I’ve been using OVHCloud as a VPS since 2022, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and shop around. I found Hetzner, and I got the same machine for half the price! I did this because I wanted to set up a new machine so I can install Coolify, which is a self-hosting project, kinda like Vercel but you are the cloud. I spent a lot of my day today just learning it and moving over some of my projects, I got the REST endpoints setup with a docker container, one of my discord bots moved over, and I’m working on getting the frontend working. It’s nice to have some kind of fresh start, like a brand new clean machine. On my old VPS I had a factorio server running, a Minecraft server, a few discord bots, and also a couple webapps. That poor machine was getting abused lol.
After a bit of being in quiet I decided to put on some music, and youtube autoplay gave me some beautiful midwest emo gems. I’ve been kinda just playing “still save a seat for you” by Otuka on repeat. The kind of repeat where you keep clicking restart once it goes to the next song. It’s one of those beautiful songs where someone tries to pour out all of their pain into their art. The art in it is how the artist has a fairly deep, monotone voice. I think they only go through a total of 5 notes or so, and so in compensation, the rest of the instruments scream for him. It’s that kind of beauty that shows up after living in the dark for weeks. It feels like being on the verge of crying for several months and finally, something bad enough happens that you’re justified in just breaking down sobbing. It feels like it captures that male feeling of being told to not show emotions or being punished for that. I guess that’s why I love it so much.
The song almost paints a picture so vivid in my head it makes me sad for a memory that’s not even mine. The song feels like a teen boy in a basement alone facing the wall, with an electric guitar plugged into headphones so he can be loud without being reprimanded. I see that kid blasting the chords into his headphones, almost to the point he can’t hear himself think. He can gently say the words along to the song, all with the guise of writing a song. But I think it goes past that, I think this is one of his only ways to put those feelings outside of his head. I see him closing his eyes and shaking up and down with each strum, fully in his own world where he is heard, or alone – I’m not sure what he wants or what he should want. I then see his mom coming down, and shocking him without him noticing her coming over. She would probably say something supportive of the music, but to him instantly all of the vulnerability and courage to confront those emotions instantly goes away to the facade of being closed off to the world, after all, emotions are punished and how is a kid that’s never been properly heard supposed to know how to speak? And suddenly he needs to do something else because he is afraid of being perceived. All until it gets bad enough and he gets a moment alone where he can continue all over again. At least that’s what the song sounds like to me.
Holy fuck this cold/tonsillitis has been kicking my ass for the last week+, I’ve been exhausted the entire day and want to just sleep. I’m hoping that by Sunday I’m fully better as that’s when I’m going to see Ken Carson, and I also just want to be back to my normal self. I haven’t worked out in almost a week now which is insane to me and I really hope I don’t fall out of habit.
I feel scared with A because she’s been so great to me. She’s been super understanding, very empathetic, and kind, and she has been showing me a lot of love. For example, she offered to get me things to help me get over this cold and even spent $20 on a marked-up bottle of Dayquil without even mentioning it. She’s been incredible, and that weirdly scares me. I guess I’m trying out the common thought of “I don’t deserve this”. I feel like parts of this resonate with me. I’ve been very sick and tired since our sleepover, and so I’ve been somewhat depressed with no energy to do anything. I feel like I haven’t been me for the last few days and recently am starting to feel like myself again, but during this entire period I still feel like I am not providing enough value to her as a person, let alone a partner – and so I don’t deserve this amount of care or affection. I guess the logical reasoning is if she cared about me less then it would be more sustainable if I am providing her such little, but I know that the faulty assumption there is that everything is so black and white in terms of “value”. I also know that on top of it, she probably understands that I am sick and recovering right now, but I guess I’m afraid that this patience is on some timer. I feel bad for starting a relationship this way since I want to be a good partner. But also I think this is putting way too much unhealthy stress on me, since this stress doesn’t actually benefit me at all, but rather hurts me. I know that this is the overanalysis that I do ritualistically nightly, but I think there is a valid fear beneath it. I’m excited for therapy tomorrow to be able to talk about this a bit more and pry behind to see what this is.
The last post was the one I should have written yesterday, so this is meant to be a fully distinct post for today. I saw a person who posted an art project they wanted to do and it took them over a year to do. It was one animation where they drew a different frame of it every day, and it was a relatively simple scene but the pure love that went into it really hit me. Similar to the thought of the pinned post of art, I think a lot of love is things taken for granted. Like how my parents carried me into bed after a car trip when we acted asleep. Or the deserts or meals that my dad would feign disinterest in just for the chance of us wanting to eat it. I think a lot of love is founded on actions that are likely to never get recognition.
A is now officially my girlfriend! Well technically as of yesterday, 11/10/2024. I guess the only way I can say this is I’m a bit overwhelmed right now and not feeling well so I don’t want to overanalyze anything for fear of misrepresentation, since I do believe at some point she will read this. I’m very excited but I guess I’m also scared. But I also do think this is the fear that comes from my brain having no dopamine left and just regular depression, and so I’ve been kinda just distracting myself constantly today to avoid falling into those mental traps.
I went over to A’s place for game night, and at one point we were playing secret Hitler. I’ve never played the game before, but it’s a fun social deduction game and ripe for causing chaos by lying. I decided to go for my favorite of pure chaos instead of trying to win, but I had my moment of victory by announcing near the end who I thought the people were and I got 2/3 of them right which made me feel pretty smart lol. I had a great time with everyone there and really enjoyed the overall vibe so I’m very happy I went.
I’m also kinda nervous since tomorrow A is coming over to sleep over, and we’re kinda hitting that next base in the relationship(?) and I’m anxious. I also don’t really know what the proper timeline is to ask them out but I know for sure I want to once it’s appropriate to. I really like her, I think shes an incredible person and I enjoy her company. I’m doing my best to remind myself that the requirement to be liked/loved is just to give space for someone else, because that alone relieves the pressure I feel to constantly be someone providing some sort of value. I guess I kinda feel like it’s a never-ending interview where I’m trying to convince the other person that I should be someone they care about. But I don’t think that’s the way life should be, just a wrongly learned lesson from childhood. I’m glad I can see that now.
It's only 10 but I'm exhausted my brain isn't working. I apologize to myself for not really writing anything for the last few days but I've been coming home super late.
I've been constantly rewriting my blog over and over again because I'm not happy with it and it's never getting to the point that I should deploy it, and I need to stop wasting so much time waiting for it to be perfect.
Today I saw Cleopatrick in concert and I just got home and I'm about to pass out. The fucking coolest thing is they were playing their new album with ZIGMENTALITY And I found out they all are connected after which was an insane thing to blow my mind. As the concert ended one of their friends who was helping was coming to clean up and I begged him to show them my shirt because I made the custom one from when I went to Cobourg and he thought it was sick and said he would show it to them in the back. They all ended up signing it and I even got to talk with all of them and take photos and I even got to exchange Instagrams with one of the people from ZIG!!! It turns out Luke even watched my TikTok that I made which is really funny because it has like six likes. Ill write a lot more tomorrow since I'm about to pass out right now, but I remember in the concert thinking about how if love is to be changed, or if you should change for love. Or if there is some weird other option where love should require no change and that was something I wanted to think about later.