Despite everything, my life is still chugging along like (somewhat) normal.


My parents are living like their big talk never happened...I think dad is thinking to himself that this will all blow over, and mom is just biting her tongue in order to get through the holidays. It's awkward as hell, but I understand. I'm just glad that they're not at each others throats at the moment--there's a lot that needs to get done from now until...whenever we manage to move, and it would be much more painful if they were fighting nonstop during it.


That being said, I haven't made too much progress in packing since I finished organizing my movie collection. I tried to pester my brother a bit about his half of the collection, but we didn't really get anywhere. I'm going to have to start digging around in the real musty dusty part of our storage, and it's going to wreck havoc on my lungs. I almost fainted while cleaning the other day.


Which brings me to another point--my PMDD has flared up really bad this month. I was doing so well before this...I mean, it wasn't perfect, but I wasn't being bogged down with unexplainable body pains and existential dread that renders me bedridden. Mom is already complaining about me being lazy and other shady things. "You're always sick" is what she always says. I don't even know what to say back at this point. I've exhausted therapists and my doctor--no one really knows what to do with me. I just wish those around me would notice when I'm actually functioning well and getting along alright...but no matter what I do, I think my parents will always see me as a disappointment...


Sorry to be so melancholic. My mom's words just hurt me so much. But things aren't so bad! I finally got to see friends this past weekend~! S and J invited M and I over for drinks and some Mario Party. I've never played Mario Party before!! I also drank a white claw for the first time. Got to play with their cats, they're so cute~ It was nice to have long conversations with someone outside of my family for once. Hopefully our paths will cross again sooner rather than later~


Now I'm preparing for Thanksgiving...which I guess is still happening, even though our household is in chaos. Only half of my relatives know about the divorce...so we're just kind of pretending that nothing is happening, and that everything is just fine. Just hoping no one gets too drunk and accidently spills the beans to everyone. Can't say I'm looking forward to it. I won't even get to see my cousins this year...It's going to be really lonely. At least I'll hopefully get to eat some freshly-baked rolls? ;__;

So...It happened.


Mom finally confronted dad about the divorce. She told me to stay in my room that morning, because she wasn't sure how he would react. I thought he was just starting to come to terms with everything, but...I guess he had a massive tantrum. Used every excuse in the book--"But you'd be throwing [x] number of years of marriage away", "what about the kids", "I could change"...the whole shebang. Mom and I ran out of the house to spend the rest of the morning at my grandfather's place after that, and he was gone by the time we came back. We assumed he had went to a friend's place or something.


He's back now, and calmed down a little bit. But it's super weird now--even weirder than it was before mom had confronted him, which is saying something. We're all avoiding each other, pretty much. Mom used to try to be on polite terms with him, but now none of us want to be in the same room as him. The worst part about this is that he seems totally okay with this situation. Like, us living quietly around him is perfectly acceptable (if not convenient) behavior to him. Mom tells me things when he's not around that just kinda confirm he's a demented narc, even way before my conception.


I don't know when we'll manage to move out, but it feels like time is of the essence now, so my efforts to clean and pack have been kicked into overdrive. I was getting really agitated staring at all the same junk in that one storage closet, so I moved to a different section of my room. This past week I've been going through the movie collection. It's a weird mix of my stuff and my brother's--and I can't just get rid of something that isn't mine, so it makes the process move much slower. Also the fact that we still own VHS tapes is a bit tricky...I do really like the analogue format, but you gotta admit, storing big clamshell cases is a pain in the ass. I've managed to fill almost three cardboard boxes with movies I'd like to donate.


...It didn't hit me until I was sorting through everything that I used to really enjoy movies. Like, a lot. I had forgotten how many things I owned hard copies of. It was actually kind of painful to sift through those memories. There was a time, quite long ago now, when I actually had to rely on my tv to watch content. I didn't get a smart phone or tablet until I was halfway through college. Many nights were spent falling asleep to my favorite tapes...It didn't dawn on me until how unusual I must have been, even back then, when the touchscreen tech was still kinda new. I look back and I blame the little screens in everyone's pockets for my lack of attention span these days--I can't really sit through movies like I used to, and that makes me sad.


Maybe I can write more about this nostalgia for a new section on my site, or something. I'm almost done with the new layout for my homepage!!! I'm so excited about it omg~ Next I have to re-do, well, all of my pages now, haha. Think I'll go about fixing up my about page next...But it's going to take awhile, life has been keeping busy.


Sorry this entry was so depressing--it really is just a lot of ranting...but, for the sake of potentially looking back at these someday, I thought it was an important life event to record somewhere. I can't really promise that the next entry will be happier, but...maybe, there will be some progress in a better direction.

