing people over it.

I made a spreadsheet today. I'm noticing more and more that I lack any and all energy, have a miserable sleep schedule, eat literal garbage, and every few days I overwhelmingly want to die. These things are probably all related and all need to stop. I made a spreadsheet to track the feelings. Gonna track daily counts of exactly what is happening to me. Maybe the data will go on long enough to find a pattern I can account for so I'm not looking to suck-start a shotgun before I start testing how deep my throat is.

I'm still alone. Parents are off in The West. It's quiet. Groceries go a long way and chores stack up. I'm planning to make Japanese curry tonight. I made the plan two weeks ago, bought the groceries to do it a week ago, and then work slapped me in the face and I worked a bunch of overtime. I even worked all weekend, though it was quiet so I have little excuse.

This might be the first time I've ever shared this detail, but in the last months, all I can think about is how I will never get to own a house. I could probably manage a cheap property in the area and pay the rest of my life on it, praying I don't lose my job. But the local houses are all built in 1940 and probably aren't even legal to sell but somehow manage to find a loophole in real estate law for being in this awful region. I will never have a place to call my own; a place to be truly comfortable. I'm happy to have a roof right now, best I can say.

I'm just so tired. My blood hurts. I don't want any of this. I want to give my burdens away to someone more capable and make a swift, awful exit.

But I won't. I'm here, begrudgingly.