It’s been a week since I’ve been back from Malta, which is hard to believe. I’ve been back for as long as I was there. It feels both like a faded memory and as if it never happened. I’m grateful for the experience, and it’s taught me some things about myself. One thing I didn’t talk about before is our nightmare layover in Charles de Gaulle. I may have mentioned it in passing, but I neglected to say how truly hellish it was. It was on the way to Malta, and it was three hours. That seemed like it would be plenty of time, but I was wrong. First mistake was not getting boarding passes for both legs of the trip, but I naively thought it would work like all other international airports and not be a problem. Oh, how I was wrong.
First of all, my mother was obsessed with getting a wheelchair for my father. His deteriorating health, both mental and physical, was a constant theme of the trip. It was one of the reasons my parents extended an offer to Ian to be included; he was going to help with chaperoning my father around. We went to the help desk, and he wasn’t very helpful. He put in a request for a wheelchair, but he said it would come in half an hour, maybe an hour, who could tell? He gave a Gallic shrug, and my mother tried to ask other questions. He didn’t know the answer to any of them, and we were on our bewildering way.
We needed boarding passes, but we didn’t know how to get them. I tried to use the Wi-Fi, but it wasn’t working on my phone. Ian was making suggestions, but my mom (and, admittedly me) was ignoring him. We stood in the security line for a minute, but I was wondering if we needed to get the tickets first. So, Ian and I went to try to find the ticketing counter, but couldn’t. I was panicking, and we returned to the security line. Someone told us we had to go through that to get to the ticketing agent, which was weird to me. When we got to the front of the line, over an hour and a half had passed, and we were running out of time. I was hot and cranky, and the woman told us we needed our boarding pass to get through or a confirmation of our flight. Which would not be a problem if I could actually access the Wi-Fi. Which I couldn’t. I stepped out of line, but my parents were at another agent. She was telling them they needed their boarding pass when I was finally able to access Wi-Fi and after much difficulty, pull up my confirmation.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m ready to dip my toe in the dating world. Well, to be more accurate, I’m ready for some sexing, y’all! It’s been far too long, and while my hand is a reliable companion, sometimes, I long for the touch of another body. Just to refresh your memories, I want someone with whom I can have dinner, a few laughs, maybe a movie or a show, raucous sexing, and then I can send them home with no hard feelings. I want this two to three times a week (I’d be down for more sex, but that usually slides into an actual relationship, which I don’t want), and it’s starting to feel urgent.
Before I went to Malta, I installed Bumble and actually put in a few photos. They’re not current, but I still pretty much look the same with just a few more wrinkles. The power of being Asian, yo! I looked at the first dude and immediately came up with a problem–I have to swipe one way or the other on him. I couldn’t just ‘like’ him or something like that and ponder him later. Also, you have to pay for something called Bumble coins to get more info, which is not something I appreciate. Anyway, I swiped left on most of the people I saw (looking for both men and women) for various reasons, but there was one guy that caused me pause. I didn’t want to swipe right on him because that felt like too much pressure, but I wanted to save him for later. I realized that because I would have to be the one to make the first move, swiping right on him was essentially saving him for later, so I did.
I let it go for the day, but checked it the next day. To my surprise, I had a woman swipe right on me (is it right? I never remember which is which, which is a problem), and when I tried to look at her info, I accidentally swiped right on her. I panicked and wanted to undo it, but Bumble won’t let you unswipe a right because they said it wouldn’t be nice. I panicked some more because in a same-gender match, either person can make the first move, and I don’t do well with rejecting someone. Yes, I hate to be rejected (who doesn’t?), but I hate rejecting someone else even more. Which is a problem if I’m going to use a dating app.
I uninstalled Bumble and haven’t touched it since. Yes, it was an overreaction, but it was also because I was leaving to Malta, so I really wouldn’t be doing much chatting for the next week. Now that I’m back, I’m thinking about installing it again. In fact, I’m doing it now. I just opened it up and found someone has SuperSwiped me. I don’t know what to do with this information. I really hate having to make a decision right away, so I just left it and set down my phone. That’s how I tend to deal with things–I push them away until they either go away or until I absolutely have to deal with them.
