Margarita at Methodist, Mikel at Open Door, Calabazas

October 17, 2023:

Well, this was a very nice day, mainly because of some important thoughts I had. Gotta look at the notes now. I cooked two eggs with my meds this morning, using the right burner this time. Then, I walked over to Methodist. I had the random thought while walking over there that I might look back at this time and think I had it all figured out. That thought kind of came out of becoming a lot more content with not constantly being around people. I know that later in the day, I realized that the way I always had selfies of me with people in my photos of the day was just an attempt to prove both to myself and to the world that I was being “social enough.” That’s kind of why I chose not to do that today, and decided to try to choose photos that still capture my day, but aren’t just pictures of me smiling with people. I don’t think I’ll stop doing the smiling pictures entirely, like I still did that one with Liam yesterday, but I’ll be more open to including other things in the pictures too.

So at Methodist, I was able to learn two useful Spanish phrases. They were: “peguen a la pared” for “stick to the wall,” from Margarita, and “nos permite de este lado” for basically telling the clients to wait behind us, from Angel. Don’t quite understand the grammar in that one tbh. I also talked to Angel more than usual this week. I learned that he used to work at his family’s agriculture supply company in Mexico, and he’ll go back there when he returns to Mexico, which will happen at the end of the month because he can’t find a job here. Might not see him again since I’m gone next week. I also talked to Margarita a bit more than I had in the past too, and learned that she moved here from Mexico, and is married with a kid as well. I’m not sure if her partner is Mexican or not, but maybe I’ll ask. She’s not leaving, at least. What happened was I walked home from Methodist, and once I got there, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything. I wan’t hungry at all, but I knew I should eat something, because not eating can actually make me more nauseous. So, I walked back to Methodist and grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from the kitchen, which was still there even though everyone else was done eating.

Then, I went back home and did a bit of diamond painting and also heated up some leftovers I had from Fusion yesterday. I also had the thought that it’ll be a lot easier to become happy if I can be content being alone, and also that being content being alone will probably make seeing friends even more enjoyable than it had been. I also realized I had gotten got a little more depressed at the end of my recent depressive episode because I was deeply realizing that it is impossible to spend every second around people. I sure tried though! It hurt a lot when I deeply believed that I had to be around people to be happy, and I was beginning to realize that that was impossible. Honestly, that’s a huge part of the reason why my photos of the day have looked so incredibly social. It was just never enough for me, not even when I was constantly socializing when I worked at as a server at Fogo.

What I did next was I dove into working on the graphic design project that Mikell had given me. It was basically designing a series of Instagram posts that explain the four different programs Open Door has. I got so in to doing the designs, that I actually was almost late for my Open Door shift as a translator. I messaged Mikell at 4:11pm and told her I was only leaving that instant, when my shift was supposed to begin at 4:15pm. So, I drove there rapidly and got there by 4:26pm, partly because the light was green for crossing the light rail. When I got there, I immediately went to talk to Mikell about the design stuff. She loved what I had been working on, and also said that I could maybe explore doing a new version that has more graphics and fewer photos, which they don’t currently post a lot of on their Instagram.

Then, I went to serve as a translator. It seemed like they were doing fine without me, in a large part because they had just hired Italia. At Open Door today, I learned a few things in Spanish too, like that the word for squash is “calabaza,” which is the same as the word for pumpkin. It was relevant because the calabazas were a bonus item today. Italia and I also talked about the different words for lemons versus green limes. And then I also told Italia some of my important thoughts about enjoying things more after accepting that I don’t always have to be around people. Now that I think about it, I might have also mentioned that to Mikell. At any rate, I talked with Italia a bit about how she’s pretty much always around people, since she lives with her parents and like three or four siblings, including a twin. Well for photos, I’ve got Margarita at Methodist, one of Mikell explaining Canva templates to me, and a picture of the “calabazas,” which are not pumpkins even though they have the same name.

Oh, and then I drove home, and prepared myself dinner. It was the orange chicken from Trader Joe’s, where one cup of it has 16g of fat. So I had a tiny bit less than a cup, and had my meds at 7:52pm, right when I finished the food. Might also have some of the 0g fat white rice I found the other day. I can see myself becoming a lot more interested in cooking now, or at least preparing food because God knows I've never been a cook.