Strangely disconnected... but okay.

Life rolls on as it always does. I go to work, come home, eat, sleep, feed my cat, do laundry, go to therapy - it's a long, never-ending but oddly comfortable routine. Still, I can't help but feel... well, weird. There are days, of which this is one, where I walk through life doing what I need to do, but I feel like I'm watching some fucked-up reality television program. You know what I mean? I eye situations from a purely "outsider" point of view. It's as if I'm there... but not there. And I'm actually okay with this, because I don't really want to be noticed, anyhow.

I'm really in a weird point in my life right now. While I won't be unhappy if I'm around people, I don't make efforts to be social or to 'strike out', and I'm happy with my own company 99.9% of the time. This IS a big change from the first time I lived alone, where I was almost always miserable and lonely. These days... well, I occasionally feel a bit lonely, but I can usually forget about it rather quickly - and when I think of actually meeting new people, spending time with them, it's... vaguely unpleasant to me. Even more striking is the feeling that I get when I think of meeting someone new in a romantic sense - I actually shudder with revulsion. I think that I'm either finally adjusting to being single/alone - and LIKING it - or I've lost so much trust in people that it'll be virtually impossible for me to ever open myself up in that sense again. Maybe it's a combination of both, I don't know.

I've been diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder (AvPD). The symptoms/characteristics fit me almost 100 percent. I have a very close "inner circle" (as close as I'll allow, anyway, which is not very), and I only trust a very, very, very few. Otherwise, I shun social situations. And now that I actually know I do this, and that it's NORMAL for AvPD people to do this... I actually feel an odd sense of peace. That I'm not a freak, that I'm not alone, that others feel the same way I do, that others are just as lonely and frustrated as I seem to be. I wish that I didn't have it, of course, just as I wish I didn't have depression... but both conditions are permanent and with me to stay. So be it. I'll have to make the best of what I have, even if it proves to be very difficult. Eh, well. My life's never really been what I'd term "easy", so why start now? :p

There's a lot of things that I've been meaning to do lately - there's a shit-ton of mail I have to answer (both E and otherwise), I've fallen out of touch with people that I've been meaning to talk with - if you're one of them, patience, I'll get to you eventually. Like I said, when I inhabit this strange place, I often shut out the world around me and concentrate on introspection. I think that therapy has really helped with my introspective qualities. I'm not focusing as hard on the negative as I once did, and I'm really trying to make improvements - and yes, to be good to myself. Still some work to go on that, though.

I've lost another 2 point something pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but I'll take any improvement I can get. I don't expect that I'll be able to take off enough in order to avoid the surgery, but I'm working it the best that I can. Again, I'm sort of in an apathetic fog when it comes to that, just as I have been with a lot of other things. That might be bad - as a matter of fact, I know it is - but right now I'm comfortable with where I am, so I'm not going to make an effort to change it.

I don't know that apathetic is the right word, though, because I DO care. Maybe it should be "fatalistic" - i.e., whatever happens, happens. I'm not going to create stress for myself over things that, for right now, I have no control over. My philosophy is "do what I'm supposed to do and let everything take care of itself". And that's what I'm doing, I guess.

Yes, I have a lot of regrets. But regret doesn't change what is. All that I can do is continue to move forward - and hope.

Strange, that word, hope. But fitting.