baseless

This is so surreal. A few months ago, I was just living my life, planning my days, my weeks, managing my expectations and disappointments. All the people I looked forward to seeing at the gym, the daily dread of seeing all those people at the gym, worrying about where I've been and where I was going.

Where the fuck did all that go? It hasn't followed me here, because I haven't moved. This isn't mere moving stress. I live there, where I am homeless. I lost everything I owned, because I had no home to move anything into. I didn't just leave some junk behind for my new landlord to deal with. I left my whole life.

I've been thinking about these survival/crafting games that've become so prolific. You're in a harsh new environment and the first step is always to secure a base. You start minimal, a tiny makeshift shelter over whatever you can call a bed and a place to store your stuff. These games become aimless and far more difficult if you don't have a base to build. Your home becomes both your means and your reason for surviving.

I am visiting Philly. Renting a room in a house owned by a friend of family. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here. I don't live here. I'm a stranded foreigner. It's stressful for a recovering agoraphobic to have to live in someone else's house. This horrific situation is stressful for so many reasons beyond typical moving stress.

I haven't been doing any sight-seeing. I haven't been doing any exploring. I've been getting good at feeding other people's cats. I've been doing a lot of cooking. I've been getting to this new gym sporadically. The bar to getting there is higher, and the feeling of reward on the way home has been meager. I'm afraid of losing interest in the only interest I've got left.

The reward for doing everything else is indiscernible. I'm just surviving, aimlessly and with great difficulty.