fast away the old year passes
Dec. 29th, 2010 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishI paid off my student loans, bought a shiny new laptop, and still have substantially more money in savings than I had this time last year. Being a DINK is pretty much the best thing ever for financial stability. I suppose I ought to go talk to Bill the financial advisor and see what he has to say about things.
I visited Vancouver, and Madison, and Key West, and Seattle. Columbus and the Outer Banks, too, but those barely count as 'travel' anymore. (Madison only counts because it's the first year I've been to Wiscon.) I still love going new places; I'm a little sad that, with one big obvious exception, I'll be doing a lot less of it next year.
I wrote. I wrote less than I wanted to, and more than I expected to. I finished first drafts of one ficlet, one story, and one "novel." I'm still in a bit of shock that other people thought the ficlet was pretty good, too. Overall I'm reasonably happy with how the writing went.
As for everything else, Victoria and Liz have the right of it. In early July I hit rock bottom, hard, in response to two or three triggers I didn't know I had. This time, at least, I could ask for help, and could get it. So I'd been doing a credible job of pulling myself up by my fingernails and bootstraps when I got the rug yanked out from under me in mid-October. It's been a hard slog since then.
And yet. Last year I wrote that the nuances of close relationships between equals elude me, at least when they're any more complicated than "what can you do for me?". I still go to pieces at the thought of being forgotten. I still chafe at the threat of stagnation and freeze at the threat of change. That's... less true now than it was six months ago. The changes and forgettings I feared most have happened, and I know some of the things I can do to avoid stagnating. And what I don't understand about 'close relationships between equals' boils down to 'yes, but why do these people care about me?' I may never understand that, and it doesn't matter: they keep caring anyway, and I can just about accept that.
I'm terrified of where I'll be this time next year. I'm more terrified of not being there.
So let us rest and do our best
To forget the coming morning
Because the hard light of the truth of things
Is the only thing I fear.
I visited Vancouver, and Madison, and Key West, and Seattle. Columbus and the Outer Banks, too, but those barely count as 'travel' anymore. (Madison only counts because it's the first year I've been to Wiscon.) I still love going new places; I'm a little sad that, with one big obvious exception, I'll be doing a lot less of it next year.
I wrote. I wrote less than I wanted to, and more than I expected to. I finished first drafts of one ficlet, one story, and one "novel." I'm still in a bit of shock that other people thought the ficlet was pretty good, too. Overall I'm reasonably happy with how the writing went.
As for everything else, Victoria and Liz have the right of it. In early July I hit rock bottom, hard, in response to two or three triggers I didn't know I had. This time, at least, I could ask for help, and could get it. So I'd been doing a credible job of pulling myself up by my fingernails and bootstraps when I got the rug yanked out from under me in mid-October. It's been a hard slog since then.
And yet. Last year I wrote that the nuances of close relationships between equals elude me, at least when they're any more complicated than "what can you do for me?". I still go to pieces at the thought of being forgotten. I still chafe at the threat of stagnation and freeze at the threat of change. That's... less true now than it was six months ago. The changes and forgettings I feared most have happened, and I know some of the things I can do to avoid stagnating. And what I don't understand about 'close relationships between equals' boils down to 'yes, but why do these people care about me?' I may never understand that, and it doesn't matter: they keep caring anyway, and I can just about accept that.
I'm terrified of where I'll be this time next year. I'm more terrified of not being there.
So let us rest and do our best
To forget the coming morning
Because the hard light of the truth of things
Is the only thing I fear.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 01:38 pm (UTC)I'm still in the very early stages of being able to treat the statement "I cannot do this thing right now" (or similar) as something other than an admission of failure. Admitting, even to myself, that anything is more than I can handle takes a great deal of mental energy, which I don't often have when I'm stuck in the brain death spiral.
I can see the way out of this, and it mostly involves coming to grips with it being okay to not be perfect. This is the point where I say "okay, and i have no idea how to do that," and my counselor says, "that's what i'm here for."
no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 07:57 pm (UTC)I recently lent my copy of The Sparrow out to a friend (with a warning that maybe it's not a great wintertime book), telling her that while it was a great book, parts of it were brutal and heartbreaking, but I love it because there were parts that have stayed with me. One of those is the advice given to the main character when he is pushing himself too hard, as if in punishment for his self-perceived failures in life. His superior chides him on it and gives him the instruction, to be taken as an order, that he is to treat his body with kindness, "as if it were an old friend to whom he owes a very great favor" (quote approximate). Which was a perspective I'd never had in my life, but have tried to adopt since.