"Mesmerize, Maximize me, Let's go beyond reality..."

In therapy yesterday, my therapist said I seemed almost like a different person than when I started seeing her back in 2016. More in tune with my emotions, and more expressive, and engaged with life, and happier. I mentioned that I hadn't gotten into JET and she was surprised because I had never mentioned it in a session, and considering how formative living in Japan was for my interests and current personality, that says a lot. I didn't get in, and rather than assuming everything was over, I was disappointed and then moved on with my life. You know. A healthy way of dealing with things.

There was a lot of talk about feeling my feelings, and how I don't feel like I have lock myself down to protect anyone now. And that means that people can get closer to me without me almost-reflexively pulling away, and I'm more willing to reach out. And while that was born out of tragedy:

Me: "I never thought about ending things. I didn't want to leave. I just wanted her to be happy.
My therapist: "But at what cost to yourself?"

In the end, the effects on me are positive. And goodbyeomelas said the same thing, so I'm glad that it's evident in other aspects of my life as well.

Another surprise to my therapist is that my stomach pain hasn't abated, though. The Body Keeps the Score talked a lot about people's emotions finding expression in the body as aches if they didn't have any other outlet, so I don't know if that means there's still something I can't express, or if it's just the latent worries I have about life. I'm not a completely different person, after all.

Wednesday at lisekatevans's invitation, I went to a play reading that City Lit is doing as part of a "new plays" series. Since it was a reading, it was a bunch of actors on the stage with the scripts, but that was probably for the best--the play was autobiographical and about sexual assault, back-alley abortions, response to trauma, and vigilante justice, all set against the moon landing of 1969. It was a bit rough, and while the playwright was there and said that it was based on her memories, I do wonder how much of it were literal events that happened, how much was what they wished had happened, and how much was dramatic embellishment. lisekatevans had spoiled the entire plot to me, but I'm not sure whether that made it easier to harder to watch. I knew when all the violent scenes were coming, so maybe they hit me harder because I knew specifically what would go wrong.

There was a panel discussion afterwards with the playwright and two women who work for organizations dealing with sexual assault (the Zacharias House and...I forget the other one), which was briefer than I might have liked and filled with a few too many audience "this is more of a comment..." responses, but I'm glad City Lit made space for it. I'm also glad that the play was no longer a musical, which lisekatevans told me it had been at one point. Maybe that's where lead's speech about losing her "moonglow" came from--I can imagine that as a solo. 🎶

I tried something different for breakfast today. Usually I have a Japanese breakfast of miso soup, rice, pickles, fish, and tea, but lately I've been feeling a bit too full after eating it. So last night I didn't start any rice at all, and this morning I just had some matcha and a bit of halvah, and I brought a snack bar to work with me. And the end result is that as I write this I'm hungry again, so I guess I need to find some medium point between these options. Maybe less miso soup and another vegetable.

I took off a bunch of time to finally use up some of my vacation. The first week of July, the week of Thanksgiving and a couple days before so I can go to Daishocon with the Anime Chicago people, and Yom Kippur. I'm still going to take off the end of the year, and I have a couple more days I need to use after that, but plans are coming together.

And to end on an annoyed note, apparently deciding that the Chicago Dyke March harassing people carrying a Magen David flag was worthy of emulation, the DC Dyke March this year specifically banned the Magen David on flags as a "nationalist" symbol. While they're not nearly as overtly antisemitic as the Chicago Dyke March was, it's still baffling to me that they had the previous example right there and still decided to stick their foot in it.

I guess the Jews murdered in the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting last year should have been remembered with pomegranates or the Lion of Judah, instead of having "nationalist" symbols erected as a memorial?