When Saffering is pert near suffering

I've been bitching about being an immigrant so I thought it'd be time to bitch about emigration. You know, switching up the bitching. Adding some cremezola to the whine.

I didn't realize how much roots matter. In World of Warcraft you can change the volume of the atmosphere, music, voices, etc. I normally have the music pretty low but the atmosphere quite high. I'm telling you this because you don't realize how important the atmosphere (light, languages, food, people, space, smells) is until you are no longer travelling but staying.

Travelling is exciting, everything is new and you can look around with wonder and the NPC's see you as a tourist and all interactions are brief and enjoyable (oh tipping, you sweetheart you). You don't have to worry about your reputation, you don't have to work on your renown.

What no one tells you is that if you don't work on that previously mentioned renown/reputation or, and this is way worse, don't do things in the way the locals do it, you do not earn points. You can actually lose regard if you do what you did to gain favorable status where you are from.

For some people, this is not a problem. The husband lived in Iceland for 5 years and was perfectly fine. Maybe that is just an American thing. They believe that they belong anywhere. Or it could just be that he is unbothered by social interactions and he gains renown exactly because he doesn't. Mind-blowing, I tell you.

I am clinging to this poor man like a fucking remora or limpet or something. The weight gets pretty heavy even if you are the world's chillest person. No one can be a single person support system. One person should not be family, friends and a lover. It becomes especially hard if that same person also has to be a caretaker.

More to that, as you know the ol' mental health has been shaky. In Morrowind you could only regain stamina if you rested but you could not rest if there were enemies nearby. In WoW you can't change talents (an important part of your gameplay) unless you are in a rest area. Now imagine what it's like to permanently feel that there are enemies nearby. That you do not have enough renown to be welcome. That the only areas in which you feel safe enough to change is only around 3000sf all together.

So, our house, but not the yard; my office, but not the office as a whole. A few aisles of Costco, Kroger, the living room of my SIL's house and the guest bedroom of my MIL but only if my husband is in the house. So maybe make that 5000sf. Square feet is still a concept my metric head can't wrap around. Anyway.

I would like some trees and a view. I would like some space to live in. Since I am staying I would like to be somewhere where I am welcome and renown is something that isn't so goddamn hard to come by. Or at least where I know what to do to get it.

1. State of the pool: evaporating and what is left is swirling around a wobbly plug. This metaphor doesn't work anymore. Maybe I should just do what the kids do these days and post a meme with #mood.

2. Something I miss in SA: The smell of: Yesterday Today and Tomorrows, braais, Pretoria winter, Sunday lunch after church at the parentals (yes this is a valid smell and it just hits differently), boerie rolls at Spar, cigarette smoke when friends talk in the early morning/late night, the baby smell of the pink Johnson and Johnson lotion, biltong and raw meat of a good butchery (looking at you Mondanet), Wimpy on the N1 on the way to the sea, the plastic of a new Barbie (your first), gunpowder and boys in Voortrekkerhoogte.

3. Media I am consuming: listen to The thing about Pam. My face elongated several times: eyebrows to hairline and jaw to collarbone by episode 5. Then, a little exclusive but all girls should have this fairytale as required listening: Princess Floralinda - Tamsyn Muir.

4. Saffer song of the day:

and

I wept (tjank is just a better word) in my office when my playlist hit this one.

5. Other song of the day: All of Jason Isbell.

ALL. OF. IT. He is a god.

6. Thing that I wanted to talk about but didn't fit the theme: The therapist I was seeing died. One session in which I was more honest than I have ever been in my life ever and the dude dies. I am not narcissistic enough to believe this had anything to do with me but you have to admit that it is a little funny. My meds are also completely fucked and I am no longer on Ambien because it turns out that the kid and the husband had to pick me up from the floor more than once. I am also cutting out the Gabapentin because mixing it with the Soma I am taking to sleep means that I lose all muscle control for about 20 minutes and the husband has to remove anything from me so that I don't hurt myself. That was one of the darkest moments of my life. Fuck sake. I am so DONE with this. I am tired of being this pathetic. I am tired of ideation. I am tired of being perma-petrified. I am tired of being such a wanker. I am so tired of hating myself. I wish I could rip the me out of myself. Like yanking my skeleton out of the fleshfat prison and finally joining the skeleton army and living forever in a sauce-less, anxiety-less existence.