A year down
It's been a year since I decided to quit my job, well yesterday was to the day. Also a Friday. At the time I put two weeks notice in but they completely stopped communicating with me after one week so I just gave up.
It's been a weird year. In some ways it seemed to drag on, in other ways it seems to have gone fast - I guess in general i've just lost track of time since i've got nothing in particular to mark the days. I've spent way way too much time (and money) at the pub, and it's getting to the point that I have to try to move on. It's making me feel like a total loser just hanging around mostly drinking by myself - or worse drinking with some random who turns out to be a total fuckwit (last one started telling me Hitler was only trying to protect his country ... sigh) or someone who gets funny on booze. And somehow my circle of friends keeps shrinking, I can probably count on one hand 'friends' i've seen in the last 6 months, and I might not even need another hand for good aquaintances. I suppose the thing which most upsets me is I just don't have any other way to socialise, and although I don't mind a good booze-up, it's just too bloody much doing it almost every day. I try to think of things but even without COVID making a mess of group activities I really just don't like doing organised shit anyway. Maybe it's my lot in life to live alone until I die - it's certainly been a consistent experience so far.
I cut back on the pub a lot this week anyway and spent a lot of time hacking on zcl/foriegn-abi and playing games. Going through God of War, although I don't really how it turned into an open-world RPG - it's just not the same sort of game anymore and i'm a bit lost and well, basically grinding to get enough gear to progress. Sigh. I also got Gran Turismo Sport because it was on sale - bloody 120GB download (what for? shitloads of crap videos i don't give a fuck about?), I dunno it's 'ok' I guess and the Mt Panorama circuit has a tigher (narrower, more realistic) feel to it, but it just seems like i'm playing GT3 again. At least the license tests are easier.
I've continued to work on fitness and general health - been on some long rides (many 60km, one 80km) and even started going for a swim at the beach but it's been cold and windy all week so that's dropped off for now. Down to about 76Kg which is about 'ideal weight' according to probably-questionable sites I can find on the internet (my old scales were bunk but I think I was around 88Kg 2 years ago when i broke my hip). Of course I look pretty skinny but people are just oversized these days. I started having insomnia troubles so I'm trying to fix that using sleep restriction (CBT-I) with ... mixed results so far. I'm mostly struggling to stay up till midnight every night if i'm just at home alone playing games on the couch or using the pc. And so if I nod off for a bit around 10 or 11 it makes it harder to get to sleep at 12. Oh well it's an ongoing effort and maybe it's getting a bit better, it's one of those things that's hard to tell because you can't remember much from lack of sleep.
Fish as anti-deppressant?
I had to go the GP for something else and mentioned the insomnia and a lot of anxiety i've been having lately ... and it just boiled down to psychologist or anti-depressants. Neither of those worked for me in the past and the 6(?) pills I tried either did nothing (with shitty side-effects) or made things worse, sometimes much worse. I took the script because I couldn't remember if i'd had that one before and lo and behond - yeah, and it was another failure. So I decided to try something else - eat fish every day. Dunno if it was just a placebo but it had an immediate effect, literally the next day my mood felt better. Well not the mood exactly but it's like a mild 'warm glow' that settled into my body below my stomach which makes it easier to just feel 'good'. Sort of what one would hope of taking an anti-depressant although none I ever took had such a significant, lasting and well, completely side-effect-free result as simply having a couple of sardines or mackeral once a day.
It's been 5 or 6 weeks since I started and it's remained - and already helped me weather some shitty situations. Improved my skin a bit too, although I was hoping it would fix my cold hands and feet too but it hasn't. It was such a foreign feeling to start with, you know, not feeling miserable all the time.
Semi-Retirement
So I dunno if i'll work again - if i live cheaply and nothing major changes in my life I can probably afford to not work.
But fuck it's boring. And lonely.
So many hours to fill every day and not much to fill it with. If I walk to the pub I'll spend 2 hours walking but there's still so much day to go. A decent ride might be 3 hours or 4 if i'm really keen. Can only read or playstation so much. Gardning. And yeah people get sick of hearing how boring it is when they're too busy to get any time to themselves (maybe that's why my circle of friends keeps shrinking!). I can do some coding and so on but I dunno what's the point?
The loneliness is the real killer at the moment. Sigh. Well for now i'm trying to fix things one at a time - physical health, check, insomia, work in progress, then?
Guess i'll go for a ride to the beach today, although it's set to be warm the water will probably be too cold for a dip but I might get keen. YOLO and all that.