Doing a fair bit better today. Distancing from some people and how often
we talk to them (no one here, it's folks we know in other places) has
helped at least a little bit, and partially indulging not masking
yesterday kind of helped too. I wish we could take that farther safely.
Sometimes I wish we could be semiverbal or nonverbal, or let ourselves
not give a shit about social norms and just exist. Again, we're failing
at seeming normal no matter what we do, so might as well. It's just
anxiety-inducing because of some very bad past reactions.

Knocked out the whole week's classwork, so we have some time for much-
needed stress relief. I'm hoping the wind doesn't kick up so we can go
on a bike ride today. We need the exercise and the weather hasn't been
cooperating.

Freezing up a lot today, don't know why. Guess we need to keep taking it
slow and being gentler. It's annoying to have to struggle to start moving
again when we stop for more than a second, but oh well. We've dealt with
it before and know how to get ourselves out of it. "Move a pinky" works
well. It's like when we stop moving, our train of thought stops too, and
we get detached from our body and surroundings and silently stare into
space for anywhere from a few seconds to twenty minutes until we can knock
ourselves out of it by moving literally anything voluntarily, which is
harder than it sounds. There's a reason we go for a pinky instead of an
arm. Also helps if we just force ourselves to keep moving something at all
times when we get like this because as long as we're moving, we don't
freeze. It's just frustrating on days where this happens because we lose a
fair amount of time just standing there because we can't make ourselves
move and keep losing our train of thought or thinking nothing at all. It'll
pass within a few days like it always does. It's a stress thing, I think.
We've been feeling strained and raw inside lately and that tends to bring
this on. So does pushing ourselves too hard and passing the limit of how
much we can take. I guess our brain is in power saving mode, haha.

One of the kids has been more active lately. Everyone here has, really,
but one of the kids in particular has been coming out and writing about
things that happened in the past that are bothering her. Someone else
is mad that she's doing that, and it's a whole mess. And I've been around
less because of stress, so the others have been picking up a lot of the
slack in daily life. I think Kaz is happy to have more time out at least.
We're in a rougher state than usual though and I've been hesitant to admit
it because the implications scare me. Don't worry, we'll be alright and
we're in no present danger. We're just struggling right now and trying to
deal with things we haven't let ourselves think about because they hit like
a truck.

Oh, you guys might like this- we have a tiny moss garden in our room :D
It's lovely.