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?
Continue readingAuthor: Wren
Taking A Much-Need Two-Week Break After This
The day I planned to write this, I arrived at work an hour into a five-alarm fire (a metaphorical fire, not a literal one). I spent the entire day running around, doing heavy physical labor, and didn’t stop to sit or rest until half an hour before I’d planned to leave for the day. I had accomplished nothing I’d planned and, worst of all, probably lengthened my illness by pushing myself too hard. Too hard for my own health, anyway, but only just barely hard enough to handle the problems plaguing my team. So, instead, I’m writing this during what I’d originally planned to be my first week off from blog writing. I’m taking time off for the winter holidays and giving myself a bit of a longer break than usual. I wrote just last week that I need some things in my life to change and I’m still not sure what that means for me, for my writing, and my game running, so I want to take some time away to figure that out. And what better time to do that than over the winter holiday season? Which means that there will be no more blog posts between today, December 19th, and January 5th when I will probably resume my normal schedule. Or at least something like it. Who knows what I’ll come up with while working through my feelings over the next couple weeks. I’m too tired and worn out today, from poor sleep and illness, to come up with much other than “something” and I already had that figured out last week.
Continue readingEven I Struggle To Write Sometimes
I meant to write a letter to my aunt (the one who I’ve decided to stay in contact with because she’s been pretty good about everything). I even have most of it written! It’s five pages long, so far. Single-spaced. Which means it’ll get quite a bit longer whenever I edit it. Whenever that happens. I didn’t really choose to stop writing so much as… well, struggle to write it at all. It’s exhausting to talk about family stuff at the best of times and these are not the best of times. So I sporadically worked at it for a while, went on vacation, got sick, and now it has been a month and a half, at least, and I’m finally turning my mind back to it (assuming, of course, that my brain fog continues to diminish). I wish I’d been able to focus on it more. I wish I’d been able to spend more time on it. I wish a lot of things, to be honest, and none of them are going to happen. All I can do is carry on from where I’m at and hope that I can get it written by the time you’re reading this [which I’ve managed] so I’ve got time to edit and then print it before I leave my workplace for two and a half weeks. That’s the only place I’ve got access to a printer, you see, and there’s no way I’m writing all of this by hand. I lack the strength-of-writing-hand for that in any kind of quick or even legible manner. So I’m on a bit more of a deadline unless I want to let this time grow into two and a half months. I didn’t even want it to grow into three weeks back when I was still working on it, and yet it did. You would think that, given how much writing I do, something like this would be easier, right?
Continue readingIt’s Tough To Beat The Appeal Of Social Connection
I’m in a bit of a weird position with Pokémon Legends: Z-A these days. I really enjoy playing the game and have plenty to do yet since I’m not even halfway through the game, but I stopped playing it after my trip and haven’t gone back. A significant part of that is, of course, being sick and spending all my time and attention on Final Fantasy 14 in prepared for the patch that dropped yesterday since it’s not like I wasn’t having a grand ol’ time with Z-A. As my discord friends can tell you, I have been enjoying that game immensely (and was providing regular fashion updates for a while). So what about returning to my home has left me unwilling to even boot up the game? I think a part of it is that it was a replacement fixation for Final Fantasy 14 and, now that I’ve got that back, I don’t need something else to do especially now when there’s so much going on. Part of it, though, is that my brain has filed it into “Handheld Pokémon Games” territory since I have spent 99% of my playtime for that game in handheld mode and now it only pops into my head when I see my Switch 2 sitting out (which I never do because I put it back on it’s dock every time I’m done with it) or when I’m going to sleep since I used handheld Pokémon games as my fall-asleep activity for a very long time. It no longer pops into my head as a waking-time activity or something to do to fill time between other activities. I’ve played it a bit while doing crafting stuff, but having to swap my attention back and forth meant it was really difficult to focus on the game and, even worse, difficult to avoid misclicks on my crafting macros. So now it just doesn’t have a time or a space in my mind since even my “stay in bed on Saturday/Sunday morning” time is being subsumed into “play Final Fantasy 14” time. Even with all that being true, I don’t think that’s the main reason I’m having a difficult time focusing on playing the game.
