Well, holidays are over - the long break is over. I feel good about how we spent our time off, exploring new places, travelling around the state.

Yesterday I felt really depressed. I think it's just this feeling of being unsettled. It's extremely intolerable for me, as a person who is highly sensitive, who has BPD. Uncertainty and feeling unsettled are some of the most intolerable feelings for me. I like to feel safe, comfortable, secure. I like routine, I like a lot of sameness. My job doesn't really offer me that right now. My home isn't offering me that because we just moved and still haven't really gotten our house to feel comfortable. I mean, we got a couch and a TV so there's a start. But we have zero furniture in our bedroom besides a bed and some hanging cubbies in the closet. We don't have enough space in the kitchen for all our cooking items. We just really don't have enough furniture in general it feels like. We got a smaller kitchen table at a Goodwill type shop which has helped with the space, and sold our old table that really was too big for just the two of us. We've sold our crappy bed frame that we never really liked. So now we just have a boxspring and mattress on the floor.

I desperately want to hire an interior decorator or professional organizer or something. It feels like Seth doesn't want to, and he is convinced we can do it ourselves but I don't feel like we can. No house we have ever lived in together has EVER felt well organized or well decorated, it's just not something either of us are good at. We don't like spending money, neither of us are very aesthetic-focused. As for myself, I am a utilitarian and a minimalist. If something doesn't have a very defined use, I feel very hesitant to buy it. THEREFORE my house always looks basically like a prison, with nothing on the walls, I just don't know how to make things "look nice". I know how to make things functional but not how to make things look organized and nice. Which leads to this uncomfortable feeling like our home is not "cozy".

But then it keeps feeling like, "Well this isn't our forever home so why spend the money/take the time to make it look nice or decorate? I'm sick of having that feeling...my entire 20's felt like that, just moving around, not having a real home, and now so far my 30's are like that too.

I guess that is making me feel depressed more than anything. Especially since I work from home and have since the beginning of the pandemic. That means so much of my time is spent in my house...so it should be comfortable. If this is where I spend the majority of my time. I have now lived in 3 different homes while working remotely, for 3 different jobs in the past 3 years. It's a lot of change. Our Utah townhouse was BY FAR the nicest home we lived in out of the 3, and the job I had in Utah with USACE was also my favorite. Of all the configurations...this one is not my favorite. What I had in Utah was. It kind of speaks to the fact that, wow maybe our outside environment doesn't even matter so much - when our HOUSE is really what is our world. Since we spend so much time in it. Our house in Utah was more comfortable to me than being here in a different state in this old shabby house.

Under the sink smells moldy from a leak. The crappy paint is peeling off the cabinets already. Paint spots are all over the floors from where they did a SUPER half-assed job repainting everything. The cabinets feel like cardboard practically. They had to fix A LOT after we moved in, and it still feels crappy in general.

The bathtub is nice, I will say that. It's very large and the water gets very hot. It is also nice having our own backyard and firepit and outdoor room (although I need to get some comfy seating out there so it's nicer to be out there). I did buy an outdoor table and chairs that will arrive on Thursday so that will become a nice area to spend time at outside. Having a garage I suppose I also nice - we can keep our E-bikes in there instead of having them in our living room like they were at our old house.

We have an entire room that is basically storage because we don't need a third room for anything. Seth could use it as his office but he prefers to be in the living room.

I don't think the house is very well insulated because it gets a lot colder inside (kind of like how our Beaverton house felt in Oregon) and it feels colder than our Utah house even though it's actually WARMER outside here in this state. That leads me to believe...it's not insulated that well. We have the thermostat turned to 70 degrees and often it's still too cold inside.

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I just went to the kitchen to grab some lunch, and Seth came over to me and hugged me from behind, placing his hands softly and delicately on my stomach. I've never dated a man actually genuinely LIKE my fat belly, so it's pretty amazing to have met Seth, an extremely attractive man, who LIKES my chubbiness. Not just tolerates it or looks past it...but actively enjoys it. It's a fantastic feeling. Well, I guess maybe that isn't true...Eric seemed to like it but in a purely sexual way and he just used me as an object, almost like a fat fetish, so that wasn't great. In this case though, in a loving relationship, it's amazing.

Anyway, he rested his head softly on my shoulder. I could feel the sadness emanating from him. I asked him how he was doing. He said that he's feeling really worried about money - that his money is just draining away after our big move (it cost us THOUSANDS of dollars to move this time...like many thousands of dollars) and just having to pay for different things. He also doesn't get paid regularly, but in bi-yearly installments sometimes so I can see how it would really look like his account is draining away, when there is no money coming in replenishing it regularly.

