the trick is to keep breathing

so i've talked here a lot about fibromyalgia, and stress, and energy and chronic fatigue, and the concept of overcharging on a credit card and then having to pay the balance and interest later; it's an analogy that feels pretty close to the experience, just another way to phrase the spoon theory. I've been managing this on a microscale for the last couple years: spend all my energy at work, push off the crash until i get home, have no energy to do anything; repeat. well, it turns out this happens on the macroscale as well, as i found out last week when i finally had the first part of the breakdown i've been holding off for four years running.

i took two days off of work to manage it - yeah, i haven't even been here a month and i'm taking vacation, but they know about my health problems and are v understanding - and it was ... just ... weird

it's very overwhelming when all the bullshit you've been suppressing for four years straight decides to come due and crash down on you all at once. and it isn't over -- you can't recover from four years in ten days, you just can't.

but that's where i am, and that's what is happening, and my partner and i had an incredibly pleasant lazy weekend and he also cleaned my entire kitchen (as in, exiled me to the couch to relax while he cleaned it, which did lead to a massive meltdown on my part, but worked eventually when i fell asleep on the couch) and we went to the farmer's market and bought delicious fresh local food and veggies and fruits, so i have good motivation to eat well and take care of myself this week.

i'm very wary of what else might be behind the (cracking, breaking) dam, waiting to flood me out, but ... if i could handle those four years, i can handle whatever backlash they're gonna dish out

...or some other shittastic ~~pensive~~ title because I'm so fucking out of goddamn fucks already it's the 14th half of january is gone jesus christ stop fucking moving so fast i would like off this ride thanks

I like the organization of "new year resolutions" not really because I believe you need to wait for a calendar year to make serious changes, but because there's something very neat about the way things can slot into having to write a new date on all your sign-offs and checks do people still use checks? i only have to sign them at work and lists and notes; to the excel spreadsheet that is my mind¹, I like the way aligning change with change sorts itself.

This year I am returning to quantifiable goals in some ways, since the general vagueness of "do X more" may be more friendly but does not truly work in the lifestyle I have at the moment. I wanted to do a deep introspective post as a lead in but fuck that, I already have two truly severe horror stories about 2017² and it's the 14th, but I feel like I want to make a statement about the year before I devolve back into bitchcraft and wizardry.

As another change this year, I am looking for friends to help keep me accountable to these things. I've already roped and wrangled a couple people along with me, but if you have similar goals, let's discuss ways we can shame uh motivate SHAME each other into proceeding, or mainly just me, I require someone to - not compete with, but to keep up with, in a way, anyway, I am terrible so do stop.

So here is a list of my intentions for what I have labeled 12/52/365/2017³:

1. Health. Rather than breaking this down into a tale of my woes and triggering an actual breakdown I will instead list the targets:

   • Get more than 4.5 hours of (good, deep, REM) sleep on average. According to my Fitbit, my average in 2016 was below 4.5 hours⁴. This involves a lot of things, including going to bed earlier and somehow figuring out how robots relax.
   • Working out. My goal for working out is to visit the gym - or otherwise work out - on at least 1/3 of the days of 2017: 122/365/2017. 122 visits. This is 2-3 workouts a week on average which should be doable for someone with fibro, assuming I keep them reasonable.
   • General. Continue stocking and making healthy food at home. Drink less at home⁵. Go back to packing lunches for work.
   • Weight/Size. Due to medication changes, 3 surgeries, and a major job change with severely increased my responsibilities, I gained 25-30 lb in 2017, putting me into the beginnings of an unhealthy place I don't want to be⁶. It's also fairly annoying to be at the upper limit of most of my clothing, to be frank. My goal is to use the above 3 points to try to lose 25+ pounds in 2017, OR return to the range of a size 8-10⁷ where my clothing lives. 25/2017. A half a pound a week will do.

2. Writing. lassarina is my partner here; we have pledged to write a fic a week of at least 100 words using a list of prompts we gathered earlier. (Of course, I am already behind, although I plan to work on that immediately after this entry.) 52/2017. The hope, of course, is that writing small things helps to spur the writing of larger things. They will be posted on AO3 and linked from here.

   • subgoal: at least 1 entry a week on DW (52/2017), and 1 entry a week on my secret business blog which I will share once I have some substance (52/2017).