Continue readingAnxiety That’s Lingering Just As Long As This Cough
Yesterday’s post was called “On The Other Side Of Sickness” because it was a bit of wishful thinking about the future. I wrote it on a Monday, as I went into work while still unwell, and hoped that, by the time I was editing it, I’d be better. I am not. I’m also a bit behind in blog posts because work has been so busy and I’ve been so cotton-brained and tired that I’m having difficulty focusing. It is truly awful, to feel myself mentally diminished and be unable to do anything about it at all. And yet I must soldier on because there is work to do, money to earn, plates to spin, balls to juggle, and a small legion of crafters and gatherers and combatants to lead into a new Final Fantasy 14 patch (we’re up to six people, as of the night before I wrote the first draft of this). Lots going on and very little rest to be had despite my illness, which definitely hasn’t helped me get over the last bits of this. I’d be tired and unfocused at this point regardless of having a cold, so it’s no wonder that I still feel as loopy as I do. I wish I could say it was all bad choices, but only staying up late last night was a bad choice and it was a bad choice made knowing that I spent the two previous nights unable to fall asleep. Not because of coughing or congestion or anything like that. No, this was because I was too warm or I couldn’t get comfortable or my mind just wouldn’t wind down or I kept jerking awake as I was falling asleep for some reason. I don’t really know what’s got me in such a fuss right now, but I can definitely tell that it’s my anxiety coming at me like it hasn’t in a long time.
Continue readingOn The Otherside Of Sickness
After a year of burnout, physical exhaustion, worsening mental health, and pushing my limits as much as I could, my body gave up on me. I was taken down not by Covid, the flu, or even that time I had E. Coli. It was the common cold that laid me low and while I was able to keep working through most of it, I definitely did not like doing that. Couldn’t even let myself rest while I was so stuffed up I’d go into my bathroom to steam out my sinuses at least twice a day, just to keep things manageable (nothing else was sufficient). Capitalism and modern society demands that, and going into the office today (the day I’m writing this), regardless of whose health it risks, since I am not in such a comfortable position that I can afford to take more days off in-between the holidays (or I could, but then I’d need to work during the holidays). I managed to mitigate the worst of it by putting in a hard day’s work while I was only mildly feverish (or not feverish at all while the acetominophen was working) so I could work from home the subsequent two days, but it was still not great. This is the sickest I’ve been in years. Even that time I got the flu (made more mild by my vaccination) a few years back and spent two days semi-conscious on my couch watching the freely available seasons of Pokemon on Amazon until they somehow turned into the Emperor’s New Groove on repeat was less bad than this. At least that passed [this post is going up on day 14 of me being sick, though now my ears are clogged and my brain’s still a little fuzzy rather than the “standard” cold symptoms I still had when I wrote this]. At least the medicine I had available worked. This cold, though? Nothing really helped for long and my last five days have been an endless cycle of soothing mitigations as I dealt with one symptom at a time until I somehow got a decent couple hours of coherence and decongestion before it all came back.
Continue readingAnticipation And Preparation For Final Fantasy 14’s Next Patch
When this post goes up, there will only be a few more days before the next Final Fantasy 14 patch. This will be the first one where I’m actually IN the parts of the game impacted by the patch. I’ve got my crafters all set for the new gear, I’ve got almost all of the main scenario quests done, and I’m just going through the last steps of completing stockpiles, acquiring supplies, and making sure I have everything ready that I can possibly think of. I have no idea what to expect and while I’m sure I could ask people for the information I need to know it all, I kind of want to go in without knowing. I want to experience the bleeding edge of it all. I want to chart my own path through unknown territory. I want to be driven into the systems of the game because none of the outside resources have the answers yet. I want to experience what it’s like to not know something along with a whole bunch of other people who also don’t know. I want to experience a massive game and the way the world of players within it shift to respond to changes. It’s possible I’m building up anticipation for something that will be ultimately disappointing. It’s possible nothing I imagine will come to pass and it will just be another Tuesday marked by the ability to more freely glamour everyone’s gear (using off-job gear now). I have no idea what to expect and I’m very invested in finding out what it will be, roses and thorns together.
