Confessions of Fangirl

I’m so stressed. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to juggle all the things I’m supposed to juggle over the next two weeks, and I just do not know how it’s all going to work. I know I’ll figure it out. It’ll come together. I probably need to organize in my mind what has to be done and by when. Although I don’t know that listing it won’t make me feel worse. I meant to work on all this in my planner today, but I literally didn’t have time to do it at work today. It was a hella frustrating, stressful, mess of a day.

So since I can feel the stress cramping my shoulders into my earlobes, I'm going to try to do some of the work outside of work. I hate doing that, I really do because I’m paid hourly (not salary), and I don’t believe in dedicating outside of work time to work projects.

However, I have a shit ton to get done and I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to get it all done in the “off hours” especially if the coming days are anything like today where customers and random “work” stuff meant that I lost almost two hours of time that I had planned to be for planning and project work. Even with that going on, I’d probably still push for the “no work outside of work policy” if it weren’t for the fact that I have wasted a bit of time at work on Pokemon Go. If a raid or something pops up, I have dropped what I’m working on to join the raid with friends. I figure if I can sacrafice some of my work time to play then I can sacrifice some of my “off/play hours” for work. It’s only fair.

I’m still hoping that the snow storm they’re saying might happen this weekend will hit tomorrow and the Reader Advisory and my outreach will all be canceled for the month and I can just go about doing the other things on my list instead.

Sigh.

The good news is that I did manage to write more in December than I did in June by a few thousand words. The unfortunate thing is that I was only able to reach a little over half my goal for the month writing-wise. I know it was a weird month, not that I can believe it’s over. Where did October go? I know we were into the second week of October by the time I got back from England. I know my injury is throwing me off in weird ways that I never could’ve anticipated. I know that it’s been extra stressful being alone with extra bills as well. I’m so glad that the Hallmark Christmas movies have started up because they tend to give me a rush of pleasure. It’s a bit like eating chocolate, but it’s slightly less bad for me. There are a lot of books that get me that kind of rush too, and I’ve been re-listening to those if I can. I’ve read about how kids find comfort and joy in re-watching and reading things they love because they’re constantly surrounded by new things and the world is coming at them so fast and re-watching or re-reading something gives them a sense of “knowing” and “understanding” something about the world. Also, that humans, IN GENERAL, like to predict things and become elated if their predictions are validated. Even if they’ve already seen it, kids still feel that same elation. Kids may also not process much about the movie the first time around and I doubt that’s something that applies to me watching Matchmaker Santa for at least the fourth time, but I think a lot of the other does.  

I’ve noticed that the higher my level of anxiety and background stress, the more likely I am to want to just revisit things I love rather than taking on something—even if it seems like it’s something I’ve been looking forward to or something I can be fairly certain I’ll love. For example, I haven’t seen an episode of Wynonna Earp since the episode that aired before DragonCon. The season has ended and I’ve been working hard to avoid as many spoilers as I can. I own the season digitally and I have the SyFy app (which I can use for free with my cable subscription) so I have options to watch it. I’ve been the only one home for several weeks now so any and all TV time I’ve had is my own so it’s not like anyone else is encumbering me from watching it. I’ve had time to do an entire rewatch of seasons two and three of Legends of Tomorrow as well as watch the few episodes of season 1 I’d originally skipped and both of the new episodes from season 4, at least five Hallmark movies (there were two Valentine’s Days ones, two summer ones, one fall, and a handful of Christmas ones so it’s actually probably more like ten Hallmark movies), the new Midnight Texas episode, an episode of Doctor Who, an episode of The Rookie, and four episodes of Shitt’s Creek. I saw “The Meg” at the cheap-y theater again. And I’ve read quite a bit.

And the majority of this has just been since I’ve been back from England. It doesn’t include much of anything from the weeks prior or during.

I’ve read/listened to “Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell twice this week. That book is over five hundred pages long.

I’ve always been an avid reader, but since I’ve “allowed” myself (or stopped shaming myself out of) rereads, I’ve read even more. I suppose that’s not scientific, but I’ve been tracking my reading progress on GoodReads and I’ve read more approximate pages this year than any other recorded year. I’m also on track to have read more books in this year than any other year. I’ve got fourteen more books (novellas, graphic novels, comics, picture books—I’ve always counted it all) to match my previous record (366 in a year in a year that was a leap year) and there are still 60-ish days left in the year. I’m averaging over a book a day right now. Even if I drop that by half I’ll beat my previous record. Even considering that I’ll probably start the new year of reading about three days before the actual new year like I always do (December 28th-ish is usually the date, I’m not sure why it’s worked out that way, but there you go; I’m sure I’ve written about that in previous years;), I should still beat that record. It’s not super likely that’ll I’ll slow down that much. That’s just not who I am as a person.

