Such a creative title, isn’t it?

I hope your new year has been awesome so far, and if it hasn’t been a joy so far, I hope it gets better.

There were a few major decisions that I needed to make and, well, I did a major reversal and decided to just finish my study. I’m almost there. Might as well do it, finish it, and then get on with my life. So that’s where I’ll be for the next few weeks.

I have also started making excuses why I can’t get to the gym like the doctor asked me to. I will eventually make it there once my back and shoulder gets better. The doctor did actually tell me that, so I guess it’s not really making excuses, is it? After the next couple of weeks, I’m hoping to return to the gym to build back my core strength levels so work sucks a little less.

Anyway, hope you’re doing well. I’ve taken some antihistamines an hour ago and that’s starting to make its way to my system. Grass and pollen allergies. They suck!

See you all later. ♥️

Earlier this year, my partner and I had a problem. I needed to be away from home for five weeks, so someone had to be home with my big, beautiful sausage dog. My partner needed to go to India sometime this year to do some Hindu ritual for his mother and he arranged to go back home when my thing was done. So, I finished my thing and my partner has left.

Unfortunately, my best friend (the sausage dog), got really sick and his quality of life wasn’t very good and I had to make the difficult decision to euthanise him. I really miss him still. His urn is here and I still talk to him sometimes. I still tell him he’s a good boy. I tell him I miss him. He was such a good, sweet boy. I wish we could have spent more time together. I adopted him when he was 7 years old. I just wanted to make his life better. His circumstances weren’t very good: he had a few different homes and I got him. I was always afraid that he would think that he’d be alone again or be passed from person to person.

Losing a pet is so hard. As I said, he was my best friend. We would go on short road trips. He’d sleep in the passenger seat and I’d drive us to the park or the beach. I miss having that company with me.

So yeah, my partner has gone back “home” for a month. 2 days have passed. I am left in a big quiet house. I wish my dog was here with me… or that he could lay together in his chair and watch videos of animals. Or eat vegetables and fruit together. I go to the store and see all the things we used to eat together. I remember how excited he would get when he saw me come in with food bags. He knew I usually got him something… carrots, baby cucumbers, tomatoes, bananas… sometimes I am driving back from the store and realise that no one is going to get as excited as he does over bananas.

I’m just sad, I guess and that’s normal. It’s okay to process this feeling of loneliness at times. It makes me appreciate the people who stay or have stayed in my life. I’m lucky to have been able to look after such a wonderful, sweet dachshund.

I keep telling my partner that I’m going to find one while he’s away. My partner seems to think that I’m over losing my “puppy” in August. I’ve been sad for a while. I don’t know if this feeling will ever go away but what I do know is that it just takes time to process loss. I have to keep reminding myself how happy I will be to meet everyone (pets included) when my time is up.

Who knows how long I’ll be waiting.

Hi folks. Trying to write more often. I’m still kind of failing to get into the Christmas spirit while living in Australia. It’s been pretty hot over the past few days, so I’m just not feeling it.

My partner is flying back to his home country tomorrow so I’ll be over here by myself on Christmas. That’s not a bad thing though. I’d probably end up sitting on the couch eating hot dogs or something like I usually do when I’m in Australia at this time of year. I would be tempted to work, but I’m still on annual leave, so I haven’t been able to pick up any extra shifts. It’s not a big deal. I’m not really that sad at all.

My partner’s tried several times to get me to put up a tree or at least decorate. I just don’t have much of an interest in getting stuff out of boxes and throwing it around, and when Christmas rolls around, it’s hot enough to go to the beach.

I don’t think that I am going to ever get used to Christmas when it’s not cold. I am a bit too accustomed to it being cold on my birthday and Christmas. It’s a bummer when it’s not. Funnily enough, I get a bit homesick in July because it feels like Christmas to me.

Oh, and I’m also not very religious either, so Christmas seems to be just another day to work and make big money or when I’m back home, sitting around stuffing my face with food with my family.

