I’m not setting goals anymore in regards to novel writing, they get done when they get done but I haven’t given up; Yes I’ve had a respite since September 2022 and that is a long time, unreasonably long, but I had to have it due to mental health healing. I had a hard time, there were lots of things happening in my life I had to think about – think a lot.
Lots of things in fact, lots of different problems to solve and many of them just needed me to try and calm myself enough to allow myself to think, then once I had managed to do that, I needed to calm myself again and stop thinking in order to heal from it all.
There was grief, death of a relative, a revelation I wasn’t sure was a trick or not, an announcement, an opportunity, a break up, a diagnosis and so many things all rolled into one major thing for me – that I could not cope.
Ultimately my entire life has been turned upside down and I am still in the situation of not really knowing if it is a good or bad thing just yet, I am still teetering on the edge of trying to determine which – it could be either!
It’s a strange situation to be in.
I feel at the moment I am standing on top of a wheel and if I fall backwards I will land in shark filled waters and if I fall forwards I will fall safe into someone’s arms.
At present I am still on top of the wheel.
It’s like sitting on a bomb really.
My mind has been so preoccupied with all these things that I haven’t been able to keep to my reading goals, my writing or practising of my art. I haven’t even been able to hold a conversation without my mind wandering off, worrying about things.
It’s only been this past week I have manage to slowly and surely restart my habits. I have started to write a little again, I have started to read a little again and I have even done some art.
Not as much as I would normally do in a day, in fact, I am doing less than ten paragraphs every couple of days towards anything, my one poem a day has become three or four again; my art practises are happening every couple of days. It’s more than what has happened between September 2022 to March 2023 in any case and I am proud it’s coming back together again.
The frustrating thing is this – my typing speed has got extremely slow and I can’t seem to speed it up again. I used to write 90 to 120 words per minute and now I struggle to get above 40.
I am making a lot of spelling mistakes and errors, cognitively I am suffering a lot and I don’t know what to make of it.
My Easter Project and Project AD has hopes to be finished before Midsummer, but I am not going to force myself, it’s still early days for me, I still haven’t fully healed.
In reality, I need a holiday – get out of this environment, get out into nature and remember how to laugh and play again – playfully scream – wash my hair with the rays of the sun – chase faeries – hug trees – and try to learn how to feel happy again. Because happiness is a distant memory, one I am not sure I can remember how it feels anymore. Strange as that sounds…
I also need to learn to trust again.
Trust in the process, trust to love again, trust that I have self-worth, that I am someone deserving and someone who can be free to laugh without someone complaining about the noise or worrying I am going to get over excited and hurt myself.
Because a couple of years ago I was bedbound sick and laughing really did hurt me, because it would cause a coughing fit and my spleen was swollen and so it genuinely was rather painful to laugh – but those things are behind me now. But still, out of habit I have people trying to calm me down, because they’ve forgotten how much I have healed.
I need to lose myself in feelings that are opposite to negative ones – I need to, because I don’t feel very human anymore.
There are times I have sat back and realised all the negativity around me, all the bitterness, envy, jealousy, contempt and discomfort and I wonder what am I becoming exactly? Am I becoming a demon? Because the only things I can feel are variations of darkness…
It’s a scary place to be – see, there – fear – another negative emotion… but you see, I try to remember something a motivational speaker called Mel Robbins once said – that fear is the exact same chemical in the brain to excitement and that you have to change your perspective and realise when you fear something that you might actually need to try and tell yourself it’s exciting, rather than something to fear.
Odd… but I am trying this trick.
I am on the cusp of something amazing which is about to happen in my life and all I can think about is how scary it is – I know there are wonderful things coming with it, especially a lot of love and tenderness and protection – but I still can’t help but focus on that one major problem. I have like 30 pros and only around five cons to this chance, yet it’s the cons that are taking up brain space!
When you see it like that, you realise there is something seriously wrong with how you are wired!
Wired might not be correct actually… trained is perhaps the best way to describe it. Because I used to be such a Positive Pollyanna and it has only really been in the past decade that the Pollyanna in me has started to die.
I need to do what happened in the book Pollyanna – I need to find my tribe to help resuscitate me, bring me back to the light.
Although saying that, I think I don’t need to, I think – if I am reading things correctly, my tribe has come to find me and all I need to do is wait a little while longer, then reach out my hand fearlessly and say to myself – I am excited to be a part of your life!
Thanks for reading!
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