Week 933
Day 6525 - 5/13 - Extreme light sensitivity
Today my eyes are still recovering from extreme light sensitivity. Back on Monday I had an extreme relapse to the poking. It felt like they had both been extremely dilated and my bad eye was constantly getting hit with bright light. I mostly had it shut from pain all day, or at the best of times covered with a paper towel, under my sunglasses, under my hoodie. And I could barely keep my good eye open for about 1 out of every 5 minutes of my day. It would often pull to the side as if it were hit with its own bright light.
Yesterday things did manage to calm down enough I could have them both uncovered, but when I was at the library I literally couldn't put the laptop over 50% brightness. And when outside I had both sunglasses and one of the free film strips they give you when you get dilated.
Today was a bit better. I only needed the film and sunglasses when outside sometimes. And when in the library I could go a bit brighter to about 60%, but that is still way off from the 100% I normally keep it at.
My bad eye is also having a super hard time focusing. The floater was taking up about 85% of my vision, but now it's even closer and more intrusive, taking up almost all of my view. If I don't have a contact in it's basically making everything a big gray blur. With my contact in I suppose it's tolerable, but way off from the clear vision I should have. The floater still messes with my focal point, so 2/3 of my vision has a light gray blur wash. Of course that clears if I close my bad eye, but I can't do that for more than a few minutes at a time without it getting super annoying.
On the good side, yesterday and today I was free from bother to at least do a little pen and paper stuff. Not a ton, just around an hour, but it was more than nothing.
I am very worried though this could be the start of a downward trend for my bad eye getting much worse, pretty much from the attempts to fix it. And that maybe soon it will get even more worse in a way that can't be fixed.
Day 6526 - 5/14 - Break in shock
Today I have basically been in shock. Last night when I was away from my car for a while someone decided to break the driver's side door window and rifle through a couple of boxes I had in there for donating. Nothing was stolen, except a handful of already turned in lotto second chances tickets. It still doesn't feel real. It just feels like I forgot to roll up my window. But I think in a way, because I'm homeless, I expected that would happen. And I accepted that eventually it would happen. Because my life is terrible, and sad, and that over time more terrible and sad things would continue to happen to me.
Apparently the already extreme $550 I'm paying a year now for car insurance doesn't have the kind of coverage to cover it, so I have to pay for it myself. But I barely had $20 to get gas today. My account is now empty. And because of needing to get a battery recently any money I had saved for bills so far is already gone. The lowest quote I got to fix it is $225, while others were closer to $285. But I don't know when I'll get money to fix it since I'm so far behind of where I should be for bills.
It seems unlikely anyone would break in again to steal any food or other things I may have stored in the trunk. (Especially with the manual trunk release at the driver's side not working.) But I wonder if it is safe. Am I safe? When will I feel safe again like I did?
I suppose there is a little good news in that my eye only needed double sunglasses in the morning. And in the library I was fine, and in fact turned brightness to full after being there only a few hours. Also, the floater seems to have eased up a bit so it's not quite as terrible, though it still pulls focus on my good eye and can wobble between slightly better (than it was) and slightly worse.
In a way I feel I guess relieved that nothing of real value was taken. (Especially with a bunch of old personal records in the car waiting to be shredded with my name, address, and such.) As I said in a way I feel maybe I deserved it or expected it because I'm homeless, and bad things just happen to people like that. And now that it's happened maybe it won't happen again. But do I feel safe? Will I? How long before I do? Is where I am at night safe, was that just a random outsider, or is that someone who lives nearby where I usually am at night? And how long will it be before help comes to fix it. Will any help even come?
Day 6527 - 5/15 - Still unbelievable
Today I still can't believe what happened. I was very shaken last night and I probably lost about 1/3 or more of what could have been sleep. My ears were likely listening about 4x as far as normal and I was jumping at every sound. (Though it still seems animal life is barely a fraction of what it was pre-apocalypse. Especially at night things can get eerily completely silent.)
I don't really worry during the day when I'm at the library, as people likely would just assume I have my window rolled down. But anytime I'm not there I wonder if I'm safe. And if I go away from my car for any real period of time, even if I carry my important things with me, I still worry and wonder if the break in people will come back and go through my trunk (now that they wouldn't have the window smashing noise to alert people beforehand that anything was unusual.)
My bad eye wasn't super bad today. I did have to keep both sunglass layers on in the morning, but after I got to the library I was ok to take them off and have my laptop at full brightness, though I was tempted to turn it down a touch a few times during very bright show scenes. In clarity some of my distance vision is coming back, though the floater is still heavily restricting my overall vision clarity and ease of focus.
