where ive been

[arnanak]

howdy, i sure havent posted here recently. thats because my entire life has gone down the shitter. but im slowly crawling back to stability even if it kills me.

why, you ask? well, im broken up with everyone and living on my own now. i do believe i am monogamous.  anything ive said in the past was cope and using other people to fill the void of what other relationships left me dissatisfied with. but when the other relationships didnt fulfill it either, well... some took it better than others. some im still seeing if i can maintain a friendship with. others, uh, promised theyd sell me a car so id be stable when i moved and then the day before move-in they said theyre actually keeping the car and never talking to me again for a reason they havent disclosed to me...  welp!  best to have that all out of my life ASAP and just be thankful i moved to the one place that had a bus route that went near my workplace. Otherwise that action would have, ah, perhaps cost me my job and led to me getting evicted and homeless on month one, aha...

that was a month or so ago. ive got a car now! a very, very handsome 2012 Honda Civic EX, the version that's a coupe with 2 doors. Oh, I'm just in love with it. Clean CarFax showing one owner who took very good care of it, no real issues at all aside from a few quality of life quirks. it runs great, its good on gas (better than the SUV i was borrowing), and its just so cool with its 2 doors and sunroof.

Apartment
I'm in a new apartment now! It's kinda crappy. Dirty upon move-in, had to replace some bulbs and fire alarm batteries within the first month, the heat rises and so its always hotter than it is outside. But what could I have done? I had no idea the break up would be so bad I'd be desperate and crying to move as soon as possible. 

Pro-tip:  Never live in a studio apartment with someone. You need your own spaces. Imagine how it'd feel to fight with the person you share the studio with and have literally nowhere to stay except a mattress on the floor in the same room!

I'll be pickier later. For now, it was the cheapest place available as soon as possible. And I'm making it into a home. My stuff is all put away. The musty scent is gone with air purifiers and wax melts. The overbearing heat and humidity is gone with my new portable AC unit (on all days except the ones where its 90F for eight hours straight...). But still, there's more I could do.

Remember how like a year ago I was chirping about the KonMari Method? I'm finally doing it, I swear I am. Now's the perfect chance, with all this room in this unfurnished apartment and no one I'm sharing stuff with. Now is my chance to rip through everything and shed all the extra weight. And I mean it this time, I used the Libby app to rent an audiobook copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and I've been listening to it. I have four days off in a row starting tomorrow, with minimal plans for each beyond doing this inbetween a therapy session and going out to eat with my family, etc, stuff like that.

The first step is to envision your ideal life. Here's what I wrote down, shared plainly without editing:

Imagine Your Ideal Lifestyle

A comfortable and safe landing spot for my friends. On a soft rug we sit on cushions around one of those short Japanese tables, a kotatsu. The air is clean and fragrant. We snack on food I cooked.

You glance around the room. My fursuit head hangs on display. My fish tank shows happy healthy fish in a crisp clean tank. My cat inquisitively stares at you from across the room.

I am always decorated and festive for the holidays, seeing them as a way to spice up an otherwise monotonous life.

It’s empty of clutter and meaningless maximalism. What exists in my home is important to me.

Nostalgic wood paneling but with my own twist outside of tradition.

Why?

I want a clean, simple, safe home to be my home base and a place for friends to visit.

Why? I want friends. I’m lonely. I want my home to comfort me and eventually attract the social life I crave.

Why? I've been alone and I’ve experienced being the friend in a safe home. I want to do that for others.

Why? Because I want friends and I don't want any more of the misery I've had exist in the world. I want to be the person I didn't have, then had, then lost. But better. I want to be what I never had. I can be that for myself.

Then for aesthetics itself, of course I have made a pinboard. Not that this is very attainable here where I'm renting, but still, gotta keep dreaming and manifesting! I suppose next update we'll see how I fared? At least it should be right quick, I don't have much stuff to myself and I want even less since I feel like half the things I'm struggling to stuff into the closet is crap I don't even want.

Fish
I'm also getting fish. I need some pets, other living things besides plants in here. I'm cycling a 10 gallon for a betta right now. My dad told me he could get me a fish tank and a stand, and then surprised me by telling me it's a 20 gallon with three goldfish in it and he'll bring it down during the weekend. Well, its been two weekends since he said he bought the tank and one since he mentioned the surprise goldfish, so I'm just gonna resume living my own betta dreams and see what happens later.

Conclusion
Now that I have time to myself that I can spend posting public updates rather than absolutely tweaking and trying to regulate by frantically writing in my journal, I can actually update more. So that will be all for now, and further updates on future stuff as well as glances at past things will come later.