2025-07-04_encountering my limits

i think i and m(y) environment would benefit from me becoming a bit more methodical again. a bit more structured again. regain some previous habits: day planning, stretching, tw, etc. i can’t go back to how it was before, and i don’t want to. i appreciate and value the strides i’ve made in becoming: less one-sided, more open, more emotional, more social, less unforgiving (although pieces of this aspect certainly persist significantly), more m(e). but it feels like i’ve reached a phase requiring more methodical, strategic work once more. with different and more valuable aims, but not so different in execution. but i may also be being delusional right now. trying to convince myself that i can control things i can’t. especially at this specific juncture. like more method and structure will somehow ‘cure’ me of the immense amounts of stress residue and (emotional) experiences to process that i’ve accrued over the last ~ nine months. i need a break. a real break. and i’ve been saying this for months now. and if i’m honest… i don’t think i have the strength to take one right now. or even the rest of this year, if i’m being pessimistic. every time i think of the future for more than a couple seconds, one or more things that i’ve been putting off that i cannot let go under pretty much any circumstances come back to my mind and with them the dread. the dread of not being able to stop. partially because i don’t want to. but also because i can’t, and it’s not up to me at all a lot of the times. and that’s scary. and i ultimately don’t know what to do about it. and i won’t figure it out at once at 0017 on a friday. but that can never be the expectation in the first place. since that’s not how processes like these work. but another central encounter to focus on here is my encounter with my limits. i overstep them too often. i either don’t notice they’re there or i do, and decide that i’ll be able to handle it. i won’t. i can’t. they’re called limits for a reason. for many reasons. reasons i have trouble dealing with.

i’ve lost weight again. i’ve always been underweight, i haven’t yet managed to get over 70kg at any point in my life. i usually hover slightly underneath that mark. when i weighed myself a few days ago, i’d lost 3kg compared to a few months ago. and considering the starting point: not good. the question of why is unfortunately trivially easy to answer (in the general sense): stress. but what the fuck can i stop doing?? as i write this as well as when i’ll go to sleep afterwards, there is and there will be a genocide happening, millions of people are and will be dying of hunger, fascism will continue to gain momentum in this country and around the world, and neoliberal, late stage extractivist racial capitalism will continue to erode and destroy our environments along with pretty much all of our ways of caring for our environments. what the fuck do you want me to stop doing? organizing? studying? caring? i’m asking myself these questions more than anyone else. and i know they aren’t fair. the last of the trio makes that clear: do you want me to stop caring? no. obviously not. i want you to care. i want you to keep caring. but you can’t do that (as much or as well) without energy and a body capable of storing and using said energy. and you’ve spent a considerable amount of them both: body and energy. you can’t go much further than this without recharging, processing and healing for a bit. you can’t.

considerable parts of the world won’t stop being shit tomorrow or in a couple months if you take a break. they won’t stop going to shit if you don’t take a break either. but in one scenario you’re burnt out, and in the other you aren’t. and even though sometimes it feels like you don’t care that much if that happens, you are not just yourself, and you know too many people that care about you to go through with it. are you going to just ignore that, ignore them? just because you can’t live with/in your current limits? please don’t. please stop. ignoring them, and yourself. not because it will limit the amount of things you’ll be able to do/achieve in the (near) future, but because it isn’t a caring way to live your life.