Two steps forward, three steps back. That pretty much sums up the way I've felt this entire month. I wanted September to be another stepping stone toward personal growth. It has instead felt like a series of struggles, mishaps and reality checks on the road to nowhere.
I had a terrible stomach bug in the early part of the month, maybe the worst I've had in my entire life. I hadn't felt so completely incapacitated since I had COVID-19 a couple of years ago. This relatively brief malady destroyed any momentum I was gaining with my exercise regimen, and I'm only just now starting to pull myself back into a routine. I told myself when I began the month that I would try to get 10,000 steps every day, and it only took a few days to derail this goal.
I would like to lose some weight, mostly around my midsection, while also gaining muscle mass in my arms. I don't like the proportions of my body, especially when I look at myself in the CCTV camera feed at work. I'm putting in the effort to get to a better place but it feels like no progress is being made. I've been hovering around the same weight for almost a year with no amount of diet or exercise seeming to make any difference.
I installed a large capacity hard drive in my gaming PC and after days of trial and error, I finally got everything set up the way I liked with all my data stored in the right places. Of course, my PC started acting strangely about a week later. The desktop locks up seemingly at random leaving me with no choice but to hard power down the computer. I've tried every diagnostic I can think of and, as everything seems to go with technology, nothing fixes the problem. My next step may be a clean install of the operating system, an undertaking I'm not looking forward to when I'd rather be using my free time for countless other endeavors.
After it seemed like I might have weathered the storm with my living situation, it now appears that the landlords will be selling the building. We've tried to find a local buyer who we'd be confident to not raise our rent or kick us out, naturally to no avail. It looks like we'll be staring down some out of state investment group buying the property, with a rent increase sure to follow when the lease is expired. I've lived in this town for over ten years and it's starting to feel like I won't make it to eleven.
It hasn't been all bad. I went to a football game with my dad for the first time since I was in school and we had a great time. I got a bike and a new desk chair, both of which have improved my life in small ways. I published some writing on my blog that was well received, despite working on it longer than I would have liked.
It just feels like I'm going through the motions. I'm lost in the dark, losing the will to continue on. I'm struggling to find meaning in the day-to-day, forgetting why I do things I used to be motivated about. Why do I deny myself pleasures or take on uncomfortable habits that are supposed to be good for me? The prospect of future reward visibly diminishes with each passing day.
I like to play this old Windows game called Taipei, a simplistic mahjong solitaire game where you match two tiles until the board is clear and receive a randomized fortune if you win. I'd been on a cold streak with the game, several weeks had gone by without clearing the board. I finally ended the streak a few days ago, and today I received a fortune mentioning that unseen forces are working in my favor. I hope this is true, because it sure doesn't feel like it right now.
This inconsequential computer game cold streak mirrors the experience I've lived through lately, as if a dark cloud hovers high above me doing its best to put a damper on every little thing I touch. I can try my best at whatever thing is in front of me, knowing that my best can never be good enough. The machinations outside of my control have rigged the game.
I don't want this to sound like I'm depressed, but it's hard to ignore the signs. I have to be honest if this exercise is going to accomplish what I want it to. The thing is, I'm not sure what I'm trying to accomplish anymore. Treading water or squeezing out a bare minimum effort just so I can keep going on to the next thing leaves me feeling unfulfilled.
I want to keep learning new things and improving the skills I've got. I am just worried that it's becoming increasingly less possible. I don't think I've made enough progress within the past year on several of these goals I've set for myself. If an environment where I have more free time than the average person isn't the place to do it, what am I going to find elsewhere that makes any difference?
If I will soon be forced to move somewhere with a higher cost of living where I must work more hours to survive, what then? I can't envision having more energy, more freedom to become this idealized version of myself, a mountainous peak I could never hope to scale. While there'd definitely be some benefits of no longer living here, namely a chance to meet other like-minded people, I'm not sure how I'd be able to manage such a drastic overhaul of my life.
I'm sorry to leave off on such a negative note, I don't know how I'm supposed to tie this up with a neat little bow. I sense an impending doom, no amount of insincere platitudes can patch over this feeling. The worst part of it all is how little control I have to stop anything from happening.