I wanted to do pen and paper stuff today, but I feel pretty shaken still, and as I write this and night approaches I feel a bit shaky, like I'm going to start crying from fear and worry. I hope I don't. Just like everything else this is a thing that happened to me, not because of me, and it was a thing I could not control or stop. It likely would have happened eventually. So I just have to focus on what is left and try to continue to hang on.
Day 6528 - 5/16 - Extreme distraction
Today my bad eye was extremely bad. It was super extra light sensitive again and I had my laptop at 60% brightness for much of the day. It pulled focus so badly I probably spent nearly all of the day unable to focus on anything further than 10 feet away.
In a way I'm grateful for the extreme distraction lately. I can't focus on the break in much at all. If I could I would probably be a nervous, terrified, wreck pretty much all of the time. But since my eye is so bad I can only focus for a few minutes at a time, there is no spare mental focus left to completely freak out over the break in. So, I guess I am grateful for that.
Day 6529 - 5/17 - Removed signs
Today I removed the three signs I posted warning people in the area (after them being out just 24 hours.) It was nice to see no one took them down. I don't know if that means no one saw them, or if people took notice and moved on. But last night for a few hours when I should have been sleeping I started spiraling worrying 'what if' the burglar saw them. What if they decided to punish me for it and broke more windows?
Thankfully there was some love on my MMO social page and some said they'd send help. So hopefully it will be enough and hopefully it can get fixed soon. I do wonder what the real odds of it happening again are. Overall I don't ever remember it happening to me ever before, so there is that. I've been parking my cars in that area for the last 26 years, so there is that too. And in the something like 12 years I've had that specific car nothing has ever happened, so it seems overall very unlikely. But I still wonder, if/when I do get enough help, will it just happen again because someone specifically targeted me?
My eye is super bad today. The floater is covering probably 95% of my vision in that eye at this point and it's seriously mucking up my view. It's also been super light sensitive and was squinting hard while outside even with double sunglass layers on. It is slightly clearing as I write this though, so hopefully it's on its way to getting better.
Today I feel extra heartbroken because of the break in and my eye and feel pretty hopeless overall, but I try my best to hang on and hope that things do get better for me eventually.
Day 6530 - 5/18 - Heartbroken Monday
Today I don't know what will happen. Hopefully help will come to do the window and that can be cleared up soon. But I still wonder how long it will be before I feel safe and trusting enough again that things will at least be ok.
Day 6531 - 5/19 - Hoping for ok
Today hopefully I will be ok. I don't know if that means my window will be fixed and I feel safer again, or if my eye is less bad, or everything is still bad but I feel less hopeless. But hopefully whatever my situation is then, hopefully I'm more ok.
Week 934
Day 6532 - 5/20 - No window yet
Today my window wasn't replaced, which is disappointing for a number of reasons. I'm guessing the person who I have set to do it didn't get the window yet. If I don't hear from him by around noon tomorrow I'll call and check.
I did get enough help for the window, which was super surprising, but it was from guildies in my MMO, which was not surprising. Of the times I've needed emergency help they have sent help about half the time, so I was surprised when I got enough so quickly.
I'm trying not to fixate on it though. I keep wondering about the 'what if' of the crime stats and reasons why me and I just start to spiral into bad places that make me feel targeted and unsafe. Most likely it was because it's an old car, and as such it was less likely to have an alarm. But it feels really sad when I checked a crime report site and in all of the local area the next closest break in is somewhere around 5 miles away, so of like a 10 square mile area I was the only break in for whatever time period it's showing.
But I try to put it all past me as quickly as I can. Hopefully it can be fixed tomorrow. And hopefully then things can maybe truly start to feel 'normal' again and I can feel safe-ish and ok-ish again soon.
In good news my bad eye wasn't as bad. Neither in the morning nor evening when I was outside did I need double layer sunglasses. I just needed the one, which hasn't been the case for about a week. So that is good that the extreme light sensitivity is cooling off. It's still super extra bad due to the floater blocking and blurring all of my vision though. So I'm really hoping that at least is greatly lessened in the next few weeks. It wasn't quite as terrible as it has been lately though, so I did do some pen and paper stuff. But the stuff I did wasn't great and I'll likely wind up redoing it at some point, possibly Monday since it's a holiday and the library will be closed. I don't know if my alternate spot where I shower will be open for half a day or not yet. I'm hoping so. I can check tomorrow.
So overall today was pretty disappointing, but hopefully nothing else bad will happen, and maybe tomorrow there can be at least some small steps to getting back to 'normal.'
