So what to do?

[outsdr]

So how do I go about working my way through this mess in my head, or life, or whatever it is/ Some of you reading this (Murph, Ember, Kate) know about my history of mental illness in various shapes, forms, sizes and flavors over the past decades. And while I felt like I'd finally won those battles ... now, I'm in the sequel, and I'm fighting a new threat unlike what I've fought before. I don't even feel like I'm describing correctly exactly what I feel like I'm facing.

But, one thing I know- in the past, when dealing with depression, I learned that if I could just hold on long enough, the upswing would come and things would get better. Because things were never as bad as they seemed. This time, however, I don't feel like that's what I should be doing. I feel like I need to regroup, refocus, and push harder to get through this banality my life has become. Find an end to ennui.

However, knowing what I need to do and actually wanting and doing it are different things worlds apart. To start, I think I'm going to make a list, of the things I want to accomplish, as well as what is holding me back, what's going for me, whatever.

(incidentally, the first real step is actually writing this post, and the post last night. These are incredibly hard to write right now; I feel like I'm wading through mud while half asleep and drunk on don't-even-bother.)

Immediate Issues and goals:

#1- I'm at work at the hotel. I have a stack of notes and papers that I desperately need to sort and file and deal with. I need to do this within the next few hours.

ETA: Yay! I did it!

#2- The carpets in the house need shampooed. Planned to do it this weekend, but with my back agony, I don't know if it will happen. Andy has been a saint with this; he actually offered to help (and did help!) me dress this morning, when I couldn't bend over far enough to pull my pants on. I felt old and broken.

#3- September's newspaper column. I have an idea gelling inside my head; the occasional humorous line has been forming at odd, inconvenient times ("What I ended up with looked like an eight-year-old girl's brain had thrown up on the plate: all rainbows and glitter. Only a pony was missing, but considering how gelatin is made, I'm sure one was represented there regardless.") My August column is final and finished; it's pretty personal and is a small look into my relationship with my mother, and will be published on the one-year anniversary of her death. I have no idea what I'll write in October, however, I'm not really worried about it. My columns in May, June and July really knocked it out of the park, I feel. August will be good as well, but I know I'm not always going to hit a home run. I'll be satisfied with something satisfactory. As long as I write something that makes me laugh, I know it will make someone else laugh, too. And a column subject idea will come along, I know it.

(I do miss my days of explosive creativity. I do not miss the self-destruction that went with it.)

Short-term Issues and Goals:

#1- I continue to work on paying off my debts. What is really hard is not incurring new ones. I've started a new dental insurance program that will cost me $40 a month, and while I have cut back spending, I'm still spending money on things I could really live without. However, some of the money spent is for nice things for me, just to be nice to me. Because there are lots of times when I feel like I don't need to treat myself nice; I don't deserve to treat myself nice (why?!). Frequently when I buy something from Amazon.com that I need(ish), I'll add something to my order to qualify it for free shipping, if I can. I picked up The Awakening DVD that way, when I ordered my favorite pens or seeds or something. Granted, when I ordered the Japanese Transformers: Headmasters release, it was because I wanted it, but I ordered lonemagpie 's latest novel not so much because I'm interested in ST:TNG novels (although what I have read have all been good) but because I'm a fan of his; we're "LiveJournal friends", I like his writing and I know it's going to be good. I ordered an art portfolio because I've been trying really hard to get my news clippings in order; I have a smaller scrapbook portfolio that holds my monthly columns, but I didn't really have anything big enough for full-size clippings, and I have some of my very first columns way back in 1988 that were getting damaged that really needed taken care of. The only thing I had that was really big enough was my 'official' portfolio of work, which I haven't touched in years. As I was working on the new collection of clippings, I realized I haven't been very diligent in collecting examples of my work for the past six years, so I went back through 2011 and collected some work I thought was good.

So, while this is an ongoing-goal, it's also one that is an ongoing-accomplishment as well.

I've been playing Minecraft with Andy; it's simple and engaging and fun. He likes to build things, while I dig tunnels underground. I don't know why I like doing that, but I do. I ended up following a link from the site to the website of the artist who did the music for Minecraft, C418. Occasionally during game play, some incredible, haunting piano music will begin to play, and I like it a lot. I ended up purchasing everything they had available on their site. Again, not something I necessarily need, but I liked it, and I liked supporting the artist.

I've cut back a lot of the charitable donations I had been making in previous years, until I get my own debts paid off. I still drop the occasional donation to SPCA or Disabled Veterans of America, but I've cut off a lot of the other groups. Someday, maybe I'll do it again.

Long-term Issues and Goals:

(This damn post is really meandering. I apologize. I'm just glad I'm still pushing on with it.)

In October, I'll be traveling to Albuquerque to attend a friends' wedding. Andy and I will be spending a week there. While there, I have tentative plans to meet with prettyeyeballs  (the man behind the performance group Third Option) to collaborate and record an Alphaville cover song for "We Heard the Call: Volume 2". I and Third Option did a well-received cover for the first volume, ten years ago. For this one, I want to do a cover of "I Die For You Today." It seems appropriate. I've given Murph some vague ideas off what I want to accomplish with it, and then left it in his competent hands. I am looking forward to this so much. I have this very strong desire to create something, anything, once more. I'm just so buried in life that it hasn't been happening. It would be nice if this led to further collaboration (A B-side song, perhaps?) but I'm only going to have one day to schedule with him, so whatever we make of it, I'll be happy. I do regret not living close enough that we could work together more easily and more often.

