Apologies for the long hiatus here, folks. This blog just keeps slipping lower down on my list of priorities, and that list just keeps getting added to...I also feel like I just don't write as much as I used to. I often feel like I don't have anything to write about. I tried to actually write a post about that, a month or so back, but didn't get very far.
But what I want to wrte about today is something that's been true for a bit longer. For a while now - I'm really not sure how long, to be honest - I've been more surviving than anything else. Just getting through each day. Not really feeling like I'm thriving, or living fully, or getting that much joy out of life most of the time. I'll snatch little moments of that - and I'll treasure them when they arrive - but they do seem to be more moments than anything else.
And I'm not actually sure why that is, honestly. Because there's so many different things that it could be.
Maybe it's because I'm burnt out from about two years of working in my last job when I wanted to leave, because most of the joy in the job was gone for me, and it was just draining me like nothing else - but I couldn't find any other work. (And still haven't.) So I had to stay.
Maybe it's because I'm living in a world where we need to work to survive, despite the abundant resources and technology that we have. Where having a home is a privilege, not a right. Where being able to eat a balanced diet costs an arm and a leg. Where you need a car to work most jobs, but can't buy one unless you've got a job. And if you have a disability that needs specialist attention or equipment - you'd better hope that disability services will give you the money that you need for things, because everything costs a mint. Where, even though I'm studying a course that I love, to move towards a job that I think I'm going to love too - I'd really much prefer to be working on my own projects. I have so many. Probably too many. And chances are, none of them would earn me a cent - in fact, most of them would probably cost me a fair few. And I also just need to rest, and recover. But capitalism doesn't like that.
Maybe it's because I'm living in a post-lockdown world. Not a post-pandemic world, mind - Covid is still everywhere, and probably will be for a long time to come. But living in lockdown for weeks on end, months on end; it changes you. And I think it changed us, in many ways, as a world. And I don't know if we've really ever recovered. I don't know if we can.
Maybe it's because constantly, year after year, there are things happening on an international level that chill me to the bone. The war in Ukraine. The Trump presidency. The war and genocide in Gaza. Somehow, Trump presidency 2, the white right boogaloo that apparently enough people wanted. And so many smaller things that we just never really get to hear about, because its not "primetime" enough for our screens.
Maybe it's because depression is a bitch. That fucking sucks. And that medication isn't helping with. (Mental health medication has a great history of having almost no effect on me, positive or negative. It's wonderful. Thankfully that doesn't extend to other sorts of medication.)
Maybe it's because all of these things, in their own ways, take up my time, my energy, my space - and leave me with less to actually do things that would bring me joy. Like spending time with people. Like doing board games with folks. Like doing theatre. Like doing music with people. Like getting out into nature. And...other things that I'm not going to say on a publicly available internet post. And instead means I'm spending more time attempting to rest and recover, or doing things so that I actually have enough money to survive, rather than things I'm actually looking forward to.
Too many of my days, and too much of my time, I'm just....existing. Surviving. Doing what I can to get by. Trying to find the next thing to look forward to, to keep me going a little longer. And I hate that. I really do. It makes life feel....empty. Hollow.
Despite all this, I'm not actively suicidal. Which is something. But I've always been very pain-avoidant; I don't deal with pain very well. Most thing that kill you will hurt. A lot. Particularly if they don't actully kill you. There's exceptions, of course, but they're usually a lot harder to just come by casually.
But also, there's a lot that I still hope to do in my life, that I haven't gotten to do yet. I don't know when those things might happen, or how they might happen, or if they will. But I want them to, one day. Dreams like travelling to different countries; playing my music with an orchestra; seeing a musical I've written performed on stage; and so much more. But these aren't really things you can try and work towards, when you have no job, no money. But there's always that hope that there will be a change; that this too shall pass, and you will see the sun rise again. It's difficult to actually feel that, properly; but I know it, at some level. And that helps.
All this to say - the world's a lot shit right now. And there's not a lot I've felt I can do about that for some time. But I'm keeping on keeping on - in the hope that one day, things will be less shit. Or at least, a bit less shit for me. That would be a start, selfish though it may be.