3. Art. justira is my partner here; we have, quite hilariously, pledged to draw a thing a day. For Ira, those things may be recognizable as art; for me, I reserve the right to draw a shit doodle with my finger on my iPhone, as long as it is a drawing of some sort. They'll be posted right here at the Feymarch Library where most of my art shame lives.

4. Home. Of course I have big statements to make about the first floor remodel I want to do, but honestly this is about habits, so my 2017 goal is to declutter my life. Every day I will do at least 1 chore dedicated to decluttering my home⁸ or otherwise making my life easier (cooking a big meal for the week, etc).

5. Mental. A few mantras I am focusing on:

   • Allow hobbies to be chores. This sounds counter-intuitive, but last year I got away from a lot of hobbies I love because I had "so much other shit to do" that was more important in my mind. This year, writing, art, knitting, gaming, reading; these are allowed to be chores I can give priority to. It's okay to write if I still have dishes to do.
   • Recharge your battery. If I have a night where I am truly in too much pain to do anything, I need to stop whining and griping about that, and instead focus on my own comfort and recovery, because self-care is allowed to be a priority, also.
   • Ground myself. I'm not a nice person by default⁹ so making a pledge to share the love or be kinder doesn't really mean anything to me; but I believe I can eliminate some of the negative energy by grounding myself more and letting it just pass on into the neutral environment rather than building up a static charge.
   • Be more of who you are. I lost my way at work somewhat this year faced with a gigantic new challenge with no lessening of my previous responsibilities, interpersonal conflicts, and some sporadic and questionable criticism. Moving forward I need to remember who the fuck I am and be that lady as hard as possible, because that's where I am awesomest.
   • Allow myself to unplug. I don't have to be tied to my phone - not just for work, but texting with friends or playing stamina games. I can leave it in the corner and just be for an evening.

6. Work. I need to focus on managing more: I am a manager, not a contributor, and I need to focus more on leading and guiding people in big-picture ways towards improvement. Too many people list me as a project leader or member, when I should not be a worker on anyone's project - and this is what makes my job so unmanageable. It isn't just me letting go; I need to make it clear to others that there should be more than one person who knows how to do the things I do.

7. Family & Friends.

   • See my nieces at least once a month. See my parents at least once a quarter.
   • Continue to work with my partner on this great relationship we have developed. Learn to ask him for help more, and learn where his boundaries are for asking help. Show love and appreciation better. Develop a good schedule for spending more time together - we are both very obviously happier and healthier when we do.
   • Try to visit someone or travel at least once a quarter -- traveling is really costly to me in terms of energy, but I have broken through some of my traveling-and-health fears last year (Japan!) so it would be cool to travel a bit with friends when the opportunity is there.
   • Stay in touch: post, email, text. Reach out in new areas.

Seven is my lucky number. That's 2017.

¹ (mind palace?? nothing so fancy; my brain is a four-dimensional fully-formulated spreadsheet archive with tabs, complete with charts, graphs, and little programs that sort by categories and make a smiley face out of pixels.)

² the first, about my fucking furnace; the second, about my fucking supervisor. stay tuned for more great literature on what makes my life a goddamned shitshow shitcom!

³ because I want to quantify it and report on things, see, like the project manager i am

⁴ Now, the reason I am not dead is because there is also some restless sleep in there, but the problem is twofold: (a) i only get 4.5 fucking hours of the good sleep (b) the good sleep comes in 30-45 minute spurts which is nowhere near what's needed for mental recovery (c) for fibromyalgia one of the most productive and healing things you can do is get REM sleep.

⁵ lolololoLLOLOLOLLOOLLOOLOLOLLLLLLLLLLL

⁶ lots of family history of pre-diabetes; I've already noticed my hypoglycemia and blood sugar problems are getting worse. I realize this isn't always correlated to weight but as there is some data pointing that way (scientific as well as family), I want to be sure to avoid it, because dude if you stack fuckin diabetes on top of this stack of medical bullshit I may just ravine myself

⁷ since women's sizes can never make up their damn minds

⁸ on bad days this might actually be something like "put dishes in dishwasher" but let's face it sometimes even that doesn't happen

⁹ nothing against anyone, I'm just kind of sociopathic and hate people in general; i've learnt to "play nice" and I can and do feel love for specific people, but i'm really just not friendly