the trick is to keep breathing

yes i also hate that i posted to tumblr first rather than DW, but i needed to embed the image easily, so that's where i went dont shoot me

word count update is here!

yes: I'm behind my GYWO target. Behind by about 25,000 words going into june. for someone who writes the way i did last year, this isn't too concerning yet, especially because i have two new projects i'm excited about and a bunch of year-old comms i want to dig into for motivation. but like ... like you'll see on the post. life has been A Thing. it's been too much of A Thing. I give up.

also realizing its already june has been a punch to the gut; my brain still thinks it's, like, april. somehow. halfway through the year and i've made no significant progress on either of my two goals for 2021: finishing my first original novel and getting back into shape. i don't know why the turning of the calendar hits like this - i'm of the opinion that the best time to start a project is right now - but if it motivates, i'm going to use it.

i mean, i've been cancelling my two standard weekly original fiction dates lately because i am either overworked or too exhausted, so i only have me to blame, but then again gestures at tumblr post That's A Thing.

anyway im overworked and tired and mad and slowly going crazy, how are yall

(EDITED) to say that every single tag on this post is accurate but while going through my tags i found this and im fucking howling why am i like this

I guess not so HELLO; I’m still here.

Tl;dr: in January I accepted a 6-month contract working for [Contractor Co] as a technical writer for [Employer Co], which started late February and explains most of the February absence bc it happened very fast and I had a lot of things to get together in 0 time.

The job’s an hour away, so I lose 2 hr each day to transit. My contract stipulated that my eventual schedule needed to be MWF in office / TR work from home, or that wasn’t going to work out, but for the first 4-6 weeks I had agreed to be on campus every day for training and learning purposes, so that’s what happened to Feb and the beginning of March.

I then went out to visit my BFF/Murder Husband to help out (and play) with his new service puppy, which was — the trip was great and we had fun with each other but the whole service puppy thing was a literal disaster and I think I’m not exaggerating to say his health condition might have sent him to the emergency room from stress (a trigger) without them extra pair of hands. Plus, puppies.

Then this shit happened.

I’m now working from home, as is my entire team — so much for that 2hr drive, huh? It’s my first full week (flew home last Monday, didn’t work Tues or Weds bc I had to set up for house arrest) and while I was real bad this week I’ve finally got everything sorted out so I can be productive moving forward.

Everything is a bit surreal. (I am at 12 days since my flight home, without symptoms - i mean, i have a runny nose and a cough but that’s normal, I had it before flying, i have it every year - just as an FYI.) See, I love being in my house, so quarantine is like... perfect for me. Which isn’t something you say to someone, because it sounds like you want this to go on - which I absolutely don’t - I’m just expressing that it’s much easier on me to do this than most people, and no ma, you don’t need to worry. I’m great.

One of the things I have found I am very good at is — not denial? But — realizing when in a situation you are powerless beyond a certain point, and thus, moderating the amount of anxiety channeled towards that particular situation. So while every now and then something breaks through my barrier and I end up driving the anxiety bus into the ravine, overall, I’ve been doing well.

I think there’s something about — having — already being disabled, right? Like, I could worry every day about my fibro, I could get angry, I could get upset, but like, what the fuck would it do? And I’ve honed that tool over the years (to the point where some friends think I’m doing much better than I truly am cause I just don’t talk about it) and it’s coming in handy now. I’m used to it. Okay, another health thing to be careful about. Yep. Put it in that file drawer.

Then again I also had an existential panic in the middle of the grocery store unrelated to anything, so.

I’ve been posting daily cat pics on Instagram (Seventhe) and tumblr (sevdrag) for anyone who thinks they’ll need a daily pick-me-up. I wrote a Fuck Tonne of fic in January and then Feb (the job) dropped, but I’m at a point where I’m ramping back up in fic, too, so I’ll link to that as I go.

Weird stuff. Hang in there.

I’m sure approximately zero (0) of you are aware of this, but every year since like 2012 or 2013 i come up with a tag at the beginning of the year that i hope fits the year’s theme. (It doesn’t always work, so occasionally i replace the tag, or come up with multiples.) for 2017 i have ended up with 2 tags that really capture most of the year: “fight me” and “no”.

Unfortunately in my heart 2017 has ended up being a year of pain. Physically; emotionally; spiritually; professionally; financially; nationally; politically; chronically. In every area of my life I’ve ended up hurting for most of this year. The one exception has been romantically, and I’ll start out what will end up being a depressing entry telling you all that Mike and I are engaged; we will be married on 14 April 2018, and then there will be a big reception party some time at the end of May (Memorial Day wknd plus or minus a week). Mike has been my bedrock for so much of this year, and I’m honestly not sure i would have come out of this year as intact as i have if I hadn’t had him. I call him my grounding rod, my ground wire; he keeps me balanced.

I will try to intersperse good and bad, but here’s a memorial to the year that has hurt me in more ways than I’ve ever known.

( “2017 )

Honestly, i really lost myself and my place this year. There were huge gaps and chasms I spent a lot of time and energy trying to fill whatever way I could. I spent a lot of time being tired and overwhelmed, and feeling exhausted and hopeless. With everything on top of itself, it really took until about October before I started finding handholds and climbing out of this goddamn pit.

