You get so down I try to comfort Sometimes words, they don't do anything much at all

 My eyes were red and swollen from crying because my heart and soul are so tired.

There has been a shift recently inside me. I am less understanding, less patient, less tolerant of things that I would have normally tried to have been good about. I have always tried to meet people where they are, be understanding of their circumstances, etc. But since no one has ever extended such grace to me, a lifetime of build up has created resentment, exhaustion, and bitterness. I don't really like this about myself right now, but I have decided to just...allow myself to feel and process it. I have always tried to be so positive and understanding, and now everything just keeps like a candle that's all burnt out.

I know part of it is burn out.  I know part of it is the exhaustion that comes with uncertainty. My nervous system is fried. Everything annoys me. My entire body constantly hurts now because it is frozen in tension, bracing itself for the Next Bad Thing.

I am trying to be gentle with myself, and give myself the grace that I had always extended to everyone else. I am trying to give myself the space to feel everything.

I know there are times when I wish that I was like everyone else, that I felt things less deeply and acutely. That I had smaller emotions, more muted emotions. Unfortunately, I have been blessed with the "hyper empathy" autism instead of the STEM one. But there are also times where I am grateful to not be as detached and heartless and devoid of empathy like everyone else.

There are people I see on my commute every day that are almost like characters in my life. I get worried when I don't see them. I get worried when people whose names I do not even know aren't there. I feel dysregulated when I don't see them. When I say that I deeply worry about these people when I don't see them, I do not exaggerate.

I haven't seen The Transit Nemesis is almost a month. Do I particularly care for him? No. Do I hope that he is okay? Yes. I don't like him, but I still care about him and I hope that he's fine wherever he is. I hope that he's just off pouting somewhere and that nothing bad happened to him. I actually cried yesterday thinking that I may never see him again, and I might not know if he's okay or not. Mind you, this is not a man I particularly like. In fact, over the last three years, our antagonistic relationship has been borderline unbearable. Yet I find myself being sad about someone whose name I do not know because I worry if he'll be alright or not.  

I hope wherever you are, Transit Nemesis, that you are okay.