In December 2022 I realized I skipped seeing my cardiologist for 6 years. Did a 24 hour monitor. Apparently my heart rate was dropping to 21 bpm and stopping pumping for up to three seconds. So in February 2023 they cut me open and give me a pacemaker. Months go on and I am still getting winded. So they did another heart Cath procedure (on the 28th) and it turns out my heart is doing worse than thought even, so in the next 3-5 years I'll need a heart transplant. But the make up of my organ layout means I'll need a specialist, which just all sounds so slim. I am 33 and so fucking tired.
I hope to leave some of this stress behind. I know there's a lot I can't escape now, but I hope I can leave some of the anger and fear behind. It's been hard to be a good dad or partner this year just from feeling so stressed, and if I don't know how long we will have I just want my daughter to remember a happier dad.
I’m only a few years older than you and have ischaemic cv disease (blocked arteries). It’s a common problem in people twice my age. I thought I ate well and exercised regularly but it turns out that stuff doesn’t help that much if you lost the genetic lottery like me.
I had a heart attack this year, while my partner was pregnant with our first children. Yes 2x kids. They were born a few months ago.
IDK if I have 2 years or 20 years to do my best for them… but fuck it’s a bitter pill.
I absolutely get the dread / fear / anger.
Every time I have a new blood test that shows I’m more fucked than I hoped it just… hurts.
I really appreciate strings in general, but no instrument can emotionally move me like the violin. A melancholic violin section in an already sad song is a surefire way to make me tear up. I’ve never been very good at playing any instrument, but I’ve been tempted to pick up the violin to see if it feels as good to play as it does to hear.
The wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan both earned the nickname Groundhog Day in reference to the 1993 Harold Ramis comedy since tours of duty got to be extremely routine, The Suck, day in and day out, so yes, looking at our lives, especially if you are in a toxic job that leaves you too hungry to quit and too exhausted to watch for better opportunities, using the term Groundhog Day to describe the day-after-day monotony is appropriate.
And the thing is, while we are quick to blame the individual for failing to find ambition to achieve a better life, it is a game of musical chairs. It is competing with your fellow citizen, that in order for your life to be made better through better work or better pay, others have to be left behind to do the job you are leaving. And more still are left without a job, to rot and be disregarded as a homeless burden on the system. The society of the US intentionally underserves the common family so that those who have jobs can be abused and are too afraid to blow whistles.
In September 2022, Mahsa Amini was attacked by the morality police for a hijab infraction and killed. When the state responded to the protests with violence, the people responded with riots, eventually setting fire to government buildings and attacking police stations as the agents of state were determined to respond only by escalating with greater violence. Amini’s death wasn’t the only matter, but just the latest in a long run of government failures.
Eventually, when enough people in the US suffer, we may turn violent too. And to suggest violent revolution or to suggest reprisal for wrongdoing by law enforcement or state agents will be unspeakable and taboo, until the very hour nothing short of of dissolution of the established norm will suffice.
I can’t say when that time will come, or even if it will affect mass change, or whether this is a right course of action, just that this is how the shit seems to go down: We suffer until we can’t stand it anymore. Lather, rinse, repeat with every New Boss until we see they’re all the Same As The Old Boss.
Beyond that, humankind hasn’t ever tread very far. Not that we know from history, at least.
In November, I was sick for a month. I was coughing like crazy after contracting a respiratory virus.
Early December, I’m getting better. I was doing my things, like, changing my son’s bedsheets, when I had a small cough. And I heard “clok” sound in my body, followed by a very intense pain in my ribcage.
I had cracked a rib. Not caused by how intense the cough was, but by repetition of the coughing for more than a month.
I’m amazed there’s people out there that can’t do it. Kinda like finding out there people who don’t have an inner monologue.
It’s so easy. Leave your curtain open so you get light in the morning. On a Sunday or when you lie in just let yourself drift in and out of sleep.
Be conscious of the fact you’re falling back to sleep and focus on going back to the thing you last remember dreaming.
Realise you have full control of everything. Kinda like Neo in the matrix.
It’s great walking up from a nightmare where you’re being chased by something then falling back to sleep knowing you’re going to kick it’s ass when you sleep back in.
When you’re ‘plugged’ back into your dream you stop trying to run, face the fear and lay down a sick anime special move!
It’s not always so easy for everyone, I’ve been trying with effort for years off and on with plenty of studying and have had maybe two lucid dreams ever. I have never been able to remember many dreams, I think that is a big factor. When I did have the lucid and semi-lucid experiences it was when I had been in the habit of writing my dreams down, it increased the number of dreams I remembered massively.
Two honestly. They’re both kinda big picture, but both are fun and easy and low stakes.
Slow down, settle, nest. 2023 was a wild year filled with change. I got a job that became the focal point of my life, and then I got promoted. That job came with more friends and connections than I’ve ever had. It has been a very full, sometimes overwhelming year. 2024 is going to be my Convenience Store Woman year. I’m gonna settle into my management position, get good at it, and turn this dispensary into a beautiful weed distribution machine.
I’m gonna keep trying for a second romantic partner. It’s gonna be fun because flirting is fun. And the stakes are low because I already have a fantastic, stable relationship with my wife. Failure means continuing the happy life I’m living now. I’ll just keep trying to get the attention of boys with good hair.
Wow! I hope you accomplish all you want to! Although, I’d expect every year going forward to be harder than the last tbh. So I hope that your struggle in 2023 brought you resilience for the struggle to come in 2024
That’s silly. I’m in a really good place personally. My best friend is my assistant manager. I just signed the lease early for another year (starting in May) in my nice apartment that is just a few blocks from my dispensary. We could reasonably be a million dollar a month location by this time next year. I’ve found a Discord where I can make friends with other trans people in my area despite my powerful introversion. And just being a visible trans person in a popular business running a safe place in a conservative area is fighting the good fight! I have integrated the resistance into my life. I have the financial stability to take care of some real life shit that’s in arrears. And despite isolated examples of the opposite, the fact is that people are overall safer, healthier, and freer than they have ever been. I say that as someone who has been attacked in public for being trans. 2024 is going to be good. It’s just going to be extra good for me.
I agree with folks saying charisma is an attribute of a person, and panache is attached to an action or object. That’s how I’ve always heard them used. But we could all be wrong compared to the dictionary definitions. Merriam Webster seems to agree, at least.
I tend to think of charisma as charm, and panache as style.
There’s a whole book I read once about how charisma being inherent is wrong and that it’s a skill like any other. The Charisma Myth if anyone is interested.
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