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Sometimes people tell me I am chill.

I smile and say thank you. I am learning to accept compliments gracefully.

But I'm always confused by this because from my point of view, my inner workings resemble the way Past Tammy would package up last year's Christmas lights-- a jumbled hodgepodge of wires and brightly colored plastic bulbs which may or may not actually light up when plugged in, all compressed down into a box slightly too small for its contents so it bulges unseemingly around the edges-- and it's up to Present Tammy to untangle this mess.

Sometimes, Present Tammy is able to make headway and clean things up a bit.

Other times, Present Tammy is also an asshole and decides to throw more garbage into the box because fuck Future Tammy.

Anyway, there's a fair amount of chaos and anxiety and it never ends, though the amount ebbs and flows.

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I decided to take a short sabbatical from life.

I've keep a daily journal since about 2008. Every day I try to do at least one 'worthwhile' thing-- something worthy of being put onto a calendar in ink. This can include fairly simple things like going to the gym, reading or seeing friends, but the point is to not have a Nothing Day-- days where I only go to work (or don't leave the house at all) and then just play video games or watch TV or read Reddit.

I'm mostly successful. Once in a while, I do have a Nothing Day, but it's pretty rare. And I don't really sweat it when it happens. Even Nothing Days have their place and time.

The most important thing though is to not have too many Nothing Days in a short time, and definitely not two Nothing Days in a row.

I think I've kept this up pretty well over the past 4 years.

But recently I've been pretty tired.

So I decided to take a week off.

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I didn't exactly do nothing over the course of the week, but I definitely didn't really do much.

I spent a lot of time sleeping.

Like 10 hours a day.

I also spent a fair amount of time going through Reddit.

It's a bad sign when you scroll so far down the front page that you hit posts with like 30 upvotes.

I watched videos on YouTube and browsed through music. I read some comics and took naps and ate waffles.

Doing nothing used to give me a lot of anxiety and I'd worry about not living life to the fullest, but you know what.

It was kinda nice to do nothing.

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I re-read some of my old posts.

In just a few years, it seems like I changed a lot.

There was so much desperation and passion. I was always starving for more.

These days, I'm not so fiery.

I'm a little more quiet, a little more self-contained, a little less abrasive.

But that hunger is still there. It's settled down into a dull pang, but it's there.

I feel like I've been waiting for something.

I'm not sure what's supposed to come, but I've been waiting for it.

People ask me how I've been, and I say, 'Good', because I really have been good. I have friends and a roof and a job and I get to climb, and really there's nothing to complain about.

Even so, somehow I'm bored.

Waiting like this, day after day.

I would like to stop waiting.