I went into my two and a half weeks of vacation thinking that, by the end of it, I’d have found my voice again. That, after enough rest, even interrupted by the holidays, I would find myself gravitating towards the blank page that used to speak to me. Instead, I spent the weekend before the end of my vacation thinking about what I’d do today, the day I’m writing and posting this, since I hadn’t written anything and all I really felt as a result of my time off was more doubt than ever. I came up with a couple good ideas related to that, but whatever they were vanished into the haze of my incredibly disrupted sleep schedule and the emotional lassitude that followed an entire afternoon and evening of fun and rewarding roleplaying with some people I’ve gotten closer to over the last few weeks. This morning, as I prepared for work, I had some kind of idea about directing my writing in such a way that it was more of a means of giving voice to specific ideas rather than just giving voice to my otherwise silent thoughts and feelings, but my exhaustion from not sleeping well and the busyness of my workplace has caused whatever distinction I came up with to slip from my mind. I am running around empty-handed as the hours of the day tick past and nothing I can think of feels like more than the usual complaining and navel-gazing I leaned on so heavily before my break. Which begs the question, did taking my break actually change anything? Did all that rest actually result in some amount of recovery? Eighteen days have passed and did I do anything other than pass through eighteen days of time?

Writing and rewriting the above paragraph for separate times has forced me to confront the fact that I actually did a lot of creative work. I edited some videos, attended a couple roleplaying events, did more hours of actual roleplaying with people than I’ve done in maybe the entire rest of the year prior (GMing is actually pretty light on roleplaying, most of the time, since I rarely get enough time with a single character to really sink into them), did a bunch of recording, and worked on developing a new skill (the aforementioned video editing), not to mention all the stuff I did in Final Fantasy 14 even if that was more organizational work than creative work. What has me feeling so down and conflicted about all that is that I’d hoped I’d be back to writing, that the stories I’ve left to gather dust would get me fired up and impassioned again, but the only time I’ve spent on them has been thinking about how nice it would be if I was excited to work on them. Which is also the crux of all of this, when I get right down to it. I’m not excited by any of this work. Interested, sure, but not driven. All of my progress on most of it has been either a way to fill some time or because of a sense of obligation on my part. Sure, it’s still stuff I’ve chosen to do and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t want to on some level, but I had really hoped I’d be coming into this year with at least some kind of spark burning. Instead, all I’ve got is a bunch of ashy tinder, no matches, and a lightness in my head from trying to coax scattered sparks into flame.

I think I’m a little stuck, if I’m being entirely honest. Every time I sit down and think through my options, sticking with what I’m doing still comes out as my best option. Sure, it would be great to find a job that pays me the same amount without needing to do ten hours of overtime each week, but it would also be great to win the lottery or suddenly develop superpowers. Sure, the job thing is more-likely, but it’s still not even sort of likely. The tech industry is shrinking, the economic bubble the world (and the US in particular) is living in is resting on the point of a needle and will burst as soon as it grows heavy enough, and all of my experience in my job makes it difficult to get anything other than incredibly similar jobs which, notoriously, don’t pay much better than mine does (and most-likely pay worse. I don’t know how to make a positive change until my circumstances change, either through improvements to the world around me or finally reaching the goals I’ve been staying the course for since 2019 (paying off my student loans), since anything else is going to take energy I just don’t have. I mean, I can’t even muster the energy to stop spiraling around the same issue every few weeks these days! Nothing in this post here is new and yet I keep writing it. I keep writing this post over and over again because I recognize the need for something to change but l can never figure out what.

The only thing I could do, that really comes to mind, is find ways to tighten my belt, so to speak, and cut as many costs as possible. Every patreon that isn’t fundamental to the scraps of joy still in my life. Any and all subscriptions. Find a smaller, crappier apartment to move into to cut my rent costs. Just… drill out any scrap of expense I can figure out how to live without so I can cut my hours and still afford my bills and necessary comforts. I don’t think anything other than working less is going to help get me out of this jam. Sure, I coule restrict my FF14 time to try to make myself spend more time on other things, but that’s just shifting time and energy away from one of the bright spots in my day-to-day life to something that is going to take more effort but might make me feel better if the effort ever pays off. It’s not a great option, if I’m being honest, and I’d rather let myself ebb and flow through activities a bit more naturally since my connections to the friends I’m making online are giving me the most bang for my proverbial buck. It’s nice to make new friends and try new things and get gently encouraged to leave my comfort zone. Very gently, sure, but still, it’s happening. So maybe I should start looking for not-terrible studio apartments with decent amenities or finding a roommate situation I can vibe with and hope that reducing my rent will be enough of a change to let me work less or to help me at least pay off my loans faster… It’s probably better than nothing and, if I’m being honest, I haven’t really used my dining room table for much of anything in the last year, even when I’ve got people over. It’s a large shelf, currently, for the TV I’m not using. That’s not going to happen any time soon, though, and any downsizing will mean needing to figure out what to do with my stuff (most of which I will want whenever I finally move into a house or larger apartment again). Maybe that should be my personal goal for this year: find a living situation that’s less expensive that I can deal with long enough to really cut down my bills. It’s better than anything else I’ve come up with.