rotten

before: mayhem, after: a circus

our prayers were answered and today was indeed a lot easier than yesterday; pretty chill, even. i only exited my bedroom around 13:30, but it was fine as ju stayed home. the day was filled with books, puzzles, legos and tv. i have built the same two winnie the pooh puzzles so. many. times. i never wanna see them again. i swear that's how you lose brain cells - doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and pretending to be equally excited and challenged by it every time. those things have like 30 pieces and jo knows them by heart. even if the puzzle board is empty, he remembers where each piece belongs to; it's nuts. the whole kid is so weird. i was the one to put him to bed; first we made a deal to read richard scarry's ABC word book in 'a special way' so e had time to fall asleep before jo went into their room. he read the pages for letters a, e & n ("mum's, e's and lil sis's letters!") with a, the letters j & t ("mine and dad's letter, and our surname!") with ju, and u and v with me - naturally. when he pretended to fall asleep on the couch, i picked him up and carried him to bed saying "it's a good thing you already fell asleep so i don't have to tell you to keep quiet because e's asleep. sleeping children don't make any noise" lmao. he just whispered back "but you need to tell me a story" and i promised to do so. i put him to bed and sat beside him for a while, kept stroking his his hair and every now and then whispered a few words. it was a completely nonsensical story about a boy called jo who went to the park with his mum and little brother and then sat on the swings for an entire day until he was going so fast he flew to the stars. jo fell asleep pretty quickly, but after a few minutes he lifted his head and whispered "is this story continuing anytime soon" - sassy as hell lmao. luckily he fell back asleep right away. it always feels like such a privilege putting kids to bed; especially when they actually fall asleep, haha. and without screaming too!

i feel like i might've caught whatever it is that ju has after all. i arrogantly and stupidly thought that having been so sick so much so recently i would have some immunity, but apparently that's not the case. sucks. i'm thinking about possibly going home tomorrow or the day after, but i don't know if i can be bothered haha. it's so nice being here, even if it's such a circus sometimes. we always joke about me moving in - i don't think i'd survive for very long, but i mean.. a month or two maybe? i tend to sleep better while staying here, but i gotta admit it is pretty onerous having 90% of things that come out of your mouth starting with "no", "don't", "HEY" and the sarcastic "please".

i've kept chatting with mr a quite a lot, as he messages me daily. yesterday we had a half serious talk about our ...friendship (i think it is?) because he had cooked up some sort of a crisis about the way he talks so freely about things to me. "i feel like it's not appropriate, and i'm sorry. i don't wanna be some kinda slimy pervert - i'm so much older than you and..." yada yada yada. i laughed at first because i wasn't sure if he was being serious, oops. i think he was a bit drunk though, and that affected the way he expressed himself, the use of emojis and all that. when i realized he really meant it i told him straight. when i mentioned i have even dated "aN oLdEr mAn" (lmao why do people in their 40s talk about themselves like they belonged in nursing homes or something?) once, that seemed to give him some assurance. idk why though, as i genuinely don't think either of us sees that in the cards for us, even if there's definitely a flirtatious tone in our conversations sometimes. perhaps it convinced him that i don't automatically view people his age as ancient and disgusting. honestly it's sad to think he apparently doesn't have people in his life he could be his authentic self with - he gets so confused when he can talk about things like loneliness and horniness, he often apologises for completely ridiculous things and acts like i was a fragile piece of glass or something. in reality it's him who's somewhat naive and such a prude at times. i mean it's clear to me he actually is not, but has been conditioned to act the part. that's what church does to you, i guess. we've been discussing things like depression and struggling to find purpose every now and then for maybe a year now, sometimes we talk quite a lot and sometimes weeks go by without a word. it's a weird friendship but i mean, having kinda disturbing but really lovely in-depth friendships with weird, funny and intelligent 40 men is apparently My Thing, so. i'm not complaining. i think i might need to work on setting some boundaries though, regarding all the emotional labor i tend to do for said men. it's just that that's a part *i* have been conditioned to play, so. it's not an easy thing to change.

the paja was open today, and is gonna be open for the next two days. none of the actual workers are gonna be present though, it's a peer group leader takeover. i think i'd like to go on wednesday when o said they'll be watching a movie or two, but that would mean driving home tomorrow. i'm not sure i'm up for it - just the idea of packing up my things and unfrosting the car is tiring as hell... w is clearly getting kinda tired of all the noise though, i think *she* would like to go home already. well, i guess once again we'll see what happens, how i feel about it tomorrow, whether or not i get any sleep etc. rn i have a glass of red and i'm gonna reply to some DM's like an adult that i definitely am not.