Yikes... Daylight Savings has hit me like a ton of bricks.


I really did not need the time change when my sleep schedule was already messed up, but...here we are. Complaining aside, I think I've finally managed to get back to a more typical schedule though! Still sleeping in a bit later than my parents would like, but what can you do when you've lost a whole hour of the day, LOL...


Health-wise, I'm feeling a bit better. I think I've just had a little cold. But it could just be allergies, it's so hard to tell...Since my dad was away on a golf trip this past week, mom and I did so much cleaning: pulled a lot of musty stuff out of storage. She even found almost $1,000 in old holiday cards that had been packed away?! Our end goal was to cleanse and take our old junk to a charity shop. We did really well, I'd say--we took a whole car full of stuff to a Savers yesterday. But it was a painful process to get there: every box mom would open, I could see a cloud of dust fly into the air...I had several nights where I felt like there was a weight on my chest, it was so painful on my lungs.


The future is still uncertain, but mom is thinking about ~officially~ confronting my dad about a divorce this week, and trying to schedule a meeting with a lawyer. I do hope she has the courage to do it, but at the same time, I'm really scared--scared about my dad's behavior getting more erratic and dangerous, scared about moving and finding a new place to live...Out of all of us, I think the person who actually has it the worst is my poor brother. His autism/OCD makes even the smallest change so traumatic, I have no idea how he's going to handle the concept of moving...


But I've been trying to focus on the nice time I was able to spend with my mom when my dad was gone. We were able to have long conversations without worry about him eavesdropping around the corner. We made pancakes for lunch one day and it was such a precious time. Maybe...because we've been trapped in this miserable situation for so long, I never truly realized just how bad it was. Maybe I ought to be looking at this process like ripping a band-aid off: it'll be painful at first, but so much better in the long-run. I'll try to have more hope for the future, even if I'm scared.


...This entry became way more melancholic than I intended it to be. Things are fairly peaceful in my daily life, I swear lol. I've been drawing again--I can't remember the last time I've drawn something! Been coding some new stuff for my site here. Wasting too much time playing the new Animal Crossing update with friends. I'm excited to learn how Twitch works eventually--I downloaded OBS and I've been playing with the screen recording feature.


I'm working slowly towards the future. I'm excited to finally be at a point where my ideas come to a point where I can actually share them with others~

So...I might have covid.


My body is definitely fighting something off. I'd like to blame my allergies--my room has gotten really dusty lately--but I went to a Halloween party this weekend. J just had a cold and M and her family recently recovered from covid...I was hoping everything would just work itself out, but now I'm wondering if I've put a little too much faith in my vaccine. I'm slowly turning nocturnal with all these naps I keep accidently taking: it's messing with my sleep schedule big time, and it's making my mom pissed... Me sleeping too much is always her trigger to start calling me lazy, jfc...


Still, I had a nice Halloween. I went to S and J's house on Saturday night and we held a little ritual for Samhain. The gang met up with us afterwards and we had drinks and played Jackbox games. I carpooled with M, which was nice because the weather ended up being so foggy that night--it really helped my anxiety having someone to help co-pilot, lol.


I went to bed early on Halloween night...I had a splitting headache--which at first I thought was from a mix of a hangover and inhaling too much incense smoke at the ritual, but in hindsight it was probably the warning signs of me getting sick. D': But it's alright: I was still able to eat candy corn and play Dead By Daylight. I'd say that was festive enough!


I think I had a productive end of the month. I was really proud of myself for wrapping up my invoice for work at a prompt time--usually I'm scrambling to finish my latest projects, but I timed it just right that I would have some free time for Halloween weekend. I managed to wrap up my entry for the Yesterweb's Hall-o-zine issue just in time too, even despite my throbbing headache that day.


Before I start priding myself for being so organized that weekend, I should add that I got laid off this week. Well, maybe "laid off" isn't the right word for it, but idk what else to call it--my boss decided to put her business "on hiatus". It's a long and complicated story--something a little too personal for here, I think--but she's hit a major roadblock with her business. Nothing I'm invovled in, technically, but it puts everything else at a standstill. I can't fully blame her for what she did--and it's not my fault at least, so I don't have to feel guilty, lol. She said she'd get back to me next month, but I don't want to hold my breath over it. It's time to start thinking about what's next. Finally finish coding my professional portfolio? Buy that microphone so I can start streaming? Sell feet pics?


But...maybe this is all divine timing on the universe's end. I've done some more cleaning/packing since I got the news. Mom has finally made some progress on packing and planning for her divorce. My dad's out of the house this week, and we're hoping to get a lot of things in boxes. Idk...I have some life things I need to sort out. Maybe now I'll finally have the time to make some major decisions.


Here's hoping for the best~*