I just want to escape.  Not outwards though, just inwards.  Shutting everything out and turning inward like a pill bug or an armadillo, cinching tighter and tighter until not a shred of the outside world can reach me and I've folded into nothingness.  

My relationship that has been rough and rocky for the past two years during the pandemic almost ended tonight, and I feel like it's in limbo, possibly ending this week.  I care about this person deeply and it absolutely wrecks me to imagine never seeing them again, never holding their hand, never looking into their eyes, never whispering to each other while we lie in bed together in the dark, late at night.  I am very prone to grieving and I know it would be a really rough loss to bear, but I also know that we aren't being very good for each other, I don't know if we can really be compatible.  We have some major differences and some major deficiencies in ability to productively communicate.  So that just feels absolutely wrotten, like it's going to be painful either way.

In addition, my job has been terrible.  My immediate working team has been making my life so much harder and so much more stressful even though the organization in total isn't that bad.  4 people in the last month (out of 22) have put in their notice and gone to work for competitors, so It's not just me that's clashing with the way things are here.  

I haven't been getting great sleep, I hardly spend time with people that bring me joy and energy because essentially all of my time with other people is spent with stressed coworkers or the rocky romantic partner.  Things are just so hard right now.  I feel like the last 10 years of my life, getting further into adulthood, have basically consisted of testing my tolerance for life deficient in joy.  It's as if every year the dial slowly gets turned down from most days containing joy to almost none containing joy, and seeing how tightly I can grasp on to the hope for another enjoyable day to come along.  I lean heavily on the internet to distract me from standing fully in front of the present and where I've taken my life, which only perpetuates the bad sleep and the passive, procrastinating attitude. It doesn't help much that the climate is changing, the drought is getting worse, the air is either full of smoke or pollution, no one can afford to live a comfortable life, children are getting shot up at school, and developed militaries are raping and pillaging civilians.