I’m doing it again. I’m finding a way to build this endeavor up in my head, making it yet another attempt to be perfect, and being petrified that I don’t know how to get that done.
What even is perfect anyway?
I got up before I finished that sentence. I really had to take a shit. It was during that potty break, that I realized I couldn’t live with myself if I went back downstairs without brushing my teeth, washing my face, brushing and resetting my hair. So I did.
It was while cleaning myself up that I finally looked myself in the eyes in the mirror and forcibly maintained contact.
I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, but I always avert my gaze before I see too much. It’s not that I’m unhappy with how I look–though some of that is true–that makes it so difficult to look for more than just a few scant seconds.
I’m not entirely happy with who I am.
And that isn’t to say that I’m necessarily depressed or falling into some sort of pit–at least not yet anyway lmao–I’m just cognizant of who I can become if I just take the plunge, and this whole project is part of that, I guess. I need to remain accountable to myself and not hesitate to put down what I think and feel. I need to not only do it here, but in my everyday life.
While washing my face, I was knee deep in the usual “thinking about what I need to do about everything all at once” when I stopped and locked eyes with myself. Not only did I do that, but I began to speak. I started to think out loud, instead of locking it in my skull.
I got up to do the dishes and did some more thinking–silently this time because of the sleeping baby boy over here on the couch. When I am unhappy with myself, I tend to be unhappy with everyone and everything around me. That’s not because the people or the things are wrong / bad / directly making me unhappy, it’s that my disposition is already compromised.
I need to get this thought down before I forget. I thought it up earlier and then just ran it through my head again, with a lightbulb popping right above my head. I want to get us a new set of clothes, both Julianne and me. We both need and want clothes that make us feel good. So I need to look around for a store we can go to so Julianne can find something she enjoys.
It’s 9:56 and the boy is asleep at our feet–time to finish what I started.
I did a lot of thinking while I was away from the laptop. I’ll try my best to vomit it onto the page, so hopefully too much isn’t lost on the way up. I’ll try to spit it out in chronological order, from thought to thought. Here goes.
When this whole brain train started rolling, I was in the bathroom, like I said earlier. My bowels were freshly emptied and I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when I looked up in the mirror and stopped what I was doing. I started talking to myself. I started voicing exactly what I was thinking as I was thinking it.
Profound.
I know.
I determined that the world is isolating enough as it is without further isolating myself in my own head. The person in the mirror is someone to talk to, so I can move on from just stubbornly sticking it out in my own head.
In fact, the person in the mirror is probably the first person I should be talking to–the most important person even. If I can’t talk to that person, then how the fuck do I expect to talk to anybody else around me? I am no longer going to isolate myself, locking myself away in the dark loneliness inside my mind.
What did I talk about? Let me jog my memory. Give me a sec. I’m doing this with my eyes closed now, so hopefully I’m not typing gibberish. Eyes closed to transport myself back into the bathroom some hours ago.
I was brushing my hair when I voiced again that my hair is too much to handle and that I need to get it cut. I miss having my hair down, and this length is just too much to feasibly do that on a daily basis. Plus, a couple days ago, when I let my hair down in the afternoon, Kieran spit up on my shoulder and I got little baby vomit in my strands.
Fucking yuck, dude.
Looking at that paragraph and I did a decent job typing it out blind, just feeling the words and keys flow. Let’s keep going.
It was there that I voiced that when I’m not happy with myself, I am not happy with life in general. So, to be a happier person, I need to be happier with myself. And to be happier with myself, I need to listen to myself more and do well. Do well, you ask?
This is part of that.
I’m exploring my creativity, my mind, instead of scrolling, chatting, or gaming. Going to the gym to move my body. Stretching on a daily basis. Cooking food instead of ordering out. Helping people. Making Julianne feel loved and happy. All of that. Doing all of that makes me feel good and like the day was not just any old day gone to waste, slipping away.
Progress.
Speaking to myself in the mirror is part of that. I need to see what energy I am putting out into the world. I need to breathe into life the vibe for which I yearn. Speaking to myself, establishing that back and forth dialogue, allows that to happen. It’s impossible to speak constructively with yourself if you only do it in the dark recesses of your mind.
At least that’s how it works for me.
My dour mind is so good at shutting down any positivity, replacing it with only the worst possible outcomes. All the voices speak back to me with the most noxious venom, the faces twisted into terrifying mockeries. It’s scary stuff and it shuts me down when I let it get too heavy.
