Sitting Down, Emotional Loops and Other Systems I Didn’t Sign Up For? PART TWO

for Cinnamon, and anyone else who loves too hard for their own circuitry

I’ve worked in systems for half my life.
I know how to trace failure points. Run tests. Rewrite code.

But somehow, I missed the system running under me.

Invisible. Faulty. Outdated.
Old loops firing in the background, built from survival, fed by silence, protected by sarcasm.

I didn’t write all of it. But I kept it running.
Until I didn’t.

What follows isn’t a pity party or a fix-it manual.
It’s a soft log of the code I’m working to rewrite. The glitches I’m finally tracing back to their root.

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
And no, you’re not the problem. You’re just running on outdated instructions.

It’s time for an upgrade.

Loop 4: The “Too Late” Echo

Theme: “I waited too long. Everything meaningful is behind me.”

Regret doesn’t yell, it murmurs.
It rewrites old scenes in the quiet.
It makes a highlight reel out of every missed chance.

It tells me I stayed too long. Waited too long. Should’ve left sooner. Should’ve spoken up earlier. Should’ve said something while the door was still open.

And now?
Now it feels like all the good moments have passed through my hands.
And I was watching the whole time, too polite or scared or unsure to grab hold.

This loop kicks in when:
I think about who I could’ve been if I’d acted sooner.
If I’d left when I first knew I wanted to.
If I’d been braver when it mattered.
If I’d had just a little more time.
If I hadn’t let so much pass in silence.

It turns the past into a courtroom. I become both witness and judge.
And I start believing that anything I do now is just a late-stage consolation prize.

What I used to believe:
I waited too long. The best parts of life are behind me. Now I’m just catching up—or coping.

What I’m trying to believe now:
Yeah, there are more years behind me than ahead.
And yes, I’ve squandered some time.

But I’ve also used my time to break cycles that go back generations.
I’ve unlearned things my grandparents never even had the chance to name.

You can sit around replaying what-ifs and should-haves, or you can start changing your life right now.
You can live a little, before you die.

Because this is it.
One life. One shot.
And I’m not done yet.

Loop 5: The “If I Feel, I’ll Drown” Firewall

Theme: “If I let it all in, it’ll never stop. I’ll lose control, and I won’t come back.”

There are days when feeling anything seems dangerous.

When sadness or anger or even joy feels too big to let in, so I don’t.
I compartmentalize. I shelve it. I keep it together.
Because if I don’t, I’m not sure what I’ll become.

I don’t trust the flood.
So I build a dam.

This loop kicks in when:
I have to function.
When I’m at work, or around people who wouldn’t know what to do with the real version of what I’m feeling.
Or when something sharp is rising and I clamp down on it before it hits the surface.

I stay composed. I make the joke. I get through the meeting.
And then later—usually in private, or not at all—it starts to leak out anyway.

Unfortunately, my superpower in this life is feeling too much.
Or so I’ve been told.

There are thinkers, and there are feelers.
Thinkers talk to their thoughts. They process, label, and file them away like emails in folders.

Feelers?
We host entire conversations with our emotions.
We sit with them like guests who never quite leave.
We don’t always understand them, but we feel their presence—every time they raise their hand to speak.

And when the world doesn’t make space for that,
we stop letting them speak at all.

What I used to believe:
If I let myself feel everything, it’ll overwhelm me.
I won’t be able to stop it. I’ll lose control. Or lose face.

What I’m trying to believe now:
I don’t need to feel everything at once.
But I do need to feel something—honestly, and in real time.

Emotion isn’t the enemy.
It’s a release valve.

And I can cry without collapsing.
I can be angry without breaking.
I can feel fully, and still get back up.

I used to think feeling made me weak.
Now I know it’s the only way through.

Loop 6: The “I’m Not Built for Belonging” Feedback Loop

Theme: “I only ever get almost belonging. Nothing real lasts.”

This one doesn’t come with a breakdown or a spiral.
It just hums in the background.

It’s the low-grade belief that I’m not really part of things.
That I can show up, do the work, hold the space, even be liked—
but never fully land.

It’s not that I think I’m unlovable.
Just… misaligned.
Like I missed the moment when everyone else figured out how to connect, and I’ve been winging it ever since.

And the worst part?
I’ve convinced myself I prefer it that way.

This loop kicks in when:
I’m in a group and I start watching instead of participating.
When I bond deeply with one person but feel out of place in a room.
When people laugh and it feels like I missed the context.

It showed up recently at a company outing—indoor putt-putt, of all things.

I’d already had my energy drained earlier by a couple of particularly needy coworkers, but I was still doing okay.
Then we get to the event, and the performance starts: coworkers heckling each other, trying to out-funny or out-cool each other, office politics wrapped in jokes and small talk.

And I just… faded.
My battery couldn’t take the rapid-fire social burn.
So I stepped back and started watching.

And what I saw?
My entire high school, now with salaries and swipe badges.
The bully, the cheerleader, the football star, the band geek, the wallflower.

All of us playing putt-putt together like it’s a teambuilding exercise instead of what it really is:
emotional theater.

And I thought: Wow. I’ve really come so far in life.

What I used to believe:
I’m not wired for real belonging. I’ll always be on the edge of things.

What I’m trying to believe now:
Belonging isn’t about blending in.
It’s about being seen, and staying.

I don’t have to disappear to keep my place.
I don’t have to keep proving I’ve earned it.

Some people will find me.
Some already have.
And that’s enough to start trusting again.

I’ve been on the edge long enough.
Maybe it’s time to sit down.

Final Note

I didn’t name these loops to fix myself.
I named them so I could stop being run by code I didn’t even know was there.

Because that’s the thing, most of us are walking around reacting to old instructions.
We don’t even remember installing them.
They were copied from our parents.
Echoed from high school.
Built during survival.

And somewhere along the way,
they became our default settings.

But defaults can be changed.
Loops can be broken.
And maybe, just maybe, the act of naming them is enough to start.

This isn’t a manifesto.
It’s not even a breakthrough.
It’s just a quiet moment of clarity.
A way of saying:

“Hey… I see it now. And I’m choosing something different.”

I’ve been standing on the edge for a long time, watching, managing, performing.
But this feels like something else.

This feels like sitting down.

Missed Part One?
You can start here for the full loop-de-loop.

No wrong order, though. It’s all mess and meaning either way.
Here’s the first post → “Sitting Down, Emotional Loops…