• mood: depressed
• listening: The Country Brat and her girlfriend watching Kitchen Nightmares in the next room

I don't even know where to begin, other than with, I suppose, a resounding "fuck this winter." I spent last weekend back home in Wisconsin; my best friend's brother passed away unexpectedly and suddenly at age 19. when she and I met at age 14 and 15, Travis was just a baby. none of it makes a single bit of sense to me, none of it, and my heart just breaks and breaks for him, her, and their family. the older I get, and the more of my own life I spend as a mother, the less explicable it is to me that fate can be so cruel as to rob parents of their children. (relevant for other news as well.)

I think I'm also starting to lose my mind. no, genuinely: I'm so fucking scared. my memory is deteriorating in striking, disturbing ways, and it's been ongoing for months now. I have set water on the stove to boil twice now and forgotten. I recently told somebody that Monday would be the 30th and it's literally February. I made an appointment with my doctor to refer me to neurology and I can't even express how scared I am. I have a history of self-inflicted head trauma and I'm convinced I'm in early-stage CTE and it will be all my fault (even though, if any other undiagnosed-for-decades autistic person told me an identical story, I'd consider it a complication of poor treatment). I also recovered from Lyme in August and I'm scared it could be that. whatever it is, I just hope it's treatable and can be navigated.

back here in Indiana, I'm just trying to take my mind off of shit, I guess. we have a new TCG shop based out of a tattoo shop which, coincidentally, is run out of the same building The Country Pat lived in about a decade ago. small city. I'm gonna try to go tomorrow to their Flesh and Blood intro run and learn to play. (maybe doing something strategy-oriented will help with my memory and cognition?) I have my usual hobbies. I've been playing a lot of Little Witch in the Woods. I have my clothes and crafts. it's just... been really hard for me to be okay down here knowing how much bad stuff is going on back home to people I love so much.