Journalled on Friday, 7 of November 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 22 degrees, coolish, overcast and drizzly.

It’s Friday, and I’m exhausted.

Am I exhausted from being highly productive all week, with a total of 80 positive acts, including exercise, classes, blogging, and video editing, the highest weekly total yet since adopting this new evaluation process?

Or is it psychological exhaustion from my own personal insecurities, flaws, and my relationship with Julie? This is the big question I’m grappling with right now.

My personal living expenses have increased this month, and she’s worried about me. I don’t have as much money as I did this time last year, and increasing my income through classes is difficult because it’s the end of the year.

Nobody wants to start English classes now, only in January or after Carnival, in either February or March 2026.

However, amid so much political and economic confusion under Lula’s government, the SELIC interest rate is stratospheric, at least 15% per month. Many companies are filing for legal recovery or reorganisation, and many are closing. There is no climate for people wanting to study English, unless they intend to flee the country.

I began my YouTube channel in December last year and have been uploading and publishing videos every other day for 10 months, but until now, I haven’t received a single bite. I haven’t reached the popularity and views I expected.

Because of my naivety, I thought it would be easier. Maybe I’m producing good-quality but uninteresting content that nobody wants to see. I will have to make changes over the next couple of months. I’m not disheartened, just a little concerned and disappointed.

I think what is really draining my energy is Julie, or the situation involving Julie and me.

She came to Rio at the end of December last year and stayed with me until the 20th of January. Since I first knew her, she has been in much the same situation regarding her divorce and personal life. I feel I have been put on hold, and my personal life too, for the last two years. What is worse, I voluntarily accepted and allowed it to happen.

OK, that is the past, and we should not dwell on it or hold a grudge. However, since the beginning, I have found the relationship extremely exhausting, not as natural, free, or light as I would like.

Repetitively and tediously talking about our relationship and that of the cafe where she works is both boring and exhausting, and it makes me wonder whether this is really what I want or even deserve. I understand that at times we have to talk about our relationship, but not all the time.

It seems she’s either trying to convince herself or us about this relationship, which doesn’t feel like a psychological haven, a home for me. I don’t feel valued, understood, or reciprocated, and, to a point, we have different principles and values.

I think any deep, healthy soul-searching relationship has a certain level of discussion, the airing of feelings, understanding, respect, administration and, obviously, love. But talk for talk’s sake, repeatedly saying the same thing, with a little bit of manipulation and psychological games thrown in, makes it extremely hard to sustain.

If I don’t do something soon, it is going to make me sad, possibly depressed or even ill.

I’m not trying to disrespect or put her down. I feel that I am choosing, once more in my life, the wrong person to share it with, which will eventually cost me dearly for what I should have cut at the roots a long time ago.

Living alone in this condominium, with an extremely positive routine and even more positive habits, has led me to see myself and my life from different angles. Some of these angles don’t work for me.

I could also be looking for problems, never happy or satisfied, always trying to find a problem. I honestly don’t think I am in this case, but it is still worth considering how to balance the situation and my psychological state.

I need to do some serious thinking, with a lot of sincerity and frankness with myself. It always comes back to the very old saying that: