Hey. How’s it going? Been a while. Yeah. Sorry about that.
I’ve been fighting a depressive episode for weeks. A month or more, maybe. I was so bogged down with deadlines and projects and stuff that I just hit a wall, and I hit so hard that I was knocked back a few pegs. I’m crawling back up, though, and I’m working on getting back to “normal”…whatever that is.
I haven’t wanted to write. I haven’t wanted to even look at my writing. I’ve just been churning out embroidery and sewing projects like there’s no tomorrow. Between my husband autocratting our Kingdom’s Twelfth Night event and the pile of to-dos leading up to Estrella War, I’ve been buried in SCA stuff and haven’t had the energy–physical, mental, or emotional–for anything else. And I’ve suffered because of it.
This past weekend was a productive one, from an SCA/housework standpoint. I finally got Christmas decorations put away, I got most of the laundry done, and I got two things checked off my “list” of pre-Estrella War projects. Most importantly, this productivity made me feel better about life in general, and this morning I was back to doing actual work. I got a short story edited and just about ready to submit to the anthology it’s going in, and I participated in the Write Event hashtags on Twitter, in earnest, for the first time in weeks.
There’s still a lot left to do before the War, but it’s more manageable. Here’s my list of stuff to be done in the next month:
Seems like a lot, but most of those projects are at least partly finished. The Pelican embroidery is about 1/3-1/2 done, the Toothless embroidery is halfway done, the embroidery on the bag is started and the fabric is cut, and my Valkyrie hood just has the pieces to be sewn for the reversible lining left, which are already cut out, so really the only non-started project is the embroidery on my friend’s hood, which shouldn’t take too long.
I always feel a rush of relief when I realize I’m digging my way out of a depressive hole, but I’ve got to be careful; if I get too excited about not being as depressed, I might end up swinging the pendulum the other way to the manic side, and while that might increase productivity for a while, it’s not going to solve the problem. I need to start prioritizing myself and my health, rather than trying to please everyone else.
My writing will be back on full swing after Estrella, but I’ll try to make myself get at least something done every day. The more I do, the more I’ll get done, and the better I’ll feel about it all. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.
I might even put on a little makeup today before work. Y’know, work on getting the outside to look like the inside’s starting to feel.
I’ll be okay. I promise. But yeah, this last episode was a doozy. Still is, a little bit. I’m getting there, though.