The end of everything. Or at least 2020.

I often still long for the life I had a year ago. It is sadly amusing to look at the posts from earlier in my time here. I had more optimism. I don't feel that so much now. I wonder what I'm doing here. I feel permanently out of sync.

I made it through the solitary holidays with some help from Zoom and a lot of help from my online friends. Had a rough Boxing Day, I think the strain finally got to me on that day. I'm lonely but not willing to really do a lot to prevent that. My dating really escalated in the fall and I met someone who I knew wasn't right for me but I went ahead anyway. I finally was able to break things off while it was still relatively easy to extricate myself. I've stopped seriously looking for a partner. I think the whole dating thing was an attempt to create the appearance of normality, but it was similar to a drunken man trying to walk extra carefully during a sobriety test. I was not fooling anyone other than myself.
I mainly look for friends on the dating sites now. I have one friend with whom I have chatted almost this entire time, we finally met in November and that was nice. Work still isn't so great, but apparently it doesn't matter.

Self expression is really what's getting me through. I don't write as much as I once did, obviously, but I do other things. Maybe I will try to get back to writing in 2021.

This is my life now. It's hard for me to accept. I feel like I've gone backward and forward in time simultaneously. My lifestyle has become the same as 20 years ago, but I am 20 years older. As far as what 2021 holds...who knows. Thank you for being there, Imaginary [and maybe not so imaginary] Reader.