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Went to the grocery store the other day and wound up wandering around the store for ten minutes trying to recall why I went there in the first place. This happens often when I go shopping by myself.

I don't know why I'm so scatterbrained sometimes. I guess it doesn't help that my attention span's gone to crap over the years, which makes it difficult to really commit to anything I start anymore. I sometimes feel like my life's a series of half-formed attempts at starting habits that never really materialized anywhere after. All of these side projects, these lists that I never finish, moving from one thing to another (and feeling like I'm just repeating myself here again). I do a decent job at busying myself by jumping around so much, until moments like now where I suddenly step back and think that it's all meaningless anyway.

This isn't anything new, though really. I've just been going through cycles of busyness -> meaningless -> busy again over and over again over the years... and it feels like cycles on this blog too. It's more poignant now that I'm alone and have no background noise to fall back on. Unless you can count noticing the atmospheric silence of this neighborhood as background noise. I'm not sure what exactly the noise I'm hearing is right now. The remnants of human civilization at night? [I used to think that I could hear the train at a distance from my apartment in Berkeley, except everyone I've mentioned this to thinks I was just hearing things cause we didn't live anywhere near the train tracks on northside.]
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I've been mulling over the few times random people have asked me why I never talk to them (which happens more than once, which means... a recurring problem?). At this point, I just don't feel like I have anything to say to (well at this moment, almost anyone) right now, including the people I used to talk to most often, and I struggle regularly trying to think of something to say to the people I do end up seeing now. Most nights when I'm self-conscious enough, the thought will come up, "I wish I had something to say to [person x] right now." Maybe not in that exact quote, but somewhere along those lines. But I'm also growing more okay with just randomly talking to people once in a while too. It's becoming the norm.

There was a time when I used to talk to the same person literally everyday to the point where I'd feel like something was wrong if we weren't talking for a day when it was otherwise possible to... and then that just escalated until I just grew sick of being around that person altogether. I guess I'm partly afraid of ever repeating that mistake again, of growing too dependent on talking to the same people all the time... so I don't bother much anymore.

I do enjoy listening to people talk about their lives, though. Or even complain or vent, so long as it isn't whiny like a certain someone I know ("I don't wanna!").
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It probably seems like I'm always out and actively about right now since I'm somehow not free a lot... but it's never really consistent cause it changes every week. When you don't see the same people on a regular basis, you start feeling like all of your relationships are fragile and could easily fade into nothing at any moment. Look at how easily people disappear from your life the moment they aren't in your immediate vicinity - actually, hell, this year it happened for me on and off with people still within that vicinity, living in continuous fear that what I had was never really there to begin with.

Even now, I have this constant sense that I could just end all of this right now - retreat into this house and cease all contact with people, and it'd all end just like that. This was actually sort of a predicted fear coming out of college, but now that I've been out this long, it really is starting to feel like a potential reality. It would be so easy to just disappear...

No, I'm not planning to. It's just a thought of what could be.

My mind might be exaggerating a bit though. It internally tends toward the dramatic sometimes, which is why I usually try to filter that stuff out before I say anything to most people (and I get weirded out when I meet people who think like me but lack that filter so it all comes gushing out at once). It happens that one of the weaknesses of my personality type is that when people don't respond- to something I say or an IM or don't come out for an event and so on- I feel discouraged to depressed pretty fast. It's unnecessary, and I wish I weren't so prone to thinking that way, but it just happens.

It's why I tend towards being cynical nowadays; it's easier to deal with those feelings when you expect people to be flaky and unresponsive anyway.  But it's not a good way to think, I guess. Not when you're still hoping for something better.
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Chances are I'm largely reiterating things I've said in the past here. I can never really remember well enough what I've already said or haven't said or where I've said them here since this has been around for so long. My mental life in many respects is a predictable cycle anyway.

Looking towards a few life self-improvements in the meantime, though. Now that the settling in phase is over, time to start getting my act together. And I should sleep earlier.