The Drive to Reno

Today Jordan and I drove from the Bay Area to Reno. The first half of the conversation was chill and light, which was good — talking about his day, him finally meeting my brother (they'd only met briefly, when I picked my brother up from the airport and Jordan happened to be at the house), and other easy stuff. But then at some point, maybe three hours in, we got into homelessness in SF, and injustice, and somehow I just start feeling all the heavy stuff — and I think he feels it too — and we keep going for a while, injustice in general. Honestly, even though I managed to hold the conversation in the end, I just felt heavy and exhausted afterward, a bit unable to emotionally regulate, like I couldn't feel capable of or deserving of feeling better, or something. Overall not a good experience. Which made me realize again how important that "Assertiveness" skill really is — being assertive about steering us toward topics that are chill and calm, keeping things light. Because always diving into the heavy stuff when I haven't even figured out my own shit isn't really that great of a feeling, imo.

But yeah — that's the rant for today lol. This morning he went to SF again, and apparently the first driver ran out of gas on the highway. Not a great experience, by the sound of it — they stopped right there on the highway and Jordan had to call another Uber from the shoulder and everything, which just feels like a lot, lol.

I met with my brother too — well, I picked him up from the airport. He's thankful for how I've been helping around his house, getting it ready to rent out, along with my mom. I told him no problem, and thanked him back for taking care of me these last two years in the Bay, letting me stay at his place and all that. And I told him the person he really needs to thank is Mom, because she's been handling everything, down to the smallest stuff. He told me about his recent struggles and what he's been learning, the Uber Eats rides he's been doing, and his plans for his career, and I told him about mine — he said that's good. He wants to make a game too, lol, but he's lazy / doesn't have the time. And earlier today his boss lectured him for not being customer-first or empathetic enough or something. I hope he figures his stuff out and gets less stressed eventually. He seems to be doing well with his girlfriend, though.

And later that night, someone posted something provocative in our server, and I'm glad I ended up doing the right thing — holding up a boundary while staying kind, basically making it so he couldn't send messages again, without escalating it further, keeping the peace for everyone else. So I'm glad I did that. Anyway — a lot of learning today, but it's all good.