I’m still recovering from my trip to Malta, and I want to talk more about it while weaving it with my travails in video gaming. Here’s my first post about Malta if you want some background into what I’m going to write here.
As longtime readers know, I have a very troubled relationship with sleep, fraught with tension, misery and pain. It’s slowly getting better over the past few years, and it’s reached the point where I can sleep up to six hours at one time. I know you’re scratching your head and thinking, “What’s so great about that, Minna? I can do that every night!” Exactly, my friend. It’s something any person *should* be able to do, but let’s quickly recount my sleeping history.
Ever since I was a wee child, I’ve evaded sleep. My mom would put me to bed around eight or nine, and I’d stuff the towel under the door crack and read until midnight or later. Fast-forward to college my first year, and I was sleeping 3 1/2 hours a night. I couldn’t fall asleep until three or four in the morning, and I had a 7:45 a.m. class. Then, I’d go home for vacation and sleep 15 1/2 hours the first day while simultaneously catching a cold. In my twenties, 4 hours was my average. I stretched it to 5 in the next twenty years, and then with the help of taiji, I bumped it up to 6 – 6 1/2 hours.
Malta fucked with all that. I don’t think I slept more than three hours in one stretch, and I was so tired the whole time. Going in the ocean helped, but that only lasted as long as we were on the beach. Once we returned to the retreat center, I’d be hot, miserable, and tired again. There were a few moments of clarity as to how spoiled I am. How well-off Americans are in general, really.
It was interesting because I’m very aware of politics in America and how I’m a triple minority (Taiwanese, bi, female), fast becoming a fourth (old). I’m a person non grata, and I’ve resigned myself to my fate. My standard of living, however, is quite high in comparison to life on Malta. I’m not romanticizing when I say that life is much simpler on the island of Gozo. Well, maybe I am romanticizing it a bit, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that life is slower and a bit more easy-going on the islands than here in the US.
The other strange thing is how quiet it is in Gozo. In the States, there is a low-level hum that is as constant as it is ubiquitous. Even if there’s no other sound, the drone of all our electric shit surrounds us. In Gozo, there is none of that. When the people are quiet, all is quiet. It was one thing I really enjoyed about Malta. Honestly, if I had air, I would have found the quietness to be serene and peaceful.
I am back from my week of fun in the sun, emphasis on sun. I went to Malta, Gozo more specifically, with my family and Ian, and it was an experience unlike any other. First of all, I have to get the elephant in the room out of the way.
The heat. More to the point, the heat and the humidity. It’s the summer in Gozo, and it’s the worst of the worst. More than one Gozitan commented that we had come to the island at the wrong time while looking as cool as a cucumber as I sweated a river down my body. My mom’s sandplay association had a conference and why they chose Malta during sweat o’clock time, I’ll never know.
Here’s the absolute worst part–we were staying at a Jesuit retreat center. That’s not the bad part–they were wonderful people. Very kindhearted and generous, which I’ll get to in a minute. The retreat center had no air conditioning. I repeat, the retreat center had no air. Now, if you know anything about me, you know that I HATE the heat. Hate it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. Anything over sixty makes me cranky, and when it hits eighty, I’m a right bitch. In Gozo, the average temperature while we were there was high eighties with an 80% humidity. There were two large fans in the bedrooms, but all it did was move the hot air around. Ian and I kept the windows open (one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom), but it didn’t help much, either.
I couldn’t sleep in the heat. It was oppressive. I know that phrase is overused, but it was true. I never knew how much I took for granted that nighttime would bring about a cool and much-needed breeze. I love my air and pay fealty to it, but I reasoned I could live without it. I have. My air was broken at the beginning of this summer, right when we had a few days of 100 degrees. It was actually broken since last year, but the AC company told me to wait to fix it until April of this year so the warranty would last longer. Well, not longer, but you know what I mean. In April, we had a 1 1/2 – 2 feet snowstorm, so the last thing I was thinking about was my air conditioner.