The thing I do need to say here is that my friends and family - and family friends; you know which ones you are - have also really stepped up to help me through the low times this year, and I can’t help but love you more for it and look forward to having continued fun positive memories in the years to come. <3

Part of moving forward is archiving these things here; i have to get this out and over until I can start to look at 2018 and what I want to do and change and how to go forward.

So over my brief microsabbatical I decided on a list of things I want to get done by the end of the year: thus, New Year's Resolutions, in reverse, ie my resolution is to have this done before the new year. See? Get it? It's like I'm clever instead of backwards and wrong!

1. Get Healthy [metric: exercise 3+/wk; lose 10+ lb]
   Content note / Note this: being healthy and losing weight are not always the same thing! Health has a unique meaning to every individual body!
   That being said: for me getting healthy and knocking off weight go hand-in-hand at this point in time. From May-September I ate poorly, rested poorly, drank too much, drowned in stress, and had no time or motivation to work out at all. That plus medication changes has resulted in what is, for my body, unhealthy poundage.
   I miss swimming. I miss yoga. I don't miss running, fuck running, but I miss being able to run I guess? I miss punching my bag. I want to have Korra arms. And I have, quite reasonably, 10-20 lb I could lose before being even close to "danger". (Trust me, I'm a Taurus; we don't diet.)
   This is something I can make happen by 01 Jan 2016.

2. Inhabitable basement [metric: obvious]
   Right now the basement is storage, which is part of what basements are for, but mine opens up to my patio (and grill, and fire chimney) and has a nice little area by the windows where friends could sit and drink wine and grill things. I've two drum sets in my basement and my keyboard, all of which I have been missing desperately. (I miss music! I dream about pianos.) My workout area is functional, but not at all welcoming. My laundry area could use some sprucing.
   Much of the storage is related to the above, which means I just need to sort it and work through it. A good part, however, is my grandmother's stuff. She finally passed away in August (I am not sure I even mentioned it here; I was too broken by it to do so) and I do not mind storing her things forever but need to go through them and decide which way makes sense.
   This is, also, quite doable by 2016, and having those areas back in my life will please me immensely.

3. Shame room --> Craft room [metric: obvious]
   I want to turn my spare bedroom into a crafting room, to house sewing / knitting / beading / anything else I may start doing. Right now it's a shameful repository of clothes-to-be-donated and a few boxes from moving (not original boxes - these were empty boxes that were repacked with "shit i do not want to deal with rn" and hidden).

4. Plan for the greatroom [metric: having an estimate / loan]
   I have plans in my head to redo my entire greatroom, which started with my neverending desire to replace the horribly stained carpet in there and grew into a really, really epic floor plan. I need to get it from my head onto the page, then find a contractor who can give me estimates on time / cost to make it happen. Why not? Houses are investments, and my cafe-bar thing will be incredible.

5. Work-Life Balance [metric: ???]
   I need to prove to myself that I can, in fact, work the kind of job that pushes all of my success buttons without killing myself. The next 3 months will be busy, as always, but not deadly, so it's time to fucking do it. I still don't know how to make a metric for this; maybe I can use success on the other Resolution points, because they won't happen if I continue to use my energy on work.

6. Mental Peace [metric: ???]
   I went back through some journal entries and I've been in a massive depression funk since early 2014. That's too long. It has started to severely affect my health and my job. I need to attack this. I realize depressions don't "go away" but I haven't tried anything really and I at least deserve an effort.

7. Write Again [metric: get some word count] No real comments. I just miss writing.

I stopped there, since there are really only 3 months left in the year, and they will contain not only the major hols of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but also the birth of my newest niece or nephew, so I'm well aware that this is a lot to do in that time frame. (Obviously they won't need to be complete, but I work better with deadlines, even self-imposed ones. Better to not let myself cheat.)

There. Public posting makes it real, right?

The first Christmas with the baby was beautiful. Hectic and crazy and not really relaxing, but refreshing in a way. I got up work-time Monday morning and drove in to Pittsburgh to pick up Gramma, then drove up to Buffalo to the tune of a Spotify Christmas station which worked for the most part but occasionally wondered if what we really wanted to be listening to was the Electric Slide.

Jim and Mar and Jos were already up there. This was the crazy hectic part: Josie's ~10 weeks; Gramma's 90; and I'm not sure which of them cried and wet themselves more. Both needed intense help. I love my little niece to pieces and am always happy to pick her up and bounce and BOOP her and walk her around, and I adore my gramma and am willing to help her stand and walk or carry on a conversation. The two overlaid upon each other occasionally makes it hard to breathe.

That's the refreshing part, though: there's something about being surrounded by these people you love so hard it hurts, and even in the middle of the chaos when all you want is a nap you know for a fact that you'd do anything for any one of them. I'm continuously amazed at how much I love a niece who has only been in my life for three short months. Jos has a great smile. I hear that's how babies survive.

Christmas Day was a gratuitously decadent celebration of gifts and ribbons and glitter.

I'm back in the Feymarch because I had to work yesterday. As often happens at this time of year I'm incredibly pensive about my life - more so this year since it's been so dramatic. I want to write about it, but not yet, so instead I'm going to play Final Fantasy Tactics until noon with no regrets.