i posted a picture of on instagram thanksgiving night. while i was staring at it, i noticed there were these lines that started towards the center of my eye, and swung outwards. a wrinkle under them. i hadn't noticed them before that and i figured that they had only recently appeared. i took that as fact until i finally decided to look through older pictures to see verify. i don't take too many pictures of myself, and of the few, not many are detailed enough in that are of my face. i did find a picture i took last december, almost a year ago, that was focused on my eyes. it's this picture i took with a cactus that had been gifted to me may 2015 by my then-best friend. the picture shows the exact same lines under my eyes. so they're not new. they've been around for a while. though the picture is from 2017, and there is a strong possibility that there is proof of their existence prior to then, i don't feel compelled to investigate it further. knowing they're not a recent development is enough. that cactus died shortly after that pic. it got this weird infection, probably cactus rot, and began to turn yellow and mushy. i debated trying to save it, but figured it wasn't my place to play god or even just to deny nature of taking its course. it died a week into january 2017. coincidentally, much like my friendship with that person

had a deja vu moment at my friends party last night. had something to do with me opening instragram in that setting. was strange. i had considered not going to the joint birthday party my friends were having, not out of laziness or disinterest, but because i knew someone i wasn't sure i'd be able to be in close proximity with was also going. not gonna go too much into why that is, but there was something that happened between us, though not entirely directly, but enough for me to feel that i could, potentially, have an anxiety attack of sorts. i went anyway without mentioning my reservations to my friends (more self-destructive behavior) but i did my best to not interact. the closest we got was when i was handing them the knife after getting some flan. the flan was very good. didn't panic, was proud of myself

side note: what is an anxiety attack? like you feel very anxious? that's just anxiety. not sure why it's called an "attack" since it's exactly what the definition for anxiety is. is it because it comes up abruptly? i had a couple of these "attacks" or "episodes" of anxiety last year. they're strange. i get unusually cold, shaky, and too many thoughts run through my head at once that it becomes difficult to form words. didn't have one this year, but i was close to one when i visited my old stomping grounds (my high school)

my family celebrates christmas on christmas eve, and this year, it didn't feel like much, which is fine. i liked the laidback approach to it all