Anyway, I suffered through it wearing as little as possible and blasting a big box fan right in my face. I moved as little as possible, and it was relief once the heat broke. My air was fixed a few weeks later, and I haven’t looked back yet. Naively, I thought if I could deal with that, then I could deal with Malta.
I could not have been more wrong.
The heat hit like a Mack truck the second I stepped on that island. It surrounded me like a shroud and grew incrementally tighter every second I was there. From the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep, it wrapped around me like a blanket and wouldn’t let go. Breakfast was at 8 a.m., lunch was at 12:30 p.m., and dinner was at 7:30 p.m. We got there last Tuesday, I want to say afternoon? It’s hard to remember because time was so convoluted in Malta. Anyway, my heart sank when I realized there was no A/C, but I naively thought I’d be able to deal with it on some level.
That’s a lie. I knew I would have trouble with the heat. I’m a wimp when it comes to heat–there’s no getting around it. I can’t even deal with Minnesota heat which is bush league in comparison to what I experienced in Gozo. I’d lay down in the heat around midnight, drenched in sweat, feeling miserable as I waited for sleep to find me. I had one fan blowing directly on my face, but it didn’t help. I was miserable and pissed off, but trying not to wallow in it–or my stench.
Sleep was not my friend during those nights. I’d sleep for maybe an hour or two, and then I’d wake up hot and sweaty. To make matters work, I didn’t fully understand how the toilet worked, and I have a thing about public toilets anyway, so by the fourth or fifth night, I was pretty much avoiding the bathroom in the bedroom and using the one in the center itself. Ian and I got into a fight over the toilet in our bathroom, and it’s in a large part because both of us were sleep-deprived and majorly cranky. I felt like everything was working my last nerve, and I had to actively hold back from snapping.
Ian and I would go out to smoke at three or four in the morning, and it would be minimally cooler. It was actually cooler outside the rooms than in, but, again, it was a matter of degrees. As in less than five. We’d stay outside as long as possible, and then return to the stifling room. We’d both try to sleep, but it was nearly impossible. My sleep is shit in general, but in Malta, it got even worse. It hit Ian even harder than me, and I don’t think either of us got more than three hours of sleep at a time.
We’d wake up around six or so and then swan around miserably until breakfast. I have to give the retreat center props for having gluten-free cereal and bread (from my favorite maker, Schar) and vegetable milk, even though I don’t know what exactly it’s made of. Breakfast was gluten-free flakes and vegetable milk, a banana, gluten-free bread with three slices of ham. Coffee or tea, orange juice, and water. Another smoke, and then life on the bay.
This is one of the ways the men at the retreat center were so wonderful. The director drove my father, Ian, and me to Xlendi Bay the morning after we arrived and picked us up a few hours later. He did that the next day as well. On the third day of the conference, he was busy, but he had one of the fathers drive us instead. Xlendi Bay became our second home, and, yes, it’s a tourist haven, but it’s gorgeous, and the water was crystal clear and cool. I loved wading in it, feeling the buoyancy keeping me bobbing. I had to be careful because of the rocks, but it was such a breath of fresh air–pun intended. Plus, there was a breeze that kept the air from being stifling.
What I loved most about the bay was seeing a plethora of people from all around the world–or more accurately, from all around Europe. There were people of all shapes and sizes, and none of them were self-conscious about their bodies. I saw older and large women who were rocking bikinis and bathing suits with confidence, not giving a damn about the cellulite on their thighs or upper arms. They didn’t give a thought about how their bodies appeared to others–which was so mind-blowing to see. I’m so used to American women (me included) being obsessed with what is wrong with our bodies, and even if it was an illusion, I loved seeing women who just didn’t give a damn.
