2025

by Jon Sullivan - 2025-12-19 - Status

<<<<< previous blog            album containing this post's photo

---

It's been an interesting year. A year of change. A year of loss. A year of anxiety. A year of struggle.

Let's put aside the whole thing with a Nazi loving president who is obviously a Russian agent. That's not what I'm talking about. This year was yet another year of crazy changes in me. Some things got better. Some things got worse. And it all got more complicated. Let's break it down.

- I've lost 80 pounds this year. I get lots of compliments and congratulations. Which I love. But it's been brutal. I spent the previous two years trying and failing to lose any weight at all, and just kept gaining. I felt healthy enough, but obviously wasn't. Obese is it's own sort of sick. There were lots of places I just couldn't go. If I dropped something on the floor I needed to work out a strategy for how to pick it up. While I was happy, all that flab makes a certain amount of shame and self loathing unavoidable. I tried. A lot. Eat less, exercise more. Sure, that makes sense. Doesn't work, but it makes sense.

Finally, this year, I decided to get on the insanely priced prescription fat loss drugs. These make eating so unpleasant that you don't eat. Which surprisingly works really well. Don't eat food and the pounds just melt away with no effort at all. Is that process healthy? Of course not. It's also miserable and more expensive than most can afford. Would I do it again? Abso-fuckin-lutely. You can pry this nauseating starvation drug from my cold dead hands.

- Social anxiety returned this year. This is the same problem that led me to not leave my apartment in San Diego for 6-9 month stretches. Normally that would be a sarcastic exaggeration, but no, it's real. The biggest difference now is that I just spent 5 years learning what New Jon and my "best life" were all about, and that includes my new philosophy of life where capital C Community is a core virtue. So non-optional. Something I have to do that is important on an existential level is also something that fills me with dread and panic. So that's awesome. My demons try to keep us apart. Ain't gonna happen. I'll work it out.

While we're on the topic, let me give you an example of what I mean by social anxiety. We've met, you all know me, so you'll love this. By default I feel like I am offensive and inappropriate to people unless I keep my concentration locked into not being that way. Yes, I understand this isn't true. But I feel it whether it's true or not, or even if I don't believe it. The solution is easy and effortless - Don't be around people, pretend I'm not home, don't answer the phone, don't engage on social media, and practice every possible conversation so that I don't need to improv. And if we've had a meaningful conversation in the last 20 years I have replayed it in my mind for days..... or weeks.... or months..... looking for things I said or did that were offensive and stupid. Don't let that stop you. It's a me problem.

Maybe I'm wound way too tight.

- Tie dye. Which is the most fun I've had in awhile. Also expensive, more work than I've done in years, completely unneeded since I live in Eugene, crappy for the environment, a bad partner for my OCD, and...... What the hell was I thinking? I've already made more than I can ever wear, but I also made four five more today. I am addicted to procuring endless piles of cotton and rayon so I can pour ice and dye all over them. "Hello. My name is Jon and I'm a dye addict."

The main problem here is that I'm loving the process. I'm loving the discovery. Every day is like Christmas morning where I open bins to rinse shirts and meet some new creation. Hello pretty happy shirt. Welcome to Earth.

2025 is done. Enough is enough. Let's put this shit behind us.

<<<<< previous blog    

---