Day 6533 - 5/21 - Still waiting
Today I am still waiting for the guy to fix the window. I guess the place he gets it from still hasn't gotten it yet and it's supposed to be guaranteed tomorrow. But still, that seems bad to tell someone a day and then it doesn't happen until 2 days later, both for him and me. I don't feel super safe or great with not having a window.
I guess in ok news my bad eye is slightly better. I didn't have to do double sunglasses layers when I was outside today, and things were slightly more in focus. Though it still has a long long way to go to get back to where it was 6 weeks ago before the eye floater started blocking all of my view.
I did feel good enough to do just a teeny bit of pen and paper stuff today, so that is good. Though I got some weird news that threw me off. The online shooter that I've been playing as my main shooter said the next update (in like 1.5 weeks) is it. After that the game will effectively be in maintenance mode, so that content will still be playable, but it will be how the game is until they decide to shut it off completely. Which is a pretty weird thought since for the last 12 years pretty much every 3 months they have done some kind of content change. Though I have been playing it solo, so I certainly don't feel as much of a loss as others who found friends or even became family through the game. And I'm older than the average player, so while it was a long period of time, it wasn't during what would be as 'formative' of a period of my life as it was for them. I'm curious to see if a game I was really looking forward to which was canceled now becomes un-canceled with the sudden move of their biggest competition announcing they are effectively done. And if not, will the company make a new IP to replace the one they are abandoning. It will probably be years before we hear anything on what it is they will be working on next. And probably years before someone else tries to fill this gap.
But hopefully the window will be fixed tomorrow, and I can continue towards feeling more 'normal' again. And hopefully soon all of this extra sadness and terribleness because of it can be behind me, and eventually forgotten.
Day 6534 - 5/22 - Disount delay
Today apparently the previously promised time of Friday by 2 was changed. The guy said the driver that has it is apparently driving around somewhere and it may not get in until as late as 9. He said he would get it to me tomorrow though, even though I told him today would be fine if it were that late. So I'm still waiting. He did say he felt bad, so reduced the price 10% ($25), so I guess that is something.
My eye is better, but still really bad. It has a way to go to get back to where it was 6 weeks ago, and I'm still very worried. Again it was a little less light sensitive, so that is something at least.
Day 6535 - 5/23 - Completely silent
Today still feels surreal, as if I'm being tested again in a weird way. The window was finally replaced just before the library opened. Now driving around with it closed everything is completely silent. It feels surreal, like I am still in a kind of shock state or an alternate world where someone just removed it for a mental test period. It's good that it's back, terrible that all this extra stress happened and money was lost, but it still mostly just feels unreal.
My eye is still pretty terrible, but getting better about light sensitivity. Unfortunately the floater still blocks far too much and makes it impossible to really focus at all either emotionally or physically. But there isn't anything I can do about that but wait.
Hopefully in time I can feel less terrified, more balanced, and hopefully back to where I used to be soon enough. And hopefully more terrible things don't happen. Hopefully my eye can get back to at least where it was soon, so I can at least go back to trying to do pen and paper stuff and focus on what I'm doing.
Day 6536 - 5/24 - Worse and better eye
Today my bad eye seems both worse and better at the same time. It's worse in that it's still really disrupting my ability to see, but it's better in that it is less of an overall blur and more of a pinhole effect. So I can see things which I can see more clearly, but overall it's really disruptive in that everything is speckled. So I guess if I'm constantly moving my eyes, like looking around the room, it's pretty good (since I'm thus constantly changing where I'm looking and the pinholes aren't in a stable position). But holding still, like reading/writing, or looking at my laptop screen, isn't great. It's like I'm trying to look through a very tiny holed screen door.
I guess I'm not used to my door window being fixed yet. It still feels strange, and I've closed the door much too lightly a few times. With no window there was no air pressure, so closing it with normal force was basically slamming it. So I got used to using much less force, which seems odd to think about.
Today is just starting, but I'm starting to feel better emotionally and move past all the extra terror, uncertainty, and stress, so that is something.
Day 6537 - 5/25 - Half day
Today the library will be closed, so I'll only get half a day, with the later half spent just sitting in a parking lot. It certainly won't be great overall, but maybe it won't be the worst. And if my bad eye behaves maybe I can do some art for my pen and paper stuff.
Day 6538 - 5/26 - Maybe regular Tuesday
Today maybe will be a regular Tuesday. Hopefully things will be normal in the library, and hopefully I will start to feel homeless normal again.