Anyway, if you do the Christmas thing, I hope it’s great. If you don’t, like me, just think of it as a day to relax and do whatever you want. I know this time of the year can get pretty difficult for a lot of people, so you’re not forgotten. 🙂

Anyway, happy holidays. Get offended if you want to—or don’t. It’s up to you.

I’ve been away from home for a few days and working in a new area which can get very physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. It’s won’t go into details, but it’s very difficult seeing people you care for deteriorate before your eyes. A lot of this deterioration involves the brain and it’s hard to see people struggle to come to terms with their general decline.

I’m here for a total of five weeks and three have passed. (I was sick with COVID for one week.) So, two more weeks are left until I can go home permanently and join my usual workplace for a few weeks, then I get to come back here for an additional two weeks.

I’m here to complete a degree. I’m at the end of it. If I could just stop being sick, that would be fantastic. I hope that I won’t get some sort of respiratory issue because the allergens are in the air, and I can hardly breathe.

It’s getting there though. This has been a big goal for me for years and it’s finally coming to an end. I’m looking forward to the future and what 2026 will finally bring.

That is all for now. Everyone take care of yourself!

I don’t really say much here anymore. You can catch my random ramblings on Mastodon though.

I’ve learned that by dropping my regular blog postings and the discontinuation of my podcast that I really like this… solitude. Something about the lock-downs and isolation really helped carve that into a mainstay in my life. When I’m not working, I just want to be left to my own devices (literally).

Sometimes, I do miss the online communities I was a part of though. Sometimes, I just want to sit and chat with people about random things, but after five minutes of that, I realise that it probably wasn’t a great idea. That’s just me though.

My husband and I are still living apart, but that is going to change in 2024. The construction of our house started in October and it’s progressing very quickly. We’ve got a roof, some bricked walls, and a big wooden frame up at the moment. It’s looking pretty good.

I don’t want to type too much here so I won’t. I feel like there’s so much I’ve said on Mastodon. However, I’m happy to give you bullet points of my highs and lows of this year:

• I’m starting to feel like an old gay man. Gray hair is sprouting up everywhere and no one knows I exist. Is that such a bad thing though?
• My apartment was broken into while I was home but miraculously, nothing was stolen. The thief got away with my wallet, but later in the day, I got it back with nothing missing.
• I’m getting a lot more experience in different areas of my work which is nice.
• Red, the dachshund, was added to my family. I never knew a dog could love fruit and vegetables so much. He was a hero when my apartment got broken into.
• I’m steadily gaining more weight. I should really fix that, shouldn’t I?
• I think I’ve been with my current partner for about 10 years now.
• He’s an Australian citizen now.
• I miss having him take care of me.

I think that’s about it. I can’t make promises about 2024. I’m afraid to, really. There are quite a few nice things happening though. I guess all I can do is to do my best, right?

It’s like 1:35 am almost. I should get to bed. I already don’t get enough sleep. Good night folks, and hope your 2024 is pretty fucking awesome.

Hello! I hope everybody out there is doing well and in good health.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here because most of the stuff I’m thinking about is being posted on Mastodon and Firefish. (If you have no idea what this is, just head to my website at cnoi.se to see all my fantastically fabulous posts whining about everything.)

Money and survival is what’s in my head right now. Sadly, I had planned for my partner to be here so I can finish a course of study. I thought that I would be able to work a little less while we lived together here but as we know, that’s no happening. It’s affected that and my ability to return back home at the end of the year. I’m really sad that I can’t go back home for Christmas. Everything I make almost goes to bills. It seems like by the next time I get paid, I have a few hundred left over which somehow gets used my next pay cheque comes in.

It’s just disheartening. I am feeling a bit lonely at this time of the year. That’s not out of the ordinary though because it’s cool/cold. It reminds me of Christmas. It makes me homesick.

I’ll be okay though, I guess. My partner does what he can which I need to give him credit for.

I’d just like to keep my stress levels down and have enough money so I don’t have to worry so much. But such is life, right?

I don’t have the opportunity to express myself in over 500 character bits often (see Mastodon), so I thought maybe I’d discuss the way I am feeling lately.

Put simply, lately it’s been rough.

