Life Update

The year 2024 is, to say the least, a rollercoaster. Lots of ups and downs. At the end of 2023 when I was traveling in Istanbul, I saw a listing of an apartment that despite being a little over-priced, was just what I was looking for and had been looking for for over 6 months now. And if we are honest, years now. I started to save up money for down payment almost three years ago and got a mortgage loan (well, a promise of one if and when I find an apartment I want to buy) in June 2023. So ever since June 2023, I’ve been seriously looking for an apartment. I knew the location that I prefer the most in my city, it’s a small suburb not that far from where I grew up and it has been developing beautifully the last two decades. And the listing that I saw in Istanbul was from that location. But since it was a little overpriced, I simply dismissed it as a passing fancy.

But on the coming days, I found myself checking on the listing time and time again. I even bookmarked it. In January, however, I received the very sad news that my favorite uncle had suddenly passed away and I went into a mourning period. Not until the end of January, I suddenly remember the listing and checked on it and it was still on sale. On a whim, I contacted the realtor for a viewing, not expecting to put in an offer, just wanted to experience a viewing so that I would get used to the process again (last time I was looking for an apartment to buy was when I was in my 20s). Very quickly, a viewing was arranged, on the last Thursday of January. On the last Monday of January, I decided to put in an offer, about 10K lower than the actual asking price. And long story short, I’m writing this in my new apartment! The actual process went ahead super fast. All of the paperwork was done and I signed the papers on Valentine’s Day.

The whole of February was spent purging my tiny studio rental apartment from things I don’t need or want anymore. And miraculously, I got rid of almost 50 giant bagful of stuff. In mid-March, I moved out of my beloved studio that was my home for the last 7 years and into what I would like to call my forever home. I’m planning to live through my most glorious decade aka my 40s and 50s and then retire in this apartment. So it’s a good thing that I really really like it. It’s an old building but newly renovated (which is what I prefer). I has a small bedroom with a giant wardrobe, a separate ‘storage room’, small bathroom that still fits a washer-dryer combo. The kitchen is somehow smaller than my studio apartment kitchen but it has new appliances and a gas stove (which is not that common in Finland) and a foodie, I love using it. Most of the space went into the giant living-room with a lovely balcony with only trees as my view. And since it’s on the 6th floor, no neighbors are blocking that view either. It has east-facing windows all throughout the apartment, making it very bright but not too hot since the sun is not shining inside throughout the day. All in all, I love it a lot.

Now on my 4th week living in the new apartment, it starts to feel like home, and the feeling of ‘I’ve always been here’ starts to settle in. I feel safe and secure, and it feels very cozy and peaceful. I still have to get used to traveling longer distances to my workplace and to the city center, but I can see myself living here for the rest of my life. 😀

Blogmas 2023, Day 22 – Worklife Reform

I realize that my so-called career is quite unique in this day and age. I work in a foundation as a secretary and I started there when I graduated from college and it was my first job. And that was in 2011. Yes, I’ve been working at the same place for over 12 years. As I took on more and more responsibilities and learned to do many things like organizing big events etc, at the same time, I’ve become quite comfortable at my work. Maybe a bit too comfortable, doing the bare minimum.

Covid changed my work quite a bit. I don’t think we are ever going to go back to working full time in the office. Working from home is very nice and less stressful but also, it demands more initiative approach. And slowly but surely, I felt like I was drifting away from my team, especially our team leader aka my boss cos I rarely even see her face to face. But in the beginning of this year, all of the secretaries in our workplace got transferred under a new boss as our new financial manager took over the secretary team. And she is a lot more hands-on as she has a lot of experience leading administration teams. And in the almost literal sense, I was picked up by my new boss and dusted off gently, like a small push to do better. And I didn’t know how much I needed it.

I’m the type of personality that thrives under strict discipline. I’m organized and I like to be in control. And it’s not until I re-took control of my own work life and became organized again that I realized how doing the bare minimum made me miserable. I started to prepare for my tasks and meetings better and in time, I started to invite myself into projects that would benefit from secretarial work, I simply began to ask if I could help from my colleagues. And it felt really nice to feel needed and wanted again.

And it was very unfortunate that cooperation negotiations hit this autumn, and it took about two months living under the threat of potentially being fired. Of course it sucked, that it came right when I got my second wind, but it also made me realized just how much I love what I do and the place I get to do it at. And how much I love my colleagues too. And I couldn’t be more relieved that it wasn’t me who got fired. So with new vigor, I’m entering the new year more energized and eager to work.

