Where I’ve Been and Where I’m Going…

So I’ve been in a very big hole this year with regards to creativity. In all honesty, the last couple years have not been great in general for this blog. I go through periods of extreme productivity, where I get up book reviews and cooking posts – and then I’ll just kind of disappear for a couple months.

I’ve been at this blogging thing in various forms for a lot of years now. I started my first blog in college half because I wanted to be just like Alicia over at Posy Gets Cozy and half because I desperately needed an creative outlet and a distraction from a lot of things that I struggled with while I was away from home. So it’s been more than 10 years on various platforms. And really, since the beginning, I’ve had a bit of a holding pattern. Periods of productiveness followed by periods of lulls. But generally in the early days, the lulls were always like, “Oh, there’ll only be two posts this month instead of 4 or 6” not “Whoops, it’s been 4 months, welcome back I guess?”

Slowdowns as opposed to disappearances.

But the last few years, we’ve had full on disappearances. I just sort of… *stop*. I stop writing, I stop crafting, I stop taking photos… I just *stop*.

Some of it has had to do with my anxiety disorder. The disappearances often coincide with periods of struggle on that front.

Some of it also has to do with my financial struggles. When the going gets tight, often the best way I can control my spending is to just kind of, shut down? Stop going places, stop doing things – distract myself with video games and focusing on the dog as much as possible.

Some of it also has to do with periods of personal and interpersonal struggle – family stress or personal stress that’s of a nature where I don’t feel comfortable sharing or venting what I’m going through for the sake of my own privacy, for the sake of others’ feelings… for a lot of reasons.

But a lot of it? A lot of it I can’t explain. Sometimes I just… don’t have anything to say. Or at least anything to say that I feel like is relevant enough to synthesize into a longer-than-280-characters post.

And yes, this particular disappearance has had something to do with my anxiety. It has also had something to do with my financial situation (it’s been my toughest year yet). It has had something to do with the stress of wedding planning and the way I struggle with some of the expectations that come with that from a societal and familial standpoint. It has come from a variety of places.

But I think a lot of it is I just haven’t felt like I’ve had much to say. That’s sharable on the interwebs within the boundaries I’ve set for myself, anyway.

So I guess the best way to get re-started is to just… start.

So here’s what I’ve been up to.

I’ve been…

 …reading: A decent amount of things, actually. I’ve actually managed to keep on track  for the most part with my Goodreads challenge so far this year. I’ve also managed to keep it a good blend of things – both fiction and non-fiction. The past few years since I got my reading-for-fun habits back on track, it’s been kind of 100% fiction all the time, and it feels good to have added some not-required-for-work history choices back into the mix (although admittedly a lot of my choices on that front have been at least tangentially related to work – my head has been in a very Americanist place lately because I’m really focused on planning a complete overhaul of my course lectures for this summer).

…playing: Elder Scrolls Online. Still. Lots of ESO. I’m mostly a solo/loner player on PS4, so I’m not gonna be like, “OMG FRIEND ME WE’LL DO DUNGEONS” because I know I probably won’t hold up my end of the deal – but if anyone knows of any majority-female guilds (where people are supportive of players that love the game but may not be super good at it) that are open to join, please let me know! (Also, if we are like, are mutuals on Twitter and you want to friend me, just DM me for my username)

…watching: Not much of anything. Does saying CSI for the 18th time count? No. Not really. I went through a phase in January where I was SUPER into The Good Wife, but I made it to about season 5 and have just kind of… lost interest? I don’t know – I feel like I just got tired of all the backstabbing and miscommunication. Like, I get that it’s a drama, and that’s what it IS, but idk I don’t think I have the patience for long-term interpersonal type drama series anymore. Or tbh, I’m not sure I ever did. Murder and medieval politics? Sure. Sniping at each other in an office wearing pretty business suits? Meh. I’m just not into it right now.

…writing: a bazillion Thank You cards. We had my bridal shower last month, and I was overwhelmed by people’s generosity. I’ve finished them up now, but it took me me a little longer than it probably should have to get through getting all the Thank Yous out. I just couldn’t help it – I’m so fussy when it comes to writing stuff like that and I’m so grateful and want to make sure I’m really expressing that properly – ideally without falling into any sort of “form letter.” The result was that it took me way longer than it probably should have, and it was honestly kind of emotionally exhausting. I just hope the result properly expresses my gratitude.

…feeling: overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed with a lot of stuff. Particularly when it comes to planning the wedding. I’m just not good at this. I’m not built for this. I don’t even like events where I’m the center of attention, and I’m the kind of person who spends a lot of time deferring to others on matters of taste with stuff like this so as to make everyone else happy, so a lot of this process has made me extremely uncomfortable. And that’s to say nothing of all the societal expectations that come along with it that I don’t exactly love. And then the guilt that goes along with the cost of everything… it’s just all really exhausting. Maybe someday when it’s all over, and I’ve got some distance from it I’ll write some posts about some of that stuff, but right now I just… can’t.

…dreaming: of starting a YouTube channel. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure what I would use it for, what I could talk about, or what I could use it to teach.. I have no direction or ideas, and I also know I couldn’t take the inevitable youtube-brand criticism that comes with it… I’ve just been fascinated with the medium lately.

…planning: some intensive summer training with Haruka. Ultimately there’s a number of things I had planned to do with Haruka very early on in terms of training that were undermined by some of her health issues. Specifically things like socializing her to be out in public, working on her distractibility when outside, etc… The things that basically we couldn’t do until we figured out where her diarrhea issues were coming from, and stopped them. Well, they’re stopped, and the weather is finally warming up again, so as soon as I’m off work for the summer (which actually means working at home all summer, let’s be honest – but at least there’s a lot more schedule flexibility) and the wedding is over, to the park with a long lead we go.

So that’s where I’ve been at, and where I’m going. How about you?