I know he is stressed about money and especially about his job since he dislikes it so much right now. He has been making the art for this one video game for close to 7 years now. It's unthinkable to me to have a job that long at this point in my life. I wish. Anyway, the game is close to being finished - they hope to have it done by the end of this year. Which means the work is kind of getting sucky for him - mostly a lot of fixing bugs in the game, fiddling with stuff, boring stuff, not creative. He has been really unhappy with work lately, and especially feeling anxiety and stress about what he is going to do next. Once this project is finished...he will be essentially laid off. He will have to find another job. I personally don't think he will have an issue finding more work - I mean, he has 7 years of experience making a video game and doing almost ALL of the art for it, I think that is pretty significant. He has people contacting him on LinkedIn all the time offering him jobs. But he isn't sure what path he wants to go on. That's his journey to figure out.

I do appreciate that in our relationship, when either of us is stressed, we turn to each other instead of taking it out on one another. I have seen relationships where people are miserable, so then they make the other person miserable too, and make it a competition of who is suffering more. I myself have been in relationships where it always felt like the other person would be upset but wouldn't verbalize what was wrong, they would just sulk and be in a shitty mood - and if I tried to help they would be mean to me. In a healthy relationship, you should be able to turn towards each other, and find strength in each other during hard times. To physically and metaphorically hold onto each other to get through the storm. We definitely have that. Seth comes to me and hugs me and talks to me, instead of sulking, or turning away. He communicates. he says outloud what is wrong so that we can talk about it.

I know that I have to be strong at these times. I want to be able to be strong and have a positive attitude, so I can help him get through this difficult time too. I want to be his emotional support, especially since he is SO OFTEN my emotional support. I rarely have to support him in that way, he rarely needs that. So on the rare occasion he does, I am absolutely going to do everything I can to help.

I told him that everything is going to be okay, and we are going to figure it all out. We are making plans to go visit NY soon so he can see it in the winter time and we will see how it feels. I also want to plan a trip to see more of Eastern North Carolina. We didn't even really get to see it on our trip to Myrtle Beach because the route we took was mostly South. It will be good for us to check out Raleigh and the other towns/cities out that way. We have a plan. We will figure this all out.

We went for a walk earlier and Seth actually asked me what I would think about us getting married soon, just getting the paperwork done and getting legally married now, and then doing the wedding sometime later, when it feels like we can plan it. I know plenty of people do get married that way - they get legally married and then have the wedding later. I mean especially when we are STILL in a pandemic and things are just tough right now in general. We want to be focused on finding and buying a house - but we also want to get married and we wanted to be married before buying a house together. It does make sense to me for us to just get married, however quickly and cheaply we can right now.

I know I had been kind of feeling somewhat hesitant - but I think it's significant that when he asked me if I would want to get married soon, I didn't feel any anxiety, I just felt happy about it and excited. I think marrying Seth is the right decision, I really do. I believe he is my person. I believe we can get through any hardship together, and really that is what matters. I can't imagine ever finding someone who gets me as much as Seth, who is more similar to me in values, desires, character, intelligence, etc. We are absolute equals. That is what I always wanted.

I know Seth is worried about his career and money and that does make me slightly nervous, but I feel like I can trust him. I feel like he is a capable and smart man, and I have faith that he will be able to solve any problem or figure anything out. He isn't a person who doesn't want to work, or is lazy in any way. If anything he has more motivation than I do most of the time. I mean, he built a damn smoker FROM SCRATCH by himself!! I really have no doubts or fears about him being able to pull his weight financially, even if we do have to go through a period of uncertainty while he figures himself out.

I feel like I want to get married soon and that would be nice. I do have a co-worker who I know married her husband by simply going to the courthouse and getting married. It would be fine with me to do it that way, and then we can have a celebration when we are more settled, less stressed.

I've also been realizing that I need to be more grateful for the job I have right now. I might not have a lot of work to do right now but that is likely to change when I get assigned my own projects and as time goes on. My boss can see me starting my very own department within the company, and solar energy is booming right now and likely going to just keep gaining momentum. It's a great company to be involved in right now, and I'm going to be making more money than I could ever hope to working for any other job in the environmental field. It's less overall work. More money. Also just the fact that it gives me so much freedom. I can travel, I can work from other locations, I can sleep in most days. I got to travel to Asheville and spend a few days there during a work week! I could never have imagined that kind of freedom in my previous life, when I worked in factories or worked in an office. Not having to commute. Getting to have an office with windows, not a cubicle in a city building. It is really nice.

I've also been thinking...maybe what I actually need is to binge watch some damn shows. I haven't been watching much TV and I usually don't watch a lot of TV in general, but right now seems like a terrific time to just relax and binge watch some crap, to get my mind off stuff and give myself a break. Especially since it's winter. I just signed up for Netflix again and cleaned up my to-watch list with a bunch of stuff I really do want to watch, or funny shows, or just trash shows that would make me feel better.