One more week in the bank as I trudge through a spate of incredibly draining and difficult weeks with the hope of some kind of peace and rest on the horizon. The exact kind is to be determined still, from where I’m writing this (nor do I expect to have any answers soon), given the on-going health issues I’m dealing with on top of the work-related stress, world-related stress, and constant pandemic stress. I don’t know what things are going to look like once this flurry of activity has come to an end. It’s difficult to tell from the middle of things, especially given that I’m partway through a bunch of medical tests, none of which indicate that this is going to be a temporary issue if I’m reading the supporting documentation correctly. I, of course, could be wrong, but since I have to wait to speak with one or more doctors and then get one or more additional tests before I know anything, all I can do now is speculate. Which isn’t super helpful for me, but I’m grasping at straws and unsure of what else to grasp at.

Still, I’ve managed to keep up with blog posts. I’m a bit further behind than I’d like to be on rewriting Infrared Isolation chapters (You can find the Intro to this story Here, chapter 1 Here, and Chapter 2 comes out tomorrow!), but that’s understandable given how rough things have been over the last two weeks. And will continue to be for the next few weeks. I really hope I don’t wind up needing to take a break from new chapters, but I will if I have to. There’s no point in adding extra stress and exhaustion to my life just to share a story I’m writing and posting for free. It just sucks. I WANTED to write and post that. I still want to, even with everything going on. It feels good to make stuff, to tell stories, to accomplish things and say “I did that!” I don’t want my love of stories and my desire to tell them to be another casualty of this unfortunate period of my life.

I’ve gotten pretty good at not knowing what the future might bring. At living with unanswered questions. At accepting my anxieties. At getting through one day after another regardless of what else is going on in my life. I don’t like living this way, but I’ve had to learn to do it, thanks to the pandemic. Throughout all that, I’ve managed to not only work on creative projects, but drive myself to do more stuff I find fulfilling than ever before without sacrificing sleep or my well-being. Sure, I do a lot less other stuff than I used to, I play maybe a quarter as many video games and watch 10% as many TV shows and movies, but I am capable of maintaining this blog and working on my other stories without negatively impacting my health. I’m incredibly proud of the work I do and the discpline I’ve developed and it sucks to think that adding another trouble to my pile is potentially putting all of that in jeopardy. I don’t know what impact this will have on my life, but I know it will have one, barring some kind of miracle or combo of good and bad luck.

I live my day-to-day life by carefully managing my spoons, prioritizing my forks, and constantly monitoring my well-being. It doesn’t always work out well, but it works more often than not. Given that this used to not always be the case, I’d count it as a success. This new development threatens my careful balancing act and it seems like relief for any of the other weights I carry is still a long ways off. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth by any means, but 10k in student load debt relief is nowhere near enough. It absolutely helps and has been a long time coming, but it falls short of solving my problems. The pandemic continues to rage, just as bad as ever, and it may become a more severe threat to me than it was previously, depending on what all these tests mean. I’m still living alone and while a friend has offered to let me move in with him, it will add an extra hour to my daily commute (which is only chief amongst my concerns/potential complications) and might not be the viable option I’d like it to be. There’s more, but I feel worn out and dangerously close to spiraling.

I’m so tired of my carefully ordered and maintained life being upended every few months. I just want some peace and stability. A chance to catch my breath. I want to be able to do my job, write my stories, and then go to sleep. I feel like that’s not too much to ask for, even if it feels like a very long time since I’ve had that. All I can do for now is keep myself moving from one day to the next until something hopefully changes for the better for once. Until some of this work pays off or some negative thing finally goes away.