Related note: Right before going to Malta, I went shopping to look for a bathing suit at Target. I had little hope of finding one because bathing suits are not made for women like me. But, I tried on a two-piece that was made by a company specifically for plus-sized women, and to my surprise, it did not make me want to cry when I saw it on myself.
In Gozo, I saw a women similar to my size wearing a swimsuit that was similar to mine except it was bright blue and flowery while mine was black–natch. The top had a camisole-like base with flowing drapes over it. There was cleavage shown, but still had support. The bottom had boy shorts with drapes over it as well. I didn’t feel uncomfortable in it, but mostly because of how comfortable everyone else was around me. On a related note, there were so many beautiful people–but not in the conventional way. They all looked like they lived hard and joyfully, and I had to stop myself from staring more than once. It’s why I like European flicks–the actors look real. Haggardly beautiful, but real.
After a refreshing morning at Xlendi Bay, it was lunch time. It was usually some kind of pasta followed by meat, potatoes, and veggies. Then, dessert or fruit. I tried to stay strong, but I broke. I had to eat the pasta because I was famished. Another thing I didn’t realize is how used to eating whenever I want I’d gotten. I don’t like to eat three times a day–I prefer to graze. In Malta, I felt I had to stuff myself when I had the chance because I wouldn’t eat again for a long stretch of time. On the other hand, I was so hot, I rarely felt like eating. It was a weird situation.
Dinner was vegetable soup, then meat, potatoes and veggies, and then wine. The first day of food was great. By the last night, I think everyone was a bit sick of the same thing. Oh, there was bread for every meal as well, but I couldn’t eat any of that. The pasta I had was good, but it wreaked havoc on my system. I stopped eating it after three days with just a pang of regret.
The last day we were in Gozo, Ian and I begged off the planned tour despite persistent urging from my mother (because I fucking hate tours. I hate crowds of people. I hate people telling me what to do or where to go. And, to be honest, I wanted the time away from my family. After breakfast, Ian and I walked into the town center with the explicit plan to visit the shopping mall and the citadel. There would be air conditioning in the shopping mall, we reasoned. Oh, how wrong we were. It wasn’t really a shopping mall, but merely a collection of shops for tourist with an occasional blast of air, but not A/C per se. I was dying at this point, but it was our last day in Gozo, and I didn’t want to waste it.
Walking to the citadel was painful; I’m not going to lie. I was gasping, though I tried to keep it quiet, and my extremities were tingling. My right thigh was numbing in pain–and this thigh has been a problem for the past six months or so. My dad has a lot of pain in his thighs in a similar way to what I’ve been experiencing, and it’s turned out to be serious. I’m not a doctor, but my interpretation is compressed vertebrae. There’s talk of an operation. The citadel was very interesting, but I was seriously hurting by the time we got there. I overheard a mother asking her daughter in concern if the daughter was OK, and the daughter nodded, but her face was dangerously flushed. I hope she’s OK, but it heartened me to know I wasn’t the only one who was having such difficulties with the climate.
I had a fish stew that was fucking amazing. But, no air until the cab we hailed to go back to the retreat center. I know we overpaid, but I didn’t care by that point. I would have paid five times the amount for five minutes of cold. It showed me how weak my flesh was and how willing I was to do anything to get out of that remorseless heat. I said to Ian that it started to feel malevolent, as if the heat was personally targeting me. Yes, I know it’s not true, but it really felt malicious by the third night I couldn’t fucking sleep. We slept with the door open during the day which helped, but it felt weird to do that at night. I don’t know why, but sleeping with the door closed was nearly impossible.
I have much more to say, but this is getting long. I’ll wrap it up here and pick it up at a later time.
Hello! I am going to Malta this week, so there will be no posts. I hope to come back invigorated and rededicated to blogging after a week of sun, good eating, and relaxation (I hope!), so see you then.