Talking out loud to myself doesn’t let loose those imaginary beasts. Speaking into life the good intentioned truth that I input into my mind blocks them from perverting what I have to say. There’s no time for their wicked imaginations to run amok. Once the words are spoken into the open air, I’m free.
That’s why it was always so hard for me to take that plunge, to speak my truth into the world. I let the beasts in my mind speak for me, if only in silence, but that silence is powerful and oppressive.
So I’m going to keep talking to myself.
I might even share what I blurt, much like I’m doing here, but perhaps in a more refined state. We’ll see if I get there.
Baby steps.
One idea is to share this journal with my friends–those who I’d willingly invite into my mind. It’s an intimate space and easy to write in, so who knows what possibilities can come of that. I’ll open it up for comments. I don’t need a website to do something like this.
Plus, I need a new website. That’s another project I have on my docket. I’ll write about that as well when I get around to it.
I’m going to create my own website from scratch. Maybe WordPress, but we’ll see. WordPress is a skill to have, so maybe I can make some money with that. Who knows?
What else did I think of after the post-poop self-care session?
Kieran. I spent some quality time with our boy today. He nearly peed on me in the morning before we left for Hudson Springs, then he puked a tiny bit of spit-up onto my shorts at Hudson Springs, then he shat on my shorts at home a few hours later. But, between the puke and the poop, after we got back from nearly 2 hours at the park, he and I hung out in the living room while Julianne took a nap upstairs. We had some quality time just laughing at each other and goofing about with his toys.
We got him to sleep in the swing, which he did for 45 minutes. When he woke up, I went to retrieve him and he smiled so wide at me as I got close. I fed him a bottle and he nearly fell asleep on me again, but was having trouble doing so, so I put him back in the swing to see if the movement would do the trick.
He was vibing alright, not really falling asleep, not fussing necessarily, but he eventually got a little annoyed that he was still strapped in, so I took him out. But before I took him out, we locked eyes again and once again he beamed right up at me with his big gummy smile, eyes lighting up. I sat in front of him, the swing still powering back and forth, and I grabbed Leonard, Kieran’s lemur friend.
Leonard, with my assistance, played peek-a-boo with Kieran. Leonard leapt onto Kieran’s lap with each swing forward, giving him kisses each time he appeared. Kieran was laughing and smiling so hard that it brought a tear to my eye. He was having fun with that, so I took his rocking chair off the swing mechanism and set him down in the middle of the room and played with him some more. I set the big fish with the flappable scales on his lap and Leonard on the top of the chair looking down at him. He really enjoyed sitting in front of me for a time but eventually got bored of that too and wanted a change of pace and scenery.
I took him out and sat him on my knee so he could play NBA 2k with me. We did that for maybe 20 minutes before I set him down on his playmat. I got bored of 2k and put on a movie instead, Rememory (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2331047/), an interesting movie that I need to finish. Julianne came down a couple minutes into it, and she sat down next to us watching it too.
But, I only got half way through the film and need to go back to finish it. Kieran was ready for food and cuddles so Julianne started feeding him and fired up the white noise.
It was then that I grabbed the laptop and started writing about the day’s events and thoughts.
Anyway, Kieran and I shared some really beautiful moments today. When putting him down tonight, he gave me another cheeky smile. He was half asleep and looking up at me in the dark. I think he was smiling at me, though it could have been whatever half-dream he was experiencing at that moment. I choose to believe that smile had my name on it.
I have a lot more that I want to say, but that’s going to always be the case, so I think I’m going to rapidfire some bullet points of what is in my head so I can come back and expand at a later time.
Ankora
Elves have a memory bank but it doubles as a mind bank
They are harvesting minds to defeat mortality
Like putting human consciousness into AI
The mind bank is misused, people become enslaved without knowing it
Or it’s like a Body Snatchers kind deal, where the original person is replaced by a replica host with their “mind” in it
Me, Myself, and My Sink
Talking to myself in the mirror
I am Me, the person in the mirror is Myself, and My Sink is the sink
Basketball blog
I want to play basketball, and not just play it but play it
I need to talk about my journey in becoming conditioned to play the game again
I need to put in the work at the gym to build my body
I’ve had a lot of fun jumping into pickup games at the gym but I need to get in good condition to put my mark on the game I know I’m capable of, just need the physical tools to do it
Website building
I’m going to rebuild my www.nathanfoezyfoley.com site from scratch
Blog
Essays
Videos
Photos
I think I’m ready for bed. Good writing.
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