progressive decline

I've been making all sorts of progress lately, but it's never enough. I never know where I'm going or if I'll get there in time. I'm not sure any of it matters, but I'm terrified of losing whatever I can scrape together. Almost there.. Almost.. where again? 

I've kept a lot of it to myself. As much as I lay it all out here, it's difficult to convey just how bad it's been. When I moved into this apartment, I never met the woman who lived upstairs. I'd see her come and go from work every day, but almost never went outside. We never ran into each other. I made sure of that. A year later, she was gone, a new tenant in her place. Never met him, either. Or the woman he lived with, who lived there alone while he was being held in immigrant detention. I never found out what happened with that. I was terrified of them all, for no good reason. They're long gone now. 

I've had many conversation with the guy who lives upstairs from me now. He's been there since before I tried going to college. Around that time, I stopped hiding from people. I was proud of myself. What do I do? I'm going to college! It helped me find the courage to start facing people. It's happened gradually and I still have a long way to go, but I'm doing a lot better. This is just one example. 

A few students volunteer to mop the gym mats at the end of classes. Before the pandemic, I made excuses, and never helped. It made me nervous. When I got back, I just started doing it, too. As I've been warming up to the notion of competing, it occurred to me that a year ago, I wouldn't have even considered it. A year isn't that long, and there have been setbacks.

I'm getting pretty good at BJJ, but at participating in the community too. Going to events, asking for rides when I need to. There's an annual barbecue coming up, after being suspended these last two years. I never went before. Why would I want to? How would I get there? Do I even want anything to do with it?

Now, I know I can just ask for a ride, hang out, get to know some of my training partners better, drink beer. Why not?

I miss thinking I was going to college, getting a career, bee-lining for adult human normalcy, but I think it was always a fantasy. The way things were going, I would have finished my associates degree without any idea of where to go from there. An achievement, sure, but hardly all that motivating on its own.

This progress I've been making instead, I don't know if it's leading anywhere either, but it's more fundamental. I've realized that I need to be honest about just how much of a deficit I'm trying to overcome, here. I talk to people regularly these days. That's not a baby step.