It’s been a over a month since I’ve played a Souls* game, and I’ve been adrift ever since. I don’t have any Souls game installed on my laptop, which is really strange as the three games have dominated my life for the past few years. There are other games I’ve played since, for example, Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator. I didn’t really feel it when I first played it, but it slowly grew on me. I made my dad a chubby awkward Asian guy with a scraggly beard, pierced ear, glasses, and death metal t-shirt. As I tweeted, I basically created me as a dude. I named him Morgan because that’s my favorite name, and it was off to the races! Let me meet the hot dads and find true love!
What did I love about this game? Right off the bat, I love the diversity. The dads were of all races, backgrounds, and body sizes. On the other hand, it was set in a suburban cul-de-sac, so there wasn’t much economic diversity, but I appreciated the conceit to keep all the dads in one area. I found the beginning slow-going. I moved to this cul-de-sac with my daughter, Amanda (my husband/her father had died at some point in the past), and we’re settling in. It’s very dialogue-driven, which is a bit tedious in the start. I went on a few dates, then put the game away, thinking I would never play it again.
I went back for whatever reason, and I really got into it. Yes, each of the dads was a specific stereotype, but there was some death to them as well. Except for the bad boy dad, but I probably shouldn’t have slept with him the first night I met (and drank) with him. Is he a dad for real? Hard to say because I never saw his kid. Robert, I think his name was, but who cares because he was just DTF. My favorite was Hugo, the high school English teacher who had a secret passion for WWE-like wrestling. He had delightfully-rumpled hair and dressed sharp, and we did trivia and cheese night at a local pub. He was hot, hot, hot, but…his son was a terror. Disrespectful, mouthy, and a budding vandal. I’ll just say it. I hated him.
In this game, if you go on a third date with a dad, it’s the real deal. It means you’re getting serious with him because isn’t that how it works in the real world? I didn’t want to get serious before I dated all the dads to the max, so I set about doing that. Yes, I dated them all twice (if you can call messaging Robert on Dadbook, yes, that’s what it’s called and not getting an answer a ‘date’), and let me tell you, it was fun. The mini-games were eye-rolling, but I liked the variety. Plus, there’s a sweetness to the game that I didn’t expect. It’s so full of heart, and I can’t hate on a game that just wants to spread the love.
Caffeine. Let’s talk about it. It’s been a few weeks of having one cup of caffeine a day (and, yes, I’m putting it that way because it’s all about the caffeine, not about the vessel), and my god. It’s been a bitch, to put it bluntly. I knew it would be hard. I knew I would struggle. That’s why I did a cut-down rather than a cut-out. Vivid memories of going cold turkey haunted me as I started this endeavor. Cue the intensive headaches–had to take my migraine headache Excedrin-generic pills–and the lingering lassitude. Not to mention the inability to focus. I was walking around as if I were in a fog all day long.
The headaches have mostly gone away, thankfully, as had the mental fog. The lassitude, however, it persists. My sleep has been shittier, too, and I’m sure it’s because my body is adjusting to the caffeine deficit. Also, I had to slam down some extra caffeine on Saturday night to pick up my parents from the airport, and I’m sure that didn’t help. The weariness has been so bad, I’ve been tempted to up the caffeine to two cups because that’s not bad for me, right? I know the moral of this story is a hard look at how much I depended on caffeine to get me through the day. If my reaction is this severe, then it means I should not have gotten hooked in the first place. Caffeine is definitely a drug, and it’s frightening how many people are addicted to it.
Now, taiji. There’s no connection between the two, but I want to talk about both. There was a letter to Ask A Manager about the CEO of a small nonprofit making all the employees participate it taiji sessions twice a week for twelve weeks for ‘health’ reasons and for ‘team bonding’. The OP participated in the first session, which exacerbated her* chronic condition, and she asked to be exempt from the rest. The CEO said she didn’t have to participate, but she had to sit in the sessions. She said it made her feel singled out and punished (told the CEO this) and was basically told to deal with it.
