Reilly's blog

It’s been too damn hot outside!

Thanks climate change!

I’ve felt like meat roasting over a fire.

There’s never been a perfect time for a cool overcast Seattle day.

I’ve been on a night owl schedule for about a month, and this heat has been oppressive. I haven’t felt able to do much but live in my room on my computer. Which… Isn’t much different than my usual behavior in cooler weather.

In this period of unemployment and isolation, I’m not okay with living this way anymore.

Anyway… Lately I’m feeling like I’m not suited for relationships.

Not for romance, not for friendships. My romantic life is nonexistent. I don’t feel entitled to one. I don’t feel like a relationship is worth the hassle, and I would have to change myself to a considerable degree to qualify for a healthy relationship. I badly want to be proven wrong and feel it is worth it. To feel capable of handling one.

I say this because I value my independence, peace, and autonomy.

This isn’t to say I don’t want friendship or romance. Or that I’m awful all the time when I’m around familiar people… It’s just that I don’t feel able to be emotionally available for either at this time in my life.

I understand that technically all of us have inherent value. I just don’t know why a woman would choose me over so many better men.

I’m self-aware enough to see myself and my life from the outside and understand I’m not a good choice for a relationship.

37, average man, and doesn’t have his shit together.

That’s not acceptable for a man of 37. I can do much better than this life. … Yet I’m frozen.

I was close to having my shot together in my last long-term job. The work felt meaningful until it didn’t.

But, I changed. My health took precedence, and time alone in March showed me that I had to move on to something else.

It’s been painful to move on and I’ve questioned saying goodbye many times.

The bottom line is that I can no longer work at a job that I have to disassociate or escape from in an unhealthy way by smoking weed everyday, or drinking to be able to do every day. Or by pushing my body to sickness from doing work that’s too much now.

Sigh.

Yes, I’m going to college in late September to get a new degree. But it will be a long journey to become a psychotherapist if everything goes as planned. Supposing that this plan works out for me, for once.

What I really need is…

Something all-consuming that keeps me away from my vices. Or something I’m so engrossed in or enamored by that I can’t help putting every minute of my time into. Both.

…

Maybe, this means that I’m close to a breakthrough.

I’m not writing this from a place of self-pity or feeling sorry for myself, as I have in the past.

I need something meaningful.

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Can’t get anywhere without action. So, I’ll consider this entry as a controlled burn rather than a burn out.

Readers, what do you think?

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