It seems like I’ve been feeling more things more often, even when medicated. Though I believe that this can be good at times, it can also can be bad. I find myself a bit more down lately and I think I’m writing this to find and explore the why of what’s happening.

On Mastodon, I complain a lot about work. I do shift work. Sometimes I work in the afternoon. Sometimes I work overnight. Rarely (by choice) I work in the mornings. Lately they’ve been all over the place. I find myself tired a lot. Exhausted. That frustrates me. Sometimes I just want to be awake when everybody else is and I want to sleep at the same time. That just doesn’t happen when I am struggling to sleep at night a lot.

To make life more fun, I am having to work more to cover my expenses. I am going back to study in a few weeks, and this is going to seriously impact the number of hours I work. I don’t like it.

As many of you know, I have a partner. He’s been hanging around for almost ten years now. He’s pretty good to me but lately there have been some issues popping up and it’s making it hard for me to stay productive.

A few years ago, I did a weird thing. I accepted a job that is across the state–one that would force me to move because driving 8 hours a day isn’t something that I would expect to do. I did it without much consultation with my partner but at the same time, I was hoping that it would inspire him to find work in a place where we’d have things to do and places to go. I was told when I moved to the countryside that it would be a one year stint. He’s been there for over five years now. I stayed for three years. When one of the employers that I wanted to work for asked me to do an interview, I jumped at the opportunity. I thought it might make him want to move here and work with the same place.

We had planned to move him here by the end of this month which obviously isn’t happening anymore. We’re just getting the finances together to build our house (which is a 20 minute drive from here). Changing employers isn’t a smart thing for him to be doing right now. I understand that. Though I am disappointed, I understand.

These two years of living by myself have been rough at times, but now I feel as if I am used to this. That’s hard for me to admit. Though I love my partner, I am used to the solitude. I’m used to doing whatever I want and how I want to do it. When he comes by, much of my life gets rearranged. The same thing happens when I go stay with him for a bit.

My partner has been stressed too but now he’s bringing up how I abandoned him–a lot and how it’s my fault that I am struggling financially. He tells me that I am constantly asking him for money–which I don’t. I do get afraid that some of my expenses will outpace my pay, especially while studying. I asked him just to put a bit into our joint account just in case. I have been putting money in there too in case I need it later. I think of it as savings–if I need it, fine. If I don’t need it, that’s okay too. It’s not an incentive to spend, but just to have something there. After the resulting conversation, I started feeling that I am lazy. A burden. Dumb. I just didn’t feel that great and those feelings have spilled into how I am feeling today.

One of my partner’s faults is that once he becomes fixated on something, he doesn’t let it go and he won’t listen so he took my suggestion of saving a little extra just in case I needed it as me wanting to work less. I just couldn’t tell him my plan because he heard the part of me being afraid I am not going to be able to pay my bills because I need to work less. It’s frustrating at times so all a person can say is “okay” to everything. Nothing else can be said.

I don’t really expect there to be much of a change from how things are today. I don’t plan to work less because, well, I can’t. If anything, I need to pick up one or two more shifts. I kept trying to tell him it was a security thing–just in case. At the end of us living apart, whatever is there can be spent on furniture or something for our new place.

I’m not really expecting my partner to move here until the house is finished and not a moment before. I was hoping for some sort of relief to concentrate on my studies which has been dragging on for way too long (I am just about done, by the way!). I won’t get that.

I am also risking not being able to go back home at the end of the year which I was really looking forward to. I had expected my partner to be here at that time.

There’s a lot happening in the old noggin of mine. I am really hoping I can process what to do about it soon. I’m not in crisis mode at the moment, but just stressed and worrisome. That’s not atypical though.

So if you’ve read all of this, I appreciate it. Sometimes it helps getting these feelings out. As I’ve said, things are manageable now. I’m not really much worse off until the end of the year but I kind of wished I had more support emotionally. My partner has his own stressors and has a lot going on, so sometimes it feels like I am alone in this world.

Until next time, take good care of yourselves. I will try my hardest to do the same… much love!