@Leucrotta And the weirdest thing is the SURVIVOR'S GUILT. The snipers keep missing us and hitting people we care about, and there's no real REASON for it. Our fundamentals are pretty good. We're a lot less precarious than a lot of people right now. But I keep reacting badly to all these reminders that we live in a society with virtually NO safety net...

...and that I had a community in Seattle that might back me up if the shit hit the fan-- or at least felt like I did, and deluded myself I had done things important enough to deserve it.

Now it's really just me and Peg, with a little help now and then from my parents-- who are both over 70 now, are comfortable but not rich, and just add to the sense of precarity with their own health problems. We know a couple of people down here, but nothing like I had... thought I had... in Seattle.

Everything STILL roots right back in Transliminal and I'm coming to think that, even as much as I've recuperated, it always will. I came SO CLOSE to achieving my Plan A for surviving this hellworld, and it all just slipped away the moment the veil of illusion was jostled.

@Leucrotta (And yet, i still feel like I have ZERO right to complain, because in actuality... yeah, everything is ok at the moment. Even the cats seem relatively happy. Main worry there is a night of 32 degree weather coming up, and I think they've got pretty good shelter in the abandoned basement next door...)

@Leucrotta I guess a lot of it is really just... missing people and missing the sense that I was part of anything that meant a damn. Though it is nice seeing Peg kinda shoulder that burden, playing Dragon Witch Mom Lady for a while while I"m the relatively quiet obscure one. Scary but kinda restful. :)

@Austin_Dern *hug* Yeah, see last reply to Leucrotta -- basically, we're OK, there are just a lot of reminders of how screwed up and precarious everything is right now. I'm more concerned about them than me, present company included, but it still pings the anxiety. We're... OK. We'll be better if we get a stimulus, and better still if my boss keeps failing to notice the slow degradation of my ability to focus over the last year. n.n;;

The cats are kind of a whole different thing. Just... far more responsibility over other living beings than we ever, ever, ever set out to have. We'd even avoided having pets as an adult for that exact reason. And now... here they are, and they're sweet and beautiful and wild and I love them and they scare the shit outta me and nothing I do for them will ever be enough to buy my sense of security back.

@zebratron2084 Understand so many of those feelings and I see that you're picking up but, mm. That anxiety when things are basically all right is another killer.