I don't blog just to hear the sound of my own voice. Or see my own words on the screen, anyway. I try to find useful and interesting things to talk about, but inevitably this is also a journal of my progress through life as well. Right now, I feel like that progress is less and less pertinent to the blog, which is why I'm not writing here as often. I don't like to bother my readers, and I certainly don't want to bore them, either.
Now, though... I've been told a few times recently that I need to do less. I'm exhausted, struggling, getting sick like every other week, and my Ginja Ninja, my First Reader, and even friends have all said 'you have too much on your plate. You could take something off.'
I have! I don't know what else I could take off. I have to work, and work is not that stressful (I have worked under stress, and this is not it at this point in the year, although earlier, yes, it was an issue). I have to take care of the kids, which means being chauffeur and cook and cleaner and frankly I don't do enough housekeeping as it is. I have to give my poor longsuffering partner what he needs, and again, he demands very little other than I take care of myself. Still. The art? I'm doing a very low-key Inktober. All of ten minutes in the morning on a tiny book that can't drag me into demanding compositions. Digital art is the equivalent of my First Reader's playing Skyrim for hours - it's my mental unwinding time. I should give it more thought and learning, but I don't have the energy. Writing? I'm not. Yes, I have had really good days. I'm delivering the commitments I made to various anthologies this year. But my stuff? Is quiet, and no amount of music or the usual muse prompts are helping. What else can I give up? Reading? Done that. Exercise? Done that, too, and I really should be doing that, but I can't find the time when I'm not so exhausted it hurts. Blogging? Well, you know.
I'm just frustrated. I want things, and I can't have them. I want to go back to school, and that's right out. I want to be able to paint what's in my head, and I don't have the time and energy to develop the skills I'd need to get there. Probably never will, if I am honest with myself. I need to work more on the books, promotion, writing, all the details of the publishing business I want to nurture until I retire so I can use it to supplement the tiny nestegg I'll be able to build... and I just can't. I'm so tired. I'm out of breath and I can't seem to catch it, because there is always something to take it away again as I run from something to another thing to yet another.
I'm trying not to look so far ahead, and just take it one day at a time. I'm too good at that. I need to find some balance between being anxious over the future, and ignoring all the tasks that are hammering on the doors of my brain trying to remind me to do them. I get forgetful, I know it, and it stresses me.
Well. Hopefully this isn't a bother. I'm not sharing it anywhere but here. I just needed to get it out. Time to gird up my loins and get back at it.
Once more, into the breach!