Mental Health Update

Almost two months ago, I wrote about me being in a numb state. It’s not my first rodeo with that state, but the way I dealt with it this time, it was new. First, I acknowledged the state I was in at record time. And I am very proud of myself and what I’ve achieved in getting to know myself better has done so much good. I spent the years of my 30s getting to know me and learning to take care of me and put me as the number one priority, and now in the last two years of my 30s, I feel like I’m finally at ease and at peace with myself. I know I will continue to learn and improve, but meanwhile, I am proud of my progress.

Let me quickly say how I used to deal with the numb state before. I would let myself go completely. I didn’t care what happened or what I did cos I felt nothing anyways, so why did it matter. The difference this time is that I cared. I might not feel like I did at the moment, but I knew that I cared. The usual me who accumulated tons of healthy habits and absolutely thrived under self-inflicted discipline, I know that I would be so angry and disappointed in the depressed me if I completely let myself go. And the truth is, those healthy habits built with years of hard work and sweat, they kicked in. I didn’t do my morning workout daily but it was at least 65% of the time. I wasn’t mindful during those workouts but I did them. I ate poorly during that numb state, but I still did semi-healthy meal preps just out of habit. So when I came out of it, I wasn’t a complete mess.

I took a different approach to recuperate too. While I’m usually a hard ass to myself, and that’s the way I like it, I decided to take a gentler approach. I allowed myself time to get back to my habits, one at a time. First I got back to working out daily, and week by week, I added something else. I prioritized myself and my well-being. Which in my case meant that I didn’t force myself to social gatherings or did anything creative. I knew I would just have to fake enjoying social situations and I have to do that enough on the few office days that I had to endure. So meeting up with friends took a backseat. And I allowed myself to be useless for a while when it comes to being creative, like writing in this blog. I know it would be painful to force words out.

It was the first time that I let myself ease back into my usual life. And I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I used to just be too eager to get my regular life back on track that I would just take on everything at once and risked my life staying messy as fuck for months while I struggled to regain control. And sometimes I never did regain control before the next depressive state hit, and now I see that it might be due to me being overwhelmed by all the things I wasn’t ready to get back to. Being in control is in my blood, and I’ve accepted that and sometimes even used it to my own advantage. I’ve also learned that I can’t control external circumstances, only the way I react to things. And the longer I feel that I’m a mess and out of control, the more miserable I become. The biggest reason this time around it all felt so different was that I felt like I was in control almost the whole time, as soon as I realized I was numb. That realization and acknowledgment felt endlessly powerful to me.

It’s somehow fitting that all this happened in May, the mental health awareness month. It is the last day of May, and I already feel like I’m back with the regular programing. In fact, I’ve never felt as strong as I do right now. I hope that my mental health works like my muscles – they have to take some stress in order to grow stronger.

The Navigation of Numb Nation

Numb nation. It’s the name I’ve given my state of feeling numb that I would experience from time to time. The main symptom, is my being numb to almost all emotions, especially positive ones. It’s like my emotion center shuts down for a time period. I could smile or laugh and not feel a thing. Food tastes less good, sometimes I even lose my appetite completely. I could sleep a lot but not feel rested. I could tolerate more physical pain but feel less pleasure. I could get aroused but masturbation and climax felt like nothing. I would become forgetful, scatterbrain. Like I completely forgot to bring my wallet and keys when I went grocery shopping last Sunday. And I never forget my wallet and keys. Outwardly, I might seem pretty normal. I would go into auto-mode, and function from day to day, at work and with people, and go about the habits that I have built. But inwardly, no one’s home. It’s a scary state. I absolutely, utterly hate being in this state.

I used to avoid this state at all costs ever since I first experienced it when I was a teenager. I would swing from one extreme emotion to another, thinking that would spare me from the numb nation. Not until I read a book called “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” that I learned that the ticket to the numb nation was bought with strong emotions. Turned out it was my brain’s protective mechanism, to shut down, whenever I feel something unusually strong. So what I did for many many years was just being going extremely highs and/or lows then followed by a period of numbness, talking about a vicious cycle. But after I learned that being zen was the key, avoiding strong, especially unnecessary emotions, it’s the best way to stay away from the numb nation. But alas, ’tis life and there are going to be feels, whether I want them or not.

The last time was in 2019. The trigger then was just a movie, a very good one. ‘Rocketman’, the Elton John biopic/musical. It completely wrecked me emotionally. I dove headfirst into the numb nation and didn’t resurface until about 45 days later. And here’s the thing, I usually don’t realize my state until I’m already coming out of it. I’ve always wondered since that if I could realize it sooner, whether I could get out of it with a strong dose of mindfulness and doing things that work.

