avoiding ice on a hot Sunday.

Oops didn't make it to the rink.

So funny, I got all dressed and ready and packed up and brought drinks and snacks and everything, but I had completely the wrong time and realized halfway there that the session would be over by the time I got there.

I think this is my subconscious trying to protect my injured foot. I will go with that and not straight up laziness or fear of doing hard things. I have a lot of emotional baggage around skating which puts a lot of psychological barriers onto it for me, it is wildly unpleasant emotionally for me to be on the ice, but I love the work and time I put into my training and I love the way it feels in my body, I just wish I could get my head right about it. It's not really my fault, my community fell apart and I was the victim of bullying on the ice like everywhere else, plus some very traumatic losses due to cancer and also witnessing some extremely scary brain-injury-causing falls - it's all just very hard.

there's a social session in august, I will try again then. And in the meantime, try to be kind to my sore heart and my sore foot.

love is love.

I foolishly met up with my brother today, he's been pestering me to hang out, I've been trying so hard to politely avoid him since our last really unpleasant visit. I hate having to smile and nod and pretend that I'm okay with the horrific and confusing and mind-bogglingly nonsensical things that come out of his mouth. I am so tired of fawning around him. I need deep psychological work around this relationship and I just don't know the first thing about how to go about healing regarding someone who, in my opinion, is so profoundly ill.

I looked at my heartrate on my biotracker ring after our visit. It was spiking at 140bpm. While we were sitting and talking casually.

That's the same as when I am running. hard.

This is how frightening it is for me to be around someone from whom I've suffered so much emotional abuse.

It is scary to realize how much stress his presence creates for me, not just in my mind, but also in my body.

My nephew on the step side of the family (the only living family I have left aside from my brother and some distant cousins that I haven't met or encountered in well over 20 years), who changed his name to his middle name (Gene) last year and has been growing his hair very long, this morning posted photos of himself on social media in a skirt for the first time. I am over the moon about this, even while i know his family won't know the first thing about how to go about handling it. They adore him, he is adorable. But if we start having to use new pronouns, there will be an interesting learning curve to witness. I hope it all goes well and that people learn from it.

Love is love is love.