Yesterday my walk to clear my head landed me in a difficult scenario. Tried to do one nice thing (paid for someone's coffee while passing my vendor-friend) & ended up being sexually harassed with a level of persistence I haven't seen in a while, in a way that suggests real mental damage on their part. It happens - but it was my final straw, so I put myself to bed rather than be awake through a breakdown.

...Which was a good call! 🎉
I clearly needed to catch up on sleep.

Fresh start Monday. 🙂💪

To be clear:

I'm fine.

Just... *super* isolated this year, in a way that sometimes makes the normal run of events for someone who looks different here overwhelming if I don't manage my stress levels well.

I have to figure out how to fix a few things long term, but... 2023 has just been a very bad year. One day at a time is the best I can do right now.

Hope you're all being good to yourselves if this has been a tough year for you too. 🫂

We'll get through this one to complain about the next!

@MLClark
I'm glad you're fine. I know that can shake your sense of safety when it happens. I should've asked first if you were OK, I assumed it was an overly aggressive catcaller. Did they touch you at all? I hope not. 😟

@janallmac

Catcaller is putting it mildly. The person followed me a ways, asking tons of invasive questions, pressing for my number & for me to go out with him, then moving into no-filter monologue about how he'd never been with someone with white skin before & *very* much grabbing at me because he wanted to see how that skin would look against his.

Honestly frustrating because he wasn't mentally well, but he *would* be beaten down by a crowd of paisas if I hadn't de-escalated things myself.

@MLClark If that happened to me, I'd have been terrified. I am glad there were apparently lots of paisas around. 😟 💜 That's not OK, I don't know why people think it is, although in this case it does seem the perpetrator was not in his right mind.

@MLClark I'm actually impressed with how brave you are, and that you were able to handle him in a whole different language. Do you know how cool that is? I'm extremely impressed.