Confessions of Fangirl

So last night I had every intention of going to bed after I finished writing a big. I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, got into bed… and realized I had woken myself up a bit with the getting read part. So I thought I’d just listen to a bit more of my book Silver Silence by Nalini Singh. It was just after midnight and I figured I’d just listen for a few minutes. But see, the book was really, really good. I’ve been following the series for about five years now. I think the first book was published in 2006 but I didn’t find them until there was a sale on the Audible editions and I came across them by chance.

It’s interesting that with this series there were a few I didn’t love and the second most recent was a giant monstrosity that flipped back and forth between nearly every remotely significant character she’d ever written about in the series (that wasn’t dead, obvs) and was basically all these characters we’d been following for fourteen books and innumerable short stories, novellas, and extras having babies or obsessing about babies or thinking of having babies. It was A LOT OF BABIES. Which makes a certain amount of sense really. I mean how you can write romance books that take place over several years in the same “world” and not have at least some of them popping out babies? You can’t is the answer to that. It was hard to focus though because there were just so many perspectives. It was still good, but I was starting to wonder how much longer I was really going to be invested in the series/world - especially since she didn’t really have any gay characters.

HAHHHHHH. I stayed up until after 5am last night desperate to get to the end. And while the main characters of course get together and start their lives together, the book still managed to end on one MAJOR cliffhanger and a minor one or two. So I listened to a 16+ hour book in about a day and a half even with all the Father’s Day activities we did yesterday and the writing and editing I’ve been doing and my exhaustion. Obviously, I’m going to be fighting to get my hands on a copy of the next one as early as possible which will still, very likely, be at least a year from now.

She also added a couple of gay characters who look like they might get together. There’s a potential - in my opinion - for a whole book. I don’t know how likely it is that she’ll write a whole book about them but I’m crossing every part of my body in hopes of a novella dedicated to them. I mean she’s given them the similar build up to some of her other characters in past books who went on to get their own books but I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high. I’m so excited and thankful that they exist and them being gay is treated totally casually and their interest in each other is treated in a way that’s just so freaking cuuuuuute that I have to say I am ecstatic about things thus far. I would buy seven more copies of this book if it gets me more of these two. God, I loved it when we got a hint of them. They’re not the focus of course and you get lots of information about each of them separately from each other. One of them is a trusted “second” of the main male character who is a changeling (read shapeshifter) bear and the other is the brother of the main female character (who is a powerful psy). The bear is flirting with the psy who is pretending not to be interested (he’s totally blushing and verbally sparing with the bear) and it’s AMAZING.

I’m a little stressed about everything I need to do tomorrow - submit my story to the contest, work on my lit mag course work (I’m behind), file for unemployment, take my dad’s car to the shop for him, finish doing laundry, start looking for jobs to apply for to qualify for unemployment, and pick up some books from the library for dad. I feel like I’ve forgotten something which isn’t helping the slight panic attack happening in my chest right now. I’m thinking about going back on the Wellbrutrin for a bit to see if it eases the panic attacks a little. I’d rather not get back on the medication if I can help it. It messed with my period in a way that’s super annoying and I already have PCOS (a hormonal disorder that comes with all kinds of lovely extra risks) so I really hate making that worse. I also feel like I did an amazing job at kicking depression (I totally did) and I feel iike that means I can kick the shit out of the anxiety too.

Let me be clear, there is no shame in taking medication. There is nothing wrong with taking medication. But I grew up with a mom who called medicine “third aid” and never gave us medicine unless we were dying (or killing her with our complaints probably). It’s one of those things that just stuck with me. So now I have to decide if my anxiety is killing me (or making me whine enough to make someone else want to give me the medicine) or if this is still treatable in other ways.

The other thing about the panic attacks is that they’re also a sort of barometer for my actions. If I’m doing things that are making me scared, it’s because I’m doing things that really matter to me and I’m afraid of succeeding and I’m afraid of failing and I’m totally headed in the right direction. I honestly believe if there isn’t a least a part of me that’s scared of whatever it is that I’m doing, I shouldn’t waste a lot of time on doing it. I want that gauge and I feel like it’s possible I’d lose it on the medication. If the medication is doing it’s job, I really should lose those indicators. It’s complicated against.

I’m not sure I’m making any sense any more so, peace and love y’all.