This is gonna be a monthly series where I sorta compile my thoughts on things that have been on my mind lately. This time, I wanna focus on the current month of August. A month that historically hasn’t been kind to me, there’s always something popping up at some point. Sometimes it’s something between me and one of my friends, other times it’s work or school related. Really, it’s hard to say what’s gonna happen around this time during the year.

But I’m surprised to see that August this time wasn’t so bad. Sure, I was anxious going in, but my nerves did manage to calm down as the month progressed. I wonder if the anxiety pills I took worked, they were supposedly made with natural ingredients, like lavender. If you’re wondering what’s making me feel that way, well, it all has to do with communication. I still struggle with it, so I’m still trying to figure out a balanced way to do it. Not being too vague or too blunt. It’s something I’ll have to practice as I go along.

Something I realized was that being direct to a friend or someone you love is way harder than being direct to a complete stranger. Our internal bias always tells us that telling a friend the hard truth is potentially hurtful… but with complete strangers, it’s like said fear doesn’t exist. I’ve confronted people in the streets who aren’t acting their best, sometimes resulting in insults. With a friend, we always try to word things in the least harmful way possible. We don’t want to tell them something that could possibly discourage them from doing something in particular. But at the same time, they’d probably appreciate us telling them what we think, in a constructive manner of course. Really, I’m still figuring out how to go about this. But I don’t want to make the same dumb mistakes again.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is, well, men, and how hard it’s been for me to relate to them. I’m still trying to figure out why this is so difficult for me, but a lot of it has to do with the expectations other people have and my own experiences with men in general, which haven’t been the greatest. They expect men to act in a certain way, so when they don’t, they immediately think you’re strange. And it’s why a lot of those posts I see online about how simple minded men are (or that we’re all some sort of collective beings that always get along with one another) bother me so much. Or how they’re considered more rational when they’re really not. Now that I thought about it though, I’m not too bothered by it. I may not be like all the other men, but in a way, that might be a good thing. It’s still hard for me to connect with men though, one thing I’ll try is keeping my prejudice to a minimum and not assume every men will try to hurt me.

And there were two birthdays this month that I had to celebrate: my friend’s on the 22nd, and my mom’s on the 24th. I had to get gifts for both of them, my friend got two lucky kitty figures, and my mom got a set of cups from IKEA. They both liked their gifts, thank goodness. We ended up grilling some meat for my mom’s birthday, and it was pretty good. Although the power went out for about an hour during the night… joyous. Still, a chill but otherwise fun birthday.

This month I also decided that going forward, I want my online presence to me more low key. That means getting rid of certain social platforms and making my existing ones more private. I figured that would make me feel a bit more relaxed. I also want to focus less on making friends, and more on expressing myself online. I’m of course not saying I’m no longer open to new people, but it’s not something I’m going to actively pursue at the moment. I’ve been very frustrated these last few months trying to meet new folks, admittedly… it seems like whenever I find a new person, they either get busy or lose interest really quickly. I may need a break from it until I feel confident going for it again.

Finally, I had to go to the doctor this month. We suspect that my liver might still have issues after all. You see, last year I had to go through a ton of blood tests and scans to see if anything was up with my body, and it turns out my liver was swollen. The treatment required a ton of vitamins and pills, but after it was done, my body seemed to be doing a lot better. My mom isn’t convinced, and she suspects the doctor might’ve been tying to rip us off. So we went to another one, and I’ll have to get the tests done to see if my body is working correctly. Thankfully I won’t have to travel for like, a whole hour like I had before.

September is usually when things start to look up for me, with the seasons changing and all that. It’ll be spring soon, yes, we have opposite seasons where I live. This cold weather makes me all gloomy, and my body is never happy about it. My mind gets all fuzzy, most of my body can’t handle the cold even with clothes on, my hands get all itchy and red, and my feet are hard to get warm. Ugh, I’ll be so glad to move on from this awful season…

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the month. Let me know what you think about this post format in the comments below.

See you all in the next post!