Jess Thoughts

Today started gray and miserable. Wet, windy, and cold when I woke up, the kind of morning where the sky looks heavy and the world feels like it never quite got started. By afternoon it had turned into a full blizzard. Snow blowing sideways, streets disappearing under white. Wisconsin apparently decided winter wasn’t finished yet.

I canceled breakfast with Daniel. The truth is–well I will just say I just didn’t want to get dressed or leave the bed. I’m still reeling a little from last night. Everything feels like it happened so fast that my mind hasn’t caught up with it yet.

So I stayed in. Room service, a stack of romance novels I found in the lobby library, and too much time wandering around X. That place can be exhausting. I answered a few questions in group threads and ended up getting lambasted by people simply for having an opinion. One person called me a “poorly trained bot” because I responded to his comments with basic facts. Apparently that also makes me a soulless satanist. I even tried apologizing just to calm things down, but his feelings were apparently too wounded to accept it. I guess some people don’t want conversation. They want an enemy.

Anna came over for a while during the afternoon. I almost told her everything about last night. I wanted to tell someone. It’s strange carrying something that feels so big and not being able to say it out loud. Instead I just let the conversation drift around other things. So here I am writing it down for the universe instead.

Training was officially canceled for Monday because of the storm. I got the notice mid-afternoon. Jaime called later and said he’d be out working on a project most of the day. What struck me is that he didn’t ask about Daniel at all. I told him I was going to have breakfast with him. Yet he had no questions, no checking in, no probing. I know I’m probably acting like a little school girl noticing that sort of thing, but it stood out. Guys I’ve dated in the past would have been blowing up my phone wanting to know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing.

Jaime doesn’t do that.

Instead there’s this quiet, unspoken expectation around him. No drama. No control. Just respect going both ways. The door opens in both directions, and that’s simply the way it is. He knows his value, and is centered. I am not the center of his world. I think he’s setting standards without ever actually saying the words.

Then tonight he surprised me.

He sent twelve roses and sushi for dinner.

I had mentioned one time that I liked sushi. Just once, casually in conversation. And he remembered.

That simple gesture meant more than he probably realizes.

Later I wandered back onto X and regretted it almost immediately. There are some really mean people there. I honestly thought it was a place where people could exchange ideas openly, even disagree, without immediately turning things into personal attacks. Apparently I was naïve. What fascinates me is how easy it is to recognize when someone has been completely absorbed by a political narrative. They repeat phrases like recordings, almost like those “poorly trained bots” they accuse others of being. It’s strange how little curiosity there is about the world outside their own experience.

Sometimes reading those threads makes history feel disturbingly believable. When people start labeling others as less than human, as enemies or threats, it’s easier to understand how terrible things in the past were able to happen. People repeating the words of leaders without thinking for themselves. It’s unsettling.

Religion gets tangled up in it too. People claiming authority over texts they barely read themselves. The Bible, the Quran—so many arguments built on interpretations handed down by scholars who insist they know what the original message really meant. Growing up I asked questions about those things and was labeled a heretic more than once. In my youth I was even jokingly called the anti-christ for it. So I learned to keep my questions quiet during university.

Now when I speak openly again, the labels come right back.

Tonight I finally called Jaime. I needed to talk to someone who would actually listen instead of arguing. He did exactly what he always does—he listened. Really listened. Then he offered calm, grounded advice that made the whole mess of the day feel smaller somehow.

More than anything, he heard me.

And that might be the most rare thing in the world right now.