I mention it not just because I’m horrified the CEO would mandate taiji but since we’re on this subject, don’t do this, CEOs. Taiji is amazing, and I think everyone could get something out of it, but it’s not helpful to MAKE people do it–or watch it. Being resentful isn’t the right mind-frame to learn taiji. In addition, there are different kinds of taiji, and some are more strenuous than others. This is what my main gripe with the commenters for this post stem. There were several who were like, “Oh, it’s just standing there” or “It’s just meditation” or “It’s just stretching”.
Romance has been on my mind a lot lately. Or rather, sex has been. The two are not interchangeable, and I’m still figuring out how much of each I want and how I can go about getting it (and the right balance).
First off, let me admit that it started with me wanting sex. Straight up. I love sex so fucking much. It’s been mumble mumble years since I’ve had it, and I’m worried I’m going to plumb dry up. I’m nearing my menopausal years (I think I’m perimenopausal), and I’ve heard that sex can be more problematic after menopause than before. That doesn’t mean I have to get it now or never get it again, but it does put an internal ticker on it.
More to the point, though, in the past few months, I’ve just been so fucking horny (yes, I mean that in both ways). It’s getting harder and harder to ignore. I can get myself off, of course, but there’s something about interacting with another person that I miss a lot.
Now, let’s get to the problem(s). One. I’m forty-seven who is self-employed. I’m not going to meet someone at work except myself, and that defeats the purpose. Two, I haven’t been in the dating game for such a long time. Come to think of it, I haven’t ever really been in the dating game. I met my first boyfriend at summer school when I was sixteen, and that tends to be a pattern of mine–dating friends. There was a time in my late twenties when I was on the Craigslist personals (I’m showing my age here), and I did end up dating a dude. The sex was hotter than hot, but the relationship was fraught with tension and issues.
It’s been said that online dating is a godsend to introverts, but I found it to be more stressful than it was worth. I liked Craigslist because I could place an add, but that meant wading through all the dudes with the yellow plague, unsolicited dick picks, and women with boyfriends/husbands who wanted a threesome*. No matter how specifically I noted that I didn’t want Asian fetishists or pictures of some rando’s cock, I’d open up my message box and BAM! Dick in my face or ‘I looooove Oriental girls’.
Side note: My dudes. Read the actual bios/essay of the chick you’re trying to hit up. Nothing is more unattractive than showing disrespect within the very first line of your message.
I signed up for OKCupid once, but I got stuck on answering the gazillion questions and never really did anything with it. I’ve heard they’ve changed their metrics so that you can’t read someone’s profile for free any longer, and they’ve taken away a lot of what made OKCupid good. I’ve heard good things about Bumble, but they recently went to a monetization system as well. You can still do the basics, but the reviews on the site are not pleased with the changes. I do like the idea of the woman making the first move, though. If it’s a same-sex couple, then either person can make the first move. You have to answer within 24 hours, though, which I find a bit pushy.
During my dive into the Buzzfeed rabbit hole, I stumbled across a video of something called ‘The Try Guys’. It was a series of videos by four guys who worked at Buzzfeed doing daring, funny, and sometimes crazy things. I was immediately hooked and watched all the videos of them I could find. The zest with which they threw themselves into activities in which they had no experience was fascinating to me because I’m terrible at doing things I haven’t done before, especially if I have no interest in it. I’m always hyper-conscious about how I look as I’m doing it, convinced that I must look like a total loser. I have a hard time getting out of my own head, and there’s no way I could do some of the shit they tried (such as spending a night in the wilderness by themselves. And, not as a group, but each individually). I know part of that is that they’re men so they have more leeway than I as a woman would (for societal reasons and because of self-imposed limits based on societal expectations), but it wasn’t just that. More on that in a moment.
