As this post goes up, I will be in the middle of my winter holiday vacation. My (currently in-progress) celebration of Candlenights will have ended, I will have observed Christmas, and I will be gearing up for a visit from the two biological family members I am still on speaking and visiting terms with. I will be eyeing the approach of New Year’s Eve with some skepticism, not sure if whatever I wind up doing to mark the end of 2021 will be celebrating a new year, celebrating the end of this year, fortifying myself against whatever is coming in 2022 (given, you know, that things have pretty much just gotten steadily worse since 2016), or maybe all three at the same time. Or maybe just the last two, since I’m not sure I can bring myself to hope that 2022 will be better.
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Holiday Reflections
I am at the beginning of a entire week (including two weekends) off of work. The first such week I’ve had since the winter holidays of 2020. I’ve taken the time off to work on some writing projects, rest, and grapple with the issues inherent with navigating the holiday season separate from a toxic family situation. Which, you know, is emotionally fraught enough on it’s own without throwing the holidays into the mix, which is an exponential increase rather than additive or even multiplicative. But I’ve planned some writing projects to keep me busy and engaged, some projects around the house to keep me moving and give me time outside my own head, and enough fun plans to keep me from feeling like I’m not using my time well.
Continue readingHow am I Supposed to be Optimistic About This?
I spent Monday playing Overwatch today, enjoyed myself immensely, and wound up feeling like I wasted the day. It is always difficult to allow myself to have fun when I’ve got a lot of anxiety about my job, about my future, and about my life in general because I’m constantly sending myself on a guilt trip for not putting my time to what my asshole-side calls “good use.” Gaming? Not a good use of my time. Reading? Better, but still not a great use of my time. Watching a show I love? The worst possible use of my time.
I know this voice in my head is not the authority on what is actually a good use of my time and its sole job is to just make me as miserable as possible because it doesn’t think I deserve to be happy. Which is BS. I’m always telling people that they deserve to be happy. Most people do deserve to be happy, so long as their happiness isn’t contingent on the misery of others. So why would I be any different? I’m not a horrible person. I don’t kick puppies or drown kittens or anything like that. I may not be super fit or super attractive, but I’m good to people, I work hard, and I try to be empathetic. So why shouldn’t I be happy?
That seems to be the million dollar question, though. Part of my is convinced I don’t deserve to be happy and the rest of me seems to have had little success convincing myself otherwise. Which is why I’m trying to take a step back from everything and more consciously focus on how full of shit that little voice in my head is. I DO deserve to be happy. While spending a huge amount of time playing Overwatch didn’t do much to advance my goals or my passions, it was a hell of a lot of fun and I got to spend a bunch of time hanging out with some online friends.
Sure, I have to go back to work most days, where I have to deal with the difficulty of a new boss, the dumb expectations of corporate employment, and my nigh-constant money issues (even if I’m not constantly broke, I sure live like it so I can pay down my loans more quickly), but I know exactly what it is I need to do to succeed. I have a plan. I know the path forward. I just need to keep my eyes focused on each footstep forward and watch out for all the potholes.
I know the path to what I would consider success and I know that I can walk it. All I need to do is constantly remind myself that I know where each foot is going and that taking an evening to play video games is nothing but a small rest stop, perhaps a seat on a park bench at a conveniently scenic location, along my path.
It’s not a particularly nice thought or feeling, but it’s probably the best that I’ve got for now.