Over a year ago, I bought two domain names and hosting for both, and have done nothing with them. I need to. I know sort of what I want to do, but have not been able to find a way to do it myself. I haven't built a website since the mid '90s. Things are different now. I really need to get off my ass and get this done. 

Because another thing I want to do while in ABQ, is meet up with my old performance partner from my Insomnia Coffee House days, Tony Santiago. He's wickedly funny, quick with a phrase, and we always played off each other so well, it was magical at times. I haven't seen him since 2003. See, I have this idea ...

When I was in college in the late '80s early '90s, I did a crudely-drawn comic called "The Jenetically Jeneric Jujitsu Jelly Babies", a Doctor Who spinoff that was as terrible as it sounds, but for which I still have a soft spot in my heart. They were based on some sketches I had been doodling in my school notebooks for as long as I could remember, at least since I was 11 or 12. While there's no way I could revive the old JJJJB, I do have an idea for a web comic based upon the same doodled figures I did 30 years ago. My idea is to fill a notebook with 3-panel drawings, and then turn the notebook over to Tony Santiago to write dialog into the strips. He'll ship the notebook back to me, I'll pretty it up, and post it online. I think it will be fun and potentially amazing. He's been doing his own thing online, on youtube, and on twitter, so he's been pretty busy, but considering our history together, as well as how well we've worked together in the past, I'm hoping that if I show up with the notebook all ready for him to do with as he wishes, that he'll be willing to go for it. Now, I just have to start drawing.

I also need to work harder on reformatting my old chapbooks and collection for re-print and publishing on my second website. Someday, I hope to have enough of my monthly columns to gather into a collection for publication as well, one my other website (There's one for ME and one for the PROFESSIONAL me, if that makes sense.) I'd like to gather together some of my performance videos and audio recordings as well. I just need more time. Which leads to ...

I HAVE to get away from this hotel! It's sucking up all of my free time; I haven't had a normal work week in six years. I NEED MY WEEKENDS BACK! This ties into paying off my debts, however. I can't leave the hotel until I no longer need the money. But there's a deadline now. Things are so bad here that if the hotel is still open at the end of the year, it's either going to be owned by someone new or at least be under new management. There's no way to avoid it. It's a sinking ship, and I'm doing all I can to help keep it afloat, but I don't think it's enough. The divorce between the co-owners is just too ugly and twisted, and it's going to take us all down with them. There is, however, some hope ... one of my clients and friends is expanding her business on the other side of the state, and if it goes as well as she hopes it will, she's going to need someone to manage the expansion, and she wants me to do it. She would pay me well. I'm meeting with her Monday to discuss it further.

I love my job at the newspaper; I used to love my job at the hotel (I always hated the hours, however.) But honestly, at this stage of my life- I need to chase the bigger paycheck.  AND I need more free time. Because, I want to own a house someday. I want a house big enough for two dogs and three cats and a room for Andy and a room for me and a nice finished basement for a home entertainment center and a room I can turn into a library.

Now, Andy is a subject I could right an entirely new post about, longer than this one. But I won't. Things are good with him right now (although an objective look at our relationship furthers my belief that I'm developing or have developed Schizoid Personality Disorder.) I just worry about his future, and whether I'm stunting his personal growth.

I quit smoking so that in January, I can hopefully get a decent life insurance policy, one that will have a large enough payout to establish college funds for each of my two nephews, pay for my funeral, burial and retrieval of all my stuff, as well as pay for the execution of my tiny little estate, and then finally have enough left over to give Andy a solid footing in life- hopefully enough money to make a sizable down payment on a house, or to start a business, or to pay off his school bills, whatever. That's why I quit smoking- I miss it horribly, but I need to think of other people.

The other elephant in the room is my father. I don't know enough about the situation to really write about it yet.

Ok, this was huge, and a massive step for me. Thank you to everyone (anyone) who reads this, and to everyone (anyone) who's stood with me in the past. And check out C418, I am totally in love with them right now.

Comments

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm wading through mud while half asleep and drunk on don't-even-bother

Yep, that's depression, all right. :P (Beware of another of its symptoms - telling yourself that people will better off without you.)

Quitting smoking is fucking heroic whatever the reason you do it. (A bonus, of course, is some extra cash right now, which it sounds like you could use.) If you can slay that dragon you've got the toughness to defeat the other stuff you're facing too.

Keep buggering on, mate. I leave you with this thought:

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

It just feels so different than what I've experienced before; the coping mechanisms I've developed and rely upon don't seem to be working.

One of the things I worked on years ago with my last psychologist was the idea of acceptance; I wonder if I took it too far, took it to an extreme.

Sometimes, I feel like I have mental states in a file cabinet or a dresser drawer, and I just pull out the one I need for the moment. I don't adapt- I accessorize.

(Kitteh is mesmerizing me ...)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Acceptance is a tricky thing all right. I have "accepted" medical stuff which turned out to be fixable, and I'm not sure whether that was lack of information, fatalism, or depression. OTOH there's plenty of stuff I just have to live with, like the diabetes, but in those cases I've got heaps of meds, info, and support from doctors and loved ones. So I guess those problems are not passively "accepted" so much as actively managed. Hmm. All of this may be irrelevant to you, but it is possible that coping mechanisms malfunctioning is a sign you're making progress - that it's time to move to the next phase of dealing with the brain wobbles.

In conclusion,

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

You make an interesting point about the coping mechanisms, which gives me a lot to think about. One coping mechanism that is still working, however, is the feedback I get from YOU, Kate. I've really valued that over the past ... 13+ years or so. :)

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

OH GOD I'M SO OLD XD

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

*sigh* You and me both, lol.