Let’s get the elephant out of the way. One of the reasons I liked the videos so much was because there’s a very hot Asian guy as one of the four. Eugene Lee Yang. He is insanely hot (though he doesn’t think so because like me, he grew up yellow in a white world, believing that he was ugly. He’s Korean, and he has the same dual-country shame that I do–both his cultures thought he was ugly just as both my cultures did, too), and unfortunately for me, gay. And too young. It’s just like me to go for the person I can’t have. Story of my life. Beyond his hotness, though, the fact that there was an Asian guy being prominent in this series (and often being the best at the activity) really warmed my heart. You often see white people (duh) and more and more black people with an occasional Latinx person thrown it, but it’s still rare to see an Asian person be prominently figured. He’s not a sidekick, which is refreshing.
I have to say, though, that while Eugene is my favorite for many reasons, the one I admire the most is Zach Kornfeld. Why? Because he’s the one who often has the least aptitude going into an activity, and yet, he does it to the best of his ability. Yes, he gripes and complains, but way less than I would if thrown into these activities. He’s like the C student who studies all week to get that C instead of being able to pull an all-nighter and get an A. Yes, the latter receives the better grade, but the former is actually the harder worker. (Yes, Eugene is like the latter, but the difference is that he works just as hard as the others, but his natural aptitude is higher in general.) Zach often mentions his little breakable body that isn’t made to do physical activities, plus he has an auto-immune disease that makes many things painful.
Side note: Both Zach and Keith (Habersberger) are lactose-intolerant, and yet, neither shies away from eating cheese by the bucketful on the show if need be. As a fellow lactose-intolerant person, I shudder whenever I see it. I also wonder if Eugene is lactose-intolerant because the vast majority of Asian people are, but that’s neither here nor there.
It’s been a roughly a week since I started my caffeine cut-down. I’m at roughly 8 oz a day, which is where I want to be. It’s been easy-breezy-peasy!
Fuck the hell it has. It’s been harder than fuck, and you can tell I’m serious because I said fuck twice in two sentences. Three times. I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be. The last time I did this, I cut out caffeine completely (6 cans of Diet Pepsi a day), it was horrible for a few days. I barely remember because I was in a haze and my head was pounding like it was a taiko drumming. If I had any doubt that caffeine was an addiction, I didn’t after that.
This time, I decided to be smart about it. I cut down gradually, well, OK, not that gradually. I went from 60 oz to about 25 oz (the first cut is the deepest), and then slowly whittled it down to roughly 10 oz. I’m close to where I want to be, and it’s the worst. I’m so fucking tired all the time. I mentioned last time that it’s a weariness deep in my soul. It’s also mad headaches at time, but it’s mostly feeling unfocused and not able to think. I’m drinking the caffeine when I first wake up, and then I’m going the rest of the day mostly without. By the way, I just had a sip of Mango Diet Coke and instinctively made a face. It was gross. I don’t think I can drink them, though I hate just pouring them out. It’s the Taiwanese in me–we loath to get rid of anything.
I didn’t realize how much I rely on the caffeine to get me through the day. I’m draggy most of the time, and it’s hard for me to concentrate. On the other hand, I am less anxious than I was before, but maybe it’s because I’m just so fucking tired. My affect is flat–flatter than normal, which is pretty flat. I think my body is craving the caffeine, and I don’t know how long it’ll take to physically become not dependent.
I also don’t know if my body will accept anything less than going completely caffeine-free before adjusting. I think I might be keeping it in a state of confusion by pumping it up with caffeine in the morning and coasting on it for the rest of the day. I’ll report back in a week or so how the caffeine experiment is going.
I believe it’ll be better overall, but it’s hellish right now. All I want to do is sleep all the time, and I keep nodding off. It makes me think that at least some of my sleeping issues has been the caffeine. Yes, I know that’s a ‘duh’ thought, but I can’t be brilliant all the time. Could it be as simple as less caffeine equals more sleep? Yeah, no. I’ve been sleeping less actually since giving up caffeine, but maybe that’s just because of the adjustment period. Continue Reading
