Diary Entry #164.

I patched things up, I think, with the person I used to be married to. I think if you had told me that would be happening even a year ago, I'd have told you that we'd hurt each-other too badly, and that the way things ended was so catastrophically ugly that there was no shot that we'd be hugging it out, but here we are — talking vulnerably and constructively. They go by 'Luka' now.

I talked with them about the way that they hurt me when they had pressured me into sex I didn't want to have, and how it has alienated me from my sexuality since 2020. In exchange, they told me about how badly I'd hurt their heart when I had conspired in a secret affair to divorce and run-away with my friend, and how things were never the same after that even though it was evident that we had both clearly cared about each-other and were trying to make things work and attending counselling and stuff.

It was scary to be vulnerable like that, but I think speaking frankly to each-other about the ways we hurt one another is probably a good thing. 

We both live really humbly now; they're still going strong with their other partner from when we had been together. After our old cat, Alabaster, passed away they had gotten a new cat named Betelgeuse.

We talked about our dysfunctional families and about 'last I'd heard...'s about some of our old, mutual friends. 

Then we talked, very frankly, about coping with depression.
He told me about some of the conditions he lives in, and they are truly the sorts of things that make you bitter with the world, and I know to a certain degree, I am to fault for those conditions because I ran. They said that I shouldn't blame myself, and that they don't hold blame for me, but I am still deeply frustrated about it all.

When you hear about how dehumanizing the world can be, you are reminded that inequality really is one fight.

—

I have fallen really sick. It started as a deep burn in the weird space between my nose and throat - like the sensation you get when you have a nosebleed and it's pouring down your throat instead of your face?

But it has quickly worked its way south into my lungs and I find myself ugly-coughing really hard and spitting-up yuck. I have medicine, but only NyQuil, so I am reluctant to take any while I am working through my final. 

My group has been very accommodating with me - I told them I was struggling to get the vector graphics to work in a constructive capacity, and I was thankful they did not yell at me but just said, "We'll find another way to bulk-print boards."

I told them I would, in exchange for falling short on my deliverables, assume all the other deliverables. and build our card decks, which is what I've been doing. 

They let me sleep off my fever after I got home yesterday.

—

Dinner is lentil soup and peanut-butter crackers.

I added lots of salt to the soup to help soothe my throat.