Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
emotions amirite??
I don’t know what emotions feel like.
Well, I read a lot, so of course I know what they’re meant to feel like, the abstract poetic shapes of them and the cliché descriptions written on the page. The lightness of joy, the cold wash of fear, the heaviness of sadness. I know that some feelings are meant to be prickly, some swell and burst, others you feel in your throat and some sit like a stone in your stomach.
But my brain doesn’t process them in that way and when the endless conveyor belt of therapists over the years have asked me how I’m feeling, what exactly it feels like and where in my body it is, I draw a blank because really, what I want to say is that I feel everything, everywhere, all at once.
I have sadness in my elbows and happiness in my ribs and everything everywhere else too. Feelings sit under every inch of my skin, the majority come out as tears and if you ask me in the moment to differentiate sadness from loneliness, I’d tell you that they feel the same but it’s the thoughts attached that separate them. I’ve always said that any negative emotion just feels like a general “distress”, and unfortunately for me, I feel that from the marrow in my bones to the tips of my eyelashes.
And the problem is, the thoughts I rely on to tell me what I might be feeling are unreliable narrators at best, messy and toxic at worst. So, I pick at them like a scab, untangle and dissect them until they make sense and intellectualise the feelings into rational data sets. But feelings aren’t binary numbers that fit into neat little boxes, so more than once, I’ve dissected and chopped and picked apart something only to arrive at the wrong conclusion and royally fuck everything up.
While writing this out, it occurred to me that this might be a thing with a cool-vaguely-Latin-sounding-scientific name and not just something unique to my strange wiring. Turns out it is – alexithymia. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it, but it’s apparently common in both borderline personality disorder (ah, there she is again) and autism (my close personal friend) so that’s…a thing? I don’t know if a cool-vaguely-Latin-sounding-scientific name makes it any better. I know there’s validation in naming something, but mostly this just made me feel, well… everything, everywhere, all at once.
Unfortunately, I also don’t really have a point to make here. My introductory existential yaps here usually end with a conclusion, something of hope or importance, but this one just is. When I started my Substack, I wanted to use it as somewhat of a public diary (as per my obsession with archiving and recording everything I can) and that in doing so, it would be more than a bit vulnerable, and I would try to make peace with imperfection and mess. So here we are - a bit vulnerable, a bit imperfect and definitely a bit messy.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
January’s stats;
1,054,992 words read
Daily average of 34,032
70 fanfics / 4 published works
Running total word count for 2026: 1,054,992
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
“That time is gone, that version of himself is gone, and there's nowhere to go but forward.”
Brief summary:
Set in the late 1950s, this story follows Nick Russo, a gruff Brooklyn-based news reporter, and Andy Fleming, the well-meaning but sheltered heir to the paper, as they form an unlikely friendship and maybe, something more.
My thoughts:
God, a mid-century queer romance truly is the way to my heart because I not only devoured this book but I enjoyed every last second of it. It was so fun! Sure, there was some drama and angst, but the characters were so endearing and their dynamic was just lovely. Will it change your life? Potentially not. But will it make you feel all the feels with a HEA? 1000%.
Game Changer, Heated Rivalry and The Long Game by Rachel Reid
(Game Changers Series Books #1, #2 and #6)
“Does it...does it feel like agony for you too?”
Ilya started to nod, then stopped. He shook his head slowly instead.
“Not anymore.”
Brief summary:
Game Changers is a series of loosely interconnected queer ice hockey romance stories. They all exist in the same timeline but each installment in the series follows a different couple, with the exception of book 6 (The Long Game) which is a direct sequel to book 2 (Heated Rivalry)
Book #1 - Game Changer - follows closeted captain of the New York Admirals, Scott Hunter, and Kip Grady, a juice bar barista (are they baristas?) as they enter and navigate a relationship that can’t be seen in public unless Scott is willing to tank his career.