And here I am. Six days into my forced staycation at the numb nation. It started on the 1st of April (what a great joke, oh dear universe), I had a fight with my gal friend. It was the type of fight I used to have with my partners, so to say it was triggering was an understatement. I don’t even understand why I needed to fight with her… One of the reasons I’m not interested in serious dating is that fighting like that ain’t worth it. And I’m not even dating her. Anyways, got sidetracked. But this time, I realized the state I’m in on the 5th day. I had all of the symptoms I mentioned above. I was very aware of how little I felt. I already know that the healthy habits I so painstakingly built over the past three years helped me stay afloat with my health even when I’m not capable to care for myself. I am a creature of habits.

Yesterday, Steve visited and it took me all of my will to stay present, to stay focused on the lovely pleasure and pain that gave me. I couldn’t feel as much as I usually do so effortlessly with him but being mindful helped. I noticed that I could take more pain from him in the form of spanking. It was the type of pain that I could hardly ignore so for a moment, it required no effort and it was glorious. I’m not commenting on whether it’s ‘healthy’ or not to use pain to treat the numbness, but I know I feel safe with pain, as odd as that sounds. But most of all, I feel safe with Steve and I know pain from spanking and BDSM wouldn’t trigger me emotionally, and that’s what I meant by feeling safe with pain.

I can’t say that I feel better today, well, maybe a little bit, in the sense of being aware of it. I decided to write this because writing always clears my head and helps me to deal with things. Becoming more mindful of my anxiety issues and numb nation might not ‘cure’ me of them but it does help me with dealing. And hopefully, by being aware and working hard for being present, and working hard to feel certain things, I just might get out of it sooner rather than later. Fake it till you make it, that’s my motto and when it comes to getting out of the numb nation, sometimes I have to fake some emotions in order to feel them for real again.

Thanksgiving 2020

I don’t write these Thanksgiving posts every year but somehow, this year of all years, I feel the need to give my thanks. I know the year 2020 hasn’t been easy for anyone. As I am writing this, I just spent my first workday back at the home office after returning to a three-day at office work weeks after the summer vacation cos the numbers of corona cases are rising rapidly in this little northern corner of the world. There is some hope on the horizon with good vaccine news but it’s still going to be months away. We can only hope that this time next year we can be out and about, not getting back to the way it was before but we would actually come out as a better society. Or not. Probably not. I give too much credit to humanity, don’t I? XD

Anyways. This year felt like a whole decade. But I am extremely thankful for my health, I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying. I have been pretty much home, not attending any parties or events, meeting only few new people or even friends but I feel like my relationship with my parents got better. I guess we had a nonverbal agreement not to step on each other’s toes too much cos during the strictest quarantine time, we were all the live human contact we had. I am also grateful that no family members or friends got the rona, not even any of colleagues.

I am extremely thankful for my job, that I get to keep it without any forced payless holidays or anything. Our company even went out of their way to ensure we have a proper home office by sponsoring up to 300 € for everyone of us to get a standing desk. I do love my job but this year just gave me even more reason to love the humanity of our little company. And those rare occasions when I get to meet my colleagues face to face, I enjoyed them more than ever.

I am very thankful for my friends who were worried about me in the beginning of the pandemic cos I am an extrovert who was left without much human contact but I am actually glad for the down-time. I’m still not quite over it. I loved doing stuff by myself like going to the museums or walking around taking photos of my favorite city. I didn’t get to travel this year like I planned my first solo trip but instead I fell freshly in love with my hometown Helsinki all over again. I love it harder than I ever had.

The movie theaters and movie industry took a big hit this year, but I haven’t been this excited about a new movie that was made this year, no matter how tiny the budget or the scale, I am one happy movie-watcher just to see a new movie. I haven’t felt this time of excitement towards this thing that I love dearly in a long time. And those few times when I got to go see a movie in the cinema, I burst with joy and wonder. I also got to reestablish my status as a horror fan by vastly exceeding my goal to watch 40 horror movies, I’ve already watched over 60 horror flicks this year.

And the one thing that I never thought I might achieve is reading 50 books a year. But I read so many books this year, I’m pretty sure I’m going to hit the 50 or even more. Half-way through the 50 challenge, I switched to #100in100, aka 100 books in 100 weeks. Basically, it’s just going to be reading 50ish books two years straight. This was the year when I truly embraced my new habit of reading multiple books at the same time and also hungrily consuming audiobooks. I got the platinum membership from Audible which would mean 24 audiobooks per year, which sounds like a good minimum amount of audiobooks to consume per year.

I am also grateful for all the great TV shows that I got to binge during quarantine, and thank you Internet and my little laptop for getting me through it all. I hope next Thanksgiving, I would have even more things to be thankful for.

I hope you, my dear readers, have a peaceful Thanksgiving. Hang in there, we’ll be alright.