Calamades

Thanks, I appreciate it. Trying to have a good attitude and not get too upset but that's obviously easier said than done.

Yep, I keep mostly succulents indoors along with some epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants). I have a couple bonsai plants and am working on shaping and training some Crassula ovata ("Jade plant") bonsai! Succulents are a great entry point for plant keeping as they are often very hardy and are fine with just kind of being forgotten about!

My partner finally finally got his driver's license back after having a seizure in December, so we spent yesterday driving around to all the different nurseries for me to look for monsteras. No luck, but I did find a tillandsia the size of a baby's head so that was neat.

I've been trying to put out of my mind the fact that I just learned that a close family member has lymphoma. They're young and in exceptionally good health otherwise (and the remission rate is already good for the specific type) so I am trying to hold onto hope that this will just be a bad memory in a few months. But it still sucks and I hate to think of them isolated and in pain.

Job hunting sucks. As other posters said, if there is a store or cafe or something that you go to a lot, that's a good place to start. If you're in a position where you can ease into things and not focus too too much on earning, I really recommend volunteering. Think of an interest you have, whether it is animals, art, sports, and look into volunteer organizations in your area. Special Olympics always needs volunteers and is a ridiculous amount of fun. Volunteer positions will pad out your resume, give you valuable skills in interpersonal relationships and learning job routines, and are an easy and low stress kind of soft entry into work.

Eta, your local library is a great resource for volunteer positions.

It's weird, right? As long as I am being a helper I can do anything. I think this is a pretty big clue that we should value ourselves as much as we do our friends!

This is great and something I also strive for. I find often that I gravitate towards other neurodiverse folks, and knowing that someone else is having difficulty navigating a given situation often makes me feel like not only that I can step up and help them, but that I want to do so. I wouldn't if it was just me, but I will always order coffee for my BFF rather than making her have a social interaction I know she is worried about. I'll also happily make phone calls to doctors or to set appointments for friends and I would rather die on the floor than do it for myself. This might be a clue to ways around my social anxiety, if I could learn to treat myself as a friend who needs help.

I hate ribbing and I have been knitting for 17 years. It is annoying. Everyone has their little knitting thing that they just dread (a lot of folks hate purling, apparently).