Book #2 & #6 - Heated Rivalry & The Long Game - follows Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, captains of the Montreal Voyageurs and Boston Bears respectively. They’ve been public rivals since their rookie season, but secretly hooking up the entire time. Set over several years, the story follows Shane and Ilya slowly come to terms with the fact that this 8 year situationship means more than they’re willing to admit.
My thoughts:
Okay. So everyone and their mums have been on the Heated Rivalry train and the way the Straights™ had been reacting to it, I was expecting pure trash. No thoughts, no depth, just smut. Which don’t get me wrong, we all love a bit o’ trash and Game Changer was more in this sphere in my opinion, Heated Rivalry and The Long Game were so so so much more.
I wasn’t enthralled with Game Changer - it was okay. The writing wasn’t amazing and both Scott and Kip did my head in a bit, but it was cute and smutty and the romcom trash hit I was expecting. Heated Rivalry and The Long Game however, was a stunning bit of business.
The yearning! The feelings slow burn! The tension! Shane Hollander’s comp-het arc in HR made me feel like I’d been shot in the lung (an autistic overachiever with comp-het?? Pls I was always going to feel that in my bones) and Ilya Rozanov’s mental health journey in The Long Game made me SOB. Both of their characters were so nuanced and ugh, I love them. My boys! My sons! My close personal friends!
Much like everyone else on the internet at the moment, I am thoroughly and concerningly consumed by Shane and Ilya and their story and I simply cannot wait for Unrivaled (the third installment of their story, due to be released in September 2025).
WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING
So you know how January is meant to be the eternal month that drags by because nobody does anything fun all month? Nope. January for me didn’t bloody stop. Admittedly, this was mostly a lovely problem to have but my god, I’m a simple approximation of a human being and I’m exhausted.
So, here’s a whistle-stop speedrun of what I’ve been up to in January in the form of stats:
Five dates with my wonderfully weird and indescribably lovely girlfriend, Caz, whereby I only showed approximately nine red flags and she stayed anyway
Three attendances at pub quiz with two wins and an average score of 35.2
One history date with Amy to the V&A in London featuring an ever so slightly tipsy (yet iconic) Escape Room performance (we escaped with three seconds to spare), two free drinks and then a further spontaneous three bottles of wine, resulting in a very expensive taxi home from Soho….
Two weekends away - one to visit my dear friends in the Midlands and one to visit my deeply insane cousins
One catch-up dinner with my darling Saskia
One celebratory dinner to cheers Helen buying a house (wooo!)
One bowling trip where I once again proved my lack of bowling prowess
Nine days where I made use of my railcard including one sulking trip on rail replacement bus service
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO
Ooh another new section!
I haven’t really bothered to do this before because, frankly, it doesn’t change! I like what I like and will rarely add new characters into the mix. But as I haven’t done this yet, here’s what’s topping my current listening habits.
Music
My top artist of all time is the man, the myth, the legend himself, Mr Andrew Hozier-Byrne. All of his albums are impeccable, but I’ve been favouring Unreal Unearth as of late
January also saw the release of new music from another love of mine, Noah Kahan. The Great Divide is fucking me up in all kinds of ways and I fear the person I’ll become when the full album drops…
I’ve also re-discovered one of his older tracks recently so that has now made its way onto my current rotation
In other new music drops, one of my favourite indie artists, Seb Lowe dropped a new political banger. The man truly never misses and I can’t wait to see him on tour in April!
Aaand as a flavour of what else I’m listening to, here’s a few other firm favourites:
Podcasts
Comedy/ entertainment:
Help I Sexted My Boss with Jordan North and William Hanson
Welcome to Hell with Daniel Foxx and Dane Buckley
Hard Launch with Dan Howell and Phil Lester
History:
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal with Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling
Dan Snow’s History Hit with Dan Snow
As you might have inferred from this month’s yap coming so late, February has already been a busy month with no signs of slowing down any time soon. It’s a wonderful problem to have - the world can be a terrible place with terrible things happening constantly, but there’s room for joy in it too, as well as time to remember that even though I feel everything, everywhere, all at once, this also includes all the good feelings.
With muchos love, Annie x