Remember how I wrote April was a self-care month? At this point that’s apparently a euphemism for not doing a lot. Also, it’s even more wrong to say this than it was about April.

Anyway. I have spent a lot of time this month thinking about my love languages and writing and all of the things I adore doing. It seems there is never enough time in any given day to make a dent in the things to - seemingly - be done.

But let’s start at the beginning. Love languages. (Don’t worry, this is an update post about this month.)

• Physical touch
• Words of affirmation
• Active listening

Okay. Those being dropped here feels like I’m writing a dating profile page. So hear me out. Despite being regularly read as an extrovert I am not actually a very outgoing person. But if I like someone, I want the distance between them and me to be as darn close to 0 as possible. Not all the time, mind you, but reasonably often. Now, that - one might infer - does actually include touch. Hugs, after all, are infinite life juice transducers. But it’s fucking hard to have all of these feelings when one of the dearest humans in my life goes through half of a decade worth of trouble in a matter of weeks but is for all intents and purposes a lifetime away. So I was sitting there, doing what I do, listening, cheering when necessary, finding words to hopefully form blankets for them to fold into.

As I am typing this, it feels oddly unnatural to write. That feeling is something that has been bothering for a while. In many ways, it is the reason why there were no updates at all on here for literal years. Not writing or at the very least being afraid to started out of nowhere a couple of years back. Ever since then I’ve been collecting thoughts and thoughts on those thoughts and thoughts on those thoughts on the thoughts. That’s my version of overthinking. I think about thinking about things I should’ve just done when I first thought about them but instead chose to think about the effects of doing the thing. Now. Back in April I wrote that I took to note taking. That is still far from becoming habitual. However, I am daring to declare progress in terms of thought sorting. Ask Ash. She knows. I don’t. So yeah, still trying to hopefully soon untether the downward spiralling, yet stuck corkscrews from all the magical flasks full of prose and poetry and cracks on the wall.

All the other things have largely not happened. Some of course have. However, nothing else that happened remains on the top of my head.

So that was May. And that was a good month. That wasn’t all that happened of course. Just a tiny fraction. The thing is, friendship - as an age-old credit card advert would say - cannot be paid for with money. And this is time. Time well spent.