Continue readingI’ve Had A Lot Of Time To Think Lately
I don’t normally have a bunch of time where I’m not actively engaged in doing something. That’s an active choice I’m making, generally speaking. I’ve spent my whole life managing my anxiety and depression by keeping myself constantly busy with one thing or another so there’s no room in my mind for them to occupy. Music or podcasts while I drive, cook, and do chores. Books or TV while I eat. Video games when I’m free. Endlessly scrolling social media when I need a minute to myself at work. I’m always doing something. It’s not like I’m afraid to spend time thinking. That’s kind of what this blog post is, and my daily journaling haiku habit, but even that isn’t letting my mind be at rest. It’s an active form of thinking, a directed mode of thought. I rarely leave myself the space for my mind to wander wherever it wants since even the usual “wandering” is directed by whatever activity I’m doing. While driving, though, there’s not much else to do. Watching the road, being aware of drivers, and so on takes some of my attention, but when you’re driving a thousand miles in sixteen hours, almost all of it on one long interstate route, you have a lot of time where there’s no cars or trucks near you where you can’t afford to let your eyes wander but your mind is free to stroll about as it pleases. I rarely come out of a long drive with much in the way of clarity so much as ideas to pick at some other time, but this time I woke up the morning after my drive with a thought nestled in my head that had bubbled to the surface as a result of the time I’d spent and coversations I’d had with my friends over the days preceeding the drive.
Continue readingA Week Of Not Rest But Recovery
Last week, to visit friends and family (chosen family) for the US Thanksgiving holiday, I drove just a shade under two thousand miles. It was broken up into two drives of five hundred miles each and one drive of a thousand miles–which came a day earlier than planned. I committed numerous caffeine crimes, ate a lot of junky travel food (and a whole lot of pretzels), gave myself sinus problems due to the elevation changes, and still started my first week back at work before the holidays feeling way more prepared for the long weeks ahead than I’ve felt in a long time. Even that week off for my birthday didn’t have this kind of effect on me and I got WAY more sleep during that week than I did while traveling. Hell, I might have gotten more sleep in half of that week than I did during the entire week of traveling and visiting people that just ended. And yet I feel so much better. Part of that has to do with getting to spend time with two people I don’t get to see and be around nearly enough, and part of it was that, despite the snowy struggles of part of my sixteen-hour drive home last Friday (two Fridays ago as this gets posted), it’s so much more relaxing to do that than to do my job. Which feels like quite a statement. Driving two thousand miles over the course of six days was less taxing than even a quiet week at my job. It stands to reason, though. That took only about thirty-five hours, which is fifteen hours less than a normal work week takes, and I only had to worry about myself and accomplishing my goals rather than a whole bunch of delicate personalities and people who only think you’re working if they see you outside your office (despite all of them having jobs that happen almost exclusively in their office).
Continue readingTaking A Couple Sick Days
I was incredibly sick last week. Not, like, dangerously sick or in need of hospitalization, just emphatically sick in ways I found difficult to work past. And, since capitalism required that I continue working (just as it demands that I go into the office today, the day this is posted, and risk the health of my coworkers because I can’t afford to take days off right now), I did not have the energy to come up with ideas for blog posts, let alone write them. So, rather than push myself to write a bunch of extra posts this week in order to keep my streak uninterrupted while rebuilding my buffer, I’m just going to take two days off this week (today and tomorrow) so I can go into this week on slightly better footing than I feel I have right now. Metaphorical footing. I do not have problems standing despite being sick. So, look for a new post on Wednesday and things will continue as normal from there. I’ll also have some interruptions during the holidays, but I’ll post about that when it happens. Hope you’re avoiding getting sick in this season of colds and flus.