I do count re-reads. I count “Carry On” as two or three books because I’ve read it, all the way through—not skipping around—two or three times.

I know that’s a bit of a tangent.

I think I’m mostly packed for this weekend. I need to take some stuff out of my trunk so that I can fit my luggage and my friend’s when we’re on our way back as well as two grown ass adults. I’m so excited for this weekend. It’s going to be a blast, if utterly exhausting. I’m trying to prep myself in advance for how tired I’m going to be though I don’t know if that’s possible. Plus, I’m not sure that I should. I may be making myself more tired just by telling myself how tired I’m going to be. I’m excited and nervous and anxious and chomping at the bit. It’s such a crazy tumbling mess of emotions for me. The last time I went was easier than the first time I went, so I’m hoping this time will be easier than the last time.

I’m sort of vaguely prepared. I maybe have enough clothes. I’m relatively confident in the amount of packing I did for socks and underwear and I think I have everything I got for my cosplay together, plus some extra. Shit. Except I should totally put my nose ring back in. And I should take a flash drive. God, I’ve already got a giant bag and I’m still not sure I have everything I’m going to need.

I need to calm down. No matter what I do or don’t take, no matter what I do or don’t do, this is all going to be totally fine. Actually, it’s going to be better than fine. And now I need to get some sleep and let my brain rest so I can drive safely tomorrow and hopefully make it through the day and get everything I need to get done, done.

I wrote a bit earlier in the day about having a to do list. I went ahead and posted it because I got distracted in the middle of it and now so much time has passed that I’m in a different state of mind than I was when I started it. I guess I want to start fresh now.

The anxiety has been kind of rough the last 24 hours or so which sucks. I’ve just had some chamomile tea and that seems to have helped some. I think part of it was how little I slept on Thursday night… or rather Friday morning. I only only got a few hours.

One of the big things right now is this damned Lit Mag Love course. Every time I think about it, I just get all out of sorts. I need to have everything in the four modules done by July 10th and I’m already like four weeks into the class and I haven’t even finished module 2 yet. I’m stuck on this posting the first page of a story that will be a submission story. I just feel like nothing I’ve written is going to qualify for this thing and I keep getting blocked when I try to write something new for it. And when I do write it’s for a book that I am actually liking a lot that I’ve been posting my chapters to on my other workshop course. Which means I’ve spent 0 time working on short stories at the moment when I really need to.

I think I may start working on my Mrs. Claus story for the Lit Mag Love thing. I just need to get enough reworked that I can submit the first page. That doesn’t sound like a lot but it feels like a major thing. It feels like this two ton cement block sitting on my sternum is what is feels like.

And it sucks. It just really, really sucks. I hate this. I hate this so much. I have feeling this way. I’ve been trying to sit with it and recognize what’s going on in my head and soothe myself and tell myself it’s all going to be okay and I just need to work on it. It helps a little I guess. Granted, maybe if I’d actually start working on the project like I’ve been telling myself, I might get over all this completely.

I also need to remind myself that a lot of times when I’ve been dealing with these different things, I’ve felt worse before I’ve felt better, that sometimes when you start digging into your mental wellbeing and what’s fucking with it, it sucks and then it gets better if you keep at it. I just need to keep at it.

I wanted to do “extra” writing today to get closer to my writing goal for the month but I may just do the “minimum.” I haven’t gotten to watch last night’s Wynonna Earp episode so it would be nice to get the writing done and then lay in bed and watch Wynonna and then go to sleep. I won’t be setting an alarm for the morning that’s for sure. I think I need to sleep a little longer with no alarm than I have been the last few days.

I had wanted to talk more about how fun last night was, because it really was but the only other thing I feel like talking about right now is how thankful I am that I’m not feeling depressed. The anxiety sucks, it really, really does but it’s not depression. Anxiety is a bitch but depression is lethal. So if I was going to have to battle either of them, I’m glad it’s anxiety. I can battle this. I can deal with this. Even if it means I need to use the medicine again - battles take weaponry. I’d like this to be a fistfight, but if my opponent has a sword, I’d better have one too.