i flipped through my calendar for the summer and suddenly realized it's going
to be hard for me to continually stuff things into it. *expand to fill all
available space*, i always tell myself. *life's too short to spend so much time
sleeping.*

and that's why sometimes it's 5am and i'm hiding under the covers with my nose
pressed against the steaming glass of my phone, trying desperately to fall
asleep so i can have a good morning. eventually, sunlight creeps into the room
and i notice that i'm awake, which means i must have fallen asleeep at some
point. it's too early, so i roll over and put a pillow over my face.

next thing i know, it's almost noon, and i'm alone in the house.

--

in my annual performance review, my boss wrote that i got a tremendous amount
of good stuff done despite us having a really bad and stressful thing to deal
with. i corrected him, saying it was because of having a massive, identifiable
stressor; my response to stress is to keep my head down and plow through
project after project with a manic fixation, because that keeps me from
dwelling too much on things i can't affect.

i don't know if it's a good response or a bad one; i don't know if it's a clear
indicator of how things are going. i'm dangerous when i'm bored; i'm dangerous
when the only thing i have to look at is the inside of my head. it terrifies me
in here. i reach out to try and touch things beyond myself so i can have any
sense whatsoever that the entirity of existence isn't just this, but i have no
way of knowing for sure.

it doesn't matter either way, so it's better to try.