Can people really change?  I mean, of course, people do change, but I wonder sometimes if that change is slow and hard-earned, or whether change is more like something that just "happens" to you.  Like how you can go to bed, but you can't actively "fall asleep", it's just something that "happens to you".  Maybe the difference is more semantic than anything, but thinking about the changes in my life and in other people's lives, it makes me think about how much of it was really under our control at all.

I've certainly become a little more comfortable talking and interacting with people in certain ways.  (Others...maybe still needs some work)  Was that really something that I did out of my own will and power?  Maybe.  I think it's weird because I'm used to looking at things like skills and techniques, like you know, my execution in ALTTPR, or knowing my way around cooking, or even the craft of making music?  These are all things where I can go like, "hey, yeah, I really worked on that, I put effort into both learning and practicing it, and it resulted in growth and progress".  But like, when it comes to the deeper stuff, like social skills or my personality or even the little componens that make up who I am, those are a lot harder to boil down.

Like, yeah, maybe I feel a little more secure than I used to, but like, I struggle to even feel like that's something that I really "worked out", it just feels like I was "lucky enough" to get through the right circumstances to make it happen.  I think some of the stuff about self-care, yeah, sure, that stuff I feel like I've put in work on, both myself and with my therapist, so that stuff makes sense, but the other stuff...it's harder for me to connect the dots, I guess.

The other weird thing is that change is something that traditionally I've just tried to avoid in the first place?  So like, maybe it makes sense after all that it's something that "happened to me" rather than something I really pursued.  But I donno, are there really good examples of how I've seen people change over time out of their own will?

Yeah...yeah, I guess there are.  But like I said, it is slow, and hard-earned.  I think that's why it's hard to imagine, because usually that sort of change takes many years, I guess, and usually starts so early on.  Like when I decided I would try my best to avoid having so many things that were half-done and never-finished.  I was so young when I tried to decide that, it really took many years before I could really go and say that this is something I'm not only good at but am known for.

I guess I see that in other people, too.  People have told me about how they had experiences that made them figure out that they wanted to be a certain way or wanted to learn how to be a different way than they were previously.  It's cool, I guess, seeing that people can actually make it happen.  That if you want to, you can grow, and shift.  I think it's more rare to see now, because people have settled more into their ways, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all.  Even someone who claims to want to stay the same as much as me, feels the shifts happening as I try to understand things in a different way.  Maybe I won't change as drastically as I did during some of my more formative years.  But it still happens, I guess.


I've still been feeling a little off, physically.  Headaches and fatigue and all that.  But I've been doing my best despite that.  Finished that Rhythm Quest devlog, did some mentoring, even squeezed in an ALTTPR run and got some voter outreach postcards started.  I'm overdue on some letters still, but that can come in time.  Everything in its time, one by one, steadily.  I can do it.