Hi again! Been a bit since my last update.

As you may or may not know, dear diary, and I guess any friends who check on this site, I've been going through a tough time. This past month has been hellacious. The sound problem here at home has caused me no shortage of pain. Ever since the construction happened on my home, all sound has become so much louder. Even with my door closed I could constantly hear my brother on his loud keyboard with his door open, his terrible, creaky old chair, my mom's pianos, and any other noises like footsteps. In addition, the blackout curtains I to make the light levels in my room tolerable have made terrible scraping noises of metal on metal from the slightest change in air movement, or the A/C turning on or off.

I went through battles for a few weeks, fights with my family members, with physics, with my curtains and the curtain hanger, with my doorframe, with thumbtacks... there's been a lot. I tried everything I could to mitigate the problem despite the reluctance of my family to even lift a finger. They did the bare minimum to help and nothing more. I went through an incredible amount of stress, of aggravation at every tiniest noise, just to arrive where I am now.

And where am I now exactly? My curtain rod has been completely surrounded by a thick foam insulation pipe which has completely stopped the noise, the curtains have been thumbtacked to the wall so they won't move at all, my door has an old blanket tacked to it, and I tore apart an old bed to lean the mattress against the wall every time I enter the room. It's by no means perfect but it's an ENORMOUS improvement over how things were. My one regret is I can't use my ceiling fan because it makes this irritating ticking sound randomly and I don't know why. But I'm so out of energy from exerting myself with these problems that I don't mind sweltering at this point if it means avoiding more sound and more mental anguish.

I've been "on break" for commissions for quite a while. I did so at first just to catch my breath after the last batch, but then it went on and on until I'd been on break for a month. I got a few clients asking me why I'm still on break, but by then it was because of another problem I was facing, which is my nose situation getting worse. I wrote about that in a previous blog post.

Bizarrely, it turns out that wearing a face mask at all times helps with the chronic migraines and sinus headaches I've been getting. It's not a permanent fix, though. I'm seeing the plastic surgeon mentioned in that post in a few days (wish me luck!) and if all goes well we might finally have the means to get a surgery.

But about commissions - I felt guilty about being on break for so long, so I decided a few days ago to sneak a fast one in. A returning client. She didn't have much to request, and she's very kind to work with, so it helps a lot. I've already got most of it done.

So, you might've noticed something in common with everything I've just listed...

Everything involves me looking for solutions, acting and thinking practically, and most of all, acting logically.

I don't think I've written about this on my blog before, but here we go. I will try my best to explain this. No one who I've explained this to has ever really understood...

Context

A few years ago, I used to be a... worse person. In much worse shape. I don't want to get into it too much, but my personality was completely different than it is now. It was more like I was wearing a mask to hide my true nature. If I had to say it more simply, it'd be like... I was bitter on the inside but put up a front of a sweet and caring friend on the outside.

I know it's weird I keep coming back to this. I mention it to friends a lot. Heck I've probably put it on this blog/diary before, I don't know. It goes back and forth in my head a lot. But hear me out. This is crucial to the understanding, because this is when I learned all about this system...

I wasn't aware of it at first. I lived every day in this mask. I did not know what I was doing or why, because it was effectively a persona superglued onto me. But after I had my mind destroyed due to some Reasons, I hit rock bottom mentally and had to slowly, steadily, surely, build myself back up. I had to reconstruct my entire personality. But it wasn't the same as donning a mask. I felt like there was no point in hiding anything anymore. And that simple fact is what led to my growth. No use hiding anything. Being honest.

...After a lot of time, years in fact, of living more as myself than ever before, I've come to understand some things about how I exist. The two fundamental concepts that govern my internal world and behavior are logic and emotion. Before a few years ago, I was operating on 100% logic. Practically the only traces of emotion I had were fear and sorrow. That isn't to discredit those as emotions, but still, I do not consider myself truly "alive" with just those...

Anyway, the balance of logic and emotion is something I feel very intuitively in my own mind. No one else seems aware of it unless I tell them. It influences everything in my inner world from how I perceive things, to how I talk to myself, to how and what I feel, and ultimately decides what I do and say. The major life-changing events I've undertaken have caused me to unlock my emotional side - that includes HRT, for the record - and I've discovered that that's the real me. I'm an emotional person, and I feel and say a lot of things. That's who I am and it's not a mask.

However, the "logic" side of me is more like a mask... not in the sense of lying about who I am, but still a kind of mask. You could say that the roles have reversed and now my true self is the kind and sweet catgirl and my mask is the cold, stoic programmer. Given my history with this persona, once I start acting this way, it tends to "stick" to me like glue. It becomes a lot harder to step out of the "doing" mindset and into the "feeling" mindset. I start to lose patience with my friends, want to be alone, and, in a sense, I am driven to isolate and focus on coding and tech stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I love doing it. I'm incredibly skilled at it and it scratches my brain just the right way. I love having it turn out perfect. But it's undeniably a "logical" action for me. Doing it always reinforces the "logical" side of me and causes it to be out for longer. The more I do it, the harder it becomes to let go and relax.

Here's a better explanation: When I've been super hard at work on something for quite a while, my friends might tell me I need a break, especially after I've just done a whole lot. But, I've noticed my concept of "breaks" works extremely differently from everyone else's. When I went "on break" from commissions, the first thing I did was start development on a complicated project that took weeks to figure out and I worked on day and night the entire time. I found it fun. Of course it's still stressful! But I couldn't help myself. It's like an itch, or a pull.

I just don't understand how someone can so easily "take a break" or "relax". This isn't a workaholic thing, although honestly "workaholicism" might be an expression of what I'm trying to describe. It... takes significant, dedicated effort for me to be able to "let go" and take a break. "Relaxing" has always been incredibly difficult to do.

...

So, by now you're wondering what this has to do with the title. Or maybe you've figured it out.

It's simple.

In my moment of despair, my lowest point in a long time, I made it out the only way I knew how. I gave in to myself and let myself become filled with logic. In order to get some much needed peace and quiet and start getting things done in my life, it became necessary to sacrifice my emotional well being and put on a mask. To numb my emotions and enter an extended state of "doing" for weeks on end so I was able to survive. It was necessary, and I had no choice.

Of course... the problem is I hate being this way. Fundamentally. I am a very self aware person. I know exactly what this is and what it's doing to me. Sure, I enjoy doing all my tech stuff, tinkering with Linux, coding a whole bunch of things, writing bash scripts in my mind's eye as I drift off to sleep. But what about my friends? My social life? The company and presence of others? What about seeing cute things, looking at liminal spaces, enjoying the sound and atmosphere of a rainy day, of looking longingly into the distance, of appreciating the little things in life, of celebrating how happy I am to have made it this far?

THAT is what I sacrifice in letting logic take over.

Logic is, to me, a poison. It's one that's easy to take in but very difficult to expel. It takes an incredible amount of patience and strength to be truly vulnerable. But even just being in the "logic" state makes me unable to know how to exit. I know it will happen, of course - it has to, eventually, that's how it is - but I keep trying to think of it like a physical thing I can do, or some kind of mental exercise I can just think.

But that's precisely the problem. Logic brain doesn't feel Logic brain thinks. Logic brain does. It's a survival mechanism, one that's hard to get out of when you feel threatened all the time. People like us, living in our safe bubbles, our recluses, our corners of comfort we've carved out in this cruel and uncaring world, we have been hurt deeply and this is just one consequence of it, I believe. I still think my experience is different than any of my friends', but still. What if I want to feel? To be able to take a break from all the constant "doing" and "putting on a brave face"? What if I want to just be ME?

...I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. I was hoping you might.