a little bit broken

i can't believe it's thorsday already. (we've taken to calling the days by their original names, woden's day being our favourite)

tuesday was a productive day. as i was on my way out my team lead "reminded" me of a 7pm all-hands meeting which i'd never heard about... i played rayman with mr smear while listening to how we're downsizing, and a bunch of people have been let go. what they're doing and why they're doing it makes sense, and they're doing it in the best way possible (two months severance + assistance in finding new work), but it's still horrible. and some of the decisions were surprising, to say the least.

after putting mr smear to bed i hopped on my blades and went out for a 23km ride. i almost gave up less than five minutes after leaving the apartment because my knee was feeling wobbly, it only settled yesterday evening but i feel like it was important exercise both for it and the rest of my body.

which is still feeling broken, but hey.

yesterday was also productive in spite of the feeling that i was falling apart, although there was a lot of distraction and sadness and the last hour or two i found it particularly difficult to focus and the fourth cup of coffee didn't help much. then i came home and joined a council meeting that was entirely uninteresting and i had nothing to contribute to.

so i updated my machine and shovelled sushi into my mouth until it was over.

i went to bed early, but struggled to sleep. not only was my neck and back hurting, but my brain was all over the place. i spent most of the night with my headphones in listening to NSDR recordings.

...

i took mr smear to school yesterday morning after a very dramatic episode of failing to follow instructions when trying to leave. the walk to school was mostly fine, but then after saying goodbye and walking a couple of meters he stopped, turned around, and i could see he needed a hug.

but the hug wasn't enough. he exploded in a tantrum of how he's not going to school, how he's always being harassed. the principal happened to be standing right there, she tried to help, then someone else arrived that i didn't recognize and she tried to help, and then finally his teacher arrived. i went inside with the two of them and we tried to figure out what was happening, but we already knew what was happening: there're a couple of kids in his class that he doesn't like, one of them is a bully and they're both a bit... slower than the rest. and because he doesn't like them, he interacts with them negatively instead of leaving them alone, and he doesn't like the consequences and he doesn't accept responsibility.

and he also refuses the outs he's given. when i, or gd, or his teacher gives him a choice of (a) or (b), he will always choose (c). and it will always be a (c) that he knows is not on the table.

...

gd's worried that he's self-harming because he he damaged his skin scratching off one of his fake tattoos, apparently because of something related to the bully. i don't know if she's right, but whatever's going on is fucked up and i'm really sad for him.