Transits
Last year was a strange one.
- Some creative successes with a lot of progress on nearly a dozen different applications. Making lots of things even if I haven't worked up the will to share them. (This whole site though is my attempt at that)
- Learned a lot about programming and development. I've been a dabbler for a long time but this year was the one where I started to learn the deeper stuff. I'm sure it's not at all related to being properly medicated for ADHD
- Diagnoses and medication for ADHD. It's hard to express how much this has changed for me. I can't help but wonder how much of my life has been defined by my inability to focus and constant hunger for new stimuli. Getting things done, actually finishing them, has always been a struggle. Now it feels achievable. Not easy, but at least not impossible.
- Built this site into something. I've always had some sort of website, but this is new. Coded from scratch, doing my own thing. That's part of how I've learned. It's still janky and probably not to anyone's taste but mine, but it is mine.
- Started building out the world of Novos. More anyhow. There was already a lot. But the act of putting it online has forced me to be more judicious, to clear out the ideas and settle on things a bit. Lots of work to do, but a lot less than before.
- Returned to a stable pattern at work, doing the things I'm actually good at. Probably related to the meds.
- Gender fatigue*
- Deep desire to make things paired with a paralyzing reluctance to share them.
- Increased social isolation. Driven by both anxiety and a sense that I don't fit in anywhere. Trying to fix that. Work in progress.
Future
What do I hope for this year?
- Finished projects to share with others
- A better understanding of my self
- More financial stability (or at least not less)
- Friends or friend shaped relationships
Modest hopes.
* Gender Fatigue
It's difficult to describe how exhausting and off-putting it has become to be "masculine". Male culture, recently driven so much by the worst sorts of conservative grifters and general assholes, have made masculinity a disgusting performance of vanity, casual cruelty, and proud ignorance. I want to say it wasn't always like this, but I also know it wasn't always that different? I've spent my whole life feeling at odds with my gender, feeling like my male friendships were tiring acts of a very specific type of performance. The past year I've joked with some people that I quit gender, but it's not really a joke. When I was younger I thought it was worth trying to defend or demonstrate some version of masculinity, an idealized version derived almost universally from fiction, but the more I hear about people who feel their gender, truly identify with it... I wonder what that feels like? I've been in this male-shaped-box for ages and so my contours fit the box and the box is easy to stay in. I certainly read as a male by appearance and I can't really escape that so it's been easy to just sort of accept and avoid thinking about it. But the older I get, the more I think about the things that I consider my identity, or that I identify with; they're not consistently masculine and most masculine coded behaviors and interests have zero or negative appeal to me. I empathize with transpeople who who feel a disconnect between assigned and felt gender, but I also don't fully get it either because I just feel the disconnect, I don't feel any pull in a specific direction. (Insert meme of gender = Cryptid)